So. I went ahead and saw the new Star Trek movie, since everyone is talking about it.

I was expecting to have more of a reaction to it. Like, to either like it more, or hate it more. My lack of reaction is probably due to the fact that I’ve been reading spoilers for a couple of days now -- something I normally would never, ever do. Normally, I avoid spoilers like the plague. But this time... I figured I’d be better off preparing myself beforehand for just how much I was going to hate this movie. And it seems to have worked, because I didn’t hate it. But I definitely didn't love it, either.

( Spoilers in here. )

I'm a traditionalist. What can I say.

ETA: ( One more thing. )

ETA #2: ( Okay, make that two more things. )

ETA #3: THIS. <-- (You probably won't want to read this if you liked the movie.)

Book meme from hamsterwoman and sheiannasherra. In case anyone was worried that I'd stopped caring about books lately...

( Of course, I've said most of this before. )

Last night, at like three in the morning, I suddenly woke up, opened my eyes, and thought: "Yes, that is the overwhelming question. What would Lazarus say? If one could come back from the dead, what would one say?"

That's right. Apparently, I was endeavoring to conduct a literary analysis of T. S. Eliot in my sleep.

And apparently symbolist poetry is the only thing my subconscious thinks should be interpreted in a literal, linear way. Go figure.

Anyhow. From hamsterwoman: ( A meme about LJ. )

Ah yes -- yet another great, rambling book review post.

This time, the topic is ( Brave New World. )

Now then, I also recently read another utopian/distopian novel, Skinner's ( Walden Two ) ( On with some general reactions to all this -- both Huxley and Skinner. )

But in any case, I have one objection that concerns both Huxley's and Skinner's utopias, and it is simply this: (  I really don't believe Man is capable of existing without conflict. )

Anyway. I was going to try to write some kind of actual conclusion for this ramble, but as usual it's quite long enough without that, so...

I notice that today's "Writer's Block" thingy asks what five books one would bring along to a desert island. I'm going to use this question to distract me from the fact that the house smells like fucking cat spray, and the much more infuriating fact that the reason it smells like cat spray is because the Demon broke into the pony room (he has a knack for opening doors, EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN JAMMED SHUT WITH A STOOL) and sprayed, for no reason, in spite of being neutered, on the one pony card that my sister and I still have from when we were kids. (We had about a hundred different ones as kids. We managed to save only this one. THANK YOU, Demon, for proving once again the aptness of your epithet.)

Ahem. Anyway. Books.

I'm going to assume that my exile to this desert island is permanent, so that I'd better take along books I already know I like, and not books I've simply been meaning to read but might not want to spend the rest of my solitary life with. Realistically, I would want some bloody enormous books -- probably the Complete Works of Shakespeare, Complete Works of Melville, Hugo, Marquez... that sort of thing. And probably The Bible, since whether one believes a word of it or not, it certainly contains enough material to keep one occupied for several lifetimes.

But assuming I have to actually pick five individual works, and not collections of books or stories -- I'll take Moby Dick, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, The Idiot, and Les Miserables. (Er. Except, again, realistically, I'd probably replace the latter two with Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Amber, because I'm not actually sure how much I'd care about Dostoevsky's philosophizing, or the socio-political climate of post-revolution France, if I were stuck with them on an island. Whereas quests and heirs and ancient kingdoms will always have some sort of Jungian appeal.)

( ...God, what a smug little creep. )

I've been failing tremendously at keeping up with LJ for the past couple of weeks, but I finally had the chance to skim back through my friends-list today, and I think I'm caught up on everything now. Whew!

Anyway, two things. First, I'm switching my journal to Friends Only, not for any dramatic, immediate reason, but because it just seems like the prudent thing to do, since I'm aiming for a career teaching high school. Better to hide the slash sooner than later, right? ;) I'm leaving most of my book-related posts public, though. And some of the My Little Pony ones, too.

Second... not that most people will care, but just so you know, if you're using Twitter exclusively instead of making actual LJ posts these days, then I've filtered you off of my friends list. I don't like using filters, since it seems rude to have someone on your friends list but not actually read their posts... but I'm not going to read Twitter imports. If you want to defriend me, it's okay.

Oh! And third, galarix, I got your card! :D Thank you!

Anyway, hopefully I'll have time for a more substantial post next week.

People recommend books to me. I read other books. Fail? Yes, sort of fail. But not entirely fail, since at least I can cross something off my reading list...

Anyway, this time the book is Steinbeck's East of Eden. I think I started reading it ten years ago. I made it through the first three hundred pages or so, and then gave it up, bored to death of both the plot and the characters, and thinking that everything about it felt too contrived -- far too contrived for Steinbeck, especially. I felt like he was stepping out of his league.

