Carla, Anne, Jimmy, and Charlie are all survivors of a shooting spree in a hamburger joint in their little town. Anne and Jimmy are teenagers, who were having lunch with her father when the shooter shot him. Carla is the waitress who hid in the back, near the kitchen, trying to get her cell phone to make an outbound call as she watched the shoot kill her customers. Charlie is a driving teacher who grazed by a bullet survives almost perfectly in tact. Dr. Laraby, ER doctor and son of a now deceased medical legend had just left the store on his way to the emergency room as is attending when the victims are brought in minutes later. None of them survive.
The novel unfolds in sections named by character. Each person's life just before and in the week or so after the shooting is explored intermittantly with italicized descriptions of their experience of the shooting. The reader never gets the full picture of why each person was there and what they saw until the end of the novel. That's because the novel is about what it does to them. How do these completely disparate people react in the face of this tragedy and what about their lives to then led them to those reactions?
At first all we know is Anne found God; Jimmy went mute; Charlie ran; and Carla, at first, seems to be holding it together. What slowly unfolds is far more complicated. The teenagers have a secret and Anne deals with it by preaching the good word. Jimmy, afraid to speak lest he tells, refuses to speak at all. Charlie, feeling lucky, runs to Vegas capitalize on that luck and finally make a difference for his young family. Carla slowly loses her hold on her life and her small child, and finally, Dr. Laraby risks everything trying to atone for his failures in the operating room.
The pace of the novel is great. It moves you along, if not pulling you sometimes. The exploration of the psychological toll on each of these characters is equally riveting. How does one deal with jealousy in the aftermath of tragic events? How horrible is it to realize there is some possible gain to be had from having been there? These questions are dealt with contextually - not just as the result of one event. For instance, when the unpopular girl at school is suddenly a celebratory because her father didn't survive the shooting but she did, what does that do to a teenager? How is she suppose to process that? How is her mother?
Freirich does amazing work with each of the survivors and their post trauma pathos. He wonderfully manages to not tie up every loose end, which is entirely satisfying in this case.
The Story Sisters - Alice Hoffman
There is something insidious at the heart of all faerie tales. That's part of their appeal. In The Story Sisters Hoffman gives us three beautiful daughters living with their single mother in Long Island. The eldest Daughter Elv, has invented, for her two younger sisters, a magical world so intense that they speak their own language. They long for this world over the one in which they live daily. In their faerie tale, buried in the woods in a secret land is where all the good in the world exists. Except that, their real life ain't so bad either. The girls grandparents live pretty well in Manhattan, and they reap the benefits of wealthy benefactors. Not only that, grandma also keeps a place in Paris where the girls go each Spring. Their lives are filled with the kind of parties and events of princesses. In addition, as I mentioned, the girls are each extraordinarily beautiful and accomplished. Both worlds would seem to be a fairy tale. Except...
Semi, not-really spoiler
The underside of the fairy tale is hinted at in the opening of the story, and it's not good. The youngest sister is almost snatched on afternoon walking home from school, her older sister intervenes only to be snatched herself. The details aren't necessarily spelled out, but your imagination will fill in those gaps pretty easily. The middle sister, having been no where nearby when the events took place, has no idea. Claudine, the youngest, stays on the spot where Elv was snatched until miraculously she returns and they rush home together. Elv and Claudine keep there horrible secret for the entirety of the novel, never even speaking of it among themselves.
As adolescence kicks in, Elv becomes more and more rebellious: wearing black, keeping all hours, and having sex. Her mother loses total control over her monster of a teenager, who wreaks irreparable damage on the family, and extreme measures are eventually taken. Elv is locked away in an institution. At the institution, she meets a prince, who is anything but. They spiral together to rock bottom. Meanwhile, Elv's remaining family members do what the can to recover from the events that lead to Elv's incarceration. The family is broken and although there is a suggestion at the end that they are finding their way back there is along road to go.
Hoffman is brilliant, as always, in moments. Tying details about the girls' young life to tales from their faerie world informed - you eventually learn - by Elv's experience during the day she was lost to them. Those details become almost excruciating. The problem is, ultimately, the novel, intentionally or not, is such a heart wrenching illustration of how children get lost and more importantly how grown ups fail them that all the beautiful language can't save it from the ick. Faerie tales have always been about teaching a lesson, told by grown ups, to help children to understand things. This novel is a faerie tale in reverse, except none of the grown ups were listening and that failure eradicates much of the beauty of the novel for this reader.
