Oh, what's this thing again?

Hello, all, hello. Well. Urm. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Oops.

And I even started writing two very long posts!

So, what have I done since last May? I visited a château, I left Tours, I goofed around in London, I read books, I received visitors, I studied, I read more books and I went to Sweden again.

And now, here we are, all the way in 2015!
2014 ended pretty well, with my visit to Sweden before Christmas. Two friends came over from France soon after, to celebrate my birthday with me, and I had a princess party!

But, this blog is about none of these things, for this blog is a...
LIT CORNER!

Amazing, I know.

So, I recently finished three books, the perfect number for a Lit Corner.

First was Lexicon, by Max Barry.

I had first come across the book through Goodreads first reads, but sadly I didn't win a copy of the book :( the concept was incredibly interesting - 'poets' who can use words to quite literally force people into following their orders. We're not talking persuasion here, unless it's the kind of persuasion that puts a gun to your head.

So, I liked this book. It wasn't until just before midway through that I realised what was going on: we have two stories being told in parallel: the story of Emily, a young homeless trickster with a way with words, and the story of Wil, an Australian whose day gets seriously interrupted by abduction.

So Barry takes these two people, and weaves a tale where language - where words - are weapons and the bad guy is coming for us, and we have to stop them NOW. This is not Sci-Fi, but I'd hardly call it fantasy, either. It's cleverer than that. It's a thriller, and one that kept me well and truly hooked, but it's also a story about love, and the way that society keeps tabs on and controls us. It's also a lot about being human.

While this was a great book, I feel it could have been executed better. Parts of the ending didn't sit right with me. However, I can't really fault the character building and the ending as a whole, although not perfect, made me contented enough.
Also, the cover is beautiful.

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The second book I managed to make my way through was The Word Exchange, by Alena Graedon.

Here is another first reads book. I bid for this at about the same time as Lexicon, and although I was more excited by Barry's offering, Graedon's is what I received. The Word Exchange is about a not-too-distant, startlingly familiar future, where devices called Memes (a smarter version of the smart phone) are beginning to do all of our thinking for us and... spread disease?

I was pulled in by yet another gorgeous cover, but somehow found myself being let back out again really quickly. I reviewed it on Goodreads, and here is (roughly) what I said:

I started this book when I received it, several months ago, put it down, and then only very recently picked it back up once more. In all honestly, it's not too difficult to plough through, but that is what it feels like: ploughing through. It's incredibly verbose and full of quite unusual, sometimes ill-advised word choices. Two very ramble-y narrators only make the going tougher.

But the story they tell is compelling, and when I actually applied myself to the task, the reading became much easier. However, I am left with questions which I feel will never be answered, the foremost of which is: how does this disease work? It is central to the plot of the book, and yet aspects of it remain very fuzzy indeed, and not just because Graedon applied Science in order to make it seem more plausible. I mean, okay, I understand how one strand of this disease works, and I can just about lower my plausibility defenses enough to let it pass. But apart from that, I have no clue. None whatsoever. The book leaves off before the characters have managed to reach any solution, which is perfectly fine in general, but here it makes things feel as though they have simply been skimmed over.

My other issue is with the romance. I honestly wanted Bart and Anna to get together, and as characters I believe they suited each other. But the way the romance developed felt so unnatural and false: worse than a case where two characters are simply forced together by a willful and headstrong author is a case where two characters, wonderfully compatible, still feel forced together. It's a massive shame.

Otherwise, the book is an interesting read. It tries, perhaps, to do a bit more than it was capable of - certainly, a book which fails to do all that it is capable of doing - but it still offers quite a pertinent look at the way we use technology, and how this changes the way we use language and interact with the world around us.

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And, finally, in quite a different vein from the other two is Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I have also reviewed this book on Goodreads, and here is more or less what I wrote:

'because I am a cad, because I am the nastiest, most ridiculous, pettiest, stupidest, most envious of all the worms on this earth...' (p.143).

Well, Underground Man, when you put it like that, I'm almost thankful. You said it yourself, now I don't have to.
I wanted to like this book, so very much. I wanted to find it 'hilarious' and engaging, and so much more, but I didn't. I hated the book, and I hated the Underground Man: in his own words, he repulsed me.

But at the same time, he is all of us. Like him, 'we have all got out of the habit of living, we are all in a greater or lesser degree crippled... We have really gone so far as to think of 'real life' as toil, almost as servitude, and we are all agreed, for our part, that it is better in books' (p.151).

Yes, Underground Man, you are right. I do feel that way. And perhaps, Underground Man, what I hate most about you are the things that I see in myself, exaggerated a thousand times. The little insecurities and bitternesses, the pettinesses, the humiliations that we all of us have experienced are put under the microscope by the Underground Man and we have to face everything that we wanted to avoid.

That being said, ignorance is bliss, and I'd be quite happy to never have forced my way through this very short book, and to never, ever have to read it again.

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Other than these three books, I have also read (since last Lit Corner): A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf, Phaedrus by Plato, Popular by Maya Van Wagenen, Deerskin by Robin McKinley and Let the Old Dreams Die by John Ajvide Lindqvist, but I think you will probably all be sorely deprived of a lit corner on these gems.

So, until next time round,

Happy reading and
Happier blogging,
Little Newman