I just finished reading Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, a "parallel biography" of several defectors from North Korea. I'll be reviewing that book soon.
I also still need to review Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which I've read twice, now.
Stephen R. Donaldson's capstone to The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, his The Last Dark, is also waiting to be reviewed.
Tomorrow—Tuesday, December 31—I'll be trundling out to Gyeongsan City's Lotte Cinemas to see "Ender's Game," starring Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, and some English runt with five names. Expect a review of that as well.
And, long promised, there's my upcoming review of "Oldboy." The Korean version, of course. Spike Lee's version was ripped to shreds by critics.
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I'm shocked you read American Gods twice. You're more sensitive to correct style than I am, and yet Gaiman's irks me so much I can barely finish chapters. It will be interesting to see your review.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteTrue. Gaiman makes many, many gaffes in his prose. As I had written earlier:
"Although Gaiman makes some poor choices in his grammar, mechanics, and diction, he's an entertaining writer, and I'm enjoying American Gods."
There's a lot in American Gods for someone with a religious-studies background to appreciate. Something about the content of the novel compelled or impelled me to try to see past Gaiman's awkward locutions and poor punctuation in an effort to follow the very intriguing story. There's a good bit of Mircea Eliade in the novel—plenty of talk about the power of sacred spaces. And as Gaiman himself notes in the afterword, his story is part road trip, part murder mystery. It's an interesting blend of genres, and the plot moves along at a steady clip, bogging down only occasionally.