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Five books, five weeks
Sep. 4th, 2004 06:38 pmThere will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
I left Canada with two books (A Telling of Stars and The Bonesetter's Daughter) and finished them quickly, forcing me to buy A Prayer For Owen Meany. In Bratislava, I traded The Bonesetter's Daughter for Demian and in Sofia traded Idoru (which G had brought, but I'd read a year ago) for Angels. For some time, it's been my intention to write and post book reviews of sorts, so let's see if I can push myself to do it for once.
Though full of ideas that are good in themselves, Demian (by Hermann Hesse) is the kind of book that made me feel I'd read it too late; had I read it ten years ago, it might have changed my life, or at least gotten me thinking seriously. As it is, I'm already too self-aware; my beliefs, though still tentative on many levels, are defined enough that the book could only echo some things I've known as personal truths for a while, now. The tone of the book, the narrator's voice seemed almost too detached to provide a life-altering experience, but who knows? It's quite short and ends rather abruptly, at least in terms of the action, but I suppose that as the point is the inner action, it's justified.
That's always a question that I ask myself, "Would I have liked this any better if I'd read it sooner/later?" Only for books I found bad to average, of course, I don't question the ones I pick up at the perfect moment. The Catcher in the Rye is one book that I don't think I picked up too late (I started it over a year ago, read half and am loathe to finish it as I have no sympathy for the main character), I doubt I would have gotten into it at any age.
I left Canada with two books (A Telling of Stars and The Bonesetter's Daughter) and finished them quickly, forcing me to buy A Prayer For Owen Meany. In Bratislava, I traded The Bonesetter's Daughter for Demian and in Sofia traded Idoru (which G had brought, but I'd read a year ago) for Angels. For some time, it's been my intention to write and post book reviews of sorts, so let's see if I can push myself to do it for once.
Though full of ideas that are good in themselves, Demian (by Hermann Hesse) is the kind of book that made me feel I'd read it too late; had I read it ten years ago, it might have changed my life, or at least gotten me thinking seriously. As it is, I'm already too self-aware; my beliefs, though still tentative on many levels, are defined enough that the book could only echo some things I've known as personal truths for a while, now. The tone of the book, the narrator's voice seemed almost too detached to provide a life-altering experience, but who knows? It's quite short and ends rather abruptly, at least in terms of the action, but I suppose that as the point is the inner action, it's justified.
That's always a question that I ask myself, "Would I have liked this any better if I'd read it sooner/later?" Only for books I found bad to average, of course, I don't question the ones I pick up at the perfect moment. The Catcher in the Rye is one book that I don't think I picked up too late (I started it over a year ago, read half and am loathe to finish it as I have no sympathy for the main character), I doubt I would have gotten into it at any age.
