What book are you reading atm??

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Right, so this is the other big Tolstoy book.

I remember reading in the preface how different War and Peace is to Anna Karenina, which to start off, I'm not sure I agree with.

For one thing Levin is essentially the same character as Pierre: rich, tall, socially awkward fùcker who spends the whole book fighting nihilistic meaningless tendencies and getting sloppy seconds off of other lads. It's not that Levin is a bad character (and Levin's spiritual revelation at the end of the novel is great and deserved imo) it's just that unlike Pierre, nothing really that interesting happens to him. Cùnt needs to have a bit of a sesh.

I get that Levin and Kitty's relationship is supposed to undercut and touch off Anna and Vronsky's affair in a terms of how to make it work kind of thing, but even so, I found some of the Levin sections a bit of a slog to get through. There's even one section of the book in particular which feels lifted exactly from War and Peace.

Anna's section is fantastic though. There are some beautifully sad as balls sections here: the characters feel very very real, palpable and the moments here are very relatable; Anna's freak the fùck out and paranoia over her fading looks be a barry example of that. Is Tolstoy condemning her for what she did? Maybe, maybe not. Loveless marriage to a dry government twat or a self destructive passion where society pisses on yous? Not black or white by any means.

Part Seven in particular is astounding; the transition from realist to modernist, see inside yer one's head is something else and impeccably done here. It's also a much darker, hopeless feeling book than War and Peace, or at least it is for me.

So overall, it's excellent, but I can't help but feel its a bit too structureless and confused, especially the Levin storyline. Excellent characters doing not very interesting things in a nutshell. I think it's a step down from War and Peace on the whole, but a damn fine read nonetheless.

Just started Hope A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander.
Jewish man finds elderly woman in his attic, woman is Anne Frank.

Only 30 pages in, promising start so far.

Reading the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, I have read a lot of fantasy books over the years but these are on another level, fantastic and a very original way in which the characters use their "powers".

Dying to Survive
By Rachael Keogh.

Great eye opener. Grew up in an area plauged by addiction. Makes you think different when seen it from the addicts point of view. And she is brutually honest.

pumpkin4life wrote: »

I've read the first 200 pages. So far, it's a number of short stories, very stream of consciousness heavy which only tangentially relate to each other. It's fine I suppose, but does it get better, does it actually lead up to anything?

The writing so far has ranged from astonishing to amateurish, which can be irritating. It's interesting and original though, I'll give it that.

Stick with it!