Category: I FLIP PAGES

The Game
A.S. Byatt
ISBN: 0-679-74256-5
My copy: Paperback, 286 pages
Purchased: December 11, 2009 from Booksale
Read: February 2, 2010

“B is for Byatt. And Byatt is a biyatch.” That’s what I was muttering to myself while reading this book, the second for my A to Z challenge. It was a hard read; I struggled to keep awake and not to trade it for a Charles Baxter, or Elizabeth Berg, or just about any other B-surnamed author.

The Game is a good illustration of my contention that good writing is not enough to make a book likable.

Byatt is obviously a good writer. She is an intelligent woman, and she seemed hellbent to prove it to her readers. She obviously did extensive research on snakes and religion and the Amazon, and she was determined not to allow an ounce of research matter go to waste, as she filled her narrative with shedloads (British for truckload) of information that had this tranquilizing effect on me. Pedantry at its finest. Of course, I am willing to admit that all the fascinating, scientific knowledge just might be way beyond my capacity to understand and all my scathing remarks on the novel’s obtuseness just indicate that I am not smart enough to be a Byatt reader. But since this is my review and no one can stop me as I type it at 1 o’clock this morning, I’ll continue my Byatt-bashing.

I just felt that the knowledge-dumping was way too much and got in the way of the narrative. In a few instances, she delivers paragraph after paragraph to quote a TV host’s script. Granted, it’s a show about natural science and that this is set all the way back in 1967, but I think even way back then, sound bites, concise and catchy lines were more appropriate to TV than what sounds like what a science teacher would read in class.

The novel is thin on the plot and heavy on the pondering. Kilometers of interior monologue. Pondering, pondering, and more pondering. The kind of pondering that leads characters to kill themselves and readers to want to kill themselves.

But more than the pedantry and the sedative qualities of the piece, what really irked me most was that none of the characters were likable. I am not looking for perfection. Nor am I looking for one-dimensional goodness; I do appreciate the brokenness, the frailties of characters that give them human qualities. Sometimes, these faults are precisely what make them accessible and even lovable. I need to relate to them or even fall in love with one of them to enjoy a book.

Cassandra is the elder sister, an unmarried university don feared by her students . Domineering, somber, isolated from the real world by an aversion to the enjoyment of life. She wears staid and worn-out clothing that hide her personality and vulnerabilities, and she ensconces herself in academia to further detach herself from anything that can hurt her. Writer turned TV show art consultant Julia is a successful novelist but failed mother and wife. The more attractive, more charming sister, she is is self-absorbed, flirtatious, and as the story would prove, mean-spirited. As children, the two engage in a game they invented, a complex game filled with allusions to King Arthurian characters. Their close relationship is fissured by a couple of events that Cassandra perceives as betrayal. Time, distance, and resentment drive them further apart, and it takes a death in the family and a snowstorm to force them together again, at least physically.

Simon is the third party in this bitter love triangle. Both women spend a lot of time ruminating on this man who was partially responsible for their sisterly rift and by the time he actually enters the picture, I was desperately hoping that he would be drop-dead gorgeous, enigmatic, an irresistible rake who would inspire unbridled lust. No, he’s a cad. A boring, nerdish (not in a good way), spineless cad who inspires rapid eye movement, aka deep sleep. The thought bubbles hovering above my head were screaming, you’re fighting over this man?!?

The best part about the book is the ending, which is jarring, disturbing, gasp-inspiring. Probably the novel’s redeeming factor. It hints of a wicked author’s fiendish mind. But the big but is that this ending just makes you hate the characters more as it reveals their nasty, pathetic, selfish hearts.

Maybe this is not one of Byatt’s best books. If I find a copy of Possession, the piece for which she is most famous for, I just might try it to give this revered author another try. But I assure you, I won’t be in the active lookout in the book bins. In the meantime, I’ll steer clear of Byatt.

On to letter C.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (HTGGLTA)
by Julia Alvarez
ISBN 0452268060
290 pages
My copy was purchased on March 11, 2008 from Booksale and read January 22, 2010.

This is my first review for the A to Z challenge. As usual, I indulged in my bad habit, reviewcastinating.
I also took my time before writing a review because I wanted to be fair to Julia Alvarez. You see, I read this book after reading Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, an exceptionally well written book. And HTGGLTA followed at the heels and suffered unfairly in comparison.

