Darren’s Summer Book Reviews part 1
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
This book is about a man who is bisexual and blessed with being able to keep his good looks without the terrors of surgery. It is written by a poet -and it shows, not just because of all the gay innuendo (it’s beautifully written). All in all, The Picture of Dorian Gray is about 10,000 times better than Dorian Gray’s appearance in that awful movie ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’.
• 9 points (but -1,000,000,000,000 (long form billion) for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)
Life of Pie
Yann Martel
Being from Melbourne, I obviously hate Indian people, so it was a surprise that I highly enjoyed this award-winning book, whose protagonist is a member of the people from that very sub-continent. Maybe it’s because Indian people die in it and the only surviving one has his entire family killed. It’s written extremely well, if you are sensitive to Indians dying, then maybe stay away from this one. But If you’re from Victoria then you will, according to the media, love the fuck out of all the blackies dying.
• 10 points
The Pigeon
Patrick Suskind
This book is short; short enough to read over a 2 hour interstate flight. I bought it because the airport bookshop didn’t have any Mills and Boon books, this in itself set it back in my mind as I went into it disappointed. The book actually has very little to do with the pigeon, it’s mostly about a near OCD elderly man in Paris. I drank and took a lot of pills over the 24 hours after reading the book so I don’t remember how much I enjoyed it. I did enjoy the weekend though so it gains credit for that.
• 5 points (+1 for the weekend)
Leviathan
I honestly don’t know
This is a young adults book, I was suckered in by the awesome inside cover art. The story is one of those stories you’ve read a thousand times: pussy-boy meets tough-girl in alternate past, steam-punk World War II and eventually discover that by working together they can overcome anything -even giant, deflated, hydrogen-filled whale blimps. Read it if you are a ‘young adult’ and like that kind of thing.
• 3 points if you’re a bitter and jaded grown-up
• 7 points if you’re a nerdy teenager with dreams of alternate history past’.
