oofym's reviews
120 reviews

A tricky book to rate, but before I get into that I just want to ask: The people and reviewers who thought this was "funny", what the fuck? This was one of the bleakest and least funny stories I've ever read.

Anyway my thoughts:
So where I will give credit to Ottessa on Lapvona is her use of the "Hemmingway" style, which is making the reader feel complex or strong emotions while using the most simple words possible. Am i a fan of the Hemmingway style? No, not really, but i can see why others are.
Also, The pure weirdness of this novel is something to be praised, I mean it really just went for it, and the fact that I could never really figure out what bizarre event would happen next made for an enjoyable read.

Another thing that strikes you off the bat is the uniqueness of the characters and setting. Marek, Jude, Villiam and especially Ina are all so strange and memorable. But this is also a great jumping off point to start getting into my complaints about the book. 

The characters are all very one note, they're caricatures. This irked me quite a bit, I was expecting more complexity and subtlety in the way Ottessa might develop and evolve these characters over the course of the story buy unfortunately there wasn't much of that.
Ottessa fell victim to a writing flaw that I personally don't like, which is essentially: if a character evolves or changes at all, its almost a complete 180 flip rather than a gradual evolution. 

Another complaint I have Is the incredibly aimless feel of the story, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Ottessa was just writing this with no particular plan in mind, it all felt like it was being made up on the spot. The ending feels very sudden and characters change on the fly to suit the stories whims.

Overall though it was a good story, the commentary on suffering, religion and hierarchy was interesting and definitely the most well thought out aspect of the book. Just wish the story itself and the characters felt more intentional and less aimless.

Man, this started so strong and then just gradually wore on me untill It eventually became one of the dullest things I've had to sit through.
This might be the most repetitive short story collection I've read; and that's a shame because the few times M.R James tries to write something unique it's typically pretty good. But my good lord, the monotonous nature of these stories, the repeating elements really wears on you.
Almost every story involves a rich educated man either studying/exploring something or being told a spooky story by a colleague. The story will inevitably feature a church, a stupid "lower class" person and a vaguely human ghost or creature that appears at the end.

The few times M.R James deviates from this structure,the stories are much better, and that's why this gets a 3 instead of anything lower, there were some really enjoyable parts to this.

Here's my ranking of the stories:
●Lost hearts: 4●
●Casting the runes: 3.5●
●Count magnus: 3●
●The mezzotint: 3.5●
●The stalls of barchester cathedral: 2.5●
●Oh whistle and I'll come to you: 3.5●
●The treasure of abbot Thomas: 2.5 ●
●A view from a hill: 3●
●The story of a disappearance and an appearance: 3.5●
●The Ash tree: 3●
●The tractate middoth: 4●
●Martin's close: 3.5●
●Mr Humphreys and his inheritance: 2.5●
●Canon Alberics scrap-book: 3●
●Number 13: 3●
●An episode of cathedral history: 2.5●
●A warning to the curious: 3●

I think Jane Austen just might not really be for me, don't get me wrong I enjoyed this story (And Emma) but I think the more I read of her works the less interested I am in them.

To me the main problem is that the stakes are so incredibly low, there is no fear of death, harm or horrible event, the worst that might happen is a minor social scandal.

The protagonis is (always) a heroine who has strong morals and she inevitably falls in love with and marries the older love interest who seems to be perfect in all ways.

It's a fun story, it's character's are well done and the social commentary is written with finesse. The issue is that I am simply starting to find the lack of "more" boring.

This was definitely a more enjoyable reading experience than your average history book. Some parts of this book, where Mortimer really tries to put you in the time and place he's describing are excellent; easily the funnest parts of the book. However there are also parts where it considerably drags, long lists of the inventory of a person's house, pages of descriptions of furniture and etc.
Apart from that one complaint (And Mortimer having the hugest Literary crush on Geoffrey Chaucer I've ever seen) this was a great and informative read.

I think this quote towards the end really sums up the authors intentions and what you'll get out of reading this:

Really beautiful in the most melancholic way. The dialogue and questions surrounding topics like nihilism, finding meaning in suffering, living for yourself vs living for others; it was all put to paper in a manner that would make Dostoevsky proud.

This was Intricately crafted, poetic and deeply inquisitive towards how we find our own understanding of morality. I'm excited to read more of Kawakami's work. 
This read like a Murakami book without the weird fetishisastion of women.

This was a fun one, but also very tricky to rate. On one hand I have zero criticisms about this story, the prose, characters and themes are all succinctly executed; on the otherhand nothing really stood out to me much either. Which in all fairness; its a very short book so it's going to be hard to leave a lasting impression, I just wish there was a little more mmm- "special sauce".

I enjoyed the dichotomy between men who are completely logical in how they go about things vs men who are more memory/creatively driven.
The story of the chess player being driven to mania through obsession with one task was fun too.

Also: excellent translation by Andrea Bell. The prose was very clear and understandable, it didn't feel choppy at all and flowed smoothly. 

This progressively got worse as it went on, at first I was kind of into it, the tension building and mystery are definitely intriguing and I'll admit it's quite well paced, but as the story goes on the execution of how things are revealed and how the characters act becomes increasingly sloppy.

Also did not appreciate the strong "male gaze" feeling throughout this. I don't normally care about stuff like that, but it was just so obviously written by an old man. Every woman in this book is either a promiscuous cheater, a rude "fat" asshole or a weak little angel that needs a man's protection. You'll find no strong female character's in this.

There were good parts though, like I mentioned before the pacing is pretty consistent and well down and I think the suspense/intrigue building during the first 250 pages is done well enough, but that's it really.

In short, a forgettable bargin bin book.

I am so, so, so conflicted on this book. On one hand I think Tolstoy's writings is intricate and yet still flows smoothly, he's a master of showcasing human sociological behaviour through subtle techniques and he knows how to make realistic and morally complicated characters.

On the other hand, this book put me in a reading slump for about a fortnight, I DNF'd it once and then almost DNF'd it again, and ended up having to listen to the last 300 or so pages as an audio book because physically reading this felt like such a complete waste of my time.

I don't know, maybe I'm just annoyed because this book could have been 500 pages long, maybe I'm sick of reading about rich people from the 1800's who think their lives are profusely interesting, or maybe Tolstoy just needed to hire an editor that wasn't his wife. I'm glad I've read it (Actually eh, not really) but I think I'll stick to the other famous Russian classical authors from now on.

My first foray into Shakespeare. This was fun! I read the oxford edition which was a huge help in terms of understanding the text.

I get why this is well renowned and important to the history of theatre and literature, watching a performance of this back in the day would have been a blast. Definitely something I need to re read in the future though, as I feel like a fair bit went over my head, what I understood I enjoyed however.
I like the mixture of comedy,psychology,poetry and dramatics. It's a fun mix.