Latest reading

I finished McCarthy's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter this week. I was disappointed in the book, I think it attempts to be melancholy but I just didn't connect with her characters. The book was first published in 1940 and part of the charm of the book is the time period and how its depicted, but that is also a drawback as well because it dates the book, in my opinion. I also had trouble with her attempt to "take on" the rhetoric of facism, which came across at times as preachy. Regardless, I was determined to read the whole book to have the experience of examining the aspects I liked and didn't like in a balanced way. Some of McCarthy's descriptions and some of her passages do ring true, but they are the minority.

I moved on to a book of short stories by Ray Bradbury, one of my favorite authors as a kid, especially Farenheit 451. That book made a very strong impression on me at the time. The stories in The Cat's Pajamas range from 1946 all the way through 2003. Some of the stories are quite funny, and in the introduction, Bradbury admits that his long admiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald has colored his plots and desire to take a journey back in time to save "Scotty" from himself.

Right now I've just started reading Lahiri's first published book, a collection of stories called The Interpreter of Maladies. I'm only a a few pages into the first story and Ms. Lahiri's raging talent is abundantly apparent. I'm truly looking forward to reading these stories. I haven't read The Namesake, but I happened across the movie on cable T.V. (I'm a big fan of Kal Penn) and I was very touched by it. The whole movie is essentially a valentine to Gogel, among many other things, and I'm curious to read some Gogel too - but I haven't picked anything of his up yet.

What are you reading this summer? Please feel free to add comments with your recommendations.

Thanks,
Carol