Bertbarber鈥檚 Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2024

13,615

pages read

books read

Bertbarber

Shortest Book

114

pages

Longest Book

653

pages

Average book length in 2024

332

pages

Most Shelved

3,074,519

people also shelved

Least Shelved

1,608

people also shelved

Bertbarber鈥檚 average rating for 2024

4.0

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zaf贸n

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

4.26 average

Bertbarber鈥檚 first review of the year

liked it

The story, insofar as you can call it a story, is of a famous pianist visiting a town to perform, and his subsequent interactions with several of its inhabitants up until that performance. In writing it Ishiguro has pretty effectively managed to turn the narrative into a dream. As in a dream it comprises random discontinuity between vague, disparate scenes with sudden changes in time and place, both stretching and compressing chronology in all so The story, insofar as you can call it a story, is of a famous pianist visiting a town to perform, and his subsequent interactions with several of its inhabitants up until that performance. In writing it Ishiguro has pretty effectively managed to turn the narrative into a dream. As in a dream it comprises random discontinuity between vague, disparate scenes with sudden changes in time and place, both stretching and compressing chronology in all sorts of ways, while also featuring constant fleeting appearances of new characters. The effect of all this is a looming sense of anxiety, as nothing ever quite happens like it should, and far from the plot being resolved, it often feels like it's being wrapped in more and more layers of confusion. Places loop back on themselves after long journeys; time flits about with little regard to events, and characters pop up on a whim, then are ignored, only to come back later on in the text acting as if no time has passed at all.
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Where the dream analogy fails for me, and where I struggled, is in its unrelenting peripheral detail describing and speculating as to each character鈥檚 motives, and possible courses of action. This is anything but dream-like, and I struggled to remain engaged with it. Characters, like a chain of dominos, each one leading to the next, all adding complexity and heightening the stress of the main protagonist and also, the reader. The continuous use of the conditional tense is used to describe all this (would, could, may, etc) helping reduce any feeling of hard 鈥榬eality鈥� in the book; it鈥檚 all on shifting sands. I imagine it鈥檚 tied in with the opportunities and possible futures of the main characters, and how they deal with the loss and rejection of these various 鈥榳hat ifs,鈥� from parents and partners, and the community.
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The younger pianist is very much another version of the main protagonist from a different time, both preoccupied with their parents approval, and Brodsky the conductor is on a similar painful journey of having to prove his worth to his partner. Everyone is trying to find who and what they are, and more or less failing. This recurring theme uses music and art as the civic and personal ideal to aspire to and to be judged by. All share in this success or failure, while at the same time everyone seems both lost and defined by it, with little personal agency; again like in a dream.
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The protagonist Ryder is somewhat outside of this 鈥榮ociety鈥� and unsure what to make of it; moving through it he is both charmed and repulsed, controlled and repelled, happy but mostly confused and anxious. I'm not sure what it all means, or if any meaning was intended; various ideas could fit but to a large degree it is unclear. Maybe that was the point Ishguro was making; nothing is really known or clear in life. Maybe the struggle the main characters display to get 鈥榠nto their lives鈥� is meant to be felt in the same way the reader struggles as they try to 鈥榝it鈥� into the book. Life is hard and this book displays that sentiment very well. Ishiguro apparently has suggested it鈥檚 about how we take opportunities in life, not unlike the better known Remains of the Day and I would agree with that.
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As others has said, if you are a bit bored with the mainstream literature on offer and want a challenge to make you think about the limits of writing, then this is an interesting and unique read. If it gets heavy, just skim read some of the lengthier passages! Whether it鈥檚 really good, or just a famous author鈥檚 conceit is anyone鈥檚 guess, and as usual, depends on who you ask. ...more

叠贰搁罢叠础搁叠贰搁鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John Le Carr茅

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

it was amazing

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

it was amazing

it was amazing

The Promise of Happiness by Justin Cartwright

it was amazing

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

If on a Winter鈥檚 Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

it was amazing

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

Bertbarber鈥檚 last review of the year

really liked it

The Inimitable Jeeves
By P G Wodehouse
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Another classic from Wodehouse; this time more in the style of separate short loosely linked stories, usually involving the numerous failed love affairs of Wooster鈥檚 friend Bingo Little, or the formidable Aunt Agatha. Top farce and wonderful turn of phrase in his classic inimitable style.

