Lying by my computer, idly reading, feeling sorry for myself (rotten throat and head…not good..intravenous orange juice and two dressing gowns over normal clothes, plus two duvets and a lot of laziness and cushions has been self prescribed and self administered) and dozily refreshing blog surfer, e-mail etc for the last hour or so.
Anyway, someone put up a book meme, I realised I actually had answers to all the questions, and I guess this’ll help fend of the fact I’m posting so erratically lately, even if it is cheating.
So here goes. I don’t really tag people, so tag yourself if that floats your boat much.
One book that changed your life
The Passion of New Eve, Angela Carter
Totally got my mind going overtime. This book turned me on to post modern conceptions of gender and made me really start to get fired up about gender politics in general. I’ve come a long way since then, but this, along with Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’ were the books that got me into feminism in a very real way. This book genuinely reformed my identity in ways that are still integral to everything I am. So I guess it qualifies. My initial thoughts (run through the filter of academic hogwash, and writing before I’d really let my thoughts settle) can be found here.
One book that you’ve read more than once
Magician, by Raymond E Feist
Once as a hot and horny adventure craving teenager. I ended up eating the second two books in the space of a week by skiving off school and hiding in a dimly lit bedroom. Appropriate as that’s almost what I’m doing now, except I booked the time off, and fell ill…so it’s entirely different because I’m losing my time, not theirs.
Damn.
Anyway, then I read it again after I finished my degree to try and get the smell of stale literature out of my skull. Kinda like a cold shower to refresh my head. This made it one of the books that helped me re-discover my joy of reading for readings sake, which I was losing for large chunks of the degree. It’s hard to find a balance between enjoyment and analysis sometimes, but I needed a summers worth of lightweight (but enjoyable) reading.
I slowly eased myself back in.
One book you’d want on a desert island
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
I almost said the Tao Te Ching, but I think I’d just get frustrated. This book is rich and thick and deep and intricate, I think it could take me years to really get bored of it. Not that I’d get bored of the Tao Te Ching, but I don’t think I’d be able to get lost in it as easily.
Anwyay, the Murakami just totally fascinated me. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to read about alienation and isolation whilst stuck on a desert island, but I can’t think of anything I’ve ever read that’s been rich enough to last me more than one or two readings and still give me pause for thought and an emotional hit. However, I have only read it once, so I may be wrong.
One book that made you laugh
Catch-22, Joseph Heller.
Obvious choice really. But then, most books make me laugh, so I thought this was an odd question. This one, however, would not just make me laugh, but make me read out whole passages to people, then laugh again, then read it again to myself, then laugh. Also, at times it would make me laugh, then cry, then flip back to laughing within the space of half a page. I mean…that’s good writing, write there. Intense, lush, emotional and hilarious.
One book that made you cry
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K Dick
When he finds the toad at the end. Hit me like a brick. A book about empathy that I empathised with more than anything else I’ve ever read. Read it, and you might understand. I’ve got more thoughts in my dissertation (teeming with stuff that needs editing) here. But again, this is full of spoilers for really, really good books. So steer clear unless you’ve read them.
One book that you wish had been written
Owl in the Daylight, Philip K Dick
The planned third part of Dick’s VALIS ‘trilogy’. There’s a transcript of his last interviews published as ‘Maybe our world is their heaven’ or something similar. It gives the impression he was just about to start writing this just before he died. The idea explained in the interview sounds brilliant, all about religious experience, light, noise, alien sensation and the mind in general. I’m sure it would have morphed more if he ever got writing, and would’ve been incredible. But it’s lost, another one of those sad stories.
I’ve been intending to steal the title for ages, but never found the right piece to fit it. Which probably goes to show.
One book that you wish had never been written
I can’t do it.
I’ve been tempted by a few, but I don’t mean it. Anything that gets people reading, even the most horrendously brainless trash, gets people thinking. And reading. And that’s always good. People need to know stuff. All those ludicrously cheap romance, crime or military novels, even Harry fucking Potter, have a place, and they represent something magical, mysterious and fantastical to someone.