Which is not to say that HTGGLTA is not well written. Alvarez is an able writer, an entertaining story teller. She writes with a successful mixture of drama, humor, and depth. It’s an enjoyable, engaging book with endearing characters who are easy to relate to. Alvarez picked up elements from her own life and from historical realities to convincingly write this coming-to-America meets coming-of-age novel.

The novel is a loosely woven collection of episodes that tell of the Garcia sisters’ departure from the Dominican Republic and their life in America, only said in reverse chronology from 1989 to 1956. Alvarez engages us with stories of how they escape as political refugees; how they struggle in their new life in a land that is ironically a land of promise but where they have none of the power, influence, and stature they enjoyed back home; and how they assimilate into the American lifestyle.

Carla, the eldest, is the psychotherapist of the bunch, and she gets a lot of flak for her self-help jargon. Sandi or Sandra is the pretty one with an eating disorder. Yolanda is the writer and poet. And Sofia is the rebellious one who marries on impulse. And they all took turns being the wildest one. Though all the sisters shine through in the story telling, each one with a distinct character, it is Yolanda who plays the most important role, presumably representing Julia Alvarez herself. The novel starts with her visiting their birthplace many years after they left for America, and ends with a childhood story about a magnificent drum and a frightful cat.

The story that I found most interesting is Sandi’s. Away in graduate school, she becomes obsessed with having to read all the great written works because she does not have a lot of time left before she evolves from human to monkey. She reads and reads and reads, and crosses off books from her reading list, and stops eating until she’s “toothpick-thin,” and reads and reads. Except for the parts about ceasing from eating and becoming a monkey, my book geek friends and I can certainly relate to the fear of leaving this earth without first having read all the books we must read.

And that is why I am taking the A to Z challenge. To read and to read and to read. And Julia Alvarez, though not quite a great work, is a pretty good read.

Leveling up from 2009, I will:

1. read a total of 70 books this year
2. complete the A to Z challenge
3. read at least 6 classics, guided by Italo Calvino’s Why Read the Classics
4. read all FFP book discussion assignments
5. read at least 2 books on writing (Margaret Atwood’s, Stephen King’s, etc.)
6. read at least 5 travel/ travel writing books
7. finally read 100 Years of Solitude
8. read at least 3 biographies
9. blog at least 50 posts here, and
10. read the bible slowly, more deeply studying it book by book

That’s the plan, Stan. (old Sesame Street allusion that dates me.)

And, hey, this ties in with Jenny Loves to Read’s Challenge.

My interest in fiction has always been that of a reader. I’ve never dared to analyze the art and science of fiction. In my brief, limited, and safe writing career, I’ve focused on the known — on the formulaic and not-too-demanding field of business writing.

But Doris Lessing has opened a dangerous, little porthole to wander in and wonder about that thing called fiction writing. Don’t be alarmed. I linger far from the possibility of birthing a novel from the depths of my bowels; no, please, no. It’s just that Lessing has made me wonder how one can write so tautly with no tinge of superfluity. How one can conjure images and flesh out ideas with language so well thought of. So intelligent. But raw with base human emotions. Who writes like that?

Lessing does. And I can only bite my lip in envy.

The Grandmothers is the carrier story in a collection of 4 short novels. That’s probably the thing going against the book; the novels are too short. Each of them can be developed into a full blown book that can eventually be developed into a full blown major motion picture. But that is the beauty of this book — it gives you just enough to chew on, without overexplaining. The short story quality of it that leaves you a little bit unsatisfied reassures you that this book will not become all that popular and you’re one of those lucky enough to be in on the secret.

The Grandmothers is an almost incestuous, but certainly scandalous, story of two women. Two golden, beautiful women who fall in love with their golden, beautiful selves. When their lives turn out to be less than the perfection they worked so hard to make it to be, they shut out the world, look within the pocket-sized, controllable world covered by their golden halo, and love only those who belong to that perfect circle — each other’s son. Golden, beautiful boys who fall in love with their older female mirrors too.

Lessing writes in a way that casts no judgment. The reader is left to make her own. To be mesmerized by such a fantastic premise, or to say ewww and be morally offended — your choice. I felt a little bit of both. The story does not end well for the grandmothers and their sons. Which is probably well and good.

