Cannonball Read 3 - Review #2 - Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

I've said it before, but Lolita is one of my all-time favorite novels. I've heard people say that it's the kind of book English majors love, which, you've got me. I like it because Nabokov can really, REALLY write, and he also makes a disgusting pedophile and sociopath into a sad, almost sympathetic character. That is some skill. So I decided to try another of his novels, and I picked up Pale Fire. The premise interested me. It starts off with a 999 poem in four cantos by the fictional poet John Shade, shortly after his death. Then the rest of the book is a commentary written by his friend and neighbor, Dr. Charles Kinbote. I mean, you can't say the idea isn't original. Nabokov wrote a 999-line autobiographical poem of a fictional man, and then wrote another 230 pages or so of commentary from the perspective of a truly weird and creepy admirer. However, Kinbote, the man writing about the poem, is a weird duck. He spends most of the time commenting not on John Shade's poem about his life, but on three things: the story of the exiled King of Zembla, (the King of where? Exactly.), the story of the King's hired assassin, and then Kinbote's own perspective on his friendship with the poet John Shade. It's disjointed and weird, and although the book only clocks in at 301 pages, it took me a damn long time to get through. From the light research I did on its critical reception, I have gathered that it was met with mixed reviews. I certainly applaud Nabokov's creativity and effort, however it's a very strange and sometimes frustrating read. But the narrator is, in my opinion, most likely a lunatic, so perhaps that was Nabokov's plan after all. I'm going to read Nabokov's novel Ada at some point, so hopefully that will be more on the side of Lolita than Pale Fire.

Cannonball Read 3 - Review #1 - The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa

Yikes, my first CBR review ever! Forgive me. I had to read this book for my January book club meeting. It was suggested by our newest member, who is a college history professor, so even though it wasn't a book I would have ever picked up myself, I'm glad I got the chance to read it. The subject matter is all quite foreign to me, which is always a fun challenge, but it made getting into the novel a slower process. It is a novel that takes place at the real Leoncio Prado Military Academy in Peru, and it centers around a group of teenaged boys who are all in the same section and year at the school. And it's a terrifying world to observe. I'd say the book is half Lord of the Flies and half my worst nightmare. Although they live in a military academy, their behavior is largely unchecked, and there is hazing, boozing, and bestiality galore.

There are the two moral centers of the novel, Ricardo "The Slave" Arana, and Alberto "The Poet" Fernandez. The Slave is meek, bullied mercilessly by everyone at the academy. He is eventually befriended by The Poet, who uses his wit to stand up to bullies and gains their favor by writing erotic stories for them. It's a bleak life in the academy. Then there is The Circle, a group of four boys, led by "The Jaguar," an angry, revenge-obsessed young man who runs things and leads the others using fear. The plot is kicked off with The Circle stealing a Chemistry exam, and then it ripples into something that affects our main characters in huge ways. The book flips back and forth from the plot in the present day academy to the backstories of three of the main characters' paths to the school.

Ultimately, the book deals with truth vs. perception, the true nature of a person, and how in our imperfect world, justice doesn't always come to pass. Vargas Llosa's writing style in the novel flips around from standard prose and dialogue to confusing, claustrophobic, formless pieces of speech and thought, putting the reader in the middle of a complex and chaotic world of angry teenaged boys. It was a fascinating look into very foreign subject matter to this particular obedient English major.

I live like an animal

I live like an animal. When you walk into my tiny studio apartment, don't be fooled by the framed Miro print and the window fern. I basically live like a hobo in a cave. For instance, at night, our charming winter weather hits the 20s, and my building management is a bunch of stingy assholes, so the 100 year-old steam-heating kicks on a whopping three times a day. And also, my AC window unit, which is right by my bed, brings in crazy drafts. And of course, since I don't know how to remove it/am lazy, I had to figure out how to stop the drafts. So I covered the lower half of the window that contains the AC unit with trash bags and packing tape, et voila! No more drafts. Well, at least the draft situation isn't as bad.

