Work is intense and I’m not getting much time to read. I did kill two books that are technical and work related but not worth mentioning. Did finish one book worth mentioning, and I’ve begun another.
Washington, A Life. A biography by Ron Chernow.
This is a mighty book, more than 900 pages. It’s a great book, but it isn’t for anyone who doesn’t want to read a biography of George Washington.
I think the hardest thing about Washington is to pin him down. He was a man of balance. He had ambitions but never energetically asserted himself. Instead, he often waited for things to come to him. He was stoic and principled. He worried about what was proper and what posterity would think of him. And the more I’ve read, the more I sense what other historians are now asserting – he was indispensable to the formation of this country. No one else could have brought all those minds and egos of the time together to produce something that could last. He was critical in defining the federal government as we find it.
The book has continued to increase my appreciation of the man. Even more, my affection has grown. When the book finally got to his death, I feared I’d start weeping. The February holiday will not be same.
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
This is my second Picoult book. Someone asked me to read it. I’m about a third the way through it. The first Picoult, 19 Minutes, was the book about school mass shooting. I find the prose of this book, House Rules, less interesting. Where 19 Minutes had flowing prose, I find House Rules to be pedestrian.
The second big problem I had is that I now have the strong sense of Picoult formula. Pick a couple of themes: say forensics and Asperger’s Syndrome. Sprinkle in some other minor themes: such as dinosaurs. Use wikipedia too look up a lot of facts. Then randomly scatter those facts, while weaving them around a simple comedy-romance. There’s a single woman. There’s a single man. They’re both perfect for each other. We all know that. Read the whole book waiting for the two characters to realize it.
I’ve got other issues. One I’m not sure about, but I find annoying. When a character is logically or factually wrong about something, how does the writer convey that it’s a weakness of the character not of the writer? For example, if a character is explaining their thinking and commit a logical fallacy, how does the reader know if it’s the character or the writer? When I read another books and there’s a description you know isn’t right (simple example: attaching a silencer to a revolver), you ignore it knowing the writer isn’t informed. But here, I’m not sure who’s the idiot, the writer or the character.
Another problem: Picoult writes from the perspective from the character with Asperger’s. I’m not a fan of this: how does anyone know what’s going on inside an autistic’s head? Decades ago there was a trend to write books with psychopaths, and authors would “get into their head”. It often seemed like an LSD trip.
Minor complaint: why would you have a character named “Mark Maguire”?
Another annoyance, and I don’t know if it’s wrong; the character with Aspergers is sarcastic. My understanding is that Aspergers are too linear for sarcasm or irony. He also uses exaggerated idioms, e.g. “I was going to explode”.
I’ll finish it, but I’m headed towards disappointment, I fear.
Washington, A Life. A biography by Ron Chernow.
This is a mighty book, more than 900 pages. It’s a great book, but it isn’t for anyone who doesn’t want to read a biography of George Washington.
I think the hardest thing about Washington is to pin him down. He was a man of balance. He had ambitions but never energetically asserted himself. Instead, he often waited for things to come to him. He was stoic and principled. He worried about what was proper and what posterity would think of him. And the more I’ve read, the more I sense what other historians are now asserting – he was indispensable to the formation of this country. No one else could have brought all those minds and egos of the time together to produce something that could last. He was critical in defining the federal government as we find it.
The book has continued to increase my appreciation of the man. Even more, my affection has grown. When the book finally got to his death, I feared I’d start weeping. The February holiday will not be same.
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
This is my second Picoult book. Someone asked me to read it. I’m about a third the way through it. The first Picoult, 19 Minutes, was the book about school mass shooting. I find the prose of this book, House Rules, less interesting. Where 19 Minutes had flowing prose, I find House Rules to be pedestrian.
The second big problem I had is that I now have the strong sense of Picoult formula. Pick a couple of themes: say forensics and Asperger’s Syndrome. Sprinkle in some other minor themes: such as dinosaurs. Use wikipedia too look up a lot of facts. Then randomly scatter those facts, while weaving them around a simple comedy-romance. There’s a single woman. There’s a single man. They’re both perfect for each other. We all know that. Read the whole book waiting for the two characters to realize it.
I’ve got other issues. One I’m not sure about, but I find annoying. When a character is logically or factually wrong about something, how does the writer convey that it’s a weakness of the character not of the writer? For example, if a character is explaining their thinking and commit a logical fallacy, how does the reader know if it’s the character or the writer? When I read another books and there’s a description you know isn’t right (simple example: attaching a silencer to a revolver), you ignore it knowing the writer isn’t informed. But here, I’m not sure who’s the idiot, the writer or the character.
Another problem: Picoult writes from the perspective from the character with Asperger’s. I’m not a fan of this: how does anyone know what’s going on inside an autistic’s head? Decades ago there was a trend to write books with psychopaths, and authors would “get into their head”. It often seemed like an LSD trip.
Minor complaint: why would you have a character named “Mark Maguire”?
Another annoyance, and I don’t know if it’s wrong; the character with Aspergers is sarcastic. My understanding is that Aspergers are too linear for sarcasm or irony. He also uses exaggerated idioms, e.g. “I was going to explode”.
I’ll finish it, but I’m headed towards disappointment, I fear.
