One Book Down!

This is what I want to know…what type of person would consider Sophie’s Choice a MUST READ? I wouldn’t even consider this book in any of the top thousand to read. Okay – I’m getting a little ahead of my review.

I was really excited to dive into this project with my BFF Devon. We knew some books we would love, some we would hate and some we would have different feelings about. I was really, really hoping to L-O-V-E the first book of our quest. I didn’t. I didn’t like the writing style, the “flow” (when I could find it) nor did I really like the idea that anyone would even publish this book after finishing Chapter 2. There were a few “Woa” moments, but most of the time I was relatively bored.

The author’s name should be William Tangent Stryton. I’m slightly curious to read another Stryton novel if only to redeem my faith in his writing abilities. The main character, “Stingo” is an aspiring novelist and maybe its Stingo’s writing I don’t like. I’m not sure where the lines cross. Regardless, the book’s “flow” jumps from time period to time period and Stingo brings up so many things that seem pointless to me even though he preempts his tangent by saying, “I bring this up because….”. In the end I’m left disappointed with all the time I wasted on 20 pages of a tangent.

Here’s the kicker…it must be said I am not proud of this. It also must be said that I have probably only done it once maybe twice before with a book I’m reading for pleasure. I skimmed! That’s right. About 450 pages into it I was so bored and “over” the book I skimmed most of the tangents and useless scene set ups. I got all the information I needed and when I hit a part that did interest me and did offer relevancy to the story I slowed back down to my regular reading pace. I feel bad about it, but what can I say…I was totally uninterested in this book.

I know this is going on long, but let’s talk about Sophie’s choice for a second here. The lead to choice, the choice and the after effects of the choice lasted about ¾ of a page and were over before I new it. My reaction, while sad, was, “That’s it?!?!?! That’s all I get!?!?” After reading the choice I had to finish the book to make sure it was the choice and that there wasn’t another one coming around the corner. While sad, again, I was disappointed. Plus the cover of the book says something about this being about Sophie and all of her men. There’s a picture of two men and two women on the cover aside from the three main characters, Stingo, Sophie and Nathan, and I have no idea who they are supposed to be! What did they have to do with her choice? Nothing.

All in all, I am kind of glad I read the book. One, because it’s on the list; two, because I have my BFF to talk about it with and three, because now I will know what people are talking about when they refer to “Sophie’s Choice”. I put that in quotes as in the movie, instead of underlined, as in the book, because no one would have the “OH MY GOD IT’S SO SAD” reaction if they read this book. To all you blog readers out there………go see the movie. OMG – I can’t believe I just suggested that.

Thanks!
Kel

Mid-Book Review - Sophie's Choice

Getting through the first two chapters of William Styron's Sophie's Choice was a bit of a chore. Thank goodness I knew Kelly and I were in it together, otherwise I might have put it down. We weren't even introduced to Sophie until the third chapter, where we finally got into the main plot.

Now that I'm just over half-way through it, I can honestly say that there is no way this will be on my favorite book list. I know - I haven't finished it yet, and supposedly I'll need to break out the tissue in the end, but it's not a particularly easy read! First off, the writing is extremely verbose. For example, this passage:

She took his dictation with care, but because of his runaway fervor, in some haste, so it was not until she got down to the job of typing it out for the printer that she began to glimpse seething in that cauldron of historical allusions and dialectical hypotheses and religious imperatives and legal precedents and anthropological propositions the smoky, ominous presence of a single word--repeated several times--which quite baffled and confounded and frightened her, appearing as it did in this otherwise persuasively practical text, this clever polemic which voiced with breezily scurrilous mockery the sly propaganda she had half heard more than once...

Come on - baffled AND confounded AND frightened her? All in the same, already extremely long sentence?! I just find it a bit unnecessary and completely frustrating.

In addition to the flowery prose, the narrator, Stingo, jumps around within the story line. We learn about Sophie through his eyes - how they meet, her background, their growing friendship, then back to her background, a jump into the future for a walk down memory line, then back into her history with edits on things she had lied about or left out of the original stories. It makes it confusing at times and is another frustrating aspect of the book as a whole.

The last piece that puts me over the edge are the literary references and what are basically book reviews scattered throughout the story. Stingo himself is an aspiring author and so refers to various other accomplished authors and poets frequently. While I am not a literary scholar, I do recognize at least the names of many authors in general even if I don't know what they have written. However, Stingo refers to authors that I have never heard of and expects me, the reader, to know what writing style or genre he is speaking of when making said references. Oy vey!

I'm going to stick with it to learn what Sophie's unbearable secret is - that solitary choice that seemingly defined her (and the book!) We'll just have to wait to see what all the fuss is about...and I guess it's in the second half of the book because it certainly isn't in the first half.