Day 256
Saturday, May 19, 2007
I have an assignment:
Pick three of your favorite books--novels, non-fiction, you name it--and pick one nuance about each of those book that you really appreciate. It can be a stylistic aspect, a thematic approach, the way the author uses a certain word.
Tell us about them. I'll add my three tomorrow.
posted, with grace and poise, by Jason @ 5/19/2007 11:41:00 PM,
3 Comments:
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At 10:51 PM,
Jason said...
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Maybe no one did this because I didn't start it off?
1) Gilead, Marilynne Robinson-- The honesty John Ames, the narrator, projects is beautiful. It's such a gorgeous novel, and the nuances are almost endless.
2) Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis-- Lewis' gentle descriptive ability is underrated, in my opinion, and it's at full force here (from how he paints a setting to the soft allegorical imagery...I have so much of this series stuck in my head permanently now)
3) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke-- I think much has been said about Clarke's grand style, but she's got the minor character thing down pat. There are a few minor characters that cause me to audibly cheer when they appear; they're so well fleshed-out and interesting that you can't help not like them. -
At 11:45 PM,
Janell said...
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Alright, I'll contribute:
1) Harry Potters -- I love the humor in the characters speech - Ron especially can be so unexpectedly hilarious.
2) Catcher in the Rye -- The casual, conversational tone the story is told in -it's as if I've known Holden Caulfield for years, or that I want to.
Is only 2 ok to add? -
At 2:51 AM,
Angela said...
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I love the way Douglas Adams in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy caused some of the most ridiculous and trivial things from earlier parts of the story to be of great importance in later parts (for example, the bowl of petunias).
Goedel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter was initially a computer-science textbook for me (at 750+ pages, to be read and book-reported). However, mixed in with the hard logic and computability theory, there's so much wordplay and storytelling and philosophy and (actually profound) silliness that the book is really a joy to read for its own sake, and there's something new every time in its many layers of meaning.
(Darn! I don't seem to have another "Douglas" in my library) Hmm... oh, I picked up a 60s-ish poetry collection at a library sale a while back that I thought was created on an interesting concept. The editors asked a couple hundred poets to choose one of their own poems to be included in the book, along with the poets' explanations (some are short, some are long) for their choices. It's a fun read.
