[books 2009] More misc
Sep. 13th, 2009 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro50. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
Despite having several elements that should be right up my street (set in New York in 1909, clues involving the building of the Manhattan Bridge and houses with secret passages in them), this is nowhere near as good as the parts I caught when it was Book at Bedtime on Radio 4. The element that it's sold on, that Sigmund Freud on his one trip to the US gets sucked into a mystery, meant that it was full of psychobabble bullshit & woman-hating, and the solution did not make sense.
Go read (or re-read) Caleb Carr's The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness to see how it's done right instead.
51. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
This month's bibliogoth selection.
I've read this before, but not since the early 90s. An odd combination of some really beautiful prose & a whole lot of metaphors that make no sense at all. Interesting on the subject of hypocrisy surrounding Prohibition, and the aftermath of WWI.
Despite the annoying bits, I'm more rather than less inclined to have a look at his other stuff some day.
Despite having several elements that should be right up my street (set in New York in 1909, clues involving the building of the Manhattan Bridge and houses with secret passages in them), this is nowhere near as good as the parts I caught when it was Book at Bedtime on Radio 4. The element that it's sold on, that Sigmund Freud on his one trip to the US gets sucked into a mystery, meant that it was full of psychobabble bullshit & woman-hating, and the solution did not make sense.
Go read (or re-read) Caleb Carr's The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness to see how it's done right instead.
51. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
This month's bibliogoth selection.
I've read this before, but not since the early 90s. An odd combination of some really beautiful prose & a whole lot of metaphors that make no sense at all. Interesting on the subject of hypocrisy surrounding Prohibition, and the aftermath of WWI.
Despite the annoying bits, I'm more rather than less inclined to have a look at his other stuff some day.
