lory_enterenchanted's Reviews (582)

A splendid new Folio Society edition reviewed here on my blog: 

https://enterenchanted.com/in-which-the-folio-society-comes-to-its-senses-at-last-venetia/

Entertaining and full of action, it kept me turning the pages but overall I think I liked Scaramouche better. The racism and colonialism was distasteful--while it's considered absolutely horrific for Blood and his white compatriots to be enslaved, there is never any questioning that for black slaves this treatment is fine for an inferior and naturally subject race. Etc.

More about the mountains and less about Mrs whats her name would have made this a better book. But I did like the parts about the mountains.

I got through this, but it stretched my credulity -- would Ada really have lived in the country for more than a year without ever having heard the words "plow" or "cousin"? The ignorance card was a bit overplayed in my opinion.

Read my review at Entering the Enchanted Castle:
https://enterenchanted.com/the-1976-club-two-by-le-guin/

I enjoyed this overall, but I was expecting something on another level based on the rave reviews. Ada at times seemed more of an object lesson in trauma response than a real person, and Mam was simply a cartoon character. Wish that she in particular had received a more nuanced treatment, as she surely had pressures and traumas of her own that made her the way she was. I also wonder if characters at this time and place would really say "okay" as much as they do.

Wonderful book for lovers of books and libraries (aside from the trauma of reading about a horrible library fire), which has now provided me with a reason for wanting to go to Los Angeles, a place I never had the slightest wish to visit. Some sections, especially towards the end, were a bit thin and could beneficially have been filled out more. And Orleans's personal distaste for the lower classes does come through, as other reviewers have noted (she herself baldly states that she's afraid of homeless people), although the librarians don't generally seem to share her prejudice. Aside from these drawbacks, I found it full of fascinating information and stories and would gladly gobble up more "library books."

A very brief novel, more of a novella, about two lonely young people who find it hard to figure out how to love each other, while guarding and fostering the light within themselves. I'm not entirely convinced by the voice purporting to be of a 17 year old boy, but as usual Le Guin provides some lovely quotable passages and a thoughtful, richly human story.

I read rave reviews about the book after watching the John Wayne movie (I've not seen the more recent remake), and I expected it to be fabulous. However, although the narration by Mattie does add something to the reading experience, aside from the ending that was softened for the movie the plot is exactly the same and so held little in the way of suspense or surprise for me. Barring that element, there was not much else to it, so I'm a little baffled by all the praise.

Lovely book exploring the intersections between Buddhism and Christianity, which I think benefit greatly from the interchange. Christianity could use a good dose of Buddhism to bring it back to its original emphasis on love and compassion and away from its current status as a tool of domination and oppression. And I'd venture to say that when handled rightly, the individual consciousness fostered by Christianity can help to bolster what can become formless and impotent, through an overdose of Buddhist non-self. 

My personal belief is that all religions should be seen as windows on a common spiritual reality and that the historical wars between them now have to be overcome, so that we can better understand that multidimensional reality from many sides. Books like this are a help in that endeavor.