I sometimes buy books just because I like their titles. I did that with Because it is Bitter and Because it is my Heart, by Joyce Carol Oates. I'd never read any of her books before that. This time, the title struck me, so I bought the book--and loved it. I've read several of her works since then and liked them all. I may need to try this one, too.
Titles grab me too. :) And there's a few authors whose books I read immediately upon release.
I've never read anything by Oates. I bought "We Were the Mulvaneys" many years ago but couldn't get traction with it. Do you think I would like her books if I were to try again?
I've never read anything by Oates. I bought "We Were the Mulvaneys" many years ago but couldn't get traction with it. Do you think I would like her books if I were to try again?
I liked We Were the Mulvaneys. I think you would probably like them (her books, that is), yes. but it does depend on the kind of books you like. I really enjoy labyrinthine stories that are grounded in realism yet entirely fantastic. My two favorite books are by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and that is definitely his way of doing things. Oates' works are far more grounded in realistic reality, yet they present a convoluted and complicated storyline, and I love that.
Or, if you don't, you could always do what my daughter told me about today. She likes to read a particular kind of story. When she can't find one that interests her, she writes a story for herself to read.
Hmm..."convoluted and complicated" is definitely something I'd like. Sometimes I just pick up the wrong book for the time. The first time I picked up Les Miserables I dumped it into the "probably never" pile. I picked it up some years later... and it remains one of my favorites of all time.
I'll try the Mulvaneys again. I like labyrinthine -- but have to be in just the right mood for fantastical. I've been known to read samurai fantasy novels (mostly Lian Hearn) and I loved Love in the Time of Cholera (a book I read based purely on the title, btw!).
I'll try the Mulvaneys again. I like labyrinthine -- but have to be in just the right mood for fantastical. I've been known to read samurai fantasy novels (mostly Lian Hearn) and I loved Love in the Time of Cholera (a book I read based purely on the title, btw!).
I guess that by fantastic, I was talking more about the fact that his works are pure fantasy than unreal. That's what I love so much about them. It's literary surrealism of a sort (my own words, not endorsed by real literary critics or anyone else for that matter). His work is real, so real, as if he were each and every character and has experienced each and every thing that happens, from the most minutely trivial to the most epic. And yet, there are so many little things that could never possibly be. *That's* the fantasy that I like the most. The fantasy that is so very little beyond the limit of our reality that you are left to wonder whether it could truly be, or happen someday, or have happened once upon a time. To me, that opens up my mind to the improbably possible. to me, that is what dreams are made of.
They call his works, "magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations." I like that description, too, but still like mine better, since mine are mine, doncha' know.
I loved Les Miserables, too. Like you, I couldn't read it when I first picked it up. That was true with One Hundred Years of Solitude, too. I had it around for years, and despised its very existence. Then one day, I was way too bored and had nothing to read. It was there so I read it. Couldn't put it down, and that's a long book not to be able to put down.
They call his works, "magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations." I like that description, too, but still like mine better, since mine are mine, doncha' know.
I loved Les Miserables, too. Like you, I couldn't read it when I first picked it up. That was true with One Hundred Years of Solitude, too. I had it around for years, and despised its very existence. Then one day, I was way too bored and had nothing to read. It was there so I read it. Couldn't put it down, and that's a long book not to be able to put down.
Morgan and I were talking about that yesterday, too. We commented on how you can despise a book, and how it can take forever and a day to read when it's assigned to you for a class at school. Then you re-read it later on on your own and you're reading an entirely different work. I love it when that happens, too.
Another person whose works of "magical realism" I love is Toni Morrison. Not so much Beloved, or The Bluest Eye, although they're fine. My absolute favorite one of her works is Song of Solomon, which is second on my top-ten list, between One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the time of Cholera. Sometimes it's first, but it's not quite as intricate and not quite as universal as OHYoS, so it usually stays hard and fast in second place.
Interestingly, between Song of Solomon and some of Nikki Giovanni's poetry, I wrote a couple of papers in 1988 that my professor said made it seem like I had experienced life as a poor black person in the beginning of the 20th century, since I so identified with these ladies' works.
Interestingly, between Song of Solomon and some of Nikki Giovanni's poetry, I wrote a couple of papers in 1988 that my professor said made it seem like I had experienced life as a poor black person in the beginning of the 20th century, since I so identified with these ladies' works.
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