February 29th

Day 60

Shutter Island - pages 28-111 (84 pages)

Goal - 8 books 140 pages
Total - 7 books 31 pages
Result - 1 book 109 pages to reach goal

OK, first off, they do have cars on the island in the book.

Second, the film does deviate from the book, so there is more to find out reading it.

Third, the dialogue still is buggy, but apparently he wrote it as an homage to certain kinds of films and books, so that may be the reason. Still, never reading him before and it not being obvious, it does come off as a deficiency at first.

Fourth, this book is pretty readable, so I'm reading it very quickly. It could be because since I already know most of what happens, I'm just naturally reading faster and not having to pay as much attention.

Fifth, happy leap day! :D

February 28th

Day 59

Shutter Island - pages 3-4, 7-27 (23 pages)

Goal - 8 books 103 pages
Total - 6 books 207 pages
Result - 1 book 156 pages to reach goal

Ugh, the general book club chose Shutter Island as the March selection for the thriller category. It really sucks because I was interested in 7 out of the 10 choices, and the two that made the run-off vote were two of the three that I had no interest in. So ugh.

I'm not a huge thriller person anyway. I do like mystery, but I'm not big on procedural/serial killer/crime type stuff unless it focuses more on a mystery or is old fashioned like Agatha Christie. But being part of my challenge, I'm bound to give it a go.

I've already seen the film to Shutter Island, and there are some major twists and turns that really make it almost useless to read the book once you know them. But I did prefer Shutter Island to the other run-off choice, Along Came a Spider, as I've already seen that one too and I didn't think I'd get anything out of it at all. But really, it was a matter of "don't want to read" and "really don't want to read", so yes I'm happy the "don't want to read" beat the "really don't want to read", but that still doesn't change the fact that I don't want to read it! LOL

So I started it and it's worse than I was thinking - not only does it follow the film pretty closely so far (so less new stuff to find out while reading), but I'm not a huge fan of this guy's writing either. I'm sure Patterson would've been worse, but generally Lehane has been regarded as one of the better thriller writers, so I was disappointed with his writing. Especially his dialogue, it's pretty atrocious so far. And reading it from the point of view of someone who knows what all happens, it makes it seem even worse.

I don't want to elaborate any further and spoil anything for anyone who hasn't read it, but perhaps I will speak more freely once I get to later on in the book, since, if you haven't read it, you probably shouldn't read my posts talking about the later parts of the book anyway.

I will say this - I did like the film pretty well. It had great atmosphere and a good mystery and story. So I'm expecting the same from the book. I just hope that once I get into it I start enjoying it more, as it's bad enough reading something where I know the ending, but not not even like the writing on top would be pretty bad.

There are a few differences so far between film and book. I don't think the prologue was in the film, but I could be wrong. Also, it seems in the book, the island is smaller and the institution is near the dock and there's no cars; they walk up to it upon arriving. In the film, if I remember correctly, the island seems much larger, there are cars, the institution is farther away from the dock and upon arriving they must be driven in cars to the institution. Wonder why they'd change that? I like the book description better for some reason. But the actual story so far besides those things, the film followed the book very closely.

February 27th

Day 58

The Remains of the Day - pages 139-168 (30 pages)
The Iliad, Lattimore/Martin edition, pages 546-548 (3 pages)
Total - 33 pages

Goal - 8 books 66 pages
Total - 6 books 184 pages
Result - 1 book 142 pages to reach goal

Finished Remains easily, wish it were a little longer! Nice little book.

Went back to the Iliad, which I'd finished the main text but not the notes or Intro, so started on the notes. Wow, much different reading experience. Much slower. And, I'm really quite disappointed because these are basic annotations that weren't referenced in the text. It would've been much better reading them as I read the text.

