Booklog #10

Wow - the tenth booklog post already, where does the time go?! 

This week I've finished:

* The Remains of the Day ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
I just realised that I forgot to mention that I'd started this...I'm going to blame Christmas and say that I was all out of sync with what was started/finished/in progress (how long after the event is it acceptable to continue blaming the Christmas break for things?!).  Anyway, this is one of those contemporary classics that I've always meant to read but never quite got round to.  In 1956, the butler of a large stately home takes a driving holiday to visit an old colleague and reminisces along the way about various things that occurred during his long career.  It seems quite philosophical - 'what is dignity?' being a question he mulls over often. 

I find that with classics you're generally expected to a) fully understand all their levels and nuances and b) enjoy them without question.  It seems sacrilege to say that you don't enjoy Dickens or Shakespeare or whoever.  But I'm going to be honest and say that I probably didn't fully appreciate all the levels of this story.  Don't get me wrong, it was an enjoyable read - I loved the use of language, the setting and the characters - but the philosophy kind of passed me by.  I probably should have been reflecting seriously on the Nazi sympathiser aspect but instead was merrily enjoying the descriptions of the house and the countryside.  Maybe I need to read it again with a serious head on...  4/5

* In Search of Adam ~ Caroline Smailes
A (fictional) account of how, following her mother's suicide, seven year old Jude is raped by a neighbour and the subsequent spiral of self-harm and abuse that her life goes down, as well as her quest to find out the truth about a terrible secret within her family.  It's desperately sad and very uncomfortable to read, but it's also very well-written with complex characters and a great depiction of the setting.  Smailes writes phonetically to convey Jude's father's Sunderland accent and while this is effective if you read it out loud, I did find that it really slows you down, which I didn't appreciate as I like my reading to flow (these parts felt like wading through treacle).  It's difficult to know how to score this, but I feel that my score should be based on how much I enjoyed the book, rather than its quality, and so I can only really give it 2/5

This puts me at 4/100 so far for the 2011 Reading Challenge. 

This week I've started:

* Wish ~ Alexandra Bullen
* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard (non-fiction, I used some of it for my OU essay but it's an interesting read so I'll finish the whole thing)

I'm still reading:
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
* The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt (chapter 33/53 - there are about 200 pages left, I want to be finished with it before the end of February as it seems to have been going on forever!)
* Murder on the Flying Scotsman ~ Carola Dunn (book club)

Till next time, happy reading! 
.