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Tag: amreading

Beloved by Toni Morrison

BelovedBeloved by Toni Morrison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book once, 10 years ago, and to be honest I dreaded having to reread it for a class. My first experience was frustrating. I felt confused and alienated to the story. Then again, I felt confused and alienated about most things: I was in my early twenties.

I’m so glad this book gave me another chance. After a decade of digital, this book was like vinyl. Funny how I couldn’t connect to the story a decade ago, yet today, the raw and powerful feelings of emotional desperation coursing through these characters have resounded in me like an echo of some familiar, intimate history of my own – though, admittedly, a milder, bourgier one.

There are complicated scenes in this book. By that I mean, scenes that aren’t meant to be passed through quickly, but can stay with you and resolve themselves through you as you live, if you’re interested. I love these kinds of novels. They are the best kind. They are more like companions than stories, companions who start up long conversations with you and continue asking questions long after you’ve moved past them to other books and other places.



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Under the Volcano by Malcom Lowry

Under the VolcanoUnder the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although I read this book straight through, with relatively few interruptions, I’ve never been more aware of Nabokov’s dictum that “one cannot read a book: one can only reread it.”

I barely scratched the surface of this novel. The prose expertly balances the natural dissolution of each character’s thoughts with effortlessly structured literary devices – weaving metaphor and allusion into the settings and interior life of each character – and Lowry is able to keep all of it just beyond the grasp of everyone involved.

There was so much going on in this novel that it was too hard to navigate without a guide. However, there’s no better guide than a first reading and I’m curious to see what I get out of this book the second time around.





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Poor, poor Benjamin

Illuminations: Essays and ReflectionsIlluminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Benjamin (pronounced BEN-ya-mean) is one of those writers you just can’t help loving in a sort of “oh poor Walter” way. His longing for an “aura” even as it seems to be dissolving before his very eyes is so likable and so tragic that you just want to give the guy a hug.



Certainly his life’s tragedy leans over the edge of the reader’s shoulder and one really can’t separate the ideas in these essays from the idea of Walter Benjamin: a guy who’s been dealt none of the right cards, can’t figure himself to be an employee, who just wants to be left alone to read great books, write great essays, and to lead the life of an homme de lettres, and of course, the final tragedy of his bad luck, when he’s off by a single day. I can relate to his frustrations, as well as to the seeming impossibility of leading the life he wanted.



Poor, poor Benjamin.


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