October: A Pale View of Hills

written by Kazuo Ishiguro

for like 90% of this book I only understood it at a surface level. the summary for the book makes it sound straightforward, so I took it that. in the final chapter though, I started peeling back the layers of the story, and after reading a few other reviews on the book I think that this really is astoundingly clever.

admittedly like halfway through the book I looked up what eliptical writing was, and "artfully obtuse" is absolutely how I would describe the style. the prose is brief, but hints at ideas much more complex than the simple dialogue conveys at first glance. I would describe the story as being hauntingly beautiful, as there is a sense of unease and tension through most of the scenes in the book. despite that, there is a level of artistry to how the books themes are laid out.

the elephant in the room is of course etsuko's unreliable narration. do I think that etsuko and sachiko are one and the same? not entirely. I don't think that sachiko and mariko existed at all. I believe that etsuko created sachiko and mariko in her memories to distance herself from how she treated keiko when she was a child. some of what sachiko did was actually done by etsuko, but estsuko also embellished further on sachiko's actions to further seperate herself from sachiko. it's part reflection, and part metaphor. etsuko very much blames herself for keiko's suicide, and her reminiscing on her memories of japan are a way for her to compartmentalize the trauma, and reassure herself that she was a good mother who did her best for keiko (even if that's not entirely the case).

I'll touch briefly on the themes of old vs new/japanese vs western that were expressed in the scenes with ogata. these parts of the book weren't as interesting to me, in part because I thought the smaller (relatively) internal conflict that etsuko was facing was more interesting than the broader strokes of conflict and change that were tackled between jiro and ogata. I think I'm not super qualified to discuss the residual conflict in post-war japan, so I'll leave it as I noticed those themes, but I didn't think about them as hard as I did etsuko's personal journey.

I came into the book thinking that for being described as having etsuko dwell on keiko's suicide, the book talked very little about keiko. thinking about it more, I realize the book was about keiko, although viewed through the lense of someone who was struggling to justify her actions that may have contributed to keiko's demise. absolutely something I intend on rereading, now knowing the quote unquote twist.

September: One Hundred Years Of Solitude

written by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa

holy shit man. without any sarcasm at all, this was Peak Fiction

I actually only started reading this after seeing a post putting it (moderately jokingly) as a recommended reading for umineko no naku koro ni, which is another piece of Peak Fiction that shares some similarities with solitude. while I don't know if the author of umineko read solitude, the themes of multigenerational family conflict, incest, elitism, and repetition of history are similar to umineko's throughlines. there's also the yellow butterflies that follow around a character in solitude and one in umineko.

the magical realism in the book was carefully balanced with the raw emotion that grounded scenes. like, the world that macondo is in lies just outside the bounds of real life. a sort of "heightened reality" where unnatural things happen without explanation and without much fanfare. a woman ascends into the sky never to be seen again. a man is tied to a tree and taken care of by his family for decades. a woman lives far beyond what is natural. it rains for four years straight. but the unusual is usual here, and I really vibe with stories like that (see: kekkai sensen, which while it ended up being too action-y for what I wanted, I really liked the mesh of fantasy and reality that the setting had). I would say the main focus of the book was the internal and external conflicts surrounding the buendía family, and the entire range of human emotions were explored over the years. I felt this helped me connect with the characters, as even if their lives were drastically different than mine, we have loved, grieved, fought, and laughed in the same ways.

the characters in the book are also flawed people, and I don't think the narrative judges them too harshly for that. it's refreshing I think, to read a book where the characters can move and grow and make mistakes and fumble without necessarily feeling like they're being judged by the narrative for it.

because I hate being misunderstood on the internet I feel the need to state that, despite saying that, the incest and pedophilia as it happens in the book is interesting but I don't condone that shit in real life. feel like that's an obvious statement but my experiences online have led me to believe otherwise. personally, I read it as the "realism" part of magical realism. shit is nasty sometimes and I don't think books should shy away from that. ok. cool. thanks for understanding.

there is a part of me that wonders why I fell so in love with this book when I didn't like to the lighthouse, because superficially they both have a meandering sort of prose about human emotions and familial relations; and I think purely because in solitude the town is as much a character as the family itself that I was able to ground myself in the story and visualize the space and characters much more. it does make me want to reread to the lighthouse to see like, if i quote unquote get it better now that I feel like some new pathways have formed in my brain that make things click a bit better. I don't know! I really just want to be a more well rounded reader at the end of the day

I leave you with some quotes from the book that really stuck out to me.

"Aureliano not only understood by then, he also lived his brother’s experiences as something of his own, for on one occasion when the latter was explaining in great detail the mechanism of love, he interrupted him to ask: “What does it feel like?” José Arcadio gave an immediate reply:

“It’s like an earthquake.” "

"Her heart of compressed ash, which had resisted the most telling blows of daily reality without strain, fell apart with the first waves of nostalgia. The need to feel sad was becoming a vice as the years eroded her. She became human in her solitude.""

"Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. "

August: Pnin

written by Vladimir Nabokov

going from reading it to pnin was a drastic, but not unwelcome, change. I think because I read it immediately after a long horror novel it felt more lighthearted than if I had read it far separated from any other book. overall I really enjoyed the book!

the writing style had a charming feel to it. I felt like I was sitting in a coffee shop with a friend discussing a third person we were both friends with. which I mean, the last chapter tells you that it's narrated by another professor familiar with the titular pnin, so I don't think that sort of impression is too far off the mark. pnin himself is a tragic character to some extent, as each chapter narrates some kind of predicament that he finds himself in with various degrees of severity. I couldn't help but root for pnin to overcome his struggles; he's a very likable character. I do feel like the book could have benefited from maybe one more chapter describing what pnin plans to do after being fired from his university, but even without it the book is a neatly self contained narrative.

I found this novel more comedic than tragic, although I can see how someone would view it as leaning more tragic, with pnin being subservient to his wife that cheated on him, as well as his constant misfortunes. the story never felt like it lingered long enough for any of these problems to sink in. there were several funny turns of phrase per chapter - the line about women in transparent raincoats looking like potatos in cellophane stuck with me.

overall I thought this was a trim, charming little novel that let me peek at the life of a quirky russian professor. I think I'm definetly on team pnin for this.

July: To The Lighthouse

written by Virginia Woolf

man I thought strangers on a train was in the characters heads a lot of the time, and then I started to the lighthouse and realized that's what 90% of the book was.

I will be upfront and say I didn't like this book very much. this isnt a knock on the book at all, I thought it was well written for what it's purpose was, which is to be an exploration of human relations and families and grief. I just personally did not vibe with the stream of conscious style of writing, and the extended metaphors and descriptions and the nebulous point of view that jumped from character to character to omniscient POV with no warning. I initially started reading this as an ebook, then got 10 pages in and realized I had not absorbed a single word I had read, so I switched to an audiobook and that at least let me gently flow through the words and pick up pieces that resonated with me. it's very much a Vibes based book over Plot, and while usually I do like pieces of media that have a vague, dreamlike feel to them, I think it didnt work this time because I felt so unmoored in the narration for most of it. I was lost in the metaphors and inner thoughts and was grasping for some kind of concrete anchor to latch onto to figure out where I was in a scene.

I also think I didn't like the book because at parts it reminds me too much of my own navel gazing sessions. I read somewhere that this was woolf's most autobiographical book and I could feel the raw emotions underpinning the characters monologues. I did end up liking the book more by the end of it, because I started getting used to the ebb and flow of the prose and starting to understand the feelings underlying the metaphors. still think it wasn't a book for me, but I understand why so many people did like it (at least according to goodreads reviews).

overall even if I personally didn't like to the lighthouse I can agree that it is a powerful piece exploring human roles and relationships.

June: Strangers On A Train

written by Patricia Highsmith

yes I am writing this post in july. don't worry about it

I voted for this book for the june bookbug book because from the summary it seemed most like my usual style of book (that being horror/thriller or adjacent). I have a comfort genre and given the choice I want to stick to it... that aside, I did enjoy this book! it was a lot more in the characters heads than I expected it to be, but I thought the internal conflict was interesting... every time bruno appeared on the page I was wondering what he was going to do next.

the writing felt fairly dense yet not difficult to parse. I do feel like even though guy was one of the main characters of the book, he had drastically less agency than bruno or even anne. everything that happened in the book felt like it was already laid out for him, and all that needed to happen was for the first domino to fall. I can't help but feel I would be able to handle his situation better LOL but at the same time it is fascinating to watch a character fight uselessly against the whims of fate...

the last chunk of the book starting with bruno's death felt sort of disconnected from the rest of the book. I'm not sure where I was expecting the trainwreck (pun intended) of a story to end up, but it wasn't with bruno dying and for guy to confess everything to a character that hadn't been brought up since the start of the book... I dunno, it felt really weird. also there's no closure with what happens to guy after that, but in a way I felt like it was fine there was none

overall I thought it was a fun, quick thriller novel with some nice cerebral bits whenever we get into some internal monologuing

May: The Master and Margarita

written by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Richard Pevar and Larissa Volokhonsky

the master and margarita was a little bit difficult to get into, admittedly. I'm not used to reading classics and so the style of writing threw me off some... I pushed onwards and got hooked by the end of chapter three.

I thought the presentation of satan (Woland) in this novel was very interesting. not to bring dnd terminology to a 1960's novel, but he felt more chaotic than evil, simply doing things for his own amusement rather specifically to cause harm. well. except for berlioz. jury's still out on if that was woland's fault or not.

the latter half of the novel was more interesting than the first half for me. I could relate to margarita's desire for freedom and the feelings of having everything laid out for her but still being unhappy. I'm glad in the end she got to reconnect with the master; I thought their love story was charming.

I don't 100% understand the interweaving of pontius pilate's story into the story. a pushback against the atheism of the soviet union? there were footnotes in the version I read but other than that I didn't have any background of the setting the novel was written in so. grasping at straws

overall I enjoyed the slide from more realistic to total fantasy over the course of the novel. I thought behemoth was funny. I had a fun time reading this. :-)