By Michael Chabon.
Published 2000, by Picador.
636 pages.
I had been waiting to read this book for a longtime, and for the most part I was not disappointed. I think the ending may have been, albeit slight, a letdown. After all the epic adventures and events in the book, the ending seemed a little too domestic, though I suppose that ending is the natural order of life. People become domesticated as they become older. And this is a story of people's lives through the year.
Though at the start, I was totally intrigued. Here's the story. A young boy comes from New York from Prague to escape the Nazis in the 1930's. The book provides some background into his previous life in Prague, and this is one of many parts that had me intrigued. He (Joesph Kavalier) is trained as an escape artist a la Harry Houdini. I liked the feeling of 1930's Europe and the description of his Jewish family and brother as well as the lessons he was learning in the striving for actualization of his desire to be an escape artist.
However the story takes place mostly in New York City with his cousin, Sam Clay. Sam Clay is a native, 1st generation Jewish American, who has an interest in comics, and has attempted some amateurish attempts at cartooning. Meanwhile, his cousin from Prague, has training in the fine arts but knows nothing of comics until he meets his American cousin. Sam works for a novelty company and brings his talented cousin along to convince his employer to start a line of comic books. They argue that they could give him another Superman type book which was very popular and lucrative at the time. Sammy's boss reluctantly accepts their idea and signs them on and gives them a contract (which we later find out leaves them out of a lot of the money they could have earned by not giving them full ownership or credit for their characters). And a career is born and the book then spends the next 20 years chronicling their rags to riches story.
Some of the more interesting events was Joe's hatred of the Nazis and his wish to bring his family to the states. That leads him to later join the army. He meets his girlfriend Rosa Sax, a character I really liked. She was a bohemian, free thinker, and pushed him to push his comic art. However in his anger over the sinking of a ship that was bringing his younger brother to the states, he angrily left his beautiful , loving girlfriend to go fight Nazis. He ended up in the Antarctic, doing a whole lot of nothing, though he did get to kill one Nazi, an accident that not only was enjoyable (he was itchin' to kill some Nazis) but was in the end regrettable and sad. And so here's the thing, that doesn't quite sit right with me. After 4 years in the god forsaken Antarctica, you'd think he would have been eager to get back to his own life. His brother was long dead and he killed his Nazi, so what was left for him to do? And he wasn't blaming his girlfriend any more ( he was angry at first because she had softened him and took his will to fight the Nazis - even in New York, he was constantly looking for trouble in the German parts of town and picking fights because of his guilt about leaving his family behind.) I suppose that returning to his old life would not have been much of a story, but I really liked his girlfriend and wanted the two to be together. He ended up staying away from her and his son for the next 10 or 12 years.
Meanwhile Sammy was discovering his homosexual feelings and that this lifestyle was wholly unacceptable to mainstream society. So he chose to stay in the closet, like most people did in the 1940's. This is important though because when it was discovered that Rosa was pregnant with Joe's baby, Sammy decided to marry Rosa and be the father of the boy, Tommy. So because Joe went off and didn't return, their careers had taken a decline. Joe was in self imposed exile and Sammy, was doing a variety of odd jobs to support the family.
And then one day, Joe meets his son...Apparently, in his isolation, Joe had been working on his masterpiece and when they were reunited, Sammy saw it and decided it was brilliant and wanted to do something, so now the future looks rosy once again.
That was a rather long summary, but it was a long book. I suppose that topic of conversation should be about the fact that this award winning novel is about comic books. The surprise or question being how could a book about a subject as "banal" as comic books be a work of art. And here we have to entertain the argument of form vs substance. It's a topic argued in the book itself.
Even in this book, at least these characters were concerned about the "Art" of comics. Joe was a trained artist and he was concerned about how to make comics an art after a while. Their book, The Escapist, was supposed to be mainstream and Joe was told to simplify his art. I would suppose that most comics of this era were pretty stupid, though the way Sammy described his ideas in the book, they sounded pretty cool. I would argue though that a written description of a scene can be much more detailed than the final comic story. And they generally were more detailed than the titles of the books they made sounded. ie
So with every form of art that is considered a poorer sister of the fine arts, there are attempts to use that art form for more prestigious and profound concepts. There is a ton of bad pop music, but being a pop/rock music aficionado, I could point out tons of stuff that to me has artistic integrity. Just as today, there are some quality, literate comic books out there, most of us know that already, including the tight wearing all powerful super hero (Daredevil is one of my favorites for it's gritty and expressionistic stories) as well as the alternative and adult comics that one would expect to be more literate.
Even this book proves it's case. It really is a book of pulp fiction. Joe's escape from Prague with the Golem and his several encounters with life endangering situations in which he becomes the hero because of his escape training. Yet the book has a serious, artistic side. It speaks on several themes such as the rags to riches story, racism, homosexuality in that period, the art scene as well as the comics business and history. Some of the language is difficult and yet poetic. There are some parts which were difficult for me to get through. True pulp fiction is never"difficult".
So, it's not the form of expression that makes art, it's how that form is being used to express one's art.
Hmmm.... Normally I would attach some videos but there are nothing but amateur book trailers and hour long discussions.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Death With Interruptions ***1/2
By Jose Saramago.
Published 2009 by First Mariner Books.
Copyright , Lisbon 2005.
Translation by Margaret Jull Costa 2008.
238 pages
What I liked about this book foremost is that's it's funny. A dark humor if you will - gallows humor. In comparison to the other Saramago book I read, Blindness, I don't remember that one being very humorous. I could be mistaken - it has been a while. In fact I am sure that there was some humor in Blindness but I believe it was less frequent and the subject was so grim, that the the humor of the book was not so forthright. An example (paraphrased) is when Saramago describes death as "working her fingers to the bone".
As usual, Saramago writes in his usual dense and difficult style. There are long paragraphs, no quotation marks and conversations that happen in the middle of the paragraphs. There are run on sentences and punctuation in bizarre places. This makes it a difficult read. At one point, Saramago self satirizes himself when the narrator of the book complains about a writer or a poet who writes in the exact same style.
The plot is sketchy, skeletal if you will, in which Saramago hangs the meat of his philosophising and his musing. There's very little character development. It's all allegorical. The plot is a device in which the author can expound his ideas and theories. These ideas, theories and musings are all related to what happens in the plot which is about death and consequently about life. In fact, as much as a it is a book about death, it is also quite life affirming - especially the second half of the book.
So this is the plot, which may or may not have a spoiler in it. In some unnamed, but obviously European (sounds like Portugal, logically) country, people suddenly stop dying, which seems great at first but obviously has it's downside. Saramago spends time discussing governments and communities and institutions by discussing their responses to the situation. In this part there are not really any lead character.
After several months, when most issues have been resolved by the leaders and the people of this country death changes her mind and decides to allow everyone to die again. But this time, in fairness to everyone, they get one weeks' notice so as to get their business in order, which also leads to more social problems which the various institutions have to struggle with. Death gives notice to the these poor souls by delivering a letter on violet colored stationary. And this is where the first half of the book ends. The second half starts when one of her (death) letters is returned stamped "Return to Sender".
This letter that keeps being returned to her has death perplexed. She's never been denied her will before. She goes to investigate to find that the person who was supposed to die is completely unawares, and is ignorantly getting on with his life. She spends some time with this man out of curiosity and invisibly to him. She begins to form an affection for him. Something you don't want to do if you are the cold hearted killer that death is. Trying to figure out a way to kill this man that defies her letter, she investigates further more and develops a plan, because her job is rife with ritual and tradition, this new incident has her groping for a solution. The ending of the book is actually sweet and lovely and hopeful. We are kind of routing for death to escape her destiny.
There are two ways to read a Jose Saramago novel. You can read it rather quickly and get through the plot devices, which are quite enjoyable, since his plots are very clever and inventive, and glean some of what messages he has to say. This is how I read the book, stopping several times to backtrack over his philosophising. I did not try to read and understand every single detail he wrote.
The other way to read the book, is to actually do that. Sit down and read every passage closely and get a complete understanding. I would recommend the first way at first. Then upon a second reading, I would delve into dense and complicated ideas that he proposes. There's definitely things to discover and rediscover with each reading. And there's no denying the genius of the man and his ideas.
That said, I would cautiously recommend this book, because it is a difficult read. I know enough about Saramago, that if I saw a book of his on the shelf, it would not be the first book i would pull, simply because I know how difficult it would be and I would have to be in certain mind set. That said, the two times I have read him was because i had to and it was some of the best and enjoyable obligatory reading I have done.
Published 2009 by First Mariner Books.
Copyright , Lisbon 2005.
Translation by Margaret Jull Costa 2008.
238 pages
What I liked about this book foremost is that's it's funny. A dark humor if you will - gallows humor. In comparison to the other Saramago book I read, Blindness, I don't remember that one being very humorous. I could be mistaken - it has been a while. In fact I am sure that there was some humor in Blindness but I believe it was less frequent and the subject was so grim, that the the humor of the book was not so forthright. An example (paraphrased) is when Saramago describes death as "working her fingers to the bone".
As usual, Saramago writes in his usual dense and difficult style. There are long paragraphs, no quotation marks and conversations that happen in the middle of the paragraphs. There are run on sentences and punctuation in bizarre places. This makes it a difficult read. At one point, Saramago self satirizes himself when the narrator of the book complains about a writer or a poet who writes in the exact same style.
The plot is sketchy, skeletal if you will, in which Saramago hangs the meat of his philosophising and his musing. There's very little character development. It's all allegorical. The plot is a device in which the author can expound his ideas and theories. These ideas, theories and musings are all related to what happens in the plot which is about death and consequently about life. In fact, as much as a it is a book about death, it is also quite life affirming - especially the second half of the book.
So this is the plot, which may or may not have a spoiler in it. In some unnamed, but obviously European (sounds like Portugal, logically) country, people suddenly stop dying, which seems great at first but obviously has it's downside. Saramago spends time discussing governments and communities and institutions by discussing their responses to the situation. In this part there are not really any lead character.
After several months, when most issues have been resolved by the leaders and the people of this country death changes her mind and decides to allow everyone to die again. But this time, in fairness to everyone, they get one weeks' notice so as to get their business in order, which also leads to more social problems which the various institutions have to struggle with. Death gives notice to the these poor souls by delivering a letter on violet colored stationary. And this is where the first half of the book ends. The second half starts when one of her (death) letters is returned stamped "Return to Sender".
This letter that keeps being returned to her has death perplexed. She's never been denied her will before. She goes to investigate to find that the person who was supposed to die is completely unawares, and is ignorantly getting on with his life. She spends some time with this man out of curiosity and invisibly to him. She begins to form an affection for him. Something you don't want to do if you are the cold hearted killer that death is. Trying to figure out a way to kill this man that defies her letter, she investigates further more and develops a plan, because her job is rife with ritual and tradition, this new incident has her groping for a solution. The ending of the book is actually sweet and lovely and hopeful. We are kind of routing for death to escape her destiny.
There are two ways to read a Jose Saramago novel. You can read it rather quickly and get through the plot devices, which are quite enjoyable, since his plots are very clever and inventive, and glean some of what messages he has to say. This is how I read the book, stopping several times to backtrack over his philosophising. I did not try to read and understand every single detail he wrote.
The other way to read the book, is to actually do that. Sit down and read every passage closely and get a complete understanding. I would recommend the first way at first. Then upon a second reading, I would delve into dense and complicated ideas that he proposes. There's definitely things to discover and rediscover with each reading. And there's no denying the genius of the man and his ideas.
