Thoughts on: Poetry Reading (with bonus review of Station Island by Seamus Heaney)

Station Island by Seamus Heaney
(my own photo)

I have recently finished reading Seamus Heaney's Station Island.  I was originally planning to write a review, but it just didn't feel right.  I can't exactly review a whole collection of poetry in the same way that I would a novel, and it would take forever to review every single poem.  Instead I'll keep it brief; if you like reading poetry, then you'll enjoy this.

Chance of finding it in my imaginary bookstore? 85%

Reading Station Island lead me to think about how poetry is read.  I read it reasonably quickly, but with hindsight that probably wasn't a great idea.  If you have the time, it's better to have a book of poetry on your bedside table to dip in and out of, as opposed to trying to read it all at once.

Station Island has a very definite structure; it's divided into sections which have different ideas, and there is a progression from one section to the next.  However, it has generally been my experience that poems are read one at a time, often without regard for the order in which they were placed in a collection.  Some poets are more concerned than others about the place of a poem within a collection, and not all poets publish books.  Nonetheless, it does raise some interesting questions about the value of reading a poem outside of the context of the original work.

Book review: Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

I got this book a while ago from a friend for my birthday, but I could never find the time to read it.  However, I'm glad I finally did because I really enjoyed it.

The novel tells the story of a wealthy family of Indian extraction living in Malaysia.  As various different aspects of and perspectives on the family's story are explored, the novel also highlights the cultural, historical and political context in which the events took place.

I thought that the story of the family was interesting in itself.  The characters were really fleshed out and complex, and even at the end of the novel there was still no firm division between "good" and "bad" characters.

Before I read this book I didn't know that much about the history or racial politics of that particular part of Asia, and while I don't think that reading one book turns someone into an expert, I do think that I have a better, more complex understanding of certain aspects of another culture.

The writing style was really beautiful, and I really enjoyed the way it was written.  It may have lagged a bit in a few places, but it was great overall.

Chance of finding it in my imaginary bookstore? 85%

Book review: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
(my own photo)

Just when you think that you have had enough adventure for a lifetime...

On his one-hundreth birthday, Allan Karlsson decides to leave the old people's home.  He climbs out of the window and embarks on a crazy journey, complete with a runaway elephant, a criminal gang, and an almost-doctor.  The story is intercut with details of Allan's eventful life, and his role in some of the most important events of the twentieth century.

The novel was really funny.  The juxtaposition between Allan's direct, matter-of-fact outlook and the sometimes wacky, sometimes world-changing events he is involved in was very entertaining.

I really enjoyed the characterization of Allan. It's really rare to see an elderly person as the central protagonist of a novel.  More often then not, they're someone's wise mentor, or someone looking back on their eventful, younger years.  Allan was a really fun character, and I enjoyed reading about him.

Chance of finding it in my imaginary bookstore? 95%

Yes, I'm still alive

Remember that one time when I didn't post for nearly two months?  Yeah, sorry about that.  In my defense, I was really busy.  I am going to try to post more often during the summer.

In other news, I think I have to make a quick clarification.  The books I write about on this blog have consisted entirely of books that I have read in my spare time.  It does not include any of the material that I read for school, which is quite a lot.  I'm not sure whether I'll write about that stuff later on or not, but so far I have decided not to.  This is partially because I feel like it's cheating, since the rules of my 50 books challenge specifically states that books I read for school don't count.  Another factor is that if I were to write about every single book that I read for school, it would be fairly simple to figure out where I go to school, and from there to figure out where I live etc., etc., it just gets creepy very quickly.

Double Feature: Death of a Salesman and No-one Makes You Shop at Walmart

I just realized that it's almost April, and I haven't written a single post this month.  Even though I'm ridiculously busy right now, I think I'll just get busier as the month goes on.  So, even though I have had absolutely no mind-blowing, incredible, amazing, earth-shattering ideas for posts, I think I'll just write a quick piece on the two books I've read this month so far.

