Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust – John Fante (1939)

★★★★☆

This book was the main driving reason that I cleared up my $130 library bill at the city branch. The library system I work in didn’t have a copy but theirs did, in order to place a hold I had to be in good standing, so I rectified the situation much to the dismay of me and my bank account.

This is another tale of Arturo Bandini, however there are slight inconsistencies between his background in this book compared to The Road to Los Angeles. I believe that was the second book in the “series” and this is the third, though I am receiving fairly inconclusive information on that for some reason, I guess I just don’t know how to read or some crap.

That being said, the inconsistencies are small, I think that instead of a sister he has a brother, his father is alive instead of dead, but these things matter little to the story this time around.

The book begins by Arturo beginning to make his way in Los Angeles. He gets himself a room in a boarding house, sets up to begin his fantastic and successful writing career. Bandini is a bit of a misfit to begin with, but being a broke, aspiring writer just seems to add insult to injury for the poor fellow. This book follows him through his trials as he makes a place for himself in a new city and a name for himself as a new writer. He ends up meeting a girl in a cafe and gets mixed up in her troubles as well as his own.

It is always hard for me to explain what this type of book is about because I feel like it is a story an old friend tells you if you are catching up. It isn’t about a particular thing other than maybe Arturo and that time in his life, the people he met and the things he has done. It basically reads as a chapter of his life, I guess!

That is probably my favourite thing about this type of writing. There are few settings and a relatively small cast of characters because there doesn’t need to be anything more than that. It is casual, yet real. The flaws of the characters and situations they put each other into are believable, most of the time awkward and unpleasant, but that just adds to the realism, really.

I was a little curious about the dynamic between Arturo and Camilla, it was interesting and again, real. Just because they are a man and a woman in the same book, it doesn’t mean they are destined to life happily ever after. I really enjoyed both of these characters, even if they have traits that don’t make them the best people, it just contributes to making them even more believable.

Fante can really pump out the detail and it enriches what can could be a really banal scene. He manages to make it something special in the details, I really like concise description in this way. It makes him very easy to read without stumbling over walls of descriptive text.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book, honestly, were the slight background inconsistencies. However, like I mentioned earlier, they really aren’t a huge deal in the grand scope of things.

If you are a Bukowski fan, or a fan of contemporary classics in general, you will most likely enjoy Fante. He is easy to read, his books aren’t very long (albeit a little harder to track down) and always good for a bit of a laugh as well.

Worst Blog Person

I am the biggest procrastinator, worst writer, and biggest baby on the planet, so creating a blog may not have been my best idea but I am determined to make a come back from my barren, post-less months.

That isn’t to say I haven’t been reading, I have! I have like 8 books that I have yet to write reviews for because of the aforementioned reasons!

I have six days off coming up! Very exciting, I will try everything in my power to avoid vegetating and playing video games for the next six days and maybe get something done! How horribly embarrassing.

I started with an extremely ambitious and  overzealous pile of over 70 books, I have narrowed this down to 47 items, which of course are all over due. A few of the libraries I have ordered ILL books in from have also become hip to my program of “resetting” the due date as to avoid using up renewals and, you know, having to send books back because there are holds. They have placed notes directing people to send the item back immediately! It has been out since December! ha! I am a horrible library patron.

I can hope that I will learn one day but at this point it seems unlikely.

Throne of Glass

 Throne of Glass – Sarah J Maas 2012

★★★☆☆

This book came highly recommended to me, not only by about 500 great internet sources, but by the extremely overzealous, YA/fantasy obsessed co-worker. Basically any time she saw me during the course of my reading the book, she gushed over the fantastic main character, she is so strong and cool and multidimensional and fun and great and so wonderful blah blah.

This was one of my Flights of Fantasy reading challenge picks, not only because crazy co-worker literally screamed about the book any time the words throne, of or glass were mentioned, but because a ton of great bloggers and reviewers gave this their stamp of approval too.

Throne of Glass is about an eighteen year old, world renowned assassin that has spent the last year of her life in a slave labour camp. The Crown Prince has retrieved her from the camp on a whim to compete in a gruelling competition that his father, The King, has concocted in an effort to employ his new “champion” or assassin of his own, really.

