Entries tagged with books

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books

captain blood was very appropriately named, it turned out

I had to stop reading A Hundred Years of Solitude about halfway through because the pedo shit creeped me out too much. I can't tell if I'm just being too lol sensitive and should give it another chance. It's not for school or anything so I don't feel obligated to finish, but I'm wondering if I should bother. I really like the genre and the way Garcia Marquez write, so I don't know. DO YOU HAVE THOUGHTS, FLIST?

I do really fucking love Isabel Allende, though. I'm reading Paula now and I finished Zorro a few months ago. Zorro had some flaws. The ending was a bit of a let-down, but I really fucking loved it because IT WAS THE FIRST BOOK I EVER READ ENTIRELY IN SPANISH. \o/ Well, I did read El Dador (The Giver) a few years ago, but I don't think that counts because I've read that a bunch of times in English. Also, Zorro was about pirates and a dude's somewhat misguided mission for ~*~social justice~*~, which is more than you can say for, for example, Captain Blood.

FUN STORY ABOUT CAPTAIN BLOOD: someone writes it for Yuletide every year so I guess I can't be the only one, but what pissed me off is that on the back of the book it's described as "a swashbuckling tale with a strong anti-slavery message." Which sounds awesome! Except...the book is about a white guy who gets sold to a sugar plantation in Barbados in the 1600s and then escapes to become a pirate. And all the black characters are both slaves and evil henchmen to the main bad guy. So I guess the "anti-slavery message" was that "slavery is bad...for white people," which I somehow don't think was that progressive, even in 1922, when the book was published.

My bff always laughs at me, though, because even though it's been three years I STILL CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE CAPTAIN BLOOD. It is the Space Mutiny of pirate novels.

Current Music: "Nothing Can Change This Love," Sam Cooke

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boooooooooks

I reread The House of the Spirits this week because I'd like to try to read it in Spanish and I figure it'll be helpful to reread and also because some of it is, quite simply, LOLZY AS SHIT. For instance! There is the part where their grandmother Nívea is decapitated in a car accident and, using her incredibly annoying clairvoyant powers, Clara finds her head and promptly afterward goes into labor with twins. So the head gets stashed in a hatbox and forgotten for FIFTY YEARS until the evil rapist grandfather remembers it's there and is like "Oh, yeah, you guys should probably bury my mother-in-law's head." GEE, THANKS EVIL RAPIST GRANDPA. I recommend this book, for the sheer WTF factor, which is why I like most magical realism, I suppose.

Also I have been reading Wodehouse because I've been rewatching some "Jeeves and Wooster" with

ms_treesap and today I started reading Diane Duane's Spock's World, which I would recommend even if it sucked (it doesn't) for one reason and one reason only: Lieutenant Naraht, the Horta. Holy shit.

edit: Also, I saw "Inglorious Basterds" last week and liked it in the same way I liked this dream I had once where Harrison Ford and I were brutally killing Nazi zombies. /o\

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: "ave maria," david bisbal

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Writer's Block: Awesome Openers

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"It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the Chaplain he fell madly in love with him." - Catch-22

Man, how can you not be intrigued by an opening like that? Maybe it's just my 5+ years of reading awful slash fiction, but to me it's just perfect. The best part is that for pages after that first line the narration veers off into a digression about the lulzy state of Yossarian's liver and the vexing Texan. It's not until about 15 chapters later that it even gets back to Yossarian and the Chaplain's Epic Gay Love, and by then the book has engrossed you so much that you don't even care.