Knit Lit, The Emperor's Children
Feb. 26th, 2007 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyI read Knit Lit last week, and really liked it. It made me want to knit. So then I did. (Interesting, knitting and drawing seem to fill a similar void in my life - if I'm doing a lot of one, I do less or none of the other.) Four stars. Some of the stories were very sweet. I recommend it if you're a knitter.
The Emperor's Children was written by Claire Messud, who, apparently, is a Somerville resident. (Neat!) This novel is set in New York City in 2001. It is not precisely about nine-eleven, but the reader knows what's coming even if none of the characters do. The author is very careful in her use of words like "airplane," "terrorist," "attack" and "tower," so that every time you encounter one, it gives you a little frisson. The book in general was described as a comedy of manners, and I found that an apt summation. It's worth reading if you like literature that is witty and not very gentle. Here's one of my favorite passages, where someone considers why he cheats:
"He was happier, in his love life, than he could remember ever being; and there was no clear motivation for his treachery, if you looked at it one way..and yet, and yet. First of all there was the matter of habit: some people were addicted to eBay, and maybe Julius was addicted, similarly, to this -- drawn, just like the bidders who purchased jelly jars from Alaska or Oriental rugs till they were thick on the ground, by the lure of possibility, the sense, each time, that the undiscovered held the Answer, that this mate, this flank, this heaving torso, this rough jaw might prove the long-sought panacea." (p 143)
The ending was not really what I expected. I'd give it three stars. I liked it partly because for quite a while I couldn't figure out why I kept picking it up, which in some ways is more intriguing than a book you can't put down at all.
The Emperor's Children was written by Claire Messud, who, apparently, is a Somerville resident. (Neat!) This novel is set in New York City in 2001. It is not precisely about nine-eleven, but the reader knows what's coming even if none of the characters do. The author is very careful in her use of words like "airplane," "terrorist," "attack" and "tower," so that every time you encounter one, it gives you a little frisson. The book in general was described as a comedy of manners, and I found that an apt summation. It's worth reading if you like literature that is witty and not very gentle. Here's one of my favorite passages, where someone considers why he cheats:
"He was happier, in his love life, than he could remember ever being; and there was no clear motivation for his treachery, if you looked at it one way..and yet, and yet. First of all there was the matter of habit: some people were addicted to eBay, and maybe Julius was addicted, similarly, to this -- drawn, just like the bidders who purchased jelly jars from Alaska or Oriental rugs till they were thick on the ground, by the lure of possibility, the sense, each time, that the undiscovered held the Answer, that this mate, this flank, this heaving torso, this rough jaw might prove the long-sought panacea." (p 143)
The ending was not really what I expected. I'd give it three stars. I liked it partly because for quite a while I couldn't figure out why I kept picking it up, which in some ways is more intriguing than a book you can't put down at all.