Semi, not-really spoiler
The underside of the fairy tale is hinted at in the opening of the story, and it's not good. The youngest sister is almost snatched on afternoon walking home from school, her older sister intervenes only to be snatched herself. The details aren't necessarily spelled out, but your imagination will fill in those gaps pretty easily. The middle sister, having been no where nearby when the events took place, has no idea. Claudine, the youngest, stays on the spot where Elv was snatched until miraculously she returns and they rush home together. Elv and Claudine keep there horrible secret for the entirety of the novel, never even speaking of it among themselves.
As adolescence kicks in, Elv becomes more and more rebellious: wearing black, keeping all hours, and having sex. Her mother loses total control over her monster of a teenager, who wreaks irreparable damage on the family, and extreme measures are eventually taken. Elv is locked away in an institution. At the institution, she meets a prince, who is anything but. They spiral together to rock bottom. Meanwhile, Elv's remaining family members do what the can to recover from the events that lead to Elv's incarceration. The family is broken and although there is a suggestion at the end that they are finding their way back there is along road to go.
Hoffman is brilliant, as always, in moments. Tying details about the girls' young life to tales from their faerie world informed - you eventually learn - by Elv's experience during the day she was lost to them. Those details become almost excruciating. The problem is, ultimately, the novel, intentionally or not, is such a heart wrenching illustration of how children get lost and more importantly how grown ups fail them that all the beautiful language can't save it from the ick. Faerie tales have always been about teaching a lesson, told by grown ups, to help children to understand things. This novel is a faerie tale in reverse, except none of the grown ups were listening and that failure eradicates much of the beauty of the novel for this reader.
Halting State - Charles Stross
It's a got a groovy beat and I can totally dance to it, I'd give it a 92
It's got a groove, but it kinda slides into noise towards the end, I'd give it an 83
This is how I imagine myself rating this book to a Dick Clark who's younger than he was at my birth on a show I've only seen in reruns
This is my first Stross novel, and it's good. And, there is a lot going on. It's set in the future for starters, a really convincingly constructed future if I do say so myself. And it revolves around virtual reality games. I haven't played a video game since Atari, and other than a very hung over Saturday in 2002 when I laid on the couch and watched two friends play Grand Theft Auto for 5 hours waiting for the pain to go away I haven't seen one either (I don't get out of my box much). I can imagine if I knew more about the games in general the novel would have been even more impressive. Stross is amazingly convincing in his depiction of both the game and the future.
Stross gets a lot done with his setting alone. There is all kind of social and political commentary on our present just under the surface of his seemingly innocent references to the places in the story. The characters, at first, had me worried: pushy, loud, CEO; mousy, with potential, forensic accountant; schlubish super programmer guy; tough as nails police chick. However, Stross manages to give each one of those cut outs enough to make them human and compelling and impressively surprising in moments. There is on relationship that you know is coming but it emerges at a pace that seems suddenly rushed three quarters of the way, as if a nearing plot point required the relationship more than the characters.
I hate books that wrap up with neat little endings as a rule. And this one wraps up, but it's not necessarily neat and the information withheld until the final 20 pages doesn't drop out of nowhere, another thing I hate.
Overall I'm leaning more with side one of my brain as I finish this review, maybe it's not noise so much as just a single instrument out of key.
It's got a groove, but it kinda slides into noise towards the end, I'd give it an 83
This is how I imagine myself rating this book to a Dick Clark who's younger than he was at my birth on a show I've only seen in reruns
This is my first Stross novel, and it's good. And, there is a lot going on. It's set in the future for starters, a really convincingly constructed future if I do say so myself. And it revolves around virtual reality games. I haven't played a video game since Atari, and other than a very hung over Saturday in 2002 when I laid on the couch and watched two friends play Grand Theft Auto for 5 hours waiting for the pain to go away I haven't seen one either (I don't get out of my box much). I can imagine if I knew more about the games in general the novel would have been even more impressive. Stross is amazingly convincing in his depiction of both the game and the future.
Stross gets a lot done with his setting alone. There is all kind of social and political commentary on our present just under the surface of his seemingly innocent references to the places in the story. The characters, at first, had me worried: pushy, loud, CEO; mousy, with potential, forensic accountant; schlubish super programmer guy; tough as nails police chick. However, Stross manages to give each one of those cut outs enough to make them human and compelling and impressively surprising in moments. There is on relationship that you know is coming but it emerges at a pace that seems suddenly rushed three quarters of the way, as if a nearing plot point required the relationship more than the characters.
