Tangled Up In Blog

Book Reviews

Blood Meridian

This is the third Cormac McCarthy book that I've read. The first, All The Pretty Horses, I couldn't stand and the second, No Country For Old Men, I loved so I decided to give him another chance with Blood Meridian as the tiebreaker. The book was much more in the style of No Country For Old Men, meaning that it was extremely dark and at times, very depressing. In reading some reviews afterwards one critic said that even though the book was dark it was also exhilirating and energizing. I definitely did not feel that way. At times the book was so bleak that I felt like it was sapping the energy out of me. My favorite character in the book was the Judge, a huge, pale hairless man that leads the group on their journey through the Texas/Mexico borderlands. He is a fantastic villain. Another very disturbing yet all too realistic theme of the book was the blurring of the lines between who is the victim and who is the aggressor. I pitied the Native Americans when they were getting scalped but it was supposedly in retaliation for the pilaging of Mexican villages. I think this point is especially salient considering our current international situation. Overall, amazingly well written....4/5 stars.

Fear of Flying

This is supposedly one of the groundbreaking novels of the feminist movement but after 30 years it feels incredibly dated and reads like a Harlequin romance. I guess in the 1970s it was revolutionary for a woman to decide not to have children or to get divorced or go to an "analyst" but by now it's all really well worn territory. After the first 100 pages I tired of her describing every penis she had ever seen and giving us the "woe is me" why did i have to be born a woman spiel. I could identify with most of what she talked about in terms of her struggles to decide whether to have kids and her quest to "find herself" but maybe that was the problem with the novel...I live most of these issues, I don't need a poorly written novel to over-analyze it for me. Also, there was a note from the author at the end where she describes her life experience and how she came to write the novel. So, the novel is her life story...sort of like a James Frey in reverse...she didn't even bother to change the main character's hair color. boring read...too many ridiculous descriptions of boring sex acts...2/5 stars.

Labels: books

posted by carolyn @ 1:45 PM