I just finished reading Paradise by A. L. Kennedy. This books kicks off my series of "Oh holy crap, now that I'm reading all these lit-blogs, I'm being inundated with book recommendations, except these books are all brand new and still out in hard-cover so there's no way I can possibly buy them all, how am I to choose, oh wait I know, how about I take advantage of the wonderful resource that is the Cleveland Public Library, because after I settle my slightly high amount of fines I'll be able to borrow all these books for free and read them all for free and while I feel bad about not being able to buy all these books right now, right now I'm poor and I really want to actually be able to take part in or at least be able to read the discussion of these books that is going on all over the internet right now" books.
This one was a recommendation I stole from Maud Newton's blog some time ago and probably some other places too though damned if I can remember where. I slap these books on my Amazon wish list to keep track of what someone somewhere said I (you) should read and lose track of where they came from and who I should thank. So, I thank Maud Newton for this recommendation, and anybody else anywhere who's had a kind word to say about it.
Again, noting I suck on the whole book-reviewing thing: it's a book about a woman who is an alcoholic; it's wickedly funny at points, though in a sort of sad way throughout the story; it's really really good right up until the last 20 or 30 pages or so, and then...then, just, damn. Damn. I was kind of tired when I was in the home-stretch but the book woke me up and had me reading slower and faster and. It's just. I. After. After I finished, after I finished reading, and flipping back through the last 20-30 pages and re-reading large chunks, I got up and I was doing the business of being a 20-something guy in his apartment, boiling water for rice, grabbing something to drink out of the fridge, looking at the random piles of mail that have built up on the counter and...I wasn't quite there. These banal things of life, for a while, after a book like Paradise, they don't quite seem right. Or maybe they do seem right, but they're just seen in a different light, like maybe there's sunglasses around your brain, sunglasses made out of an ever-so-slightly skewed world-view, and the boiling water and the rice, they're still out there, just, filtered. The transmission's changed on its way up to the brain. Like looking at straws bent in a glass of water. Something. I don't know.
Point being I wasn't prepared for the one-two punch of Cloud Atlas then this, and here I am, finally actually taking advantage of the wireless access in my apartment, having moved the laptop from the kitchen table to the couch, because this feels right, somehow: it feels right to be slumped back, offering up ill-conceived reactions that don't do the feeling of finishing this book true justice. I guess all I can say is all I can say about any book I like: if you're the kind of person who likes books that I do, then, maybe, you might really like this book, too. I did.
If you check the sidebar or this first link or this second link you'll find some more information, probably more lucid than my own bumbling attempts at clarity. That first link goes to A. L. Kennedy's web site. The FAQs are good. Also on her site, she keeps track of reviews: the good, the bad, the odd. She has an excellent sense of humor, it seems. The other link is an interview conducted by Maud Newton. I'm sure there's more, and better, praise for Paradise on Maud Newton's site, but, my search-fu is weak, and the slumping feeling of being sucked deeper into my couch is strong.
Next up: Darby ditches the whole "reading good books" idea because it's emotionally taxing, and begins forming his own personal empire of smut. Or maybe he forges on ahead to A Changed Man by Francine Prose (the recommendation for which he has long since forgetting the location and identity of). Who's to say.
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