I don't know if it's just because my expectations have changed, or whether the second half of the book was really so much better than the first half (it did get better as it progressed, even within the second half), but having finished it, I can say that I underestimated Steinbeck, and that although East of Eden could probably have been better, it was very good. It did what it was meant to do.

( Some general thoughts on Steinbeck. )

Last post on this subject for a while. I promise.

I said yesterday that Tolstoy was a mediocre philosopher. He is. I also said he was a good writer. That was an understatement. ( So here's a more balanced report. No spoilers. )

I don't know what I'll be reading next. The reason it occurred to me how far I'd underestimated Tolstoy is because I've been trying to start on some other book, but nothing I pick up comes anywhere close to Tolstoy's eloquence, and I find myself doing more criticising than reading. So far, King Lear is the only thing I've tried that I haven't been able to find fault with. ...So much for lighter reading. :P

Well, I've finally finished reading War and Peace. It turned out to be, at bottom, a 1400-page treatise on determinism. I feel it only fair to warn those of you who may be interested in reading it. The characters are good, the writing is good, it's easy to read, and there are some interesting ideas along the way. But ultimately, the point is that free will exists only as a kind of necessary unknown factor without which we could not call ourselves human, but has no meaning; ultimately the point is that everything done by anybody was predestined by God from the dawn of time (or rather outside of time), and no one could ever have acted any differently than they did. Especially not Napoleon, which is what makes him the most odious of all. Apparently.

I will also add, though of course this is entirely my own opinion, that Tolstoy is a thoroughly mediocre philosopher. His arguments, when they aren't the same ones that have been advanced for centuries, are almost irrelevant; his metaphors are mostly complete nonsense; and even when he makes a valid point, he often does so by proofs which are completely inscrutable. Dostoevsky made a better argument for determinism in five or ten pages of Notes From Underground -- and Dostoevsky didn't even believe in it.

I think it may be time for some lighter reading.

A couple of people on my f-list have now made lists of books to read in 2009 (or, more realistically, let's just say in the near future). This is in no way a complete list of books I need to read, but I'll keep adding to it as people recommend things. (If you've recommended something and I've forgotten to put it on the list, remind me! Or if you have anything else to add, of course. :)

( Books to Read )

I could probably do with some recommendations for short story collections (about which I know almost nothing, since I rarely read short stories, but probably should start).

Once again, I come with pony photos. :) This time we took pictures of our pony antique store. You can check out the page at our website by clicking here.

And welcome to 2009! *confetti*

While waiting around last night for the changing of the year, I decided to try out Borges, beginning with "The Immortal," which agguss recommended to me ages ago. ( I can see that Borges will very probably be going down on my favorite authors list. )

I'm also a bit over 600 pages into War and Peace now, and rather amused that ( spoilers )

And those appear to be my beginning-of-the-year thoughts. New year, same pointless ramblings!

Well! Book-buying went ( fairly well. )

I was a little surprised by how many books they didn't have, though. Nothing by Tom Stoppard except the plays I've already got, for instance. Copenhagen was also nowhere to be found. And each store I visited had at most two books on Napoleon, which really surprised me since, if I recall, Napoleon is the second most extensively biographized man in the world -- the first being Jesus. No biographies of Wellington at all, though I did find (and buy) a book about Napoleon and Wellington, which is at least something.

(I also didn't find anything by C.S. Lewis, but it now occurs to me that that's probably because I was looking for him in Fiction and Literature rather than Children's...)

I also finally ( signed up for next semester's classes. )

Every time I realize how excited I am about taking literature classes, I start wondering if I'm an idiot for going after a Physics degree instead of something in the arts. There are so many wonderful things I could major in. How the hell do people choose just one thing to do with a lifetime?

Items:

1) The Spirit has reminded me why I never go to the theater. ( Ten dollars for *that*? )

2) I'm a bit over 300 pages into War and Peace. I was worried that it would be slow reading, and 1400 pages of it, at that -- but it's actually surprisingly fast-paced; more so than a lot of other authors of the period, anyway. My only difficulty with the book so far is in keeping track of its ( typical Russian superabundance of characters. )

Oddly, War and Peace is also having the unexpected side-effect of making me ( really excited about Napoleon. )

3) I guess this post would be the place to tell me what books I should buy with my gift cards. ;) Of course, I've already got a list; foremost among the books I'm planning to buy are ( these. ) But anyway, I'm shopping at Bookman's, where everything is used and cheap, so if I have any money left over, I'll want to know what I should spend it on. And it's always nice to have options! :)

At long last, finals are over. I have no idea how I did on my College Algebra final, and luckily I don't have to care, because unless I utterly failed it, I should still get a B in the class. And if I did utterly fail it -- I'll still get a C.

So. It's time once again for my embarrassingly short list-of-books-I-read-this year. I'm still a hell of a long way from "read your height in books," but I did better than last year, anyway. (And as usual, I'm not including stories and plays from collections -- just whole novels.)

