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tbr_bookshelf
Usually my book review has started to take shape in my mind by page 25 - more often by page 10. So it's a little wierd for me to be on page 25 of James Morrow's Only Begotten Daughter and still be unable to make up my mind whether I want to keep reading or not.
The plot is intriguing (what if the next Messiah is a girl born in modern times?) and the writing is witty. "The lobby [of the sperm bank] suggested the parlor of a first-class bordello. Abloom with ferns, Greek vases anchored the four corners of a sumptuous Persian rug. On the upholstered walls, set within gold frames, oil potraits of deceased Nobel-winning donors glowered at the mere mortals who surveyed them. Well, well, thought Murray, perusing the faces, we're going to have Keynesian economics in the next century whether we want it or not. And a new generation of astrophysicists writing bad science fiction."
But the plot is moving slowly, and both science and society have made quantum leaps in the 15 years since it was published. I'm having a hard time seeing a throng a hundred strong protesting sperm donation as "against God's Will," not when nowadays Viagra is covered by medical insurance and those hundreds of protesters are occupying themselves with people who don't want to be pregnant, not people who do. I'm also not quite able to suspend my disbelief high enough to clear an arificial womb made of wood, feeder tubes, and sterilized herring jars.
But just before I put it down again, I hit another quotable section like "You want to know a Jew's idea of heaven?... It's an endless succession of long winter nights on which we get paid a fair wage to sit in a warm room and read all the books ever written... Not just the famous ones, no, every book, the stuff nobody gets around to reading, forgotten plays, novels by people you never heard of." Which is kinda my idea of heaven too, minus some of the review novels I've read written by authors all too deserving of their anonymity.
But yet again, the antagonists appear to be "Revelationist Christians" and it's giving me whiplash to read about this fictionalized version when I've been tracking Dominionist politics through the daily papers and blogs. I know from these types, and sperm donation is pretty far down on their list of things to protest.
So has anyone out there read Only Begotten Daughter? Is it worth the reading, or is it too dated despite the clever phrasing?
tbr_bookshelfUsually my book review has started to take shape in my mind by page 25 - more often by page 10. So it's a little wierd for me to be on page 25 of James Morrow's Only Begotten Daughter and still be unable to make up my mind whether I want to keep reading or not.
The plot is intriguing (what if the next Messiah is a girl born in modern times?) and the writing is witty. "The lobby [of the sperm bank] suggested the parlor of a first-class bordello. Abloom with ferns, Greek vases anchored the four corners of a sumptuous Persian rug. On the upholstered walls, set within gold frames, oil potraits of deceased Nobel-winning donors glowered at the mere mortals who surveyed them. Well, well, thought Murray, perusing the faces, we're going to have Keynesian economics in the next century whether we want it or not. And a new generation of astrophysicists writing bad science fiction."
But the plot is moving slowly, and both science and society have made quantum leaps in the 15 years since it was published. I'm having a hard time seeing a throng a hundred strong protesting sperm donation as "against God's Will," not when nowadays Viagra is covered by medical insurance and those hundreds of protesters are occupying themselves with people who don't want to be pregnant, not people who do. I'm also not quite able to suspend my disbelief high enough to clear an arificial womb made of wood, feeder tubes, and sterilized herring jars.
But just before I put it down again, I hit another quotable section like "You want to know a Jew's idea of heaven?... It's an endless succession of long winter nights on which we get paid a fair wage to sit in a warm room and read all the books ever written... Not just the famous ones, no, every book, the stuff nobody gets around to reading, forgotten plays, novels by people you never heard of." Which is kinda my idea of heaven too, minus some of the review novels I've read written by authors all too deserving of their anonymity.
But yet again, the antagonists appear to be "Revelationist Christians" and it's giving me whiplash to read about this fictionalized version when I've been tracking Dominionist politics through the daily papers and blogs. I know from these types, and sperm donation is pretty far down on their list of things to protest.
So has anyone out there read Only Begotten Daughter? Is it worth the reading, or is it too dated despite the clever phrasing?
