isserleylovesbooks:

Book cover appreciation: Louis de Bernières’ Notwithstanding.

In addition to the lovely cover and one of my favourite English words for a title, this book is an excellent read. A review is underway, but don’t hesitate to buy or lend!

gleekytimelord:

Oh so correct

Actually no. I wanted both. I’m greedy like that.

(via patronusmoonstone-deactivated20)

isserleylovesbooks:

Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility

Photo: Isserley

A post about Marianne will be up tomorrow, so stay tuned.

(Source: isserleylovesbooks)

Yeah, basically anything that implies secret book-related passageways…

(via coolnerdyreader-has-moved-deact)

isserleylovesbooks:

Shades of Grey: a review

Shades of Grey is set in the dystopian world of Chromatacia, where your worth is determined by how much of a certain colour you can see. Our protagonist is Eddie Russett, a seemingly unremarkable young Red who accompanies his father to a small town. Once there, the unfairness of the system starts to dawn on him, aided by the Grey Jane and her lovely retroussé nose.  

Shades of Grey was the first Jasper Fforde novel I’ve read. It was shamelessly pushed on me by Ellena, my closest friend and Read New Stuff advocate. 
(This is why we’re friends.) 

Pre-reading biases

I didn’t really have many. I had seen Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels before and thought they looked interesting, but I’d never read any. The fact that Ellena recommended Shades of Grey did prepossess me in its favour, though.
Also, I have a definite thing for dystopias, so that certainly made me feel like this would be my kind of book.

I was, perhaps, afraid it would be too smooth, too light and entertaining. I like my books to come with a message and to make me think and feel, not just entertain me on a rainy day. 

As I read

I cannot overstate how entertaining this story is. Fforde’s language is so concise and funny. And on top of that, an actual message is contained in all the hilarity.

Reading about the society in itself is quite fascinating, especially since things aren’t minutely explained to us. Several mentions are made of “swan attacks” as an ever-present danger, which remains baffling until you check out Fforde’s website. Then, too, it is hinted that the people in the story  have apparently evolved to something beyond human, as it is frequently mentioned that the “Previous” looked strange to them.

It is a very smooth read, but not irritatingly so. The ending will break some hearts - and the fact that the next installment in the trilogy is not soon forthcoming will make that so much worse. 

For

Everyone. I don’t say that lightly. The whole is well-crafted but not overly difficult. It is so easy to get immersed in this world, so get your hands on a copy as soon as you can!

isserleylovesbooks:

number9dream: a review  in all lower-case

number9dream is as strange and captivating as the unusual title would suggest. Our protagonist is awkward, gawky Eiji Miyake, lately moved to Tokyo in search of the father he has never known. This isn’t your average quirky coming-of-age story, though. 

Pre-reading biases

Well, for one thing, this was my third Mitchell, so I was excepting to be weirded out to some extent. If you’ve ever read him, you know how it is: stories start out relatively normal, then suddenly: boom! Mind blown! 

I expected to be dragged into the story kicking and screaming. I expected beautiful descriptions. I expected realistic characters. I expected something awful to happen to babies.

So, how was it?

In a word: excellent. I was dragged into the story kicking and screaming. There were some beautiful descriptions - I posted one particularly enchanting bit about a study crammed full of “nine lifetimes worth of books”. The characters were realistic and well-drawn. Awful things did happen to babies. And various other people.

As with both Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, the story didn’t immediately draw me in. It took me a few chapters to really get into Eiji’s skin, which only really happened when the first Anju part came up. And then bowling. However, should you begin to read and experience some impatience, please hold tight. I promise the ride is going to be fantastic.

One minor pet peeve were the Goatwriter stories, peppered into the second half of the story. These are mostly unconnected to the action, which threw me off just enough to be slightly annoyed. Some of them are fabulous though, and the archaic language may well charm you.

The complicated relationship between Eiji and his mother, and his parallel search for his father, are interesting themes which were very relatable. The ending of that plotline exactly suited my ideas of narrative flow, so I was thorougly satisfied on that head.

