7 posts tagged “2007”
Last night, I finished The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher, which was a very quick and pleasurable read. Her writing is clear and self-assured and does not seem to feel the need to be punchy or clever or flowery. I learned about Fisher in a food writing book, but Fisher's writing is not so much about food but rather about her attitude toward the meal or the place or the people around her, about important or pivotal moments that happened, and most of all, about hunger: physical, sexual, spiritual. Her actual theme is not food but hunger and the different ways people try to feed it.
Fisher writes about different moments in her life as they relate to food, from when she was a little girl in 1912, helping her grandmother with the canning, to living in France and Switzerland during the 1930s and ending with her trip to Mexico in 1941 as a widow. Her writing voice is reminiscent of the same time as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and she writes about Europe before the war. Fisher is perceptive and reads people well, and she reveals them in her writing without being sentimental. There are a few stories where I learned rather more intimate details than I expected of the people around her, and one very funny story where a little yet indomitable waitress almost kills Fisher - partly against Fisher's will - with a surfeit of exquisitely prepared dishes. One passage that I particularly liked was about how she learned how to eat alone in public, which most people would shy away from, but which Fisher starts doing while traveling alone on a sea voyage. She eats simply and well and voluptuously and gains extreme pleasure and confidence from the act. It backfires on her on a couple of occasions, but I liked the independence and of her ability to give herself over to the moment and to know exactly what she wants. I suppose what I liked most was that although she had difficult times, she had a great deal of self-awareness and at least in the moments she discloses in the book, she lived her life well.
Fisher writes about different moments in her life as they relate to food, from when she was a little girl in 1912, helping her grandmother with the canning, to living in France and Switzerland during the 1930s and ending with her trip to Mexico in 1941 as a widow. Her writing voice is reminiscent of the same time as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and she writes about Europe before the war. Fisher is perceptive and reads people well, and she reveals them in her writing without being sentimental. There are a few stories where I learned rather more intimate details than I expected of the people around her, and one very funny story where a little yet indomitable waitress almost kills Fisher - partly against Fisher's will - with a surfeit of exquisitely prepared dishes. One passage that I particularly liked was about how she learned how to eat alone in public, which most people would shy away from, but which Fisher starts doing while traveling alone on a sea voyage. She eats simply and well and voluptuously and gains extreme pleasure and confidence from the act. It backfires on her on a couple of occasions, but I liked the independence and of her ability to give herself over to the moment and to know exactly what she wants. I suppose what I liked most was that although she had difficult times, she had a great deal of self-awareness and at least in the moments she discloses in the book, she lived her life well.
Despite what my vox posts might indicate, I have been reading and not just watching a lot of movies.... I started August buried deep in work so when I read it was to let my mind turn to mush and retreat deep into comics and fantasy.
I liked Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead series but never bother with Invincible which is the series that made his reputation as a comic book writer. M has been trying to make me read it for years. My initial reluctance was due to over exposure to too many superhero stories that have been badly done, but I enjoyed Invincible. The characters and even the plots make sense, which is well, rather incredible for a superhero story.
I also finished off the Night Watch series. It's an urban fantasy series set in Moscow. Sergei Lukyanenko does a nice job of having each book build on the Other world. The fantasy is gritty and fun - thankfully, no sign of elves or lords or pixies or anything cute or even flowery language - complete with Russian bureaucracy. The story toys with a few philosophical questions to make the story just a little bit more interesting without bogging it down and it has a few twists. I also liked the story's take on why the battle between good and evil takes place in Russia rather than the US or elsewhere.
I started to worry that my brain really and truly was turning to mush because I was not in any way reading or watching anything that challenged it, so despite my dislike of Camus (seeded from a bad experience with The Plague in high school) I fished The Stranger off my shelves and read it. The simple prose and the odd perspective of the narrator made for a beautiful and haunting read. I've seen that lack of self awareness the narrator has around, and I would keep approaching it differently each time I entered the book. Highly recommended.