So I can’t.
Sorry.
Two books you’re currently reading
Right now (as in literally, it’s wedged open in front of me, waiting for me to get to the end of this post), I’m rereading Michael Marshall Smith’s ‘One of Us’.
It’s damn good fun and it’s just getting seriously deep now. This guys language has caught up with the strength of his ideas, humour and dialogue. At this point he’s really starting to move me, though he always did. I recommend all his novels (though I’ve not read the modern day stuff, only the SF). So rich with ideas, so perceptive, and all laugh out loud funny.
Also got a bookmark wedged in Angela Carter’s ‘Bloody Chamber’, been meaning to read Company of Wolves so I can watch the film, and not quite got round to it.
And I’ve been halfway through Heinlein’s ‘Time Enough for Love’ for almost six years now. One day I’ll get there. If there’s time enough.
One book you’ve been meaning to read
All of them, perhaps?
Yes, All of them.
Though I’m pretty sure there ain’t time enough. The Sea Witch has been recommending me ‘Amaryllis Night and Day’ or something similar for the last few months, but she keeps refusing to give it to me. When she relents, I think that’ll be my next. (Subtle hint there).
That or just pick up something random and see if it grabs me. Or more Murakami, I might be ready for that again…
Ooh, I’m all excited about reading now. This has been fun.
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Quite a book reader, you are. Except Catch-22 I had not heard of the others.
But way you have written, I am very curious to read Magician.
And get well soon!
I enjoyed Catch 22 as well but as for the others…. fuck me you’re erudite! That’s an impressive list, mine would be full of stuff like Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Dr Seuss and Goschiny and Uderzo… not that I’m an intellectual retard or anything but… ;-)
Cheers
BC
Most of it’s just SF and Fantasy stuff. Not exactly high-brow, unless you take it that way. Murakami and Carter are the only ‘literary figures’ there, though I highly recommend them, as both are readable and…well….post modern enough to not be too boring.
Magician is just well written fluff really. Young boys inherit mystical powers and stuff. It’s good, it’s well written, and there’s just enough weight and emotion to it. Plus the Riftwar trilogy ties in with the Empire trilogy, which is a seriously good series. With a little bit more depth and intrigue.
Plus, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Discworld, HitchHikers, rhyming and Aserix. All definite favourites of mine.
Your wish had and hadn’t lists are beautiful.
Have you read Greg Egan? (If not, he’s easy to find online. Some of his published stories are also available at his site though there is something I prefer about reading that kind of stuff from books).
reminds me of a habit I developed at university of deiberately reading things with as little literary merit as possible during the summer. I generally did this by choosing books with paintings on the covers, usually of either a wizard, a spaceship, or a dude with an axe. The flaw in this was that I once read ‘Battlefield Earth’. The plus was that I read ‘Magician’-awesome book-good call man!
Have read Greg Egan, just some of the stories from Axiomatic. They made an impact at the time, but I’ve forgotten them now, which means they are probably due a revisit. Good all. Having said that, I’m currently back in a ‘literature; patch, so it may be a while (I finished Michael Marshall Smith, read what I wanted to from Bloody Chamber, and gone back to some older Murakami…just so we’re all up to date….plus the Sea Witch has given me the Russel Hoban she promised me, so that’s on the way too).
As for judging books by their covers to ensure trashy mindless reading to escape the drudgeries of university edumacation…
Well, to be honest, I found that because of my love of deconstructing trash as well as canonical treasure, I found that any fiction I read I’d end up analysing and critiquing. This meant that my ‘escapism’ at Uni was generally reading Science books. Not the heavyweight, just the more in depth end of the pop sci market. Learnt a lot about Chaos and Evolution of the mind and some such stuff. So hard to get your head around that it’s hard for the literary lens to get a look in.
Which was ideal.
I like to keep my fingers in a lot of pies. Which, when you think about it, is a weird metaphor. Pies are for eating…not poking.
Ah well.
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