The Posegate Family Blog

>Fun bios of Chopin and Beethoven. Fascinating stuff. I was always wrong about what brought on Beethoven’s final illness.

>So things aren’t going so swimmingly on the triple8challenge. Even after a little spurt on vacation, I’m still under 20. I’m not giving up yet, but my schedule starts to get busier and busier these days. Right now I’m at 17 books read (and halfway through 2 others), not even a third of the way through and the year is way past half over.

Musicphilia totally sacked three full months of the year. I just couldn’t get through it and didn’t want to read all about weird musical disorders and how much brain disorders could ruin old age. Gravity’s Rainbow is going okay, but I’m reading other things as I plod through it, a dozen pages at a time. Even though it’s slow, I really do enjoy it. There’s just so much that requires a second thought that I can’t get into a reading rhythm.

>More books read lately. Maybe some reviews later:

Musicphilia by Oliver Sachs
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchins
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The Reason for God by Timothy Keller
Under Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

currently 1/3 through:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

I am still way behind if I’m gonna hit 56 by the end of the year! Does reading Thomas Gets Tricked 100 times count?

>I just finished A Free Life by Ha Jin.

Review: Covering 10-ish years in the life of Nan, an almost-middle-aged Chinese immigrant, and (tangentially) his wife and son, A Free Life is a study in the glacial yet incremental pace of life. When taken as a whole, the protagonist has traversed a great distance emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically, and politically.

My beef is that the style is so dull. Ha Jin is not a native speaker of English, but I’m not sure that that’s the problem. The writing is just excruciatingly expository. I’ve perused some reviews of the book and you’ll find either condemnation or gushing excuses for the style in all of them (“Jin’s simple sentences” “stunted and astoundingly boring” “irony-free…unadorned…dull“). This happened. That happened. He thought this. Which made him think this.

Seriously. Read a bit and you’ll see what I mean. Ostensibly, it’s supposed to be about how life just comes at you one thing at a time and never stops. I can see how Ha Jin is contrasting the non-poetic nature of life with the poetic aspirations of the main character. 600 pages later, though, I found myself glad to be nearing the end.

On the positive side, the book offers an engaging look inside the head of a first-gen immigrant family. The hardships are not just financial. The book mentions more than once how Chinese immigrant men have trouble keeping their families together in a culture that fetishises Asian women. The descriptions of Nan’s return to China, his dreams about and later meeting with an unrequited love, and how keeps his restaurant going–denying himself everything in order to achieve financial stability are interesting, if not gripping.

Final word: I wish I had read a different novel by Ha Jin. If I were to give him a second chance. I’d try some of his work set in Korea or China.

>So far I’ve finished 3 of my books for the triple8challenge:

Tale of Two Cities: Good and enjoyable, a bit challenging to stay with because of the style, but I’m glad I read it.

The Rest is Noise: Shout out to Tom, Emily and Sarah for this as a Christmas present. It started off strong and fun. This music geek found juicy tidbits on every page. Somewhere about 80% through, it started to lose itself. Maybe the explosion of new ideas and the sheer quantity that occurred in music as the century progressed overwhelmed the narrative style. It felt like I was being beaten over the head with names. Still worthwhile, but don’t feel bad if you put it down around page 400.

13 Moons: Just finished it this morning. Not as good as Cold Mountain (kind of like Charles Frazier lite: I found the style as hypnotic but the emotional import not as strong), but interesting.

I’ll keep the original post updated as I go-bolding books as I finish them and adding to the list as I receive recommendations.

>So the idea is to read 8 books in 8 categories in ’08. I think that I’m going to give it a try; I’m on number 2. You’re also allowed 8 “overlaps.” I figure if things get tight, I always have the summer to plow through stuff…

Here’s a rough draft:
1. Music-related nonfiction
(1)Sacks: Musicphilia
(2)Ross: The Rest is Noise
(24)Eidam: The True Life of J.S. Bach
(18)Tad Szulc: Chopin in Paris
(19)Edmund Morris: Beethoven: The Universal Composer
Siepmann: Mozart: His life and music
??
??

2. Fun fiction
(3)Ludlum: The Sigma Protocol
(4)Frazier: 13 Moons
(5)Jinn: A Free Life
(6)Smith: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
(7)Franzen: The Corrections
(8)Breslin: The Good Rat
Lamb: ?
??

3. Books I should/would have read in Middle School
(9)Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
(10)Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(22)Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(23)Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(26)Sachar: Holes
(11)Westerfeld: Uglies

4. Religion:
(12)Krakauer: Under the Banner of Heaven
(13)Keller: The Reason for God
(14)Hitchins: God is Not Great
(15)Dawkins: The God Delusion
??
??
??
??

5. Books that should have read in high school or college (and maybe their helpers too)
(16)Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities
Joyce: Ulysses
Gifford: Ulysses Annotated
Thaler: Nudge
Pynchon: Gravity’s Rainbow
Weisenberger: A “Gravity’s Rainbow” Companion
Melville: Moby Dick
Zinn: A People’s History

6. Historical fiction:
(17)Shaara: Killer Angels
(20)Shaara: Gods and Generals
(21)Shaara: The Last Full Measure
Horwitz: A Voyage Long and Strange
(25)Brooks: March
??
??
??

7. Authors that get referenced and other assorted fiction that I don’t know and feel like I should:
Henry James: ???
Marcel Proust: ???
Don DeLillo: ???
Jack Kerouac: ???
Toni Morrison: ???
J. Coetzee: Diary of a Bad Year
??
??

8. Recommendations:
sp: 13 Moons**
aj: Under the Banner of Heaven**
ip: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn**
kuyts: A Free Life**
sw: The Reason for God**
jh/kw: Killer Angels**
kw: A People’s History of the United States
Vanderbuilt: Traffic

In the last category I’m going to ask family and friends to put a book on the list for me. Hopefully a book that means something to you, not something you think that I’d enjoy, necessarily. Just not something I’ve already read. In progress…

*Update 1-21-08: Books will bold as I finish them, and I’ll keep adding to the list as I settle on what to read. 3 Down!

*Update 6-30-08: only 11? Maybe time to revise down! Still more books than I usually read in a year…

* Update 7-18-08: Uglies was a quick read and good, now I’m mired in Gravity’s Rainbow.

*Update 8-6-08: Rainy vacation means lots of reading. Breslin, Rowling, Nabokov, Shaara. Still can’t read more than a dozen or so pages of Gravity’s Rainbow without having to stop for a rest.

*Update 8-11-08: Total so far is 17 and I’m on track to read a grand total of 28 books at this pace. I should be at 34. I’m going to redo the list format and go to the library today and get a massive pile o’ books (the shorter the better).