Afterward, I read The Quiet American. I like Greene's writing which is what pulled me through, but I did not like the story. I found the character of Phuong too problematic. Phuong annoyed me. The men's attitude toward Phuong annoyed me, too. At best, she was represented as a child to be subjected to the tutelage of either old world European colonialism or naive American idealism. At worse, she was a piece of Asian exoticism which both male characters want to claim. I'm so tired of women used as the symbol of exchange. Obviously characters will serve as symbols in stories (Pyle and Fowler certainly are symbols but they are also depicted as people), but I would have loved to see a little bit more depth to make her something more than a cipher which white men can't and don't really try to understand. I liked Our Man in Havana and The End of the Affair much better. On the other hand, The Quiet American is almost a timely read given the current Administration's approach to foreign policy.
I also skimmed through a few food writing reference books. I used to keep a food blog but took it down because MT does not deal well with comment and trackback spam, but was toying with bringing it back because we've moved it and in the process re-named it to a so far spam free location. Anyway, I find it very challenging to find the right words to describe the taste of a good meal without resorting to the usual adjectives of "delicious" and "tasty" so I thought I would read some food writing references. The Recipe Writer's Handbook taught me that I probably don't write recipes at all clearly, but it's a handy book to have because it has a nice glossary of cooking terms and measurements. Will Write for Food talks about food writing and the food writing business. Not much useful writing advice but good reading lists.
I started to worry that my brain really and truly was turning to mush because I was not in any way reading or watching anything that challenged it, so despite my dislike of Camus (seeded from a bad experience with The Plague in high school) I fished The Stranger off my shelves and read it. The simple prose and the odd perspective of the narrator made for a beautiful and haunting read. I've seen that lack of self awareness the narrator has around, and I would keep approaching it differently each time I entered the book. Highly recommended.
Afterward, I read The Quiet American. I like Greene's writing which is what pulled me through, but I did not like the story. I found the character of Phuong too problematic. Phuong annoyed me. The men's attitude toward Phuong annoyed me, too. At best, she was represented as a child to be subjected to the tutelage of either old world European colonialism or naive American idealism. At worse, she was a piece of Asian exoticism which both male characters want to claim. I'm so tired of women used as the symbol of exchange. Obviously characters will serve as symbols in stories (Pyle and Fowler certainly are symbols but they are also depicted as people), but I would have loved to see a little bit more depth to make her something more than a cipher which white men can't and don't really try to understand. I liked Our Man in Havana and The End of the Affair much better. On the other hand, The Quiet American is almost a timely read given the current Administration's approach to foreign policy.
And these two books are what I am currently reading: The Prize and The Gastronomical Me.
Since it's 928 pages and a bit larger than your normal hardcover and a nonfiction book about the history of oil industry to the first Iraq War, I'm reading The Prize in spurts. I actually started it shortly after The Quiet American but it's a big book and uncomfortable to carry about. It's packed with information and chock-full of economics and politics which are not my forte, so I'm trying to read it when I can actually concentrate.
I've also started The Gastronomical Me which is a series of essays which is about food and love and hunger prior to WWI, so I've been reading about food when I don't feel like reading about oil.
Since it's 928 pages and a bit larger than your normal hardcover and a nonfiction book about the history of oil industry to the first Iraq War, I'm reading The Prize in spurts. I actually started it shortly after The Quiet American but it's a big book and uncomfortable to carry about. It's packed with information and chock-full of economics and politics which are not my forte, so I'm trying to read it when I can actually concentrate.
I've also started The Gastronomical Me which is a series of essays which is about food and love and hunger prior to WWI, so I've been reading about food when I don't feel like reading about oil.
I've been very lax about book blogging, partially because I haven't really been reading, so here's my attempt at catch-up.
Kitten's First Full Moon is a Caldecott Winner and a book that I bought for my nieces, age 1 and 2. Given their ages, I probably should have just gotten them a board book but the story is cute and I loved the strong bold lines of the illustrations. It's about a little kitty who just wants a nice bowl of milk. A little sweet but I've decided it's a little too soon to nurse their dark side.
The Omnivore's Dilemma was my first experiment with an audiobook. At first, I didn't like the reader who I thought was a little overly thespian for some already precious verse on corn fields and pastures and the perfect meal, but I got into it and was overall satisfied - both with the experience and the book (although I think I'll stick with non-fiction audiobooks). Pollan pulls together a lot of good information from various sources and presents a good description of how food is much more mechanized than grown, showing how far food production is from "natural" in that bucolic, pastoral sense of the word. The idea of how conventional farming methods have created this huge biomass for bacteria to feed on was a interesting and disturbing. The chapter on organic farming is worth reading on it's own.
