#Pratchett going postal movie salute full#
The book is almost too straightforward compared to the film (which has to be nearly inscrutable if you go in cold) but it's also much more sympathetic and full of detail, and I really like what I've read so far. The film's incredible on all sorts of levels, though it's just agonizingly depressing compared to the book. Which I kind of like, because it gives me two stories for the price of…well, two, but you know what I mean. As it turns out, the book and the film are almost completely different they share a general setting and a common thread, but the themes and approach and god, just about everything else are different. I was trying to finish the book before I went to see the film, but couldn't wait.
#Pratchett going postal movie salute skin#
I'm maybe 70% of the way through Under the Skin by Michel Faber and I'm really gripped by it. Arcadia should be read by anyone with any kind of interest in "utopia" and anyone who loves fine contemporary literature. Groff is one of my favorite new storytellers, who manages to balance sharp observation, rich characterization, interesting plot developments, and lyrical prose that's never overwrought (though in this book the lack of quotation marks takes some getting used to). Not that the two were similar in their particulars, just in their attempts to grasp at utopia. It's about a utopian commune in the 70s, which reminds me so much of the dog-rescue commune I lived at in 2010. So I can't recommend.įinally, though, there's Lauren Groff's Arcadia, which left me openly weeping, and just writing about it makes me well up. But there's a rot at the heart of the story, as the second half of the plot hinges on a false rape accusation coupled with the fact that every grown woman poses a problem for the main character, who's painted as rather flawless, I can't help but recognize a deep streak of misogyny here. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein features a canine narrator who's an absolute delight, with his wry yet earnest observations of human behavior, and despite the fact that I loathe automobile racing the use of it for metaphor in this book was quite fascinating. Unfortunately it's rather a boys' own adventure, as there's hardly two token female characters to be found. Outlandish, fun, lots of on-the-nose literary metaphors (that is, metaphors about books and stories themselves), this is one that belongs next to Alice in Wonderland on the bookshelf. Salmon Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories is the roller-coaster. It ends up being not so much a roller-coaster story as a day's meander through a lovely museum. It's a bit thin on plot, however, and there's a lot of metaphor concerning the refurbishing of antique furniture.
All her characters are completely fleshed out, practically four-dimensional. For lit fans this stuff is gold, mesmerizing and beautiful passages all told through the perspective of a main character who has a penchant for half-page long sentences, sentences that nonetheless all cohere with verve and panache. I was astounded by the pure artistry of her prose. Highly recommended.īefore that it was The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. And there's no shortage of plot, so it all keeps going at a brisk pace despite the book's 800 pages. Twenty main characters! Brought to life by her deft omniscient narration. Its structure is very strange (the first chapter is 360 pages long, the final chapter is barely two) and it's a story told out of order, so there's lots of active co-creation required on the part of the reader, which I love. Eleanor Catton manages to write a book that could very well pass for 19th Century literature, but it's still remarkably readable. I just finished The Luminaries, which was absolutely brilliant. Has anyone else read this book? Am I just being overly sensitive to the juxtaposition of sex and violence? Or is it really targeted for that market? (Which is a fine market to have, just not for me, and makes me wonder what secret lives my friends are leading.) It became a series, but I'm not going to read more than just this one. I'm going to finish the book, because I can't face my friends with "I didn't like it" if I haven't finished it, but… gah, it's difficult. The first quarter I was thinking "is this self-published, or was your editor sleeping on the job?" and the second quarter I was thinking "there is a lot of BDSM and rape fantasy going on here, and I don't feel comfortable reading it." I'm in the third quarter in, and it seems to have leveled out, but I'm wary of it.
A couple of friends of mine have often mentioned this book, and one insisted I read it, so I bought it several years ago and am now getting a chance to read it.Īnd I don't like it. I'm currently reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.