Reading Life: 5th September 2018
Posted 5th September 2018
Category: Reading Life Genres: N/A
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With more reading time to spend as of late, I’ve found myself reading the books I received at Christmas, novels I’d asked for upon request for a list. The Nakano Thrift Shop was one. Originally drawn in by the hype, I decided to read it when browsing my shelves and whilst I thought early on that it probably wasn’t my cup of tea I wanted to keep going, after all it was a present and I was intrigued by the author. I wonder if perhaps, looking at things with introductions in mind, I should have read Murakami first, but then one book doesn’t speak for all and to my knowledge the translators for the two authors are different.
From there I picked up Americanah – first started in January – and read it until the end, which meant from 1/3 of the way through. It’ll be on my best of list. The variety of subjects under the one umbrella topic, particularly with a main character who isn’t all that likeable, was very well done.
And then I opted for the book that sat next to the Kawakami on my higgledy-piggledy to be read shelf, also a gift – Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. It hardly bears repeating that it’s difficult, but for its literary value, both in terms of Plath and in the context of literature as a whole, it’s also enjoyable. I’ve noted down a number of extracts – the story of the bellhop, Esther/Sylvia’s views on women’s lives in those years – and am also enjoying the lighter moments, elements I didn’t expect would be included. For now it’s less dark than I imagined, but I know it goes further. I’m working at a sort of 50/50 pace with research – reading a few chapters, switching to research, then going back to the book. I read about the debates surrounding Plath and Ted Hughes when I read Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, but there have been more recent reports about her father aligning with the Nazis – like this one from 2012 by Dalya Alberge – that paint a picture that gives a more rounded story to Plath’s poem, Daddy, from which the following comes:
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—
I’m half thinking that after Plath I should continue on to other books received as presents, because it’s a good mix, and includes Eowyn Ivey’s To The Bright Edge Of The World. I’ll see – I’m inclined to be completely whimsical, and reading books received as gifts sets an expectation, however random.
Which difficult book have you read recently and how did you find the experience?
September 7, 2018, 9:38 am
Kelly: I’m glad you found books that helped. I’ve got to the point in The Bell Jar where it’s so dark it cast a cloud over some of yesterday. I suppose we can say books that affect us in such a way are powerful?
I hope things improve for you soon :)
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September 6, 2018, 5:30 pm
I read several difficult books* earlier in the year and combined with the current state of my life found I needed a break from them. They were depressing me! It was a pleasure to happen on some excellent sci-fi/fantasy and historical fiction to lighten things up.
*Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, Triangle by David Von Drehle, and The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman, to name a few.