I'm sure blogs are like academia - it's publish or perish!
Well, The Marginal Virtues has been on life support, so to speak, for a while; or at least that's how it's felt.
Not being a well-organised person, it is difficult, when I fall behind on managing other things, to continue writing for this blog.
I intend to continue.
In light of the changes Google has made to the format of the blog, I may follow suit and change its look; we'll see.
To make my life a little easier, I'm not going to follow through with the recommendations made for April. Sorry, folks. Thank you very much, sorry to disappoint!
Starting in August, I'll start selecting books from the back burner to read, and go through October from those for books recommended by readers. Next month, I'm going to catch up on a couple of books I've been working through, including the final book outstanding among reader recommendations.
I'm also going to publish blog posts much more frequently that will consist of much smaller content.
Keep your eyes peeled for new stuff, and thanks for your patience!
Tuesday
Reader Recommendations: April
March is going to be a busy month for me in terms of reading (I am reading about one hundred pages a day of a number of different books as part of my Lenten discipline), and I still have The China Study to work on, so I have decided to forego taking recommendations for this month.
Another problem is the issue of availability. Sometimes the books I select end up - through no one's fault, of course - being very popular at the OPL, and so I have to wait to get my hands on them. It was something like four, or maybe even as many as six, months before I got my hands on Ender's Game, for example.
With that lengthy preamble out of the way, let me say that I am opening the floor to your recommendations for the month of April. I'll collect recommendations for about a week, and then post the selections early in March.
As always, the suggested guidelines for making recommendations are here, and the list of books I have already read for The Marginal Virtues is here. Of course, you can also find the links at the top of the sidebar on the right-hand side.
For April, I am looking for recommendations about choice. This is a bit of a broad category: strictly speaking every book has to do with choice, somehow. What I am looking for, for lack of a better way to put it, are books that you've read that had an impression on you with respect to making choices, decisions, or changes in your life. Such books need not have Changed Your Life; but if they did, so much the better. Feel free to recommend works of fiction or non-fiction. Maybe the book changed your convictions about something, or caused you take up a new activity or way of life, or made you reflect philosophically on the nature of choice, or else brought you into a world in which the choices of the characters were made to matter to you.
As always, I look forward to receiving your recommendations!
Another problem is the issue of availability. Sometimes the books I select end up - through no one's fault, of course - being very popular at the OPL, and so I have to wait to get my hands on them. It was something like four, or maybe even as many as six, months before I got my hands on Ender's Game, for example.
With that lengthy preamble out of the way, let me say that I am opening the floor to your recommendations for the month of April. I'll collect recommendations for about a week, and then post the selections early in March.
As always, the suggested guidelines for making recommendations are here, and the list of books I have already read for The Marginal Virtues is here. Of course, you can also find the links at the top of the sidebar on the right-hand side.
For April, I am looking for recommendations about choice. This is a bit of a broad category: strictly speaking every book has to do with choice, somehow. What I am looking for, for lack of a better way to put it, are books that you've read that had an impression on you with respect to making choices, decisions, or changes in your life. Such books need not have Changed Your Life; but if they did, so much the better. Feel free to recommend works of fiction or non-fiction. Maybe the book changed your convictions about something, or caused you take up a new activity or way of life, or made you reflect philosophically on the nature of choice, or else brought you into a world in which the choices of the characters were made to matter to you.
As always, I look forward to receiving your recommendations!
Sunday
The Glass Castle
First, my thanks to Kathy for recommending this book!
The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, is only the third autobiographical book I have read for The Marginal Virtues, the others being Hitman (by Bret Hart) and The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen (by Jacques Pépin). The subtitle indicates that The Glass Castle is a memoir; and, if its overall style is any indication of the genre, The Apprentice, which possesses a similar style, is also more of a memoir than an autobiography. (This is assuming that there is any real distinction between the genres, which there may not be.) Whatever the question of genre, like both of those other books, The Glass Castle is written in the first person, from Jeannette Walls's perspective.
The edition from which I shall quote passages was published in 2005 by Scribner.
