I've been reading a lot lately.
I just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I actually started it a few weeks ago, right before our last trip to Seattle. I tried getting into it and just couldn't--I was annoyed by the main character and confused by all the jumping back and forth between voices. Then after a few weeks' break (during which I finished the bulk of Standing in the Rainbow--if you like Fannie Flagg, you'll like it) I started Loud up again and read most of it tonight and last night.
And...I'm not sure what to say about it, except that I'm compelled to say something. It's unsentimental (really!), but almost heartbreaking if you know any nine-year-olds or old men, or if anyone you love has ever died, or if you've ever spent any time thinking about September 11th or terrorism, which I think pretty much everyone who can think has.
My heart actually seemed to stop during a few passages. Once I was about halfway through and engrossed, I didn't resist the urge to flip forward a few hundred pages to answer a big question I had. But that didn't ruin it for me at all, although it took away some of the urgency I was feeling to solve the plot's mysteries. Once some of the mysteries started making sense, I flipped back through the previous pages over and over to remember what I'd forgotten, like you do in any good mystery.
After finishing it--the ending is as sad as the rest of the book, yet still somehow settling--I clattered down two flights of stairs to find my husband in the basement, with the sole intent on telling him, "I love you."
He was working and we got to talking about something else, and now we're sitting here together watching M*A*S*H and the NBA finals (Miami just won). We say "I love you" all the time and he'd know it even if I didn't say it, so it's not that big of a deal, and if you've read the book, or even if you haven't, maybe you'll know what I'm getting at.
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7 comments:
I totally want to read that now. Thanks!
I'm looking for a book - I just finished "Breathing Lessons" by Anne Tyler - it won a Pulitzer - very good - about communication in marriage - her other novel, "The Amateur Marriage" was really good too. I knew nothing about this woman - and now I want to read all her books.
So thanks for the heads up!
Which would you recommend reading first, Breathing Lessons or The Amateur Marriage?
I'm starting on The Unbearable Lightness of Being but it seems pretty short, so I'll need something new soon.
She got the Pulitzer for Breathing Lessons - and it ends on a more positive note - Amatuer is a really good story though - kind of a saga. I also want to read Accidental Tourist - I saw the movie but it was a long time ago - and I didn't realize she wrote it. My two book groups are doing The Kite Runner and Teacher Man.
I'm glad you liked it. I'm glad I recommended it.
"The unbearable whiteness of being." I got that joke almost a week after you said it to me last month.
I'm glad you recommended it too. In fact I got the same recommendation from like 4 people and so I thought, "I guess I'd better read this." It is hard to get into, though--and hard to follow in parts, like when the grandfather is writing--but a definite page-turner once you do. So says I.
Unbearable is a little philosophical for me, but I'm going to try to stick it out anyway. I guess I have a problem getting into books.
I just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I am still not sure how I feel about it. SOme parts made me very confused and yet it does give you alot to think about.
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