Case Histories is less a mystery novel than interlocking family dramas. It's a good vacation book which one can read without guilt. It's a pretty conventional story but the one interesting twist to the book was that although it was firmly placed in the mystery genre, it did question whether solving the mystery actually resolved anything.
The Shadow of the Wind was an entertaining read. I loved the world and the language but the end disappointed me.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a study of how modern medicine clashed with Hmong culture over the care of a young child with epilepsy. I would recommend this if you're interested in the Hmong, anthropology, and/or social medicine. Fadiman does a nice job of depicting the complexity of the situation and how even with the best intentions on both sides, the cultural misunderstandings led to tragedy. Good read.
Kitten's First Full Moon is a Caldecott Winner and a book that I bought for my nieces, age 1 and 2. Given their ages, I probably should have just gotten them a board book but the story is cute and I loved the strong bold lines of the illustrations. It's about a little kitty who just wants a nice bowl of milk. A little sweet but I've decided it's a little too soon to nurse their dark side.
The Omnivore's Dilemma was my first experiment with an audiobook. At first, I didn't like the reader who I thought was a little overly thespian for some already precious verse on corn fields and pastures and the perfect meal, but I got into it and was overall satisfied - both with the experience and the book (although I think I'll stick with non-fiction audiobooks). Pollan pulls together a lot of good information from various sources and presents a good description of how food is much more mechanized than grown, showing how far food production is from "natural" in that bucolic, pastoral sense of the word. The idea of how conventional farming methods have created this huge biomass for bacteria to feed on was a interesting and disturbing. The chapter on organic farming is worth reading on it's own.
Case Histories is less a mystery novel than interlocking family dramas. It's a good vacation book which one can read without guilt. It's a pretty conventional story but the one interesting twist to the book was that although it was firmly placed in the mystery genre, it did question whether solving the mystery actually resolved anything.
The Shadow of the Wind was an entertaining read. I loved the world and the language but the end disappointed me.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a study of how modern medicine clashed with Hmong culture over the care of a young child with epilepsy. I would recommend this if you're interested in the Hmong, anthropology, and/or social medicine. Fadiman does a nice job of depicting the complexity of the situation and how even with the best intentions on both sides, the cultural misunderstandings led to tragedy. Good read.
I also finished off the latest Walking Dead and Runaways trades.
The latest Walking Dead trade revived my interest in the story by bringing in some new characters and showing how some of the main characters are changing. This book was much less about the zombies and more about the people. I'm interested in seeing how the tribes develop.
Runaways was fun although these two books finish off Vaughn's contribution to the story and the next installments will be written by Joss Whedon. I like Whedon - but I like these characters and part of me wishes Whedon would put his stamp elsewhere. I'll read the next trade to see what he does with it though.
The latest Walking Dead trade revived my interest in the story by bringing in some new characters and showing how some of the main characters are changing. This book was much less about the zombies and more about the people. I'm interested in seeing how the tribes develop.
Runaways was fun although these two books finish off Vaughn's contribution to the story and the next installments will be written by Joss Whedon. I like Whedon - but I like these characters and part of me wishes Whedon would put his stamp elsewhere. I'll read the next trade to see what he does with it though.
I am so happy to be done with this book. It's not because it is a bad book. It's because I'm a nervous airplane passenger, and this book is filled with stories of a few lucky (and unlucky) pilots pre-WWII and beyond. Using his flight logs and other notes he took during those flights, Gann writes about pilots for early commercial flights and then later some of his WWII cargo flights and his commercial flights afterward.
The beginning of the book especially is written in a rather pulpy, overblown style that was rather off-putting, too full of machismo, but eventually the tone settles down a bit and the stories themselves are interesting.
