Another good guide on writing creative non fiction and life stories. Plenty of good examples from a wealth of experience. I expect it would make a gooAnother good guide on writing creative non fiction and life stories. Plenty of good examples from a wealth of experience. I expect it would make a good course text as the writer clearly developed it from course materials. It wasn't a course text for me though - just a bit of extra reading. It rehearsed information that I had found in my course texts and I think was just as useful. ...more
This was a set piece of reading, and not a book I would ever have picked up otherwise. All the same, I think I went into it with an open mind, ready tThis was a set piece of reading, and not a book I would ever have picked up otherwise. All the same, I think I went into it with an open mind, ready to be impressed by the quality of the writing and the expression of ideas. The fact that the author's experience is outside my own should really be a strength - my chance to learn and experience more of the world - the very essence of why I read.
The writing was good too, but in a poetic and intellectual way. The author is a poet, and I am sure a very good one. That was reflected in the prose to some extent, but then we had lines like "Before we met, I had spent a lifetime devoted to Wittgentstein's idea that the inexpressible is contained - inexpressibly! - in the expressed." That was just the second paragraph, and I was thinking, what? really? Sorry, but rather than concisely convey an idea here, I felt like I was being hit over the head with a copy of "The history of Western philosophy". If it had been a temporary aberration, I would not have worried, but this book was filled from start to finish with a curious mix of academic sounding trippywaffle interspresed with TMI moments. At the 9% mark I fell asleep while reading it and had to get the audiobook to finish it.
Somewhere between all of this, there was a genuine story of a relationship and the experience of becoming a mother. The genuine story, and the truths brought to bear about the universal realities of human experience, threatened to overwhelm the book with human interest - but someohow never quite made good on that threat.
It is a memoir. It doesn't really go anywhere but it contains some genuine human truth. Sadly, however, a lot of that is drowned out by the overly philosophical musings, and the way the language stutters between academic and base.
It will be interesting to see why this was on my reading list. Analysed closely, I expect the wrting contains much to be said for it, but taken as a whole, this one was just OK. ...more
This book was on a reading list I worked through of creative non fiction. Easy to see why it was listed, being a great example of the genre. It is parThis book was on a reading list I worked through of creative non fiction. Easy to see why it was listed, being a great example of the genre. It is part memoir and part social commentary, but it is all wrapped around this one location, the Yellow House. It perhaps also shows some of the challenges of creative non fiction, in that I felt at times it struggled to find the thread, the narrative that binds the whole story together - but the location is how this is done, and even if sometimes it felt like events unfolding, one after another, stepping back from the story would reveal the narrative arc the author intended. The social commentary is excellent, of course, with an authentic voice, and a lot to say.
All in all, I wonder if I would recommend it or read it again? I would certainly recommend it to readers wanting to read CNF, or who are interested in the themes of the book. I can't see myself reading it again though. That's not really a criticism. It feels like the message of the book is adequately conveyed in a single reading. ...more
There's more to travel writing than I thought, and this book has a great variety that demonstrates this fact. Travel writing that lifts you into a plaThere's more to travel writing than I thought, and this book has a great variety that demonstrates this fact. Travel writing that lifts you into a place and immerses you in it is good writing. When it carries deeper truths too, it is excellent. Not every one of these pieces was so excellent, but there were some real gems. A great collection of writing in a genre that I have too rarely ventured into. ...more
Karl Ove Knausgaard's struggle became my struggle when this was set as course reading for me. Fortunately just book 1 of this 6 book series (3,600 pagKarl Ove Knausgaard's struggle became my struggle when this was set as course reading for me. Fortunately just book 1 of this 6 book series (3,600 pages in total) was required, but that, frankly, was enough. The books apparently became a publishing sensation in Norway, and to be fair, the writing was good, with a very strong opening to the book. But goodness me, was this overwritten! A friend from the course summed it up, quite independently from me, by saying "if you want a detailed description of walking to the local newsagents to get a pack of cigarettes, and then a description of the green semi-transparent lighter used to light the cigarette, this is the book for you... He didn't describe taking the wrapping off. I bet he's kicking himself now!"
That sums it up nicely. There are few books that have me muttering out loud in despair at the banality of it all, but this was one such.
The description of the house after the death of his father is something. I can't say "gripping". Nothing in this book gripped me beyond the first pages. But it was a terrible scene of the self destruction and squalor of an alcoholic who drank himself to death.
Having read that to the end, I felt that in some ways, this book was like Shuggie Bain. Only with all the enjoyment, fun and brightness of that tome removed! No really!
A deeply personal story, I feel a little guilty for not speaking more highly off it, but sorry, this was just "OK".
And lastly, calling a book "My Struggle," when you speak a Germanic language, is, shall we say, brave? Just saying....more
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