winter reading

So far this winter break, I have read these books:

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A classic, and deservedly so. A very fast read. I'm working in Cat's Cradle next.

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Extremely quick read, interesting but not too substantive. I think I would have loved this book in the fourth or fifth grade. Having read Garcia-Marquez, Esquivel's book (and for that matter, any other book written in the style of magical realism) pales in comparison. But it did make me hungry.


Middlesex by Jeffrey Euginides
Definitely recommended. Multilayered, meaty literature. One of those books that makes you sigh in contentment when you finish the last page, and feel as if you had lived the lives of those characters.

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Absolutely amazing, especially if you know where he's coming from. I love, love, love this book. It's not often one comes across a style so fresh, so different, so gripping. It just pulls you in and doesn't let go.

Edit: Too good to be true, I guess. The signs were there, and I refused to see them. Sigh. I still like this book, but I do feel a little let down.

The Flame by Gabriele D'Annunzio
Suggested only if you plan on reading it while in Venice. Otherwise, D'Annunzio's writing seems to drown in its own emotion. Hailed as "one of the greatest descriptions of Venice in the history of literature." James Joyce called this book "the most important achievement in the novel since Flaubert." I found it a little too sentimental, too fin-de-siecle (but of course that's what it's supposed to be like)...but then again, if I were in Venice reading this book while floating down a canal at summer's end, I am sure D'Annunzio's words would ring exactly true.

quote of the day

The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.
- Larry Hardiman

dreamland

i am in my second week of barely leaving my apartment, studying from the minute i wake (around noon) until the minute i fall asleep (around 4am) sitting up in bed with a tattered issue of The Economist, my only repreive from this hell, slipping from my fingers.

i think the stress is manifesting itself in my dreams. here are a few choice tidbits from my dreamland as of late:

- i am part of a theatre group at school that i never signed up for but am obligated to take part in anyway. i have been assigned to the clean-up crew. i decide to leave, but for some reason i have to leave bouncing on one of those huge inflatable exercise balls with the plastic handle attached to it. but my ball was only half-inflated, and i looked like an idiot bouncing/dragging all the way across the grass field.

- i have a maniacal, abusive boyfriend with a thick southern accent, who is on his way to my apartment to beat me to death. i can feel him nearing and am petrified with fear, because i know he's going to kill me.

- i am at the hospital waiting room asking the clerk how much it is to get an abortion, having cheated on my boyfriend and gotten pregnant (the guy i cheated with is not in the dream at all--i don't even know who it is). the abortion costs $1700.00, which i do not have. my entire extended family is there. i get into an argument with my dad. my stepmother is being entirely smug. all of this is incredibly embarassing, and i am sobbing.