Gann was around before La Guardia and describes it is a little grass field. He and his co-pilot fly over the jungles of Latin America in a cloud-filled sky and then realize they're approaching a mountain range and the chart doesn't accurately list the mountain elevations or even how far it is from one lonely landing field to the next. And Gann is among the first to start making long ocean flights for cargo trips during WWII and eventually commercial passenger flights overseas. He describes the danger of ice and their inexperience with flying through cloudy weather and storms. He describes engine failures in air, mechanical glitches, pilot errors. And at the heart of those early flights, when they were learning so much about flying, is luck. Bad luck. Good luck. The sane thing to do is to focus on the good luck.
Gann knew a lot of unlucky pilots, most of whom were smart, accomplished pilots. He mentions them throughout the book. A brief sentence or two about how one pilot was in a plane that inexplicably dove straight down in clear weather, a bad landing, or flew into a mountain. Very brief descriptions. Of course, they wouldn't really know the cause since there aren't any witnesses. While reading I would think, those were commercial passenger flights.... Best not to dwell on that.
Somewhat foolishly, I read the bulk of the book before I boarded my plane to Cancun. D found out about the book before my trip. She advised me to stop reading and leave the book at home because it would be bad luck or at least keep me in fine-tuned hysteria throughout the flight. I was 80 pages from the end, so of course, I went against her advice and brought it. And what happened?
That's a separate entry.
For all the unlucky pilots that Gann knew, I found the book oddly reassuring - even if there's a lot going in the cockpit that I will never know about. We've come a long way since Gann's time, which were pretty much the pioneering days of long-range flying. He focuses on luck as what kept him alive, and he had a lot of luck, but he became a good pilot through experience, and I figure pilots today have benefited from the hard-earned knowledge of their predecessors.
Of course, I hope all the pilots for my and my family's flights are lucky pilots.
The beginning of the book especially is written in a rather pulpy, overblown style that was rather off-putting, too full of machismo, but eventually the tone settles down a bit and the stories themselves are interesting.
Gann was around before La Guardia and describes it is a little grass field. He and his co-pilot fly over the jungles of Latin America in a cloud-filled sky and then realize they're approaching a mountain range and the chart doesn't accurately list the mountain elevations or even how far it is from one lonely landing field to the next. And Gann is among the first to start making long ocean flights for cargo trips during WWII and eventually commercial passenger flights overseas. He describes the danger of ice and their inexperience with flying through cloudy weather and storms. He describes engine failures in air, mechanical glitches, pilot errors. And at the heart of those early flights, when they were learning so much about flying, is luck. Bad luck. Good luck. The sane thing to do is to focus on the good luck.
Gann knew a lot of unlucky pilots, most of whom were smart, accomplished pilots. He mentions them throughout the book. A brief sentence or two about how one pilot was in a plane that inexplicably dove straight down in clear weather, a bad landing, or flew into a mountain. Very brief descriptions. Of course, they wouldn't really know the cause since there aren't any witnesses. While reading I would think, those were commercial passenger flights.... Best not to dwell on that.
Somewhat foolishly, I read the bulk of the book before I boarded my plane to Cancun. D found out about the book before my trip. She advised me to stop reading and leave the book at home because it would be bad luck or at least keep me in fine-tuned hysteria throughout the flight. I was 80 pages from the end, so of course, I went against her advice and brought it. And what happened?
That's a separate entry.
For all the unlucky pilots that Gann knew, I found the book oddly reassuring - even if there's a lot going in the cockpit that I will never know about. We've come a long way since Gann's time, which were pretty much the pioneering days of long-range flying. He focuses on luck as what kept him alive, and he had a lot of luck, but he became a good pilot through experience, and I figure pilots today have benefited from the hard-earned knowledge of their predecessors.
Of course, I hope all the pilots for my and my family's flights are lucky pilots.
Known for her decadent lifestyle and unenviable death rather than
for any great accomplishment, Marie Antoinette seems a frivolous and
unsympathetic figure to read about (much less write a really long blog
entry about), but Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette: The Journey
does a nice job of presenting the famous queen as all too human.
Fraser convincingly portrays Marie Antoinette as a woman doomed from the
start by her birth, by political circumstance, and the lack of training
and care she received in her early life to prepare her for what she
would face as an adult and queen. Despite her position and lineage,
Marie Antoinette was never equipped to turn the tide of history. She
and her husband, the indecisive Louis XVI, are a good example of why
monarchies are bad ideas - not that our current political system is
working so well or justly right now.
