I don't have a lot to say about The Moviegoer. I liked Percy's writing and didn't mind the meandering non-plot of things, but I guess I'm not adept at understanding human subtlety because I'm not sure what happened between Binx and his aunt at the end, or how I was supposed to feel about it?
This was an interesting book to read coming off The Day of the Locust, another book that remains first and foremost a character study until a rather tumultuous climax near the end. Both books center on men and their relationship to women, but the difference between them is that The Moviegoer manages to avoid the crudest, most uninspired stereotypes. Arguably it turns around and simply engages in slightly more nuanced takes on other, less overtly hostile stereotypes (the Overbearing Family Matriarch, the Mentally Unstable Manic Pixie Dream Girl), but time for a controversial opinion: if you're a competent writer, and can create an interesting/memorable/unique character nonetheless founded in a trope or stereotype, I'll let you off the hook. The Moviegoer's Kate is (moderately) interesting; The Day of the Locust's Faye is not.
Still, I didn't connect to it the same way that other people, for example Book Slut, got from it, so . . . meh.
What is more interesting for me is the controversy surrounding The Moviegoer's National Book Award. Nothing like good ol' fashioned awards drama!
I suppose now is as good a time as any to look more closely at my Classics Club / TIME Top 100 list!
Last I posted this, I had finished 79 books. As of today, I'm at 96, including the tweaks and changes I've made over the years.
Books Left to Go
1. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser (I might substitute Sister Carrie in for this one, since it's available for free on Amazon Kindle.)
2. The Berlin Stories, Christopher Isherwood (I just can't find this book anywhere, and I've already seen Cabaret, so maybe I should take this off the list and include something else instead?)
3. The Man Who Loved Children, Christina Stead (I'm slowly reading an ebook version right now, and I'm not impressed, but Adam over at Memento Mori really loved this book and I trust his taste, so . . . I'm conflicted!)
4. Play it As it Lays, Joan Didion (This one is also impossible to find, it seems!)
5. Native Son, Richard Wright (I have no excuse for this one. None.)
The Whole List
(with links to reviews when possible!)
4. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
6. Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara
7. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
8. The Assistant, Bernard Malamud
9. At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien
10. Atonement, Ian McEwan
11. Beloved, Toni Morrison
12. The Berlin Stories, Christopher Isherwood
14. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
15. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
16. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
17. The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
20. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
18 / 20
23. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
24. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
25. Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Patton
28. A Death in the Family, James Agee
37. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
38. Please Look After Mother, Shin Kyung-sook
39. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
40. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
20 / 20
42. Native Speaker, Lee Chang-rae
43. The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
48. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
49. Light in August, William Faulkner
50. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
51. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
52. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
53. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
54. Kokoro, Soseki Natsumi
55. Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
56. The Man Who Loved Children, Christina Stead
58. Money, Martin Amis
19 / 20
62. Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
63. Native Son, Richard Wright
65. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
66. 1984, George Orwell
67. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
68. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
69. The Painted Bird, Jerzy Kosinski
72. Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion
77. Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
18 / 20
82. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
83. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
86. Your Republic is Calling You, Kim Young-ha
87. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, John le Carre
88. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
89. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
90. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
91. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
92. Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
95. Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
96. Villa Incognito, Tom Robbins
97. Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
95 / 100
So, there you have it! Do you have any suggestions when it comes for the books I'm thinking about replacing? A Tale for the Time Being is definitely under consideration, but other than that, I'm not sure. What should I add to my list?
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