Book Blog #300: The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

 

Title: The Queen's Gambit

Author: Walter Tevis

# of Pages: 12 hours (audiobook)

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: When she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers two ways to escape her surroundings, albeit fleetingly: playing chess and taking the little green pills given to her and the other children to keep them subdued. Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent, and as she progresses to the top of the US chess rankings she is able to forge a new life for herself. But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there's more at stake than merely winning and losing.

Review: I watched the Netflix series before listening to this. After completing this audiobook, I was actually very impressed with how true the Netflix series is to the book. 

As someone who does not know chess very well, this story is definitely more interesting (and easier to follow) as a show than as a book. I don't know chess well enough to visualize what Beth is seeing when she describes her or her opponents moves. There are also a ton of characters to remember, and for me listening to the story rather than watching or reading the story makes it even harder to remember. 

Since I already knew the main plot from watching the show, I was not as interested in the story through the audiobook, especially since there wasn't much new information that wasn't already covered in the show. If I were more of a chess enthusiast or if I read/listened to this book before watching the show, maybe this rating would have been higher. There was nothing in particular that was wrong with the book other than it just not being a good fit for me. 

Even though Beth is a somewhat unlikable character due to her self-centeredness, I actually appreciated Tevis writing her this way. Perfect, likable protagonists are unrealistic no matter how much the audience loves them. Beth has her flaws as all of us do, and these are what make her seem real.

I wouldn't recommend this book in a hurry unless I knew the person was interested in chess. That being said, this wasn't a bad book at all, just not one that I particularly enjoyed listening to.

Book Blog #299: The Emissary by Yoko Tawada

 

Title: The Emissary

Author: Yoko Tawada

# of Pages: 138 (paperback)

Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: Japan, after suffering from a massive irreparable disaster, cuts itself off from the world. Children are so weak they can barely stand or walk: the only people with any get-go are the elderly. Mumei lives with his grandfather Yoshiro, who worries about him constantly. They carry on a day-to-day routine in what could be viewed as a post-Fukushima time, with all the children born ancient—frail and gray-haired, yet incredibly compassionate and wise. Mumei may be enfeebled and feverish, but he is a beacon of hope, full of wit and free of self-pity and pessimism. Yoshiro concentrates on nourishing Mumei, a strangely wonderful boy who offers “the beauty of the time that is yet to come.”

Review: Even though this book is so short, it took me FOREVER to get through it. 

Like many dystopian science fiction, this alternate version of Japan experience environmental disaster where many food sources are contaminated, the youth are sickly, and the elderly live forever. This quirky story is told in the third person (and a couple of times switched to first person without warning) that does third POV switching quite often. To make it more confusing, there is a decent amount of time skipping as well, especially at the end. 

All the characters have some sort of stream of consciousness where they reflect on themselves and the world around them in most artful and, to me, drawn out and boring way possible. There wasn't much of a plot; it's more like a slice of life with no clear direction on where the story is going, which in term made me very disinterested in the book in general.

I was debating on whether to give this book three stars just because I feel like I am missing something here. But based on a single pass through alone (and how long it took me to finish the book), I was not entertained, and this book was overall burdensome for me to read. I would not recommend this book.

Book Blog #298: The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

 

Title: The Memory Police

Author: Yōko Ogawa

# of Pages: 274 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Science Fiction

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

Review: Despite a slow start, The Memory Police ended up being better than I expected. 

Although the material is adult, the writing style was simplistic. I am not sure if this is because of the translation, or if this is just how the book was written. The concept of people being able to just lose their memories was a hard one to wrap by brain around at first. While this got as I progressed through the book, there was some time skipping in the beginning between the protagonist's past and present, which was sometimes confusing. There is also skipping between excerpts of the novel the protagonist is writing and the main story, but this is less confusing after the first time it happens. 

While the concept is incredibly unrealistic and a lot of the "science" behind HOW people lose memories of certain things is not focused on, this is not the point of the book. Rather, it appears to be an extreme representation on how some governments encourage somethings to be forgotten. While governments/institutions are not yet able to enforce the kind of memory loss seen in this book (yet), they can suppress anything (or anyone) that makes people remember said thing, not that much unlike the Memory Police.

Overall, a thought provoking and even somewhat emotion-evoking book. It is not that long, so if you had a chance, it is a good read. I don't know if it would be my first choice, but I am definitely glad that I read it.