book reviews

looking for summer reading?

here are some lovely suggestions from my past reading.... i've sorted them by categories for your convenience :) if you do read any of these books, please talk to me about them. i like books. and i like talking about them :) if you are in my near vicinity, let me know and i can lend books to you (since most of these books were for class, i pretty much own all of them). and my books are happier if they're being read.

a pedestrian rating scale
4 stars- you really really really should read it
3 stars- it's probably worth the read whatever your interest
2 stars- it would be enjoyable to read especially if you have interest in the subject.
1 star- it would only be worthwhile to read if you're interested in the particular themes or subjects. the book would be useful for knowledge, for gaining an idea of the literature in that area but probably will not be all that enjoyable to read.

from spanish class
*** la bella durmiente (rosario ferre) | trans. sleeping beauty ~ a montage of tabloid articles, letters, photo album captions and interior monologue. a scathing attack against gender roles in puerto rican culture through the story of a ballerina and her eventual demise. i should just post my essay here...
*querido diego, te abraza quiela (elena poniatowska) | trans. dear diego, hugs quiela ~ about diego riviera's abandoned mistress in paris. told through letters written by the mistress, it tells the story of a growing and twisted obsession, an inability to get over someone and move on. i found it rather annoying and whining. i wanted to hit the girl on her head and tell her to get over it and get a life.
***ardiente paciencia (antonio skarmeta) | trans. burning patience. also published as el cartero de neruda, neruda's postman. ~ this was made into an italian film called the postman. it tells about the relationship between an ordinary postman and the famous chilean poet pablo neruda. it's an incredibly fun and entertaining read, serving both as a homage to neruda and poetry as well as giving a glimpse into chilean society and politics during salvador allende's (socialist) rise to power in the 1970's.
***las batallas en el desierto (jose emilio pacheco) | trans. battles in the desert ~ stream of consciousness-like retelling of mexican history. very short and very concise. a bildungsroman. a nostalgic tale for a past, that was just as corrupt, but where hope existed.

from asian american literature class
***dogeaters (jessica hagedorn) ~ an incredibly entertaining and delightful to read panorama of phillipine society-- a glimpse into everyone from a the biggest movie star to a male prostitute, and seeing the strands that link all these facets of society together.
coffin tree (Wendy-Law Yone) ~ about two refugees, brother and sister, escaping from Burma. i didn't particularly enjoy this book-- it was rather heavy handed and did not appear in any way out of the ordinary for me.
***blu's hanging (lois-ann yamanaka) ~ a fairly disturbing yet well-told story of three children who are trying to survive after the death of their mother. gives a good snapshot of hawaiin culture and social politics.
*the gangster we are all looking for (le thi diem thuy) ~ about refugees from vietnam. i actually never finished reading this book so i can't say much other than that the writing style is very simple, lyrical and almost detached.

from postcolonial literature class
**confessions of an english opium eater (thomas de quincey) ~ rather fun, entertaining and British. it is as the title states, but does a job on elaborating a British national identity as well as the role of opium and sympathy and the ability to access and experience that which we normally would have no access to. on a side note, here's an interesting article that actually discusses the influence of this book and other writers (i.e. coleridge) and on the actual addictive qualities of heroin.
*lucy (jamaica kincaid) ~ i highly enjoyed jamaica kincaid's novela a small place, but lucy was in all honesty a drag to read. the main character lucy was rather annoying and far-too-brooding and complex. there were some interesting passages though that are worth reading in order to rethink our historical reflex--the attitudes we have towards third-world nations that we consider normal, and yet when illuminated in the correct light, appear strange, bizarre, injust and absurd.
*lord jim (joseph conrad) ~ unless you are a liker of conrad, this is a heavy-read, but worth getting through-- like anything conrad, it is incredibly rich in commentary on truth, on life and existence. i heard it often takes two reads before you can really get it. about a man's tragic boating accident and how it affects him thereonafter-- a romantic's determination to live up to his ideals in a world that does not care about those ideals.

from my thesis (if you read either of these, you can talk to me and i can blab endlessly about them)
***hunger of memory (richard rodriguez) ~ written by a mexican american, a bildungsroman about his assimilation into america, centering around his attitudes towards language (along with, some interesting reflections on religion and politics). his theoretical abstractions are eloquent and enjoyable to read, and the book is also haunted by a beautiful but sad mood of mourning and nostalgia.
****the woman warrior (maxine hong-kingston) ~ a beautiful blend of fact and fiction constitutes this "autobiography". this book is well worth the read whether you are asian or not, whether you care about identity politics or not. it is basically a sort of asian american magical realism that tells about the delicate and complicated relationship between a mother and her daughter.

comics (what a narrative lies behind this! this is a private shoutout)
****sandman book #9: the kindly ones (neil gaiman) ~ the climatic book of the sandman series. i don't want to say too much, but despite the initially unsatisfying flat artwork, the book completely carries away. and it does an amazing character development of morpheus, touching upon a variety of different themes: unbearable weight, the desire to escape the mistakes one has made, the inability to change, weariness... anyways, this book is REALLY GOOD. you SHOULD READ IT! (but in order to do that, you need to read the first 8 books of the series.... remember: finish book 2 before deciding whether or not to go forward because book 1 is a somewhat awkward oddity, that is not representative of the rest of the series).
***sandman book #10: the wake (neil gaiman) ~ the denouement of the 10 book sandman series. a glimpse at funerals and contemplations on the meaning of death. and, most notably, a final particularly impactful glimpse at shakespeare's the tempest that can only be really appreciate if you've read the whole comic series, which you should do by the way.
***v for vendetta (alan moore) ~ the book behind the movie and in many ways, better than movie. evey's character had a much more a desperate yet naiive and innocent touch to her. her transformation even more striking. but what i loved about this book was its markedly ambiguous ending.