I'm starting a new tradition this Friday by starting the Friday Fiver. It's a great way for you to get to know me as a person as well as an author and I kind of think they're quirky.
What book did you struggle to get through but is something you’re glad you’ve read?
The first time I read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, I found it a difficult read. I had to read it for Literature and I hated the style of writing, the language and grammar. I think that came from being so used to the modern style of grammar and language it took a while to adapt. I'm glad that I not only finished the book but also eventually ended up liking it. For those who have not read it, it has everything - love, pain, heartache, crime, corruption and the working class. It also teaches you that nothing is what you expect and don't judge a person by their background or class status.
What’s a book whose popularity has baffled you?
To be honest? Stephenie Meyer's The Host. Yes, yes I know it's Stephenie Meyer we are talking about, author of the fantastically popular Twilight series but still sheesh. Don't get me wrong, I liked the Twilight series just as much as others have despite the over-use of adjectives, the sappiness and cliched dialogue and the fact she seriously gave vampires a bad name but The Host...bleech.
I found the book as dull as dishwater, the plot an abominity and the dialogue is sappy, over written and just plain awful. I'm not sure how it is marked as sci-fi because frankly it is not. I don't call it sci-fi when it's altruistic aliens saving the world from such things as flowers, sea weed and bats. I mean seriously?
I know there are those of you who loved this book and will tell me it has a deeper meaning. You may even tell me it's about being human but all I can say is bleech. I get the popularity of Twilight. I mean it's basically a modern day Romeo and Juliet in some retrospect except it's the mormon version and Romeo has fangs. But The Host, one book that took an hour of my life I will never ever get back.
If you could make everyone you know read one book, what would it be?
Oh, so many books so little time...but for me, it's always going to be To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I read this book when I was 12 and it had a huge impact on me. For those who have never picked it up I encourage you to. It's not just a great story but it's a story about human behaviour - from love and hate, kindness and cruelty, and innocent and experience. Written by a 21 year-old Alabama unknown it was published in 1960 and in 1961 won the Pulitzer Prizer...the coveted award every author would just love to win.
It's considered one of America's greatest literatary pieces and is written from the point of view from a child, Scout. It is cleverly written, heart wrenching and brings forth a tideaway of emotions that range from love, hate, outrage and laughter.
Atticus Finch is the ultimate father. Not because he loves his chilldren 100% but because he grounded, just and fair and can look beyond class and the color of skin.
The writing is phenomenal from the characters, to the prose to some of the memorable quotes such as "You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" and “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
What Book Have You Liked Less and Less as Time Has Gone By?
This is an easy one. Wuthering Heights, hands down. I hated it the first time I read it because I found the main characters absolutely unendearing. I know this is a classic but I struggled to find one character that I could sympathise with throughout the whole book.
I first read it in high school and found the book highly dramatic and found it impossible to see how this is a tragic love story.
I read it again recently and I didn't think it was possible for me to loathe this book any further. The characters are selfish, immature and whiny. I almost always have the urge to bitchslap Cathy and Heathcliff is a total psycho. That's the cliff notes version. If you want to go further into it Cathy is a whiny, spoilt brat that manages to destroy anything in her path and Heathcliff is a bitter, twisted, abusive miserable psycho. Their twisted relationship is a smorgasbord of love, hate and drama, drama, drama. Sure there is the old time cliche of lovers torn apart by some bad decisions on their part, musuderstandings and eventually death. I could get pass that if it wasn;t for the fact essentially these are just horrible people.
If I never had to read this book again, it would be blessing.
What book have you loved more and more as time has gone by?
All The Pretty Horses By Cormac McCarthy. It's the story of John Grady Cole, who at the age of 16 is the last in the line of Texas Ranchers. Seeing the changes coming, he and two friends head to Mexico for adventure. But what starts of as adventures ends less idyllicly with one of the boys dead and the other two growing up too quickly in such a short time.
It's book one of the Border Trilogy and a tale about youth, innocence and a coming of age in the face of survival, revenge and loss of innocence.
The writing style is like nothing I had read before. I thought I would loathe it because there is no use of " to highlight dialogue but it doesn't matter, because the story is amazing as is the dialogue. Cormac McCarthy is not a flowery guy. He writes about crime, loss of innocence and survival but he also manages to write manly sentences that still manage to be lyrical and awe-inspiring. His descriptions are what really pull you in. He manages to capture the bleakness and darkness of his characters plight through his words and his dialogue is so raw and evocatively powerful that it manages to capture the essence of each character. This is a feat in itself considering how few of words some of the characters are.
I could read this book over and over again.
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