Welcome to Litsy!

I'm at odds about this book. On one hand it is gently interweaving multiple story threads with patience and care.
On the other hand it includes lines like this:
"His penis was more narrow than wide, more O Henry bar than chocolate slab, more spring rhubarb than autumn gourd, more canoe than motorboat." ?????
Which might be one of THE worst sentences I've ever read in a novel.
So...a real toss-up right now. ?

Happy Caturday from my favourite napping pals!
Started this 2007 Giller Prize winner today (for #192025 natch). One of those works of Canlit that everyone seems to have read except for me. Decidedly mixed reviews on Litsy including a definitive pan of Hay's writing style by @Lindy 🤨🙂 whose opinion I respect. So we shall see...

This is a novel with a lot of secrets. There‘s a hint of Shirley Jackson and Poe to the unnerving atmosphere but it‘s missing the tension and drama for me. The prose is deliberately obtuse, the narrator unwilling or unable to speak directly, and the reader is left to decide much of what has happened for themselves. I like being challenged but the effort doesn‘t seem to pay off. I‘m not sure we are given enough to fully trust the author. 5/10

5🌟/5🌟
On to the final book in the series... which I've read... years ago... but I don't totally remember... my mind these days is not totally reliable. Can't wait!

Definitely deep in the poetic stream. This does not always lend itself to the full story as I might have chosen to structure this differently- reserving the imagistic for the Vietnam segment so beautifully juxtaposed with the father‘s decline. Ultimately this is a beautiful story of love, family bonds, and events that shape us.

Another recently finished book. This one sits between a so-so and a pick for me. A difficult and challenging read, I suspect that I would glean more from it on a second read. Set in the present in a norther country, it is a story of historical injustices and the ways that communities avoid facing their past, and personal complicity in those injustices. Not a fun read, but I think there is something worth the difficulty here.

Rainy Saturday and managed to finish two books. Even better, they both fulfill a #192025 prompt. And they coordinate. 😀
Anais Nin's diary has been my morning coffee read and I've been making my way through the MacLeod collection for a few weeks. The stories reminded me a lot of his father's (Alistair MacLeod) writing. Quintessential Canlit.
Anyhoo feeling accomplished and grateful for an un-schdeduled Saturday.
@Librarybelle

😳 I‘ve been bailing left & right on audiobooks, including the tagged novel, The Wren the Wren, two Toibin novels, among others.

I‘m in an audio drought. 🏜️🌵

On the #Booker2023 longlist

I've been reading the longlists since 2019 and this was a really good year in that small window. I gave five stars to four different books. I really liked that there was a lot of value given to poetic prose, not purple, but poetic and rhythmic, often personal and always generating reflection. Many of the authors are also published poets, and it shows.

I finished last week. My personal rankings are in the comments

I enjoyed this curiosity, found it wonderfully done, found the writing, which focuses so much on the sound, always interesting and terrific, with its own rhythm and life. And I say this even I didn't really get it. (I missed a lot, as I discovered afterwards reading online reviews) This maybe should have won the Booker (and I loved the winner, Prophet Song)