i gotta pick up the pace on the book challenge ~

[lookingland]

i've fallen behind on the 50bookchallenge, but here's what i've read lately:

no. 21 ~ They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by deanne blanton and lauren m. cook

normally i avoid these, but here's a book about women soldiers that isn't a male-bashing, wishful-thinking feminist revisionist perspective. i was highly impressed. the stories of some of these women is outrageous to the point of nearly unfathomable, but it was another time and another way of thinking. lieutenant harry t. buford (loreta janeta velasquez) particularly impressed me. she was never discovered and served as an officer for nearly the whole of the war. stories of other women who were found out are amusing and sad, and the number of women who were known to be women and still permitted to serve (particularly in the south) is amazing. i'm glad i got over my hang-ups and read this book. it was mucho fun and mucho educational. tons of cool stuff here, well worth the wade.

no. 22 ~ The Painted Bird by jerzy kosinski

pardon me while i spork my eyeballs out and kick them around on the splintery hardwood floors. beautifully written, this was nevertheless an exercise in torture to be sure. see, i read this because Dann (author of that criminally embarrassing The Silent) mentioned it as his "inspiration". well good Lord, it's an amazing book to be certain and Dann's weak homage doesn't hold a candle to the picaresque horrors in kosinski's nazi-occupied eastern europe. i can't decide which scene was worse: the man getting his eyeballs spooned out and stepped on or the horse having its head ripped off by another two hitched to a rope (as a form of euthanasia no less). or maybe it was the no-holds-barred rape and pillaging scene when the Kalmucks defile everything they can get their hands on (including the animals and each other ~ oy vey!) ~ oddly enough, the grimmest thing about this book is how the young narrator's horrifying experiences turn him away from God and toward blind alliance to Stalin. man, what a downer. this one's a keeper, though i can't imagine ever really wanting to read it again.

don't have anything on the block to read next, but whatever it is, i think it had better be fluff ~ my head is quite stuffed for the time being.



the cover of my copy
of kosinski's book
features a detail
from heironymous bosch's
Last Judgment.
i can think of nothing
more appropriate.