While Fraser glosses over the the poverty, the hunger, and the political pressures which led to the French Revolution, she points out that it was a system and way of life that was collapsing and not the actions of an individual, even a queen, which brought about the gross inequalities between the nobility and the masses. The excessive and extravagant customs of the ancien regime were a way of life that Marie Antoinette came to as a follower of her new country's customs rather than as a leader. Although the revolutionaries blamed her for a multitude of sins, Fraser provides ample evidence to show that Marie Antoinette was securely locked out of policymaking because of her status as a woman and foreigner (she is a Hapsburg). She is easy to blame for political decisions she never brought about because she is a highly visible foreigner, a daughter of the powerful Empress Maria Teresa, easy to scapegoat as the ultimate Other for the French to demonize.
One quick note: she probably never uttered the words "Let them eat cake!" with regard to the poor during a famine. It was a statement often attributed to various princesses married to the nobility of other countries. The story was used even a century before Marie Antoinette came to France to describe Louis XIV's wife. Marie Antoinette is just the most famous of the accused.
Fraser argues that Marie Antoinette just wanted to please the people around her and to have a family. Because of her birth and her marriage, she was thrust into a political position she was ill-equipped to handle - and what was needed was someone with a politically adept and delicate hand. Granted, anyone labeled a despot would probably be defended along similar lines, but she was locked out politically. French queens, because they were often foreigners from countries with whom France might have only an uneasy alliance with, were in powerful positions because of their access to the king but were actively discouraged from trying to wield political power and also distrusted. Although she spent a lot of money, Marie Antoinette was far from alone in this at that time and the decadence had been typical of the French court for generations. More to the point, the French Revolution was about more than one woman's shopping habits.
Much of the book is filled with the elaborate court life of Versailles, but the barbarous events that punctuated Marie Antoinette's life get their due as well. One of the most horrific stories in the book was the execution of the Princess Lamballe, Marie Antoinette's earliest and one of her most closest confidantes. The Princess Lamballe dies brutally. She is hit with hammers, her corpse (at least one hopes the hammers provided a quick death) violated, beheaded, savagely torn apart, and her various body parts paraded around Paris by an angry and still bloodthirsty mob. Along the way, they drop her head off for a wax molding by the lady who would become Madame Tussaud (and who was a friend of the Princess) and later on to get the head's hair dressed before bringing it to Marie Antoinette so they can demand the queen to bestow a parting kiss to her friend. I shared this story with my husband and since then, he has been faintly discouraging of my reading.
While Fraser glosses over the the poverty, the hunger, and the political pressures which led to the French Revolution, she points out that it was a system and way of life that was collapsing and not the actions of an individual, even a queen, which brought about the gross inequalities between the nobility and the masses. The excessive and extravagant customs of the ancien regime were a way of life that Marie Antoinette came to as a follower of her new country's customs rather than as a leader. Although the revolutionaries blamed her for a multitude of sins, Fraser provides ample evidence to show that Marie Antoinette was securely locked out of policymaking because of her status as a woman and foreigner (she is a Hapsburg). She is easy to blame for political decisions she never brought about because she is a highly visible foreigner, a daughter of the powerful Empress Maria Teresa, easy to scapegoat as the ultimate Other for the French to demonize.
One quick note: she probably never uttered the words "Let them eat cake!" with regard to the poor during a famine. It was a statement often attributed to various princesses married to the nobility of other countries. The story was used even a century before Marie Antoinette came to France to describe Louis XIV's wife. Marie Antoinette is just the most famous of the accused.
Fraser argues that Marie Antoinette just wanted to please the people around her and to have a family. Because of her birth and her marriage, she was thrust into a political position she was ill-equipped to handle - and what was needed was someone with a politically adept and delicate hand. Granted, anyone labeled a despot would probably be defended along similar lines, but she was locked out politically. French queens, because they were often foreigners from countries with whom France might have only an uneasy alliance with, were in powerful positions because of their access to the king but were actively discouraged from trying to wield political power and also distrusted. Although she spent a lot of money, Marie Antoinette was far from alone in this at that time and the decadence had been typical of the French court for generations. More to the point, the French Revolution was about more than one woman's shopping habits.
