Tag: Review

Jun 30 2012

In One Person by John Irving

I doubted a couple of times if it would happen.  But it did.  I managed to slog my way through John Irving’s In One Person.  It wasn’t easy…and not just because of the tendency to jump back and forth through time…which made “plot” an almost extraneous element, at least for me, and was annoying as hell.

But what bothered me the most…and I suppose, at the same time, kept me reading…was the treatment of the author’s main theme, which appears to be, at least for me, transsexual women.

Now I am not a book reviewer by trade, so I shall probably commit a major faux pas by giving away the plot…but I don’t really know that the novel has one.  It is mostly 448 pages of character development.  Well, at least some of the characters develop.  Some others we wish would develop, but seem to come up lacking.

If you plan to read the book, you may not wish to read further.  I will be giving away a lot that happens.  I hesitate to call it “the Plot”.

Jul 08 2011

The Bostonians: A Review

The late 19th Century American novelist Henry James commented on the emergent First-wave Feminist movement in his novel The Bostonians. In 1984, James’ book was adapted into a movie. Itself a selection of the Merchant Ivory school of period piece dramas, the film promises more than it provides, but is a minor gem nonetheless. James was a skeptic of Feminism and feminists, revealing both to be nothing more a collective of than uncompromising, ideologically polarizing fussy old maids. However, the author is also highly critical of the counter-weight to these passionate reformers, the charming, but manipulative Mississippi lawyer and frustrated writer, Basil Ransome. We will be formally introduced to him later in this review.

Apr 02 2011

Visibility

Occasionally there is a concurrence of news items that just nest together so well that it’s impossible not to comment on it.

First off, let me say that Wednesday night I finished reading the Kindle edition of the novel I am J, written by Cris Beam.  The book was Amazon’s Best Book for Young Adults for the month of March.  I’ll be back later with my thoughts on the book.

Next up, yesterday was the first annual International Transgender Day of Visibility, coming to us out of Transgender Michigan, with promotional assistance from Monica Roberts at TransGriot.