this is another installment of project long classics, in which i make big old books seem more approachable by making horwelcome to...NATIVE(MBER) SON!
this is another installment of project long classics, in which i make big old books seem more approachable by making horrible month-based puns about them and reading them in little bits over the course of a month.
i'm excited for this one. even though it only has 3 sections so i'm going to have to divvy up by page count.
DAY ONE already i'm forgetting that this was published 85 years ago. i love a classic that never feels old.
DAY TWO the level of foreshadowing here...i'm like maybe if i just read fast enough everything will be fine.
DAY THREE the feelings of fear and helplessness and rage are so vivid as to be contagious.
DAY FOUR tempting to just stop right here when bigger is happy with his new job and pretend this is where it ends! but even this is dark.
DAY FIVE i have to confess i took a weekend off from reading. i am terrified of this book. it's written so perfectly that i can feel intensely things that are never hinted at other than between the lines.
DAY SIX we have concluded book one and i couldn't be more upset and invested and stunned. i picked a bad book for this project only because every day it's rendering me speechless.
DAY SEVEN the foreshadowed thing has occurred.
DAY EIGHT it's fascinating how this book built and built tension until the crime at its center happened, and it cut the horrible weight of it rather than the typical inverse.
DAY NINE never in my whole life of reading have i ever encountered a story in which an attempt at ransom goes well.
DAY TEN feeling so relieved every time these insane lies are bought as if i don't know that things are about to get worse than ever. that's the power of reading.
DAY ELEVEN i am living in the hunted trapped fearful feeling of this book.
DAY TWELVE i'm stewing in it. that's my update.
DAY THIRTEEN still stewing.
DAY FOURTEEN this is a really brutal way to read this story. i'd be consumed by it enough if i read it all at once — a bit every day is driving me to distraction.
DAY FIFTEEN now we're on the run, so it's just a more intense version of the last 5 days.
DAY SIXTEEN it's not the most important thing right now — that would be that we're still on the run and bigger has committed another murder — but it is kind of crazy just how often newspapers used to publish.
DAY SEVENTEEN another murder. he's caught. we're onto book three.
DAY EIGHTEEN bigger is in jail and we're doing some outright theme summaries as a reminder. which is kind of helpful at this point, to be honest.
DAY NINETEEN jail visit from bigger's family, bigger's friends, the victim's family, the falsely accused, the defense, the prosecution, and a reverend. all at once.
DAY TWENTY i do not know much about inquests but i didn't think they were large gatherings of people in a morgue with a judge looking on while a coroner interrogates people.
DAY TWENTY-ONE honestly really satisfying to read bigger's communist lawyer interrogating the victim's landlord dad about redlining.
DAY TWENTY-TWO there's a kind of relief to having all of the turbulent emotions of this book laid out and explained. but i still feel the same dread.
DAY TWENTY-THREE same kind of tension-easing dialogue.
DAY TWENTY-FOUR sixty people just testified against bigger. we're back to full tension.
DAY TWENTY-FIVE this lawyer is going full atticus finch.
DAY TWENTY-SIX the hope from atticus has been stamped out again by another racist monologue. this book is emotionally destroying me.
DAY TWENTY-SEVEN well, this got me.
OVERALL it is genuinely incomprehensible that this book, occupied as it is by the questions that feel so completely of today, was written so many decades ago. i could not escape this book: i thought of it constantly, i felt it utterly, i was consumed by it. it's stunning. it should be required reading. rating: 5...more
i saw this in a bookstore and even seeing 800 pages wasn't enough to dissuade me from wanting to read iti saw this in a bookstore and even seeing 800 pages wasn't enough to dissuade me from wanting to read it...more
this is my first shirley hazzard novel after having read her collected stories, but i still came away with basically the same thought:
when hazzard is this is my first shirley hazzard novel after having read her collected stories, but i still came away with basically the same thought:
when hazzard is at her best, she's brilliantly capturing these kind of unspoken, purely human moments of everyday life. this had a lot of that. her writing is so great that you almost wish she didn't have to deal with pesky things like "characters that you feel are real" or "plots that aren't mostly made up of things being mysterious."
i recommend this book, and i thought there were moments of true greatness in it, but it was not for me an enjoyable read.
it says a lot about how well hazzard writes that i will probably reread this to check if that's on me.
bottom line: what a talent!
------------------- tbr review
there's something about old-fashioned books about sisters falling in love
(thanks to the publisher for the audiobook e-arc)...more
there's something about an author's last uncompleted novel.
there was a lot of good old-fashioned cleverness to this book, of the kind that reminds youthere's something about an author's last uncompleted novel.
there was a lot of good old-fashioned cleverness to this book, of the kind that reminds you of 9th grade english class discussions at 7:35 am that were like pulling teeth. the adam and eve motif, the slow transition from nameless characters to named and back. but then there's also weird stuff.
it's a little strange to read this story, which is about gender dysphoria and polyamory and sexuality, in 2024, when all of that is stuff we know about now. reading hemingway writing about it is almost like when your grandpa describes a character he likes in a tv show using extremely outdated language and you're like, "aw, pop pop! it's nice that you're trying but also please never say that again."
except for hundreds of pages.
bottom line: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)...more