That said, I would cautiously recommend this book, because it is a difficult read. I know enough about Saramago, that if I saw a book of his on the shelf, it would not be the first book i would pull, simply because I know how difficult it would be and I would have to be in certain mind set. That said, the two times I have read him was because i had to and it was some of the best and enjoyable obligatory reading I have done.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin **1/2
By Gordon S. Wood.
Published by Penguin Press in New York, 2004.
246 pages.
The title speaks of an Americanization. One of the main thesis is that the Benjamin Franklin we know now, was not always thought about in the same way as we do now. The man, legends, and myths that we know now did not become popularized and well spread to the middle of the 19th century.
For starters we know Franklin as a self made man who toiled hard at manual labor in his printing and newspaper business, which is true, but he spent over half his life as a gentleman and gave up manual labor as a relatively young man. But the American myth only speaks of his hard work and toil. His later gentlemanly stature would not be considered a very American way of life. The life style of the 'gentleman' was a very old world and European concept. More on that subject below.
The book also speaks and discusses the class structure of the colonies and of England and Europe. Franklin DID start out poor and he WAS a self made man, but he craved and strived for the gentleman lifestyle and eventually attained it. He was an educated man, albeit self-educated. His indisputable genius was a gift and was strengthened by his own efforts at self-education.
The concept of the "Gentlemen" was that a person should not toil manually and should lead a luxurious and idle life. This luxury allowed for the gentleman or the aristocracy to have time to do serious thinking, and be involved with the politics (and power of course) of the day. The self rationalization was that a few intelligent, well intentioned men should run the country (implying that government was not work for the lower class, undereducated people). Not exactly an American ideal, yet this is what Franklin strived for.
This discussion of the class differences took a good third of the book and was very interesting. There was a new rich middle class (a la Franklin) who became rich through business and the work world. These people were frowned upon by the aristocracy as inferiors. These "middle' people strived to be gentlemen, but were not accepted by the aristocracy. They were considered crass and undereducated. Franklin was well aware of this and was careful to develop his gentleman status so as not to appear crass. Eventually he was accepted, so his carefulness had payed off.
Another large part of the book involved Franklin's role as a diplomat. That was his major job and contribution to the Revolutionary war. He spent so much time in England prior to the war and France during the war that he spent the majority of his older age in Europe. He was barely ever in the colonies, though he did come back at the during the most momentous parts of the Revolution.
This long period away from the colonies made him unpopular in the colonies. In fact, for a long time, Franklin was a loyalist (to the King of England) and his role was to convince the powers that be in England that the colonies loved the king and it was just that they wanted representation. This was not the case. The colonies were ready for revolt. Being away so long from the colonies (almost 20 years in England) was out of touch with what was happening in the colonies.
He had many friends in England and he really loved it there, perhaps more than he loved his native American colony of Pennsylvania. After all, he was allowed and encouraged to circulate in aristocratic crowds. He was also considered the "expert" about the colonies, though obviously, he really wasn't aware of current feelings and events in the colonies. Meanwhile he was making enemies in the colonies because he was away for so long and people were not trusting him. All went well for him, but the rift between the colonies and England became greater and greater. Finally, the more and more belligerent Parliament of England took him to task and he was insulted by them. That is the point at which he turned into a revolutionary after all the work he had done to help his Mother England
He went back to the colonies. And then he became a diplomat and was sent to France to help get their aid in the Revolution. He was loved in France, but his fellow diplomats were jealous of the attention he received, and he continued to make enemies at home. But he was the only one who could get along with the French government (There was some distrust against the French since only a couple of decades earlier, there had been a war against the French). The king often would only talk to Franklin. This made some colonists think that he was in collusion with the French and a traitor, but it was clear that the French never would have helped the colonists with out Franklin
When he came back to the colonies after the war, he was NOT celebrated and was relatively poorly treated, even though he is considered to be one of the founding fathers. Not till after his death 50 some years later was he truly appreciated, and that was more for his legend and his myth than for what he actually accomplished during the war. It was sort of a sad ending for our beloved Franklin.
Overall, the book had some excellent discussions like those mentioned above, though I would have liked to see more details of his life. The kite incident was only referred to and not described. Since there are so many different stories about that incident, it would have been nice to actually know exactly what happened. Of course, that was not a focus of the book, but it would have still been nice if it had more details like that.
the state).
Published by Penguin Press in New York, 2004.
246 pages.
The title speaks of an Americanization. One of the main thesis is that the Benjamin Franklin we know now, was not always thought about in the same way as we do now. The man, legends, and myths that we know now did not become popularized and well spread to the middle of the 19th century.
For starters we know Franklin as a self made man who toiled hard at manual labor in his printing and newspaper business, which is true, but he spent over half his life as a gentleman and gave up manual labor as a relatively young man. But the American myth only speaks of his hard work and toil. His later gentlemanly stature would not be considered a very American way of life. The life style of the 'gentleman' was a very old world and European concept. More on that subject below.
The book also speaks and discusses the class structure of the colonies and of England and Europe. Franklin DID start out poor and he WAS a self made man, but he craved and strived for the gentleman lifestyle and eventually attained it. He was an educated man, albeit self-educated. His indisputable genius was a gift and was strengthened by his own efforts at self-education.
The concept of the "Gentlemen" was that a person should not toil manually and should lead a luxurious and idle life. This luxury allowed for the gentleman or the aristocracy to have time to do serious thinking, and be involved with the politics (and power of course) of the day. The self rationalization was that a few intelligent, well intentioned men should run the country (implying that government was not work for the lower class, undereducated people). Not exactly an American ideal, yet this is what Franklin strived for.
This discussion of the class differences took a good third of the book and was very interesting. There was a new rich middle class (a la Franklin) who became rich through business and the work world. These people were frowned upon by the aristocracy as inferiors. These "middle' people strived to be gentlemen, but were not accepted by the aristocracy. They were considered crass and undereducated. Franklin was well aware of this and was careful to develop his gentleman status so as not to appear crass. Eventually he was accepted, so his carefulness had payed off.
Another large part of the book involved Franklin's role as a diplomat. That was his major job and contribution to the Revolutionary war. He spent so much time in England prior to the war and France during the war that he spent the majority of his older age in Europe. He was barely ever in the colonies, though he did come back at the during the most momentous parts of the Revolution.
This long period away from the colonies made him unpopular in the colonies. In fact, for a long time, Franklin was a loyalist (to the King of England) and his role was to convince the powers that be in England that the colonies loved the king and it was just that they wanted representation. This was not the case. The colonies were ready for revolt. Being away so long from the colonies (almost 20 years in England) was out of touch with what was happening in the colonies.
He had many friends in England and he really loved it there, perhaps more than he loved his native American colony of Pennsylvania. After all, he was allowed and encouraged to circulate in aristocratic crowds. He was also considered the "expert" about the colonies, though obviously, he really wasn't aware of current feelings and events in the colonies. Meanwhile he was making enemies in the colonies because he was away for so long and people were not trusting him. All went well for him, but the rift between the colonies and England became greater and greater. Finally, the more and more belligerent Parliament of England took him to task and he was insulted by them. That is the point at which he turned into a revolutionary after all the work he had done to help his Mother England
He went back to the colonies. And then he became a diplomat and was sent to France to help get their aid in the Revolution. He was loved in France, but his fellow diplomats were jealous of the attention he received, and he continued to make enemies at home. But he was the only one who could get along with the French government (There was some distrust against the French since only a couple of decades earlier, there had been a war against the French). The king often would only talk to Franklin. This made some colonists think that he was in collusion with the French and a traitor, but it was clear that the French never would have helped the colonists with out Franklin
When he came back to the colonies after the war, he was NOT celebrated and was relatively poorly treated, even though he is considered to be one of the founding fathers. Not till after his death 50 some years later was he truly appreciated, and that was more for his legend and his myth than for what he actually accomplished during the war. It was sort of a sad ending for our beloved Franklin.
Overall, the book had some excellent discussions like those mentioned above, though I would have liked to see more details of his life. The kite incident was only referred to and not described. Since there are so many different stories about that incident, it would have been nice to actually know exactly what happened. Of course, that was not a focus of the book, but it would have still been nice if it had more details like that.
the state).
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Unaccostomed Earth ***1/2
By Jhumpa Lahiri.
A Borzai Book Published in 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf.
333 pages.
I'm trying to keep these entries short, but something tells me that this one will be difficult to keep short. First of all, this is Lahiri's second book of short stories. A comparison to her first book would be vital to the discussion, though it's been a while since I read that book. Second of all, I'll probably have to delve into detail on a couple of the stories. So I'll be looking at deatils of the stories and overall impressions, themes and trends.
Her first book of short stories, The Interpreter of Maladies, was also her first book and a Pulitzer prize winner. It's truly a fabulous book and one of my all time favorites. So how does this second newer one rate?
It's a very fine book. She continues writing with much emotional detail. She paints her characters with fine detailed strokes. The characters are likable and the reader feels empathy. Really, it's a close call of which book I like better, but perhaps Interpreter of Maladies is the better of the two books - slightly. It's been a while since I read that book, but the feeling that remains in me about that book is that it was more dynamic, adventurous (in her style of writing - not thin the narratives) and fresh. The stories are shorter so events have to happen quickly. Being Lahiri's debut book, like many authors' debuts, narratives tend to be punchier and quirkier. Not that Interpreters is a quirky book, just perhaps a little more than this one here - Unaccustomed Earth.
On the other hand, this newer book seems more mature and nuanced, (though even her first book had characters that were nuanced - she's a great writer when it comes to character).
In Interpreters, her stories were set in The United States, Britain (if memory serves me right) and her native land of India. It showed an author (or to extrapolate) or a people who struggle with self-identity. Especially the stories that took place in The West.
In the newer book, all the stories take place in the U.S. None take place in India except for perhaps references to trips back to the homeland. Again, the author is dealing with issues of self-identification. But I also think she has more interest in interracial relationships. Almost all the stories touch on this subject. Even in the stories that have Indian to Indian relationships, there are past experiences of the characters of dating/marrying non-Indians.
So what can I conclude is her opinion of these relationships? In the first book, I remember at least one story where it was an Indian to Indian relationship. That was a troubled relation. Who gets the blame for the failure of these mixed marriages. Well, she certainly doesn't throw the blame at the westerners. Most of the fault lays with the Indians,. Why? maybe, like many cultures that are trying to adapt to new ways, they are struggling with their identities. They're not sure how to go about things and are confused. They are not sure of which is the best way to act and behave. The blame might lay at the feet of the Indian-American (or is it Bengali - Americans), but the author certainly has empathy and understanding of what these characters are going through and might even hint at what the issues are for these confused characters.
Perhaps that's a good way to discuss the stories individually. By using the theme of inter-racial relationships as a string that holds the stories together,I will discuss each story.
Unaccustomed Earth is the first story as well as the title story and the longest story. It focuses on an Indian wife and her visiting widowed father. She is married to an "American" guy and he is shown in a pretty good light except for maybe that he's not around a lot because of business, and doesn't always understand his wife's concerns. But this story is one of the few that is less concerned with the marriage and more concerned with the father and daughter and even the grandson.
Hell-Heaven is the story of a Bengali man that became very close to a Bengali family. When he eventually dates and marries a white woman, the family, especially the mother, who became very close and had a crush on him was very upset. Everyone said how the relationship was wrong and that she would treat him badly. Well the reverse happened. The marriage ended but because of the husband's philandering ways.
