June Books

This month has basically been a marathon of short fiction, a final trudge through Dune and me discovering a new favourite book and a desire to read classics again. Oh and I read one of the most obscene books ever written!

Dune by Frank Herbert

I wrote a separate review for Dune as I felt like I had a lot to say, and I did. So TL;DR I liked it but I didn’t like it. It’s complicated and it depends on how you read it and from which POV. But if you fancy reading the full review then click here.

At The Sign Of The Cat And Racket (La maison du Chat-qui-pelote) by Honoré de Balzac

This month I decided to start tackling French author Balzac’s The Human Comedy (La Comédie Humaine) a collection of interlinked works which is made up of novels, novellas and essays set in during the Restoration period and July Monarchy. Balzac could be seen as a French Dickens, as both wrote about society and with a focus on realism. This novella follows a few characters who work at a small shop in Paris and the owner marries his daughters off to two very different men. The themes of money, happiness, status, faithfulness, art, and work run throughout. At some point when my French is up to scratch, I’ll probably try reading some of The Human Comedy in French so stay tuned for that (let’s hold me accountable please!)

Also, Balzac’s At The Sign Of The Cat And Racket has forced me to reconsider the genre of realism, and particularly whether I was wrong about Dickens! I have for many years refused to touch a Dickens novel after reading A Christmas Carol at school and finding it veritably boring. I even avoided reading Bleak House for my degree because I thought I knew that I would hate it (ended up reading Walden by Thoreau and despised that instead) but maybe I would have liked it! Maybe I need to reconsider Dickens, and that folks is something I never thought would happen!

Micromegas by Voltaire

More French lit, I think I often coincide my cinematic choices with my book choices as recently I started watching French films again and suddenly all I want to read is classic French Literature. It’s a bit strange but I’ll go with it (I’ll have to because I have ordered so many French Lit second-hand books recently). I read Candide for Uni last year and really enjoyed Voltaire’s wit and seeing that I was miles behind on my 75 books in a year challenge I thought to myself “why not read this tiny little book by a French author that you’ve read before”. So I did. Micromegas is a rather strange little thing, it is essentially Sci-Fi before Sci-Fi was a thing.

The short story follows a giant from a planet called Sirius as he journeys through the solar system, he meets another giant (though much smaller than Micromegas) on Saturn and they soon find themselves on Earth. For these giants, Human life is so small (literally) and they find our behaviour (waging wars) perplexing due to how insignificant we seem, as in comparison, humans are tiny, and live such short lives and have a much inferior intellect to them. Voltaire’s brand of satire is fantastic and I can’t wait to read more of his works.

Record of a Night Too Brief (蛇を踏む) by Hiromi Kawakami

I like abstract stories, I like bizarre and challenging stories. But I did not like any of the short stories in this volume. I also have in the past read Kawakami and enjoyed her prose, but this collection of three stories just didn’t do anything for me. I found them too strange and I was unable to connect with them on any level. All I can say is nevermind, you win some and you lose some. Will I continue to check out Kawakami’s work? Sure, I think she’s an interesting and talented writer, it’s just that these stories didn’t touch me.

A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin

I have found a new author to consume wholeheartedly. Her prose is deliciously poetic, and the way she writes Sabine is so vivid and relatable but alarming and deplorable at the same time. I loved this novel and I feel like I need to get a physical copy (I read it on Libby) to underline all the moments of poeticism and to read it over and over again.

Femme Fatale by Guy de Maupassant

This Penguin Little Black Classics book contains four short stories set in 19th Century France was nothing particularly fantastic, just ok in my opinion. But for 80p you can’t really go wrong and I might read Maupassant’s most famous work Bel-Ami as a result.

Story of the Eye (Histoire de l'œil) by Georges Bataille

This is a book that will leave an impression on you. It’s interesting to analyse from a psychological angle but my goodness it is utterly depraved and probably the most f***ked up book I have ever read. All I’m prepared to say is that I can probably never look at eyes and eggs the same way again.

My Thoughts on Dune

Frank Herbert’s Dune is heralded as one of the greatest Sci-Fi novels ever written, its influence in the genre is absolutely undeniable, but, is it actually any good? Let’s find out.

