We can never be clean

Wise Blood
Flannery O'Connor

In Flannery O'Connor's first novel, Hazel Motes, grandson of an evangelical preacher, wants to escape his disturbing understanding of God. Haunted by Christ and unable to escape Him, Motes founds the Church of Christ Without Christ and preaches his ideas to any and all who would listen.

Unfortunately, things happen that stand in his way. And then OTHER things happen which are (a) pretty crazy, (b) contrary to Motes' actions and purported beliefs, and (c) provide the reader with O'Connor's opinions regarding Roman Catholicism.

Clearly, Wise Blood is a Very Important Book with Very Important Things to Say. That much is clear. Additionally, the prose is as fresh and as clear as a mountain spring. (Did I really just write that? I'm sorry.) Anyway, the point is, I was able to tear through this novel in a matter of hours.

At right: Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes

And now, for the single drawback: I couldn't connect emotionally to the book at all. I felt bad for Motes at times (especially by the end of the novel), but I didn't understand him. I "get" what O'Connor is trying to say via his character, but Motes himself is alien to me.

That said, Wise Blood is obviously profound and thought-provoking: I finished the book a couple of weeks ago and have been turning it over in my mind ever since. But that doesn't mean I enjoyed the experience.

Is that necessary, though? To a certain extent, it is -- for me, at least.

In a nutshell: A classic that is not necessarily enjoyable, but one that will leave you pondering for days.

Bibliolatry Scale: 4 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Another Christmas present! Thus, no icky ties to disclose.

The triffids will kill us all

The Day of the Triffids
John Wyndham

I must thank m'dear Biblibio for bringing The Day of the Triffids to my attention. I'd been woefully ignorant of this novel; what made it so good?

A short look online prompted me to nab the book -- it seemed like something I would love. And I did -- I read it all in one large gulp. The prose is simple and straight-forward, the plot compelling. The two combined created a novel that I couldn't stop reading until I had finished.

The novel begins as Bill Masen, in the hospital with a bandaged head and covered eyes, realizes something has gone horribly wrong outside. He soon comes to understand that nearly everyone has gone completely blind -- the result of staring at a celestial phenomenon the day before. Fortunately for Masen, his recent injury had prevented him from witnessing the phenomenon (something that had angered him at the time, but which later seems to be quite fortunate).

At right: some crazy triffids

Masen leaves his room and searches for survivors. There aren't many though -- and, what's worse, he's got the triffids to contend with. These mobile, carnivorous plants began appearing all over the world years before. Despite their dangerous nature, triffids became quite a lucrative enterprise and were thus cultivated in spades. Now, as the triffids begin killing the helpless blind, that decision doesn't seem too intelligent.

Are the triffids connected to this worldwide blindness? And can the survivors rebuild? How can they prevent the inevitable return to savagery? Will the triffids claim the earth?

In a nutshell: Spooky, thought-provoking, and prescient, The Day of the Triffids is a classic that shouldn't be missed.

Bibliolatry Scale: 5 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Bought this one meself, suckers!

Technology implies belligerence

Blindsight
Peter Watts

Ok, so, full disclosure: Blindsight has proven that coleslaw is more intelligent than I am. This novel is certainly not for the faint of heart; it discusses the nature of consciousness, delves into bio and genetic engineering, and ponders the essence of human (and alien) life.

Sometimes, I didn't know quite what was happening in the novel, and yet (oddly enough) that didn't hinder my reading. While I might not have understood all the finer points, I *think* understood the greater points. For the most part.

Here's my pitiful attempt at a summary: Somewhere in our solar system (near Jupiter? Saturn? the Oort? ef it -- doesn't really matter), we find evidence of an alien presence. So we send a group of individuals to investigate. And, because making it that far is kinda hard, we like shrink-wrap them or something. At any rate, they're really wrinkly when they come out. Oh, and they're all modified in some way -- ah, our dependence on technology. It'll be the end of us. Or will it?

So, anyway, journey journey journey - and voila! Aliens. Can we communicate with these beings? Are the scramblers even sentient? Is sentience the same thing as consciousness? (I'm still not sure.) And what the ef are they even building? (I'm still not sure.) And what's going on back at earth? (I'm still not sure. Actually, I don't know if we're meant to be sure. So THAT's good.)

At right: my mental image of Watts' "scramblers." Minus the happy smile, of course.

In Blindsight, Watts gives readers an ambitious novel that discusses a variety of topics. While many have to do with the future, one point remains all-too-relevant: that of technology slowly encroaching upon all aspects of life, finally controlling (and even suffocating) us. Will we ever break the chains?? (Not any time soon, according to Watts. Although we probably should.)