A Choice of Accommodations is a story about a married couple, White wife and Bengali man who go away to a wedding in hopes of rekindling some of the old romance. Things don't turn out the way they had hoped, but there is a sweet ending. I liked this story a lot because both characters were shown to have flaws, yet it was hopeful at the end. It's difficult to lay the blame at any one's feet.
Only Goodness is a story of a sister who tries to help her brother who eventually becomes an alcoholic. She eventually marries a rich English guy and starts a family with him. When her brother comes back in the picture, it strains the relationship. The man seems a bit cold to her, but he's also correct about her brother and his problems, which the rest of his family has trouble accepting. So this is about a teenage boy trying to adapt to American ways and the blinders the parent wore in respect to him until it was too late.
Nobody's Business is one of the few stories where the main couple is Bengali, but the point of view is that of the American room mate. The girl in the relationship lives with two Americans, but she has a boyfriend. She's very beautiful and the guy roommate has a little crush on her but is respectful and never acts on it. The relationship between the couple is poor. They Bengali guy is not a nice person, and his Bengali girlfriend seems to have blinders on (just like the family in the above story).
The second half of the book is actually 3 short stories that are linked together by two characters who meet when they are adolescents. It is called Hema and Kaushik. The stories track their lives, and there are relationships with Americans for both characters. n the last story they do hook up, but things don't seem to work out even though the initial part of the relationship is great.
I have enjoyed immensely every book that Lahiri has written and she will continue to be one of my favorite authors. I guess I like it so much because of the way she treats her characters. I really emphasize with them and what they go through in their relationships and marriages. In some ways, I see my self in these characters because I had an interracial marriage and I could understand what the characters are going through.
Here's a reading and discussion of the book.
A Borzai Book Published in 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf.
333 pages.
I'm trying to keep these entries short, but something tells me that this one will be difficult to keep short. First of all, this is Lahiri's second book of short stories. A comparison to her first book would be vital to the discussion, though it's been a while since I read that book. Second of all, I'll probably have to delve into detail on a couple of the stories. So I'll be looking at deatils of the stories and overall impressions, themes and trends.
Her first book of short stories, The Interpreter of Maladies, was also her first book and a Pulitzer prize winner. It's truly a fabulous book and one of my all time favorites. So how does this second newer one rate?
It's a very fine book. She continues writing with much emotional detail. She paints her characters with fine detailed strokes. The characters are likable and the reader feels empathy. Really, it's a close call of which book I like better, but perhaps Interpreter of Maladies is the better of the two books - slightly. It's been a while since I read that book, but the feeling that remains in me about that book is that it was more dynamic, adventurous (in her style of writing - not thin the narratives) and fresh. The stories are shorter so events have to happen quickly. Being Lahiri's debut book, like many authors' debuts, narratives tend to be punchier and quirkier. Not that Interpreters is a quirky book, just perhaps a little more than this one here - Unaccustomed Earth.
On the other hand, this newer book seems more mature and nuanced, (though even her first book had characters that were nuanced - she's a great writer when it comes to character).
In Interpreters, her stories were set in The United States, Britain (if memory serves me right) and her native land of India. It showed an author (or to extrapolate) or a people who struggle with self-identity. Especially the stories that took place in The West.
In the newer book, all the stories take place in the U.S. None take place in India except for perhaps references to trips back to the homeland. Again, the author is dealing with issues of self-identification. But I also think she has more interest in interracial relationships. Almost all the stories touch on this subject. Even in the stories that have Indian to Indian relationships, there are past experiences of the characters of dating/marrying non-Indians.
So what can I conclude is her opinion of these relationships? In the first book, I remember at least one story where it was an Indian to Indian relationship. That was a troubled relation. Who gets the blame for the failure of these mixed marriages. Well, she certainly doesn't throw the blame at the westerners. Most of the fault lays with the Indians,. Why? maybe, like many cultures that are trying to adapt to new ways, they are struggling with their identities. They're not sure how to go about things and are confused. They are not sure of which is the best way to act and behave. The blame might lay at the feet of the Indian-American (or is it Bengali - Americans), but the author certainly has empathy and understanding of what these characters are going through and might even hint at what the issues are for these confused characters.
Perhaps that's a good way to discuss the stories individually. By using the theme of inter-racial relationships as a string that holds the stories together,I will discuss each story.
Unaccustomed Earth is the first story as well as the title story and the longest story. It focuses on an Indian wife and her visiting widowed father. She is married to an "American" guy and he is shown in a pretty good light except for maybe that he's not around a lot because of business, and doesn't always understand his wife's concerns. But this story is one of the few that is less concerned with the marriage and more concerned with the father and daughter and even the grandson.
Hell-Heaven is the story of a Bengali man that became very close to a Bengali family. When he eventually dates and marries a white woman, the family, especially the mother, who became very close and had a crush on him was very upset. Everyone said how the relationship was wrong and that she would treat him badly. Well the reverse happened. The marriage ended but because of the husband's philandering ways.
A Choice of Accommodations is a story about a married couple, White wife and Bengali man who go away to a wedding in hopes of rekindling some of the old romance. Things don't turn out the way they had hoped, but there is a sweet ending. I liked this story a lot because both characters were shown to have flaws, yet it was hopeful at the end. It's difficult to lay the blame at any one's feet.
Only Goodness is a story of a sister who tries to help her brother who eventually becomes an alcoholic. She eventually marries a rich English guy and starts a family with him. When her brother comes back in the picture, it strains the relationship. The man seems a bit cold to her, but he's also correct about her brother and his problems, which the rest of his family has trouble accepting. So this is about a teenage boy trying to adapt to American ways and the blinders the parent wore in respect to him until it was too late.
Nobody's Business is one of the few stories where the main couple is Bengali, but the point of view is that of the American room mate. The girl in the relationship lives with two Americans, but she has a boyfriend. She's very beautiful and the guy roommate has a little crush on her but is respectful and never acts on it. The relationship between the couple is poor. They Bengali guy is not a nice person, and his Bengali girlfriend seems to have blinders on (just like the family in the above story).
The second half of the book is actually 3 short stories that are linked together by two characters who meet when they are adolescents. It is called Hema and Kaushik. The stories track their lives, and there are relationships with Americans for both characters. n the last story they do hook up, but things don't seem to work out even though the initial part of the relationship is great.
I have enjoyed immensely every book that Lahiri has written and she will continue to be one of my favorite authors. I guess I like it so much because of the way she treats her characters. I really emphasize with them and what they go through in their relationships and marriages. In some ways, I see my self in these characters because I had an interracial marriage and I could understand what the characters are going through.
Here's a reading and discussion of the book.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The Ask **1/2
By Sam Lipsyte.
Published in 2010 by Farrar, Staus and Giroux, New York.
296 pages.
I first heard of this book in the pages of a popular music magazine. I don't remember - maybe it was Mojo or Uncut, but it got good reviews so I took it out from the local library. And of course since it was reviewed by a major music magazine, most likely the book would be considered "edgy".or hip So what does "edgy" mean? Well if you were to use this book as an example "edgy" you would say its a book in which the main character is a screw up. It has lots of humor, sex (talk about sex in this one at least - not so much sex) and the abuse of substances taken as a natural course of things. The last three (sex, humor, substance abuse) don't surprise me but the screw up, irresponsible characters do surprise me a little. I see it as a pattern. In Rocket Man (see review several weeks back) the character is like that too. Like the character in this book, Milo, just doesn't fit in. Though I guess those types of characters are sort of slackers, and slackers have a certain (perceived) hipness in literature and especially film .
So the story goes that Milo works for a university (Mediocre University) trying to get donors to contribute to that university. The process of getting those donations is called the Ask. Actually getting the donations is called the Give. Milo is not so good at his job and he gets fired after scolding and insulting a young female student whose daddy has big money. He then gets an offer to return in spite of all this because an old friend who is rich (Purdy) has asked that Milo service him in his Give. So Milo gets another chance.
Meanwhile, he's pining for his glory days when he was a painter and was (supposedly) destined for glory - so he's bitter. He's lost his job and his marriage is in trouble and he's having a rough time.
The book goes off on a lot of tangents and rants which are kind of fun, but it does get a little convoluted and out of left field at times. One of the more interesting ideas, and he ends his book with this, is the idea of parallel worlds verses the here and now. In his parallel world, he becomes a famous painter and his marriage works, his future is bright. haven't we all had thought like that. "What if..." But no he's in the here and now, which still isn't looking so hot (not a happy ending to the book - not very hopeful) "I was digging in for the long night of here." he says.
Eventually the plot does pick up after all the flashbacks and meandering (not necessarily a bad thing and kind of fun) that takes place in the 1st half of the book and it is discovered that Purdy has a bastard son (Don) by a woman he was in love with during college whose mother had died and Purdy is trying to keep it hushed. This is the reason that Purdy wanted Milo to take care of his Give. The narrative definitely starts moving at this point.
This is a fun book and there are some splendid ideas to null over here. An over all enjoyable read.
Here's a reading by the author.
Published in 2010 by Farrar, Staus and Giroux, New York.
296 pages.
I first heard of this book in the pages of a popular music magazine. I don't remember - maybe it was Mojo or Uncut, but it got good reviews so I took it out from the local library. And of course since it was reviewed by a major music magazine, most likely the book would be considered "edgy".or hip So what does "edgy" mean? Well if you were to use this book as an example "edgy" you would say its a book in which the main character is a screw up. It has lots of humor, sex (talk about sex in this one at least - not so much sex) and the abuse of substances taken as a natural course of things. The last three (sex, humor, substance abuse) don't surprise me but the screw up, irresponsible characters do surprise me a little. I see it as a pattern. In Rocket Man (see review several weeks back) the character is like that too. Like the character in this book, Milo, just doesn't fit in. Though I guess those types of characters are sort of slackers, and slackers have a certain (perceived) hipness in literature and especially film .
So the story goes that Milo works for a university (Mediocre University) trying to get donors to contribute to that university. The process of getting those donations is called the Ask. Actually getting the donations is called the Give. Milo is not so good at his job and he gets fired after scolding and insulting a young female student whose daddy has big money. He then gets an offer to return in spite of all this because an old friend who is rich (Purdy) has asked that Milo service him in his Give. So Milo gets another chance.
Meanwhile, he's pining for his glory days when he was a painter and was (supposedly) destined for glory - so he's bitter. He's lost his job and his marriage is in trouble and he's having a rough time.
The book goes off on a lot of tangents and rants which are kind of fun, but it does get a little convoluted and out of left field at times. One of the more interesting ideas, and he ends his book with this, is the idea of parallel worlds verses the here and now. In his parallel world, he becomes a famous painter and his marriage works, his future is bright. haven't we all had thought like that. "What if..." But no he's in the here and now, which still isn't looking so hot (not a happy ending to the book - not very hopeful) "I was digging in for the long night of here." he says.
Eventually the plot does pick up after all the flashbacks and meandering (not necessarily a bad thing and kind of fun) that takes place in the 1st half of the book and it is discovered that Purdy has a bastard son (Don) by a woman he was in love with during college whose mother had died and Purdy is trying to keep it hushed. This is the reason that Purdy wanted Milo to take care of his Give. The narrative definitely starts moving at this point.
This is a fun book and there are some splendid ideas to null over here. An over all enjoyable read.