The dust jacket begins thus:
As an editorial note, I have given this post the label 'profanity' because the Walls's frequently curse, and it is both tedious to omit their profane language, and it is necessary to include it to give you a sense of what they are like. (Not that their use of 'cussing' is necessarily bad, just that it expresses something characteristic about them.)
The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, is only the third autobiographical book I have read for The Marginal Virtues, the others being Hitman (by Bret Hart) and The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen (by Jacques Pépin). The subtitle indicates that The Glass Castle is a memoir; and, if its overall style is any indication of the genre, The Apprentice, which possesses a similar style, is also more of a memoir than an autobiography. (This is assuming that there is any real distinction between the genres, which there may not be.) Whatever the question of genre, like both of those other books, The Glass Castle is written in the first person, from Jeannette Walls's perspective.
The edition from which I shall quote passages was published in 2005 by Scribner.
The dust jacket begins thus:
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation.Reading The Glass Castle immediately following The Rebel Sell was certainly an interesting contrast. The Wallses - the parents of the author - certainly come across as textbook countercultural 'rebels'.
As an editorial note, I have given this post the label 'profanity' because the Walls's frequently curse, and it is both tedious to omit their profane language, and it is necessary to include it to give you a sense of what they are like. (Not that their use of 'cussing' is necessarily bad, just that it expresses something characteristic about them.)
Wednesday
February Update
I am working away on the marginal commentaries for The Glass Castle and The China Study, so keep your eyes peeled.
I have a few other posts on the go, and between that and the fact that it is now February, I won't be canvassing for recommendations for this month, because it won't be 'til the end of February that I'd be likely to get my hands on the books selected, let alone read them and write commentaries on them. I have trouble enough finishing the commentaries for the books selected for any given month as it is (e.g., it is now February and I haven't yet finished two commentaries for books I meant to publish posts on in December).
By mid-month I will be looking for recommendations for March, but I very likely will be changing, at least for the time being, how many reader recommendations I call for.
I have a few other posts on the go, and between that and the fact that it is now February, I won't be canvassing for recommendations for this month, because it won't be 'til the end of February that I'd be likely to get my hands on the books selected, let alone read them and write commentaries on them. I have trouble enough finishing the commentaries for the books selected for any given month as it is (e.g., it is now February and I haven't yet finished two commentaries for books I meant to publish posts on in December).
By mid-month I will be looking for recommendations for March, but I very likely will be changing, at least for the time being, how many reader recommendations I call for.
Saturday
She Buys More, More, More
The title of my marginal commentary, on The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't be Jammed, goes to show that two can play the game of tying a book on (what the authors posit to be) the failure of the 'counter-culture' to a song by Billy Idol. My thanks goes to Christopher for making this recommendation!
The Rebel Sell was written by two Canadian academics, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, which makes it only the fourth Canadian work for which I have written a marginal commentary on The Marginal Virtues, and the first book written by more than one author. With respect to 'Cancon' (Canadian content), the first was for A Strange Manuscript Written on a Copper Cylinder, by another Canadian academic, James De Mille. The second was for Hitman, by Bret Hart. The third was for Room, by Emma Donoghue (who happens to be an Irish emigré, to boot).
These trivial details aside, the edition which I am using in my marginal commentary, a trade paperback edition, was published in 2005 by Harper Perennial.
To begin my marginal commentary, I will provide a brief introduction, and then dive into some of points of the book that most interested me, given that it would be impossible in a post of reasonable length to parse Potter's and Heath's argument fully.
The Rebel Sell was written by two Canadian academics, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, which makes it only the fourth Canadian work for which I have written a marginal commentary on The Marginal Virtues, and the first book written by more than one author. With respect to 'Cancon' (Canadian content), the first was for A Strange Manuscript Written on a Copper Cylinder, by another Canadian academic, James De Mille. The second was for Hitman, by Bret Hart. The third was for Room, by Emma Donoghue (who happens to be an Irish emigré, to boot).
These trivial details aside, the edition which I am using in my marginal commentary, a trade paperback edition, was published in 2005 by Harper Perennial.