Much of the book is filled with the elaborate court life of Versailles, but the barbarous events that punctuated Marie Antoinette's life get their due as well. One of the most horrific stories in the book was the execution of the Princess Lamballe, Marie Antoinette's earliest and one of her most closest confidantes. The Princess Lamballe dies brutally. She is hit with hammers, her corpse (at least one hopes the hammers provided a quick death) violated, beheaded, savagely torn apart, and her various body parts paraded around Paris by an angry and still bloodthirsty mob. Along the way, they drop her head off for a wax molding by the lady who would become Madame Tussaud (and who was a friend of the Princess) and later on to get the head's hair dressed before bringing it to Marie Antoinette so they can demand the queen to bestow a parting kiss to her friend. I shared this story with my husband and since then, he has been faintly discouraging of my reading.
In the end, I couldn't help but admire Marie Antoinette a little - don't be silly, not for her style - but for the courage with which she faced the violent years of her later life. While the mobs would several times over the years demand her head or threaten to tear out her intestines (an all too real fate as her friends' deaths made clear), she would consistently place the safety of her family first. She would place her apartments in the more vulnerable and less secure areas of a building - usually the ground floor while her family was above - so that if the mob stormed past the guards, which they did at one point (the guards were ripped to shreds), they would only get her and not have as much a chance to harm her family. When faced with the most savage and brutal fates, Marie Antoinette showed admirable personal courage, and I think how one meets death should hold some weight in measuring a person's character.
Yes, it's 9 days into the new year already but better late than never. Perhaps it's poor rationalization, but I've decided to eschew my usual method of hashing out a resolution before January 1 and will take more of a slow cooker approach.
I'll write more as they come to me but these are more projects for the new year than resolutions. Neither will make me a better person than the year before, but I think they'll be fun in a quiet way.
Project #1: Use the library.
It's quite a boring project but it has a certain pull. It reminds me of the time when I was in Japan listening to a Japanese and English radio station (the DJs switched back and forth between both languages), and the DJs were quizzing listeners on how they would spend their day if Nostradamus' prediction that the earth would be hit by a giant meteor on that day came true, bringing about the end of the world. M and I listened, amused but in mild disbelief. One caller stated that if it was her last day on earth, she would return all of her library books.
It didn't occur to me then, but now I occurs to me that she had overdue books and the guilt was crushing her. I remember that guilt and the shame of paying the overdue fees. It was only a dime per day late, but the librarians were always so disappointed with me.
While I was home for the holidays I realized that a lot of the books that I read and loved were library books. I used to spend a great deal of time at the library and now I don't spend any time there at all. It was a weekly ritual to borrow a stack of books, hide in my room, and tear through them (not literally, of course), often to the detriment of my homework (hey, I still graduated).
I buy books on impulse. Gotta curb that a bit. And I don't need to hoard every book I read.
Finally, I have many books still packed in boxes in our garage. I think I need to weed out my collection down to the ones I love and donate the rest, and I really don't need to add to the collection until I do.
It didn't occur to me then, but now I occurs to me that she had overdue books and the guilt was crushing her. I remember that guilt and the shame of paying the overdue fees. It was only a dime per day late, but the librarians were always so disappointed with me.
While I was home for the holidays I realized that a lot of the books that I read and loved were library books. I used to spend a great deal of time at the library and now I don't spend any time there at all. It was a weekly ritual to borrow a stack of books, hide in my room, and tear through them (not literally, of course), often to the detriment of my homework (hey, I still graduated).
I buy books on impulse. Gotta curb that a bit. And I don't need to hoard every book I read.
Finally, I have many books still packed in boxes in our garage. I think I need to weed out my collection down to the ones I love and donate the rest, and I really don't need to add to the collection until I do.
Project #2: Read 30 books by December 31, 2007.
I read about 20 books in 2006, so I'm going to try to up the rate. I find my brain is slowing down without reading.
Currently, I'm on #3, a biography of Marie Antoinette, which I know will slow me down but the writing is pretty good.
Also, I learned that it is highly unlikely that Marie Antoinette ever cried the infamous words, "Let them eat cake!"