Here's a reading by the author.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Give Us A Kiss - A Country Noir ***
By Daniel Woodrell.
Published in 1996 by Henry Holt & Company, New York.
237 Pages.
I first heard of this author when I saw a movie Winter Bones based on one of his books by the same title. I was deeply impressed, so comparisons will be made despite the fact that the books are different (but same author remember).
The author was born and raised in the Ozark hills and a certain amount of love is shown to the culture and especially the land. The culture you say? What kind of culture is there in the Ozark Mountains? Why hillbilly culture of course. This book is a celebration of that culture and land.
When I saw the film Winter Bones, it was the seriousness of it that impressed me. It showed the poverty, drug addiction, rebelliousness against the law and the misogyny of the people who lived in the Ozarks. It was a serious film - violent and intense. Give Us a Kiss has all this, but it also has some humor. The author makes fun of the characters' white trash roots. He also gives the reader a sexy romance in which the protagonist hooks up with a an Elly May character right out of Beverly Hillbillies. He even references that actress who plays her. So funny, sexy violent and add to that some good writing and what's not to like? Well, it does have a lighter tone than the film Winter Bones so it was harder to take seriously. But all in all a quick satisfying read which I read in the course of two days.
The story goes that a struggling author (Doyle Redman) who writes a series of crime novels based on his life in the Ozarks, returns to his roots and family to encourage his older brother (Smoke) to give him self up to the authorities to save the parents from the daily harassment that they are receiving from those same authorities. He half-heartedly tries talking to his brother about it and then ends up joining his brother, the brother's girlfriend (Big Annie, named for her big boobs) and the girlfriend's 19 year old daughter (said hottie - Niagara) in a money making scheme involving the growing and selling of some marijuana. But there is another tribe or family that is even more dangerous and despicable than our heroes' family, and of course they get involved and old and new feuds are lit up. It ends in violent gunfight to the end.
I will be investigating more of this author's books. I like gritty realism and you get plenty of that in his books.
Here's a trailer from the movie Winter Bones. I have halted my reviews of films since I keep finding my self terribly behind, so I never got around to blogging about this one. I couldn't find anything specifically about Give Us Kiss, this trailer does give a a taste of what the book/s are about.
Published in 1996 by Henry Holt & Company, New York.
237 Pages.
I first heard of this author when I saw a movie Winter Bones based on one of his books by the same title. I was deeply impressed, so comparisons will be made despite the fact that the books are different (but same author remember).
The author was born and raised in the Ozark hills and a certain amount of love is shown to the culture and especially the land. The culture you say? What kind of culture is there in the Ozark Mountains? Why hillbilly culture of course. This book is a celebration of that culture and land.
When I saw the film Winter Bones, it was the seriousness of it that impressed me. It showed the poverty, drug addiction, rebelliousness against the law and the misogyny of the people who lived in the Ozarks. It was a serious film - violent and intense. Give Us a Kiss has all this, but it also has some humor. The author makes fun of the characters' white trash roots. He also gives the reader a sexy romance in which the protagonist hooks up with a an Elly May character right out of Beverly Hillbillies. He even references that actress who plays her. So funny, sexy violent and add to that some good writing and what's not to like? Well, it does have a lighter tone than the film Winter Bones so it was harder to take seriously. But all in all a quick satisfying read which I read in the course of two days.
The story goes that a struggling author (Doyle Redman) who writes a series of crime novels based on his life in the Ozarks, returns to his roots and family to encourage his older brother (Smoke) to give him self up to the authorities to save the parents from the daily harassment that they are receiving from those same authorities. He half-heartedly tries talking to his brother about it and then ends up joining his brother, the brother's girlfriend (Big Annie, named for her big boobs) and the girlfriend's 19 year old daughter (said hottie - Niagara) in a money making scheme involving the growing and selling of some marijuana. But there is another tribe or family that is even more dangerous and despicable than our heroes' family, and of course they get involved and old and new feuds are lit up. It ends in violent gunfight to the end.
I will be investigating more of this author's books. I like gritty realism and you get plenty of that in his books.
Here's a trailer from the movie Winter Bones. I have halted my reviews of films since I keep finding my self terribly behind, so I never got around to blogging about this one. I couldn't find anything specifically about Give Us Kiss, this trailer does give a a taste of what the book/s are about.
Monday, August 2, 2010
The Master Butcher's Singing Club ***1/2
By Louise Erdrich.
Published by Harper Perennial.
Originally published in Hardcover in 2003 by Harper Collins Publishers.
This edition published 2005.
388 pages.
This is one of those books that are very popular with book clubs. I usually try to stay away from those books, but I had to read this for a book club. It's not that the typical book read for book clubs is bad. Usually they are quite good. To have a good book discussion, a book that has some depth is necessary. And this is certainly an example of a typical book club book. It is very good with lots of things to discuss. It's just that when I talk to people about books, the same books keep coming up in conversation. It seems to me that people don't take chances or look for anything different that might be out there, so I avoid those books. Probably because of my desire to be cooler than thou. I want to be able to say, "Oh yeah, Everyone has read that! I haven't, but you should really check out this alternative and different book instead." (I don't mean alternative in the most recent sense of the word (ie. alternative music). So sure, perhaps I am arrogant and elitist, but I also have the soul of a teacher and I want people to wake up and realize there are options out there. That you don't have to read what everyone else reads.
Luckily, I am forced to read certain books that I would not necessarily read on my own through the book clubs. And many book club selections are excellent, so I am able to keep relatively current with what's popular. And this is one of those excellent books.
In fact it's a near masterpiece. The characters are well developed, the narrative is excellent and organized in an interesting manner (It keeps shifting from one character to another right when the reader is eager to find out what will happened next). The prose is poetic and descriptive and beautiful.
Perhaps there are personal reasons that I liked it so much too, or better said, perhaps my personal tastes have a lot to do with why I liked is so much. It's dark! Very, very dark! Yet there is always hope. The characters seem almost superhuman in their ability to survive their hard scrabbled lives. They are heroic and inspiring. It is set in the time period between the two great wars, so that makes this book historical fiction - one of my favorite genres. It takes place in small town North Dakota. A place that has unbearable heat in the summer and vicious cold in the winter with nothing to protect the citizen because of the flat treeless land. So it's a gritty book, another characteristic that appeals to me.
I have some issues with this book but I am not necessarily sure that they are really issues or if they add actually add to the feel and tone of the book. At almost 400 pages, it seemed at time that the plot moved a bit on the slow side. Masterful as the authors descriptions were, I at times had the feeling of wanting to get on with it. And I am a patient reader. It took forever for the butchers wife to die, for the butcher to finally declare his intentions for the heroin, fir the characters to clean out the filthy house that the town drunk lived in etc. But this might be appropriate since small town living in the first half of the 20th century must have been very slow paced. And it's our fast paced lives that make us impatient.
Also, I felt that Erdrich developed the woman characters better than the men characters. It's not surprising seeing as Erdrich is a woman author and knows more about women which would make her more invested in the woman characters. The men are outside drinking beer or participating in the singing club,. The women are inside cleaning and caring and taking care of the house. The butcher is dark, silent and kind of mysterious. The main character, Delphine becomes close friends with the wife. We seem to learn much more about the female characters - even the minor ones. It's a pattern I see in much historical fiction. In many cultures and in the past, women and men led very separate lives. The men were outside and the woman remained inside. Modern times have changed this dynamic quite a bit (for the better I believe). So maybe these less developed characters are appropriate for the time and place considering the story is mostly from the point of view of a female.
I usually get to the plot way before now. The two main characters, the butcher, Fidelis, and the traveling vaudeville girl, Delphine, start out in separate places. Fidelis is from Germany and immigrates to the U.S. after the 1st Great War with nothing more than his butchering tools and a case full of German sausages which he sells to make money to cross the country until he arrives in Argus, North Dakota. Meanwhile, Delphine is out traveling doing a Vaudeville show with a sexually confused acrobat who loves her, but more like a sister. They come back to Delphine's hometown where they meet her drunken father, who lives in a filthy house and may have accidentally left a family in the cellar to die while he was out on a drunken binge. Delphine gets a job with the butcher and meets and befriends his wife. The rest of the story is pretty much the story of the two families and all that has happened to them up to and after the Second World War.e money
The author happens to be part native American, French and German. She apparently writes quite frequently about Native American, particularly the Ojibwa tribe, which is where her roots are from. I had always been on the look out for writers that write about the Native American Experience. I think I might have found one and I hope to pursue more of his books.
Published by Harper Perennial.
Originally published in Hardcover in 2003 by Harper Collins Publishers.
This edition published 2005.
388 pages.
This is one of those books that are very popular with book clubs. I usually try to stay away from those books, but I had to read this for a book club. It's not that the typical book read for book clubs is bad. Usually they are quite good. To have a good book discussion, a book that has some depth is necessary. And this is certainly an example of a typical book club book. It is very good with lots of things to discuss. It's just that when I talk to people about books, the same books keep coming up in conversation. It seems to me that people don't take chances or look for anything different that might be out there, so I avoid those books. Probably because of my desire to be cooler than thou. I want to be able to say, "Oh yeah, Everyone has read that! I haven't, but you should really check out this alternative and different book instead." (I don't mean alternative in the most recent sense of the word (ie. alternative music). So sure, perhaps I am arrogant and elitist, but I also have the soul of a teacher and I want people to wake up and realize there are options out there. That you don't have to read what everyone else reads.
Luckily, I am forced to read certain books that I would not necessarily read on my own through the book clubs. And many book club selections are excellent, so I am able to keep relatively current with what's popular. And this is one of those excellent books.
In fact it's a near masterpiece. The characters are well developed, the narrative is excellent and organized in an interesting manner (It keeps shifting from one character to another right when the reader is eager to find out what will happened next). The prose is poetic and descriptive and beautiful.
Perhaps there are personal reasons that I liked it so much too, or better said, perhaps my personal tastes have a lot to do with why I liked is so much. It's dark! Very, very dark! Yet there is always hope. The characters seem almost superhuman in their ability to survive their hard scrabbled lives. They are heroic and inspiring. It is set in the time period between the two great wars, so that makes this book historical fiction - one of my favorite genres. It takes place in small town North Dakota. A place that has unbearable heat in the summer and vicious cold in the winter with nothing to protect the citizen because of the flat treeless land. So it's a gritty book, another characteristic that appeals to me.
I have some issues with this book but I am not necessarily sure that they are really issues or if they add actually add to the feel and tone of the book. At almost 400 pages, it seemed at time that the plot moved a bit on the slow side. Masterful as the authors descriptions were, I at times had the feeling of wanting to get on with it. And I am a patient reader. It took forever for the butchers wife to die, for the butcher to finally declare his intentions for the heroin, fir the characters to clean out the filthy house that the town drunk lived in etc. But this might be appropriate since small town living in the first half of the 20th century must have been very slow paced. And it's our fast paced lives that make us impatient.
Also, I felt that Erdrich developed the woman characters better than the men characters. It's not surprising seeing as Erdrich is a woman author and knows more about women which would make her more invested in the woman characters. The men are outside drinking beer or participating in the singing club,. The women are inside cleaning and caring and taking care of the house. The butcher is dark, silent and kind of mysterious. The main character, Delphine becomes close friends with the wife. We seem to learn much more about the female characters - even the minor ones. It's a pattern I see in much historical fiction. In many cultures and in the past, women and men led very separate lives. The men were outside and the woman remained inside. Modern times have changed this dynamic quite a bit (for the better I believe). So maybe these less developed characters are appropriate for the time and place considering the story is mostly from the point of view of a female.
