Inside Lane Reading Concern discussion

According to Amazon, An Object of Beauty is 300 pages long, and contains 68 chapters. We decided to read 50 pages a week, so...

(grabs pocket calculator)

we should read an average of 11 chapters a week for this book (and two extra chapters for the last week, which is fine since you are generally eager to finish a book when you reach the very end). No, I did not check whether chapters are evenly distributed but I think it is a nice figure to remember and I'll stick with it because I have an ebook version with no page numbers anyway.

If, like me, you do not like to close a book in the middle of a chapter (looking at you, John Irving, with your looooong chapters), feel free to do the same and read two chapters every evening --- except during week-ends ;-).

[I love how GoodReads creates a new topic, with the correct title, but does not bother to post my comment with it.]

Books and maths. It's a wonderful combination. Ta :)

Good stuff, M.

Cliff (Chapter 6, check me out)

Haven't been able to get my copy yet. Will have to do a not of speed reading to catch up once I have it.

I'd love to see a histogram of chapter lengths, myself, and a few statistical tests to see which distributions they fit best. (Yes, I'm running a fever. What's it got to do with anything? I'm a computer scientist, do not act surprised.)

Thanks for doing the math, though (and for trying to make us believe you used a pocket calculator to divide 68 by 6, ha!), I was going to ask about that.

PS: Molloy has no chapters. Worse, there are no paragraphs. It makes a lot of literary sense, but my heart breaks each time I have to abandon it practically in the middle of a sentence.

I picked up my amazon parcel as I left the office on my way to a meeting, by the time I got off the tube I had already finished chapter 11. Not sure I've got the hang of this slow reading thing.

I'm on page 26, but I am enjoying every word. Will get to 50 this weekend and come back on Sunday. He's very good, isn't he?

Am surprised by how much I'm enjoying it so far, as I'm not a huge fan of his.

I almost started Chapter 12, wooops ;-)

So far I'm finding it a pretty enjoyable read, although I'm not hanging on to his every word.

My favourite bit:

"I'm thinking of buying a dog?"
"What kind?"
"An old one."
"Why?"
"Less commitment."

Is perfect. It sums up Lacey and it's so concise the way the dialogue explains the characters.

I'm only on page 62 (slow reading going well, then) and my biggest criticism is that the narrator's character is a bit of a wet blanket and a weak subject.

But then if Lacey were the narrator, I'd get annoyed very quickly. She's a great part, though. I can see Julia Stiles playing her.

I like the contrast between Lacey's ascension to success and flamboyant life and the narrator's average, bland, unworthy-of-being-mentioned existence. He's not even a loser, just a bore.

Lacey would be a terrible narrator.

She would. In fact I don't think she actually could be a narrator - she'd be too busy getting distracted and doing other things.

Except the fact that chapter 11 is jokingly short, I'm enjoying the book. Not a masterpiece to my eye, but distracting.

It reminds me a lot of The Devil Wears Prada. Just like I knew nothing about fashion magazines and discovered how much money is involved, I knew nothing about American painters and this book is a gentle introduction to the matter, as well as an opportunity to enhance my vocabulary (or so I hope).

I have a bit of a problem with how the male characters are bleeding into one. I guess people in the art world are very different from me and are similar from my position as a philistine.

I like Lacey, though. Although free spirits in my experience have just as many if not more hang ups than the rest of us.

Anyone agree?

I'm a bit lost with male characters too (often looking back a few chapters to check who's who).

On an unrelated note, I'm very skeptical about the description of Russia in the post-USSR era. It might be accurate (I never went there), but it just sounds too cliché to me.

I'm seeing all characters in a Venn diagram of "People Lacey is using" and "People Lacey wants to have sex with/has had sex with". The females are all in the former, the males are mostly in both.

Not sure if this is a criticism or not; it is a story about Lacey, so I suppose it's not too surprising that the narrative and character development focuses on her rather than anyone else.

I'm interested in a female perspective on Lacey. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to like her or not. I don't much, but don't begrudge her sexual mindgames when everyone is using every angle they can to get ahead, be it the namedropping, the European snootiness, or the dripping with wealth. Also, Lacey isn't out to break hearts and makes it pretty obvious this is a no-strings attached kind of a deal.

Or is he just a cheap little whore, with herself the prime customer?

Dunno. I want the narrator to do something though.

I have no bother about Lacey being a "cheap little whore" because like you said, no-one is really getting hurt, she's not having sex with people and making them fall in love, she's just having sex. As long as no-one is getting hurt, who cares?

It's more the fact that she shows little or no emotional attachment to anything or anyone. That's why I don't like her.

I kind of want to be her in a weird way; I want the confident and the panache. I just don't want to be heartless with it. There are many ways to describe Lacey, but "nice" isn't one of them.

So apparently I skipped last week. I have a deadline and a (wonderful) trip to Sweden for sole excuses. I'll catch up with you guys this week!

Alright, catching up I am.

I'm starting to find the writing rather uneven. Take for instance (Chapter 15) "Talley looked at her, gave her an approving smile for her chutzpah — though neither of them could claim ethnic rights to the word". Was that really necessary? If the story was developing in a context where Jewish religion/culture was important, I could appreciate the comment, but here... I just find it heavy. Unless I'm missing a cultural reference? I also feel he's sometimes too explicit. Stop telling me that Lacey is a manipulative vixen, showing it is enough!

In all honesty though, I keep comparing the book to The Beautiful and Damned (as a depiction/critique of a certain slice of society where money and arrogance abound) and being compared to Fitzgerald is probably not easy.

I think it's no surprise all male characters are blending into one; I see it as a characterization of the archetypal successful man in this world. (The only unsuccessful, or not-so-successful, man of the art world is the narrator and he certainly doesn't get a lot of attention.)

That said, I like Lacey. As a character, of course; I would dislike her in real life, or most likely never have the opportunity to encounter her anyway. She has some layers of complexity (mostly seen in the early chapters though) while all the other characters feel rather one-dimensional (which is, I suppose, their role as props). I guess the fact that the narrator likes her (even if a bit unwillingly perhaps?) permeates the narration?

Oh, and interestingly (or not so much, given that the both of us pretty much always react similarly), I had the same reaction as M. (I'm going to start calling you "M.") above regarding the description of post-USSR Russia.

I am SO behind on this book.

It's starting to drag a little bit around the 200 page mark, I'm finding...

Yeah, I'm at 150 and I'm behind.

"She looked at the package. It was the same size as the stolen painting. She measured it the way she had learned in the business and here's how I know the pros do it that way. It musy have been the same painting. Come to think of it, it WAS."

Meh. Sorry y'all. It promised much.

I had so many wtf? moments that I stopped writing them down...

I don't know about you, but I'm really not enjoying this now.

It's a pity. I like Steve Martin and I think that "An Object of Beauty" started really well. It's just getting a bit ridiculous now.

Is anyone else really not enjoying it any more? If so, do you think we should keep going or...ditch it?

I actually finished it so that I could be done with it. I'll be happy to sum up the end for you in case you're afraid of missing out on the story (you're not). I found it rather lame (quite literally: how it does not fall over itself I do not know.)

The writing doesn't get any better either. "There was no place within Lacey that could properly couch her envy."? Really?