This week’s BTT.

Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?

I’d much prefer autobiographies written by the actual person. Ghost writing is usually out of the question since I prefer autobiographies of writers! I know they aren’t the most objective insight into an author’s life but I find it much more fascinating. A writer writing about another writing is also pretty interesting. If I’m really interested in an person, I’ll try to read both if they are available.

Firstly, I don’t know what I have to write will add a lot more to what has already been written about this cult classic. It’s simply one of those books one must read in their lifetime.

The story begins when Holden Caufield is expelled from yet another prep school, Pencey. Before he leaves, Holden narrates his school life and some of his fellow students, none of whom he particular likes. Phoniness and superficiality is something that really ticks Holden off and he believes that the majority of people he meets is insincere except himself.

After having some sort of minor mental break down after he writes a composition about his dead younger brother’s baseball glove, which was scribbled all over with poetry, for his roommate he leaves the school to wander around New York and to wait for news of his expulsion to reach his parents. The rest of the story follows his stumbling about New York looking for truth and companionship. Growing up and the changes in adolescence also subconsciously concerns Holden who decides that the one thing he would like to do in life is to be the catcher in the rye. It is an idea he got from hearing a child mis-quote singing a Robert Burns poem, ‘Comin’ through the rye’. Holden would like to place himself on a cliff and be ready to catch any children who falls out through the rye and prevent them from plummeting off the cliff which would save the children from having to go through adolescence and confront the difficulty of growing up and losing the innocence of childhood.

Holden Caulfield is a likeable character and very funny but he is consumed by depression that, while he’ll admit to now and then, he fails to acknowledge. It is startling clear that Holden is desperately lonely. Out of life, he wants nothing but to see genuineness and truth from his fellow human citizens. One of the most endearing characteristics of Holden is his constant noticing of the underdogs or the background characters. In plays, movies, books and in life, the secondary characters always catches Holden’s attention and it’s quite moving. Another particularly endearing trait is his love and kindness to his younger siblings – his younger brother, Allie, with the baseball glove who died of leukemia and a sister, Phoebe, to who he eventually goes home to see. As the story unfolds, it is clear that Allie’s death still affects Holden and is unresolved grief. Another incident towards the end of the story also suggests that he may have been molested at some stage during his time at school which would explain Holden’s insistence of continually getting expelled. Holden’s troubled and repressed feelings eventually catches up with him.

I first read this book when I was 16 and I really didn’t like it. Perhaps choosing a book with such a strong, male, anti-hero protagonist was not really the type of material 16 year old girls naturally gravitate towards not to mention that the historical context was quite unfamiliar to me. On re-reading, I have enjoyed it quite a lot and I think growing up has everything to do with it. I empathise with Holden and understand his contempt for the superficiality of fellow humans. I don’t think of him as a rebel, as most criticism has labelled him as, but one who has precociously seen and desire the truth.

This week’s RoM.

Finished:

I most recently finished Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland which was amazing. I also finished Bibliotopia by Steven Gilbar which was a fun little read. It’s basically a little book with facts about bookish things but very American centric.

Reading:

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt. It was a slightly difficult beginning and it’s a hard slog sometimes but everytime I think of giving up, something grabs my attention. It’s a VERY heavy book!

I also started re-reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I didn’t like it when I first read in high school but due to raves of many bibliophiles, I wouldn’t do it justice if I didn’t give it another go. So far, so good.

Lined up:

Nothing really lined up aside from my huge pile of library books and huge piles of new books and huge piles of TBR books. Getting slightly overwhelmed!

New acquisitions, largely due to Border’s 30% off coupons. Who could resist?

• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
• The Sonnets and ALover’s Complaint – William Shakespeare
• Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
• The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James

Discount coupons are always a great time to pick up classics. The lovely hardcover editions of the Penguins are so beautiful and wonderfully priced. Jane Eyre was part of last year’s batch and I’ve been meaning to get myself a nice little copy of my favourite book. The Sonnets was just recently released.

These are really the most beautiful books and designs. I’m itching to buy more. Little Women is especially pretty except I just bought myself a new copy recently. If you’re interested in the designer, here’s an interview with her after the launch of the first batch. The series is exclusive to Borders, unfortunately.

In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheatre, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was lucky.

