Comments on: Harpy Book Club, February Edition

By: ahimsa

ahimsa — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:25:28 +0000

@yvanehtnioj and JDRegent, thanks for your comments on Sigrid Nunez. yvanehtnioj, I’m a fan of both of the other authors that you liked (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Kiran Desai) so The Last of Her Kind is being added to my wish list right now.

I’m currently enjoying a book called What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin. It’s set in the period before the partition of India (approx 1928-1947). Most novels that deal with Indian independence have Hindu or Muslim protagonists but this novel tells the story from the point of view of two Sikh women married to the same man (thought that only Muslims were still practicing polygamy during that time period).

By: bellacoker

bellacoker — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:09:57 +0000

Which is to say, the bathroom window sill.

By: bellacoker

bellacoker — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:09:36 +0000

I’ve had Foreskin’s Lament on my shelf for about a year, and haven’t picked it up. Even though it was recommended to me by the friend who recommends every book I love passionately.

I will resolve to put it back on the active bench.

By: emilyanne

emilyanne — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:25:19 +0000

Coetzee is one of the authors I consistently argue with my brother about, he loves him and I just, don’t. I entirely understand why people rate him but I just find him to come out of that Rothian (is there such as word as Rothian who knows?) tradition of thoroughly unpleasant and misogynistic protagonists that I can’t enjoy his work.

Anyway as to what I’ve been reading – I’m going to recommend a book to everyone, please please get hold of Strange Days by British journalist Francis Wheen. It’s an absolutely great (and entirely terrifying) account of life in the 1970s during which Wheen persuasively argues that only was every world leader in the 70s batshit crazy and utterly paranoid but also that we are currently living in equally insane, paranoid times.

It’s well written and fascinating and I can not recommend it enough, particularly for those on this board who were born during or after the decade and thus might be unaware of how crazy it really was.

Other than that I’ve just read Monica Ali’s In The Kitchen, which is an entertaining enough read and quite absorbing and I’m about to start Diamond Star Halo by British author Tiffany Murray which should be good – she grew up on an infamous rock studio in Wales and this is a fictionalised account of those times plus her first novel Happy Accidents was very funny so i’m looking forward to this one.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:15:37 +0000

Feminizzle, I felt exactly the same way you did about Foreskin’s Lament. Auslander has a way of pulling wry, laugh-out-loud anecdotes out of a terribly repressive, unhappy childhood. He does come across as occasionally misogynist–no surprise, given how he was raised–and super-angsty, but I really enjoyed the book(and its mostly happy ending).

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:26:02 +0000

I have no idea what verb I meant to use when I said “leapt” — lapped maybe?

By: J.D.Regent

J.D.Regent — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:25:30 +0000

Hi yvan, I leapt up The Last of Her Kind like a beach book almost and read it very quickly without putting it down, which means that on a page-turning level I really enjoyed it. I found the narrative voice a little bit weird, but then by the last third I had forgotten my beef with the Georgette as she and Ann grew past the college years and matured into more complex versions of themselves. I studied writing with Nunez while a student at a womens college (not Barnard) so it kept pulling me out of the book and into my own life — which I actually think was a strength of the book, and must produce much the same reaction for those who lived through “the sixties”. I still think George was kind of a boring person to choose as a narrator but I suppose that was half the point.

By: Feminizzle

Feminizzle — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:31:42 +0000

For the first time in a long time, I’m not reading a book by a female or about a female. My boyfriend recommended it to me, and since he read Push for me, I figured I could read this. It’s called Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander and for the most part it’s great! It’s pretty funny and it’s interesting to see Orthodox Judaism from the perspective of an insider. He actually broke from the community in his 20′s (and had been breaking the laws for longer than that) but he communicates about how hard it is, mentally, to move on. He still thinks that God is following him, punishing him, laughing at him, and just waiting for the next opportunity to cause him pain. As someone raised in a strict Catholic household and feels guilty constantly after doing things I was raised to believe were wrong, I can relate somewhat to his problems. There is some misogyny (his lack of feeling for the prostitutes and strippers he hires/watches) that can grate occassionaly, but the overall story is enjoyable.

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:26:00 +0000

@bellacoker: I have to say that I really enjoyed Sarah Bradford's biography of Borgia. (There's a review here.) It wasn't brilliant, but it was illuminating and accessible, and perfect length for a six hour cross-country flight. And if the Men's Rights BS gives you headaches, check out some of Alan Alda's responses to feminism, namely fighting for years for the passage of the ERA and appearing in a feminist commercial for ATARI in the '80s (no, seriously). I think I might need to read Alda's book next. Dude is pretty cool

By: bellacoker

bellacoker — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:20:14 +0000

@Cimorene:
One of my favorite books in childhood was a history of the different conquistadors. Because it was amazingly different from my own life and also true, it twisted my little brain pleasurably.

I just read Lucrezia Borgia and the Mother of Poisons by Roberta Gellis. It was a historical murder mystery, but I was impressed by Gellis ability to divorce the women character’s from modern gender roles and give them attitudes and beliefs that reflected the circumstances of the time.

Now, I’m reading A Male Guide to Women’s Liberation by Gene Marine. It was published in 1972, so is dated, but I’ve been trying to get some perspective on the Men’s Rights movement and early male responses to feminism have been helping. A little.