A round-up book review from the last two months
12 Minute Read
Hello and welcome to my combined April/May book review. I managed to finish an all time classic – which I hated. I’ve read a mediocre crime novel, and an iconic horror. I’ve got through a productivity book from a business guru. And I’ve read two books that would both jostle for a position in my top ten novels of all time. A varied couple of months to say the least!
My April and May book review includes:
- Moby Dick or, The Whale – Herman Melville ★★
- The Whisper Man – Alex North ★★
- Getting Things Done – David Allen ★★★
- All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy ★★★★★
- The Shining – Stephen King ★★★★
- The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck ★★★★★
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1. Moby Dick or, The Whale – Herman Melville
And so the journey is finally done. The hardest book I’ve ever read is completed at last. This was the longest it’s ever taken me to read a book (2 and a half years). In the last 3 years it’s the only book I’ve started reading and stopped again. It took me 4 separate occasions to try and read it (first 50 pages, a year later 100, just under a year later another 150. A break of 2 months, then the final 220). To all this the question must be asked: was it worth it?
To that I can only say, no – not really.
Where to begin in my analysis of this grotesque monstrosity of a book that has been repeatedly lauded as one of the greatest American novels ever written. I can begin by saying it is more like 3 books in one: the main story, a tale of ancient mariner lore, and a comprehensive history on whaling. And overall the book is far, far, far, too long. Far too long. Just too damn long. God it kills me thinking about how long the book is.
I mean yes, the descriptive prose is at times sublime but in general I found it to be overly verbose, self-indulgent, and a tad grandiloquent. The parts I did understand were exciting but ultimately the story keeps floundering (ayy… although if we’re being accurate whales are mammals, not fish, so this pun doesn’t really work) and losing momentum due to the endless sidetracking narrative structure.
I think I started enjoy parts of it after the first 300 pages. It was also quite interesting to learn about thoughts of the time concerning the natural world. You have to wait until the last 30 pages to get to the actual chase. Which I guess was enjoyable when it finally came around? I know why Melville did this but it also just made me feel sickened by how much time I’d wasted getting through to this point.
I may get hounded to the gates of hell for saying this, but I don’t find myself impressed with what Melville created. To me, so much of the book seems like an endless unfiltered mind dump of ideas jumping between stories with constant interruptions and backtracking. It was too disjointed for me to really get into.
I think that after a piece of work is deemed a classic, any criticism of it thereafter is deemed invalid as the recipient clearly didn’t understand or couldn’t appreciate the quality of the work. But my question is this: if a piece of work is too esoteric to be appreciated, can it still be considered a classic?
I’ll save you the trouble and answer that one for you – yeah probably. But I’m not happy about it.
2. The Whisper Man – Alex North
Good plot to begin with but very flimsy characters. Overall it starts well, with a promising and intriguing first quarter. North does a great job initially of leaving the reader with questions at the end of each chapter – as you should with any piece of dramatic writing. At first there was that wonderful feeling of being so excited that your mind can’t register the words fast enough and your eyes are burning to leap ahead. But this soon vanished.
I can actually signify the exact moment I started disliking the book. It was at the cheap midpoint reveal. I rolled my eyes seeing how slavishly the author had followed the plot structure set out by any bog standard writer’s guide. And I know that because I’m pathetic enough to have read quite a few of them.
This sort of brings me to a side-point, in that I don’t like attacking writers. I can appreciate how difficult a process it is to write. To get through everything and publish a successful novel is a huge achievement by any standards. But with this in mind, I also expect a certain quality of writing, and a certain amount of passion to be put into the pages.
This is probably why I hate formulaic detective novels that are pumped out on a production line just to make money. At first I felt this book was going to be something different, but ultimately it turned out much like all the others. You may think I’m being unnecessarily harsh but seeing as this is a New York Times bestseller I don’t think Alex North will lose any sleep over my critique.
Right, let’s run through some of the things I hated:
- The way he writes kids aren’t actually how they talk, the children talk and think like adults which irritated me immensely. Just getting a child to say “mummy” and “daddy” is not a realistic way to have a child speak.
- The father-son relationship is flimsy and poorly explored despite it being a focal plot point.
- There is minimal character development and all relationships seem rushed or contrived.