The second story, Victoria and the Staveneys, struck me as somewhat ordinary. But I suspect it is a limitation of my ability to understand the nuances more than a limitation of Lessing’s storytelling. Somewhere in there are messages on race, tolerance, hypocrisy, poverty, privilege, socialism, communism, and all sorts if isms. They escape me at the moment. Okay, maybe a very long moment.

I am torn between the first and the third as my favorite of the collection. The Reason for It, classified by reviews as science fiction, is an all too real account of civilization. It is a story about the conflicts between new and old, between progress and tradition. The story is told from the perspective of the old and traditional who whines about a dying culture. And so if one were to take the side of the storyteller, one would ache at how the world has regressed instead of progressed. How art suffers and knowledge is mocked as the newfangled becomes the new standard of what is good, beautiful, and right. And culture disintegrates and society is transformed into a sad, shallow shadow (alliteration unintended) of its former glory.

This is probably the most preachy of the stories. It talks about the emptiness of beauty when it is unmatched, unsubstantiated by a fine nature and a good mind.

It is also the most thought provoking. I have visions of throwing this to my book club friends who would act like frenzied alligators at feeding time as they apply every nosebleed inducing framework to analyze this. Shhh, I won’t tell them about it.

The collection ends with A Love Child. A bit predictable. On the side of sappy. And the most likely to be made into a movie starred by Ben Affleck. Which is not to say it is shallow because it is loaded with meaning and still beautifully written.

It’s been months since I finished the book. And I’m now over the fiction-writing itch. But I’m not over Doris Lessing yet.

Our book club will soon be discussing this book. I read this early in 2009, and it was one of the year’s best reads, but I am not up to rereading it, so I’ll just repost here my review. I will read its prequel instead.

The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
ISBN: 1-59420-010
488 pages
Mooched from Jo

“Books are mirrors; you only see in them what you already have inside you..”

I finished reading Shadow of the Wind a few minutes ago. I’m breathless. Spent. Awed not just at the book but at the power of books like this to simultaneously dumbfound me and awake my emotions. And I’m writing this right now so that I don’t chicken out of reviewing this book once the I-am-not-worthy feelings set in.

The Shadow of the Wind is “a story about lonely people, about absence and loss,” says Daniel, the novel’s narrator. It’s also a story about pain, betrayal, vengeance, forgiveness, secrets, lies, evil, envy, about family dysfunction, a culture of sanctimony, about poverty in more ways than just material, about different ways people love and hate; is it too much to say that it is about the human condition?

Three narratives run in this novel – three narratives that mirror each other with uncanny similarities. Packed into these narratives are intensely emotional moments that take your breath away, surprises that keep you gasping, horrific events that make you want to turn your eyes away from the page, and love stories that make your heart bleed. The stories are told at a pace that leaves you panting and turning the pages even when your eyelids and heart say that you’ve had enough for one sitting. Too many coincidences that only a novel as spellbinding as this can get away with.

I like that though the story has layers of meaning that would reveal themselves in future rereadings, the first layer is by itself satisfying.

Oh, the characters — Don Ricardo Aldaya, his women, his secrets, and his fourteen thousand books. Fortuny, the hatter who dies alone and learns too late how to love. Jacinta and her Zacharias. The son of a warmonger Miguel, driven by anger, love, and principle. And Lain Coubert, and so many more. But my favorite is Fermin – who looks like Boris Karloff when he is asleep and dresses as if he were a screen idol, who is always either horny or hungry, but is always funny. Except when he’s being beaten to a pulp by the vile Fumero. Fumero, so vivid in my mind in his sailor suit. All these characters, except maybe for the women Daniel and Julian love, have dimensions. You see both the good and the evil in them, and the reason for their evilness. You see the hero’s cowardice and the villains’ broken hearts.

I don’t like some of the dialogue – stilted, unnatural. Maybe it’s the translation. Maybe Zafon wants too much to narrate using the characters’ words. And he does that a lot. Snippets, long italicized tracts of words from different people so you get the story in pieces, or in vague suggestions that can lead you to wrong conclusions. But in the end, he had to rely on Nuria’s long Remembrance of the Lost to tie everything together, just in case you still haven’t figured out the missing pieces.