I will have to say that yes, there are elements of this book that I like. The premise of the story is great! The notorious assassin being rescued from the brutal death camp, to compete for an opportunity to work for the very entity that had her locked up. That’s great! The world and setting were all well enough, the glass castle and the varied landscapes between Ellwye and Adarlan were interesting enough, the limited territories made the world building easy to follow and relatively abstract to the story. The magic and fantasy elements were interesting, I didn’t mind reading about how that part of the story unfolded.

There was one thing, however, that will most likely keep me from reading any other book in this series. Celaena is pretty much insufferable throughout the entire book. For a person that is touted as the best assassin in all the damn land, she is childish, petty, has a shitty attitude and a bad temper. It may be that the author just wrote a childish brat of a character so well that I have been drawn into it, but there’s more!

The fact that Celaena is the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most witty, the most funny, the most talented, the most fierce and the most deadly is really really tiring. She is incredibly flawed, we see that she is damaged goods all throughout the book, but we also get that she is tough and cool, quit reiterating it on every other page plz.

The fact that she whined and whined and whined about having to hold back during competition, it is almost like she didn’t even understand her situation herself. I don’t know, I suppose that just rubbed me the wrong way.

I have never really read a love triangle treated in this fashion, but that could be because I have never really read too many YA books, I personally didn’t find it adding much to the story other than creating completely unnecessary friction between Dorian and Choal but I am relatively indifferent to it.

All in all I gave this book a generous 3 out of 5 stars mostly because the story itself was fine, I just hated most of the characters. I am all for strong leading female roles, I just think they are way more strong and interesting if they aren’t looking for 400 pages of validation.

Flights of Fantasy

I love fantasy movies, television shows, and video games. Naturally I love fantasy books as well, but I have read such an embarrassingly low number of fantasy books, I feel like I really know nothing about them really.

That is the neat thing about challenges I love them. I have been hemming and hawing about all the challenges I want to do, but this one has taken me for ever. @hellochelly suggested I go half new fantasy and half classic, so at the moment I have decided on 10 fantasy books for 2015. Something I’m really liking about the list I came up with is that this challenge seems to have been a big boon to Strand Bookstore’s Reading Resolutions #7, always great to get in more female authors when you can.

1. Throne of Glass – Sarah J. Maas
2. Children of Fire – Drew Karpyshyn
3. Children of Amarid – David B. Coe
4. The Warrior Heir – Cinda Williams Chima
5. The Silmarillion – J. R. R. Tolkien
6. Eon: Dragoneye Reborn – Alison Goodman
7. Arrows of the Queen – Mercedes Lackey
8. A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. LeGuin
9. Dragonsong – Anne Mcaffrey
10. The Burning Sky – Sherry Thomas

Gathering Blue

Gathering Blue – Lois Lowry 2000

★★★★☆

I have to keep in mind that I have not read The Giver since the 7th grade, and I have the worst memory. This book is described as a “companion” to The Giver, so I can only assume that they will tie in together more in the two later books.

That being said, since this books is about a completely different set of characters and setting entirely, I feel like this book is more of a continuation of The Giver than anything, and this is again just me speculating about the two books to come in the series. If I am wrong and The Giver and Gathering Blue still have no correlation whatsoever in The Messenger, I will be like ~what the hell~ but that remains to be seen.

Anyway, the book is about a young girl named Kira, born with a disfigurement, which is an irregularity in her society. Her mother passes away and she begins to make her way on her own through a series of coincidental and unusual events. The community seems fairly primitive, often bickering and settling disputes in brutish ways, still hunting with spears and penning up their young. There is a clear class division, and women are forbidden from reading, where men learn from a young age which is something. It has been too long since I have read The Giver to know if that resembles or contrasts from the society depicted in the first book.

I liked that it was fairly quickly paced and to the point. There aren’t too many vivid details provided about the village or the citizens other than that things are primitive and abrasive. Most of the action and twists were reserved for the very last chapters, but I suppose that is just the lead in for the next book.

I didn’t dislike anything in particular I suppose. I feel like it is so hard to create an opinion of this book because it does not at all feel like a standalone story but a part of a whole. I suppose in that I am disappointed? But not really at all because I can just read the next book, well played Lois Lowry.