I usually get to the plot way before now. The two main characters, the butcher, Fidelis, and the traveling vaudeville girl, Delphine, start out in separate places. Fidelis is from Germany and immigrates to the U.S. after the 1st Great War with nothing more than his butchering tools and a case full of German sausages which he sells to make money to cross the country until he arrives in Argus, North Dakota. Meanwhile, Delphine is out traveling doing a Vaudeville show with a sexually confused acrobat who loves her, but more like a sister. They come back to Delphine's hometown where they meet her drunken father, who lives in a filthy house and may have accidentally left a family in the cellar to die while he was out on a drunken binge. Delphine gets a job with the butcher and meets and befriends his wife. The rest of the story is pretty much the story of the two families and all that has happened to them up to and after the Second World War.e money
The author happens to be part native American, French and German. She apparently writes quite frequently about Native American, particularly the Ojibwa tribe, which is where her roots are from. I had always been on the look out for writers that write about the Native American Experience. I think I might have found one and I hope to pursue more of his books.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Asterios Polyp ***
By David Mazzuchelli.
Published by Pantheon Books, New York.
Copyright 2009.
Seeing as I had read this just after reading another graphic novel, it will be difficult to avoid comparisons, so I won't try to avoid them and state those comparisons right out. Like that last book, Curses, it does some philosophising and can get heady at times. The one big difference is that's much more fun to read. It's a little sexy and it has a sense of humor, The drawings are also more stylish (or stylistic if you like).
So the book starts out in our hero's (Asterios Polyp) apartment. It is destroyed and set on fire by a bolt of lightening. This bolt of lightening is a motif that occurs though out the book. At times it symbolizes the differences or dichotomies of life ( A bolt will come through the frame separating it in two parts) and of course it also symbolizes destruction.
So Asterios , a famous architect, is seemingly off on a journey of self discovery and gets hired as a mechanic in a small town. During this journey we learn of his past life in which he was divorced from his wife. We learn that he is a conceited man and snobbish. He doesn't treat his wife very good and he thinks he's smarter than everyone. During his journey though, his persona is much more humble and ready to listen to what people say. So there is a transformation.
All in all, an enjoyable read.
here's a review. Just listen to the first half since there are two reviews here.
A little hype for the book...
Published by Pantheon Books, New York.
Copyright 2009.
Seeing as I had read this just after reading another graphic novel, it will be difficult to avoid comparisons, so I won't try to avoid them and state those comparisons right out. Like that last book, Curses, it does some philosophising and can get heady at times. The one big difference is that's much more fun to read. It's a little sexy and it has a sense of humor, The drawings are also more stylish (or stylistic if you like).
So the book starts out in our hero's (Asterios Polyp) apartment. It is destroyed and set on fire by a bolt of lightening. This bolt of lightening is a motif that occurs though out the book. At times it symbolizes the differences or dichotomies of life ( A bolt will come through the frame separating it in two parts) and of course it also symbolizes destruction.
So Asterios , a famous architect, is seemingly off on a journey of self discovery and gets hired as a mechanic in a small town. During this journey we learn of his past life in which he was divorced from his wife. We learn that he is a conceited man and snobbish. He doesn't treat his wife very good and he thinks he's smarter than everyone. During his journey though, his persona is much more humble and ready to listen to what people say. So there is a transformation.
All in all, an enjoyable read.
here's a review. Just listen to the first half since there are two reviews here.
A little hype for the book...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Curses **
By Kevin Huizenga.
Published by Drawn and Quarterly, Montreal.
Copyright 2006.
145 pages
Drawn and Quarterly is an outfit you can count on for off beat comic books, and this one fits the bill. I admire the authors ambitiousness, but frankly it's a tad boring and difficult to get through. The ideas and narratives are so convoluted and academic it's difficult to read. And I read a lot, so I am not so easily confounded. I almost gave up in the middle of the first story. So for those who think that comics are for dummies, I challenge them to try this one on for size. There is some nice poetry in the merger between images and context. One of the more memorable stories is about how excited he gets when he gets those advertisements in the mail that have the missing children information. He goes into length describing them and explaining what his interest in them are. Then, inexplicably, he ties them to the Lost Boy of Africa from Sudan.
And this 'novel' is actually a book of short stories. Many of them have a fantastical or spiritual bent to them, which made it harder for me to read. I tend to like grittier and more realistic stories. When stories start to get into the realm of fancifulness, I star to lose interest.
Here are some of the topics of the stories:
1) During researching the topic of visions, the narrator starts to have some visions which scare him and then midway he tells the tale of an 18th century ghost tale in which a man has visions. He never really ties in the first part to the second part of the story.
Here's a quote to demonstrate just how difficult the language really is.
"You sir, know my tract on 'The cardinal Functions of the Brain.' There, by evidence of innumerable facts, I prove the high probability of a circulation arterial and venous in its mechanism, through the nerves."
And that is actually one of the easier ones to understand. I must confess, on rereading parts of this book while I write, the prose is a bit more understandable, but not much.
2)The story about the missing children mentioned above.
3) A story about how he and his wife have tried everything possible way to conceive a child. Finally he tries to find a feathered ogre, which if he gains the ogre's feather, all problems would be resolved. It is based on a folktale, but it gets silly. Even some of the conversation is silly.
4) A discussion of how the birds Starlings came to America and the history of that bird. Perhaps one of the more interesting excerpts from the book.
5) The exact text of adoption papers describing the child's circumstances contrasted to some Asian style landscapes. An interesting study of contrasting the profound and the profane.
6) An odd story in which the majority is spent on some friends that get together at a restaurant and we get to hear snippets of their conversations. This story is booked mark by some inexplicable scenes in which they are in a grave yard, for no apparent reason and in the middle there is a bike ride by the author and his wife in which winds are whipped up... and then nothing is made of that. One of the most confounding stories of the whole book.
7) A very short story on "The Hot New Thing" in which the history of this thing is shown even with out ever saying what that thing actually was. In other words, these new fads and such seem to repeat the histories of old fads, so the Hot New Thing could be described in such a generic manner.
8) And finally, a story about a conservative evangelical who is writing a paper in which he defends the traditional Hell in which sinners experience eternal suffering against his more progressive peers who have a more humane version of Hell. They believe that Hell is Eternal in that you are eternally dead, but not that a person necessarily suffers for eternity.
As I reread parts of this, I can appreciate the book better. This is therefore a book that needs to be reread and even discussed to appreciate it better... if one can find the motivation to do so.
And finally, one cant talk about a graphic novel with out talking about the illustrations. His style is very simple which contrasts his herky jerky story telling style. He does like to use bold and thick lines which help his creatures look a little more spooky. The stories in back, which are in full color, tend to lose this boldness of line, so perhaps these are later drawings. While easier on the eye, they do seem less dramatic.
Here is a much more eloquent review of the same book. You can also see the illustrations. He likes the book much more than I . I also like his comment about the drawings of suburbia.
And another discussion by a professional - A Librarian!
Published by Drawn and Quarterly, Montreal.
Copyright 2006.
145 pages
Drawn and Quarterly is an outfit you can count on for off beat comic books, and this one fits the bill. I admire the authors ambitiousness, but frankly it's a tad boring and difficult to get through. The ideas and narratives are so convoluted and academic it's difficult to read. And I read a lot, so I am not so easily confounded. I almost gave up in the middle of the first story. So for those who think that comics are for dummies, I challenge them to try this one on for size. There is some nice poetry in the merger between images and context. One of the more memorable stories is about how excited he gets when he gets those advertisements in the mail that have the missing children information. He goes into length describing them and explaining what his interest in them are. Then, inexplicably, he ties them to the Lost Boy of Africa from Sudan.
And this 'novel' is actually a book of short stories. Many of them have a fantastical or spiritual bent to them, which made it harder for me to read. I tend to like grittier and more realistic stories. When stories start to get into the realm of fancifulness, I star to lose interest.
Here are some of the topics of the stories:
1) During researching the topic of visions, the narrator starts to have some visions which scare him and then midway he tells the tale of an 18th century ghost tale in which a man has visions. He never really ties in the first part to the second part of the story.
Here's a quote to demonstrate just how difficult the language really is.
"You sir, know my tract on 'The cardinal Functions of the Brain.' There, by evidence of innumerable facts, I prove the high probability of a circulation arterial and venous in its mechanism, through the nerves."
And that is actually one of the easier ones to understand. I must confess, on rereading parts of this book while I write, the prose is a bit more understandable, but not much.
2)The story about the missing children mentioned above.
3) A story about how he and his wife have tried everything possible way to conceive a child. Finally he tries to find a feathered ogre, which if he gains the ogre's feather, all problems would be resolved. It is based on a folktale, but it gets silly. Even some of the conversation is silly.
4) A discussion of how the birds Starlings came to America and the history of that bird. Perhaps one of the more interesting excerpts from the book.
5) The exact text of adoption papers describing the child's circumstances contrasted to some Asian style landscapes. An interesting study of contrasting the profound and the profane.
6) An odd story in which the majority is spent on some friends that get together at a restaurant and we get to hear snippets of their conversations. This story is booked mark by some inexplicable scenes in which they are in a grave yard, for no apparent reason and in the middle there is a bike ride by the author and his wife in which winds are whipped up... and then nothing is made of that. One of the most confounding stories of the whole book.
7) A very short story on "The Hot New Thing" in which the history of this thing is shown even with out ever saying what that thing actually was. In other words, these new fads and such seem to repeat the histories of old fads, so the Hot New Thing could be described in such a generic manner.
8) And finally, a story about a conservative evangelical who is writing a paper in which he defends the traditional Hell in which sinners experience eternal suffering against his more progressive peers who have a more humane version of Hell. They believe that Hell is Eternal in that you are eternally dead, but not that a person necessarily suffers for eternity.
As I reread parts of this, I can appreciate the book better. This is therefore a book that needs to be reread and even discussed to appreciate it better... if one can find the motivation to do so.
And finally, one cant talk about a graphic novel with out talking about the illustrations. His style is very simple which contrasts his herky jerky story telling style. He does like to use bold and thick lines which help his creatures look a little more spooky. The stories in back, which are in full color, tend to lose this boldness of line, so perhaps these are later drawings. While easier on the eye, they do seem less dramatic.
Here is a much more eloquent review of the same book. You can also see the illustrations. He likes the book much more than I . I also like his comment about the drawings of suburbia.
And another discussion by a professional - A Librarian!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Rocket Man***
By William Elliott Hazelgrove.
Published by Pantonne Press Inc. Chicago Illinois.
copyright 2009.
377 pages.
If this isn't one of the best books I have ever read, I certainly enjoyed my self while reading it,. It is laugh out loud funny. Because that is what I did when I read it - i actually laughed out loud.. I read it for a book club, and I think that most of the older group didn't care for it. It is certainly not a subtle book. The author pretty much hits the reader over the head with the ideas. But they are some interesting ideas. My book groups also complained about the editing. Something I didn't notice until it was mentioned, or perhaps most of the problems come at the second half of the book. ( I was only half way through when we talked about it). It is a small press so perhaps that is the reason for the poor proof reading. It is supposed to be rereleased in a hardcover edition.by a large corporate press and those problems should be taken care of.
