so back to literary

I just spent a whole bunch of time reading review of two different books that I have just read. Now i don't usually spend much time with review before buying a book - too many people give to many plot details - and both the the 5 star and one star reviews are often way too much of a love or hate fest for me to get much out of them. But I am amazed at how poorly people read. People who do lots of book reviews. As in the characters name - Tavi not Travis as you referred to him. andd the person reviewing Rebel Angels that did not understand the appeal of the realms -D'oh Victorian england - girls who had to live by strict rules - suddenly able to do what they want - I say it again - D'oh.

(not really spoilerly if you've read the first book)

I've always read a lot. But I don't read just for volume - that would be lame.

I read "The Metamorphosis" today. It was strange. And extremely depressing. Somehow, I was expecting it to be less so, despite the whole main-character-changes-into-a-giant-bug thing.

Don't know if this helps, Gris, but reportedly Kafka used to laugh and laugh when he wrote his stories.

So...maybe a little more black humor and a little less empathy in that genre. (Genre here being....Mitteleuropa Black Fabulism?)

I laughed a good bit, actually. But the end was sad. I wanted it to be more Disney and less Brothers Grimm in terms of fantasy endings.

I wanted it to be more Disney and less Brothers Grimm in terms of fantasy endings.

Kafka is going to shade more Grimm than Disney.

Read "The Hunger Artist."

if it had a more Disney ending - the cockroach would have to find a mrs cockroach and they would have to sing a duet

and have a dust mite for a cute sidekick.

Coming in 2009 from Pixar...

Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life.

Of wait, already been done.

I just finished Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson. It doesn't even remotely compare to his Mars books, but it was a good enough read. (After not being able to make it 50 pages into Forty Signs of Rain, it was a relief to read something of his that made me want to finish the whole book.

Now I'm onto A Taste of Conquest which is very interesting and so far pretty well written.

Oh, and I'm also kind of reading The Brain-Dead Megaphone on the subway, which is terrific, but I think I might buy an audio version instead because my commute is getting too crowded these days to successfully hold a book.