Thursday, November 30, 2006

From The Stacks Challenge--Part Deux

Well, I finished my second book in the From the Stacks Challenge--Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos. I have yet to post a review over at the Book Blog of Evil. My laxness in this matter reflects my laxness in this entire endeavor.

I've started the Kate Chopin. I've read about 7000 pages of Kate Chopin. So, how come I'm not finished? Huh? HUH? If you just look at the page numbers, you'd conclude that this is a novella of less than 120 pages. BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG. This is a book that exists in an alternate dimensionality, one in which 7000 pages of boredom APPEAR to occupy less than 120 pages. Significantly less. Because I'm on about page 56, and I am bored bored bored.

Which is appropriate, since the characters are all spending a hot summer month on the seaside in Louisiana. The men go into New Orleans during the week, and come out on the weekends. The women and children fill their days looking at the water and then changing for meals. And talking in that horrible 1890s way of being polite and not actually saying anything.

Edith Wharton would have made this a page turner. Edith Wharton is a Good Read. Edith Wharton is a classic because people still love to read her. As far as I am so far, Kate Chopin is a classic because...she did something first. Not necessarily best, though.

So, when in a funk, I turn to children's books. Or "young adult fiction." In this case, I've gien up for the time being and turned to the Bunny's favorite "Enchanted Forest Chronicles." These are like potato chips. They are wry and funny and fresh and speedy and end with the bad guys defeated by the good guys. Plus there are princesses and witches and dragons and bad wizards and a lively twist on some fairy tale classics. I've finished the first two and am a third of the way through the third. If I count this series as one book, I still have to finish the Chopin. If I count each book seperately...

A moral dilemma. I wonder how it will turn out.

1 comment:

~moe~ said...

Let me know if you make it through the Kate Chopin book. I started Awakening a few years back after my college roommate raved about how great it was. Yeah, I was bored almost immediately, too, and never finished it. But if you can make it through, maybe I can attempt it again. :)