Since they weren't linked, from the first little bit I read of them earlier I'd assumed they'd be more essay-ish and spoiler-y, so more appropriate to read after the text was finished. But nope, they're just ordinary annotations really. What's extra annoying is that there *are* links in the annotations to the text in question, but in the text there are no links to the annotations, so if you were trying to read the annotations as you read the text, you'd have to manually every so often go to annotations and see what might've been annotated from what you just read. Ridiculous really, given the quality of the rest of this edition. I wonder if there were no links to the annotations in the physical paper copy? Because it's silly.

But at least in a paper copy, it's easier to flip quickly to the annotations page which you could have a bookmark in. With an ebook, especially on a slow machine like mine, having to manually go to the annotations all the time would be very time-consuming. Also, it asks me to compare some annotations to other parts of the book and gives me the chapter/line numbers but no links. In a paper copy, fine, it'd be easy to flip through and find it quickly. In an ebook, much harder. I'd have to manually go to the table of contents, then go to the link for that chapter, then start slowly flipping pages until I get to the right line number. Or I could try to guess the page number and search by page number and hope for the best. Either way, so time consuming that I've just not bothered to look at anything anything but the main inked text for each annotation.

I mean, do the people who put these books/ebooks together take time to think what would be convenient? It's really silly.

So anyway, rant over, I'm going slowly because each annotation I'm having to link back to the text and see what it's referring to, then manually go back to the annotations for the next one. This will be a challenge, for sure!

February 26th

Day 57

Goal - 8 books 29 pages
Total - 6 books 151 pages
Result - 1 book 138 pages to reach goal

The weekend was a bust being so busy but at least the week before I done a lot of catching up. Now back to it starting tomorrow!

February 25th

Day 56

Goal - 7 books 252 pages
Total - 6 books 151 pages
Result - 1 book 101 pages to reach goal

February 24th

Day 55

The Remains of the Day - pages 63-138 (76 pages)

Goal - 7 books 215 pages
Total - 6 books 151 pages
Result - 1 book 64 pages to reach goal


Really got a lot read today, mainly because I knew the weekend would be very busy and I might not have any time for reading. But also, this book really is eminently readable; it keeps me turning the pages. It's so short though; next day I read I'll probably finish it.

How the film challenge is going

I haven't been doing weekly updates recently but I hope to get back to them eventually, but the challenge has been going great with the watching. The last three weeks I've seen Becket, La Passion De Jeanne D'Arc and Swing Time. As with Tender and Leaves, I will eventually hopefully get around to reviews but that's not my top priority right now while I'm catching up to my goal, but you never know when the mood to review them might strike.

February 23rd

Day 54

The Remains of the Day - pages 20-62 (43 pages)

Goal - 7 books 178 pages
Total - 6 books 75 pages
Result - 1 book 103 pages to reach goal

I finished Tender Is The Night! Really liked it, though the ending was sad. I will post a full review on it eventually; at the moment I'm more focused on my reading and daily updates but hopefully at least after and if I get caught up with my goal, then I can take some time to do the extra stuff I want.

Remains is going very well. It's very short! Only a little over 150 pages, so I'll be done with it in a few days probably. LOL, when I started the change in quality of writing between Tender and Remains was obvious; it really made me realise the masterful quality of the writing by Fitzgerald. Not to say that Remains is bad. Only plainer, though written very nicely.

At first I wasn't so into it just because of the difference in writing quality, but he's slowly and surely pulling me in. There was a great evocative passage about sunlight that I just loved, when the narrator has just described how Miss Kenton loves watching the sunset from a second floor room and had related an occurrence seen at one of those times:

"Indeed, it must have occurred on just one of those summer evenings she mentions, for I can recall distinctly climbing to the second landing and seeing before me a series of orange shafts from the sunset breaking the gloom of the corridor where each bedroom door stood ajar."

It's a small simple passage, not flowery at all, but I could picture it so well and those beautiful orange shafts.

Not surprisingly, even though the film is very good, I'm liking the book much more and, being so short, wondering why some things that I liked were left out over other things.