So what are some of the ideas the book discusses? It discusses, suburban life and the conformity that comes with that kind of life. It discusses the concept of happiness. Are those conformists suburbanites as happy or even happier than the misplaced behemian artist? In other words, what is happiness and how does that happiness differ for different people. Those are the two main ideas. Some other subconcepts are some discussions of how people live beyond their means - a subject that is surely current in this post housing boom failure era. And the character is frustrated. Is it his surroundings that stunt his creativity or is he just creatively spent?. The book also talks about the difficulties of keeping up with the responsibilities of keeping up with modern life and families.
So, the story goes that our protagonist, Dale Hammer (Alias Rocket Man) is a transplant from the city to the distant suburbs of Chicago. That's right, the story takes place in Chiacgao, though the names of the towns are thinly disguised. He's a writer and is accustomed to the multicultural, liberal environment of Oakland (alias Oak Park). But becasue of crime and schools, he and his wife decide to move out to the richer suburbs, though seemingly they are now living in a house they can't afford even though they made money on the sale of their old house.
Well, Dale just doesn't fit in and between his own incompetence, his refusal to conform and the Fascist like (in his opinion - they are painted that way anyway) community members like gym teachers and scout leaders. His life is falling apart and it is hilarious to watch/read about.
But he has a goal. To make up for the miserable parenting he has performed for his son, he promises his son that he will perform his duties as Rocket Man. This is a once a year event in which all the scouts blast off their rockets in an open field. It is turning into something more than he bargained for, but he perseveres for the sake of his son, who is also struggling in his new environment. The ending is a beautiful, chaotic dance of joy and rebelliousness that brings the close to the happy ending novel.
In fact that was something that the book group had a problem. The ending was too easy. It seemed forced they said. I thought it was perfect and glorious. It was all leading to this point anyway, so why not a happy ending.
By the way, the author is a writer in residence at the Hemmingway House and wrote this book from Hemmingway's attic. Here is a reading of his book by the author from Hemmingway's attic.
Published by Pantonne Press Inc. Chicago Illinois.
copyright 2009.
377 pages.
If this isn't one of the best books I have ever read, I certainly enjoyed my self while reading it,. It is laugh out loud funny. Because that is what I did when I read it - i actually laughed out loud.. I read it for a book club, and I think that most of the older group didn't care for it. It is certainly not a subtle book. The author pretty much hits the reader over the head with the ideas. But they are some interesting ideas. My book groups also complained about the editing. Something I didn't notice until it was mentioned, or perhaps most of the problems come at the second half of the book. ( I was only half way through when we talked about it). It is a small press so perhaps that is the reason for the poor proof reading. It is supposed to be rereleased in a hardcover edition.by a large corporate press and those problems should be taken care of.
So what are some of the ideas the book discusses? It discusses, suburban life and the conformity that comes with that kind of life. It discusses the concept of happiness. Are those conformists suburbanites as happy or even happier than the misplaced behemian artist? In other words, what is happiness and how does that happiness differ for different people. Those are the two main ideas. Some other subconcepts are some discussions of how people live beyond their means - a subject that is surely current in this post housing boom failure era. And the character is frustrated. Is it his surroundings that stunt his creativity or is he just creatively spent?. The book also talks about the difficulties of keeping up with the responsibilities of keeping up with modern life and families.
So, the story goes that our protagonist, Dale Hammer (Alias Rocket Man) is a transplant from the city to the distant suburbs of Chicago. That's right, the story takes place in Chiacgao, though the names of the towns are thinly disguised. He's a writer and is accustomed to the multicultural, liberal environment of Oakland (alias Oak Park). But becasue of crime and schools, he and his wife decide to move out to the richer suburbs, though seemingly they are now living in a house they can't afford even though they made money on the sale of their old house.
Well, Dale just doesn't fit in and between his own incompetence, his refusal to conform and the Fascist like (in his opinion - they are painted that way anyway) community members like gym teachers and scout leaders. His life is falling apart and it is hilarious to watch/read about.
But he has a goal. To make up for the miserable parenting he has performed for his son, he promises his son that he will perform his duties as Rocket Man. This is a once a year event in which all the scouts blast off their rockets in an open field. It is turning into something more than he bargained for, but he perseveres for the sake of his son, who is also struggling in his new environment. The ending is a beautiful, chaotic dance of joy and rebelliousness that brings the close to the happy ending novel.
In fact that was something that the book group had a problem. The ending was too easy. It seemed forced they said. I thought it was perfect and glorious. It was all leading to this point anyway, so why not a happy ending.
By the way, the author is a writer in residence at the Hemmingway House and wrote this book from Hemmingway's attic. Here is a reading of his book by the author from Hemmingway's attic.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Family Matters ***
By Rohinton Mistry.
Published 2002 by Borzoi Books/ Alfred A. Knopf a Division of Random House.
Originally Published in Canada by McClelland and Stewart.
434 pages.
I like novels by Indian authors. They tend to be really sad. Two books in particular are so sad that they reach into your chest and pull your heart out and then jump on top of it to smash it to pieces. They are incredibly powerful and sad. One is (forgive me the full names - they are Indian and I don't remember very well) Roy's God of Small Things about an illicit love affair between disparate castes and the horrific consequences. The other is A Fine Balance by this same author as the book I am reviewing now in which two characters from the Untouchable class also have horrific consequences for their behavior and actions.
This book, Family Matters does have it's tragic moments but it is a decidedly lighter book in feeling, though not necessarily in content.
My son has been teasing me about how I like sad or dark books as of late "Why do you always read those kinds of books" he said to me while I was reading this one. I said, "hey, this isn't so dark it's all about a faimily who are just trying to survive and even hopefully thrive".I have heard this comment before about books being to sad or dark. When I facilitated a book club for teachers, one of the comments was why we couldn't ever read anything fun or happy. One person, I think a co facilitator, said that great literature is not usually light and whimsical. That may be true, but I would also add the explanation I gave to my son. Part of the structure of all stories is that they all have problems that need to be resolved. From these problems come the darkness. We all have darkness in our hearts becasue we all have problems, even the perkiest person in the world, and all books have a darkness that results from the problem that is trying to be resolved. True some are darker than others. That would depend on how the author decides to end the stroy. Will it be resolved with a happy ending or will the ending be less obvious, hence darker? I ramble I know but those are the thoughts that this book has inspired in me.
So this story goes that an old man, Nariman, is living with his step children, Coomy and Jal, who are unmarried. When he seriously gets hurt and winds up bed ridden, the selfish siblings, especailly Coomy, foist him off on their half sister (and daughter of Nariman) Roxy becasue he is too difficult to care for. Roxy has a complete nuclear family but she loves her father and takes him in their much smaller apartment. Nariman is well loved, and well cared for but his presence causes problems and the family struggles with lack of space and less income. While there are some tragic events, funnily enough, the book ends with your tradtional happy ending. Everything is resolved. But the author adds a very intriguing epilogue.
It's five years later, and Nariman has passed away, but the family seems to be embroiled in trouble once again. The son of Roxy is continously battling with is father (Roxy's husband) over a girl that is from a different religion. The signifiicance of this is that much of Nariman's tragic troubles started in the same way. He when he was younger he also had a love with a girl that was not of his caste and he and his family suffer for it greatly. This ending seems to say several things to me. Life is cyclical in that problems get resolved and then new ones arise. So happy ending and all life continues and new crap comes up. Of course it also says something to the idea of religious intolerance anf the fact that the family hadn't learned from ther grandfather's troubles.
My only real criticism is that I didn't care for the parts where Roxy's husband started to become religious. It had described the scene and rituals of the religion, which I know should be interesting because I know nothing about Zarathustra religion, but I found all the details a bit of a chore to read. Of course this conversion of the father was necessary for the important ending, but I wonder if the point could have been made in a shorter way (damned American attention span I got). Other wise, this seems to me an almost flawless book.
Published 2002 by Borzoi Books/ Alfred A. Knopf a Division of Random House.
Originally Published in Canada by McClelland and Stewart.
434 pages.
I like novels by Indian authors. They tend to be really sad. Two books in particular are so sad that they reach into your chest and pull your heart out and then jump on top of it to smash it to pieces. They are incredibly powerful and sad. One is (forgive me the full names - they are Indian and I don't remember very well) Roy's God of Small Things about an illicit love affair between disparate castes and the horrific consequences. The other is A Fine Balance by this same author as the book I am reviewing now in which two characters from the Untouchable class also have horrific consequences for their behavior and actions.
This book, Family Matters does have it's tragic moments but it is a decidedly lighter book in feeling, though not necessarily in content.
My son has been teasing me about how I like sad or dark books as of late "Why do you always read those kinds of books" he said to me while I was reading this one. I said, "hey, this isn't so dark it's all about a faimily who are just trying to survive and even hopefully thrive".I have heard this comment before about books being to sad or dark. When I facilitated a book club for teachers, one of the comments was why we couldn't ever read anything fun or happy. One person, I think a co facilitator, said that great literature is not usually light and whimsical. That may be true, but I would also add the explanation I gave to my son. Part of the structure of all stories is that they all have problems that need to be resolved. From these problems come the darkness. We all have darkness in our hearts becasue we all have problems, even the perkiest person in the world, and all books have a darkness that results from the problem that is trying to be resolved. True some are darker than others. That would depend on how the author decides to end the stroy. Will it be resolved with a happy ending or will the ending be less obvious, hence darker? I ramble I know but those are the thoughts that this book has inspired in me.
So this story goes that an old man, Nariman, is living with his step children, Coomy and Jal, who are unmarried. When he seriously gets hurt and winds up bed ridden, the selfish siblings, especailly Coomy, foist him off on their half sister (and daughter of Nariman) Roxy becasue he is too difficult to care for. Roxy has a complete nuclear family but she loves her father and takes him in their much smaller apartment. Nariman is well loved, and well cared for but his presence causes problems and the family struggles with lack of space and less income. While there are some tragic events, funnily enough, the book ends with your tradtional happy ending. Everything is resolved. But the author adds a very intriguing epilogue.
It's five years later, and Nariman has passed away, but the family seems to be embroiled in trouble once again. The son of Roxy is continously battling with is father (Roxy's husband) over a girl that is from a different religion. The signifiicance of this is that much of Nariman's tragic troubles started in the same way. He when he was younger he also had a love with a girl that was not of his caste and he and his family suffer for it greatly. This ending seems to say several things to me. Life is cyclical in that problems get resolved and then new ones arise. So happy ending and all life continues and new crap comes up. Of course it also says something to the idea of religious intolerance anf the fact that the family hadn't learned from ther grandfather's troubles.
My only real criticism is that I didn't care for the parts where Roxy's husband started to become religious. It had described the scene and rituals of the religion, which I know should be interesting because I know nothing about Zarathustra religion, but I found all the details a bit of a chore to read. Of course this conversion of the father was necessary for the important ending, but I wonder if the point could have been made in a shorter way (damned American attention span I got). Other wise, this seems to me an almost flawless book.
Solar **1/2
By Ian McEwan.
Published in 2010 by Nan A. Talese / Doubleday a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
originally published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, The Random House Group Ltd., London.
