Archive for the ‘Bildungsroman’ Category

In re: Jeffrey Eugenides

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

I read Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides. It’s the only one of his I’ve read that I’ve liked. I didn’t like The Marriage Plot, and I didn’t like Middlesex. My curmudgeonly persona thinks he got the Pulitzer prize for Middlesex because the committee somehow missed The Virgin Suicides the year it came out and tried to make it up by giving him the prize for Middlesex.

Bryce Courtenay – The Power of One

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

I’m about three-quarters of the way through The Power of One, a novel set in South Africa about a boy who eventually becomes boxing’s Welterweight Champion of the World.  Boxing is not ordinarily a topic I care much about, but this turns out to be a good book.  I like the characters.  They seem quite real.  And there’s the occasional trenchant turn of a phrase.

There’s an abridged version with the same title for younger readers.  Read the unabridged version.