Six Down, 44 To Go!



Sandy sells seashells by the seashore.

February 22nd

Day 53

Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 322-353 (32 pages)
The Remains of the Day - pages 2-19 (18 pages)
Total - 50 pages

Goal - 7 books 141 pages
Total - 6 books 32 pages
Result - 1 book 109 pages to reach goal

February 21st

Day 52

Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 277-321 (45 pages)

Goal - 7 books 104 pages
Total - 5 books 242 pages
Result - 1 book 122 pages to reach goal


Almost done! I should finish tomorrow if I read at least 37 pages as there's only about 30 left. And wow, the decline of the main characters, it's continuing! It's getting sad. It's funny, these characters are so rich and high-living and live much more worldly, flitting and open lives than probably most people, so the circumstances are less "realistic" than some books may be, but the slow decline of these people and their relationships, that's extremely realistic. It could, and does, happen to so many people. But you really feel it in this book, since at first you didn't get the indication that they would decline like this, it was sort of a slow surprise, somewhat like it is in real life. I'm loving that about this book. Well, off to see how it all ends...

February 20th

Day 51

Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 225-276 (52 pages)

Goal - 7 books 67 pages
Total - 5 books 197 pages
Result - 1 book 130 pages to reach goal

Getting closer to the end and realising that this book, for me, is difficult to pick out the intended themes. But I think I've picked up on one so far, and that is random violence and how it touches everyone's lives, sometimes in direct and sometimes in fleeting, affecting ways. This book is filled with so much random violence, towards everyone.

Actually I noticed it way back in Book 1 after that random woman shot that random man on the train platform, and then soon after when the black man ended up dead. But it just continues. Then you find out that Nicole was molested by her father, then there's Nicole causing a car wreck, then there's Abe dying in from a fight, then there's Dick not only getting into a fight but it turning into him being brutally assaulted by the Italian police, and there's probably others I'm missing at the moment. Oh yes, of course, the duel in the beginning as well.

I'm enjoying the book and others may not like it, but I like the disjointedness of the plot, how it starts in one place, then in Book 2 flits back and forth and in places has an odd narrative structure. It's not erratic, it seems done in a more tasteful way. I like that he chose to be creative in the telling of the story.

I also like how as I near the end, many of the random old characters are coming back into the story here and there and having new and surprising roles. At first one thinks Baby will be a character only ever mentioned by Nicole, then when we might her one thinks she'll only be a minor stuffy character not ever in on the action, then she happens to be in the same city when Dick is brutally assaulted and gets called into action in a big way for a moment.

Also, I have no idea how it will end yet, but so far near the ending I like how the book started with Rosemary and Dick and that lot sort of "on top", the ones to watch who are having the times of their lives, as witnessed by the McKiscos et al "watching" them and being presented unflatteringly and somewhat relatively unaccomplished and unfulfilled themselves, yet by the point where I'm at in the book, the McKiscos have now become the "it" people and successful and their personalities have bettered, while Dick and his crew have all somewhat declined. Even Rosemary, I haven't quite grasped how famous she is at the moment, but I'm gathering that the film she's in now, she may not have a huge role (she says it's a good part, paraphrasing, "if they don't cut it out of the film"), meaning she may be on the decline from her early "Daddy's Girl" stardom.

My best guess for the title is in reference to Nicole's mental illness that can really extend to any of us; i.e. her mental condition is fragile but any of us can be fragile in certain ways. I do love how evocative the title is. Even before I started reading it brought to mind a warm, gentle yet somehow precarious night, a soft breeze blowing, romantic, comfortable, a cool summer night when everything is in full bloom yet is refined in the night. Tender can also mean raw though, and I have to think Fitzgerald thought of that as well when naming it.

February 19th

Day 50

Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 183-224 (42 pages)

Goal - 7 books 30 pages
Total - 5 books 145 pages
Result - 1 book 145 pages to reach goal

Five Down, Only 45 To Go!



