Book reviews: Letters to Alice | Solaris | Sanning och skvaller

Title: Letters to Alice
Author: Fay Weldon

Original title: Letters to Alice
First published: 1984
Genre: Non-fiction
Series: --
Publisher: Spectre
Format: Paperback
Pages: 149
Finished: 02/07/2021
Summary: Inspired by a series of instructive letters written by Austen to a novel-writing niece, 'Letters to Alice' is an epistolary novel in which an important modern writer responds to her niece's complaint that Jane Austen is boring and irrelevant. By turns passionate and ironic, "Aunt Fay" makes Alice think--not only about books and literature, but also life and culture.

My thoughts: Ask me to define the word 'pointless' and I will refer to this novel. At least in the context of the literary course about Jane Austen to which this book was assigned. First of all, less than half of this book is even about Austen. Mostly it's the ramblings and whining of the author herself, which might have been slightly of value if put in another context. Nevertheless, as a book about Jane Austen and to be used in writing an essay about said author's works, it is very close to useless. I gained no inspiration, can collect no facts, and felt no enjoyment reading it. I can only be thankful that it was so short.

Rating: 1/5

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Title: Solaris
Author: Stanisław Lem

Original title: Solaris
First published: 1961
Genre: Sci-fi
Series: --
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Format: Paperback
Pages: 214
Finished: 15/07/2021
Summary: When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface he is forced to confront a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others suffer from the same affliction and speculation rises among scientists that the Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates incarnate memories, but its purpose in doing so remains a mystery . . .

My thoughts: This is the best book (according to me at least) that I've read for the summer sci-fi course so far. It's very typical of that 1950/60's writing style that I love but find difficult to pinpoint the exact characteristics of. I recognize it from Stoner by John Williams (1965), Our Man in Havana by Grahame Green (1958), Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958), and most recently Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (1968). Perhaps because the sentences are often direct, not too metaphorical or eccentric, while still managing to convey so much emotion. Whether that's actually the trick or not, I did really like this book.

Did I like anything else, besides the style of the writing. Yes! Lem manages, from the start, to create such an eerie atmosphere that I found myself sitting at the edge of my seat from the first one or two chapters. The uncanny feeling continues throughout the novel as the protagonist, Kelvin, begins to fall in love with the alien (which has taken the shape of his dead wife). I admit I became frustrated with Kelvin at times, thinking he was selfish and unreasonable for wanting to protect and keep the illusion of his wife rather than communicating with the other scientists and solving the problem. But then I thought of what I would feel in the same situation, given the opportunity to bring back a loved one and being unable to then let them go, and I could no longer find it in myself to judge Kelvin to harshly. Though I didn't feel any particularly strong emotions for his character or his wife, I was still able to sympathise with him for the situation he was put in (which I think is no small feat).

What lowers the grade some is that I became a bit disinterested in the story towards the final third or fourth of the book. I was no longer interested in reading about previous research about Solaris or the alien there, and Kelvin's possessiveness for his wife also turned repetitive. I don't think the novel was too long (it's hard for a novel of barely 200 pages to feel too long), but I wish the final part of the book had been plotted or executed differently.

Rating: 3,75/5

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Title: Sanning och skvaller
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld

Original title: Eligible
First published: 2016
Genre: Contemporary
Series: --
Publisher: Månpocket
Format: Paperback
Pages: 460
Finished: 24/07/2021
Summary: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray. Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip's friend, neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy, reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . . And yet, first impressions can be deceiving.

My thoughts: This modern retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is yet another book from the reading lists of my summer courses. I also decided to include it in my own little Reading Rush, since there is no official one this year. The challenge I used it for was to read a book with a face on the cover.

I want to start of by saying that the sheer amount of pages this book consists of (460 pages) is completely unwarranted. So many pages... so much torture to my poor mind. This novel was purely a waste of time. It brought nothing very new or interesting to the original story, and really only served to provoke and upset me. The author uses black and trans persons with flat personalities/no depth to make the Bennet sisters seem contemporary and progressive in their dating lives, which just comes across as cheap and disrespectful. The fact that one of the characters supposed to represent Wickham from the original story is not scandalous because he is a manipulative, irresponsible liar (a valid scandal), but is a trans person and THAT is the big betrayal/scandal is unreasonable and immature. The character "Ham", who is trans, is obviously connected to Wickham in P&P, and this connection suggests Ham is a bad person for being trans??? I've seen several people on Goodreads also reacted to this and have written way better reviews than this one, so if you feel like reading more critique you can have a look there.

Moreover, Liz and Darcy had NO chemistry, even less than in the original. In P&P, their love grows from how compatible their minds are, but that was replaced by physical attraction in this book, which just felt weird. Nope, this was not for me and I will recommend it only to my enemies.

Rating: 1,5/5