There was one particular twist that I didn’t like. Too much of a cliche that I felt was unnecessary to move the story along. Crammed in the story are a lot of unoriginal subplots already seen in family dramas, aka telenovelas.

But you can forgive Zafon all that because this is reading that is what reading fiction is all about. It entertains you, and stretches your imagination, and inspires you to read more books.

This is my first read for 2009, and I couldn’t have chosen a better one to start the year and continue my romance with the book.

Pugad Baboy XX 20th Year Anniversary Edition
by Pol Medina, Jr.
ISBN: 0118-8615
114 pages
borrowed book from my brother Luis
Snort, snort. Oink, oink. Hahagalpak ka sa katatawa sa mga kababuyang eto.

My first read for 2010.

(I will not bother to translate above because if you don’t understand this review, you won’t understand the book either.)

I stole the book cover picture here because I forgot to take a picture before returning the book.

N.B.: If this seems familiar to you, it is not déjà vu; this is a transfer from my previous mixed-theme blog.

THE SOOTHING SOAK
Various Authors
Published by Melcher Media
ISBN: 0-9717935-5-7
208 pages

Often, I find myself submerged in a thick plot, lost in the pages of a good book, deeply ensconced in an armchair and swept up in other worlds, embroiled in other people’s stories. But this post is not about that. This post is about submerging the book.

Yes, dipping a book in water. Uhm, yes, liquid water.

I hear gasps and the gnashing of teeth.

Warning: The pictures that follow might cause shortness of breath, activation of tear ducts, and the rapid increase/decrease of blood pressure among my obsessive-compulsive, plastic-wrapping, book-loving friends.

Be assured, however, that no books were harmed in the filming of this blog.This is my totally waterproof book. Melcher Media’s The Soothing Soak is a collection of poems, essays, and short stories by Pablo Neruda, AS Byatt, Diane Ackerman among others. It is meant to be read in the bathtub. But since we don’t have a tub, this book is my spa book.

I’ve been wanting to have a book like this. Ever since I discovered the existence of waterproof books, I’ve been entering steam bath and sauna rooms with a profound sense of emptiness and longing, knowing that if I had such a book, I would read in joyous peace instead of boring myself in contrived zen.

One time back in the days when I didn’t have this book, I tried going to the sauna with a regular book, the type with porous paper pages. I panicked when I saw the pages crinkling into little waves. In this mega-humid country of ours, water damaged books have the potential to attract molds and destroy your whole book collection. (There’s that gasping and gnashing sound again.)

Gimongous thanks to my Chicago based sister-in-law, Ate Pat, I finally have this.

One weekend, I baptized (uhm, literally?) the book at The Spa in Jupiter. I tucked the book into my little pink spa bag and brought it with me to the wet floor.

I read poetry at the steam room. I felt a bit self conscious because there were 2 other girls in the room. And maybe they were thinking I was silly bringing a book in there. Or maybe they were envious. Because they had nothing to read. While there I was unabashedly reading in the steam room instead of watching my navel or doing nothing but grappling with my body issues and trying to cover up my cellulite. I was happy.

Then I moved into the Turkish pools. I love Turkish pools with the contrast hot and cold baths, except this time the hot part was not that hot, and the cold was not that cold. Normally, I would be a wee bit upset about such technical flaws, but this time I had my waterproof book, and I was a happy camper.

I read a couple of short stories. I can hardly remember the content as I was just so thrilled at the experience of being able to do two favorite things at once — reading and spa-ing. I enjoyed myself so much, I had to force myself to stop reading, pull myself out of the pool, and get on with my spa-ing.

Two drawbacks — one is that you need to allocate more time before your massage. The other one is that even if it is waterproof, the pages do get wet and stay wet. So I had to wipe every page before I stored the book back into my spa bag. Spritzed it with Lysol. It’s waterproof. I don’t know if it’s mold proof.

Aaah. I can’t wait until my next spa visit and my next soothing soak.

My brother bought a copy from Hong Kong. Big envy!

ABC3D by Marion Bataille

ISBN: 9781596434257

After viewing the video, you won’t need an explanation why I want this book.

