Buda Baby: Books

10-and-a-half hour reading marathon

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:30:48 GMT

My eyes are just now returning to normal, along with the rest of my sleep-deprived body, and every minute of reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was worth it.

The book was released at 1:00 a.m. in Budapest, in synch with the one minute after midnight release in London. Zoli went out to pick up my copy, bless him, while I stayed home listening to the live broadcast of J.K. Rowling reading the first chapter to an audience at the Museum of Natural History in London. God knows I am absolutely in awe of her and couldn't have been more delighted to watch her read.

I've been nervous about the ending of the series for two years, since the end of the last book. Over the past few weeks, these nerves have reached something of a fever pitch. I've been avoiding reading anything to do with Harry Potter online lest I accidentally see a spoiler; I've been thinking about the plot non-stop and speculating what's going to happen.

I'm not going to say anything about what happens here, but this has been a reading experience of a lifetime. Last night, when Jo was reading, my legs were literally shaking. Then when Zoli placed the book in my hands, I just held it for a minute before making myself comfortable on the couch and diving in. From the very first page I could barely breathe. I forgot to drink water, I forgot to use the toilet. Every couple of hours all of my biological needs would conspire to rip me from the world that J.K. Rowling has so carefully created. Before I knew it, the sun was coming up and I was a third of the way through the book. Zoli went to sleep, and after a couple more hours, I was halfway through. Then I was down to the last 200 pages. And then, the final hundred, and the final twenty.

I haven't wanted this series to end. Each time I start re-reading one of the books, I slip back into the magical world as if it is mine, too. I don't ever want to leave this world, dark and dangerous though it is. I thought it would be bittersweet to read The Deathly Hallows, that each passing page would bring me closer to leaving a place that I've come to love more than the "real world" in some ways. It wasn't like that though; the story was so fast moving, so interesting, that I couldn't get enough of it fast enough. J.K. Rowling has said in an interview that some readers are going to hate the book, but I am not one of them. Everything about the book was satisfying; I wouldn't have changed a comma. I've already started my second reading; having read it so quickly the first time, I want to go back now and savor every bit of how the story has been woven together.

Real life is also back. Gabor is at our house, and he and Zoli have been working hard since last night. It's time for me to re-join the effort, but, in the back of my head, I'm still fighting Death Eaters and will be for some time to come.

Technorati tags: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

On the Reading List

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 10:03:57 GMT

Finally added a couple of new entries to my Book Reviews list:

The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz:

Memoir of a Polish soldier captured by the Russians, tortured, forced to sign a false confession while drugged, and sent to a labor camp in Siberia. From there he escaped with others and set off on foot to India. Tale of survival and human limits. 7/10

Embers, by Sandor Marai:

Suspenseful novel about deceit, betrayal, and revenge, and how love destroyed three lives. The style is reminiscent of Marquez, where the ghosts of the past still have a strong hand in the present, because they have the ability to suspend time. 9/10

There are also some new books on my nightstand:

British as a Second Language by David Bennun - Bennun is a British citizen who grew up in Kenya and went to university in Britain at 18. Despite having read old copies of Punch and having seen Chariots of Fire, he found Britain to be a very foreign place indeed!
Fatal Majesty by Reay Tannahill - Picked this on up in Scotland. It is a novel about the life of Mary Queen of Scots.
Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln - Wanted to learn more about all the DaVinci Code hoo ha.

Zoli, A Novel

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:31:08 GMT

I found a new book in Aix called Zoli, by Colum McCann. In this book, Zoli is not a charming Hungarian man with a beautiful smile, but rather a Slovakian Roma (gypsy) girl. It will be some time before I will read it, as my current list is already three deep, but I will keep you posted.

I'm currently slogging through Jane Austen's Emma (sorry Don, but this is one BO-RING book), and have books on the Cold War and the slums of Rio waiting in the wings.

Two New Book Reviews

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:55:22 GMT

There are two new reviews on my Book Reviews list.

The first is Holy Fools by Joanne Harris, which I picked up to read on the flight over. It was "ok" but I didn't enjoy it as much as other of her books (perhaps it was the lack of a Johnny Depp character or wonderful food descriptions).

The other is Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis.

Before I go into the book I have to say that I have a complex reader-writer relationship with this guy. I was in high school when I read his debut novel Less Than Zero. To say this was a formative book for me would be an understatement. This book found its way into my soul (probably an unfortunate thing if you've ever read it), and I read and re-read it until it literally fell apart. I watched the movie adaptation (hated it) and bought the soundtrack (loved it). I tried to emulate the style in my own writing (mistake).

When The Rules of Attraction Came Out, I felt personally insulted. What was Ellis doing writing the same book, but set on the East Coast? It was a cop out. I thought he was a one hit wonder.

Then came American Psycho. I first read about it before it came out, when N.O.W. tried to block its publication. Huge publicity followed, and I was intrigued to say the least. It really was a disgusting book; I couldn't read it again today, but I read it at least 10 times back in the day and wrote my senior thesis about it at university. In all the hype and in my pretentious "creative writing major" phase, I felt I was the only person who "got it" in a sea full of morons. I admired the craft, even though I reviled the violence.

I'm not going to say anything about A.P. that hasn't already been said, but after reading it, I wasn't too keen on Ellis anymore. I was exhausted by him. His next two books came out, and my reaction was "Here we go again, peddling the same old stories." I never read them; the reviews and book jackets were enough. I had moved on. I was over the guy. I was tired of his style and his characters. I hated his characters. I still do. (But I love it that Ellis brings out that strong of a feeling.)

This preamble is all to say that had I not been wandering around the foreign language section in a bookstore in Budapest, I likely would never have even picked up Lunar Park. It was like running into an old boyfriend - one that you never particularly cared to see again - in another city, and exchanging "what have you been up to"s. After catching up, I was glad he wasn't in my life anymore, but fascinated by what he'd become.

Lunar Park is unlike anything I've ever read. It is a combination of memoir, fiction, supernatural, and horror. The main character is "Bret Easton Ellis" and at its core is the exorcism of the author's and the charcter "Bret's" personal demons. The characters themselves are similar to those in his other books - beautiful, disaffected, rich, and utterly removed from reality by a combination of prescription and illegal drugs and alcohol. Unlike his other characters, however, these ones have a pathos, and I can empathize with them for the first time (while still yelling at them and throwing the book across the room at their stupidity).

I literally had anxiety attacks and an ulcer flare-up from this book, as well as nightmares. My jaw dropped as I was struck by Ellis's ideas and literary construction. It was like watching The Maestro in action. I wanted to clap like you do at a jazz concert after a particularly well-played improvised riff.

Really Bret, hats off.