Triangle: the Fire that Changed America... is the most poorly written prose book I think I have ever read.
The author has apparently never heard of organizing facts and stories to put them in a sequential or topical order. One minute you're in the sequence of the fire from the point of view of a fireman, the next you're in Russia learning about anti-Semitic riots. Seriously don't ask me how the author put those together. Then it's another chapter before you actually get to the fire again. I think the author was using 6 degrees of separation to connect the victims to the entire world. Maybe. Who Knows. There was no direction in this book.
So painful to read. If you actually want useful information about this fire that happened in New York over 100 years ago, watch the PBS special on Netflix. You get all the PERTINENT information about this fire. Something this author has no idea how to do.
I'm not sure how I would ever recommend this book to anyone. Reading the dictionary would be more enlightening and interesting.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
"The Book Thief" stole my heart!
It's been awhile since I have read something I would classify as "literature."
Literature being something my English teacher in high school would have approved or assigned to me.
The Book Thief qualifies.
I wish I had gotten it assigned in high school... it was a lot easier to read than War and Peace. It was definitely more interesting in that the life story of a young, self-named, book thief was being told from the point of view of Death. Death being the narrator and the scene being Nazi Germany was quite interesting.
It wasn't what I expected and I loved that. Marcus Zusak has a way with words. He didn't spell everything out as if the reader was a moron... I love that too. I equate it to watching TV shows with no laugh track - Don't tell me when to laugh!!! If it's funny I'll laugh! You don't need to prompt me!... ok, little rant there.
I like that I actually had to pay attention. I knew that if I paid even more attention (in a way that would make my English teachers proud), I would have seen themes, motifs and hidden symbols throughout the book, regardless if they were intentional by the author.
Thank you Book Thief, for reminding me that I'm not what the newspapers say the average reading level is (3rd grade) and catering to a better reader.
Literature being something my English teacher in high school would have approved or assigned to me.
The Book Thief qualifies.
I wish I had gotten it assigned in high school... it was a lot easier to read than War and Peace. It was definitely more interesting in that the life story of a young, self-named, book thief was being told from the point of view of Death. Death being the narrator and the scene being Nazi Germany was quite interesting.
It wasn't what I expected and I loved that. Marcus Zusak has a way with words. He didn't spell everything out as if the reader was a moron... I love that too. I equate it to watching TV shows with no laugh track - Don't tell me when to laugh!!! If it's funny I'll laugh! You don't need to prompt me!... ok, little rant there.
I like that I actually had to pay attention. I knew that if I paid even more attention (in a way that would make my English teachers proud), I would have seen themes, motifs and hidden symbols throughout the book, regardless if they were intentional by the author.
Thank you Book Thief, for reminding me that I'm not what the newspapers say the average reading level is (3rd grade) and catering to a better reader.
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