It is a very easy read, my library has it in the young adult section but I feel that anyone could really read this. It is a somewhat interesting novel and a quick read which may provide important information in the larger ~scope~ of the series, so it leaves me feeling curious.

2015 Reading Challenges! ! !

The only reading challenge I have ever done was last years Goodreads challenge, and to my surprise I actually completed the goal I set. I can thank the handful of picture books I read at the check-in desk at work that put me over the top. This year, a lady at work and I are shooting for 100 books this year, my 2014 foal was twenty four so this will be quite a stretch for me.

I have been looking at challenges, and every time I look I find a new one I want to try. Though I recently returned 20 unread books to the library, so I have to be realistic. I know I don’t read enough young adult fiction and it is all the rage in the library I work at so I figure this one would be great.

365 Days of YA Reading Challenge

Epic Reads put together this bomb ass reading info graphic, so of course I had to make use of it. Definitely a neat way for a complete YA noob like myself to map my year of reads. I was glad to see it included some of the popular series as well as lesser known titles and brand new novels in 2015.

For this challenge I have decided on monthly reads. I am more than happy to start with The Jewel. A Co-worker recommended it last year and it sounds like it may be right up my alley. I put it on hold a week or so ago and it has been sitting there saying “shipped” for days now, so hopefully it will come next Monday or Tuesday.

I am actually a huge nerd and have gone through all four info graphics and picked the books I want to read for the whole year, but every time I go back to look at it I find another title I want to look at. Very neat thing, I am really excited to get started on it.

Strand’s 2015 Reading Resolutions

Strand Books put together an interesting list of general goals to shoot for. I think it will ~diversify~ my list a little. Some will be a little bit of a head scratcher for me ( 500+ pages or 100 years old? idek). I have of course already failed on number 12, I am horrible but there are just some days when I don’t get around to reading a page a day. shame shame!

Road to Los Angeles

Road to Los Angeles – John Fante 1985 

★★★★☆

Since Charles Bukowski seems to think this guy is the crown jewel of fiction, I figured I would give it a shot. I had to order this beaut through The Alberta Library Online, it was certainly worth the wait though.

I usually describe this kind of book as a “boring novel by some old guy” to my coworkers because everybody I work with reads YA fantasy and romance novels. The best thing about this kind of book is that it doesn’t have to have a complex plot or story to engage you. The most interesting thing about the writing is the portrayal of the most intimate thoughts of another human. There were many times that I could see behaviour in Arturo Bandini that I have seen in not only myself but many other people I have interacted with as well.

The interesting depth that Fante uses to describe even the most mundane of situations or feelings or experiences makes this book difficult to put down at times for sure.

Arturo Bandini, an 18-year-old misfit is charged with taking care of his sister and mother. He routinely loses jobs, reads philosophy and admires and fantasizes about female models in art magazines. By all accounts a relatively average young man, attempting to hold down a job and pay the rent. It is the typical sort of somewhat autobiographical work that I find most beat fiction tends to be.

Though this is Fante’s first book, it is the second in a series of four books published over the span of fifty years. The first book in the series is not available in a single library in my province, so I will have to buy it eventually. I do not think it is important to have read the first to enjoy this book, but I’m biased as I didn’t read the first book, and I enjoyed this one.

The few characters mentioned throughout the story are explained in enough detail to get the impression of their importance and nature but the bulk of the book is about Arturo Bandini himself. I find Arturo to be similar to the character of Ignatius J. Reilly of Confederacy of Dunces. Both have great ideals of grandeur and tout themselves as profound philosophical and literary minds, despite being fairly useless human beings in reality.

I found it interesting though, that Arturo punished and put himself down so much almost immediately after thinking highly of himself or his actions. This rang true to me because I often scold myself for taking too much pride in silly or unimportant things. Some of the things this kid did kind of disgusted me, but he was really just a meek little nerd trying to prove to himself that he is something important.

My least favourite thing about this book is, even though the extensive detail was engaging in some areas, it was sprawling and boring in others. The detailed descriptions he would launch into on account of his genius, love of philosophy, or the lavish love affairs he imagined having with various women, after the second or third page got to be a bit much.

