vel veeter – Page 33 – Cannonball Read 17

Louise Glück (1)

Marigold and Rose: A Fiction by Louise Glück

January 1, 2023 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

“Marigold was absorbed in her book; she had gotten as far as the V.” Much like Mr Ramsay in To the Lighthouse Marigold has made far into her book. Unlike Mr Ramsay, Marigold can’t actually read. This is a small book, a short story really, by Louise Glück, who won the Nobel Prize a few years ago, but certainly not for her fiction. I like this little book, but that’s what it is, a little book. Louise Glück’s poems tend to intimate and intense affairs, and I […]

Mary Shelley (1)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

January 1, 2023 by vel veeter 6 Comments

“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.” In what is probably my 20th reading of the novel, I am beginning to wonder what more ideas and meaning I can squeeze from it. One of the nice things about teaching this novel is that students end up liking it in spite of themselves. There’s still some somewhat antiquated language and idiom, and there’s a set of references we need to […]

Madeline Miller (1)

Galatea by Madeleine Miller

January 1, 2023 by vel veeter 1 Comment

“It was almost sweet the way they worried about me.” I recently re-read the Richard Powers book Galatea 2.2 which involves a novelist feeding culture and conversation into an AI protocol and inadvertently trying to shape it into a lost love, while also piling assumption after assumption onto an actual woman for the same purposes, and it struck me, along with this short story by Circe and The Song of Achilles author Madeleine Miller, how important the naming of the stories plays into the understanding of it. For both […]

Chinelo Okparanta (1)

Harry Sylvester Bird by Chinelo Okparanta

January 1, 2023 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

“We arrived at the resort in the afternoon when the sun was rising above the army of palm trees, lined and fanning in the breeze like the windmills in the brightening orange and blue.” This is the second novel by Chinelo Okparanta and I wanted to read it after I read an article she wrote describing her process in deciding on the subject of the book. The cover and the title don’t offer much in terms of insight into the book itself, although I wonder […]

End of Year Final

Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons

The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore White

The Peripheral by William Gibson

Stella Maris by Cormac Mccarthy

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens

Liberation Day by George Saunders

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

December 31, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Phases of Gravity One of the very few “realistic” novels by Dan Simmons. Usually his novels are science fiction, horror, fantasy, or some combination of those. Sometimes his books are noir or suspense, and even though those books take place in the real world, it’s just not quite the same thing as realism. Don’t tell Raymond Chandler I said this. This book was written in the late 1980s and our lead character Dan Baedecker is a retired astronaut who has also in recent years becomes […]

Richard Powers Round Up

The Time of our Singing by Richard Powers

Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers

December 28, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Galatea 2.2 – 4/5 This is a reread from when I was in grad school, so something close to 20 years. I’d first heard of this book and Richard Powers from a selection being anthologized in the Norton American lit. It’s a weird book to anthologize because of how cohesive the entirety of the book is and how dependent it is on context. But Richard Powers doesn’t really write short fiction and they must have wanted him in there. The book is not exactly semi-autobiographical, […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

About vel veeter