Tag: book recommendations

Book Notes: Anthony Trollope’s Cousin Henry

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

Trollope is my favorite Victorian novelist, both as a writer and a human being, and I always read something by him when weather gets colder and nights grew longer because he’s such a cozy author. What an extraordinary culture the one that he describes! What a lovely way of being! The system of property relations and the legal system are just amazing, especially if you are aware what was in existence in other places at the time. If you believe that Jane Austen didn’t write enough, you should be reading Trollope who wrote a stunning lot and in a similar, if somewhat more complex and elevated fashion.

Cousin Henry is an uncharacteristically short novel about the costs of indecisiveness. The Welsh squire Indefer Jones and his nephew Henry Jones are tragically indecisive, and the way that the author immerses us in their inner travails is priceless. The reason the Joneses vacillate so much is that they can’t figure out how to reconcile what they want with the strict moral code that was inculcated in them since infancy. This is Victorian literature, so of course, the moral code always wins, and that’s a good thing in Trollope’s universe of characters and events.

Some of Trollope’s novels can get heavy but Cousin Henry is very easy to read, clear and to-the-point. If you don’t have a lot of time to read but want to experience something high-quality, this novel could be just the ticket.

Miranda July vs Moa Herngren

~ Clarissa ~ 12 Comments

Miranda July (the author of All Fours) is more artistically gifted than Moa Herngren (the author of The Divorce). Still, if you are in the mood for a novel about the midlife crisis, I’d recommend Herngren.

For one, The Divorce gives space to both female and male experience of being in their early fifties. Herngren decided not to follow the fashionable trend of turning male characters into props who sit around waiting, supportively and silently, while their wives thrash around menopausally, destroying everything in sight. Herngren’s depiction of the male middle-aged life weariness is nuanced, kind, and very realistic.

Another reason is that Herngren’s characters aren’t rich, clueless bastards. These are regular people who struggle to pay the mortgage and worry about money. Most people can’t just drop everything and start bed-hopping around the country when middle age hits because nobody is rich enough for that. Herngren writes about normal, everyday people, and that makes the book a lot more useful. Middle age is difficult, and The Divorce reads like a handbook of what can go wrong and how to prevent it.

Of course, if All Fours were a literary masterpiece, none of this would matter. But it’s not. There’s talent there but not remotely enough to justify choosing this novel over The Divorce.

I recommend The Divorce very highly, even though the author piles it on way too thick to make her characters as representative of their type as possible. Besides, I’m eager to discuss it, so if you’ve read it or are planning to read, please make yourself known.

Vargas Llosa to Speak at St. Louis University!

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

You probably think we have all just fallen off our pumpkin carts here, in St. Louis Metro area, right? Well, think again. Our cultural life is rich and vigorous. Next Monday, for example, Mario Vargas Llosa, the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, the greatest Peruvian writer and my favorite living Latin American writer (and he’s just one person, too), will be speaking at St. Louis University:

Noted author Mario Vargas Llosa will receive the 2011 Saint Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates at a special event from 5:30-6:45 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, in the Anheuser-Busch Auditorium at SLU’s John Cook School of Business, 3674 Lindell Blvd. A book signing with the author begins at 4:30 p.m., followed by the presentation of the award and a conversation with Vargas Llosa led by Olga Arbeláez, Ph.D., professor of Spanish in the University’s department of modern and classical languages.

To say that I’m excited is an understatement of the month.

If you haven’t read anything by Vargas Llosa, please, please do. He is really amazing. Garcia Marquez doesn’t deserve to bring him his slippers (in my highly subjective opinion). The writer’s books are all translated into English.

You can start with his early work Cubs. It’s short and much easier to read than the writer’s longer novels. And, of course, Vargas Llosa’s great novel The War of the End of the World is highly recommended. People often disagree but I think this novel is his masterpiece. For the romantically minded, Vargas Llosa’s attempt at a non misogynist Latin American novel about love, The Bad Girl, might be of interest.

If you follow the links I provided, you will see that Vargas Llosa’s books can be acquired very cheaply.

My sincere gratitude goes to Nancy P, a long-time reader of this blog who informed me of this important event.