- I never felt like there were any barriers or challenges to overcome. Nothing felt at stake; tension waned after the first third and the plot plodded on from A-B.
- The book was lazy with details of the criminal investigation.
- There are so many unanswered questions I have but I won’t waste your time by listing them all.
- In this book, the character’s thoughts and actions fit the convenience of the plot. Character’s must drive plot and not the other way around.
Reading some of the glowing reviews I’m honestly starting to think I’ve read a different book to everyone else.
In any case, if you feel like reading a generic and ultimately banal crime thriller – this one’s for you.
3. Getting Things Done – David Allen
This book’s main advice essentially boils down to organising yourself by writing things down. That may be a gross oversimplification but that’s the crux of what I got from it. It shocks me how far some people manage to get in business if they find advice such as ‘buy a wastepaper basket’ or ‘ensure you have the appropriate utensils to complete a task’ useful.
Some aspects of the book I found interesting and relatively useful. I like the idea of the two-minute rule: if any task can be accomplished in fewer than 2 minutes, do it immediately. That certainly makes sense to me in terms of keeping on top of the small tasks that can pile up. I also like the use of a deadline calendar and his encouragement for writing tiered lists; not because it’s something I aim to take up, but because it’s something I already do and it’s comforting to realise that it may actually benefit me in some meagre way.
The analogy of an altitude of decision-making is another simple but effective concept. By categorising your tasks into groups of increasingly imminent or relevant clusters, it becomes easier to tackle your list of mounting responsibilities.
Some negatives were that I found his outlook on life really quite depressing. How he claims his best time for recreation and relaxation is during a long-haul flight. Or how mechanically he talks about the relationships with his friends and family like business transactions. Christ if that’s the cost of staying organised in business I’ll stick to being a chaotic mess that actually has a life.
The irony is, the 8 hours I spent reading this book probably could have been used more productively by focusing more attention on getting things done.
Yep, that’s the joke I’m using to end this review. Sue me.
4. All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I’ve given this book 5 stars. Cormac McCarthy is by far my favourite author of all time. And in some way that means the pressure I put on every new book of his I read is immense. But even with my expectations sky high, I still find myself dazzled by his brilliance.
I feel like I can look at every single sentence and say what it is that’s good about it and why I appreciate it. No word ever feels out of place and each will always be relevant. He has a magic with writing that touches my heart in such a way it makes me believe there is a true meaning to life – even if it’s just that life is there to be lived. I won’t apologise if that comment made your eyes roll because there is no way I can put it other than that. It’s a skill that is so rare I’ve yet to find it in any one of the great writers I’ve read.
Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m finally beginning to understand what it is about his style I so admire. Then I read another passage and this awareness suddenly eludes me. His work is very like Hemingway in that aspect. Mercurial. Whenever you think you’ve put your finger on what it is that makes them great, the answer slips from your grasp.
All the Pretty Horses is the most accessible of McCarthy’s books I’ve read to date. It has the least amount of violence, stark prose, and austere moral decay that is at the heart of so many of his other novels. If you haven’t read any of his works before I highly recommend you begin with this – followed by The Road or No Country for Old Men. The novel is a coming of age tale in a many ways with elements of friendship and love weaved through its story. Yet there is a brutal honesty about the depictions of these traits in the characters and how the outcomes and realities of them are often not so sweet as we might hope or imagine.
In short: read this book immediately.
5. The Shining – Stephen King
I kind of hate myself for saying this but, I preferred the film. I know that is sacrilegious to say but I really think in this case it’s true. It was hard for me to give the book much of a chance though. Kubrick’s terrifying cinematic masterpiece of the same name is my favourite horror movie of all time, and much of its imagery is seared into my mind forever more. So when I encountered the same scenes in the book, I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed they didn’t play out the same way in my mind. This is why they always say you should read the book before you watch the film. And for me in this case that was very true.
It’s interesting to see the themes Kubrick took and the plot points he clearly omitted. He went in a very different direction with Jack and Wendy in particular and I believe overall he streamlined the story removing some of the less critical – and even silly – aspects of the story. He cranked up the isolation and sinister parts whilst sticking to the true thematic foundations set in place by King. Nearly every change and addition from Kubrick I think was for the better.
