Archive for the ‘Fiction: General’ Category

Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys

ISBN: 0393311465
192 pages
published in 1934.

Hate to cheat you guys out of a real review, but I’m super busy. Here’s a brief synopsis from Wiki:

Voyage in the Dark is a 1934 novel by Jean Rhys. It tells of the semi-tragic descent of its young protagonist Anna Morgan who is moved from her Caribbean home to England by an ‘evil’ stepmother. Once she leaves school, and she is cut off financially by the stepmother, Hester, Anna tries to support herself as a chorus girl, then falls in love with a man named Walter who briefly supports her but won’t marry her. When he leaves her, she begins a downward spiral. Like William Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, the novel features a botched illegal abortion. Rhys’ original version ended with the death of Anna from this abortion (see Bonnie Kime Scott’s The Gender of Modernism for the original ending), but she revised it before publication to the more ambivalent and modernist ending in which Anna survives to return to her now-shattered life “all over again.” The novel is rich in Caribbean folklore and tradition and post-colonial identity politics, including black self-identification by its white protagonist.

I loved it. It was distressing, but so beautifully written. It was part of the required reading for my Modern British Literature course this semester, and I am so grateful that it was. I found a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea at the used book store last week whilst I was in the middle of reading Voyage in the Dark so I’m very excited about starting that, as well (whenever I get a moment to spare! maybe over break.)

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

ISBN: 0141321040
368 pages
published in 1864.

Oh, I loved this book. I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into it – except that my boyfriend really likes Jules Verne and the way he described this story to me really got me interested, so I was excited to dive into it. I had some really bad stomach pain this morning (that has been going on for a while now… I did speak to a doctor about it but he said not to worry unless it becomes more regular) and so I drew a hot bath and laid back to finish this. I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed it. Despite the scientific inaccuracies (which is to be expected from a book this old that is ALSO a work of fiction – I keep seeing people bitching about this in their reviews and it really ticks me off), the descriptions and idea of finding what these adventurers find beneath the earth is truly exciting.

From the back of the book:
Once an ancient book is opened by the eccentric Professor Lidenbrock, his life – and the life of his nephew Axel – is changed forever. An old piece of paper has tumbled from the book, a priceless parchment that will lead them on the expedition to end all expeditions. So beings a voyage thousands of feet under the sea, as the pair embark on a terryfing journey to find what lies at the centre of the earth…”

While it was a bit hard to get into as it starts off sort of slow, it was also very interesting in its own way – especially the way Verne attempts to scientifically back up everything that is occurring in the story. The narrator, Axel, is especially interesting. While it’s tempting to call him cowardly, he is more or less just sensible. Although, in his own way, he is just as eager as his crazy uncle to move on with their journey. The images in this book were so vivid that I actually felt very nervous a few times while reading – almost feeling as though I was also trapped in caverns thousands of miles beneath the earth. The part where Axel gets lost almost made me feel nauseous. I am eager to read other books by Verne now, and especially other adventure books of this kind!

This is also a book down for my “1% Well-Read Challenge”! Yay!

Sweet-blood by Pete Hautman

ISBN: 0689850484
180 pages
published in 2003.

This was… I don’t even know where to start, lol. This was so dumb. It’s the story of a young diabetic girl who goes out of her way every single day to make herself seem Goth As Shit(tm), but tells everyone over and over and over again that she’s not really goth in order to make herself seem MORE goth. Whatever. Stop trying so hard.

Anyway, she spends her free time chatting online with a bunch of people online that pretend to be vampires, eventually meeting one of the creeps from the chatroom in real life, who winds up to be… surprise! An overweight, middle-aged man who gets her drunk. She is really angsty on top of all of this diabetes stuff and thinks she’s really ~special and different~. Oh, and she thinks she is just so misunderstood, bawwww, because she writes an essay about her theory about how vampire legends were started by people not understanding diabetic episodes a billion years ago and people think she’s ~weird~. Whatever. Shut up.

Terrible book, kept me entertained in the library during finals week when I had nothing left to do.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

ISBN: 0393978508
174 pages (and from there, up to page 384 of additional material.)
published in 1817.

This is the first Jane Austen novel I’ve ever read, and I was pleasantly surprised. While Jane Austen had often been passed off to me as “chick lit”, I don’t think it was ever properly explained to me the sort of writing style and subject matter that Austen dealt with, and therefore I don’t really feel like I was ever given the opportunity to give her a chance. However, this was a required text for the Intro to English Studies course I’m taking right now, and I’m really grateful that it was. I’ll be reading Sense And Sensibility very soon and I actually suspect that I’ll enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed this one.

Northanger Abbey concerns itself with the story of a young girl, Catherine, who is whisked away to a visit the city of Bath from her modest home. There, she encounters a variety of people of the likes that she has never dealt with before. Although she is no typical heroine (as the author states in the very beginning of the novel) she is very preoccupied with Gothic novels, and the castles and dark matters that they deal with. Throughout the novel we see her grow in very specific, interesting ways, as she falls in love with a young man named Henry Tilney, deals with an assortment of unfavorable characters and learning how to interact in a world that she had never been in before. This is a satirical novel in many ways, and Austen’s biting wit is really evident throughout the entire story.

This book has encouraged me to check out some of the old Gothic novels that inspired it, so I’m in the middle of a few good ones right now. I feel like this book opened up so many doors for me in literature. I’m so excited about so many things now and I’m really indebted to my professor for having introduced me to them. Yay!

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

ISBN: 0307388921
304 pages
published in 2001.

I am super busy tonight, which is actually why I’ve been doing less reading lately. So I’m going to be lazy with this entry and post part of a synopsis from Wikipedia. I know, I know.

Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. Victor grew up while going from one foster home to another. Victor’s mother was found to be unfit to raise Victor. Several times throughout his childhood his mother would kidnap him from his various foster parents. They would eventually be caught and he would again be remanded over to the government child welfare agency.

The narrative is episodic, and is presented out of chronological order.

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