To begin my marginal commentary, I will provide a brief introduction, and then dive into some of points of the book that most interested me, given that it would be impossible in a post of reasonable length to parse Potter's and Heath's argument fully.
Room
First, my thanks to Deborah for recommending Room! Room was one of my selections for a marginal commentary back in October, but was wildly popular at the library, so I didn't get my hands on a copy until now.
Emma Donoghue, the book's author, lives in London, Ontario, which makes Room another Canadian work for which I have written a marginal commentary on The Marginal Virtues.
This edition was published by HarperCollins in 2010. On the cover of the copy I have, there is an illustration with a note stating that Room was shortlisted (why that is a verb I don't know) for the Man Booker Prize 2010. It did not win, but you have to think that Donoghue must have been pretty thrilled. I don't know how well known a literary figure she was before publishing Room, but I dare say that it is her breakthrough work. It may well even be her masterwork.
Emma Donoghue, the book's author, lives in London, Ontario, which makes Room another Canadian work for which I have written a marginal commentary on The Marginal Virtues.
This edition was published by HarperCollins in 2010. On the cover of the copy I have, there is an illustration with a note stating that Room was shortlisted (why that is a verb I don't know) for the Man Booker Prize 2010. It did not win, but you have to think that Donoghue must have been pretty thrilled. I don't know how well known a literary figure she was before publishing Room, but I dare say that it is her breakthrough work. It may well even be her masterwork.
Tuesday
December Selections
Here are the three books I have chosen at random to read and comment upon in December. Congratulations to those of you whose books I selected!
You may recall that I asked for recommendations of non-fiction books that you had read within the last five years which you found inspiring, or thought-provoking, or otherwise interesting. Hopefully my commentary on the selected books will contribute to their inspirational or thought-provoking quality.
I am still (still!) waiting for Room to become available at the library, so my marginal commentary on it will be postponed until whenever I get my hands on it. I am going to honour having selected it in order to write a marginal commentary on it, but it looks like I will have to think of an ad hoc rule to apply in situations in which I cannot hope to reasonably acquire a book in the timeframe in which I hope to write for it.
The books chosen are:
The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell & Thomas M. Campbell.
The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls.
The Rebel Sell, by Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter.
My thanks to all of you who made recommendations for December: Alison, Christopher, Deborah, Jen, Kathy, and May!
The books recommended that weren't selected have been put on the back burner, and at some point I'll be choosing books from that list, so if your recommendation wasn't selected this time, never fear! It will have at least one more opportunity to be chosen.
You may recall that I asked for recommendations of non-fiction books that you had read within the last five years which you found inspiring, or thought-provoking, or otherwise interesting. Hopefully my commentary on the selected books will contribute to their inspirational or thought-provoking quality.
I am still (still!) waiting for Room to become available at the library, so my marginal commentary on it will be postponed until whenever I get my hands on it. I am going to honour having selected it in order to write a marginal commentary on it, but it looks like I will have to think of an ad hoc rule to apply in situations in which I cannot hope to reasonably acquire a book in the timeframe in which I hope to write for it.
The books chosen are:
The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell & Thomas M. Campbell.
The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls.
The Rebel Sell, by Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter.
My thanks to all of you who made recommendations for December: Alison, Christopher, Deborah, Jen, Kathy, and May!
The books recommended that weren't selected have been put on the back burner, and at some point I'll be choosing books from that list, so if your recommendation wasn't selected this time, never fear! It will have at least one more opportunity to be chosen.
Saturday
Cryptonomicon
Weighing in at over 1100 pages, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is now the longest book I have read for The Marginal Virtues to date, outpacing Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and Gregory David Roberts's Shantaram.
My thanks to Graham for recommending this book!
Cryptonomicon is effectively four stories in one book, although the stories are closely linked, as you might imagine. As it is hard to look in-depth at any particular subject in a book of this length, I will mainly show one of the excellences of Stephenson's style, which is his ability to write distinctly when narrating for each of the main protagonists. In this regard Stephenson outdoes Terry Pratchett (himself no slouch when it comes to style), whose writing I find Stephenson's most resembles, for Pratchett tends toward stylistic uniformity, although unlike some of the other authors whose books I have written commentaries for here on The Marginal Virtues, Pratchett's singular style is excellent.
