Since I've last written, I haven't read a terrible amount because of finals and all, but I do have some things to say. My last post ended with my decision to start Timequake, by Kurt Vonnegut, which I finished. It was autobiographical and not really a novel at all. The "plot" is based on a timequake, causing everybody in the world in 2001 to jump back ten years to 1991. Free will was suspended for the re-run, as Vinnegut calls it, since no one could change anything or stop anything from happening. The idea of a timequake agrees with many of Vonnegut's other novel's, where free will is problematized and not even really existent. Slaughterhouse-Five, for example, presents Billy Pilgrim, a sort of Vomnegut alter-ego, as having little to no free will during World War Two. Timequake was written when Vonnegut was in his late seventies (published on my birthday!!), and it seems that he uses the book as a way to reflect on his family and their deaths, his wives and children. There is a really sad line towards the end, where he says "I was the baby of the family. Now I don't have anyone to show off for anymore."
Kilgore Trout is, of course, also very present in this novel. After ten years of running on autopilot, when the time of the quake comes back around, everyone is suddenly faced with the need to actually do something. People driving, unaware of the return of free will and expecting the car to move regardless of their input, lose control and cause accidents all over the place. Trout feels responsible for catalyzing everyone back into motion, and he eventually becomes very loved and is even celebrated in a "clambake."
I have a few great quotes from Timequake, a given for Vonnegut. A post with them is forthcoming!
I started The Guermantes Way, the third volume in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Any review you'll read of this book I think would say the same thing. Like the other two installments before it, the plot line is far from entertaining, and in TGW Marcel, the narrator, is finally entering society for real, not just visiting the Swanns, making it that much more boring. However, reading Proust is FAR from boring. He is not believed by many to be one of the "greatest writers since Shakespeare" for nothing, and the way he can talk about the things common to us all, about our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and memories in an elevated, beautifully poetic level is truly stunning. The narrator is not any more lovable than he was before, if anything more annoying, but if it wasn't for his sensitivities, we might it get such deep passages.
I have also been reading Gaiman's Preludes & Nocturnes, which I LOVE! I've never been into comics, and I'm glad to have started here. A funny coincidence: when I got the book at the Book Fair, it was my second choice after not finding Hellblazer. Luckily for me though, John Constantine, the protagonist inHellblazer, made an appearance in Gaiman's comic! I just love those coincidences.
About three years ago, when I had just started college, I was introduced by a friend from a class to Geore R.R. Martin's series Game of Thrones. This was a little before the HBO TV show was released, and the books were not nearly as popular as they are now, when you can't walk by a book store without seeing them. It's one of my top favorite series ever, and I've lately been missing them. I picked up the second book today in hopes of re-reading it, though I know I have other books going on right now. I just miss it too much!! Anyways, I'm done for now. I'll soon post some pictures and quotes.
Until then, enjoy reading and enjoy the beginning of CHRISTMAS TIME!!!
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