Some parts were really good, but I had trouble feeling any sort of attachment to half of the characters - Oscar Wao included (and possibly the worst, for me).
Aha. That could be a problem, yes... what's it about?
Um. Well, OW is a huge nerd. He's really overweight, pretty intelligent and he likes to write scifi/fantasy. He doesn't fit in and has problems, particularly with being repeatedly smitten with unrequited love. His mother is a nut for her own reasons, and doesn't raise her children well, so there is that angle of angst.
It starts out with him being a young (child and pre-teen) cutie, who girls/women think will be a heart throb. As you can guess, that doesn't happen. He gets hurt by a chick and then apparently gets depressed enough to get super fat. Lots of worries about girls and virginity. And he's the guy who is the "friend" of the hot girls. There is so much of this, and lots of talk about school/college. I couldn't stand almost anything about the guy (just like I didn't like Confederacy of Dunces), so when things got more interesting in the end, I was very "meh." Too little too late.
The only sections I liked were those about his family's history in Dominican Republic, primarily those about his mother. She goes through quite a bit, mostly because she has huge breasts and a nice ass (I am not kidding - both are mentioned quite frequently). There is hurt and pain and history repeats itself, but since I couldn't care much for the main character, I didn't care much when the story tied itself up in the end. I'd like to know what anyone else thinks. I may be selling it short.
It "got" me too in the sense of surprising me, but I'm generally not a fan of that. 
I don't usually like it when seemingly established narrative gets overturned like that - it's one thing to leave out details until the very end that make you see everything that came before in a very different light (like in Never Let Me Go to some extent), but quite another to decide that what happened before didn't even happen.
I don't usually like it when seemingly established narrative gets overturned like that - it's one thing to leave out details until the very end that make you see everything that came before in a very different light (like in Never Let Me Go to some extent), but quite another to decide that what happened before didn't even happen. Oh, see, I liked that. I don't always, but I thought he did particularly well with Atonement. I'm sure it just depends on personality and mood at the time.
I suppose I should read those.
I certainly recommend them. Although what with your personal situation, you might perhaps be more interested in Zadie Smith's other book that I read recently, On Beauty, which has a lot about relations between Brits and Americans and their differences in culture. In White Teeth it's more about the various immigrant communities in Britain (mostly Jamaican/West Indian and Pakistani).
In White Teeth it's more about the various immigrant communities in Britain (mostly Jamaican/West Indian and Pakistani). Both sound interesting.
Time's Top Ten Novels of the 2000s
- 26/02/2012 12:13:02 PM
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Odd list. Very spec-fic oriented, but even then odd.
- 26/02/2012 12:42:41 PM
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I thought so too.
- 26/02/2012 12:50:44 PM
734 Views
Clearly it must be true, then.
- 26/02/2012 01:02:00 PM
906 Views
- 26/02/2012 01:02:00 PM
906 Views
Because we know everything?
- 28/02/2012 02:25:51 PM
685 Views
Oh Gawd, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell?
- 27/02/2012 04:59:09 PM
688 Views
Really?
- 27/02/2012 05:02:59 PM
621 Views
It starts out splendidly and keeps it up quite long, just not quite long enough.
- 28/02/2012 06:29:17 PM
587 Views
It is quite boring in the beginning. And yet it has this strange appeal....
- 28/02/2012 10:44:38 PM
583 Views