I’ve been trying to go through Booker Prize winners, and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is one that I haven’t read. I’m more familiar with British writers than I am Irish, so it seemed like a logical pick. Oh, my, that book took FOREVER to read. Or seemed like it. It picked up speed towards the end, but still. It’s a bit exhausting to read into a child’s thoughts and stream-of-consciousness. That’s pretty much what the book covers–a ten-year-old child tries to navigate the world […]
Death would be preferable to reading this again
Since I don’t want to be a total Debbie Downer about this book, I’m going to start with a positive. Ten years after first attempting to do so, I have finally ploughed my way through all 13 books on the Man Booker Prize Longlist. Some years I didn’t bother to try (mostly years when Hilary Mantel was on the list) and other years I’ve lost interest or had such a bad book experience with one of the novels that I’ve abandoned it. But, spurred on […]
What is now? What is the story of now/Nao?
For the Time Being has two parallel narratives: Nao is a teenager in Japan, writing a journal that she states is her suicide note; and Ruth, a writer in an island off British Columbia, who has found Nao’s journal, along with some letters and other artifacts, washed ashore. As Ruth reads Nao’s diary, we find out Nao’s story: she lived most of her childhood in Sunnyvale, California while her father worked at a dotcom, and upon returning to Japan, she did not fit in. Her classmates […]
A Tale for the Time Being
A Tale for the Time Being is a novel about Zen Buddhism, quantum physics, writers and readers, writer’s block and reader’s block, hate and love. It moves fluidly through the past and present and involves some dynamic and admirable female protagonists. Small wonder it was nominated for the 2013 Man Booker Prize (and should have won instead of The Luminaries). The narration moves back and forth between Ruth, a present-day middle-aged writer living on a remote island off the coast of British Columbia, and Nao, […]
A more accurate title would have been Uninteresting
And so we reach the penultimate book in my apparently neverending Booker Prize Longlist challenge of 2013. Apparently, it’s a “much anticipated” new novel, which I’m sure is the case for those of us who have read MacLeod’s previous novels and knew this one was coming out. As it is, I was blissfully unaware of either, but the subject of this novel was very much up my alley, so to speak. Set in 1940, it focuses on a maddeningly middle class family, the Beaumonts. Geoffrey […]
When you put “five star” in your title, you’re just asking for it
Eurgh. This book underlines perfectly the reasons why all my attempted Booker Prize Longlist reads have failed in the past. It came VERY close to ending my attempt this year, as at around the halfway point, I was so very bored that I nearly threw in the towel. But I persisted, and I finished it, mostly so I could finally complete a fricking Booker Challenge. That’s pretty much the only good thing I can say about it. Apparently, Aw’s previous novels have been described as “mesmerizing,” […]