Lands Away: Literary Reviews & Fiction Writing

It's really amazing to me that I never read Kurt Vonnegut before this summer. I knew who he was, of course, but never got around to reading any of his novels. Dark comedies, especially ones with strong anti-war themes, are totally my cup of tea. I grew up on M*A*S*H and one of my favorite books of all time is Catch 22. Vonnegut's two most famous novels, Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five definitely fit that genre. Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical account of a POW's experience in WWII. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, has a lot in common with Vonnegut himself, who also occasionally appears in the novel as a first-person narrator. Billy is captured by the Nazis and is taken to Dresden, where he survives the Allied fire-bombing that decimated the city (just like Vonnegut himself did in real life).  The story-telling in Slaughterhouse-Five is very disjointed, jumping from all over the place in space and time (Billy Pilgrim is "unstuck in tim

As a Foreign Language and Linguistics major, I spent most of my time in college studying the Humanities. And that's great, I enjoy the arts, but I do sometimes wish I could've studied more science. Since graduating I've tried to fill in some of those gaps by reading books on scientific subjects, mostly related to space, physics, and environmental biology. I got my hands on a copy of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time this summer, and it was a great read. Hawking does his best to help out those of us who were Humanities majors by starting from the basics: he talks about theories of the universe going back as far as the Greeks, Galileo and Newton. It's easy to follow at first, and even as things get more complex, Hawking's explanations are clear and well-phrased. I admit I had to re-read some things a couple times to let the information sink in, but over all it wasn't a difficult read. Given the subject matter, that's quite a feat. Like I

There's no argument: Kafka is one of the greatest writers in modern history. His stories are short but powerful, hitting you hard and compelling you to think about them for weeks afterward. I found them dark, abstract, difficult to understand... but fascinating nevertheless. Famously, Kafka never felt that his writing was worthy of publication and on his deathbed gave all his unpublished stories to a friend to destroy. That friend, Max Brod, couldn't bring himself to actually burn them, however, and instead had them published after Kafka's death. Sadly, Kafka died quite young (he was only 40) from tuberculosis. I read the Penguin Classics collection of his short stories. The four that I found the most interesting and memorable were: Metamorphosis, The Judgement, In the Penal Colony and A Hunger-Artist. So disgusting, and yet, so sad! I can't decide if I'd rather hug it or step on it... The Metamorphosis is probably Kafka's most famous work. Most pe

For my inaugural literary criticism post, I chose one of my favorite poems of all time, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot. It's what first brought Eliot his fame and is considered one of the greatest works of modernist literature. Ever since I first read “Prufrock” I have been pretty obsessed with it. I’m not sure why I love it so much—it is in no way positive or admirable; really what makes it good at all is not its subject matter but the genius of it and its beauty. Before we get started, go  read the poem  first. Prufrock is essentially the confession of a man who believes his confession will never be repeated by the listener—therefore he rambles in a stream-of-consciousness style narrative without “fear of infamy.” (To use the quotation from Dante which Eliot himself used to introduce the poem.) It honestly reminds me a great deal of a journal entry, though in reality it is even more disjointed than that. Prufrock is a man so hindered by his

I only discovered China Mieville about 2 or 3 years ago, but he's become one of my favorite fantasy authors. What always draws me back to his books is his amazing ability to completely change his style to suit the story he's telling. He has a fantastic ability to play with language that never fails to impress and entertain me. What ties all of his very different stories together is a common theme of surrealism and urban landscapes. And as the title of this post might suggest, he tends to deal in the bizarre.   The first Mieville book I read was Un Lun Dun . It might be the most different from the rest of his work, since it's a YA novel. But like the others, Un Lun Dun is the story of a fantastic city that exists not quite in the real world. This novel is full of eccentric characters and a bric-a-brac city that reminded me strongly of a Miyazaki anime. Perhaps my favorite thing about it though was that the true heroes of the story were the ones who saved the day not becau

  The plot of this book may not have held any big surprises, but it was a fast, entertaining read. What really made it enjoyable were the characters, all of whom I found interesting and likable, and the world that Cassandra Clare has established. I immediately liked the main character Tessa. It was hard not to - she's smart, with realistic strengths and weaknesses, and I love that she's a book nerd. I was really wary of her turning into a Mary Sue, especially given the love triangle described in the book's summary... But fortunately that never overshadowed the plot, and Tessa's character remained interesting independent of her love interests. Possibly my favorite character in the book though was Charlotte, the head of the Institute. I love that she's a very strong, organized woman- but that she still has some vulnerabilities. I think her role as a leader and her odd relationship with her husband make her really interesting. Second to the characters, my favorite

I just finished the 2nd book in this trilogy and I have to say I love it so far. The plot, the characters, the world it takes place in... It's all so incredibly complex that it keeps me thinking about it even after I've finished the books. The series is essentially a political intrigue set in a fantasy universe that has clearly been modeled on our own, roughly around the time of the crusades. While there are a number of similarities between the world Bakker has created and our own history, it is definitely not a historical fantasy. This world is unique and very different from ours, despite having similar problems of holy war, racism and religious fanatacism. It ties in a number of real social issues, including sexism and homophobia, but they are never entirely in the spotlight; they primarily come into focus only when important to the characters. And the characters... Some of the most complicated, real people I have discovered in a series of books. The main character of the