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Brideshead Revisited

So I told a number of people that i was going to read another atwood book (the handmaids tale) next, but my copy of it ended up back at the library before i could grab it so i moved on to brideshead revisited. I really really liked this book. There were a number of layers to it and a lot of diverse messages; from drunk driving is bad, to a persons inner beauty can make them outwardly beautiful as well (though neither of those was the main message). I think this is a book that i could read many times and still not get everything out of it that there is.

Its the story of a boy starting in college and his relationship with a family. he is best friends with one son, and then becomes the paramour of the sister. but he is involved with all of the members of the family. it is a dark book (which is probably why i like it) but dark in the sense that the main character never seems able to be truly and completely happy, despite looking for the happiness. But again, there are so many levels to the book, that if i read it again i am sure i would have a completely different take on it.

on another note, my favorite character had to be aloysius, a gigantic stuffed teddy bear that one of the college students takes with him everywhere, and talks about constantly as if it were a real person.

the blind assassin

not worth the read. i like clssic books because usually with a classic book you either get a view of humanity that makes you re-evaluate your view of human experience, or you get a story that is so embedded in our culture that many many versions or spinoffs or references in other works can be better understood. this had neither thing, and it wasn't even a good story. it is a story within a story, but there are actually four stories going on. the sci-fi adventure, the story of the lady and here paramour (there you go bill dorothy), the story of the old lady, and the story of the old lady when she was younger. turns out three of those are about the old lady fro different points of view, but the style doesnt work for anything great (maybe good but i dont think so). rather it felt like the author became enamoured with writing a story in this style and let that take over the telling of the story. i finished wishing that she would have just told the sci fi story which had a lot of potential in my mind.