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Title: Carol (The Price of Salt)
Author: Patricia Highsmith
Narrator: Cassandra Campbell
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2015 (1952)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 250,605
Text Number: 804
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A discontented shopgirl becomes infatuated with a wealthy divorcée. Highsmith's propensity for detail, for fully inhabiting singular moments in all their mundanity and profundity, is occasionally tedious (especially in those early discontented sections) and occasionally superb. At best, they're crystalline—evocative, perfectly-preserved glimpses into a woman's personal growth and experience; interior, minute epiphanies which, in their contractions, create a nuanced and private portrait of queer attraction. The plot engages homophobia in painful, even trite ways as it flirts with genre conventions of doomed same-gender romance; it also intentionally subverts them. The last few pages are sublime; they see the themes and tone through to fruition, they're subtle and profound, and they pay off earlier missteps. This isn't a perfect book, but its ending is.
Title: The Comedy of Errors
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1595
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 250,705
Text Number: 805
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This isn't the first time I've wondered if I could like play were I not so biased against miscommunication as a plot device (a bias with much justification! but I admit I don't moderate it well); I don't think so. There's not much depth here outside the clever wordplay: no character development, no themes to speak of, just humor—and, mistaken identity aside (the entire play could be one act if bad communication wasn't baked into the premise), most of what's left is unappealing slapstick. At best, this feels like an experiment in tone and wit; it reads quickly. I still don't like it.
Title: Rendezvous at Rama (Rama Book 1)
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Published: RosettaBooks, 2012 (1973)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 250,940
Text Number: 806
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi
Review: An alien generation ship prompts a human exploratory mission. This is in the same school as Weir's The Martian (but, rest assured, better written): a speculative concept explored through boots-on-the-ground problem-solving of broadcasted, discrete crises. It's not particularly graceful in pacing, and has an air of smugness (no one could anticipate/solve this! except these science experts ... and me, the unhumble author!), but it's lively and engaging. The strange, echoing, titanic landscape elevates the tone, although I found it useful to look up cover illustrations in order to get a grasp of Rama's layout. The human element is relatively light; given that this is a book that introduces a female character via the movement of her breasts in zero-g, that's probably for the best. The tidbits of near-future human society are interesting and relatively diverse; the politics are boring and the characters unremarkable. All told, this holds up well; the mystery of its end leaves both cast and reader stimulated but pleasantly unfulfilled. (I've no particular desire to read the sequels.)
Author: Patricia Highsmith
Narrator: Cassandra Campbell
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2015 (1952)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 250,605
Text Number: 804
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A discontented shopgirl becomes infatuated with a wealthy divorcée. Highsmith's propensity for detail, for fully inhabiting singular moments in all their mundanity and profundity, is occasionally tedious (especially in those early discontented sections) and occasionally superb. At best, they're crystalline—evocative, perfectly-preserved glimpses into a woman's personal growth and experience; interior, minute epiphanies which, in their contractions, create a nuanced and private portrait of queer attraction. The plot engages homophobia in painful, even trite ways as it flirts with genre conventions of doomed same-gender romance; it also intentionally subverts them. The last few pages are sublime; they see the themes and tone through to fruition, they're subtle and profound, and they pay off earlier missteps. This isn't a perfect book, but its ending is.
Title: The Comedy of Errors
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1595
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 250,705
Text Number: 805
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This isn't the first time I've wondered if I could like play were I not so biased against miscommunication as a plot device (a bias with much justification! but I admit I don't moderate it well); I don't think so. There's not much depth here outside the clever wordplay: no character development, no themes to speak of, just humor—and, mistaken identity aside (the entire play could be one act if bad communication wasn't baked into the premise), most of what's left is unappealing slapstick. At best, this feels like an experiment in tone and wit; it reads quickly. I still don't like it.
Title: Rendezvous at Rama (Rama Book 1)
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Published: RosettaBooks, 2012 (1973)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 250,940
Text Number: 806
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi
Review: An alien generation ship prompts a human exploratory mission. This is in the same school as Weir's The Martian (but, rest assured, better written): a speculative concept explored through boots-on-the-ground problem-solving of broadcasted, discrete crises. It's not particularly graceful in pacing, and has an air of smugness (no one could anticipate/solve this! except these science experts ... and me, the unhumble author!), but it's lively and engaging. The strange, echoing, titanic landscape elevates the tone, although I found it useful to look up cover illustrations in order to get a grasp of Rama's layout. The human element is relatively light; given that this is a book that introduces a female character via the movement of her breasts in zero-g, that's probably for the best. The tidbits of near-future human society are interesting and relatively diverse; the politics are boring and the characters unremarkable. All told, this holds up well; the mystery of its end leaves both cast and reader stimulated but pleasantly unfulfilled. (I've no particular desire to read the sequels.)
