Books I've finished reading this month:
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard. ★★★★½
Read this in anticipation of showing a friend the movie for the first time. That viewing has been delayed by various factors, but I was glad of the excuse anyway. Also, plays always seem easier to read if I have seen them on stage or on film previously. - The Passion, Jeanette Winterson. ★★★★½
Stranger than Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, and sufficiently unlike an ordinary novel to leave me feeling as though I hadn't just read anything, perhaps just listened to a symphony or walked through an art gallery. Often grotesque, always poetic. - Sit Down and Shut Up, Brad Warner. ★★★★☆
While Warner's schtick wears a bit thin sometimes, I really enjoyed this re-read (possibly my third or fourth?) and anticipate many repeats in the future. The content beind the schtick never gets old, and is always worth reminding myself of. - Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson. ★★★½☆
I didn't write anything about Sexing the Cherry right after I finished reading it, which was a mistake; 1.5 Winterson books later, it has mostly receded into the foggy depths of my mind, obscured by intricate clusters of Winterson's recurring themes and motifs.
The grotesquerie 1 is more obtrusive and gratuitous than in The Passion, and there is only the most tenuous of narrative threads to hold on to, but the book is strewn with nuggets of insight, beauty and delight. I like much of it, and I love the way it folds in on itself towards the end (which added half a star to my rating, in the end). - Boating for Beginners, Jeanette Winterson. ★★★½☆
This was much lighter going, and although I became weary of humorous and/or pointed anachronism in fiction some time ago I rather liked it. Irreverent and sometimes very funny, while still having Things To Say about life and identity and how weird we human creatures are.
- What a great word. Grotesquerie. [↩]
