#50: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
As a huge fan of Calvino’s If on a winter night a traveler, I thought this book would be a nice follow-up. The story portayed here, however, was completely unlike the style of what I had imagined in that it’s not necessarily a story, but a continuous description of the way people live. I found it strange to read about imagined cities while living in a particularly well known one. Every description reminded me of New York in some fashion or another, especially in that sometimes I think this metropolis is something we all made up to make ourselves feel important. Anyhow, Calvino consistantly uses a language that doesn’t quite compare to anything else. It tends to envelop the reader and place her in a world much that feels a lot like this. My copy of Invisible Cities from the library had multiple margin notes and pencil underlines from previous readers, which added to the experience of knowning that just like an imaginary city, books about the subject can also be communal.
Taylor Swift - Love Story
She mentions a Shakespeare play AND the Scarlet Letter, people. It’s a legitimate song for this blog. LE-GIT, I say!
A sound I love whose title you should use for your not quite finished whatever:
Heels on a Library Floor
#49: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Finished this while waiting for my Festivus Peppermint Brownies to bake this afternoon. I have to say that even though there was a weird combination of happiness (chocolate) and depression (suicide) for a while, I found myself really enjoying the book. It read like a short story, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting, but it also had a cinematic touch. At times, I felt like I was reading a dated newspaper or maybe a personalized history book. Somehow Eugenides didn’t make me feel necessarily bad for the characters who died, or even those who witnessed them. Instead, I read along as if I had no commentary to offer whatsoever. This is what made the book for me, the lack of attachment but curiosity in the story.
The other thing I kept wondering during The Virgin Suicides was how in the world it was made into a movie. There’s an abundance of descriptive narrative, but not a whole lot of dialogue to move things along. Maybe this was a good thing for Kirsten Dunst, who knows. I got this book from the library, eliminating a movie cover freak out. And since the movie isn’t on Instant Netflix, I probably won’t be watching it any time soon.
#48: The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia
This, I guess you would call it post-modern, book about love encompasses most things that come from such experiences but with an added sense of fairy tale. People at war with Saturn, origami surgeons, mechanical tortoises, it’s all there. The thing about this book though is that it’s mostly about lost love, about what could have been. It’s this kind of love that’s always the hardest to read about, no matter how creatively well it’s written. In fact, this book makes the simplest line, “I will build you bookshelves like you always wanted” absolutely painful to read. But on the other hand, I think the entirety of this story goes to show that no matter if it’s imaginary people or the real ones all around us, there are some things that will never be outlandish. I just find it strange that sometimes the books showing worlds most unlike your own can get at reality better than anything else. Is that too vague? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, The People of Paper was an excellent novel.