Overall, I very much enjoyed reading this novel.

For

Mitchell fans. For those of you who haven’t read anything by him yet: if you are into Murakami and/or Atwood, this will probably suit you. 
If you are looking for your first Mitchell novel, I would probably recommend checking Cloud Atlas out first. 

The plot and language, while not contrived, are certainly complex enough to satisfy the most demanding of readers. For the same reason, I would probably not recommend it to “light” or beginning readers.

isserleylovesbooks:

The Taming of Marianne Dashwood: a source of discontent.
 Warning: contains spoilers and key quotations.

After re-reading it these past few days, I have pinned down my issue with Austen’s Sense and Sensibility: Marianne’s ‘happy ending’.

As a refresher - and since this is basically the ending for every Austen novel, it’s hardly a spoiler - Marianne Dashwood, after recovering from her first, ultimately undesirable, crush on the selfish Willoughby, ends up with the calm and worthy Colonel Brandon.

Marianne’s is not our primary story arc: it is her elder sister Elinor who is our POV character and who, in my opinion, more fully gets what she wants. The match between her and Edward leaves no room for doubt in the reader: they are exactly suited to one another. 

Not so Marianne. As I said before, Marianne and Elinor exist in part to make a point: that sense and passion must unite for optimum happiness. In this comparison, Marianne is the embodiment of sensibility, or passion. Her opinions and emotions are all strong, eager, and unreserved.

At seventeen, when recently moved to a new home, she meets young Willoughby in a matter exactly suited to her fancy: he is a mysterious stranger who carries her home when she has sprained her ankle. They turn out be be perfect for one another: feeling and thinking the same, not caring for the good opinion of their general acquaintance, clearly smitten with one another. And, though Austen, of course, does not say it, we can certainly imagine the sexual tension involved.

Alas, though, Mr. Willoughby turns out to be a young rascal and eventually marries another. Marianne suffers “from a nervous” complaint for many weeks, and when she does finally recover, she is much calmer and more thoughtful than before.

It all ends with her eventually marrying Colonel Brandon, who has been a quiet, much-suffering presence in her life for over 300 pages, but whom she always used to see as “too old to feel anything near passion” and too retiring in nature.

The problem with all this is in the way Austen describes the union. A few examples:

”[…] her wish of bringing Marianne and Colonel Brandon together was hardly less earnest, though rather more liberal than what John had expressed. It was now her darling object. Precious as was the company of her daughter to her, she desired nothing so much as to give up its constant enjoyment to her valued friend; and to see Marianne settled at the mansion-house was equally the wish of Edward and Elinor.”

Nothing is said, when discussing the wishes of either mother or sister, of what Marianne herself is supposed to feel. Even worse:

“They each felt his sorrows, and their own obligations, and Marianne, by general consent, was to be the reward of all.”

Jane. Here you slip up! Marianne Dashwood is a person, even more so than almost any other character in any of those novels, and you stoop to use her as a conditioning reward for the dog-like loyalty of an infatuated man? Her company, while professedly valued, is seen as something to be “made over to a valued friend”, in lieu of the riches that Mrs. Dashwood can’t bestow.

I don’t mean to be entirely unfair. Marianne has the most interesting character arc: coming to believe, from her heart, that many of her former opinions and beliefs were naive and ultimately harmful. A attachment to the Colonel, grown slowly under her rising estimation of all his good qualities, would have been natural and believable. She might have found that loudness is not a yardstick for admiration of any book or musical piece. However, the main reason for the marriage seems to be the wishes of her family and friends, with “no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship”. For me, personally, this is too much of a stretch. It feels like settling. 

The only consolation we are offered it that

“Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughly.”

In time?
Marianne Dashwood was a wild thing. How are we supposed to rejoice at her being broken?

So, err, I’m super happy with this piece. Any thoughts, followers o’ mine? 

(Source: isserleylovesbooks)

(via coolnerdyreader-has-moved-deact)

(Source: isserleylovesbooks)