In a nutshell: Difficult, ambitious, thought-provoking -- and unlike anything I've read before, Blindsight presents a future in which technology has come to control us.

Bibliolatry Scale: 4 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: This is another present from Santa. HOWEVER, you can read it online, seemingly in its entirety, here.

Memories are worse than bullets

The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Whew! My first read of 2010 was of the magical kind, the type of novel you don't ever want to put down and the kind that haunts you after you do.

Do you even need a summary of this book? Because I feel like the last person to have read it. Also, it seems as though it's the type of novel that defies easy summary, and I am feeling particularly lazy today. (Today, you're thinking? As opposed to how you feel everyday!?!?! Touche, reader, touche. And, ouch.)

Anyway, here's something via Amazon:

The time is the 1950s; the place, Barcelona. Daniel Sempere, the son of a widowed bookstore owner, is 10 when he discovers a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julián Carax. The novel is rare, the author obscure, and rumors tell of a horribly disfigured man who has been burning every copy he can find of Carax's novels. The man calls himself Laín Coubert -- the name of the devil in one of Carax's novels. As he grows up, Daniel's fascination with the mysterious Carax links him to a blind femme fatale with a "porcelain gaze," Clara Barceló; another fan, a leftist jack-of-all-trades, Fermín Romero de Torres; his best friend's sister, the delectable Beatriz Aguilar; and, as he begins investigating the life and death of Carax, a cast of characters with secrets to hide. Officially, Carax's dead body was dumped in an alley in 1936. But discrepancies in this story surface. Meanwhile, Daniel and Fermín are being harried by a sadistic policeman, Carax's childhood friend. As Daniel's quest continues, frightening parallels between his own life and Carax's begin to emerge.

Ok so that was a lot better than I'm capable of doing right now. Suffice to say, I loved reading this novel; it was fun, it was engaging, it was about books, and -- this is key -- the ending was perfect, in a heart-wrenching kind of way.

For some reason, though, I can't give it a perfect score. Why? I'm not sure. At times it was too perfect; I also have beef over some points that seemed important at the time but then didn't come to much. But these are minor quibbles. And I'm giving it a nearly perfect score, anyway.

However, this book made me feel like A Really Stupid American. Spain had a civil war?? That happened when??? For real? Who knew? Clearly, not me. To wikipedia I go!

In a nutshell: Fun, magical, both highbrow and lowbrow -- what's not to love?

Bibliolatry Scale: 5.5 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Santa left this one at my mom's house, and she was kind enough to pass it along. Many thanks, mom!

Bibliolatry's most anticipated books of 2010

Many litblogs, most notably The Millions, has posted a list of highly-anticipated books that are coming out this year. Those lists, however, are not MINE.

With that in mind, I give you Bibliolatry's most-anticipated books of 2010! No need for applause.


Remarkable Creatures
Tracy Chevalier

Arrives: January

Synopsis (via Amazon):From the moment she's struck by lightening as a baby, it is clear that Mary Anning is marked for greatness. On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, she learns that she has "the eye"-and finds what no one else can see. When Mary uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious fathers on edge, the townspeople to vicious gossip, and the scientific world alight. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is barred from the academic community; as a young woman with unusual interests she is suspected of sinful behavior. Nature is a threat, throwing bitter, cold storms and landslips at her. And when she falls in love, it is with an impossible man. Luckily, Mary finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a recent exile from London, who also loves scouring the beaches.


Black Hills
Dan Simmons

Arrives: February

Synopsis (via Amazon): When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, "counts coup" on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general's ghost enters him - and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life. Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans.


Beatrice and Virgil
Yann Martel

Arrives: April

Synopsis (via Amazon): A famous author receives a mysterious letter from a man who is a struggling writer but also turns out to be a taxidermist, an eccentric and fascinating character who does not kill animals but preserves them as they lived, with skill and dedication — among them a howler monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice....


