"Amsterdam"

Oh dear, it's been a while since my last post. Not because I haven't been reading, but because I haven't had time to write about the books—that is what happens when you undertake a month-long move! And especially when many of your possessions are (heavy) books. One that I recently finished reading is "Amsterdam," by Ian McEwan, which I liked but not as much as his later novel, "Atonement."

Reading “Amsterdam" was a little like watching a train wreck: I knew something ghastly was going to happen, but I couldn’t turn away.

The novel opens at a funeral and follows the subsequent events in the lives of two men, both former lovers of the dead woman. One a composer, one a newspaper editor, each faces a moral dilemma and ends up making a terribly wrong decision. The consequences? See train wreck analogy above.

I’ve read some reviews that suggest the ending is too contrived or predictable, and I tend to agree, but that didn’t stop me from being completely enthralled, mainly due to the great writing. This is my third McEwan novel, and what I love about them is their dead-on descriptions of the characters’ internal states and thoughts. And how can you not love a little gem like this description of the newspaper editor: “Within his profession Vernon was revered as a nonentity.”

However, “Amsterdam,” in spite of its graceful and incisive writing, seems much less fully developed than “Atonement,” so it seems odd to me that this novel won the Booker Prize while “Atonement” did not.

This is my first book for the “Book Awards Reading Challenge,” which started in July, so I have some catching up to do!

A very long walk

I’ve never really been the outdoors-y type. I can count the number of times I’ve been hiking on one hand (and maybe a couple more fingers). When I was 9 years old, I went on a camping trip with my Girl Scout troop. I made it one night, then called my parents and demanded that they pick me up and bring me back to civilization. Yes, s’mores are yummy, but even they can’t make up for the discomfort of sleeping in a tent, surrounded by mosquitoes.

So, I can’t even imagine the horrors of spending days, even weeks and months at a time in the wilderness. But apparently thousands of (crazy) people do so every year on the Appalachian Trail. One person who attempted it is Bill Bryson, who then wrote a wildly entertaining book, “A Walk in the Woods,” which I just finished reading.

Bryson decided to hit the trail after he moved to New Hampshire and realized that the trail ran past his house. Many trips to the sporting goods store later, he found himself traipsing through the woods in the company of his overweight, out-of-shape friend, Katz, who has a disconcerting tendency to lighten his backpack by tossing key items like food and water over cliffs.

Neither one is an experienced hiker, and they soon give up their plan of walking the entire trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine, a distance of approximately 2,100 miles (apparently the distance keeps changing as the trail route is shifted). Of the 2,000 people who start on the trail each year, only 10 percent make it to the end. Bryson ends up skipping a few states and covering about 870 miles.

I found myself laughing out loud during several scenes, especially Bryson's encounters with bizarre hikers on the trail. The book alternates between descriptions of his travels and journalistic explorations of topics such as the history and geology of the trail, the vast mismanagement of U.S. wilderness by the National Park Service, and the many ways hikers have died on the trail (not a very cheery topic for potential hikers).

At one of Bryson’s first stops, in Neels Gap, Georgia, he and Katz visit a convenience store, where Bryson has the following epiphany:

"I was beginning to learn that the central feature of life on the Appalachian Trail is deprivation, that the whole point of the experience is to remove yourself so thoroughly from the conveniences of everyday life that the most ordinary things—processed cheese, a can of pop gorgeously beaded with condensation—fill you with wonder and gratitude."

I think I’ll keep the processed cheese and “pop” and leave the hiking to more adventurous souls…. :)

Gold rush

I’m glad that Isabel Allende has written so many books, because now that I’ve read one, I want more! I just finished “Daughter of Fortune,” which is the story of Eliza Sommers, abandoned at birth and adopted by an English family in Valparaiso, Chile. Raised by the spinster (that term always cracks me up) Miss Rose, Eliza falls in love with an unsuitable young Chilean. They have a torrid love affair, but he abandons her to pursue his dreams of finding gold in California. Eliza, in turn, pursues him to California, disguised as a boy.

I loved Allende’s descriptions of life in 1840s Chile, California, and China (seen through the eyes of Eliza’s friend Tao Chi’en). Gold rush-era San Francisco was full of not only people who came to find gold, but those who found their fortunes in other ways (including prostitution, the occupation of several characters in this book). If Allende’s setting is historically accurate, it was also a fairly brutal place, with constant friction between the different groups of immigrants who settled there.

I also liked the character of Eliza, who went to California to find her lover but ended up finding something much more important—her own sense of who she was, and a new life away from the restrictive society in which she was raised. Secondary characters in the story were also developed in rich detail. (I think some of them appear in Allende’s other novels.)

The only complaint I have is that the story ended rather abruptly, as though the author lost interest in tying everything together, but I was enthralled through the rest of the story. This book has been on my shelf for a while and I finally picked it up on the recommendation of Mimi37 (thanks M!). It wasn’t on my original list for the Armchair Traveler Reading Challenge, but it definitely qualifies as armchair travel so I’m going to count it anyway :)

A rant

This post has nothing to do with books, but another topic dear to my heart—the Electoral College. Or rather, the flaws in the Electoral College (which resulted in a certain Texan becoming president without winning the popular vote—but that’s a topic for another day).

Recently, some Republicans in California decided that they want to reform the EC. Great idea, in theory. They want to allocate California’s 55 electoral votes based on the winners of each Congressional district, instead of the winner-take-all system that most other states use. If every state in the U.S. decided to do this, I would be all for it. Then the EC vote might actually resemble the popular vote. BUT, if California is the only large state to do it, the Democratic candidate will be screwed, since a large minority of the state’s electoral votes would be siphoned away. (According to this article, it would be the equivalent of losing Ohio.)

Of course, the Republicans know this would give them a huge advantage, but as usual they are pretending they are looking out for the interests of the common man. A consultant who is pushing the plan says “We're unlocking 55 electoral votes, and making it so candidates have to compete for them…. Candidates are not going to be able to ignore California. That would benefit all Californians."

Yeah, it might benefit Californians, at the expense of every other citizen in this country...

Now, I am no fan of the Electoral College. But if this “reform” goes through, it will become even more of a joke. If every state has its own system for allocating electoral votes, we will no longer even be able to pretend that it is a fair and accurate way to elect the president.

This initiative will go on the ballot next June, assuming the supporters get enough signatures. We can only hope that the people of California will see through this charade and reject it.

another challenge...

Oooh, I found another book challenge :) This one is called the Book Awards Reading Challenge, it started July 1, 2007 and ends June 30, 2008. So, I'm a little behind, but what the heck. You're supposed to choose 12 books, all of which have won a literary prize. I looked through the lists and realized that I already own 10 such books, and then I added a couple more that I have been wanting to read. Here they are:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer Prize)
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (Prix Renaudot)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Pulitzer Prize)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Pulitzer Prize)
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (Booker Prize)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Hugo Award)
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (Booker Prize)
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (National Book Award)
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott (National Book Award)
Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett (National Book Award)
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (National Book Award)
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright (Pulitzer Prize)


This should keep me busy for a while! And will help make a dent in the gigantic TBR pile.

More Harry

I came across this story in which J.K. Rowling talks about what happens to her characters after the end of "The Deathly Hallows." Check it out.