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Both Lolita and Alls Quiet on the Western Front are sitting in my TBR pile. I hope to get to them this year, as I've never read either.
Lolita is actually quite boring. It's not as sexy as you think it will be.
When Lolita came out in 1955, a newspaper reporter asked Groucho Marx if he planned to read it. Groucho replied, "I think I'll wait at least 7 or 8 years until she comes of age."
One of my favorite books is "Paris Trout," by Pete Dexter. If you love "To Kill a Mockingbird," you'll love "Paris Trout."
Hi. I'm reading this now. I mentioned it on the "What book are you reading?" thread. The story is excellent. I'm only at 39% but I'm ready to render my diagnosis: He's a psychopath. Or sociopath. One of those -- I can never get them straight.
Lolita is actually quite boring. It's not as sexy as you think it will be.
When Lolita came out in 1955, a newspaper reporter asked Groucho Marx if he planned to read it. Groucho replied, "I think I'll wait at least 7 or 8 years until she comes of age."
One of my favorite books is "Paris Trout," by Pete Dexter. If you love "To Kill a Mockingbird," you'll love "Paris Trout."
Curious how this compares to Spooner, another novel by Dexter. I read it for a book club and I think it was the only book in about 15 years of book clubs that I did not finish.
In what way does Trout compare to Mockingbird? I have to admit that while I like Mockingbird, it is not my all time beloved favorite the way it is for many people. Maybe the story almost seems cliche to me because it is so famous and so many people have emulated it in one way or another. (A victim of its own success, in a way.)
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
17,330 posts, read 33,023,154 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chicagoliz
Curious how this compares to Spooner, another novel by Dexter. I read it for a book club and I think it was the only book in about 15 years of book clubs that I did not finish.
In what way does Trout compare to Mockingbird? I have to admit that while I like Mockingbird, it is not my all time beloved favorite the way it is for many people. Maybe the story almost seems cliche to me because it is so famous and so many people have emulated it in one way or another. (A victim of its own success, in a way.)
Hmmm. I found Spooner while getting Paris Trout and added it to my "to read" list. Maybe it won't be at the top of it.
I wasn't the biggest To Kill a Mockingbird fan. Paris Trout starts with the killing of a black girl. Now it's become more of a character study of the man who shot her. It goes deeper than his racial prejudices. He's not just a racist -- he's crazy.
Hmmm. I found Spooner while getting Paris Trout and added it to my "to read" list. Maybe it won't be at the top of it.
I wasn't the biggest To Kill a Mockingbird fan. Paris Trout starts with the killing of a black girl. Now it's become more of a character study of the man who shot her. It goes deeper than his racial prejudices. He's not just a racist -- he's crazy.
Huh. Sounds interesting. I'll have to investigate.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge
For style: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
For invention: The Trial by Franz Kafka
For strangeness: Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville
For grit: 2666 by Roberto Bolano
For comedy: Candide by Voltaire
For sadness: L'age de Raison by Jean-Paul Sartre
For characters: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I don't know that I could name 'The Best' but in the past several years I've been trying to catch up with things I never read in school and have to say I thought Moby Dick definitely lived up to its classic status.
He's been compared to Chaucer, and rightly so. Tragic that JKT died, by suicide, so young. Who knows what other masterpieces we may have had from him.
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