King says he disliked the adaption, and I wonder whether he was irritated by the number of changes or perhaps resentful of the improved alterations. Perhaps not, but in any case I’ve often found that with King the story is often too bloated. His books always need trimming down but due to his enormous success no editor feels the need to be as scrupulous over his work as the might with a less successful author.
But what I do love about King is how he delivers supernatural elements to you in such a grounded way that you can just about believe that such a thing could occur in the real world. That really is terrifying. Character’s react just as they would if these problems occurred to actual people and he’s always able to continuously ratchet up the gears, gradually revealing more and more of the supernatural which propels the plot forwards. It’s astoundingly good storytelling.
I think the synesthesia telepathy idea is brilliant. Also, the actual use of the text to convey information from the story is very effective. Different fonts, sizes, punctuation, and spacing etc.
Comparing this to how child characters were written in The Whisper Man (see above), is very telling for which author is the better storyteller. How King wrote Danny reaffirms my criticism of The Whisper Man and how ill suited the child character’s (I’ve already forgotten his name which says it all) thoughts, actions, and dialogues were in their authenticity.
6. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
This is the closest I’ve ever got to reading an objectively perfect book. It has instantly shot its way into my top 10 novels of all time. I just wanted to soak up the atmosphere, characters, and situations of every page. I love the in-depth character descriptions and details. Some authors choose not to do this, but I prefer having a clear image in my mind of how someone looks or acts. And when character features are described as well as this it’s a true joy to behold. Steinbeck’s understanding of human nature is astounding. His ability to utilise this in the backdrop of a cultural event as significant as The Great Depression whilst also telling an engaging and coherent story is nothing short of miraculous.
It just had me from the first page. I’ve always said that Of Mice and Men has one of my favourite introductions to a book ever. The first chapter is a lesson on how to perfectly open a book. Yet again, Steinbeck proves to be the master of setting up a story with The Grapes of Wrath. This novel benefits from every single extra page it has from Of Mice and Men. I could have kept reading endlessly, I didn’t want the book to end. It felt like the reader steps into a section of a family’s life and follows them for a while before quietly sneaking away again. You can easily conceive a whole history, future, and life happening outside the realms of the pages.
There are a few moments in the book that particularly stand out; the asides that expand the scope of the story through long descriptive passages of the landscape and the snippets examining groups of people discussing their thoughts and lives are especially memorable.
Steinbeck covers big concepts similar to the themes of War and Peace such as where lies the responsibility behind decisions that lead to change. In War and Peace the focus of these decisions are on the elements of war, whereas in Grapes of Wrath these decisions are mainly about the mechanisation that brought on the Great Depression in many of the North American states.
There is a slow building sense of dread. A huge concept refined down to the struggles of one family and those they encounter on their journey from their home in the dust bowl to the supposedly fruitful pastures in California; chasing the intangible American Dream. You can see trouble coming from a mile away. Their idealism, their hope, and ultimately their ruinous naivety. But you can hardly blame them. The promise of riches and good fortunes on the far side of the river are so tantalising, all the more so when they are cast into abject poverty. In their desperation they must chase a dream that seems to be in the grip of all hands but theirs. This is of course until they find that they are far from alone in their tribulations.
It’s a brutal and stark examination about the real cost that the early days of consumer capitalism brought to the lower classes during 1930s America.
In fact it is so significant that I would consider it to be not just an exceptional piece of art, but a crucial book of historical relevance.
It’s a novel I believe everyone should read once in their lifetime.
I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now – 5 stars.
Last Words
That’s the two month wrap up. I’m back to doing my monthly book reviews so check in on the 1st July to read my June book review. Unfortunately I’m now 2 off of my book a week target. Going to have to pick up the pace in June to keep up with this hefty goal. It should be possible if I tackle some of the shorter books on my bed-side table.
Thanks for reading anyway, head over to my other book reviews to see what I’ve read over the last few months.
Let me know your thoughts and comments below!
Happy reading 📚
Really enjoyed reading your book review Matt and I feel inspired to try to read more too!
Quite an eclectic selection there! You did well to persevere with Moby Dick. I wonder if you had read it uninterrupted if you might have felt differently about it ? But, I never finished it so how would I know!
I will give Cormac McCarthy a go as you think so highly of his work.