This preface made up part of the cover of a previous edition of Alice Sebold’s amazing memoir and it is part of a longer preface leading into her recollections. From the very first sentence, there is no pretension or mistake about what the memoir was going to be about. It focuses entirely on Sebold’s rape, her virginity and inexperience with sex (she was a virgin when she was raped) when Sebold was an 18 year old freshman at Syracuse University, the aftermath and its consequences for most of her adult life. Nothing is held back when Sebold details her rape and recounts the moment when she wanted nothing more in the world than to live. After several attempts to escape -

Then I began to run. Like a giant who is all powerful, he reached out and grabbed the end of my long brown hair … that was my first missed escape, the hair, the woman’s long hair

Sebold relents to the demands of the rapist in order to live. This becomes a little problematic during the court proceedings down the track where the adage, ‘it is better to be dead than to be raped’, was still a popular consensus.

Intertwined with Sebold’s story is her childhood and stories about her somewhat dysfunctional family – a mother who was previously an alcoholic and ver nervous, a somewhat reclusive father who was more interested in his books than the family and an older sister whose main motive was to plot her escape away from the family. The two sisters never seem particularly close and, I think, that Sebold writes with guilt that she always managed to spoil her sister’s special moments and never letting her shine. Alice was raped on the day of her sister’s exam and her trial against her rapist was on the day of her sister’s graduation.

Sebold’s story is bravely told and the writing is amazing. There were so many times when I ached for her when Sebold recounts her physical injuries which were quite severe. There were many times where I was moved to tears. Her story also sheds light on how one moment, one horrendus moment, can have such a devastating lifelong impact. While Sebold gains justice in the end and she manages to finish her degree (not to mention taking writing classes from Tess Gallagher and Tobias Wolff), there is no justice for the pain and suffering the rape had caused and perhaps continue to cause.

The ending, as most of us will know, is a quite happy one. Sebold later wrote (the memoir was publised in 1999) The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon and is married to the writer Glen David Gold.

This week’s BTT

If you could ask your favorite author (alive or dead) one question … who would you ask, and what would the question be?

This is a difficult question – mainly because I have so many favourite authors, books and many many questions!

I think I would pick Syliva Plath and ask her – when she was writing The Bell Jar, did she see Esther ever having a future and a somewhat happy ending.

/edit. I lied. I have to add another question after I was inspired by Ireadbooks.

This is to Simone de Beauvoir – what she thinks about the position of women in today’s society. Are we really liberated? And are we still the second sex?

Umm…what?!!!!

http://www.borders.com.au/book/pride-and-prejudice/1315937/

Oh, Borders.

This week’s RoM

I’ve gone slightly deranged and have been overzealous at accunulating books. And my attention span has gone out the window with most of my attention focusing on assignments with its due dates looming large.

Right now, I’m still reading all those books listed down the side bar on the right AND i’m halfway through Disgrace by J.M Coetzee. I’m in love with him. This is the first book of his I’ve read and I picked it up only because a lecturer told me a short story of mine reminded her of Coetzee’s book (not gloating or anything here but WOW!! What a compliment!)

I’ve also managed to rejoin the library. Those who read this blog know about my horrible tendencies to accumalate fines. I have joined about 5 libraries and I can’t go to any of them due to fines. But I did manage to rejoin a local one because it’s been awhile. I also discovered that my uni library has some pretty great books too and I’ve been ordering them in a frenzy. Who knows how on earth I’ll be able to finish these books on time. To make matters worse, I still haven’t managed to finish the 5 books I have going at the moment!

Books lined up:

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson

The Accidental by Ali Smith

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

The Memory Room by Christopher Kock

The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck.

I’ve been reading Emma by Jane Austen and it struck me that the writing somehow seems a little…different to the rest of her work. I’m no Austen-ite and I haven’t read all her works but I have read Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and most recently Persuasion. There is something that is something … I can’t quite put my finger on but it doesn’t really read distinctly like a typical Austen novel. Now, I can understand that authors have the right, and do frequently, vary and experiment with new styles but Austen has been so consistent. Has anybody else come across this idea or feeling? Or perhaps I have a dodgy copy of the novel since I picked it up cheaply at a dingy booksellers in Kuala Lumpur.

Looking at wikipedia (how academic and authoritative of me!) it says Emma was published in 1816 and was her last novel to be published before her death. Curiously, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were both published posthumously and they’re the two novels making up the bulk of my Austen experience. Perhaps I’m more familiar with her later work.

Well, something to add to the thought machine. Perhaps my impression will change once I’ve finished the book.

Hurrah for new books! Well, new and second hand since I’m still trying to buy second hand where ever possible.

• The Haunted Hotel – Wilkie Collins
• The Professor – Charlotte Bronte
• Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
• Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
• Voices from the World of Jane Austen – Malcolm Day
• Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger

I was surprised to find Niffenegger’s book since it was released her with seemingly no fanfare. The only reason I know she has a new novel out is from fellow bloggers in the U.S and U.K who are reading it.

I really must stop buying books.

Anybody get some interesting loot?