FBI parte due
Folces Weard
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe - Man's wife (Japanese man!) is spirited away by ambulance in the middle of the night. He spends a long time trying to track her down in a hospital ridden with bureaucratic and sexual hijinks. Presumably some very biting and acrid commentary on Japanese society in the 50s. I don't know, I was never in Japan in the 50s. Feels like a stress dream to read. Excellent. 9/10
The Ruined Map by Kobo Abe - actually read this several months before Secret Rendezvous. Femme fatale hires detective to find her missing husband. He spends the whole book looking for the guy, doesn't find him. In the end he gets confused and starts thinking, maybe he's the husband! Definitely not smart enough for this book, read it if you're smarter than I am. 8/10
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino - I love Italo Calvino. I picked this and The Baron in the Trees up at a library book sale, paid like a dollar each, had never read any Calvino before. Wonderful. Fantastic. Also in the more obscure senses of both the preceding words! A series of one- or two-page-long descriptions of imaginary cities, each one stranger than the last. Like Borges if Borges could stick to one topic for more than 20 pages. 10/10
The Baron in the Trees - Much less of a bombardment of bizarre ideas than Invisible Cities. Kind of reminiscent of Baudolino in how it tries to capture the intellectual zeitgeist of an era far removed from our own, but better because Calvino is a more compelling writer and less of a giant dork than Umberto Eco. The Englishman in the book is named Sir Osbert Castlefight. 8/10
THE PINCH RUNNER MEMORANDUM by Kenzaburo Oe - What a hot mess. Difficult to summarize. Compelling, definitely kept me reading all the way to the end. 7/10
An Echo of Heaven, also Oe - Depressing. Cracked this open a few months after The Pinch Runnder, couldn't finish it, decided to read something less depressing instead. I get the feeling that Kenzaburo Oe is one of those writers who has spent his entire career writing and rewriting the same semi-autobiographical novel and publishing it under different titles. Still intend to come back to it some day, I still like him and Flannery O'Connor, one of my favorite authors, apparently features heavily throughout.
Evaristo Carriego by Jorge Luis Borges - picked this up instead. More worth reading for Borges' passionate descriptions of Buenos Aires than his eulogizing of his friend. Read this if you're really into Borges. 6/10
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov - Still haven't read Lolita, still 100% sure this is his best book by any measure. A baklava of literary delights. Probably my favorite book I've read in the past 5 years. Read it.
The Ruined Map by Kobo Abe - actually read this several months before Secret Rendezvous. Femme fatale hires detective to find her missing husband. He spends the whole book looking for the guy, doesn't find him. In the end he gets confused and starts thinking, maybe he's the husband! Definitely not smart enough for this book, read it if you're smarter than I am. 8/10
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino - I love Italo Calvino. I picked this and The Baron in the Trees up at a library book sale, paid like a dollar each, had never read any Calvino before. Wonderful. Fantastic. Also in the more obscure senses of both the preceding words! A series of one- or two-page-long descriptions of imaginary cities, each one stranger than the last. Like Borges if Borges could stick to one topic for more than 20 pages. 10/10
The Baron in the Trees - Much less of a bombardment of bizarre ideas than Invisible Cities. Kind of reminiscent of Baudolino in how it tries to capture the intellectual zeitgeist of an era far removed from our own, but better because Calvino is a more compelling writer and less of a giant dork than Umberto Eco. The Englishman in the book is named Sir Osbert Castlefight. 8/10
THE PINCH RUNNER MEMORANDUM by Kenzaburo Oe - What a hot mess. Difficult to summarize. Compelling, definitely kept me reading all the way to the end. 7/10
An Echo of Heaven, also Oe - Depressing. Cracked this open a few months after The Pinch Runnder, couldn't finish it, decided to read something less depressing instead. I get the feeling that Kenzaburo Oe is one of those writers who has spent his entire career writing and rewriting the same semi-autobiographical novel and publishing it under different titles. Still intend to come back to it some day, I still like him and Flannery O'Connor, one of my favorite authors, apparently features heavily throughout.
Evaristo Carriego by Jorge Luis Borges - picked this up instead. More worth reading for Borges' passionate descriptions of Buenos Aires than his eulogizing of his friend. Read this if you're really into Borges. 6/10
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov - Still haven't read Lolita, still 100% sure this is his best book by any measure. A baklava of literary delights. Probably my favorite book I've read in the past 5 years. Read it.
