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The Periodic Table

28 January 2007 in Novel | No comments

By Primo Levi.
Begun 20 Jan 2007; finished 25 Jan.

I first read The Periodic Table by Primo Levi in the latter part of high school, some six years ago. (I still remember: I was scanning the school library’s bookshelves in search of something new to read. This book was tucked at the end of a shelf at waist-height, but the title leapt out and intrigued me.) Though the stories now return as somewhat familiar faces in this rereading, the long span between readings has refreshed them, and made their meanings much clearer to me. I certainly appreciate them now, in the same way as I did when I first read them, but perhaps I’m more adroit at articulating why The Periodic Table is one of my favourite books.

Primo Levi is a chemist by profession, and The Periodic Table is a collection of small memoirs about his encounters and work with certain chemical elements, plus three short stories of his writing. Read the rest of this entry »

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Neuromancer

4 December 2006 in Novel | No comments

By William Gibson.
Begun 09 Nov 2006; finished 16 Nov.

I first read Neuromancer about 2-3 years ago, and couldn’t appreciate it. But I did read it in fits over more than a month, and I’ve worked out one needs momentum to keep abreast with a William Gibson novel, by virtue of its rapid-fire narrative.

This time, reading Neuromancer at a brisker pace, it made a lot more sense, and I was able to fully realize Gibson’s vision and inventiveness, grasp why this novel was so revolutionary at the time he wrote it in the mid-1980s. And — perhaps because I actually understand it now! — it appears that Gibson’s cyberpunk is right up my alley, so he may one day end up in my favoured-authors list.

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The Dictionary of the Khazars

3 December 2006 in Novel | No comments

By Milorad Pavic.
Begun 26 Oct 2006; finished 08 Nov.

The subtitle of this book is A Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words - A Dictionary of the Dictionaries on the Khazar Question. Apart from being written in a encyclopedic format, it is actually split into three “mini-dictionaries” or -books; each have unique topic-entries, and some topics span all three mini-books, which each book has its own explanation of. And there are two versions of the Dictionary, a male and a female, purportedly identical except for one key passage.

I read the male version about 3 years ago, cover-to-cover as a novel; this time I read the female version as I would an encyclopaedia, skipping around the entries following the cross-references across all mini-books. I must say, it made a lot more sense to read it this way than as a novel — I was reading the common entries together before they faded from memory, and the connections between the three sub-books became very obvious. So if you end up reading this, I highly recommend reading it as an encyclopedia, not as a novel.

Briefly: the Dictionary is about the Khazar civilization that dwelt in Central Asia in the 8-9th century. Read the rest of this entry »

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Dandelion Wine

17 May 2006 in Novel | No comments

By Ray Bradbury.
Begun 08 May 2006; finished 09 May.

I first read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury some three years ago, but didn’t finish it. I’ve now read it a second time, and completed it too. What a delight it was!

Dandelion Wine describes, primarily through the eyes of 12 year-old Douglas, a summer vacation spent in a suburb of a place called Green Town, during the late 1920s. It is quintessential Bradbury: a series of vignettes and short glimpses (as opposed to actual stories) about people, a story not fantasy, but not quite reality either. What stands out in Dandelion Wine and his other short story collections is their everyday magic — and I don’t mean spells or anything out of the ordinary in our world, but how the most mundane and everyday of activities have their own special charm. Bradbury takes such ordinary events as going to the ice-cream parlour, cooking in the kitchen, speaking with an elderly soldier, buying new shoes, riding on a tram — and transforms them into extraordinary and profound encounters. Who would think that buying a new pair of shoes would be anything but ordinary? But Bradbury combines that event with the life of summer and a boy’s fantasy, and makes it a momentous occasion.

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The Chronicles of Narnia

12 January 2006 in Novel | No comments

By C.S. Lewis.
Being, The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle.
Begun 01 Jan 2006; finished 12 Jan.

At the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund that they will never come back to Narnia, because “they were too old”. In the same way, I too have gotten too old to return to Narnia — but I’m not too grown-up to not “have a jaw” about it, and reread it for that matter. I’ve now reread the entire Chronicles of Narnia, and I can compare the experience today with the experience reading it for the first time at around 10 years of age.

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Neuromancer

29 October 2003 in Novel | No comments

By William Gibson.

I must admit that Neuromancer doesn’t rank among the best books I’ve read. The plot will get you very confused if you don’t catch on what’s happening from the beginning (at least I found it that way). And the lack of explanations of language and techno slang scattered throughout tends to get a bit confusing too. However, the concepts and the world-view and setting are very visionary, and I can see how The Matrix and the Shadowrun RPG got their inspiration off Gibson’s novels. If you like SF and the cyberpunk genres, definitely check this book out.

Now I’m reading Mona Lisa Overdrive and it seems to grab my attention a bit more than Neuromancer. Let’s see how that goes.

Update:
I never finished Mona Lisa Overdrive, but I re-read Neuromancer at the end of 2006. Here is the review.

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Dandelion Wine

20 September 2003 in Novel | No comments

By Ray Bradbury.

Didn’t manage to finish Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine in time, so I’ll have to pick it up again (if I get around to it) when I get back to college. The story is simply about a town called Green Town, and life in that town from the perspective of a young boy. The charm is, that Bradbury brilliantly succeeds in taking the most mundane of things, and turning it into fantasy. Who would think that buying a pair of shoes, or an elderly man reminiscing on the past, or going to see a movie late at night — all these could become so interesting? But Bradbury paints beautiful pictures in all five senses, so that one feels like they’re actually there. Just like all Bradbury stories, this one’s worth reading!

Update:
I finished reading this book in the middle of 2006. Here is the review.

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Fahrenheit 451

8 September 2003 in Novel | No comments

By Ray Bradbury.

I’m just about done reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I first read this book in Grade 7 and didn’t really understand it, but it still made enough of an impression to make me want to read it again. Now, some years later, I understand the social commentary Bradbury is trying to make, and it is very visionary considering it was written in the 1950s. The story is set in a future dystopia where pleasure and sensory entertainment are all that matters, where creativity and new ideas are forbidden and society’s ability to make judgements and think for itself is nullified. Books, since they preserve ideas and promote creativity and thinking for oneself, are burned and forbidden. The intelligentsia are persecuted and outlawed.

It’s a very bleak and disconcerting story. The fact that people are forbidden to think creatively to the point that creativity has been shunned by society itself, is a frightening thought. Our world is so filled with mass media and instant entertainment, it could potentially go down the same track that Bradbury has shown.

While it may be a bleak novel, it is really worth a read. Bradbury writes so well. If there is only one Bradbury story you read, make it Fahrenheit 451 since it’s one of his most visionary stories.

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