287 Pages.
On Face Book there is an application called Shiite gifts for academics and it's really funny. You can send really crappy gifts to your friends in academia. For example you can send obsolete and broken technology and there will be a picture of a beat up old overhead projector. You can also send people as gifts such as the creepy, ogling colleague or the spoiled coed with the car that's nicer than yours. There's one i really like. You can send a professor who behaves like a character in a Phillip Roth novel. The implication is that these characters are pretty despicable (and I tend to relate to Roth's character - oh no!) This book reminds me of a Philip Roth book because here we have a character that behaves pretty despicable, yet the reader is attached to him because we see everything from his point of view.
So the story goes that this middle aged, balding and fat man named Michael Beard is a scientist who many years previously won the Nobel Peace Prize for some formula or concept he had thought up. After that he had been pretty much resting on hi laurels and accepting institutional positions and opportunities to speak to make money. The book starts out with him involved in one of many marriages and affairs. He's constantly cheating on his wives and lovers - despicable. He's fat bald and middle aged yet he's still able to get the girls (writer's fantasy?)
He's appointed to be head of a new facility that is opened in England to compete with America's program on alternative energies. After some faltering first steps, the organization decides to put it's energies into Micheal's idea of producing wind turbins on a small scale so that every home in London can afford one. After a while Beard realizes that it is a horrible idea, but everyone is so gung ho about it, he decides to go with the flow.
That is until one of his young superstar upstarts starts to talk with him about an idea of using Solar Energy that is converted to electricity in a unique and efficient new way ( I can't remember the exact process). Beard is reluctant though he knows his idea is a terrible one.
Then there is a freak accident and the young man is now out of the picture. Beard decides to take the kid's idea and run with it claiming that it is all his own in hopes to garner attention and to frankly save the world (from global warming of course). Despicable! The novel progresses by describing his current relationship/s and the onward march to the revelation of his project to the world. But with all the bridges he's burned (he doesn't do well in social situations either) and all the hearts he has broken, everything catches up to him at the finale when he is ready to unveil his much loved project.
I like McEwan's sense of humor, something that has not been a focal point in any of the books I have read by him previously. Some of the technical jargon gets to be a little too much and can be a bit frustrating, but I can manage to follow most of it. Not his greatest work but funny and thought provoking. And current in today's science and politics.
Here are two videos. One is an interview and one is a reading by the author.
And an excerpt...
here's an interview.
Published in 2010 by Nan A. Talese / Doubleday a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
originally published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, The Random House Group Ltd., London.
287 Pages.
On Face Book there is an application called Shiite gifts for academics and it's really funny. You can send really crappy gifts to your friends in academia. For example you can send obsolete and broken technology and there will be a picture of a beat up old overhead projector. You can also send people as gifts such as the creepy, ogling colleague or the spoiled coed with the car that's nicer than yours. There's one i really like. You can send a professor who behaves like a character in a Phillip Roth novel. The implication is that these characters are pretty despicable (and I tend to relate to Roth's character - oh no!) This book reminds me of a Philip Roth book because here we have a character that behaves pretty despicable, yet the reader is attached to him because we see everything from his point of view.
So the story goes that this middle aged, balding and fat man named Michael Beard is a scientist who many years previously won the Nobel Peace Prize for some formula or concept he had thought up. After that he had been pretty much resting on hi laurels and accepting institutional positions and opportunities to speak to make money. The book starts out with him involved in one of many marriages and affairs. He's constantly cheating on his wives and lovers - despicable. He's fat bald and middle aged yet he's still able to get the girls (writer's fantasy?)
He's appointed to be head of a new facility that is opened in England to compete with America's program on alternative energies. After some faltering first steps, the organization decides to put it's energies into Micheal's idea of producing wind turbins on a small scale so that every home in London can afford one. After a while Beard realizes that it is a horrible idea, but everyone is so gung ho about it, he decides to go with the flow.
That is until one of his young superstar upstarts starts to talk with him about an idea of using Solar Energy that is converted to electricity in a unique and efficient new way ( I can't remember the exact process). Beard is reluctant though he knows his idea is a terrible one.
Then there is a freak accident and the young man is now out of the picture. Beard decides to take the kid's idea and run with it claiming that it is all his own in hopes to garner attention and to frankly save the world (from global warming of course). Despicable! The novel progresses by describing his current relationship/s and the onward march to the revelation of his project to the world. But with all the bridges he's burned (he doesn't do well in social situations either) and all the hearts he has broken, everything catches up to him at the finale when he is ready to unveil his much loved project.
I like McEwan's sense of humor, something that has not been a focal point in any of the books I have read by him previously. Some of the technical jargon gets to be a little too much and can be a bit frustrating, but I can manage to follow most of it. Not his greatest work but funny and thought provoking. And current in today's science and politics.
Here are two videos. One is an interview and one is a reading by the author.
And an excerpt...
here's an interview.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Bad Night: A Criminal Edition ***
Written by Ed Brubaker.
Illustrated by Sean Phillips.
Compiled and published by Marvel Publishing Inc.
from Criminal Volume 2 #1-4
Copyright 2009.
This is the third graphic novel from the award winning series Criminal. I'm big fan. This is probably the best mainstream comic available. I'll read anything by Brubaker (several years back he wrote a portion of the Daredevil comics.) The books are gritty, violent and the story telling is simple and straightforward. The pages are filled with creeps, weirdos and the violently psychotic. It's good fun reading.
So what about this one? It's the story of a widowed and lame guy that use to be a counterfeiter but now is on the straight and narrow, mostly because of the death of his wife for which he suffered terribly. His suffering was heightened by the fact that the cops didn't believe he was innocent in her death and neither did the underworld (who the parents of his deceased wife was connected to). He was beaten horrible and walks with a limp. This all takes place before the actual story starts.
Our (anti)hero has insomnia and walks the streets at night. One night at a diner he meets a violent couple of which one was a beautiful woman. Her boyfriend is looking for a fight and the cook has to subdue him. Our hero seems to have run away though. he sees the girl on the street, and finds she's almost as crazy as her boyfriend, but she's a knockout. they end up having an affair. The boyfriend finds out about it and because of fear, the counterfeiter is forced to work for these petty criminals. Meanwhile he still lusts after the girlfriend. There's going to be a job to be done, and there's a series of twists and turns where everything goes awry.
The story starts out great and is typical of the quality i expect from the series. It seems to fade in the end though. I wasn't satisfied with the ending,. Usually I look forward to the straightforward stories the series has, but the ending is a little convoluted involving the ghost of his wife (we do find out what really happened to her) and a voice inside his head that is one of his characters in the comic strip he publishes.
Still a great book, but I'm afraid not as strong as the previous two. Start with those first, though you'll also enjoy this one too.
Illustrated by Sean Phillips.
Compiled and published by Marvel Publishing Inc.
from Criminal Volume 2 #1-4
Copyright 2009.
This is the third graphic novel from the award winning series Criminal. I'm big fan. This is probably the best mainstream comic available. I'll read anything by Brubaker (several years back he wrote a portion of the Daredevil comics.) The books are gritty, violent and the story telling is simple and straightforward. The pages are filled with creeps, weirdos and the violently psychotic. It's good fun reading.
So what about this one? It's the story of a widowed and lame guy that use to be a counterfeiter but now is on the straight and narrow, mostly because of the death of his wife for which he suffered terribly. His suffering was heightened by the fact that the cops didn't believe he was innocent in her death and neither did the underworld (who the parents of his deceased wife was connected to). He was beaten horrible and walks with a limp. This all takes place before the actual story starts.
Our (anti)hero has insomnia and walks the streets at night. One night at a diner he meets a violent couple of which one was a beautiful woman. Her boyfriend is looking for a fight and the cook has to subdue him. Our hero seems to have run away though. he sees the girl on the street, and finds she's almost as crazy as her boyfriend, but she's a knockout. they end up having an affair. The boyfriend finds out about it and because of fear, the counterfeiter is forced to work for these petty criminals. Meanwhile he still lusts after the girlfriend. There's going to be a job to be done, and there's a series of twists and turns where everything goes awry.
The story starts out great and is typical of the quality i expect from the series. It seems to fade in the end though. I wasn't satisfied with the ending,. Usually I look forward to the straightforward stories the series has, but the ending is a little convoluted involving the ghost of his wife (we do find out what really happened to her) and a voice inside his head that is one of his characters in the comic strip he publishes.
Still a great book, but I'm afraid not as strong as the previous two. Start with those first, though you'll also enjoy this one too.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Ludmila's Broken Accent ***
By DBC Pierre.
Published by W.W. Norton and Company in 2007.
336 pages.
The book has two seperate stories that come together into one finale. One story is much better than the other one.
That's the story about Ludmila, a peasant girl in the Caucuses who knows a pinch of English (hence the broken accent). This is the better part because it is hilarious. The family have this way of daily conversation that is all East European. They constantly curse each other out in the most outlandish, wildly humilaiting ways. It's a veritable reference book on how to curse someone out. The story is fairly simple (which I prefer to convoluted twisted narratives). Ludmila kills her grandfather when he tries to rape her, but his pension is the family's only money source. She is forced to go to town to sell the family tractor and get a job at the local family or whorehouse - which ever.
The second story , which is weaker, is about two conjoined twins who, at the age of 33, finally become separated. They had been institutionalized their whole life and are having issues when they finally get into the real world. Inexplicably, they are invited to a party, get a job and discover some sort of potion that gives you confidence and vigor. They are sent Eastern Europe where they collide with Ludmila. Notice how the last sequence of events just kind of tumble off the page. There is no rhyme or reason, that can be deciphered in any way. What's the deal with the potion? Why did they get a job? Who is this mysterious government man that brings them to the party? Why do they got to go to the party? All these questions and their answers are sort of glossed over or are poorly presented as to make sense to the reader.
Overall, it's an enjoyable read becasue it is so damn funny, but it is a very flawed book.
Published by W.W. Norton and Company in 2007.
336 pages.
The book has two seperate stories that come together into one finale. One story is much better than the other one.
That's the story about Ludmila, a peasant girl in the Caucuses who knows a pinch of English (hence the broken accent). This is the better part because it is hilarious. The family have this way of daily conversation that is all East European. They constantly curse each other out in the most outlandish, wildly humilaiting ways. It's a veritable reference book on how to curse someone out. The story is fairly simple (which I prefer to convoluted twisted narratives). Ludmila kills her grandfather when he tries to rape her, but his pension is the family's only money source. She is forced to go to town to sell the family tractor and get a job at the local family or whorehouse - which ever.
The second story , which is weaker, is about two conjoined twins who, at the age of 33, finally become separated. They had been institutionalized their whole life and are having issues when they finally get into the real world. Inexplicably, they are invited to a party, get a job and discover some sort of potion that gives you confidence and vigor. They are sent Eastern Europe where they collide with Ludmila. Notice how the last sequence of events just kind of tumble off the page. There is no rhyme or reason, that can be deciphered in any way. What's the deal with the potion? Why did they get a job? Who is this mysterious government man that brings them to the party? Why do they got to go to the party? All these questions and their answers are sort of glossed over or are poorly presented as to make sense to the reader.
Overall, it's an enjoyable read becasue it is so damn funny, but it is a very flawed book.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Road ***
Directed by John Hillcoat.
Based on Novel by Cormac Mccarthy.
Screenplay by Joe Penhall.
With Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pierce, Molly Parker.
Made by Dimension Films, 2009.
Seen in theater.