The genial host came tumbling downstairs like the delivery of a ton of coals.
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By great good luck I have found the very wife The Inimitable Jeeves
By P G Wodehouse
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Another classic from Wodehouse; this time more in the style of separate short loosely linked stories, usually involving the numerous failed love affairs of Wooster鈥檚 friend Bingo Little, or the formidable Aunt Agatha. Top farce and wonderful turn of phrase in his classic inimitable style.

The genial host came tumbling downstairs like the delivery of a ton of coals.
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By great good luck I have found the very wife for you. She is strong, self reliant, and sensible, and will counterbalance the deficiencies and weaknesses of your character.
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She had a penetrating sort of laugh. Rather like a train going into a tunnel.
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He had a pair of shaggy eyebrows, which gave his eyes a piercing look, which was not at all the sort of thing a fellow wanted to encounter on an empty stomach.
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鈥楾he duke is off his rocker, what?鈥�
鈥楾here is no doubt that cerebral excitement does, as you suggest, exist in no small degree.鈥�
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Until I have had my early cup of tea and have brooded on life for a bit absolutely undisturbed, I鈥檓 not much of a lad for the merry chitchat.
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鈥楾he gentleman has arrived sir. He called to see you earlier in the day.鈥�
鈥楪ood Lord, Jeeves! You don鈥檛 mean to say the day starts earlier than this?鈥�
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鈥極h, I don鈥檛 know, you know, don鈥檛 you know!鈥� I said.
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It鈥檚 this sort of thing that ages a chappie, and makes his youthful joie de vivre go a bit groggy at the knees.
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The small boy鈥檚 eyes hit me like a bullet. It was one of those cold, clammy, accusing sort of eyes 鈥� the kind that makes you reach up to see if your tie is straight.
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Jeeves poured silently in.
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He started to get pink in the ears, and then in the nose, and then in the cheeks, till in about a quarter of a minute, he looked pretty much like an explosion in a tomato cannery on a sunset evening.
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鈥榃hat鈥檚 that?鈥� barked old Bloomingfield. 鈥楧o you understand that this is my son?鈥�
鈥榊es, I do,鈥� said Cyril. 鈥楢nd you both have my sympathy.鈥�
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I had expected to see more traces of last night鈥檚 battle鈥� a bit of the overwrought soul and the quivering ganglions, if you know what I mean.
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Small, shrivelled chap. Looks like a haddock with lung trouble.
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鈥業 beg your pardon, Sir?鈥�
鈥楧on鈥檛 call me Sir. Call me Comrade. Do you know what you are my lad? You鈥檙e an obsolete relic of an exploded feudal system.
鈥榁ery good, sir.鈥�
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Old Bittlesham quivered from head to foot like a poleaxed blancmange.
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鈥楩ailed to win! Why, he was so far behind that he nearly came in first in the next race.鈥�
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鈥楯ust as you say, sir. There is a letter on the tray, sir.鈥�
鈥楤y Jove, Jeeves, that was practically poetry. Rhymed, did you notice?鈥�
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The voice of young Bingo polluted the air. The blighter had apparently risen with the lark. 鈥楲eave me,鈥� I said. 鈥業 can鈥檛 see anybody until I鈥檝e had my tea.鈥�
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鈥楤it of a snob, what?鈥�
鈥楬e is somewhat acutely alive to the existence of class distinctions, sir.鈥�
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His face got so red, that with his white collar, and the fact that the wind had turned his nose blue, he looked more like a French flag than anything else.
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The Nibs were whispering in a pleased manner to each other, the Lower Middles were sitting up very straight, and the Tough Eggs whiled away the time by cracking nuts, and exchanging low, rustic wheezes.
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He rang me up just after I鈥檇 got the bacon and eggs into my system 鈥� the one moment of the day, in short, when a chappie wishes to muse on life absolutely undisturbed.
...more

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