Very Colorful!

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4555477-the-color-of-earth" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Color of Earth (Color Trilogy, #1)" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312054129m/4555477.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4555477-the-color-of-earth">The Color of Earth</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1224011.Kim_Dong_Hwa">Kim Dong Hwa</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/202384322">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This is a charming coming-of-age story set in Korea.  I am now really annoyed that the next two books in the trilogy are checked out! Grr!  <br/>Ehwa is a young girl filled with curiosity, which her mother, a widowed tavern keeper, gently teases her about.  This first book covers Ehwa's discovery of the many facets of love and sex - from the point of view of a child and then one verging into womanhood.  She interacts with children her own age and overhears adult conversations, which she doesn't understand.  Her adventures are funny and touching in their realism.  <br/>Korean customs and expressions are explained in footnotes.  I never knew shoes were so expressive!
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 The html code doesn't seem to be working here anymore, so I guess I'll stop duplicating my reviews to this blog.

There's No Place Like ...

Okay, I won't go there.  I'm sure it's been done to death.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11277216-the-iliad" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Iliad" border="0" src="http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11277216-the-iliad">The Iliad</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7778.Richmond_Lattimore">Richmond Lattimore</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/198841342">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
No matter how many times I read this, I still find something new. This time I marveled at the similes.  Many of the similes in the battle scenes dealt predictably with lions and wolves, but there were others that evoked daily life (the widow measuring her wool) or inanimate forces of nature (rocks falling like snow).  The most striking thing about them is that they aren't all that brief (like my examples), but can go on for a while, longer than you would expect in a narrative. They'd be full-blown metaphors if they'd not been prefaced with "as" or the like. <br/>I discussed this online with a group and found that very satisfying. <br/>This translation just happened to be one I have, but I see that it's recommended by many (including Dr. Vandiver who does the Homeric Great Courses lectures) for being translated line by line (so you can make comparisons to the Greek) and for preserving the archaic flavor and the poetic "formulas."  Dang, I just thought it was a great story!<br/>Amusing note: on the back of my copy, Robert Fitzgerald is quoted as saying no one need ever produce another verse translation of the Iliad ... but I guess he changed his mind 25 years later. Heh!
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Crouching Reader, Hidden Head-Desk

Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang by Katie MacAlister

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was ensnared into reading this by the amusing title. The plot is about as complicated as the film whose title it parodies, except there are fewer entanglements.  There are some attempts to be amusing, but mostly this is your alleged standard women's wish fulfillment romance with a plump, needy heroine who just happens to be able to summon deadly amounts of light.
These supermythophagilisticexpialidocious stories are starting to get on my nerves.  You have to absorb too much cant to follow the plot.  What the hell's a zorya?  A llargi?  A lich?  I don't even know how to pronounce this stuff, much less keep track of the spelling.  Half the time I suspect they make this stuff up.  Oh, wait, of course they do.  Sorry. 

Pia (uffda, that name!) continues her saga of being torn between her "job" as some kind of light spirit helping some mysterious Brotherhood and her new supernatural linking to the vampire-cum-Fabio-impersonator, Kristoff - the Italian guy with the German name (I've been to Northern Italy - I know it happens).  In a previous book they "hooked up" as the kids say and now he doesn't call.  Is she too fat?  Was it something she said?  She got his soul back (some way - I dunno - it was in the previous book) and now he's supposed to be permanently linked to her.  What's wrong?  She spends the whole book not believing his answers even after they become linked telepathically.  Oh, man!  I mean, oh, WOMAN!  You've got cool supernormal powers!  Either he puts out and adores you or you roast him, right?  Half of this book is spent with him being diminutive-for-a-housecat-whipped into admissions of adulation.  [I'd never do that, right, Bob?  BOB?!]

And then the plot comes to a complete halt for the over-the-top sex.  I have to admit I skipped over those bits because after reading the first ones I decided that they are less arousing than head-desking.  Once you've superlatived someone to the point of explosion, what is left to life?  More plot, please.  Let me amend that: more comprehensible plot, please.
But it was okay.  As mindless, harmless (I hope - this doesn't cause dissatisfaction with life because it sets up unattainable scenarios ... does it?) entertainment, it does the job. 



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