Preemptive Retaliation

At the beginning of January I bought myself a few books, and then was given a few more on top of that. I thought that would get me through a good chunk of the year – but here I am at the end of February with almost all of them gone. I don’t consider myself a voracious reader, but people at work keep commenting on how I’ve got a fresh book in my hands to read at lunch every other week. Here are a few of the others;

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter was something I picked up on a whim along with His Bloody Project on a buy-one-get-one-half-price deal that was too irresistible to refuse. It was on one of those island tables in the middle of the bookshop that’s reserved for works of some repute or cult following which lent it some merit. Though, to be honest, I picked it up because I really liked the cover. I read it in an afternoon and a half, faintly smiling the whole time whilst occasionally grimacing at the – how can I say it? it’s like the opposite of a tickle – feelings it brought out in me. In among its absurd imagery and outlandish behaviour there was some real, true humanity. The idea of flecking toothpaste onto mirrors, the small aches of missed routines, the bittersweet memories of times in the past. It felt a very honest, and strangely English, way of dealing with death.

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher was next. This was given to me since it was on the NYT bestseller list, and I didn’t know what to expect from it. The stories had all been confirmed since then, and I thought it would be a simple tell-all about her affair with a lot of fan service thrown in about Star Wars. I spent the first half of the book really not enjoying it, but then I was hit with this subtle realisation; this wasn’t fake. I was actually reading a nineteen year old’s diaries. I started rereading the book, forcing myself to remember Carrie Fisher as she was at the time, and the same with Harrison Ford – forcing myself to see their youthful, fresh faces. It changed my opinion about the book entirely. The diaries, initially boring, became fascinating as I imagined this nineteen year old girl writing them, unabashedly, truthfully. This is really self-centred, but it made me reconsider the relationships I had when I was nineteen, the impact I might have had on my peers, and what impact they had on me. In the end, that’s what I took with me. Throughout the book, Fisher keeps saying how she could never get rid of the Star Wars image. It was stuck to her, forever, and to an extent that affair was stuck with her too. After forty-odd years, these things can leave lasting impressions on our lives that are hard to shake.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman was a book I was really enjoying until I spoke to Mike. We talked about it, and he said it was the best book he had ever read about the Vietnam War. Hearing that was like cracking open an egg and gaining access to its wonderous insides. What I thought was a bog-standard 70’s action novel turned into a deep metaphor on culture shock and the changing landscape of the West for soldiers returning from war. It’s been touted to me many times as a perfect book, but it’s not quite that for me. It’s still an incredible vision of a terrifying, almost pointless war that’s a good look into how the characters tick. This is a book that will stay with me for a long while I think. 

After that I launched into A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray which was maybe a bit of a mistake, but not an irretrievable one. I heard the author talking on Writing Excuses, and the hook of this novel grabbed me completely; a woman chasing her father’s killer through alternative timelines. There’s a lot of potential there, a lot of promise, that’s squandered within the first two chapters of the book. It didn’t take me long to realise that this was YA, and so obviously not aimed at me, but I kept reading in the hope it would get better. Then I continued reading in the hope it would get worse. This book made me roll my eyes continually for the whole three days I read it, and I started using it as a tool to help me recognise bad writing. There is so much in this that is purely bad writing, straight up, but here’s the thing; I kept reading it. I’d like to think it was down to a morbid desire to watch the prose and stilted plot gasp in my hands, but I think I just wanted to see it through. God, I don’t know. This book was terrible, and I feel terrible for reading it, but at least I turned it into a lesson for myself? Yay?

And so right now I’ve moved onto The Whistler by John Grisham, another present given to me due to its jacket announcement of being a best-seller. I started reading this the day after finishing the previous book in this entry, gasping for writing more grounded and practiced, and instead all I’ve been given is an absolute snoozefest. I’m only about fifty pages in, but those pages have been filled with so much exposition that I reckon there’s a much more interesting story in there than there is in the book so far. Corrupt judges, shady, invisible gangs, blood and money all told through a too-detailed-to-be-real ramble from a single character to two completely uncharismatic characters. I’ll try again, hopefully getting further, but I think this will be one I choose not to finish. Hmm, maybe I’ve made up my mind already on it then. It’s just so boring.

On the videogame front, after my somewhat incredible rant and consequential breakdown after playing XCOM2, I actually found myself thoroughly enjoying a game of the same ilk; Steamworld Heist. This was a really fun game for me. Very casual, but in depth with what it expected from you. There were times were I felt the pressure of challenge but pushed through to victory in the end. It was a charming game that I poured a good eleven hours into before completing it. It’s a game I feel that I could return to easily, for a quick play of a few of the levels or a more comprehensive replay. 

And that’s everything I’ve been consuming these days. And now I sign off, before I start thinking too much about what I mean by consuming and whether or not I actually enjoy the things I enjoy.