Keep on keeping on!

February 18th

Day 49

Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 132-182 (51 pages)

Goal - 6 books 253 pages
Total - 5 books 103 pages
Result - 1 book 150 pages to reach goal

Well, the book certainly takes a different turn in Book 2! It veers completely away from the protagonist Rosemary and the protagonist becomes Dick and Rosemary's out of the picture as it shows Dick's life pre-Rosemary and post-Book 1.

I do like Fitzgerald's language, but I'm wondering if he's somewhat obliviously prejudiced. To modern eyes it's obvious; I wonder how obvious it was to him?

What I mean is, it's odd; this world he creates is filled with these rich people who sort of float around their lives in a way, and he's obviously concerned with a type of person who likes to travel and see the world and experience things, and is unbothered by it as well - many of the characters are Americans who are quite as ease either living or staying for long periods of time in Europe. I love that about this story. I love adventure and travel and new cultures and experiences, so I completely love that.

And, as part of these people's open lives is a very openness to the people around them - they freely, for the most part, socialise with somewhat obviously gay people (a gay couple even!), and black people. In this time, to do that must have been seen as extremely liberal, so you'd think that that's a good thing.

However, it's the way these characters view these minority characters. Sure, they freely associate with them - but they view them as something less, something trivial and not as important, sometimes almost inhuman. Once I finish the book and see where he's taking me, I can better assess what Fitzgerald's intentions might have been. If he's making a point on purpose it's one thing, but if he's letting his own prejudice seep in it's quite another.

At the moment, I'm feeling like he may be letting his prejudice seep in. Here's why: Fitzgerald has a way with descriptions, and he has a way with describing the unique beauty in his different characters, even the less friendly ones such as Nicole's sister Baby. Yet, with the gay couple in the beginning, he describes them much less flatteringly than his other male or female characters, and it almost seems like he even takes an evil glee with describing their ugliness. And when the one gay man is exaggeratedly having an emotional moment, the other characters, even the sympathetic ones such as Rosemary, laugh and in the end think of it as unimportant.

Then there's the black characters that come in once they're in Paris. One is murdered and even though the man was just up there at their hotel rooms trying to be protected from a mob, the others don't seem to care at all about the man dying, only about how it may affect them at the moment, it happening at their rooms.

And another one is in jail because of something a character does and the character should go and clear the matter up and get the man out of jail, but he doesn't for a long time and the other characters know it and when talking to him don't seem too concerned with the black man in jail that their friend here could easily get out if he'd just go down to the jail - they're more concerned with their friend's problems.

And the main character, Dick, uses the "N" word says that black people don't matter.

And these people, Rosemary and Dick and the others, they do seem rather self-involved anyway, but otherwise they seem more or less nice and charming people who care at least somewhat about others.

Perhaps it should be obvious to me what Fitzgerald is doing but as yet it's not. He could be commenting on these people's shallow lives and how, though they may seem nice on the surface, the ugliness comes out.

Or, on the other hand, he may want us to really see these people as the good protagonists and in his own prejudice are letting his characters be obliviously prejudiced too. I want to believe the first option, but I'm leaning more toward the second option because of his descriptions of the gay and black people - they're not sympathetic, to say the least. They don't have any of the beauty or nobleness or charm that his other characters have. And if he were trying to make a statement on the prejudice one would think he himself would be more sympathetic with them, which he's not, so far.

Of course, there's still the possibility that he was doing it on purpose for an effect of the readers of the time who would've been likely to be more prejudiced in general than we today are. As I said earlier, once I've finished and know where the rest of the story leads, I can judge better. But so far, the gay people and the black people have been brushed off altogether, perhaps not to reappear again at all.

