Thursday 25 September 2008

Ooooh Books!

From the wonderful Miss Prism - books you are supposed to like but (gasp) don't. I can't agree entirely with Miss Prism's list, (I love Catch 22, and I quite liked The Bone People as well - implausibility is not really an issue with me), but I'll have a stab at it.

1. Jane Eyre
I read this in my I-may-not-have-a-classical-education-but-god-damn-it-I-can-be- erudite-too phase. What is with that ending? Crazy-woman-in-burning-attic a metaphor for what? Really?? Clearly the classical education part must add some missing touch that is unavailable to us mere mortals.

2. Wuthering Heights.
Yup - I'm right with Miss Prism on this one. Are we actually supposed to like these people?

3. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
WWI with muzak treatment

4. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Maybe if I'd read this one first, it would have been different. But I read Satantic Verses first, then The Moor's Last Sigh, and The Ground Beneath her Feet. By the time I got to this one I just felt, in the words of Elton John, like I'd seen that movie too. I have started this book twice, but never managed past the half-way mark.

5.The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Go on, hit me on the head over and over again with those clumsy similes, go on - you know I love it - wait - actually I don't. Don't patronise me.

I'm sure there's more. Oh yes.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Oo, interesting!
I may actually dare to read Jane Eyre now that I know that if I don't like it, I won't be the only one.

Geosomin said...

Just to stir the pot...Jane Eyre is one of my guilty pleasures. I've read it a zillion times. I will admit to being one of the few who does tho. I can't pinpoint why - I can just visualize most of it in my head. I've been mocked about it before tho, so I understand.
I agree with you on Wuthering Heights. I never did make it all the way thru it, even for school. It's one of the few books that I went to the good old Cliff's notes for. Even the Scarlet Letter was better...altho someone told me how it ended before I finished it, which kind of took any incentive away from wanting to trudge thru it...
And the Alchemist, yes...a bit too much saccharine.

Unknown said...

Geosomin, have you read The Eyre Affair? I liked that even without getting the Jane Eyre in-jokes, but it depends whether you like daft fantasy.

grapecat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
grapecat said...

Oh - the Eyre affair is great - Geo - you'd love it - by Jasper Fforde. Its one of those books I finished, then started again immediatly.
The latest sequel i thought was a bit ropey -

Geosomin said...

Hmmm...I just finished the Time Traveller's wife (very good). I think I do believe I'll pick up the Eyre Affair next...daft fantasy ahoy!