I am planning on reading the next book in the series. If you are a fan of beat writing, Bukowski in particular, I would recommend this book for sure.

Bad Library Patron

I will have to be honest, despite working in a public library and attending “library school” for two years, I am very bad at being a good library customer. The fact that I didn’t even get a library card until about three years ago isn’t even the reason either.

I have been very spoiled because a good pal of mine happens to work at the central branch of the city library and had the ability to make my fines ~disappear.~ The shit of it all is that she also happened to go on maternity leave about the time that I accrued over $100.00 worth of library fines.

The library I work at is a part of a different library system, so now that there is no longer a huge BLOCKED tag on my city library account, I am free to take advantage of the two different organizations.

I am truly horrible at returning books on time. This cannot be made more clear than by this image:

I am horrible

The fact that I even paid it is a source of great frustrations and misery for some of my co-workers. One even inquired about lowering them on my behalf even, but unfortunately they couldn’t swing it. My shame, guilt and really annoying need to get a book that only this library seems to have drove me to it I guess!

Visions of Gerard

I’m not usually much for reviewing books, but this is intended to be more of a reference than a compilation of “reviews”. My memory is usually horrible, I can barely remember which movies I have seen in the last year, let alone every book I have ever read.

I would like to keep a running list of the things I read and what I legitimately thought about them. I work at a library, different titles and authors are being thrown around and suggested all the time, but as time goes on I realize I don’t have time to read them all unfortunately!! Goodreads is a great way to do this as well, but upon the suggestion of some coworkers, I need to break my completionist habit of finishing books even if I am not enjoying them, life is too short apparently! I figured this would be a good way to track the books I don’t necessarily make it through as well.

Visions of Gerard – Jack Kerouac 1958 

★★☆☆☆

I figure I’d start out with my last book read in 2014, specifically because it took me a while to slog through this one. I can usually get into beat writing fairly quickly but for some reason, I always have trouble getting through Kerouac books. I’m not sure why I have so much trouble with his writing, other than the fact that I find it way more rambling than other beat writers I have read which are usually more blunt and concise or something. This is the third book of his that I have tried, I was determined to finish it.

I decided to read books in the order as determined by the Duluoz Legend rather than order of publication. This pieces the story together chronologically rather than the order he wrote the books in. I failed to read Bukowski’s “fiction” in such a way, and though it didn’t take away from the stories, I’m sure I would have been able to retain and recall the more minute details had I read the books in their “order.”

The only parts of this book I enjoyed were the vivid descriptions of Gerard and his spirituality. Since the book is being written from the perspective of a toddler (Ti Jean Duluoz aged 4), one wonders if the large segments of rambling poetics are as a result of the limited memories he had to draw on or not, but that is most likely just my cynicism or something. I certainly don’t recall any profound observations I was making at age four. However, Gerard is the most interesting part of the story as he is the person that is described in the most detail other than, perhaps, their father Emil.

The first hundred pages of the book seem to ramble on endlessly, with a few good lines of detail about Gerard and the establishment of their family structure, which is fairly average for working class families in the 20’s. The characters are believable but not particularly interesting for the most part. I understand that this is a semi-autobiographical novel, so the characters are representing actual people, but they are portrayed as the basic people they are, presumably as seen through the eyes of a four year old boy.

In reality, there were frequent points in the first hundred pages in which I agonized about wanting to quit reading this book. The endless breaks into flows of thought and streams of consciousness or whatever you want to call it were tiring. Though, I was somewhat driven to read the details of the outcome, as that was definitely my favorite part of the book (aside from the illustrations throughout, maybe). The detail that Gerard, this thoughts and experiences were explained in was engaging for sure, just few and far between.

Despite it being too drawn out for my taste, the details the book provide are a good beginning to the Duluoz Legend. If I were to look at this book as a singular work of fiction, I would be somewhat satisfied I suppose, but I guess the most negative fact about my looking at it as a part of a series are that I wouldn’t likely read the next book in the series if I weren’t interested in reading a particular title that comes later (that damn completionist thing again).

Since it is fairly difficult to get through, I suppose someone who really loves Kerouac might love this book. For someone like myself, who is reasonably indifferent to him, there was never really a point at which the book “grabbed” me.