Belated July Booklist

Its been a while since I made an entry in this series, so let me see if I can catch up. I will skip any more discussion of the Proust, I'm afraid it somewhat defies discussion ; it's the sort of book that I wish I had read in an Lit class so that we could have talked about it in detail, but a cursory description really says very little about it. Moving on..

Doctorow, E. L. - Lives of the Poets (1984)

This is a book of short stories, and I think it to some degree encapsulates my feeling on Doctorow; some of the stories are absolutely beautiful while others barely rise above boring. "The Writer in the Family" is really good, "The Water Works" - though better than the novel that he later based on this story - is just ok. I'm not going to describe each of the stories here, maybe I will later, but I doubt it. If I were suggesting Doctorow to someone that had never read anything of his, I would push Ragtime, Loon Lake, and Billy Bathgate...though there are still a lot of his novels that I haven't yet read.

Roth, Philip - Goodbye, Columbus (1959)

This is Roth's first published book, a book of short stories. I think as is the way with most books of short stories, some of the stories are excellent and others are just ok. - exceptions being (perhaps) Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Robert Olen Butler's A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, ...and actually, I could go on and on with this so I'll stop, but if you haven't read those two, you should. ...anyway...The title story in Goodbye, Columbus is a good indication of what Roth's style and subject will eventually become. A really beautiful little novella about a time that doesn't really exist anymore. The protagonist is 23 years old, yet is an adult; today, 23 is still a kid. I think it is an important distinction; a 23 year old adult is just as young and fallible as the 23 year old kid, yet he carries himself differently, and his story is valuable. Other excellent stories here are, "The Conversion of the Jews" and "Defender of the Faith."

Rowling,J.K.-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)

WARNING - spoilers ahead...I don't want to give anything away to anyone that hasn't read it, I know how important it is to people. I think this is probably the weakest of the Potter books so far; we spend 500 pages with just exposition, nothing much interesting or creative or imaginative happening - and then climax, climax, done. This book though does leave us with several questions, and I'll give my interpretations. I still don't think that Snape is evil, regardless of what he may (or may not) have done. He either was forced to do what he did by the Vow, or he colluded with Dumbledore to do it, or he colluded with Dumbledore to pretend to do it. The last one is what I believe. I just can't accept that Dumbledore is dead. I think that they faked it in order to give Harry the anger and confidence that he needs to face Voldemort. Oh, and I think that the initials, RAB (I think) refer to Sirius' brother who has been mentioned several times and is presumed to be dead. Just my two cents

Simmons, Dan - Olympus (2005)

More on this later - my only thought right now is that I can picture my Classics professor spinning in his grave....well, he's not dead yet, so...spinning in his bed beside his Vietnamese cabana-boy.