I’ve been working on a better personal documentation system, and this includes (among other things) notes on the books I’ve read and how I liked them. I’ve realized how useful notes can be when you’re trying to remember the title of that book you read about a ghost watching his old friends, or which of the stories from a certain collection are worth rereading. Since I mainly write them for myself, my book notes are usually full of assumptions and personal references that would not make them understandable to the public. For the following books, however, my notes were detailed enough so I could adapt them into short book reviews. Here are my thoughts on two novels, a short story collection, and a nonfiction book.
The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov
Summary: Smurov, a lovelorn and self-conscious Russian émigré living in prewar Berlin, commits suicide after being humiliated by a jealous husband—only to suffer even greater indignities in the afterlife as he searches for proof of his existence among fellow émigrés, who are too distracted to pay him any heed.
For I do not exist: there exist but the thousand mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.
The Eye was an elaborate joke which I caught on very early. I appreciated the prose style, the clarity of description, and the small details that made the story more real. However, I felt the sensation of just rolling along for the ride until the end, without any emotional or intellectual investment. The novel was not as dazzling as Nabokov’s other works, and it really should have been a short story. It did, nevertheless, inspire me to ask myself this question: Are we nothing more than what people perceive us to be?
(I think that we are, indeed, partially defined by how others perceive us—but in the end, how we see ourselves is ultimately truer and more real.)
The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
Summary: This book attempts to demystify how money works in the world. Why does specialty coffee cost so much? Why is efficiency not necessarily the answer to ensuring a fair society? Through topics ranging from health care to cross-town traffic, the dirty little secrets of money are delightfully revealed here.
The Undercover Economist was generally a light read. The beginning of the book was well-written and fascinating. The middle was rather boring and too technical for my tastes. It got better nearing the end, but the last chapter was a bust.
The book offered some good ideas. The part about auctions was especially interesting. But it wasn’t cohesive enough, and could have been better structured and organized. Also, I was disappointed that it failed to offer any advice on how to apply the introduced principles to daily life.
A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Summary: Dr. Watson, an army surgeon just back from the war, and Sherlock Holmes, an independent consulting detective, meet for the first time and become flat-mates on Baker Street. As Holmes investigates a strange murder, Watson goes along on the adventure, eventually writing up the case and publishing it for the public to enjoy.
A Study in Scarlet was a wonderful story overall. It wouldn’t be helpful to review works that are already well-loved and have proven their worth, so let me focus on two specific points about this book.
First, the first chapter of the second part bored me almost to tears. Long flashbacks are uncharacteristic of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and for good reason. Still, Doyle redeemed himself by making the flashback part more and more compelling, making sympathy toward the characters much more possible. Near the end of the flashback, I found myself really hoping for a good ending for the protagonists—even though, obviously, it was not to be.
Second, one thing I liked about this book (and many Sherlock Holmes stories in general) was that good and evil were not clear cut. In the end, the bad guy turned out to be a good guy seeking revenge, and he didn’t lose the battle altogether.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Summary: This collection includes some of the great detective’s most intriguing cases. The book is composed of twelve short stories—mysteries and adventures involving robberies, disguises, cults, blackmail, and, of course, murder.
“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”
For detective stories, I usually prefer mysteries to adventures or plain narratives. That being said, my favorite stories in this collection were:
- The Red-Headed League, a wonderful, well-written mystery.
- A Case of Identity, which helped me discover how much more fun mysteries are when you read the story carefully and try to solve the problem yourself.
- The Man with the Twisted Lip. Sometimes it’s too easy to solve the problem several pages before Holmes announces his solution—but if the story written well enough, that’s okay.
- The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, a good story—more of a narrative than a puzzle—that made Holmes endearing in his way.
- The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, a good mystery.
My least favorite stores were:
- The Five Orange Pips, which didn’t have much of a mystery. (For example, being from the modern world, I knew the meaning of KKK the moment it was mentioned). It had an unsatisfying ending—the client died and the criminals were never found.
- The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb, which was more like a horror adventure story than a mystery. Again, the criminals weren’t caught—but I suppose there must be some balance in the series. After all, Holmes is only human.
