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Tuesday, July 06, 2004
top o` the charts
"He has the ability to imagine himself a minor incident in the lives of others."
-opening line from The Autograph Man
i read it, and i loved it. i bought The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith on a whim, mainly because of the 420yen sticker price at the recent Kinokuniya sale, and partially because the hero is Alex-Li Tandem, "...a twenty-something Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer..." I finished reading it this morning during first period, and am so delighted with this book. Zadie Smith is awesome. There were so many moments when i read a line/passage that just made me freeze, that i-have-just-read-something-beautiful-genius-and-true kind of heart-fluttering feeling. What makes this so awesome? Religion, fame, mortality, fathers, love, escape, friendship...and expressed in simple, funny, beautiful language. Nothing ever feels forced, overblown, even when she compares the Heisenberg principle to a certain insurance company. For Pete`s sake, I felt attracted to Esther, Alex`s girlfriend, because Smith wrote her so well (and consequently hated Alex for giving her second-class treatment).
Top 6 Books of All Time/Top 6 Books to Bring to a Boring Luncheon(random order)
1. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
2. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
3. Women About Town by Laura Jacobs
4. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
5. The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
6. Simple Recipes by Madeline Thien
as soon as i finished it, i wanted to re-read it again, but stopped myself. it would be too soon... for books like these you need a grace period where you can sort of tease it out, stretch the words out enough that you can rest inside them, and have that world settle within you.
"He has the ability to imagine himself a minor incident in the lives of others."
-opening line from The Autograph Man
i read it, and i loved it. i bought The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith on a whim, mainly because of the 420yen sticker price at the recent Kinokuniya sale, and partially because the hero is Alex-Li Tandem, "...a twenty-something Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer..." I finished reading it this morning during first period, and am so delighted with this book. Zadie Smith is awesome. There were so many moments when i read a line/passage that just made me freeze, that i-have-just-read-something-beautiful-genius-and-true kind of heart-fluttering feeling. What makes this so awesome? Religion, fame, mortality, fathers, love, escape, friendship...and expressed in simple, funny, beautiful language. Nothing ever feels forced, overblown, even when she compares the Heisenberg principle to a certain insurance company. For Pete`s sake, I felt attracted to Esther, Alex`s girlfriend, because Smith wrote her so well (and consequently hated Alex for giving her second-class treatment).
Top 6 Books of All Time/Top 6 Books to Bring to a Boring Luncheon(random order)
1. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
2. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
3. Women About Town by Laura Jacobs
4. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
5. The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
6. Simple Recipes by Madeline Thien
as soon as i finished it, i wanted to re-read it again, but stopped myself. it would be too soon... for books like these you need a grace period where you can sort of tease it out, stretch the words out enough that you can rest inside them, and have that world settle within you.
// posted by naomi @ 12:37 a.m. 
