The Fountain Overflows

I love New York Review Book classics (NYRB).  They really know to collect the best literature of the last century.  I read this just based on the label.  It's about a family of musicians.  The talented twins are learning piano from their mother.  Their father is a gambler.  The daughter Cordelia is a violinist but she isn't very good.  She has a teacher who doesn't know any better and has her do concerts.  This book also has a touch of the supernatural. The book is around 400 pages.  I think it could have been edited a bit.  Still, I was impressed.  There were sequels.  I'll get around to them this year and next.  Rebecca West also wrote a nonfiction book I'm curious about Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. 3.5/5  

The Crying of Lot 49

When I was in my early 20's I read a bit of postmodern literature.  I read some John Barth and I read this.  I read The Crying of Lot 49 because it was short.  Back in the days, I used to avoid books that were over 300 pages.  I found them too much of a challenge. My attention would wander. Now I don't have that problem at all.  I remember liking it so I read it fifteen years later.  I still enjoyed it.  It's kind of like a postmodern Alice in Wonderland.  A woman finds out about a secret postal service and it leads her down a rabbit hole.  I enjoyed the band obviously a parody of The Beatles.  I like The Beatles too.  One of these days now that long books don't overwhelm me anymore I got to read Gravity's Rainbow.  I bought it and put it on the bookshelf.  It's just waiting for the read.

The Blind Assassin

People seem to treat The Handmaid's Tale as the only thing that Margaret Atwood ever wrote.  But I liked this and Alias Grace just as much.  This book has a billion stories going on at once.  This is about two sisters Iris and Laura.  After their father's button factory business collapses Iris has to marry a villain Richard.  Before her suicide, Laura wrote a science fiction novel.  At the beginning of The Blind Assassin Iris is picking up an award given to her sister.  Excerpts of that novel are put into this book as well.  One of the reasons for Laura's suicide was her love for a radical named Alex.  Throughout the book many revelations are made about Iris and Laura.  Most of them are involved with Richard who turns out to be even a bigger jerk than the reader initially thought.  This won the Booker Prize. 

The Wild Duck

The Wild Duck is an interesting Ibsen play.  This one is all about the background story.  The main villain of the piece is Werle.  He once had an affair with his employee Gina.  Another employee Ekdal goes to prison while Werle is acquitted.  Feeling bad about it he pays off his son Hjalmar, who marries Gina, with photography lessons.  Then Werle's idealistic son Gregers has this idea that if he tells the truth that everything will be for the better, only setting things in a downward spiral.  Nazimova played Hedvig Gina's daughter in a production.  I would have liked to see that as I'm a fan.  This is one of Ibsen's better plays.