10 June 2011

The other two books I read this week.

Two days over 90° this week; naught to do but sit in front of a fan in one's undies and read. Slightly higher-impact than just watching TV, I suppose, but saves on electric bills.

Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi: Satrapi is, of course, the Iranian-born graphic memoirist responsible for Persepolis; this is a similarly illustrated minor work dealing with the sexual lives of Iranian women--naive to debauched--trading stories around a samovar.

The History of Love, Nicole Krauss: I feel like I should have loved this book? I "only" liked it. The intersecting tales of elderly Leo Gorsky and 14-year-old Alma Singer hinge on the eponymous book, written by a mysterious Polish immigrant to Chile. The writing is lovely and the final dovetailing all it should be. I couldn't shake off the specter of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close's Oskar (huh, books came out within a month of each other. Good season for precocious list-making narrators) floating around Alma's voice, which seemed awfully little-kid for a high school freshman. So: not a winner for me, though I can easily see how it would be for someone else--to that end, I'm passing it along to Housing Works Bookstore where I'll be volunteering starting Monday next.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, but how did Embroideries make you feeeeel?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Am I supposed to say "empowered"? I thought "minor" covered it.

    ReplyDelete

 
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