What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal], by Zoe Heller

Lucy read this in French Milk, which reminded me that I wanted to see the movie based on it. So I got both out from the library.

I haven't watched the film yet, but the book was a quick and enjoyable read. I considered calling it "chick lit with a brain", but that's trivializing it, to say the least.

On the surface, it's about a married middle-aged teacher's affair with her teenage student. Below that, it's about the narrator, an older teacher who lives alone with her cat. She is a true spinster, uptight and severely lonely. Since she never has more than one friend at a time, she gets a bit obsessive.

While it can be a bit dark and chilling, with an uncertain conclusion, it didn't have any lasting impact, and while it was easy to read, it was never hard to put down. I still want to put it somewhere between the psychological thrillers of Ian McEwan and the light British girly fare of Helen Fielding.

Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

I usually request a book in advance from the library, but in this case, I was browsing the shelves in hope of finding something and thought I'd give this book a shot.

Azar Nafisi is an academic, not a creative writer, and it shows in this memoir. It's supposed to be about a secret class she taught at home in Iran, but it's also about her own life (studying in America, then getting married and returning to Tehran) and the struggles she had teaching American literature in Islamic Iran. Often it veers into academic dissertations on the authors she teaches, like Nabokov and Fitzgerald. I found this boring, especially since I've never read Nabokov, and I preferred the stories of the injustices against Iranians. It was quite a timely read too, considering the protests happening in Iran now. I still think about her recountings of women getting reprimanded for eating apples too seductively, or getting beaten because some of their hair was showing and a man reported them because that turned him on. How is that their fault? It's so sexist there.

So basically, she's not very good at writing dialogue and all the girls in her class blurred together for me, and my eyes glazed over when she went into a treatise on Austen, but reading about what is happening in Iran made the book worthwhile.

Everything and More, by Geoff Nicholson

Oh dear. I posted this picture to a draft 8 days ago and have only just gotten around to writing about it. Why did I drag my heels so long? I did like the book.

I found this copy abandoned in the lobby of my work. I'd read Bleeding London, by the same author, a couple of years ago, so was pleased to see this. (Coincidentally, I just found Bleeding London in Kelly's bookcase. According to him I took it on our trip to Europe 2 years ago. Too bad it wasn't my copy.)

Nicholson is described as a satirist, quirky, and someone who writes black humour, all of which can be seen in this book about life in a massive London department store, sort of a Harrod's++. Everything and More moves quickly and smartly. I found it very amusing. I'll be looking up more of Nicholson's work.

French Milk, by Lucy Knisley

Brie recommended this book to me, and she was quite right in thinking I'd like it. It's like a diary in graphic novel form, with some photographs thrown in for mixed-media fun. The diary is of a 6-week trip the author took to Paris with her mother, and one of her primary interests is the food, detailing what everyone had at every meal. I loved hearing about the heavy winter bistro meals, and the picnic suppers from the markets. My main problem was that she called the macarons she got at Pierre Herme and Laduree 'cookies'. Cookies?! Even Chuck Bass can't get their name right.

She also documented every book she read, and one of them was Perfume, one of my last reviews. She didn't mention whether or not she liked it, but when the movie based on it happened to be playing (in V.O., version originale, she noted), she went to see it. She seemed to think it was just okay, but her friend despised it.

Another book by someone younger than me. Where's my book deal? I don't actually have an idea yet, I just want one.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

I loved this book as much as I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. They're both Pulitzer-winners with a comics theme, so I guess that's the kind of book I like. With an epigraph from Fantastic Four and an extended Watchmen metaphor in the last few pages, I'm sure comic book fans (like my fiance Kelly, whose books are in the picture above) will enjoy it also. 

This book covers the lives of Oscar, an obese Dominican "ghetto nerd", and his entire family, from his sister and mother back to his grandparents, and the fuku (curse) that affects them all. Another shadow covering them is that of Trujillo, the brutal Dominican dictator whom I'm afraid I never heard of before reading this book. I should read more history. 

The narrator speaks in a seamless blend of Lord of the Rings references, Spanish phrases, and curse words, with a healthy dose of David Foster Wallace-esque footnotes. The story jumps decades and from New Jersey to the Dominican Republic. It's just an excellent read. 

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind

I completely forgot to write about this book, probably because I was subconsciously intimidated to write about it. It was recommended to me by a co-worker, one of my maybe two regular readers (Hi Alex!), and unlike me, he seems to have actually analyzed it. I tend to be a surface reader, it has to be a really special book for me to think about themes and meanings and the like.

Also, a boy tapped me on the Skytrain and started talking to me about the book. He was cute too. I was like, "Why didn't this happen when I was single?"

Anyway, this book is kind of crazy. A man with no scent of his own but the most powerful nose ever, with sort of a God complex. Interested in no one and nothing but himself and scents. If you think it's weird when he chooses to live in a cave, wait til you get to the utterly surprising ending.

I fell asleep right after finishing this book and had bloody dreams.

The Manticore, by Robertson Davies

This is the second book in the Deptford Trilogy, which I mentioned in my last post, but it's not exactly a sequel. It does pick up right where Fifth Business left off, but this time the main character is someone who was barely mentioned in the first book. 

Almost the whole story is about this man's Jungian analysis in Zurich. David is the son of a main character from the first book, and we go over some plot from Fifth Business, but from his point of view. I thought it sounded dull at first, but I got pretty into it. 

At the very end, David's analysis ends and he meets up with a few characters from the first book, which I didn't love. I think a world-famous magician and a stunningly ugly but stylish 'ogress' are jarring changes from Canadian lawyers and schoolmasters. The third book is supposed to be all about the magician, so I'm going to work on my other library books (4 holds in at once, eek!) before picking it up.