The 305 Greatest Books - #195: Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. The book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.

When I first started to look for my next book to read, I had several of the Everyman bindings ready at my disposal. So I researched a bunch of them and Old Goriot was one of the shorter ones, so I picked it for this month. Mainly the comments I had seen online were that Balzac had a way with scene descriptions. He would often go for pages describing one particular aspect of a scene. And I had found that, for the most part, that was true. The beginning of this book is an ad nauseam set up for the building in which Goriot lived. And while it took me a little bit to get into this style of writing, eventually it won me over. I still needed to take it slow through the book though. I only ended up being able to handle about 10 pages a day, because it took some concentration to absorb the story; a story that is a little bit all over the place. At one point a major character turns out to be criminal living under an assumed name. Why was this in the story? I don't know. Did it have major implications for the story. Kind of, but not really. The ending also left me pretty sour on the whole thing. It made it feel that several of the threads in the story were not only loose, but just left dangling because they were unimportant. Generally though, the story focuses on Goriot and his two adult daughters, whom he basically purchased into well placed marriages at the expense of his own well being, putting himself into poverty. Were the daughters thankful? Maybe? I'm still not certain their true feelings, however the book does paint them generally into a bad light. By the end of the book, everything is depressing and I don't really like any of the characters. Our main character, Eugène being the exception. His character went from one who I could have accepted if he got run over by a train to being the only redeemable character by the end. And even his last act throws all that out the window. So, overall, I'm lukewarm to meh on it as a whole. It is likely on the list for the use of descriptions and not likely for the riveting plot. 

The 305 Greatest Books - #194: Perfume by Patrick Süskind

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Perfume by Patrick Süskind. The book can be found on the BBC Book List.

I have been working my way through the BBC 100 Greatest Reads book list and this one piqued my interest. For one, it is pretty short, which always is a win for me but Two, the subtitle is "The Story of a Murderer". Ok, that sounds rather interesting and there aren't many murder mysteries in these book lists, so I will give it a shot. The story essentially follows the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a sociopath who is born without any scent of his own (i.e., no body odor), but has an inhuman ability to detect smells from miles away and is able to pick apart individual scent sources. While his goals shift depending on where we are in his life, he essentially wants to become a perfumer. Eventually his goals shift to wanting to create the perfect scent. This perfect scent, it turns out, comes in the form of newly pubescent girls of which he takes their scent from. And while not really sexual in nature, the book does take on an awkward Lolita vibe at times. My general feeling on the book is that is was "ok". I don't think it was a "great" read by any stretch of the imagination, however it was interesting. It does make you think about smells in ways that you never have though of before and the translation of the novel (originally in German) is super easy to follow. The ending of the book, though, felt rushed. For such a short novel, Süskind could have easily fleshed out the book a bit to make it not feel so rushed. He spends a rather long time describing smells of everything, then seems to skip over pivotal plot points at the end in order to surprise the reader with the denouement. Of which these skips don't feel overly earned because I question the timeline of things. But overall, it is an interesting story, kind of a let down at the end, but an easy and quick read. Not a "100 Greatest Book" level of good, but you'll not go wrong reading it. 

The 305 Greatest Books - #193: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. The book can be found on the BBC Book List.

Set during WWII, the story is mostly told as a flashback to the main character, Charles Ryder's, remembrances of his times at a house known as Brideshead as well as the family that owned and occupied the house, the Flytes during the 20's. And while the book is initially set up like a mystery during the prologue, it is really anything but. I went into the book (following said prologue) excited for a mystery and expecting some twist to take place, but nothing every really does. The story can be broken into two parts (even though the book is divided into three main parts), Charles life with Sebastian and his life with Julia. This first part with Charles was by far the more interesting section and the one that led credence to the "mystery" aspect of the story. It had potential to go where I could not see but overall it felt like that storyline was just dropped and the story of Julia taken up in it's place. Sebastian was mysterious and was a fantastic companion character. He traveled around with a teddy bear and communicated with it as if it was a real person. I mean this was someone who could lead us down some awesome roads. However, it seemed he was just abandoned in the story when he could have been played with more. Julia then took over the plot and while she was in the first part, she didn't seem to play a prominent role. And her story, again, wasn't bad per say, it just wasn't as interesting as Sebastian's and I didn't really care what happened with her at the end of it. I would say at the end, the story turned out to be just fine. It's not a bad story. It is well written and enjoyable to read, and you can breeze through it fairly quickly. However, I feel like I was sold a bill of goods with the prologue, and I never got over it. Overall, I feel like this book had so much potential and it just didn't go in an interesting direction. 

The 305 Greatest Books - #192: Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. The book can be found on the Observer Book List.

Having just read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, I really enjoyed his writing style and wanted to read his other book that was on my list, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Researching it, I discovered it was a children's book and was fairly short (~210 pages), which means I could likely finish it off fairly quickly. Turns out I could, I was able to read the book in four days, so that was the good part. The bad part is that, while it is a fine book, it does not deserve a place anywhere near this list. Within the story, Rushdie combines the feel of Alice in Wonderland and Dr. Seuss to present this whimsical fairy tale where a father and son are sent to save the Sea of Stories from those intent on destroying them. Rushdie litters the prose with jokes and word play, to the point it becomes practically insufferable. And while this is a children's book, the word play I could see giving children a difficult time to delve into the story. It took me a chapter or so before I was comfortable with it. I have run into this issue with the Observer list with numerous of the entries and I am starting to think that the list compiler purposefully chose this book over Rushdie's other works because he wanted something less popular. Overall, even though it is quick, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, despite Rushdie's sometimes clever wordplay. 

The 305 Greatest Books - #191: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. The book can be found on the Norwegian, BBC, and My Book Lists.

Salman Rushdie has become a rather infamous author over the last several decades, mostly because of another work of his, the 1988 work The Satanic Verses and the proceeding fatwa that was placed on him by the Ayatollah of Iran in 1989. Midnight's Children (1981) did not receive that sort of reception, however it is one of the few books I have left on my list that is on multiple 100 Greatest lists. Midnight's Children is about the life of Saleem Sinai who was born at the stroke of midnight on August 15th, 1947. Coincidently, the same day as India's Independence day from British rule. And because of this, Saleem had been gifted with "powers" (?), or maybe it is better termed "gifts". But not only him, but everyone born within that first hour of independence also had a wide range of gifts. And while that story sounds like it could be a fantastic fantasy novel, that is not this novel. While the book is named "Midnight's Children", the other children of midnight barely play a role within the novel, except here and there, and even then, they are sparingly used. So, if this book isn't about the powered people, then what is it about? And that is a good question because I'm still not entirely sure. We follow the course of Indian history, and Saleem's life, from a couple of generations before he is born, until he is in his thirties. And while Indian history plays a backdrop to the novel, at times it is directing the novel. Everything that is happening to him is due to India's primary players, people who actually do exist and events that had actually happened. And while the novel left me unfulfilled at the end, with an ending that wasn't really an ending, and characters plot lines that many of which were just left off or ended abruptly, I think that was the point of the story. And it made me think, while I didn't get the ending I wanted, the book ended in a way that it deserved. The writing style though I absolutely loved. So much so, that I immediately bought Rushdie's other book on my list, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, to begin reading immediately (a book that was referenced in Midnight's Children despite being written afterwards). So, yea, I would recommend this book because it was highly enjoyable, but prepare to have your expectations subverted. If you familiar with Indian history though, I feel you would get much more out of this book than those who are not (such as myself).