I hate books that wrap up with neat little endings as a rule. And this one wraps up, but it's not necessarily neat and the information withheld until the final 20 pages doesn't drop out of nowhere, another thing I hate.
Overall I'm leaning more with side one of my brain as I finish this review, maybe it's not noise so much as just a single instrument out of key.
End of the World Blues - Jon Courtnay Grimwood
This is a fun read.
It's a whodunit disguised as a sci-fi. And, I hafta say, the sci-fi element is key. Not that it isn't a good whodunit, but the sci-fi part is just a good trippy distraction in the places where my brain would have gotten tired of trying to follow all the little leads. That might be my problem with whodunits, I bore of the procedure quickly - but not so much when someone is traversing time.
The main character is Kit, who starts out not entirely likeable and ends the same way, even though his character evolves through the novel. I respect that about this book. Kit isn't redeemed entirely, nor is he let off the hook. He is true to character and makes some better decisions later in the book than he did early. Totally respectable in that department. The fact that those decisions tie everything about the whodunit off so neatly a little less so.
Enter:
Nijie, a street urchin in Tokyo is the other significant character and the source of all things supernatural in the book. She takes on the identity of Lady Neku as a cos-play character and manages to save Kit's life twice in the opening 50 pages of the book. Her loose ends, not so tied off. She's from the distant future - a not very bright one - and she and Kit are tied together though an object. I've read that her future is existence is too underdeveloped in places and it is ambiguous, but by the time you get to the end it works. She's a kid. What we see of her future world reflects her childish understanding of it, her memory of it and her trauma in it. It sounds exactly a lot like what my nephew sounds like trying to describe something weird that you've never seen. It totally worked for me.
It's a whodunit disguised as a sci-fi. And, I hafta say, the sci-fi element is key. Not that it isn't a good whodunit, but the sci-fi part is just a good trippy distraction in the places where my brain would have gotten tired of trying to follow all the little leads. That might be my problem with whodunits, I bore of the procedure quickly - but not so much when someone is traversing time.
The main character is Kit, who starts out not entirely likeable and ends the same way, even though his character evolves through the novel. I respect that about this book. Kit isn't redeemed entirely, nor is he let off the hook. He is true to character and makes some better decisions later in the book than he did early. Totally respectable in that department. The fact that those decisions tie everything about the whodunit off so neatly a little less so.
Enter:
Nijie, a street urchin in Tokyo is the other significant character and the source of all things supernatural in the book. She takes on the identity of Lady Neku as a cos-play character and manages to save Kit's life twice in the opening 50 pages of the book. Her loose ends, not so tied off. She's from the distant future - a not very bright one - and she and Kit are tied together though an object. I've read that her future is existence is too underdeveloped in places and it is ambiguous, but by the time you get to the end it works. She's a kid. What we see of her future world reflects her childish understanding of it, her memory of it and her trauma in it. It sounds exactly a lot like what my nephew sounds like trying to describe something weird that you've never seen. It totally worked for me.
Exit Ghost - Philip Roth
Sometimes I read a book and regardless of whether it's any good or not, or I liked it or not, there is an image that stays with me. Sometimes for months. When the narrator describes his young son playing the in the sprinklers in Marilyn Robinson's Gilead, the tooth pulling scene delivered so matter-of-factly in Listening for Small Sounds, and Temple Drake's skin inching up her frame in Sanctuary come to mind. And for me, in this novel, I'm just going to want Jamie to have never spoken at all. If only. There is something about her voice that is so jarringly false - to the point of distraction - that for this reader it went a long way towards ruining a perfectly enjoyable read.
Exit Ghost is Nathan Zuckerman's swan song of sorts. A virtual recluse for the last 10 years, he returns to New York city to have a procedure done that is meant to control his post-prostate cancer incontinence - it's a return likened to Rip Van Winkle (I kid you not - this is Roth right?) In the city, Nathan, on a whim, answers an ad for a house trade for a year. Two young authors, one of whom is rattled in post 9/11 New York city, are looking to escape for a year. Nathan, feeling invigorated and hopeful answers the ad and meets the two young authors. Ridiculous, puppy-dog loyal David, and his ever-so-lovely, 30 year-old, more talented (although one publication 5 years prior is the only evidence of this) wife, Jamie.
