What are you currently reading?

[Opus106]

Navneeth, the story isn't really about the plot but about the characters.  If you knew the entire plot, it still wouldn't spoil the story.

Understood.

[Elgarian]

Was just speaking to a co-worker who likes The Time-Traveller's Wife very much.  I've given her to understand that, if anything, she will enjoy HFS yet more : )

I'd say that too, and yet curiously the majority of fans of TTTW seem to have been disappointed by HFS. Perversely, I read HFS first (several times over) and was a bit disappointed when I read TTTW later; or rather, I responded to TTTW as a good, well-told tale, but HFS was more like a direct lightning strike, with more hits on repeated reading.

[Karl Henning]

Well, if my co-worker find HFS at all disappointing, she will receive that experience philosophically . . . .

[DavidW]

Her Fearful Symmetry was an exceptional read, thanks for the recommendation Elgarian.

[Elgarian]

Her Fearful Symmetry was an exceptional read, thanks for the recommendation Elgarian.

Thanks for letting me know Dave. I'm glad it worked out, because although I'm besotted with the book myself, I know its reception has been very mixed - so actually recommending it to other folks is a risky pastime!

[Opus106]

I know its reception has been very mixed - so actually recommending it to other folks is a risky pastime!

Not that it needs reminding, but this is GMG.

[val]

CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS:      "L'Anthropologie face aux problèmes du monde moderne"

This book is composed by three lectures gave by Levi-Strauss in Japan in 1986. There is nothing new here,  most of the ideas having been more deeply expressed is his great works like "Tristes Tropiques" or "La Pensée sauvage".
Anyway a good introduction to the work of Levi-Strauss.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks for letting me know Dave. I'm glad it worked out, because although I'm besotted with the book myself, I know its reception has been very mixed - so actually recommending it to other folks is a risky pastime!

Dude, I've just now finished. The ending in particular is perfect. I'm marveling at how very well wrought the whole story is. So many turns in the narrative which are sharply dramatic, and yet consummately staged. Rather hard cheese on ... the crow-rider, but if that be perhaps the one niggling dissatisfaction I feel, it is slight. A little time, even, will probably iron it over, and I shall simply find it a smooth, perfect fabric.

Again, one of the things over which I chuckle with quiet pleasure is: if someone had summarized the story in a (longish) paragraph, I might well have found it "creepy," and felt, no, not at all the thing I take pleasure in reading. But (on lines of a comment of Davey's) it is a touching story entangling a number of interesting, and likeable (though enfoibled) characters ... what's going to happen to them?

[Karl Henning]

Nav, don't read this before you've read the book!

*** Her Fearful Symmetry SPOILER ALERT !!! ***

Alan & Davey . . . I really enjoyed how Niffenegger set up the kitten episode with Elspeth "killing" the telly.  And I totally got that gut presentiment, that it would not be V. who was "reanimated" — nor do I think it was baldly telegraphed.  I like the hint, from Robert's cautionary remark to V., that Elspeth has reasons behind her reasons, that this was the intention all along.

[DavidW]

I saw that plot twist coming a mile away, but it still shocked me!

I liked how every character got what they needed but not necessarily what they wanted.

[Elgarian]

Nav, don't read this before you've read the book!

*** Her Fearful Symmetry SPOILER ALERT !!! ***

Alan & Davey . . . I really enjoyed how Niffenegger set up the kitten episode with Elspeth "killing" the telly.  And I totally got that gut presentiment, that it would not be V. who was "reanimated" — nor do I think it was baldly telegraphed.  I like the hint, from Robert's cautionary remark to V., that Elspeth has reasons behind her reasons, that this was the intention all along.

MORE HFS SPOILERS NAVNEETH - AVOID!

Being generally slow on the uptake (particularly when reading novels), I missed quite a lot on my first reading of the book but picked up a lot more on my second.

I thought that comment of Robert's about Elspeth having 'reasons behind her reasons' was one of the little treasures of human understanding that are studded through the book like diamonds.

Also on my first reading I was puzzled about what Robert's sudden insight (not explicitly explained) was, in the library, a few pages before the end. It was only after the second reading that I understood what it was, how it linked to the closing sentence of the book, and indeed to the entire theme of the novel. Just call me Speedy.

It still gives me thrilling little shivers, even now, just thinking about this tale, and these people, and how it all wraps together in such satisfying ways.

[Karl Henning]

A very cool book, indeed. Thanks for bringing it to my/our attention, Alan!

[Elgarian]

I liked how every character got what they needed but not necessarily what they wanted.

Do you think Elspeth gets what she needs? (I think it could go either way.)

[Karl Henning]

Nav, don't read this before you've read the book!

*** Her Fearful Symmetry SPOILER ALERT !!! ***

Do you think Elspeth gets what she needs? (I think it could go either way.)

I'm not sure which is worse, Alan: the moral bed which Elspeth has made and must now lie in, or the fact that (unlike Robert) she seems to have the stomach for it.

[Elgarian]

Nav, don't read this before you've read the book!

*** Her Fearful Symmetry SPOILER ALERT !!! ***

I'm not sure which is worse, Alan: the moral bed which Elspeth has made and must now lie in, or the fact that (unlike Robert) she seems to have the stomach for it.

Yes, there's something  dismaying about that, whichever way one looks at it.

[DavidW]

Do you think Elspeth gets what she needs? (I think it could go either way.)

Yeah I think she always needed to be a mother.

[Elgarian]

SPOILER ALERT!

Yeah I think she always needed to be a mother.

I like the simplicity of that, but feel I can't be sure because the 'motherhood' situation  is so intricately complicated by the relations between Elspeth and her sister, and Julia and Valentina, and also the ultimate loss of Robert. Hard to weigh up the gains and losses!

[springrite]

As a frequent traveler, often one-city-per-day for weeks on end, I never complain about flight delays and cancelations. That is because I always bring music and books. A delay just give me a chance to read, which I usually don't have time for.

Yesterday's delay gave me the chance to finish reading this:

"Serving Genius", a biography of Carlo Maria Giulini.

Always loved this man, and more so now than ever. I had tears many times as I was reading.

[Bogey]

Decided to introduce myself to some Asimov.  Starting with this:

I'm hooked....roared throught the above in basically two days and now for the sequel:



A nicely written murder mystery in the first, and now I want to see what happens to the characters in the second novel.  Thanks for your guidance here, David.

[DavidW]

Awesome Bill!