Book Blogger Hop

It is time for the Book Blogger Hop which is hosted by Crazy for Books every week.  Please check out out the Crazy for Books blog for more information.  This week's question in the hop is:

Who is your favourite new to you author this year? 

Great question and for me there is no contest, because this year I read a novel by  Colm Toibin.  You can read my review of his brilliant novel about Henry James "The Master" here.

Enjoy the hop and the weekend!

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

I enjoyed Cosmopolis for Don DeLillo's slick writing.  But I found the story to be weird, wild and not altogether satisfactory.  The premise for the story is a fascinating one.  The action takes place during a single day in the life of multi billionaire market investor Eric Packer on a day in April 2000.   We follow Eric as he leaves his 40 plus room luxury New York apartment in his white stretch limousine as it makes its way through the streets of down town Manhattan, where his first order of business for the day is to get a haircut.  But this of course is no ordinary day and in fact becomes Eric's ultimate day of reckoning so to speak, and the hair cut is a very long time in coming.

What follows is a very strange tale as we get to know Eric and his world a whole lot better.  The limo itself is marble floored and cork lined (to keep out the traffic noise) and houses a mind boggling array of screens which display market and currency information.  Different employees and advisors pop in and out of the limo to discuss business with Eric.  Eric also keeps his daily doctor's appointment with his doctor in the back of his limo.  You see for all of Eric's narcissistic brilliance he is paranoid about his health and subjects himself to a daily prostate examination.  I told you this was a weird one!  And that is only the beginning. 

Eric alights from the limo at various times during the day for meals and apparently random sexual hook ups, sometimes with his new wife and sometimes with other of his female associates.  The guy has some stamina.  While all of this is happening, Manhattan has virtually shut down due to  violent anti capitalist protests and the large scale funeral of a much celebrated Sufi rapper.  Eric's body guards are also highly tensed because there have been reports of a credible threat on Eric's life.  Yes, it is seriously all happening in this book.

As I said earlier I really like DeLillo's writing.  He has a truly beautiful and unique writing style that is deceptively simple and full of movement.  DeLillo also uses some interesting literary devices in this novel that I enjoyed.  The image of rats recurs throughout the novel.  The rat appears to symbolise the whole flow and mood of the story.  Again it is odd but effective.  There is a constant hinting at redundancy of things and concepts and this too reveals itself to be very significant for Eric who has built his fortune on anticipating what is going to be relevant next.  It would seem this has become his undoing as now everything feels passe to him and without meaning.

But by the end I was disappointed.  I think partially because the character of Eric is so unlikable and implausible and partially because this epic,  kaleidoscopic montage of a day doesn't really seem to mean all that much once it reaches its grim and dramatic conclusion.   I was also disappointed because I enjoyed DeLillo's The Body Artist very much.  The Body Artist comes together as a glorious whole and I found I could really engage with it.  Cosmopolis,while I found worth reading for the expert writing, left me wanting.  I couldn't engage with the outlandish characters and found it altogether too unreal and grim.

Teaser Tuesday: The Little Prince

Teaser Tuesday is a fun meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.  All you have to do is open your current read to a random page and provide two teaser sentences from that page.  Be sure not to give away any spoilers and include the name of the book and author so others know what you are reading.

Mine for this week is from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

When you are trying to be witty, you are apt to sometimes wander from the truth.  I have not been altogether honest in describing the lamplighters.  p. 57

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. 

I have just finished Daisy Miller by Henry James.  Review is here.  I am working my way through Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo.  And I have started The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery after a trusted bookish friend recommended it as a must read. 

I look forward to starting North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell soon as it arrived from Book Depository last week.  Happy reading!

Daisy Miller by Henry James

Daisy Miller is a novella by Henry James and was first published in 1878.  I thank Mel U at The Reading Life for recommending it to me as one of the more easily digestible of James's works.

Daisy Miller is a bright, lively and enjoyable read.  Daisy is a  wealthy American young lady holidayimg in Europe with her younger brother and mother.  She comes across Winterbourne, a more cultured compatriot while holidaying in the Swiss resort town of Vevey.  It is Vevey, on the shores of Lake Geneva that is depicted on this very sweet book cover, by the way. 

Winterbourne is introduced to Daisy by her younger brother Rudolph who is nine and quite adorable.  Winterbourne is instantly captivated by her beauty, freshness and apparent lack of guile or affectation.  When Winterbourne learns that Daisy and her family will be passing the winter in Rome he makes sure his plans also take him to Rome.  When Winterbourne arrives in Rome he learns that Daisy has been getting about with all and sundry and generally scandalising the other Americans with her carefree behaviour.