But back to Cryptonomicon. The edition I am using for this commentary was published in 1999 by Avon Books (an imprint of HarperCollins). It is impossible for me to treat the book's plot with the kind of consideration it deserves, so I will generally try to choose passages which are representative of the distinct styles in which Stephenson writes with respect to the protagonists, but which are not necessarily crucial to the movement of the plot. If time and space permit, I would also like to briefly compare Cryptonomicon to, of all things, The Lord of the Rings. Such a comparison is not inapt; indeed, one of the protagonists, Randy Waterhouse, occasionally interprets what is going on around him in Tolkienian imagery, and there is one passage (which I hope to quote at length) which displays a striking coherence to an idea much more briefly elucidated in Tolkien's work. I won't go into any more detail here, nor do I promise that such a comparison will, in fact, take place. If you like, it's something for you to think about, should you get your hands on a copy of Cryptonomicon.
Finally, Cryptonomicon is true to life, and about two-thirds of it, on the whole, is set during the Second World War. I have included the labels 'profanity' and 'sex' because there is a fair amount of swearing, and not only sex, but also moments where characters are thinking about sex (or about people with whom they would like to have sex) and have, shall we say, appropriate physiological reactions to these thoughts. Actually, the distinction between Stephenson's various 'narrative dialects' (you might call them) is nowhere more evident than in the various sexual encounters in which three of the four protagonists engage. All that said, Cryptonomicon is not a smutty book, simply realistic, in that people in the book swear (some more than others), and either have or think about having sex with other people. In terms of what I will be citing, I won't be quoting anything from sex scenes (unless it is suitably suggestive, rather than explicit), but I won't be able to help quoting profane utterances, as there are, after all, quite a few of those in Cryptonomicon. You have been warned.
Well, enough of all that rigomarole. Let's get on with Cryptonomicon.
My thanks to Graham for recommending this book!
Cryptonomicon is effectively four stories in one book, although the stories are closely linked, as you might imagine. As it is hard to look in-depth at any particular subject in a book of this length, I will mainly show one of the excellences of Stephenson's style, which is his ability to write distinctly when narrating for each of the main protagonists. In this regard Stephenson outdoes Terry Pratchett (himself no slouch when it comes to style), whose writing I find Stephenson's most resembles, for Pratchett tends toward stylistic uniformity, although unlike some of the other authors whose books I have written commentaries for here on The Marginal Virtues, Pratchett's singular style is excellent.
But back to Cryptonomicon. The edition I am using for this commentary was published in 1999 by Avon Books (an imprint of HarperCollins). It is impossible for me to treat the book's plot with the kind of consideration it deserves, so I will generally try to choose passages which are representative of the distinct styles in which Stephenson writes with respect to the protagonists, but which are not necessarily crucial to the movement of the plot. If time and space permit, I would also like to briefly compare Cryptonomicon to, of all things, The Lord of the Rings. Such a comparison is not inapt; indeed, one of the protagonists, Randy Waterhouse, occasionally interprets what is going on around him in Tolkienian imagery, and there is one passage (which I hope to quote at length) which displays a striking coherence to an idea much more briefly elucidated in Tolkien's work. I won't go into any more detail here, nor do I promise that such a comparison will, in fact, take place. If you like, it's something for you to think about, should you get your hands on a copy of Cryptonomicon.
Finally, Cryptonomicon is true to life, and about two-thirds of it, on the whole, is set during the Second World War. I have included the labels 'profanity' and 'sex' because there is a fair amount of swearing, and not only sex, but also moments where characters are thinking about sex (or about people with whom they would like to have sex) and have, shall we say, appropriate physiological reactions to these thoughts. Actually, the distinction between Stephenson's various 'narrative dialects' (you might call them) is nowhere more evident than in the various sexual encounters in which three of the four protagonists engage. All that said, Cryptonomicon is not a smutty book, simply realistic, in that people in the book swear (some more than others), and either have or think about having sex with other people. In terms of what I will be citing, I won't be quoting anything from sex scenes (unless it is suitably suggestive, rather than explicit), but I won't be able to help quoting profane utterances, as there are, after all, quite a few of those in Cryptonomicon. You have been warned.
