A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (4 stars)

Another pulitzer prize winner, this one awarded in 1981 posthumously after the author's suicide in 1969. It is a very difficult book to describe, and has characters unlike any I can remember from other books. Ignatius is fat, extremely lazy, overly educated, and in an almost constant state of moral outrage. He rails against everything, popular movies are one of his favourite targets, prompting screaming in theatres:

What degenerate produced this abortion?

Although Ignatius was an amazing character, my favourite was Burma Jones. Jones gives Lana Lee a tough time about suspicious packages she claims are for orphans, and the dismal state of Lee's bar the Night of Joy:

The only thing you ever be givin the orphan is siphlus.

I feel sorry for them po peoples comin in here thinkin they gonna have theirself some fun, probly gettin knockout drop in they drink, catchin the clap off the ice cube.

This book made me laugh out loud quite a few times, and produced plenty of smiles. It really is an amazing piece of work.

Quite a number of attempts have been made to convert the book into a movie, but with no results. Ignatius is such a formidable character I could see how representing him in a movie would be difficult, although I think Will Ferrell would have had a pretty good crack at it.

4 stars.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (2 stars)

This book is solidly cemented as an absolute classic. It essentially inspired a whole Beatnik generation, of which Kerouac claims naming rights. It has countless accolades and appears on literature lists like Time's 100 best English-language novels 1923-2005. Legend has it that Kerouac wrote it as a single paragraph on eight sheets of paper taped together to make a 120 foot scroll. This I can believe because the book feels exactly like a really long stream of consciousness blurted onto the page:

And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness...

*yawn*. This book was lots of rushing from New York to Denver to LA to San Fran to New York to Denver to San Fran to New York, without any time to really develop characters or get a deep appreciation for anywhere. For all the talk of 'digging', I don't think Sal or Dean ever really 'dug' anything properly, they were always too frantic to get somewhere else. Although some interesting adventures are had, the book is full of a lot of incidental boring stories about the mechanics of travel; hitched a ride to here, caught a bus to there etc.

For its time I imagine the modes of travel, and the free-spirit thinking, were revolutionary so I should cut it some slack. An interesting journey, but not life-changing.

2 stars.

So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger (3 stars)

Not a bad western, although severely lacking in the grit department compared to True Grit. I found Monte Becket really annoying at times, like when Siringo dislocates Becket's hand and breaks his collarbone for no particular reason and Becket just takes it, even sticks with Siringo. Becket had so many opportunities to escape, and yet took none of them. The coolest character in the book is Hood, it is such a shame his tenure is so short.

I have reservations about how practical it is to row standing up.

Despite all this I found the book to be reasonably enjoyable.

3 stars.

March by Geraldine Brooks (4.5 stars)

Brooks uses her imagination to fill in the missing story of Mr. March from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, with amazing results. I really liked this book, it draws on factual accounts from the Civil War to weave together a compelling and tragic story. I found I could visualise much of the landscapes described in the book from my own travels: John Brown and the armory at Harper's Ferry, spanish moss on trees in the south, Georgetown etc. Very deserving winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

4.5 stars.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (2.5 stars)

This book feels like a long, and modernised, biblical parable. It is a good read although does feel a little preachy at times:

No life is a waste...The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

and

Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.

2.5 stars.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano (0 stars)

This may be the worst book I have ever read.

I'm giving it up after 150 pages of the total 577. This book has received rave reviews from many in literary circles and Bolano has been touted as the new Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I don't agree). It has also received plenty of criticism - reviewers on amazon tend to give it either 5 stars or 1-2 stars.

I found the first half to be reasonably enjoyable, despite not much really happening apart from graphic sex. The text is chock full of Latin American literary references, which went totally over my head, I'm sure the literary in-jokes are hilarious, really:

There was Ifigenia cruel and El plano oblicuo and Retratos reales e imaginarios, in addition to the five volumes of Simpatias y diferencias, all by Alfonso Reyes, and Prosas dispersas, by Julio Torri, and a book of stories, Mujeres, by someone called Eduardo Colin whom I'd never heard of, and Li-Po y otros poemas, by Tablada, and...

The second, and longest, section of the book is 396 pages of short commentary, usually under 3 pages, told from the point of view of over 40 different people. This style of writing was ridiculously hard to follow, and incredibly boring, with little time to engage with a character or storyline before being moved to the next narrator.

The author does seem to be a very good writer, and the book feels very 'literary', it just didn't say anything I thought was worth reading. I was intending to read 2666 by Bolano, since it was on the Amazon editor's best books of 2008 list, but I think I'll give it a miss.

0 stars.

A Child Called 'It' by Dave Pelzer (3 stars)

This book is incredibly sad from page 1. The fact that a mother could do the things written in this book to her child is completely horrifying. Compelling reading, but not the sort of story you actually enjoy. I'll be reading the sequels 'The Lost Boy' and 'A Man Named Dave'.

3 stars.