the ch!cktionary

Books Books

Done (with commentary):
A Confederacy of Dunces

Patrick got this for me. I don’t think I would’ve otherwise bought it myself. The backstory is interesting though: The author John Kennedy Toole committed suicide, and his mother found the manuscript which she took to a publisher who — against all odds — found himself liking it. It follows the adventures of a bumbling pig of an intellect who lives in New Orleans. I don’t like comedy in my novels, which is probably why I didn’t enjoy it.

Blood and Water and Other Tales

Correction to that last statement: I can enjoy humor but only if it’s accompanied by dark shit. This collection of short stories by Patrick McGrath is the perfect example. He veers from his usual completely Gothic fare and offers a surprising amount of wit and humor to these stories, which I read as a sort of experiment for him. They have their dark elements but are still pretty different from the other works I’ve read from him.

Hunger

Recommended by April, this is another collection of short stories. They’re all about the Asian American immigrant experience and primarily concern families. Beautifully written work by Lan Samantha Chang. This is probably my favorite work of the summer thus far. Very re-readable.

Honour Thy Father

Totally fucked up shit. I found this novel by Lesley Glaister in a used bookstore on Plöck Str. and was intrigued by its claims of “wife-battering, incest, murder, madness”. The book delivers.

Never Let Me Go

Also fucked up shit (I think you can probably get a feel for the kind of books I like now). But it’s not as obviously fucked up and it doesn’t creep you out because it’s not straight-up horror. Very, very enjoyable read about the childhood of three friends who attend a boarding school with all sorts of peculiarities that they only decipher in adulthood. It’s my first book from Kazuo Ishiguro who I did not take to initially when I tried to (and failed to) finish The Remains of the Day.

To Go:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Being Dead
Enduring Love
Foucault’s Pendulum
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Grotesque
The Witch of Portobello
White Teeth

Reading is one of the more enjoyable activities I’ve reclaimed in Heidelberg. On Kennedy’s bed, on trains, anywhere really, I read. I barely did this at all in 2007 and definitely not during the summer. The past six months, I’ve been much more diligent about it. During the semester, I started The Namesake; finished Asylum and Dr. Haggard’s Disease. (both Patrick McGrath); and read two non-fiction works, Letters To A Young Contrarian and God Is Not Great (both Christopher Hitchens). Pretty epic coming from a year of no leisure reading whatsoever.