October 25, 2004
Soul mountain
There was nothing left in the house to read, so I picked up Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian. Although it won a nobel prize for litterature, I found it a very slow read. It's the wanderings of a man through nature preserves, cultural festivals, love affairs, rural farms, dense cities, bus rides, in search of a metaphorical place. The only trouble is there is no chronological order to the chapters, the characters don't have names, and there is no plot. I give it a 2 out of 10.
October 14, 2004
Middlesex
As a someone whose profession centers on genetic conditions, I found this book very interesting. Middlesex, by Jeffery Eugenides, is the story of a person with alpha1-reductase deficiency - born and raised as a girl, but at puberty develops into a male. All the facts in the book are correct, although the consanguinity angle is overemphasized. The history of the family is well written. It brings up some good ideas about the origin of gender and sexual indentity. Overall a 8 out of 10.