The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
David Mitchell

Arrives: June

Synopsis (via Amazon): The year is 1799, the place Dejima, the "high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island" that is the Japanese Empire's single port and sole window to the world. It is also the farthest-flung outpost of the powerful Dutch East Indies Company. To this place of superstition and swamp fever, crocodiles and courtesans, earthquakes and typhoons, comes Jacob de Zoet. The young, devout and ambitious clerk must spend five years in the East to earn enough money to deserve the hand of his wealthy fiancée. But Jacob's intentions are shifted, his character shaken and his soul stirred when he meets Orito Aibagawa, the beautiful and scarred daughter of a Samurai, midwife to the island's powerful magistrate. In this world where East and West are linked by one bridge, Jacob sees the gaps shrink between pleasure and piety, propriety and profit. e


The Hunger Games: Book 3
Suzanne Collins

Arrives: August

Synopsis (via Amazon): There isn't any yet. But we all know it's gonna be good anyway.







So what books are YOU anticipating this year? I know I've probably omitted dozens of good ones.

OATES: My first-ever challenge!

Have you heard about the O.A.T.E.S. Challenge?!

As a rule, I generally avoid all reading challenges, simply because I always stubbornly refuse to do anything that feels like an actual task. I'm lazy; I can't help it.

BUT, when Trish over at Hey Lady! announced the OATES challenge, I knew I had to join. Doing so is an extra kick-in-the-pants that will (hopefully) force me to complete as much of my reading resolution as I possibly can. I have all of 2010 to do this, so I'm thinking positively. I CAN DO THIS.

The rules are simple: Starting with Joyce Carol Oates as O, choose any literary author whose name begins with A, T, E, or S. My list looks like this:

O = Joyce Carol Oates
A = Anne Radcliffe
T = Leo Tolstoy, Anthony Trollope
E = George Eliot, Edith Wharton
S = Stefan Zweig

I haven't yet decided what level of the challenge I will meet (will I read one book per author, or more?) because too many rules make me squishy. I'm just proud I've given a challenge a try.

Wish me luck!

It cannot have happened. It happened.

The Egyptologist
Arthur Phillips

I think this book is cursed.

I received this on Christmas morn, thanks to Santa. (Ok, it was my husband.) And I squee-ed with glee, because I loved Phillips' Angelica, and I love All Things Egypt, hence I knew I would love The Egyptologist. I began reading it the day after Christmas, and I was hooked from the opening pages.

And then the unthinkable happened. Shuffling across my living room in my cheap, shoddy slippers, I tripped -- I kid you not -- over what could only have been air. The pile of stuff in my hands -- The Egyptologist among the items -- went flying to the four corners of the room as I fell to the floor. I watched my prized novel tumble down slowly, turning over and over and over again (clearly, this happened in slow motion, mind you), and I watched as it landed a few feet away from me. To give you a visual of the event and how I went down like a ton of bricks (although stairs were not involved), I present Exhibit A:

Upon my recovery, I stood, dazed and slightly injured (have no fear, ducks, I am fine), and raced to my dear Phillips. Alas, he did not fare so well. The spine was cracked, the first third of the book lying at a painful angle. The cover was maimed, and a black Sharpie only partially masked the damage. My heart, however, fared far worse. Of all my new books, I prized this one most highly. AND IT LOOKS LIKE A TURD RIGHT NOW.

Anyway. I bring this up because The Egyptologist is GLORIOUS, it is breathtaking, it is heartbreaking -- oh Trilipush! Alas. AND THEN my dear Heather J. tells me that NEARLY NO ONE in the blogosphere likes The Egyptologist, save for us. SAY WHAT?!?!?! Error 404 Page not found. Does not compute. And so on.

Ok fine, let me tell you about the book. There's some Egypt. And some unreliability. (Done right, mind you, unlike, say, THIS.) And, there's a bit of a mystery. And while the great revelation concerning said mystery becomes clear to anyone with a brain about halfway through, that's not the point. The point is how different people totally misread the obvious signs that are right in front of them. It's about yearning, and about loss, and about wanting to be greater than we are. It's also gripping and the ending is INSANE. Trilipush!

So, you should read it. And, because my summary sucks and is mostly about me, here's the summary from Arthur Phillips' website:

Just as Howard Carter unveils the tomb of Tutankhamun, making the most dazzling find in the history of archaeology, Oxford-educated Egyptologist Ralph Trilipush is digging himself into trouble, having staked his professional reputation and his fiancée's fortune on a scrap of hieroglyphic pornography. Meanwhile, a relentless Australian detective sets off on the case of his career, spanning the globe in search of a murderer. And another murderer. And possibly another murderer. The confluence of these seemingly separate stories results in an explosive ending, at once inevitable and utterly unpredictable.

In a nutshell: Read this, dear friends. And don't ef your copy up like I did.

Bibliolatry Scale: 5.5 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: Dear Santa brought me this one. No strings attached here.

