lory_enterenchanted's reviews
469 reviews

A pleasant tale about a cat who turns into a woman and helps a hapless news reporter. Watched this after seeing the movie Miss Minou -- I thought the movie was somewhat more enjoyable, as it gave more character to the descriptions.

For armchair traveling, this was a delight -- visiting  locations where a longtime custom is in danger of disappearing, and getting to know the last practitioners. The variety was wide, from rope-bridge builders in the Andes to movie sign painters in Taiwan, from a matchmaking tree in Germany to the fungus and bacteria that produce real soy sauce in Japan (I want to taste this before it disappears). Though often focused on an individual with particular endangered skills, each story was also about a community, and about the history of a people and a place. It is sad that such customs may go the way of the dinosaurs, but humanity will evolve new ones. It is our nature to create and to form living networks of meaning, even if that is currently obscured under a barrage of technology. It will rise again, because it is what makes us human. And reminding us of that fact was the underlying gift of this book.

Baum comes back to Oz with one of his better efforts, in spite of Ozma's behavior being illogical as usual. (Mari Ness calls it "Ozma fail.") The problem is that those few people allowed to use magic in Oz are too powerful, but that has to be ignored or side-stepped at times so that anything can happen. In one of those logical holes the Patchwork Girl was brought to life, a welcome addition to the population! The standard quest narrative of finding items for a magical potion is unnecessary if Ozma would just remember to use the Magic Belt, but it's not even mentioned in this book. But the real point is for Ojo to travel and learn ...

Enjoyable tale of a cat who was rescued from a library drop box and became the library cat. Other reviewers have complained that they didn't want to know about the author's life or the town in which the library was located, but I don't see why not -- they were part of the story too. The book is not particularly well written, but not bad, and Dewey's personality comes across anyway. He seems to have been a very special cat indeed.

I can generally count on Eva Ibbotson for a comfort read that also has wit and humor, and best of all, an artistic-musical sensibility. She plays with the tropes of romantic literature with tongue in cheek, yet somehow makes you believe in and root for her characters. The details of life in prewar Europe are just perfect, and the eccentric opera company delightful, though it's sad to think of what will soon happen to them. A running gag is the twelve-tone opera the company's conductor is writing, which turns out to be terrible. As for the hero and heroine, they are too ideal to be exactly real, but I adore them anyway and wish them all the best in their fairy-tale life.

Looking for something to read for Literary Potpourri's Reading the Meow, I came across this acclaimed translation, but was gravely disappointed. It may be the translation, but the writing just seemed flat and banal. I wish I could read it in Japanese to appreciate the subtleties of the language.

I found this a fascinating exploration of the idea that North America is deeply influenced by its original "nations" -- the way its different regions were settled by Europeans and how those cultures spread and interacted. It helped me to understand current problems and tensions in the US, and also my own perspective, which is thoroughly Yankee. Knowing the shortcomings of that point of view and how different it is from others is helpful in understanding and possibly in communicating with them. I wish this were known more widely, but there is little interest for most people in understanding and communicating with other nations. Most only want to keep on struggling for dominance.

Read with a brave English student. There are certain sentences I cannot make head or tail of, so I expect she is even more befuddled. 

Grasping the gist, I think it’s a story about a haunted person. The children could have healed from whatever happened to them, but not under the ministrations of this obsessive governess (who probably had something happen to her in childhood, too). 

The distant, uncaring “master” with whom her obsession begins — is he reminiscent of someone in her earlier life? He starts off the motif of people who don’t want to and can’t connect with each other, except in a selfish exploitative way, which is brought to such a deadly climax through the governess. 

What struck me was her weird determination to skew the world into her personal view of it. The children never give any objective sign of actually seeing the ghosts, yet she is determined that they do. Anything can be twisted into evidence supporting her personal vision (is that the real “turn of the screw”?) 

It’s impossible to tell what truth James wanted us to discover, so it remains a frustrating story. I can only imagine that something happened to the governess to mess up her mind to such an extent that truth cannot be found there.

I read a book in German! Definitely not one of Ende's best, marred by dated and ignorant attitudes toward gender, race, and culture, but around the edges a fun, light adventure story could be detected. Vocabulary was good for my intermediate level.

I'm not sure what to say about this book, a glimpse into a troubled mind and heart that never comes quite to clarity. It is certainly poetic and powerful but does not have enough distance to understand what is happening. And that may be the point; if so it is successful. To judge it seems like judging someone's therapy session.