Last year, I furnished my apartment, equipping it with a hot tub for female bonding, a rec room for poker night, and an art studio for well, art. A few months later, I saved up enough to buy a 2-storey, American colonial type house, which I also fully furnished with 50s kitsch. The front lawn changed according to the seasons. Not satisfied with my 2 urban dwellings, I also acquired farmland, wherein I steadily amassed crops, farm machinery, animals, and buildings; I even opened it to the public as a theme park. Having discovered that country air and agriculture suit me, I got a smaller property for processing my crops into jams, wine, cheese, and other agricultural by-products. I also tried my hand at managing a restaurant, but eventually gave it up because of the difficulty of finding ingredients and muzak that didn’t drive me batty. All these while keeping fashionably dressed and equipped with all the paraphernalia to keep up with my sorority sisters and mafia brothers.

What a fruitful year 2009 was.

Of course, if you know me well enough, you would know that all this did not happen in real life. It all happened in that wonderful but virtual slash make-believe world of Facebook. Yes, I had all the time in the world for all the things that would not change the world one little teeny weeny bit.

Though I spent some time working, teaching, training, Toastmastering, volunteering, and checking a ton of writing assignments, I also spent a criminally inordinate amount time in front of the computer in aimless pursuit of mindless entertainment. It was not the year for major accomplishments and goal-driven over-achievement. It was the year of living aimlessly, lunching leisurely, slacking guiltlessly. I offer no excuses, no health reasons for slowing down, no soul-searching alibi, no lifestyle downsizing for higher purposes. I just wanted to celebrate the sloth in me. And I did it through facebook and other non-income generating but fun activities.

I know, I know; I deserve your disdain, disgust, and yes, your envy.

But I have to say that there was an area of my life less aimless: my reading life.

I started the year with purpose. One goal was to top my 2008 50-book record and go for 60. The other was to try out different genres and follow the reading plan set by Flips Flipping Pages. And this is how I did.

For those too lazy to make the clicks, let me summarize: I did it! I accomplished my goals.

Quantity Goal. I read 63 books in 2009. 3 over the target. The last 3 were comic books. And there was a patch when I was panic-reading, and so I finally read some of the children’s and picture books in my TBR pile. I’ll post the list of books at the end of this entry. The documentation gets spotty at the end when I started feeling blog fatigue. And you will see that there are some books that just barely make the classification as books. But I met the goal. So there.

Diversity Goal: This was the more interesting, more challenging goal. The reading plan was very precise:

• 12 fiction – (6 Euro/American/Commonwealth, 4 Asian/Latin American/African, 2 local[at least one of the 12 should be classic lit])
• 6 nonfiction – (1 science/math, 1 lifestyle, 1 poli/eco/soc, 1 bio/autobio/memoir, 2 local)
• 3 reading group requirement – any 3 of the 10 or so FFP reading group titles to be discussed in 2009
• 1 award winner – (booker, pulitzer, palanca, national book) In this case, it has to be the piece that won, not a book by palanca award winner XXX.
• 1 common book – as dictated by our resident canon
• 1 partner’s choice – recommended by an FFP member

I will also post the books I read for this challenge below. Not completing this goal was not an option; I was resolute; I knew I would be so ashamed of myself to myself if I did not finish this. Even though that little pesky voice inside my head was madly whispering to the underachiever in me, “what’s the point, what’s the point?” There was very little point, truth be told. I just wanted to make a dent in my TBR mountain, especially for those genres that I would not normally pick up for reading. And mainly because I’m a silly, old girl, with huge book-shopping guilt issues.

And that was 2009. Aimless living compensated for by purposeful reading. Not bad for somebody who loathed required reading.

The 63 Books I Read in 2009:

53) Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal

54) The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

55) The Book Shop by Penelope Fitzgerald

56) The Boy Who Touched Heaven written by Iris Gem Li and illustrated by award-winning
artist and Flipper Serj Bumatay (children’s book – It’s not cheating; it has really been in my TBR pile for a long time. *protesting much*)

57) A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (December 28)

58) The Far Side 3 by Gary Larson (a great follow-up for A Short History of Nearly Everything)

59) 1001 Ways to Make More Money as a Speaker, Consultant, or Trainer by Lilly Walters

60) The Little Prince Pop-Up Book (Full text), Words and Illustrations by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (A lovely way to end the year)

And then, I found myself doing some last minute shopping at National Book Store, so I ended up with some last-day of the year reading:

61) Trese, Murder on Balete Drive by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo

62) Trese, Unreported Murders by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo

63) Trese, Mass Murders by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo

Whew! That felt good.

