Lolita

I read this as a teenager but was way more disturbed reading it in my late 30's.  Humbert Humbert's obsession with a twelve-year-old girl is very unsettling.  After marrying and driving the mother to her death, the professor has a cross country trip with her daughter Lolita.  I almost quit this book, put it aside, and read the rest later.  Humbert has to be one of literature's most unreliable narrators.  He thinks that Lolita is seducing him. However, are two clear truths that come out later when she complains about the rape, and later when she says as an adult that he wrecked her life. Truman Capote (who was by the way very talented) said that Nabokov's only good book was Lolita.  I'm reading another so I know he was wrong.  I've heard Truman Capote put down other writers.  He strikes me as a very jealous man especially when it came to his friend Harper Lee.  Anyway, the Kubrick movie was ok.    If you want a happy read this definitely isn't it.  

Shiver

I read this horror comic collection in two days.  I found it really involving and actually liked it better than Junji Ito's books Gyo and Tomie.  I thought he mastered the short story.  I thought the short story here Painter was the best story in Tomie.  It was originally his first for the Tomie comic. I liked the stories about the grotesque model.  I was also impressed with The Long Dream which was a piece on a patient who experiences dreams that expand a length of time and eventually it takes a toll on his physical appearance.  I can't wait to read Ito's other short story collection Smashed. 

The Owl Service

I watched the Gillian Hills tv movie of this which was an awesome adaptation.  This book follows the myth of  Bloeuwedd.  It deals with three teenagers: the housekeeper's son Gwyn, Alison, and her stepbrother Roger.  It begins with a girl finding some plates of owls in the attic.  It also deals with the housekeeper's mother's past.  Alison starts to have a secret friendship with Gwyn.  Garner likes to deal with myths in his books.  I read another one of his.  I think Alan Garner is talented in mixing new fiction and mythology. I'm excited to read another one of his books in the future.

Raise the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour: An introduction

I've now officially read everything that Salinger wrote.  Franny and Zooey is more acclaimed but I liked this one more.  This is another book about the Glass family.  I like the first part more as we learn about the Glass' radio program "It's a Wise Child" which was also discussed in Franny and Zooey.  They were precocious prodigy kids.  The main part though is about Seymour leaving his bride at the altar and the awkward interaction that his brother Buddy has with the furious guests there.  The second part "Seymour" is about his suicide and other things.  It's mostly ramblings.  I enjoyed the first part of the book more.