I've already gave the summary of the book back in the summer of 2009, which is pretty close to that of the movie. The movie eclipses and speeds up some events, but stays pretty close to the book. My biggest worry was that the movie would be Hollywoodized and focus on the marauding parties, action sequences and relationship between the father and the wife played by Charlize Theron. I figured with a major star like Theron, they would have to give her a bigger part. In the book these sequences were only a small part the whole. Thankfully, the film treated these sequences with the same amount of narrative weight as the book more or less. The film remains true to the original source material by being dark, grim and foreboding.
I was very excited by the fact that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis were doing the sound track to the film. To my surprise, the soundtrack was very subtle. Some light piano tinkling and some violin playing. It was not something that stood out, but complimented the film well.
As I probably said in the book review, there is some hope in the film, represented the boy and his future. There is much discussion of good people and bad people, abnd the father is desperately trying to teach the boy about being a good person, but the stresses of their journey make it hard to generous to the few people they meet on the road. The boy is his conscience. So there is a dependency that the two share with each other. On one hand you have the boy's purity of heart and on the other hand you have the fathers undying love and protectiveness for the boy. They need each other. When the boy goes on his own, one senses that the goodness will prevail, if the human race can survive, which is not a for sure thing.
And the performances are very good. I'm no expert on the elements of quality acting, but there are some excellent reputations on the screen, and I didn't find any of the acting to be false.
Based on Novel by Cormac Mccarthy.
Screenplay by Joe Penhall.
With Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pierce, Molly Parker.
Made by Dimension Films, 2009.
Seen in theater.
I've already gave the summary of the book back in the summer of 2009, which is pretty close to that of the movie. The movie eclipses and speeds up some events, but stays pretty close to the book. My biggest worry was that the movie would be Hollywoodized and focus on the marauding parties, action sequences and relationship between the father and the wife played by Charlize Theron. I figured with a major star like Theron, they would have to give her a bigger part. In the book these sequences were only a small part the whole. Thankfully, the film treated these sequences with the same amount of narrative weight as the book more or less. The film remains true to the original source material by being dark, grim and foreboding.
I was very excited by the fact that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis were doing the sound track to the film. To my surprise, the soundtrack was very subtle. Some light piano tinkling and some violin playing. It was not something that stood out, but complimented the film well.
As I probably said in the book review, there is some hope in the film, represented the boy and his future. There is much discussion of good people and bad people, abnd the father is desperately trying to teach the boy about being a good person, but the stresses of their journey make it hard to generous to the few people they meet on the road. The boy is his conscience. So there is a dependency that the two share with each other. On one hand you have the boy's purity of heart and on the other hand you have the fathers undying love and protectiveness for the boy. They need each other. When the boy goes on his own, one senses that the goodness will prevail, if the human race can survive, which is not a for sure thing.
And the performances are very good. I'm no expert on the elements of quality acting, but there are some excellent reputations on the screen, and I didn't find any of the acting to be false.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
All The Lovely Bad Ones **
Written byMary Downing Hahn.
Published by Sandpiper 2009.
192 pages.
This is a ghost story about two mischeivous children who visit their grandmother's bed and breakfast which had a haunted reputation. But since Grandmother bought it, that activity has disappeared. The two kids hear the stories and decide to put on a little spook show themselves. But they find out that they have woken up some ghosts. Ghost children to be exact. These children are mischeivous too, but in the end, we learn that they want help from the live children.
It seems that the bed and breakfast used to be an orphange run by a selfish, cheating violent woman who mistreated them. In fact they all had died at her hand. They want to put her spirit to rest, so that they may rest their spirits since this woman still haunts them, even in the afterlife. The two live children feel obliged or perhaps coerced into helping the children ghosts and a series of adventures and scary happenings occur.
I'm not a typical horror book reader, so it's difficult to judge this book. It seems fine to me, though the characters mightt seem a little undelineated and sketchy. They don't seem to be fully devloped, but I believe that is a typical thing with the horror genre and other fantasy genres. The genre is long on fantasy and short on character devlopment.
There is a nice rendering of the incidents that happens in the orphanage's past which are pretty spooky an kind of grim. Over all, I enjoyed the book.
Published by Sandpiper 2009.
192 pages.
This is a ghost story about two mischeivous children who visit their grandmother's bed and breakfast which had a haunted reputation. But since Grandmother bought it, that activity has disappeared. The two kids hear the stories and decide to put on a little spook show themselves. But they find out that they have woken up some ghosts. Ghost children to be exact. These children are mischeivous too, but in the end, we learn that they want help from the live children.
It seems that the bed and breakfast used to be an orphange run by a selfish, cheating violent woman who mistreated them. In fact they all had died at her hand. They want to put her spirit to rest, so that they may rest their spirits since this woman still haunts them, even in the afterlife. The two live children feel obliged or perhaps coerced into helping the children ghosts and a series of adventures and scary happenings occur.
I'm not a typical horror book reader, so it's difficult to judge this book. It seems fine to me, though the characters mightt seem a little undelineated and sketchy. They don't seem to be fully devloped, but I believe that is a typical thing with the horror genre and other fantasy genres. The genre is long on fantasy and short on character devlopment.
There is a nice rendering of the incidents that happens in the orphanage's past which are pretty spooky an kind of grim. Over all, I enjoyed the book.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Heart Shaped Box **
By Joe Hill.
Published by Harper Paperbacks 2009.
400 pages.
This is a fun, but silly little book. I guess it's a best seller, though I generally don't read mass media best sellers. This is a horror book. Specifically, it is a ghost story. Since I generally don't read this genre, I have no point of reference of how it compares to other books of its ilk. This was nothing special. I wonder how less well received books are. Maybe they are just plain silly. This at least was well paced and the characters were well drawn.
An aging death metal rock star, who had a hobby of collecting morbid artifacts found himself in possession of a suit of a recently dead man, who was now a ghost. The ghost had started to haunt him. Some of these scenes were pretty creepy. Being a rock star, he has a goth girlfriend. She's one of many, but since she's around when the haunting and terror starts, she becomes very close to him and him to her. Apparently the ghost is haunting him because our hero had an old girlfriend who was mentally unstable and killed herself after the break up. The ghost is the stepfather of the dead girl and is out to revenge his stepdaughter's death. There are the requisite twists and the journey into other, after life worlds (an especially silly part), but it turns out the rock star hero isn't so bad at all. He wasn't the cause of the suicide etc, and the ghost tried to kill him for fear of our hero interfering in the sordid lifestyle he had had previously with his stepdaughters.
I think one interesting idea is the presentation of the metal rock life style. In real life, most mainstream people tend to fear people who dress in leather and all that other paraphernalia that rockers wear. This book does show these people as real feeling and sensitive people. It shows the home life and consequent problems that they often have endured. The thesis here is that most metal heads/ punk rockers are the way they are because of their dysfunctional family life in which they grew up. A thesis I don't necessarily agree with.
Here's an interview with the author, who by the way is the son of Stephen King.
Published by Harper Paperbacks 2009.
400 pages.
This is a fun, but silly little book. I guess it's a best seller, though I generally don't read mass media best sellers. This is a horror book. Specifically, it is a ghost story. Since I generally don't read this genre, I have no point of reference of how it compares to other books of its ilk. This was nothing special. I wonder how less well received books are. Maybe they are just plain silly. This at least was well paced and the characters were well drawn.
An aging death metal rock star, who had a hobby of collecting morbid artifacts found himself in possession of a suit of a recently dead man, who was now a ghost. The ghost had started to haunt him. Some of these scenes were pretty creepy. Being a rock star, he has a goth girlfriend. She's one of many, but since she's around when the haunting and terror starts, she becomes very close to him and him to her. Apparently the ghost is haunting him because our hero had an old girlfriend who was mentally unstable and killed herself after the break up. The ghost is the stepfather of the dead girl and is out to revenge his stepdaughter's death. There are the requisite twists and the journey into other, after life worlds (an especially silly part), but it turns out the rock star hero isn't so bad at all. He wasn't the cause of the suicide etc, and the ghost tried to kill him for fear of our hero interfering in the sordid lifestyle he had had previously with his stepdaughters.
I think one interesting idea is the presentation of the metal rock life style. In real life, most mainstream people tend to fear people who dress in leather and all that other paraphernalia that rockers wear. This book does show these people as real feeling and sensitive people. It shows the home life and consequent problems that they often have endured. The thesis here is that most metal heads/ punk rockers are the way they are because of their dysfunctional family life in which they grew up. A thesis I don't necessarily agree with.
Here's an interview with the author, who by the way is the son of Stephen King.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Julie & Julia **1/2
Directed by Nora Ephron.
Screenplay by Nora Ephron. Based on book by Julie Powell.
Released August 2009.
With Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Linda Edmond.
Seen in Theater.
Over all an entertaining night at the cinema, if not a little on the light side.
The premise is that Julie Powell has decided to take on a whole cook book by Julia Childs, day by day - recipe by recipe. And she blogs about her triumphs and tribulations. The blog gets a lot of followers. Concurrently, the film also is kind of a bio - pic of Julia Childs in which it shows her life when she starts to become a cooking professional. It shows her relationship with her husband Paul Child. Eventually Julie accomplishes all the recipe, her piece de resitance being Stuffed Deboned Duck.
For me, I was more interested in the Julia Child's portion of the film, as I remember seeing her on TV when I was just a kid. And it was interesting to know that she was the one who popularized French Cooking in the states as there were no French cooking books in the States at the time. It was also cool seeing some of the ingredients and techniques that simply are not being used today. Also Ms. Childs was played by One Meryl Streep who always seems to have the gravitas (the new word of the times) to pull off any role she likes no matter how trivial.
On the other hand, the Julie portion, while nice, did not have much to say. Sure there was her obsession with the project that strained the relationship with her husband and she was cute as all heck, but with this much time passing (always the case with these blogs that I am several months behind) there is simply not much that comes to mind when I think of those parts. This lack of impresion after the passing of time is an indicator of how much of an impression the movie made on me. If I don't remember much, then it didn't make much of an impression. Clearly, I was able to remember more scenes from the Julia part, so to me that was the better part.
And an interview.
Screenplay by Nora Ephron. Based on book by Julie Powell.
Released August 2009.
With Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Linda Edmond.
Seen in Theater.
Over all an entertaining night at the cinema, if not a little on the light side.
The premise is that Julie Powell has decided to take on a whole cook book by Julia Childs, day by day - recipe by recipe. And she blogs about her triumphs and tribulations. The blog gets a lot of followers. Concurrently, the film also is kind of a bio - pic of Julia Childs in which it shows her life when she starts to become a cooking professional. It shows her relationship with her husband Paul Child. Eventually Julie accomplishes all the recipe, her piece de resitance being Stuffed Deboned Duck.
For me, I was more interested in the Julia Child's portion of the film, as I remember seeing her on TV when I was just a kid. And it was interesting to know that she was the one who popularized French Cooking in the states as there were no French cooking books in the States at the time. It was also cool seeing some of the ingredients and techniques that simply are not being used today. Also Ms. Childs was played by One Meryl Streep who always seems to have the gravitas (the new word of the times) to pull off any role she likes no matter how trivial.
On the other hand, the Julie portion, while nice, did not have much to say. Sure there was her obsession with the project that strained the relationship with her husband and she was cute as all heck, but with this much time passing (always the case with these blogs that I am several months behind) there is simply not much that comes to mind when I think of those parts. This lack of impresion after the passing of time is an indicator of how much of an impression the movie made on me. If I don't remember much, then it didn't make much of an impression. Clearly, I was able to remember more scenes from the Julia part, so to me that was the better part.
And an interview.
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