January's Notable Reads

by perpetualflaneur

This gem of a book though short speaks of and in depths about life, death, and living. I cannot for the love of Krishnamurti do this book justice by explaining the contents and entirety of this work. To understand the book, you must experience it for yourself. This has easily become a staple in my reading needs, adding to my list of go-to books. I know I’ll be rereading this work and many more of his writings.

Yes, I am Gaiman virgin. With the exception of watching Stardust and Coraline (but then, films do not really count for me at all; I treat them as different entities budding from the same source), I have never– ever — read any of his works until I came across Neverwhere. The worlds offered in there were both vivid and exhilarating, no doubt.  What I enjoyed most was the storytelling and the underlying themes present in the novel. So, yes, I know I’ll be reading more of his works from now on.

It’s short, realistic, and tragic, yet it makes the reader question the entire city (in which the story took place) and its residents, a novella to my liking.  It took me a year to finally read this after purchasing it from a bookstore, and I wonder why I didn’t read it any sooner. But as I learned, it is never too late to read those old books you have on your shelves!

Admittedly, this is my second novel from Nabokov, after his Lolita. I truly enjoyed his writing and the zeal he has in ‘executing’ it, so to speak. This is another work that I’ll be thinking about even after I’ve read. It stays with you because you’ll keep on asking “is it or isn’t it” or “did they or didn’t they.” It’s not so much as the crime committed by the protagonist that’ll make you wonder, but the way everything is or was and the relationships each of the characters have with one another that’ll really feed your curiosity. Everything seems so strange, but if you think about it long enough, you’ll realize that it’s in fact the world that we live in.