Monday, January 19, 2009

Books Two And Three Done, Four is Next!

I finished Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Like Chelsea my feelings on it were mixed. The book was made up of a hundred or so cities, described to Kubla Khan by Marco Polo. They are broken up by occasionally by moments of the two of them talking, or thinking. These brief interludes are so few and far between that I found myself hoping they would come up soon. For a book of only one hundred and sixty five pages it seemed at times to drag, with the constant pace of city after city. So far this review has been pretty negative so allow me to shift gears please!
The book has about fifteen passages that are written so perfectly that they still sit in my mind, as if I am currently reading them! There are moments where reality is broken, and things like airports and busses pop out of nowhere. There are moments where cities are described by the trash they fill, the conversations that repeat over hundreds of years, the museums inside of cities that are copies of every city the city could have ever been. It is truly wonderful when the book reaches such heights, but some how it failed to keep my interest.
My third book was (as seems to be a trend!) a graphic novel, The Sandman, Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman. It looks like this:




This episode of Sandman takes place at an inn called "The Inn at Worlds' End", where people from all sorts of historical and fantastical time frames meet to tell tales. They chance upon it because of a storm, one calls it a snow storm, another a reality storm, and more a resting spot they just can't seem to leave. Like all Gaiman, the art is excellent and the story telling absolutely phenomenal. To anyone looking for a great graphic novel, start with The Sandman (Preludes and Nocturnes is the first) and spend the next eleven weeks basking in Gaiman's glory!

The next book on my list is by J.P. Sartre, and is called Nausea. My version is this one :


After that, who knows! I never follow through on the ones I say I will read, but it will most likely be The World According to Garp.

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