My Summer will involve a lot of reading. This can partially be blamed on the Southern heat. Although I fully expect to take several medals in the “complaining about the heat” and “sprinting from the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned building” events this summer, the most satisfying method of coping may be reading a book in front of an air conditioner vent while drinking ice-water. In light of this ambitious vacation planning, I’ve begun to line up my reading schedule, and thought it might be a fun way to inaugurate the “real” posts on the new blog.
In Progress
- The Collected Short Stories of Isaac Babel.
- The Overcoat and Other Tale of Good and Evil, by Nikolai Gogol.
- Starwater Strains, an anthology by Gene Wolfe.
What can I say? I’ve been on a short story kick lately. Of these three, Babel’s collection is probably the best. It’s a surprising book, full of stories with decidedly mixed tones that Babel pulls off perfectly. It’s difficult to tell a sad story in a funny way and get by with it, but he manages well enough.
Gogol is not quite as good. He’s recognized as one of the masters of the short story. Dostoevsky said “We all came out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat,’” and I can’t deny that story has a power and melancholy worth its reputation. The other stories, however, are uneven. “The Terrible Vengeance” is another excellent story, but the rest of the stories seem over-long and meandering. I’ll have more to say about these melancholy Russians in about a week, I think.
Starwater Strains is good, but it may be the weakest collection of Wolfe’s stories that I own. That’s not a severe indictment—after Storeys from the Old Hotel and The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Storeys, most authors’ collections would look weak. Most genre writers would kill for a collection this good. That said, perhaps because I’ve read so much of Wolfe now, or perhaps because it’s being read concurrently with Babel and Gogol, this collection seems a little less effective than his others. The Sam Cooper, Ph.D. stories and “Mute” (also collected in Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse) make it worthwhile.
I’m overdue on a giant post about Wolfe…
Planned
- The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
- The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton.
- Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy.
- Peace, by Gene Wolfe.
- There Are Doors, by Gene Wolfe.
Okay, so this is a weird list. I bought the Allende on a whim for a dollar, and it’s been lying there taunting me for months. It’s been recommended to me, but it honestly sounds like nothing I will like, so I’m not exactly enthused. Still, broadening the horizons and all that. The Hardy is in a similar boat. One of my coworkers recommended it to me, and I’ve decided to take her up on it. Of course, I hate Hardy as a result of a miserable assignment of Tess of the d’Urbervilles in 12th Grade English, so this is his last chance to make a favorable impression.
I’ve long felt that Chesterton is a gaping hole in my reading experience, so I’ve made up my mind to fix that. Thursday is widely regarded as his best work, both funny and serious, and so that will be my beachhead. Of course, Chesterton is also Gene Wolfe’s favorite author, so this serves the purpose of tracing influences as well. As for Mr. Wolfe, I’ve mostly finished his serieses and am moving into his (strange) standalone novels. A lot of people dislike these two, so we’ll see how it goes.
Possible
- Green Grass, Running Water, by Thomas King.
This is a result of summer reading posts at How the University Works and The Valve. I enjoy reading groups, but it seems that most of the interesting ones choose really miserable books. Green Grass, Running Water is a rarity: an interesting looking novel that actually has people interested in it. Of course, given my luck, they’ll pick something terrible. Like a re-reading of Frankenstein. Come on, people, it was terrible the first time.