The first one is Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.  I absolutely loved this play. The writing was really incredible; it was much shorter than a novel, but every sentence had so much weight. I can't decide whether I prefer this to The Crucible, but I don't think that matters.  When I start comparing work by the same author side by side I always end up not liking one of the texts as much as I had before, because I realize that even though one might be great, it's not quite as good as the other.

Book review: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Recently, I was quite worried that I was writing too many book reviews, and that I should spend more time on other topics.  However, I have come to the startling realization that I haven't written a review since September.

So, I've decided to review Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, partially because I saw it on display in the bookshop, and partially because it was released fairly recently, so reviewing it seems slightly less passé.

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
(my own photo)

Kahneman's book is based on the idea that while humans are traditionally seen as rational creatures, we do a lot of irrational things.  So far so obvious, but Kahneman does more than just give a list of all the most illogical things we do. His book focuses on psychological research into heuristics, or mental shortcuts, and how they sometimes cause us to make poor decisions.  Much of the research is his own, but it's not the sole focus of the book.

It's really interesting to have someone writing about their own research.  Books that are this accessible to the lay reader are generally written by science writers.  While there is nothing wrong with that, I enjoyed the fact that we got it "straight from the horses mouth".

As I mentioned, the book is aimed at the lay reader, and the language is straightforward.  At the same time, I never got the sense that it was oversimplified or dumbed-down.  Kahneman seems very conscious that his work does have practical implications, and he is very keen to highlight them.

Overall, I thought it was a brilliant book.

That being said, I think that Part IV: Choices dragged a little bit.  It was probably due to the fact that the examples used were so similar, which meant I had several bouts of déjà vu.

Chances of finding it in my imaginary bookstore? 65%

Thoughts on: The New Bell Jar Cover

This year Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar celebrates its 50th anniversary.  The book itself is incredibly haunting and poetic, and I would highly recommend it.  But I don't want to talk about the book.  I want to talk about the new cover that has just been released.*  It's incredibly controversial, and to be perfectly blunt, I hate it.

Firstly, it's not an accurate representation of the novel.  Yes, Ester Greenwood is an intern at a fashion magazine.  Yes, there are sections that discuss clothes and make-up and image. Nevertheless, completely ignores the book's darker side, and focuses completely on one small portion it.

This cover is clearly an attempt to re-market the book as chick lit.  There are two major problems with this.  Firstly, it's not actually chick lit.  Secondly, the fact that they are choosing to re-brand this book in this way clearly demonstrates another major issue for female writers and creators.  Their work is consistently branded as being "for women".  The fact that almost anything written by a woman is separated from other books and put into another, significantly pinker category creates this idea that women's writing is only relevant to women, which is ridiculous.


I understand that publishing companies exist to make money, but when you have the rights to an author's work, then you also have a certain level of responsibility to protect their legacy.  This warped representation of the novel completely ignores that responsibility.  With this cover, Faber have given up even pretending to care about anything other than profit margins.


Another problem I have with this image is that it glamorises the 50's inspired woman on the front. This  is not only historical revisionism, but again undermines one of the key ideas of the book.  The ideal of the 1950's housewife is not a sweet, simple notion. At that time it represented the only acceptable option for a woman.  Both Ester Greenwood and Plath struggled with the very limiting views on femininity, and the fact that this cover completely ignores that is insulting.

There are some people who have suggested that this new cover is good, because more people will buy it and be introduced to Plath's work.  While the sales of the book have gone up since the release of the new cover, but it's questionable as to whether this is due to the cover itself, or all of the hype surrounding the cover and the book's 50 anniversary.  Even if this new cover did increase book sales,  we seriously have to question the cost of these additional sales.  The new cover is a yet another example of "if we make it pink, women will buy it" syndrome.  These insidious stereotypes are harmful, because they normalise dichotomous notions of gender.   The marketing of this book might encourage some people to read it, but it is also clearly an attempt to appeal only to a very specific market, and this will alienate a lot of other readers.

This cover is horrible on so many different levels.

What are your thoughts?

*I haven't posted a picture to avoid any copyright issues.  If you google search something along the lines of "Bell Jar 50th Anniversary cover" it should come up.