Friday, July 26, 2019

Book 2 - Milkman

I finished reading Milkman by Anna Burns last week. Gosh, we're halfway into 2019 and I only finished 2 books. I don't know if we'll get to 5 books this year :( Milkman is actually not very thick at all, but it wasn't an easy read for me. Not that the subject matter was difficult but the writing which was like a stream of consciousness didn't really draw me in. It's weird that I say that because I know my own stream of consciousness is not very interesting at all. The stream of consciousness of Milkman came from an 18-year old girl who had to deal with a older man taking an interest at her. To add to her problem, she lived in a place with cultural and political issue and this issue infiltrated the daily lives of the people living there. The man preying on her had a "position" in the community and since she didn't have any support system, her life sucked even more. It's not mentioned where the place was, in fact there's no name to identify the characters which perhaps makes it hard to read as well, at least for me. I find that the story can take place anywhere in the world because there are many places in the world with the same situation as hers so I think this is quite relatable. Since the author is from Northern Ireland, it's just accepted that the story took place there. What do I know about the history of Northern Ireland? Almost non-existent. I did watch The Wind That Shakes the Barley, but couldn't remember much about the movie except that the ending was sad.

Milkman won 2018 Man Booker Prize for Fiction but I can't say I enjoyed it much and I'm glad that's done. Taste is very subjective or perhaps I'm not smart enough to enjoy it? Anyway now I'm reading this year Pulitzer prize winner for fiction, The Overstory by Richard Powers. So far so good, I like the writing. Right now it seems to me the book is like a collection of short stories about people with trees as the running theme. I don't know if the people would somehow be connected to each other. The first story that I read ends at a tragic point, but I still find it very interesting. I haven't read a lot but already the book got me thinking about how it is true when we see a tree, we don't think about what's underneath. When we see a tree, we only see half of it. If we think of how deep and far the roots go, it's like another life down there. It is a bit sad that I don't know much about trees, it's like when the writer wrote about a chestnut tree, I have no image of what that tree looks like :( Also sad is that I don't know much about the American states, especially where they are located in relations to each other and the other thing about American story is that when they use inches and feet, I have no idea how long those are. It's kinda annoying having to pause and check this. In general I like how some writers can write in details about something, things like clock, fabrics, fishing, and so on and I really admire them for that but since I don't have much knowledge in them, it feels a bit sad not being able to form images on these topics. It's like when learning a new language, when you don't know many words, you may understand the the overall meaning, but you lose nuances. I guess I just like knowing something in great details and when I don't, it bothers me.

:) eKa @ 10:05:00 PM •