Eclectic Reader Challenge – LGBT – The City and The Pillar by Gore Vidal

On 01/03/201311/03/2013 By kepagewriterIn Eclectic Reader Challenge2 Comments

This book has been on my to read list for a long time, I’ve been meaning to read it for far too long. I’m not sure why it kept getting passed over, I always knew that I would enjoy it. So, I decided to read it as part of the Eclectic Reading Challenge to ensure that this was the year I actually read it.

Straightaway I was drawn in. The opening description of Jim, clearly devastated, in a bar getting drunker, detached from all around him was masterful and intriguing. I wanted to know what had brought him to such a low point. Although it was immediately clear that it related to his school friend, Bob, I had no idea exactly how devastating the ending was going to be.

I can see how this novel would have been so shocking at the time. While it is not explicit, it is unflinching in its description of the life of a gay man in the 1940s. It tells of Hollywood affairs, of the secrecy and sham marriages, of the underground bars, a complete other world. From a modern perspective, it’s effect was twofold. In some ways, it seems like this story should be centuries old, such a lot of things have changed. At the same time, some things haven’t. The question of whether or not a celebrity should come out or not would not be such a loaded one if we truly had left all those old opinions behind.

In the preface to this novel, Gore says that he felt that he was at a crossroads just before he decided to published this book. He’d already published two novels and had a certain amount of acclaim. He knew that once he published The City and the Pillar, this would change. In one direction, a glorious future, Gore describes it as the ‘holy Delphi’. Instead he chose to publish and ‘end up accursed in Thebes’. One can only imagine the level of bravery and honesty that this must have taken.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I was genuinely upset at the end, not only because the ending was so awful but because it was finished and I was not still reading it. An absolute classic.

Eclectic Reader Challenge – Historical Mystery – The Moonstone

On 24/02/201311/03/2013 By kepagewriterIn Eclectic Reader Challenge3 Comments

Read as a part of the Eclectic Reader Challenge

As I have mentioned in this blog before, I enjoy a mystery and while it pleases me when I work out the answer before the end and I can give myself an intellectual pat on the back, it pleases me more to be ultimately puzzled. I am happy to admit that The Moonstone kept me puzzled for the most part. By the time that the thief is revealed, I had worked it out but Collins had given me all of the clues by this point so it really wasn’t a great feat. Up until that point, I had been fumbling in the dark in the same way that the characters were.

I particularly liked the structure of this book and the way each character adds their own details to the story as well as their own personal view of events. Each character was memorable from Betteredge, with his Robinson Crusoe obsession, to Ezra Jennings with his hidden past; all were interesting, all were distinctive. As the story unfolds, the reader occupies a similar position to Sergeant Cuff, fooled by events as they stand, unable to see the whole picture until much later on. This is a masterful novel that keeps the reader’s interest at all times.

The Moonstone and the trouble it causes in respectable England seem to me to represent the punishment for colonial crimes that the theft of The Moonstone represents. That the precious stone is restored to its proper place is a satisfying ending even though the lengths the Indians go to get the diamond may be unethical. Their sacrifice for the diamond is greater than anything that the other characters go through in the course of the novel.

This theme of past crimes catching up is present throughout the novel – in the form of Ezra Jennings and his mysterious past, Rosanna Spearman and may be the ultimate reason for Franklin Blake to ask for all to give their version of events – so that his past cannot catch up with him and to ensure his good name in the future.

I expected this novel to be good as it had been recommended to me many times but I did not expect it to be so clever, so enjoyable and so satisfying a read. A must read for all fans of detective fiction.

Eclectic Reading Challenge – New Adult – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

On 27/01/201311/03/2013 By kepagewriterIn Eclectic Reader Challenge5 Comments

I’d not heard of the New Adult genre before I signed up to do the Eclectic Reader Challenge – although I suspect that it means books for teenagers that adults would like to read – but I looked it up on Goodreads and The Hunger Games was one of the first books I noticed and I’d been meaning to read it for a while.

I really enjoyed this book. It had everything really – action, strong characters, a serious point to make and it was exciting enough to keep you turning the pages. In fact, I could not put it down.

The character of Katniss and her relationship with fellow tribute, Peeta was compelling and I think teenagers particularly would be drawn into their potential romance. I do think this is clearly aimed at a teenage audience but that didn’t stop it from being an excellent read.

