Richard Adams, Watership Down

I finished Watership Down sometime in July, I think. Like Cold Mountain, it was another Walla Walla Goodwill find, and I picked it up because it was a classic and because I had the vague sense that my brother-in-law and/or sister owned and probably recommended it.

I had a hard time getting into it, but did keep plugging along, and was rewarded for that. Although it's ostensibly a children's book, an an adventure at that, it sometimes seemed a bit mired down and slow. And long! Heavens! It was nearly 500 pages.

Still, it was at times quite engaging indeed. Surprisingly to me, it also provided some keen and interesting insights on the development of religion. And despite feeling generally less moved throughout the tale than I thought I might be, I was caught off-guard by the Epilogue, which completely sneaked up on me and make me cry. As I've mentioned before, I'm a crier.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins is a pompous ass, and the title of his new book is so unabashedly combative that I consistently found myself hiding it. I began reading it not long after I finished The Pillars of the Earth (or perhaps before, come to think of it), but was too embarrassed to add the title to the "currently reading" section of my blog (hence the very long delay in updating the book blog at all!).

I finally finished it, with some relief, last week. Although it's not terribly esoteric (which should probably be credited to Dawkins as a triumph, given his background), it is rather dense, in addition to being witheringly dismissive of those he seems to perceive as being unintelligent enough to disagree with his own arguments--and thus rather tiring.

It is quite brilliantly written; I think I discovered only one typographical error in the entire book, and pictured the professor himself perusing the proofs.

As far as content, I remain undecided. He presents compelling arguments for his point of view, yet his attempt to disprove the existence of God from the point of science seems somewhat misguided. He seems to believe that science should, and will, be able to understand or prove everything at some point, even if it can't right now, and I'm not sure a scientific approach is really the best way to go about discussing something like God.

When I went to Amazon for the image at the top of this post, I saw at least eight books directly confronting Dawkins' text on the first page of search results alone, so it's clear that he and his aggressively-entitled tome have stirred up some strong feelings. I am interested, and somewhat heartened, to see that there is at least a debate going on. Ignoring texts that conflict with one's worldview may be the quickest way to a quiet and unencumbered existence, but I don't believe it makes the world a better place.

Ken Follet, The Pillars of The Earth

The copy of The Pillars of the Earth that I read--loaned to me by a friend who had read it in her book club--was 983 pages long. Still, I polished it off much more quickly than the far shorter Mrs. Dalloway.

I finished the book in April, and am only just getting around to writing my review, but other than it being long, I mostly remember it as being not at well written, nonetheless highly engaging, and overall rather violent. It was rather like television, actually--perhaps an extended miniseries. It was highly descriptive, and certainly a page-turner, while still being almost unabashedly fluff. Almost, that is, because of its passages on Gothic architecture, which, although it's not my specialty, I at least found non-egregious if not particularly enlightening either.

Additionally, although the characters weren't always believable--the villains, in particular, being fairly consistently one-dimensional--the book did paint a fascinating portrait of life in the 12th century, and how much modern technology allows us to take for granted. Again, not precisely quality, but a quick-paced and interesting story that did get my heart pounding at times.

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

This was another Christmas present, again from my dad. I'd somehow made it this far in my life without reading any Virginia Woolf, although I had read The Hours several years ago, which lent at least the first part of Mrs. Dalloway a somewhat eerie déjà vu.

The omniscient perspective, it has always seemed to me, is a tricky voice to pull off in a novel, but Woolf handles it with aplomb. And, wow, if I thought The Manticore was hypermetacognitive, this one easily beats it, despite the former's use of psychoanalytical terminology, by sheer numbers of those cogitating.

It's a short novel, but neither compact nor concise; I found it took much longer and demanded more concentration than anything else I'd read recently. It was accordingly also somewhat tiring, because of its intricate descriptions, meandering sentences, and a nagging sensation (at least for me) that something very bad was going to happen. Still, its understanding and depiction of depression, madness, and the relationships between men and women were fascinating, and perhaps more so given its location in a very specific time and place. I don't have a desire to return to it any time soon, but am very glad to have read it and to have experienced the Woolf.

Louise Rennison, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson was another of my sister's Christmas gifts to me. A very short, quick read, it was not my usual fare, but provided plenty of laughing and snorting out loud. Written as the diary of a 14-year old schoolgirl, it is rife with British slang, which I do find generally delightful.

The tale is very far from anything I experienced my first year of high school, but I never know what kids are up to these days. I'd be interested to know how representative it is!

Richard Morgan, Woken Furies

I had reserved both Broken Angels and Woken Furies at the library, and this one actually came in first, so as soon as I finished the latter, I started this one. I finished both in about a week.

There were passages in Woken Furies that felt oddly as though someone else were trying to imitate Morgan's style, but without his panache. It was a disturbing effect, and I didn't know whether he'd actually turned over the writing, changed editors, or just lost the edge. It also made me wonder whether the flawless language in the earlier books was due less to his intelligence (and Britishness) than to a really good editor. Thankfully, those stretches were short and few, and didn't ruin the entire novel.

Of the three Takeshi Kovacs novels I've read, this one revealed most clearly, I thought, exactly how unlikable the protagonist can be. "Antihero" is putting it lightly. Kovacs is ruthless, violent, and driven by an irrational revenge. Still, it's a tribute to Morgan's craft that you can't help pulling for him.

The third novel was also full of genuinely impressive plot twists building on the worlds created in the earlier books. Morgan reveals that his intricate universe continues to reveal productive, fascinating, and highly entertaining possibilities.

Richard Morgan, Broken Angels

Broken Angels is the sequel to Altered Carbon, which I read twice this spring/summer. I didn't think it was quite to the level of Morgan's first Takeshi Kovacs novel, but it was similarly gripping, creative, and entertaining.

Morgan's writing is cinematic, deftly weaving vivid scenes that immerse you in his carefully-crafted fictive world. Although this novel did not seem quite as fast-faced and intricate as Altered Carbon, it was a worthy sequel and certainly an enjoyable read.

Richard Morgan, Altered Carbon

In my Time and Interactivity Seminar, I met a woman who, like me, was interested in cyborgs, and she and I ended up presenting on that subject on the same day. When we met at the Bad Waitress to talk about what each of us would be presenting, she mentioned this book to me, and loaned it to me at the next class period.

It looks like pure pulp sci-fi, especially its purplish, holographic cover, and I wasn't too sure about it. Plus, it's long--an inch and a half thick, and 534 pages--and so it didn't look like the sort of thing I could just breeze through and return. Still, I was about ready for something new to read, and accepted it.

In good sci-fi/cyberpunk fashion, the story opens right into the fictive world, terms and concepts undefined and left to the reader to work out. It makes for a bit of work at the beginning, but is not overwhelming and is well worth it. Morgan, an educated Brit, weaves a creative, carefully crafted, novel that is part cyberpunk, part noir detective story. His writing is highly literate, and, like the story, is articulate and complex, yet exciting and engaging.

Especially fascinating for me were the concepts introduced and the questions raised: what does death mean if the entire mind can be downloaded and re-uploaded? what does it mean to live in a previously-inhabited body? what about a synthetic body? how would it feel to know someone was wearing your old body? how much of attraction is embodied or chemical?

It might sound a little loopy... but I ended up writing a short paper on it (in relation to Henri Bergson's ideas about memory) and reading it twice. So there it is.