I'm in love with books. I've always been in love with them. I like how they smell, I love to touch their pages. I l love to fix them when they are broken and brake them by reading and rereading too much.
And reading them... oh, reading them is one of my great pleasure.
I will tell you about what I read, and how great it is.
In Like water for chocolate Laura Esquivel has a beautiful way of arranging the book. She starts every chapter with a recipe. Sometimes it is a food recipe, sometimes it is for lip balm or how to make matches. Then comes the story of the main character and why she is doing that recipe.
To this she adds the beautiful and somehow natural combination of real and magical. When cooking the cake for her sister's weeding, Tita cries. She does so because her sister is marrying the man she loves but cannot have. The yougest daughter never gets married because she needs to care for her mother until her death. Tita cries in the cake ane everyone that eats that cake beacomes suddenly sad and sick.
Since she is force to live a silent and seculded life, Tita expresses herself through her food. She makes people cry until they get sick or makes them burn with desire, she drives them crazy without saying a word.
I must read The five faces of modernity by Matei Calinescu for an exam. I've reached at the decadence part of the book and I am more confused then ever. Before opening this book i had some clues of what modernity is. Now, I know a lot of details about modernity, like the fact that old Greeks did not feel the need to use this word, or that is stated to be used in the Middle Ages. I even know that it has been used derogatorily for a long period of time.Despite all these, I have no clue what modernity is. I suspect that it is rejecting tradition, but then every new trend does exactly this. I got crazy confused when I read that Romanticism was, in a way modernity. Obviously, I need to read this book again.
I hate this style, and so far it seems to be the most popular in scholar reading. They begin making a statement. Then they analyse the word. Then we see how the word was perceived in different periods of the time, and after all this and, with the mercy of God, the authors return to their original statement to try to explain it to you. Sure, you want to show people that you know what you are talking about. No comments here. But do you need to do it in such a way that people miss your original point?
I think that more people would read more if scholars wouldn't be so stubborn to make everything so elitist and difficult.
Now I'm rereading The city and the pillar by Gore Vidal. I've read this book couple years ago and loved it. Not for its style because couple years ago I couldn't see the difference between two styles if you hit me with it. I loved it for the fact that showed gay people and their life. It was the first time when I read something about gay life, so, like anything new, it left a mark on me.
Now, that I had more contact with representations of gay people and thier life, it is difficult to still be impressed by the book. I will acknowledge Vidal for his courage to write a book that outraged the US.
Jim Willard has sex with his friend when they are out camping. Nothing strange here. Jim falls in love with Bob and strats building his life around him. First there is the quest for Bob, Jim joins tha Navy just like Bob in hope that he will find him and live with him. Through this "journey", Jim discovers other men and has some important relationships. When he finally finds Bob, he discovers that his lover is not interested in men and that their teenage affair was an one time thing. Jim is crushed and the novel ends just as it began, with him drinking in a bar.
The really nice thing and the one that gives intensity to the entire book is the fact that Jim really loves Bob, the Bob is always on Jim's mind. Sometimes, as a reader, you even doubt that he is gay, you just think that he simply a man that found love.
This is an easy-to-read, interesting book that can help you understand more about people. It doesn't have a great style, and you probably won't undeline good quotes, but overall I liked it.