February 17th

Day 48

Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 85-131 (47 pages)

Goal - 6 books 216 pages
Total - 5 books 52 pages
Result - 1 book 164 pages to reach goal

February 16th

Day 47

Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 31-84 (54 pages)

Goal - 6 books 179 pages
Total - 5 books 5 pages
Result - 1 book 174 pages to reach goal

Making up a little ground! I'm enjoying the book so far.

February 15th

Day 46

Leaves of Grass, deathbed Bantam edition - pages 366-380, 383-386, 393-396 (23 pages)
Tender is the Night (original version) - pages 7-30 (24 pages)
Total - 47 pages

Goal - 6 books 142 pages
Total - 4 books 211 pages
Result - 1 book 191 pages to reach goal

I finished Leaves of Grass! Woohoo! It actually ends with an essay by Whitman, then at the end there were a very few notes by Whitman, and a short biography by someone else, and, oddly, a small glossary hidden that was never mentioned so I never used. What's extra odd about it is that it's small and Whitman uses SO many odd and different words that need defined, yet this little hidden glossary just chooses a random few. Although, I wish I'd known before that "eidolons" means "phantoms". Googling led me to believe that the best guess was that it was something like "ideas" or "idols".

I can easily say that the Bantam version of Leaves is just terrible all around. Badly formatted, made my reader terribly slow, it said it had notes and it didn't, a little hidden glossary, and I could go on and on. Just no care at all put into it. But, most versions sold are the original, so at least Bantam has the deathbed version.

I will now eventually post a review on Leaves. I loved it, but it was a LOT of poetry to read! The review might not be right away...I still need to post reviews on the weekly films I've seen! With time though, my first priority is reading more and catching up to my goal more than writing reviews, so we'll see.

I also started Tender is the Night, and I swear, am I just reading all the books that have different versions? Don't most books just have one single version? But after the many translations of the Iliad, and the many different versions of Leaves that Whitman put out, now I find out that there are two versions of Tender is the Night. UGH!!! Why, why, why? A novel with two versions? Ridiculous. I just want to now read something where my daily updates don't include "x version".

Apparently, there's an original versions with flashbacks and a revised version published posthumously that takes out the flashbacks and puts everything in chronological order. And it's worse that someone else did the revised edition, but apparently Fitzgerald had wanted it and so the other person was working off Fitzgerald's wishes. I just want an author who writes a dang book and then leaves it alone!!!

Well, I want to read the original version. Unluckily, when you look at options, the books never specify which version you're getting! Luckily in the mobileread forum, some others have helped a bit. They're not sure either, but we've found an online version that *apparently* *should* be the original version, and I've compared it to the first lines of book 2 (where the revisions apparently start) and they're the same, so I'm *hoping* I have the original but still really don't know. They say book 2 starts with a flashback in the original but not in the revised, but of course I'm not going to start reading book 2 to find out until I finish book 1. Why are these things so difficult? It really is annoying, especially mixed in with all the reader problems I'm having lately. I just want something simple!!!

Anyway, as far as the reading, as suspected, it is SO much easier reading this than Leaves of Grass or the Iliad. I just felt like my eyes were floating through the pages comparatively and I hope the feeling remains. What's funny is that some people in the mobileread forum are complaining that Tender is a difficult read, but of course after my last two reads I'm finding it very easy so far.

I love the setting, the French Riviera around 1925, in the middle of summer which is a "dead" season for the area. A hotel and the rich people staying there, so far. Fitzgerald's writing is quirky and sometimes disjointed I feel with dialogue, but his descriptions can be beautiful and enchanting. Of course, I'm just beginning. I've read The Great Gatsby before but it was awhile ago. I loved it but don't remember the style right off the top of my head, but reading this does remind me of it.

February 14th

Day 45

Leaves of Grass, deathbed Bantam edition - pages 360-365 (6 pages)

Goal - 6 books 105 pages
Total - 4 books 164 pages
Result - 1 book 201 pages to reach goal

Was busy for Valentine's Day so I took it easy on the reading. :)