Even though the tone of the novel is largely bright and breezy, I do feel that James is trying to make some serious comment about the stifling social morays and expectations of the times, especially with regard to   what was deemed acceptable behaviour for young unmarried women.   The snobbish character of Winterbourne's aunt, Mrs Costello is priceless as she condemns Daisy and her family: 

"They are very common," Mrs Costello declared.  "They are the sort of Americans that one does one's duty by not - not accepting." p.19  And later

"They are hopelessly vulgar, " said Mrs Costello.  "Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being 'bad' is a question for the metaphysicians.  They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life that is quite enough." p41

So you see, poor free spirited Daisy Miller does not stand much of a chance in this social environ. 

The novella is loaded with wonderfully drawn characters.  From the well meaning social matrons who endeavor to save Daisy's honour by unceremoniously turning their backs on her, to the handsome Italian suitor that also catches her eye.  Daisy's mother is an insipid hypochondriac, while Winterbourne whose perspective we largely see the story from, is sophisticated, well meaning, but also lacks a certain type of courage.  And then there is Daisy herself.  She grew on me as the novel went along. The main tension in the narrative derives from the question of her character. 

Daisy Miller is delightfully readable, there is none of that convoluted prose that seems to be a hallmark of James's later work, and the characters are wonderful. I definitely recommended it.

Teaser Tuesday: Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.  All you have to do is open your current read at a random page and share two sentences.  Please avoid spoilers and include the name and author of your book so others can make note or the book if they wish.

Mine this week comes from Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo.  I have just finished The Body Artist by the same author and was fascinated by this author's style so have embarked on another of his novels.  This teaser is from page 43 of Cosmopolis:

He looked past Ingram while the doctor listened to his heart valves open and close.  The car moved incrementally westward.  He didn't know why stethoscopes were still in use.  They were lost tools of antiquity, quaint as blood-sucking worms.   p43

Cosmopolis is very different to The Body Artist.  It has a sparse coldness to it that is quite unsettling.  Hopefully I will finish it and have a review up over the next few days.

The Body Artist by Don DeLillo

The Body Artist is an exceptionally fine novel.  Original is an understatement in the case of this book. DeLillo is undoubtedly a word artist and I am only sorry that I have not read him sooner.

I picked up this book after hearing a Don DeLillo short story called Baader-Meinhof being read on a New Yorker fiction podcast a few months ago.  The atmosphere created in the short story was mesmerising and so I made a note to find other work by DeLillo.

The Body Artist is about Lauren Hartke who does performance art with her body.  This is the sort of novel that unfurls slowly and unexpectedly so I am loathe to go into any detail about the plot or even the major themes.  I will say I was captivated from the first page and literally did not put the book down until I had completed it.

DeLillo's style is so different to anything I have read before.  In someways it is more like poetry, in that it draws the reader into single moments.  Time slows down in some ways and I felt hypnotised by the beauty and experience of everyday things.

He bit off the stem and tossed it toward the sink.  Then he split the fig open with his thumbnails and took the spoon out of her hand and licked it off and used it to scoop a measure of claret flesh out of the gaping fig skin.  He dropped this stuff on his toast - the flesh, the mash, the pulp - and then spread it with the bottom of the spoon, blood-buttery swirls that popped with seedlife.  p15

The moment to moment intimacy of the prose really drew me in and held me fascinated.  The narrative is told in third person and mostly from the the perspective of the body artist.  For me the magic is that from observing and experiencing the routine day to day moments as Lauren the body artist does, we experience who she really is at a very intimate and meaningful level.  The journey is quite weird at times.  The body artist is no girl next door type.  DeLillo captures what I imagine to be the essence of someone with artistic sensibilities in a way that I have not read before.

I admire what DeLillo has achieved with The Body Artist.  Most novels are largely cognitive experiences, that is, we form mind pictures and our emotional reactions are largely thought based.  The Body Artist, like a good piece of art, is experienced first and the thoughts come later.  I know this book will not be for everyone.  You have to sort of surrender yourself over to experiencing a story in a different way.  DeLillo plays around with language and dialogue and again you are invited to just go with this and feel. 

The experience of this book feels very personal.  In the hectic hurly burly of life, where most of us survive and thrive by identifying as thinkers first, I feel that DeLillo is challenging us to slow down and fully inhabit our moments.  The body artist shows us how.