Well, enough of all that rigomarole. Let's get on with Cryptonomicon.
Monday
Reader Recommendations: December
With my marginal commentary on Cryptonomicon in progress, and waiting for Room to become available, I am ready to receive recommendations for books to read in December!
The guidelines for recommending books may be found here. The list of books I have completed for The Marginal Virtues may be found here; you can also see both pages listed on the sidebar on the right-hand side of the page.
As always, I'll open the floor for suggestions for about a week, and then choose three recommended books at random to read for December - or, if my experience with trying to get my hands on some of the books is any indication, whenever I have the chance to finish them. Oh, well.
For December, please recommend a non-fiction book you've read in the past five years, or so, that affected you. Perhaps it was inspiring, informative, or funny. Perhaps it was disturbing, calling into question things you thought were true. In any case, I want to have the chance to read it.
I am, as always, looking forward to receiving your recommendations!
The guidelines for recommending books may be found here. The list of books I have completed for The Marginal Virtues may be found here; you can also see both pages listed on the sidebar on the right-hand side of the page.
As always, I'll open the floor for suggestions for about a week, and then choose three recommended books at random to read for December - or, if my experience with trying to get my hands on some of the books is any indication, whenever I have the chance to finish them. Oh, well.
For December, please recommend a non-fiction book you've read in the past five years, or so, that affected you. Perhaps it was inspiring, informative, or funny. Perhaps it was disturbing, calling into question things you thought were true. In any case, I want to have the chance to read it.
I am, as always, looking forward to receiving your recommendations!
Saturday
Shantaram
Another long book, this one courtesy of Martha & May, both of whom recommended it. Thank you both!
Shantaram reminded me of Rudyard Kipling's classic, Kim, although obviously it has little in common with that twentieth-century masterpiece, other than being set in the Indian sub-continent. Another point of contact between the two works is that the protagonists of both take part in a spiritual quest.
The edition of Shantaram from which I am quoting was published by St. Martin's Press in 2003. Its author is Gregory David Roberts, the first Australian whose work I have written a commentary for on The Marginal Virtues. If you haven't read the book, you might want to turn to it first before reading this commentary, as I will reveal details about the plot and the like as I deem it necessary.
I think it could be fairly said that Shantaram does for Bombay, to a certain extent, what The Lord of the Rings did for Middle-earth, which is provide an aesthetic structure in which the 'world' in which the novel takes place takes on a life and character of its own. We shall see whether this is the case. Meanwhile I found that because the entirety of the work is written from the perspective of the first-person, semi-authobiographical narrator, Lin, it lacked a distinct prose style. On the other hand, I feel that Roberts does do a good job of writing distinct styles of dialogue, as we shall see.
Shantaram reminded me of Rudyard Kipling's classic, Kim, although obviously it has little in common with that twentieth-century masterpiece, other than being set in the Indian sub-continent. Another point of contact between the two works is that the protagonists of both take part in a spiritual quest.
The edition of Shantaram from which I am quoting was published by St. Martin's Press in 2003. Its author is Gregory David Roberts, the first Australian whose work I have written a commentary for on The Marginal Virtues. If you haven't read the book, you might want to turn to it first before reading this commentary, as I will reveal details about the plot and the like as I deem it necessary.
I think it could be fairly said that Shantaram does for Bombay, to a certain extent, what The Lord of the Rings did for Middle-earth, which is provide an aesthetic structure in which the 'world' in which the novel takes place takes on a life and character of its own. We shall see whether this is the case. Meanwhile I found that because the entirety of the work is written from the perspective of the first-person, semi-authobiographical narrator, Lin, it lacked a distinct prose style. On the other hand, I feel that Roberts does do a good job of writing distinct styles of dialogue, as we shall see.
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