Spoilers ahead so proceed with caution if you haven’t read the book!

Dune is a mammoth of a novel and granted there is a lot that happens but I found it to be quite boring in places. I loved the beginning of the novel with the political intrigue, the foreshadowing and the imminent danger that Leto was caught up in. I also enjoyed Yueh’s internal struggle about his betrayal and his role in the assassination of Leto. The Bene Gesserit were fascinating and the litany against fear is something I will take from this book and use in my life, as I feel like the line ‘fear is the mind killer’ can be a powerful mantra for anyone in a time of anxiety or difficulty (Hello 2020 I’m looking at you).

So what was boring? Well the Villain, I didn’t really want to read about him and delve into his thoughts. The Baron was rather one dimensional and his paedophilic obsession with young boys was vomit-inducing. I also found that the novel was just a bit too long, if some of the desert roaming stuff had been condensed then I would have enjoyed the novel a lot more than I actually did. I also found flicking between the story and the glossary to understand all the invented terms rather irritating as it instantly removes you from the narrative and reminds me of reading ye olde classics for English literature at uni!

Another thing is the question of whether Dune is problematic or not. You have a white saviour narrative, the uncanny references to Iraq (I mean the name of the planet is Arrakis, it’s too similar to be a coincidence) and Arabic culture and history. The spice Melange as a metaphor for the oil crisis, the list goes on. What was Herbert doing, as a White American Man, should he have been allowed to play with a whole culture’s history and use it for a novel? On the flipside, Paul can be seen as a villain, if you read the novel as a treatise on the dangers of colonialism and the violence of white supremacy it becomes something else entirely. Maybe this is what Herbert was trying to craft, a politically woke novel. One can hope. And actually, Quinn’s Ideas (go follow him if you’re a Sci-fi nerd his videos are brilliant!) on Youtube makes the perfect case for this:

The novel can also be read from an ecological angle, the world of Arrakis is a delicate and balanced ecosystem. Water is precious and the sandworms are revered as gods. But, a disturbance in this balance would be catastrophic, just like global warming is going to and has already caused immense harm to Earth. There are a few lines that stand out to me on this subject…

"The historical system of mutual pillage and extortion stops here on Arrakis," his father said. "You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after.”

I feel like this is exactly the sentiment that needs to be adopted by society before it’s too late!

Back to my overall thoughts on Dune, I’m still harbouring mixed feelings but I like how much there is to analyse, and this review is only hitting the surface. I am still excited for Denis Villeneuve’s cinematic adaptation as I know he will take the best of the novel and make it pop on screen, and I’m pretty confident that Timothée Chalamet has the skill to play Paul as a complex and morally ambiguous character. But is Dune the greatest Sci-Fi novel ever written? It depends who you ask…

May Books

Sorry for the lateness of this monthly book summary. But it’s here never the less, I did try and finish Dune (50 pages remained) for the end of May for the book club I made with my sister but to be honest, it was far too dense to finish in time and I’m thinking that maybe a book club isn’t for me after all. My reasoning is that I like spontaneity where I can get it and deciding that I must read a certain book in order to review it at the end of the month actually makes me less enthused to read it. Maybe I’m weird? Who knows…anyway here are the books I finished in May.

Winter in Sokcho (Hiver à Sokcho) by Elisa Shua Dusapin

This first novel by French-Korean writer Dusapin is a poetic and atmospheric account of an encounter between a young woman who feels trapped in her life, she has her mother who she can’t leave and a boyfriend she no longer loves and a French comic artist. There is a quiet intensity between them and Dusapin cleverly leaves us wondering as this small novel closes ambiguously.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

My final Uni read (cries in Shakespearean) I can’t believe I’ve done it, my degree is finished and I am now a graduate! Ok back to dear old Austen, well I found this one to be quite a bore if I’m perfectly honest. I know its her ‘most mature’ work but I just expected more, not much happened and I found Pride and Prejudice to be far more entertaining even though I have watched the Keira Knightley movie 100 times and know exactly how the story goes. I am hoping that my next Austen read (I’m thinking Emma) will be a much more enjoyable affair.

