Recent reads:
>Blood Meridian, By: Cormac McCarthy,
The Good: Amazing prose, very intense journey which is on par with works like paradise lost and Mody **** TBH.
The characters are amazing, dark, so, so, so dark. But not in an edgy way. This book delivers truly biting, uneasy views of evil in the antagonist who is often considered one of the baddest bad guys of all time; from what i've read I would agree.
This is certainly my favorite novel.
The Bad: For me there was nothing bad about this book. But being objective I think some readers would be off put by some stuff. Namely writing style, punctuation, plot and character building.
This is one of those things where "plot" is not the driving force, its just a journey which follows the main character who is only called "the kid" for most of the book and he never gets a name or much overt character building. This is a book where you have to read into all the small details, which I like, and many people do, but it might be made hard by the writing style and punctuation.
That is, the style and punctuation is purposefully "archaic". McCarthy basically only uses periods, and a comma very, very seldom. He basically replaces commas with the word "and" which creates a sort of old style biblical feeling.
It can be harder to dive into, but once you do its worth it.
>Infinite Jest, By: David Foster Wallace,
The Good: Very unique gargantuan 1300~ page novel. The story is everything post-modern taken to the extreme. It follows: kids at a tennis academy, struggling with finding success; recovering addicts at a half way house, who are all going off on their own adventures and misadventures; a mysterious plot to destroy America by discovering a movie so entertaining that anyone who watches it will want to do nothing else but watch it for the rest of their lives at any cost; a spy fiction thriller about government and terrorist forces both trying to track down characters who might know about the secret location of the weapon, the terrorists are wheel-chair bound assassins from Quebec, I'm not joking; sex, drugs, their consequences for different people at different points in their lives; its genuinely funny and sad; and about 300-400~ pages of footnotes that you must read during the course of the novel, which give a whole host of interesting plot and info dumps as well as clues to the mystery etc.
Holy **** this book has everything.
The thing that is most striking about this book is how emotional and beautiful it is despite being bat**** crazy. Its truly an artistic work and one of my favorite novels I have ever read.
The Bad: It has everything because it is so LONG. This book is LONG. Its one of the longest novels of all time released in a single book format.
Its worth it if you are into Post-Modern artsy-fartsy type stuff which pays off in the end, but I can't lie to you you must work for this novel. This novel expects, and demands you to work and pay attention, and so much so that it is practically cruel in its attempt to trick you as a reader. This book is not on your side. It involves acronyms, sentences several pages long that are still grammatically correct non-run-on sentences. It involves medical terminology, drug terminology, philosophy, physics, math, diagrams etc. The ending of the book leaves some people actually mad. You can read the entire book and miss everything about the plot if you are not paying attention. This is one of the best things, but its also one of the worst because you almost certainly will miss some things.
After reading this book I thought it was okay, and literally four weeks later out of the blue I remembered a tiny fact that changes the plot entirely and I realized I made a wrong conclusion and my mind was BLOWN at the implication.
This book is amazing, but its not doing you any favors. Its like a heavy workout, you feel really good after, but its not "fun" during. Some people attribute this books popularity to just how difficult its supposed to be, while its a hard read I disagree with any idea that its just infamous because of how weird it is. There is a great, unique novel here and its just playing by its own rules. Its not for everyone and that's okay.
>The Crying of Lot 49, By: Thomas Pynchon,
The Good: Fun, short read. Breakneck paced adventure which follows the events of a woman uncovering a conspiracy theory after she is left an estate from a deceased lover.
Fun characters. Funny in general. Its intriguing, vague and gives not much away ultimately, but its only 200~ pages and does not overstay its welcome.
Its just a refreshing read TBH.
The Bad: while its endearing, Pynchon's dialogue makes 0 ****ing sense. Characters respond to each other with seemingly unrelated thought, points, concerns. Other characters seem to understand this process while you as the reader do not. The whole thing feels like everyone might be on acid, or you as the reader might be missing like 40% of what is going on because the narrative is on acid. Its honestly hard to tell.
Its an odd feeling, not necessarily bad, but like my other reviews it might be off putting. For me it certainly added something to the tone of the book, however it was a little annoying because sometimes you had to re-read a page or two back because you missed what was actually happening and suddenly everyone is in a gunfight in another city when a page ago they were having tea on a patio.
