[***] ISBN: 9780395860212
On the opposite end of the spectrum from In Cahoots is this Pulitzer Prize-winning book. While I did not finish reading this title (yet), I found that I liked the smooth and subtle prose and the rich character landscape created by the author. I understand why it won. Why didn't I finish it then and why didn't I give it more stars? Because it got pushed aside for some different reading I needed to do during NaNoWriMo and it became due at the library. Because I didn't finish it, I can't say that I recommend it yet, either. I may come back and try it again, mainly because I want to work my way through several Pulitzer books to see what make them tick.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
In Cahoots: A Novel of Southern California, 1953 (Malcolm Cook MacPherson)
[*] ISBN: 9780679422044
If this book weren't so darn encouraging to me, as an aspiring author, I would have never finished reading it. I figure if this book can be published by a major publisher, someday, something I write can get published, too. Well, maybe I would have finished it just because it's set in approximately the same time and place (pre-Disneyland Orange County, CA) of the book I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month. This doesn't mean that I intend to steal ideas from it, just that I found some clues for coloring the world I'm creating.
What worked: the characters were sweet and kooky, some passages were pleasantly evocative of time and place, the overall idea of California as a land of dreams.
What didn't work: the author started right off throwing bits of localized jargon at the reader without explaining it and never looked back, most of the kooky characters were never really fleshed out into individuals that we actually cared about - they seemed to be just place holders and cogs in the plot - what they did never really jelled into funniness, and the plot was convoluted enough for an amazing mystery or spy novel but was not well drawn enough to overcome the other faults of the book.
As another reviewer noted, if you're a big fan of Disney or Disneyland, you might enjoy skimming through this. Otherwise, it's just another excuse for you to say to yourself, "I could write a book better than that."
If this book weren't so darn encouraging to me, as an aspiring author, I would have never finished reading it. I figure if this book can be published by a major publisher, someday, something I write can get published, too. Well, maybe I would have finished it just because it's set in approximately the same time and place (pre-Disneyland Orange County, CA) of the book I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month. This doesn't mean that I intend to steal ideas from it, just that I found some clues for coloring the world I'm creating.
What worked: the characters were sweet and kooky, some passages were pleasantly evocative of time and place, the overall idea of California as a land of dreams.
What didn't work: the author started right off throwing bits of localized jargon at the reader without explaining it and never looked back, most of the kooky characters were never really fleshed out into individuals that we actually cared about - they seemed to be just place holders and cogs in the plot - what they did never really jelled into funniness, and the plot was convoluted enough for an amazing mystery or spy novel but was not well drawn enough to overcome the other faults of the book.
As another reviewer noted, if you're a big fan of Disney or Disneyland, you might enjoy skimming through this. Otherwise, it's just another excuse for you to say to yourself, "I could write a book better than that."
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