Kinda mediocre and somewhat offensive

The Moth Diaries
Rachel Klein

First of all, I'd just like to say that I read this book in 2009. I caught a bad bug that spanned both decades (sounds crazy right? Not really), which prevented me from updating sooner.

Okay, so the pros: It was a fast read (I read it in one day). It features an unreliable narrator, and unreliability is always super fun. There may or may not be a vampire in it. (The uncertainty! Sqee!) And...did I mention this was a fast read? BAM!

Unfortunately, I felt the cons outweighed the pros: I can't put my finger on it, exactly, but The Moth Diaries just didn't sit right with me. The writing was okay, the plot was okay, the characters were okay. But nothing made me stand up and say good morning, know what I mean? Unlike THIS:

a really, REALLY big moth (and random child)
Good morning!

Also, there is this whole condescending tone of "mental illness as something you choose," which REALLY didn't sit well with me at all. See, the point of the book is that EITHER our narrator is crazy OR ELSE there really is a creepy vamp stalking her schoolmates. Of course, it doesn't help that said narrator is taking a course in Gothic Lit and so therefore may be projecting. Then again, her good friend, who is most likely the vamp's #1 Target, IS named Lucy (a nod to Dracula, right?), so maybe Klein is directing us to the fact that the other chick IS a vamp. WHO KNOWS? (insert dramatic music here)

Now, this is sorta (but not really) spoilerish: The mystery is never truly resolved. Insane narrator? Vamp? The reader must decide. Our narrator, however, has apparently decided it's the former. At the end of the book, she's all: "I just had to decide to become human" or some shit and I was like -- eh? Because you were totally diagnosed as borderline personality + paranoia and a whole bunch of other stuff that is kinda not like a choice. I just felt like that was a shitty way to end the book, but no judgment from me or anything. (SARCASM)

In a nutshell: Kinda mediocre and somewhat offensive.

Bibliolatry Scale: 2 out of 6 stars

FTCBS: This one was purchased for me as a Christmas present. (Sorry, mommy! Don't worry: I liked the next one better.)

Reading Resolution: 2010

Another year is here, so it must be time for another Reading Resolution. You might remember last year's resolution, which I bombed.

That, however, is okay. This is less a "to do" list than it is a guiding hand. I aim to read these 80, but, if I don't, life will go on. And if something else catches my fancy this year, I plan to read it without feeling the pangs of guilt I felt last year.

Have you read any of these? Any recommendations?

Ahmed, The Land of Invisible Women
Avant, If God were Real
Balzac, Cousin Bette
Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece
Bambara, The Salt Eaters
Barry, The Secret Scripture
Bolano, The Savage Detectives
Buckley, Boomsday
Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Chevalier, Burning Bright
Conescu, Being Written
Connolly, Nocturnes
Cox, The Meaning of Night
Daniels, Futureproof
Davis, The Thin Place
Dick, Dr. Bloodmoney
Dick, Now Wait for Last Year
Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, A Scanner Darkly
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes
Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Eliot, The Lifted Veil
Eliot, Brother Jacob
Groff, The Monsters of Templeton
Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
Herbert, The White Plague
Hickey, The Painted Kiss
Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island
Hugo, Les Miserables
Keret, The Girl on the Fridge
King, Under the Dome
Langan, The Keeper
Levine, Illegal
Listfield, Best Intentions
Maazel, Last Last Chance
MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees
MacLean, Why the Long Face?
Mann, Death in Venice
McCabe, The Butcher Boy
Meek, The People's Act of Love
Oates, Because it is Bitter, and Because it is my Heart
Oates, Little Bird of Heaven
Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys
O'Connor, Wise Blood
Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl
Parker, Ovenman
Pattillo, Mr. Darcy Broke my Heart
Peace, Tokyo Year Zero
Pears, The Dream of Scipio
Picardie, Daphne
Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Powers, The Echo Maker
Powers, Generosity
Preston, The Monster of Florence
Price, Clockers
Pyncheon, V
Radcliffe, The Italian
Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Rice, Blood and Gold
Russell, St. Lucy's Home
Straub, Ghost Story
Stross, Accelerando
Svoboda, Trailer Girl
Teuthold, The Necromancer
Thomson, Soft
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, War and Peace
Trollope, Barchester Towers
Wallace, Oblivion
Watts, Blindsight
Wellington, Monster Island
Wharton, The House of Mirth
Wharton, The Buccaneers
White, The Aunt's Story
White, Voss
Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
Zweig, Beware of Pity


TOTAL = 80

TOTAL READ = 5