50 book challenge

Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night. Crushing tale of Dick Diver, eminent if somewhat underachieving psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, during the crack-up of their marriage and personal sanities (mostly his; hers was fragile already). Especially poignant because of Fitzgerald's personal acquaintance with alcoholism and mental illness, and a troubled relationship. Apparently he wrote sober, though. However he managed to do it, the writing here was astonishing. It seems lame to call it "original," but I have a hard time thinking of anything else I've read that compares. He had a special quality of being able to observe things, and represent them in fiction, as if for the first time. 

 

Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis. Yes, a graphic novel! A girlhood in Iran in the times of the Islamic revolution. Interestingly, the girl's parents were revolutionaries themselves, but not in the religious vein - rather socialist. What a troubled country. This has just been turned into a movie that I would like to see, but will probably not for some months because the cinema is for Benjy/i's parents like unto a distant land running with milk and honey, yet unattainable because HE DID WHAT ALL OVER THE RUG?  Um, also I would like to visit, but that is even a little less likely. I maintain the baby would get a kick out of Isfahan.