Watcha Reading?

I'm currently reading Catch-22 in my English class. I've always generally enjoyed my English assignments. This book has really said something to me though. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I was brought to tears again with only a few lines. It's been a little while since I've cried reading (at least a few months? ) and I didn't think I'd cry reading this book. Sure, there's death, quite a lot actually, but it is overlayed with comedy. In fact, the deaths are the comedy sometimes. But this particular death wasn't funny at all, and the book didn't try to make it funny. Not for a moment, at least (the next chapter tried to make it a little less heavy). The protagonist really took that death hard, and for good reason. Too many had already died in his life, and this most recent was disturbing in more ways than one. There was no doubt behind this death, another person died as well, and the main character had already expressed that this character was about the only one left he could trust to fly with. It was a very tragic moment, and I almost broke down in class.

So yes, this is a great book I quite enjoy. There are some things I could do without, but they're only to be expected in a war book.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy, for summer reading.

Soooooo boriiiiiiiing... usually I like whatever we read in school, but this has got to be the most bleak, repetitive book I've ever read. There's absolutely no emotion in it and so far it doesn't seem to address any sort of a theme. It's literally just a father and son wandering aimlessly through unvaryingly grey landscapes, avoiding cannibals, and having the same conversation every half a page.

Chapter 19 of my Engine Systems textbook.

the black plague

I've been reading a lot of Hubert Selby Jr.

Unfortunately, one of his books I really would like to read is not available to be put on hold at my library. I assume it's because of the content, so I'm considering just buying it.

Either way, I've finished The Demon. The basic summary of The Demon is a typical white, straight, working class male works his way up through life to becoming a successful business executive with a wife and two children, but he finds that it isn't enough to satisfy him, and he progresses to more and more lucrative activities for the sake of suspense, the unknown, to "fulfill the demon" to the point where he murders people

Spoiler:

 

It's clearly meant to be a critique of the American dream and contains a lot of symbolism near the end

Spoiler:

Needless to say, The Demon doesn't have an original concept. The only reason I'd set it apart from other works of media is because of Selby's writing style, which contains improper grammar and spelling (meant to emulate how people actually talk), changes POV to randomly blurting out the thoughts of the main character to being in a third person omniscient POV, and describes scenes in a droning way meant to emulate how the characters sees and is affected by them, even though it's still set in the third person.

I think one of my favorite scenes in The Demon that lends especially well to Selby's writing style is when Selby describes for three pages a procession on TV that the main character is watching. No thoughts are discussed, just the description of the event, yet it is evident because of how the main character has acted previously in the book that the reader can infer what the main character is thinking. I'm sure other authors have used this technique, but it's a first for me, and I enjoyed it.

The ending could have been written better. It did have a sense of urgency and jaggedness to it, which I thought was appropriate for the scene being portrayed, but it seemed like it was almost written just to get the book over with. I feel like I'm a tad sensitive to that feeling, though, and it may have been my fault because I was honestly desperate to get over the book.

Overall, I don't think it's worth your time reading.

There's other things I'd discuss, but I don't want to possibly start an argument. I'll end by stating my general impression of the book was that it was okay. Selby made his point, but I think I've seen his style of writing shine better in other works of his.[/i][/i]

Akame ga Kiru!

I attempted to start this series a long time ago, but apparently didn't read the second chapter. Now with a more mature mind I'm now much more interested. I'm not terribly far in, but this is definitely not a manga for children. The fact alone that it was published in a magazine alongside a manga adaptation of Corpse Party should tell you that it doesn't hold much back.