100 Books in 2018

50/ falling man by don delillo

read: 13.07.18 - 15.07.18

book: Falling Man

author: Don Delillo

blurb: It begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few people.

First there is Keith, walking out of the rubble into a life that he'd always imagined belonged to everyone but him. Then Lianne, his estranged wife, memory-haunted, trying to reconcile two versions of the same shadowy man. And their small son Justin, standing at the window, scanning the sky for more planes.

These are lives choreographed by loss, grief and the enormous force of history.

review: This was my only prescribed text to read over summer for my English Literature course, but despite the fact that it was for school I was really excited to read it. And my expectations were met in this book by the raw and human way it dealt with such a massive topic.

Delillo captured the human consequence of this event without bias or judgement, showing both the victims' and terrorists' lives throughout the novel. The symbolism of the Falling Man throughout was extremely evocative and poignant, and in general I really admired the way Delillo used symbolism and motifs throughout the novel in a simplistic yet effective way.

I just thought it was an incredibly intriguing novel which dealt with the subject in a fresh and new way, honing in on how tragedy connects people in the strangest ways. Of course tragedy is hard to read about, but even in this novel the glimmers of humour which came through pushed one of the novel's main messages - that life continues. It may be shaped by the impacts of the event, but it continues on.

rating: 9/10

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Also whoop whoop, we're halfway through this challenge! This year's reading has been different to last years in many ways, the main one being that I've read far less classics than I did last year. And this needs to change! So expect to see more diverse reading over the next few months in more ways than just genre. As of tomorrow I am starting a reading challenge which is to READ THE WORLD. This was inspired by Ann Morgan who read a book from every country in the world in just one year, and while I can't complete this in one year and I may not get round to every single one of the 200 countries that I have on my list, I'm going to try and have a good go at it. Soon I'll be posting a separate book to this one logging my progress and the things I've learnt while reading books from new cultures and countries. It won't only be a book log but hopefully an informative book about different cultures, religions and traditions which link to the novels I'll have read.