Here, then, are the books, complete with commentary of great prolixity and spoileriness.

( Toilers of the Sea )
( er, here, have some extended rambling about Hugo and Melville )
( Brief Lives )
( Frankenstein )
( Coraline )
( Nineteen Eighty-Four )
( reread: The Man in the High Castle )
( V for Vendetta )
( Atlas Shrugged )
( Tao Te Ching )
( The Stranger )
( Big Fish )
( Lots of Batman stuff... )
( Watchmen )
( The Golden Compass )
( The Valley of Fear )
( The General in His Labyrinth )
( Dracula )
( This Side of Paradise )
( War of the Worlds )

Aaaand there you have it. I may not read much, but I sure do make long posts about it...

Because BOOKS > RL.

( Holy gigantic book meme, Batman! )

EDIT: Okay, maybe BOOKS > RL is not a perfect equation, because sometimes RL has ( BABY CHICKENS )

Also, if you haven't given me your address already: DO IT so I can send you a card. :D

I finally watched "The Crooked Man," after waiting as long as I could (and watching "The Naval Treaty" a second time with my sister). Not bad. I mean, it wasn't much of a mystery, like, at all -- but that's Doyle's fault.

Watson was better in this one, on the whole, although he had a few moments of headdesk-inducing idiocy right in the middle. I'm starting to get the impression that Watson is just there to keep people from getting too irritated at Holmes' utter disregard for social etiquette. Holmes almost never greets anyone, shakes hands, acknowledges gratitude, or anything of the kind. Luckily, Watson is there to be polite for him.

Anyway, the last scene was pretty adorable. :D

And from hamsterwoman: ( another book meme. )

Finished The Valley of Fear. The plot was better than those of the other Sherlock Holmes novels, I thought, although as usual I found the gigantic block of backstory a bit tedious. It did help that the backstory was ultimately kind of a pseudo-mystery in itself, with a twist at the end. Still, the whole problem ultimately felt pretty unresolved to me. I mean, the mystery was solved, which was enough for Holmes, I guess -- but a lot of good that did. :P The epilogue didn't help much, either. It was kind of just a footnote, like, "For actual resolution, see The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes."

Actually, I really liked the first part of The Valley of Fear, which read to me like a completely separate novella from the second part. By itself, it would have made for one of the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The second part turned out pretty interesting by the end, too, and I can't say it should have been omitted. But it wasn't as strong; it had nothing to do with Holmes, yet it needed Holmes for an introduction, or there wouldn't have been enough to hold a reader's interest. I guess it's partly just a problem of narration. Watson's first-hand accounts are always interesting, and often amusing; but when he gives second-hand accounts he's much more sober and removed, and just not as much fun to read.

So: a good story, but definitely not my favorite of the Holmes novels. (For that I'm torn between The Hound of the Baskervilles -- which is probably technically the best one, but is somewhat lacking in Holmes himself -- and The Sign of Four -- which is ridiculously far-fetched and weird, but has no shortage of Holmes and features several of my favorite scenes, and certainly my favorite opening and closing paragraphs.)

Anyway. Other than reading, I've not gotten much done today. I ought to be ticked off, because my sister, after staying out all last night with friends, decided this morning to back out of plans she and I had made more than two weeks ago. Which... on principle, it annoys me that she chose to blow off plans we'd made well in advance, in favor of partying with her friends... but I'm not actually annoyed, because it means I've got the day to myself, and don't have to go anywhere or talk to anyone, which suits me fine. If I could just stop thinking like Watson, in convoluted parentheticals, I'd try to write something.

...Or, wait. Maybe that's me, not Watson. :/

After more than a month, I finally finished reading Gabriel García Márquez's The General in His Labyrinth. (Not that it's long -- it isn't. I just haven't had much time for reading lately.)

It was very good. It's a historical novel -- a fictionalized account of the last months of the life of General Simón Bolívar, "The Liberator," who secured independence from Spain for a number of Latin American countries. But the story isn't about heroics, conquests, or successes of any kind. The General is mentally and physically exhausted, and indeed almost an invalid, at the age of 47. The themes are much like those of One Hundred Years of Solitude -- decline and disillusionment and destitution. And, well... solitude.

I'm not sure what to say about it except that it's Márquez: simple and vivid, bleak, sincere, unforgivingly human, at once profound and mundane. I can't even put spoilers behind a cut, because there are no spoilers. It's not that kind of novel. There isn't climax or resolution or twists or surprising revelations... there's just this meandering account of the General's final journey, interwoven with memories and reflections on his former glory, successes tainted with the growing realization of futility.

Needless to say, I enjoyed it a great deal. I need to find more books like this one.

(ETA: Oh, hey. I just found this One Hundred Years of Solitude icon I made for a roleplay sockpuppet, like, two years ago. *keeps it*)