Find Me by André Aciman

Oh, I don’t really know where to start with this one. Find Me as a sequel to Call Me By Your Name is such a disappointment. I absolutely loved the relationship between Elio and Oliver and for it to not really even feature in this book until right at the end was quite the letdown. To be honest, I couldn’t really care less about Elio’s father and his weird encounter with a random woman, and that’s what most of the book was taken up with!

April Books

April was a month of solid reading, and I made a nice dent in my Quarantine TBR. This post is coming rather late as I was busy finishing my final essay for uni this month! Yes, that’s right I am done, fini, finito, 끝났다!

As we are all stuck inside and I am trying to be more considered with my purchases, most of these books have been borrowed from my local library via the Libby app. I think even after we are released from quarantine I am going to be more reserved when it comes to buying books.

The Three-Body Problem (三体) by Liu Cixin

Did I devour this book in 3 days? Yes, I did. Was it epic? Oh yes! I thoroughly enjoyed it and I can’t wait to get to the next book in the trilogy. As I stated in my Quarantine Reading List post I am already a fan of Cixin’s work from reading many of his short stories but this book is just sensational and I really enjoyed how the mystery slowly unravelled and how Chinese history in the form of the Cultural Revolution blended into the narrative to great effect. If you love Science Fiction you must read this book!

The Turkish Embassy Letters by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

A Uni book from earlier in the year, I decided to finish it so that I can declutter it as I am like the rest of the world using this prolonged period of time at home to sort through my possessions. I thought it was an ok read, and naturally, the most interesting parts were when Montagu was exploring Constantinople, but that in itself is problematic. Orientalism and colonialism is a tough subject to broach and as Montagu was a privileged white woman seeking out the ‘exoticness’ of the Ottoman Empire and its social customs it’s also an important subject to assess to educate yourself on. If you're interested in historic travel writing it might be worth reading but I can’t say I would have read this if I didn’t have to.

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Butlers, banter and life lessons.

Ishiguro's story of Stevens a pretentious but well-meaning Butler is a touching story of memory and regret that perhaps can inspire us the reader to seize the moment. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

This is the first Young Adult book that I have read in a while (except Harry Potter I guess) and I must admit that I only read it because I heard that Netflix is making a TV series out of the trilogy that this first book belongs to and a companion duology called Six of Crows. I found it to be quite a fun read but quite obviously formulaic but I have heard that most people think Six of Crows is better, so I’ll read the rest of this series and then move onto that one.

Pride and Prejudice by William Shakespeare

Just kidding Pride and Prejudice is obviously by Jane Austen but one can’t help but notice the similarities between this novel and Much ado About Nothing. Elizabeth and Darcy are Beatrice and Benedict, Jane and Bingley are Hero and Claudio and then that blasted Wickham has to be no other than Don Jon.

Anyway back to my review, this was my penultimate uni read and my first Austen book and I liked it very much. Austen is renowned for her wit and I found myself quite often literally laughing out loud. Pride and Prejudice is obviously the quintessential romance novel and I found Darcy in all his socially awkward glory to be rather endearing and thoroughly relatable.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

What a wonderful novella. To Be Taught, If Fortunate follows four astronauts as they explore four different planets, in this future humanity, knows it is not alone in the universe and through this mission, Chambers presents weird and wonderful alien organisms to us. Another fascinating facet of this story is that humans have a technology that can edit their genes to make them less fragile in the face of new alien environments. This is also a quick and easy read and you could quite easily finish it in one sitting.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I must admit that I thought I would like this book more than I actually did, of course, it was a good read, I just didn’t love it. And for that reason, I don’t think I will read Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There unless someone can convince me it is far superior to the first book.

Space Bunnies Book Club - April & May - Dune

Me and my sister Charlotte have decided to launch a new book club. It’s called Space Bunnies and will be a Science Fiction and Fantasy orientated Book Club

Our first book club read will be Dune by Frank Herbert. I chose Dune this month because it’s been on my bookshelf for years and all those Dune images for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation have finally made me grab it off the shelf!!!! Dune was also part of my Quarantine Reading List.

As we are already half way through April and this book is kind of massive we will be reading it until the end of May.

Feel free to join the club on any of these platforms:

Goodreads

Instagram

Facebook

We look forward to you joining the club!

So all thats left to do is buckle up and get ready to head to Arrakis!