Currently, I'm on #3, a biography of Marie Antoinette, which I know will slow me down but the writing is pretty good.
Also, I learned that it is highly unlikely that Marie Antoinette ever cried the infamous words, "Let them eat cake!"
Project #3 should be something that I've never done before, but I'll need to think about it.
Although it took about 4 months to finally get together, we finally had our book club on Thursday night.
Our first selection, chosen by yours truly, was My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. The first chapter opens with the account of a murder victim whose broken body lies at the bottom of the well, and he is rather angry and vengeful but he has no idea who killed him or why. A promising first chapter.
The story is set in Ottoman Turkey in the late 1500s, when Turkish illustrators were beginning to encounter Western art, particularly the Renaissance art styles of Italy although the characters refer to the art as "Frankish." Ottoman painting focused on trying to present the world from how God sees from above while the Frankish art focused on presenting everything as closely as possible to how an eye would see it and from how man sees the world at street level. Even the idea of having an individual style as an artist is anathema to the Ottoman illustrators. The very literal and radical differences in art and perspective leads to a crises among the illustrators as they try to learn and master the new style. Art is how they experience the world and the new style they try to master conflicts with their own traditions and world view, their own experience of the world.
Of our little group, I was the one who liked it most. I was a little curtly informed that I was too generous to the book when I commented that I would rate it three stars out of five stars, but I think this was a difficult book to write. The book tackles sophisticated themes, attempts to lay out a different culture and artistic approach, and contains some beautiful, polished writing, including a few lovely parables. Although I saw flaws, I have mixed feelings about the book: it is a thoughtful novel, a cut above the ordinary, but the end although poignant was unsatisfying.
There are wonderful chapters. I loved the chapter where Enishte confronts one of his artists, I loved the horse contest, I loved the coin chapter and the red chapter, and I liked Enishte, Shekure, and Esther, but the end left me unsatisfied. One problem was the characterization of the master illustrators, who are very difficult to distinguish from one another until the very end, when we finally learn about these artists as individuals. There is also constant, deliberate repetition, which in some instances was beautiful but became wearing. I thought the end was poignant as it related to the art but I was less satisfied with how the story wrapped up the fate of some of the characters. Anyway, although the others were very down on the book, it was a good book discussion.
Our first selection, chosen by yours truly, was My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. The first chapter opens with the account of a murder victim whose broken body lies at the bottom of the well, and he is rather angry and vengeful but he has no idea who killed him or why. A promising first chapter.
The story is set in Ottoman Turkey in the late 1500s, when Turkish illustrators were beginning to encounter Western art, particularly the Renaissance art styles of Italy although the characters refer to the art as "Frankish." Ottoman painting focused on trying to present the world from how God sees from above while the Frankish art focused on presenting everything as closely as possible to how an eye would see it and from how man sees the world at street level. Even the idea of having an individual style as an artist is anathema to the Ottoman illustrators. The very literal and radical differences in art and perspective leads to a crises among the illustrators as they try to learn and master the new style. Art is how they experience the world and the new style they try to master conflicts with their own traditions and world view, their own experience of the world.
Of our little group, I was the one who liked it most. I was a little curtly informed that I was too generous to the book when I commented that I would rate it three stars out of five stars, but I think this was a difficult book to write. The book tackles sophisticated themes, attempts to lay out a different culture and artistic approach, and contains some beautiful, polished writing, including a few lovely parables. Although I saw flaws, I have mixed feelings about the book: it is a thoughtful novel, a cut above the ordinary, but the end although poignant was unsatisfying.
There are wonderful chapters. I loved the chapter where Enishte confronts one of his artists, I loved the horse contest, I loved the coin chapter and the red chapter, and I liked Enishte, Shekure, and Esther, but the end left me unsatisfied. One problem was the characterization of the master illustrators, who are very difficult to distinguish from one another until the very end, when we finally learn about these artists as individuals. There is also constant, deliberate repetition, which in some instances was beautiful but became wearing. I thought the end was poignant as it related to the art but I was less satisfied with how the story wrapped up the fate of some of the characters. Anyway, although the others were very down on the book, it was a good book discussion.
