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Crime and Punishment: Book Review

I just finished reading Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. For reference, I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, which is apparently the most accurate translation. It replicates the rough syntactic structure of the original Russian text that other translations often try to smooth over for the sake of readability, and they also apparently selected vocabulary and turns of phrases that existed in English predating the original release of the book in Russian in 1866. The result is a fairly dense and very raw read, but one that is also very engaging, if you are willing to give it a chance. You have to push through paragraphs that last four pages, perhaps even longer, and infamously long rants from characters—but I actually got used to it rather quickly, and by the end, it was like reading anything else. This novel, rather famously, involves a man (Raskolnikov) who believes he is justified in killing a corrupt pawnbroker with an axe, on the judgement that she is an active dr...
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The Devil All the Time: Book Review

I just finished reading The Devil All the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock. This is my second book by this author, having read Knockemstiff, which is a short story collection. All of his books fall firmly within the southern gothic tradition, with a gritty, stripped back prose used to tell the various stories of what are essentially villainous characters. These people have no self control, no compunction, and they all represent the worst of humanity. Just like the short story collection, this novel puts it all on display: we see everything from pedophilia to serial killers to necrophilia to animal sacrifice and worse. Pollock sits you down in the filth and makes you nestle in it. If that's your thing, then this might be worth checking out. Experience I thought for a moment about what I wanted to write in this review because I did not think I had all that much to say in a traditional sense. The characters are not the most interesting or deep. They are described easily in the beginning, a...
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Rage: Book Review

I just finished reading Rage, by Richard Bachman. This is an early novel by Stephen King, and it is undoubtedly one of his more controversial novels, even for King himself, as he has allowed it to fall out of print. According to wikipedia, five incidents involving students going to school with guns have been inspired by this book. People were not killed in every incident, but in some they were. The book was written in 1977, and the inspired shootings and attempts didn't start to happen until a decade later. All the same, there were five. As you can guess, the book is about Charlie Decker, a High School student who takes his class hostage with a gun, after killing his teacher. The novel explores his daddy issues, his problems with authority, and the general issues that teenagers face regarding sexuality in that time. Controversy On its face, the book comes off as remarkably poor taste to the average person (I guess?). I can only guess, because my second (unpublished) novel was also ...
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Stone of Farewell: Book Review

I just finished the Stone of Farewell, which is the middle book syndrome of the four book trilogy, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, by Tad Williams. This book picks up right where The Dragonbone Chair left off, and like the previous entry, it methodically moves forward, following the various characters as they trek to their new destination. We have Simon in the north, with the trouble that Binabik is facing. We have Josua and his ragtag people now fleeing in the wake of the events of the last book. We have Miriamele, who is, in turn, chased by Isgrimnur, traveling south on a fruitless mission. And we have Maegwin, who is a headstrong woman now leading a defeated people after the first book. There are other characters, as well, who are more sidelined, but these are the core of the novel. All in all, I think this book was quite rough. It was a serious step down from book one. This does not mean there aren't good aspects to the book, but from a storytelling perspective, the way the story co...
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The Long Walk: Book Review

I just finished reading The Long Walk by the obscure writer Richard Bachman. This is my first novel by the writer. It is also apparently his first novel, though it is not his first published one. He wrote it when he was a freshman in college, and I found the project to be especially impressive given this background. The basic premise of this book is very simple: there is a totalitarian society that has replaced the American government, and it now hosts what is called "The Long Walk," which is a yearly event where one hundred young men compete to win a prize. However, the execution is far more straightforward, but also more brutal, than other dystopian fiction like the Hunger Games. In this game, they have to keep up a pace of 4 miles per hour. If they fall below this pace, they receive a warning; after three warnings, they are then shot and killed. The last one walking is then declared the winner. It is from this decidedly simple premise that a terrifying and brutal story fol...
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The Dragonbone Chair: Book Review

I just finished reading The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. This is the first book in his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. As described by Mike's Books Reviews, this series is about what happens after happily ever after. King John Prester is a great King that is loved by all. Legends are being sung about his exploits, when he rose to power. But now, he is old and dying, and he has two sons that do not love one another. One is destined to take the throne, while the other is suspected of wanting it for himself. But matters are even more terrifying to behold than that, as an ancient evil seems to be awakening in the north, and humanity is woefully unprepared for what is to come. Amidst all of these machinations is Simon, a lowborn scullion, who is a bare fourteen years of age. He is always lost in his head, fantasizing about romantic adventures, and finding excuses to escape this or that task at hand. But, as you can imagine, he is eventually swept up in an adventure of his own tha...
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My Dark Vanessa: Book Review

I just finished reading My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. This book is about a fifteen year old girl who goes to a boarding school and is groomed into a relationship with a teacher. The story follows two timelines, one in the past, where you see her as a kid being drawn in slowly by the actions of her teacher, and then the present day, where you see her as a thirty-two year-old woman being forced to come to grips with her past. Was the relationship as she had made it out to be, or was there something else buried underneath that she needs to grapple with? This is a highly psychological novel, and it explores the mentality of victims of SA, especially ones who were groomed from a young age. I think I can provide a different perspective from some of the reviews that I have seen, because I have not read the book that this one is consistently compared to: Lolita by Vladimir Nabikov. I will eventually, after having read this, but as of writing this review, I have no knowledge of tha...
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