Books Thirty Five, Thirty Six, and Thirty Seven - The Red Queen, Fear and Trembling, and Everything is Illuminated

It's been a long time since I updated, mostly since I've spent the last two months of my life in a whirlwind of traveling and haven't had a lot of time to sit down and devour a good book. Since the next three months of my life are shaping up in much the same way, I doubt I'll be updating frequently. I'm planning on reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy while backpacking (appropriate after leaving New Zealand, I think), so hopefully I finish and I'll post about that after it's done. Unfortunately, a lot of these books I read a while ago, so there will be short thoughts on each of them, but I really did want to get caught up. Here we go!


The Red Queen - Margaret Drabble

This was an interesting book with an interesting premise, and I read most of it on a roof (yeahhh!). The first half of the story are the memories of a Korean crown princess during her reign in a time of great change and uncertainty for her country, and the second half is about a modern scholar discovering this memoir, being absorbed it it, and how it affects her life at a conference she happens to be attending in Korea. This is a smashing idea for a novel, but I don't think it quite gets pulled off. I was way more interested in the story of the princess and thought that could have stood alone as a novel - there were many really fascinating aspects of her story, including the role of women in the society and the insanity of class and social warfare among the elite, but really her story ended up being one of strength and perseverance, if not for the most traditional of reasons. The story of Babs, the scholar, was way less interesting to me and kind of clouded over the power of the first half of the novel. Way to much academic posturing, role of the single important women in the twenty-first century, blah blah...I'm just sick of reading the same things over and over again about the role of women in academia, or academia in general. Blame that on me recently finishing my degree, but I was not into it, and the end of the novel is just downright strange - I guess you could find a thread of continuity if you really looked, but overall I thought the novel just didn't fit together.

In summary: First part excellent historical narrative, downhill from there....also, I do not want to be a crown princess in Korea.

Book Thirty Six - Fear and Trembling, Amelie Nothomb

This is the book I read right after the Red Queen, and I was interested to find the role of women in cultural oppression being discussed again. Unfortunately, that's the only thing I was interested in in this strange, strange book. Maybe it's a cultural barrier or maybe I just ain't that type of girl, but reading about the female narrator being forced to perform menial labor over and over (cleaning bathrooms, sleeping in garbage, sharpening pencils) just to say she worked at a Japanese company for a year is completely unrelatable for me. I guess the novel is trying to say that there's a passive and active kind of standing up for yourself, but I thought the things the narrator and her female boss were subjugated to were humiliating, not character building. The most interesting part of the novel by far for me was the brief discussion of the role of women in Japanese society, and how full of contradictions it is. The author concludes, in quite a blase matter, that is is a miracle that more Japanese women don't kill themselves. Strange, strange book....I really hope the culture of Japan is not as terrible as it is portrayed here.

In summary: Thank god I'm American?

Book Thirty-Seven: Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

This book has been a cult classic for years, and now I can see why. It's just deliciously weird enough, real enough, funny enough, and strange enough to appeal to a lot of my generation, and I'm not gonna lie - I enjoyed it a lot as well. My friend and I traded off reading this while we were on a seven day backcountry hike, and after reading some of the stuff in this novel, missing friends and wet socks didn't seem like such important issues. I thought the novel got a little too clever and a little too out there for its own good in some places - for instances, most of the sequences with Brod were way too melodramatic for me - but there were some scenes that took my breath away. For instance, when the Slouchers are reading the Book of Dreams....I think I just sat there stunned after reading some of them. Such short, brilliant pieces of writing - I think they were my favorite parts of the novel. I also loved Alex's broken English and his entire story, which starts off just being comical and light and without you really realizing it ends up being about the humanity in all of us, and the heartbreak. There are a lot of intersecting pieces of this book, and while I'm not sure they quite fit together perfectly, it does leave you with a huge, huge emotional impact, which for me is the mark of a great book. My friend and I both finished the book on different nights (in two different backcountry huts in the middle of the woods) and we were both just floored with emotion, especially since my friend happens to be Jewish. I'm pretty sure I just sat in a meditative funk for the rest of the night after reading the ending, which wasn't too fun for the other four people I was sharing the hut with. Either way, a chilling book, a strange book, and well worth the read.

In summary: Not exactly a feel-good book, but cuts right to the soul, and will leave you feeling like you just got a cold bucket of water dumped over your head. Pretty great, overall.