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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Wall in My Head



"In the mid-to-late 1990s, while living mostly in Moscow, I managed to travel through a good part of the former Soviet Bloc."

-- Introduction by Keith Gessen to The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain, published by Words Without Borders Anthologies.

This is one of my LibraryThing Early Reviewer books. I asked for it specifically because I think it sounds fascinating.

But now that I am getting into it, I realize that it is going to take me a while -- it is dense and, because the pieces are written by behind-the-Iron-Curtain authors, there are insider references and imagery that take me a while to figure out. Also, I can't tell which pieces are fiction and which are not, because it doesn't label the pieces.

I think it may be a book I am glad I read, even if I am not glad to be reading it. Do you read those kind of books?

NOTE
Book Beginnings on Fridays is a Friday "opening sentence" event hosted by Becky at Page Turners.  
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5 comments:

  1. Cath4/15/10, 9:02 AM

    I'm not really into this subject matter, but I clicked onto this post because the title and the cover are SO compelling! And then I read a little about the book, and now I think I just might give it a chance. In short: thanks for posting!

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  2. Priya Parmar4/15/10, 9:48 AM

    ooh. i do read those books. once i get a sort of mechanical rhythm and begin to enjoy the feeling of just getting through it, they get easier. as a historical fiction novelist i have to read a lot of those books. i am always so happy when they are done!

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  3. Gilion at Rose City Reader4/15/10, 10:51 AM

    Connie -- Thanks for visiting! Glad you were drawn in.

    PP -- I know just what you mean about getting into mechanical rhythm when reading. Good luck with your own writing!

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  4. Rebecca Chapman4/17/10, 1:42 AM

    I know exactly what you mean about being glad that you read it, but not glad that you are reading it. Its like that when you get through a book that you haven't really enjoyed but you get to the end anyway. I think I felt a bit like that after finishing The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

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  5. Gilion at Rose City Reader4/17/10, 2:31 PM

    Becky -- I think all readers must feel that way about some books. Rushdie is a good example.

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