The idea of the hunger games is completely apt and believable. I could imagine Channel Four commissioning it. And people would watch it and vote for different ways for the contestants to die without a seconds thought. Well, hopefully not but it certainly wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. And to me, that is the definition of what good science fiction should do – take some aspect of the current reality and magnify it, show what would happen if we took it to its logical extreme.

If I had to make a complaint about this book, I would say that I thought some of the plotting was a little heavy handed – for example the changes to the games rules annoyed me a little. But this in no way spoiled my enjoyment of this book. And while I haven’t rushed to the shop to buy the next one, I know I will read it. Perhaps when I’ve got through a few more of my to read list.

Eclectic Reader Challenge – Translated Literature – The Prague Cemetery – Umberto Eco.

On 21/01/201330/07/2013 By kepagewriterIn Eclectic Reader Challenge1 Comment

Read for the Eclectic Reader Challenge.

I really wanted to love this book. I’ve read Eco before – The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum – and really enjoyed his work. I was expecting to feel the same about this book.

I’m not even really sure what I found less enjoyable about it. It certainly isn’t as densely written as Foucault’s Pendulum and it covers some of the same sort of ground – conspiracies, fakes, the Masons – I just couldn’t get excited about it. In fact, at one point I was ready to abandon it altogether. I hate to not finish a book and besides I’d already said I would review it for this challenge. So I plodded onwards.

In actual fact, about half way through, the narrative suddenly caught

me and I was intrigued to see where it would all end up. In terms of historical accuracy, Eco claims that all the events and characters existed in real life which is a little unnerving as this book is about anti-semitism and the faking of documents that suggested a Jewish global conspiracy that is said to have influenced Hitler. That gave the book a rather disturbing air.

One of the more convincing elements of this book was the description of the mind of Simonini, a man full of hatred and who was willing to kill anyone who got in the way of his grand plans. He becomes so disturbed that he actually takes on the persona of one of the many people that he kills. He was very effectively written and genuinely unsettling.

Ultimately, I think that I would have enjoyed this book more if it had started about halfway through and avoided all the detail about Garibaldi. And then perhaps it could have continued a bit longer as I felt I was just beginning to enjoy it when it actually ended.

Eclectic Reader Challenge – Romantic Suspense – Come Unto These Yellow Sands

On 15/01/201311/03/2013 By kepagewriterIn Eclectic Reader Challenge1 Comment

Ok, a confession first, I think. I was not really expecting to like this genre. I thought I’d get it out of the way early on in the Eclectic Reader Challenge, so to speak. I think I have already mentioned my problem with the r-word. I love a thriller or detective novel but I have to admit that I couldn’t see how the addition of the r-word could possibly improve matters. I’m quite a fan of the hard-boiled style of detective fiction and was imagining that this was about as far from that as possible.

It took me ages to decide on a book. Probably because I had

already decided that I was going to hate it. I wasn’t really expecting to be all that thrilled when I downloaded Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Josh Lanyon on to my kindle.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was hooked after the first chapter. In fact, I could not put it down. I was actually disappointed when my less than punctual husband was actually on time for once when he met me in the pub because I would have to stop reading. Both the romance between Swift and Max, and the suspenseful tale of one of Swfit’s student’s possible involvement in a murder were interesting and entertaining. I found I was as concerned about the ups and downs of Max and Swift’s relationship as I was about finding the real killer. I was well and truly hooked

The back stories of Swift’s addiction and the small town homophobia he finds directed at himself added depth to the writing and made this more than just a simple detective story. The characters were convincing and I felt concerned for them – especially Swift whose speciality seemed to be to put himself in danger. Finally, and possibly most importantly, I did not see the ending – or many of the twists and turns – coming.

So thanks to this reading challenge I have discovered a new author who I will definitely read more of and possibly a new genre to explore. I certainly will be more willing to read in this genre now.

Eclectic Reader Challenge 2013

On 11/01/201330/07/2013 By kepagewriterIn Eclectic Reader Challenge8 Comments

So I have decided that as I have currently got so many new books – due to very kind people who know how much I read giving me Amazon or Waterstones vouchers for my 40th birthday and the fact that I have serious difficulty deciding on the next book at the best of times – that I need some serious focus. So I am going to do the Eclectic Reader Challenge this year. It requires the reading of 12 books in different categories, all of which sound quite interesting. It was surprisingly exciting to choose the books in advance. I thought it might spoil my enjoyment to have planned what I was going to read but in fact it is more enjoyable because I know what is coming next. Here are the books I have chosen to read for each category.

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