And now, for the Diversity Challenge Results:

FICTION
Euro/American/Commonwealth – 6
1) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
2) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
3) The Muse Asylum by David Czuchlewski,
4) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
5) The Reader by Bernard Shlink
6) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Asian/Latin American/African – 4
1) A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
2) The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa
3) Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
4) Aunt Julia and The Script Writer by Mario Vagas Llosa

Filipino – 2
1) Para Kay B by Ricky Lee
2) Roles by Siege Malvar

NONFICTION – 6
1)Science/Math – A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
2) Lifestyle – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
3) Poli/Eco/Soc – The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
4) Bio/Autobio/Memoir – Jane Austen by Carol Shields
5) Filipino – Rizal Without the Overcoat by Ambeth Ocampo
6) Filipino – Book Tourby Claude Tayag

READING GROUP CHOICES – 3
1) Love Story by Eric Segal
2) Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
3) Perfume by Patrick Suskind

AN AWARD WINNING BOOK
Interpreter of Maladies by Jumpha Lahiri

COMMON BOOK – Soledad Lacson-Locsin’s translations of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and/or El Filibusterismo

PARTNER’S CHOICE – Any Joyce Carol Oates book as recommended by maanfajmat

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates

N.B. I flipped through this book and wrote this review way back November 2008. I will slowly be transferring my reviews from a previous blog to here. Slowly means one post at a time whenever I have the time, energy, and mood for it.

I can see why those who love Jasper Fforde’s works love them. Fforde is a playful, imaginative, witty storyteller who evidently loves literature. The Eyre Affair is an entertaining read that can make you smile and at places, laugh out loud. This is the first of a series of novels set in a surreal, literary-themed Great Britain where thousands of citizens named John Milton walk around and hold conventions, where social conflicts involve Shakespeare lovers and haters. Time travel is ordinary, and cheese is contraband. Special Operatives fight crimes against art and literature. It is set against the historical backdrop of the 80s, but any attempt to peg a date will get you messed up because of the futuristic elements in the book. In other words, it’s a Ffordian world that defies logic and timeframe.

Thursday Next is one of those Special Operatives. (For some strange reason, I picture her as Gillian Anderson’s X-Files character, without the dowdy suits, and that’s funny because Anderson’s not even British.) Next battles the diabolical Acheron Hades, he whose name must not be uttered. And the book takes you on an exciting (acid) trip in a psychedelically colorful Porsche through London, Swindon, and Wales, crossing different time periods and even into the pages of books. Operative word is the preposition into. Because they don’t just read the lines of the books but get in between the lines so to speak, really getting into the story and meeting the characters face to face. Wordsworth, for instance, flirts with Thursday’s aunt when she got trapped in his book of poems.

A review I read classifies this book under the genre (breathe in) “science fiction literary detective thriller” (breathe out). Taken singularly, each of those genres does not particularly excite me. Combining them in one book changes my sentiments and preference very little. It’s no secret that I’m not fond of fantasy plots. Maybe the child in me is out there playing grown up. Maybe I take life too seriously. (Not.) But only a masterfully written book can make me suspend my disbelief long enough. And this book truly does challenge the suspension of aforementioned disbelief. Some things are just too irritatingly absurd. Riots of Raphaelites versus neo-surrealists?!? And I say with one eyebrow raised, “Come on!” And I think to myself “nerds.” But then again, maybe it’s just me. I don’t get why real life people speak elvin and wear costumes to the cinema to watch LOTR.

I did enjoy certain parts of the book. I loved Uncle Mycroft’s bookworms that spew synonyms and factoids, a combination of google and thesaurus and more. I was bowled over by the vendo-operated Shakespearian character mannequins that discharge soliloquies. I was amused by the characters of Mycroft, Felix 7, and the Japanese tourists. But then, my anti-fantasy bias kicked in soon enough. I just feel that the fantasy genre gives the author too much latitude and too little restraint. But before I convince you all that I’m a realism Nazi, I just have to say that I was totally charmed by the clever way Fforde incorporated his bizarre story with that of Jane Eyre’s. Sheer genius. Wow. I loved how he did that. But not enough to turn into a fantasy fan.

And yes, reading Jane Eyre first does help. It gets you in on the secret.