Vacation Reading

I finished all four books that I took with me on vacation. Ahhh.....the glory of long days filled with zero responsibilities and good reads.... Life is good. *smile* Here are my reviews:

#29 - The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, by M.G. Vassanji
Finished 6/7/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 436
Reason for Reading: 2003 Giller Prize Winner
REVIEW: Although I found the book long and tedious from time to time, I quite enjoyed the story of Vikram Lall and his family. The story is set in Kenya, yet told from the perspective of a narrator (Vikram) who now lives in Toronto. It tells of a third-generation Indian family, still struggling to find their true place under the remnants of colonial rule. The politics of the time are well represented, although they serve more as a counterpoint to the lives of the Lalls than as the central feature. Vassanji succeeds in developing a family story that acts as a microcosm to the national events surrounding them. Well-told with interesting and captivating characters.

#30 - The Cat Who Went to Heaven, by Elizabeth Coatsworth
Finished 6/7/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 74
Reason for Reading: Newbery Challenge
REVIEW: A delightful fable about a poor painter who is commissioned to create a masterpiece of the dying Buddha for the village temple. The artist ponders and meditates on each element of the painting. He spends time contemplating the meaning of each animal to be added, but is unable to include the cat, as legend tells that only the cat of all animals refused the teachings of Buddha. When the painter rebels against tradition, and includes a cat in the painting, he is rewarded with a miracle. A very good primer on the meaning of life, compassion, and love in the Buddhist religion. Every word masterful and meaningful. Highly recommended.

#31 - The Monk, by Matthew Lewis
Finished 6/10/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 1452 (Palm Pilot)
Reason for Reading: 18th/19th Century Novel
REVIEW: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It’s entirely different from anything else I’ve read from this era. Hard-hitting, tough, violent, judgmental, lusty. It’s all about sin and temptations. There are a variety of characters that tell their stories throughout the course of the book, and all the stories converge in surprisingly unique ways. Recommended.

#32 - Women with Men, by Richard Ford
Finished 6/12/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 255
Reason for Reading: Recommended by a friend
REVIEW: My first by Richard Ford and amazingly good. Loved the insights into the male psyche of his main characters. This is a collection of three short stories, connected by themes of marriage and infidelity, the search for love (or conversely, the seeming avoidance of it), and how human relationships work (or rather, how they don’t). The three main adult male characters are very well depicted, fully three-dimensional, and memorable, but each of them is also distinctly unlikable in their own fashion. Fascinating material.

I earmarked a number of striking passages, including these two...

“Obviously she was more complicated, maybe even smarter, than he’d thought, and quite realistic about life, though slightly disillusioned. Probably, if he wanted to press the matter of intimacy, he could take her back to his room – a thing he’d done before on business trips, and even if not so many times, enough times that to do so now wouldn’t be extraordinary or meaningful, at least not to him. To share an unexpected intimacy might intensify both their holds on life.” [p. 7]

“In that way, he felt, it was a typical academic marriage. Other people forged these same accommodations without ever knowing it. His parents, for instance. It was possible they hated each other, yet hating each other was worth more than trying to love somebody else, somebody you’d never know in a hundred years and probably wouldn’t like if you did. Better, they’d found, to focus on whatever good was left, set aside all issues they would never agree on, and call it marriage, even love.” [p. 159]