But sometimes I'm still too cold before I go to bed, so I'll take a quick shower, minus the hair-washing, to warm myself up. I don't have a shower cap, so I have been using a CVS bag that I tie around my head. I am 24 years old. Sometimes for dinner I have some rice cakes and a popsicle because I haven't been shopping in two weeks and I'm too lazy and inept to cook. And then I watch 30 Rock and see so much of myself in Liz Lemon, and then I vow to myself to become a real adult. When does everyone else learn to cook and buy things like a shower cap and heat their apartment adequately? Are there lessons at the Y on how to be a grown-up? If so, I need to go, I think.

Cannonball is coming...

So my favorite website ever (www.pajiba.com, hey guys!) is running the third annual Cannonball Read contest, where contestants (at least the Full Cannonball contestants) must try to read and review 52 books in one year. The contest officially starts on January 1, 2011, so I will be putting my book reviews up here, which is great because, as you can see, I never comment on this thing, so I will be forced to update. Maybe I can even wedge in a story about my super boring life for absolutely no one's pleasure. I have picked out my first 20 books, and they are sitting in a pile on the floor in front of my book case. Before then, I have to read my December book for book club and some smaller non-fiction books that I'm in the middle of. But come January 1st, I will be going more nuts than usual with my reading.

Also, book suggestions are welcomed, but quite likely ignored, since the amount of unread books sitting in my apartment is horrifying, so I'm going to try to knock those out first. See you in January!

Nap Failure

I’ve been tired lately. I think it’s the heat. I’m not naturally energetic to begin with, as I take after my dad, who has never turned down an opportunity for a nice afternoon nap. So I’ve been coming home after work and it’s still too hot to go out and walk, so I set an alarm for a 30 minute nap, because that’s what all those health columns in women’s magazines tell me is appropriate. I mean, if Cosmo tells me to only nap for 30 minutes, who am I to disagree? Cosmo is always right. So anyway, I set my alarm for a 30 minute “power nap,” (ugh, I HATE people who say “power nap”) and drift off to sleep. A couple of weeks ago when this happened, I wake up to complete darkness. It’s 2:30 AM, and I’ve been sleeping since 7:30. Good job, Rachel. So I stumble out of bed, pantsless, make-up smudged so I look like paparazzi photos of Britney Spears after a long night, hair falling out of its ponytail, and I feel my way to the bathroom to wash my face, take out my contacts, and brush my teeth. After putting some pajamas on, I decide to eat a granola bar, you know, because I slept through dinner and that’s all I have. Most people would have just kept sleeping, but my brain was like “Girl please, you’ve seen yourself when you sleep in your make-up, stop acting like a hobo.”

Two nights ago I did the same thing, and I “woke up” at about 9:45. Except I don’t know how much I was really, truly awake. My brain was computing enough that I needed food and I needed to put some clothes on, but I was seriously on automatic pilot doing all of this. I have no idea how I went across the street and got some pasta from the Italian market, but I did, and I ate it. I’ve done what I call “zombie eating” before, but this was an all new level of functioning. I mean, my brain was pretty much turned off, and I not only fed myself, but put clothes on, went outside, remembered to lock my door, went into a food store, picked out food, paid the cashier, went home, unlocked the door, locked it again, and ate my food. The lengths my brain will go to to save itself from my attempts at cooking. Anyway, I guess I need to figure out a new way to curb my napping. I hate my clock radio, but maybe it’s come to that. Or maybe I shouldn’t nap at all and therefore avoid zombie functions. Ugh, thinking makes me tired. I'll be back...

Here I am, blogging!

Well here is my blog. That no one will ever read ever. But I thought it might be fun to have a place to write all the weird things that happen to me now that I'm trying to live on my own and be a contributing member of society. A lot of funny or funny/horrible things have happened since I've been here in this new job and apartment, so I thought, let's write them down. As of now, I am too tired to be very funny or descriptive about the latest disaster that is my life, but I was excited about my blog, so this is my introductory post. The title, if you (the nonexistent person reading this) were wondering, comes from a quote attributed to my heroine, Dorothy Parker: "This wasn't just terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."

That snarky lady. God love her. Ok, until next time, bye, cyberspace!