Nathan becomes involved - more so imaginatively than really - with this couple, the "friend" of theirs who hopes to write a biography on a now-deceased friend of his, and a couple of one-time friends in the city. An author himself, Nathan imaginatively reconstructs many of his exchanges in NY in an effort to work on (most probably) his final novel. As the novel progresses, we learn that Nathan's facilities, mental as well as physical, are less and less reliable. With the introduction of the young seductress, Jamie, Nathan laments the loss of his youth anew.
There are moments where the story fires on all cylinders. There is a secret, a new look at the past, a possible untapped potential - elements that propel the story convincingly. Nathan is sympathetic and compelling. His interactions, while occasionally somewhat polemic, are nonetheless entertaining. At moments the dialogue is so good you feel like you're in the middle of the conversation. This is especially true with Nathan and Amy, or Nathan and Kliman. But then there is Jamie.
I don't know if the author fell in love with the character himself or what, but nothing about her rang true for this reader after the first introduction. She is so idealized that even the moments that are suppose to flush her out as a "regular" girl on some level fail miserably. By the middle of the novel, it felt as though there was a cardboard poster with "insert perfect fantasy woman here" filling the space from which we should have been able to hear Jamie's voice. It's reasonable that Zuckerman fell so in love with her, was blinded by need, want, desperation etc. and in his memory of her we understand that. However, in the real time exchanges, his POV can't account for "That's how we got so devoted so quickly - they provided us with delightful tales of horror and mirth" or "I told you: he is adventurous. He's drawn to daring ventures. What's wrong with that?" All I can think is, who talks like this. Really. Or rather, what tolerable person talks like this, let alone one who would inspire the cloying adoration of a husband, an ex and an old man who figured himself well past the point of being interested in much of anything at all?
Ultimately, the story kind of peters out at the end. I felt like there was more build up than delivery, but at the same time I did really enjoy parts of the novel. That must be what the problem is for me, I so enjoyed the parts I enjoyed that it made all of the Jamie business so damned disappointing. I actually groaned aloud driving home from the mountains when a particularly infuriating Jamie scene followed a phenomenally strong one with Amy. I wanted to punch her out, just so she'd shut the fuck up.
Exit Ghost is Nathan Zuckerman's swan song of sorts. A virtual recluse for the last 10 years, he returns to New York city to have a procedure done that is meant to control his post-prostate cancer incontinence - it's a return likened to Rip Van Winkle (I kid you not - this is Roth right?) In the city, Nathan, on a whim, answers an ad for a house trade for a year. Two young authors, one of whom is rattled in post 9/11 New York city, are looking to escape for a year. Nathan, feeling invigorated and hopeful answers the ad and meets the two young authors. Ridiculous, puppy-dog loyal David, and his ever-so-lovely, 30 year-old, more talented (although one publication 5 years prior is the only evidence of this) wife, Jamie.
Nathan becomes involved - more so imaginatively than really - with this couple, the "friend" of theirs who hopes to write a biography on a now-deceased friend of his, and a couple of one-time friends in the city. An author himself, Nathan imaginatively reconstructs many of his exchanges in NY in an effort to work on (most probably) his final novel. As the novel progresses, we learn that Nathan's facilities, mental as well as physical, are less and less reliable. With the introduction of the young seductress, Jamie, Nathan laments the loss of his youth anew.
There are moments where the story fires on all cylinders. There is a secret, a new look at the past, a possible untapped potential - elements that propel the story convincingly. Nathan is sympathetic and compelling. His interactions, while occasionally somewhat polemic, are nonetheless entertaining. At moments the dialogue is so good you feel like you're in the middle of the conversation. This is especially true with Nathan and Amy, or Nathan and Kliman. But then there is Jamie.
I don't know if the author fell in love with the character himself or what, but nothing about her rang true for this reader after the first introduction. She is so idealized that even the moments that are suppose to flush her out as a "regular" girl on some level fail miserably. By the middle of the novel, it felt as though there was a cardboard poster with "insert perfect fantasy woman here" filling the space from which we should have been able to hear Jamie's voice. It's reasonable that Zuckerman fell so in love with her, was blinded by need, want, desperation etc. and in his memory of her we understand that. However, in the real time exchanges, his POV can't account for "That's how we got so devoted so quickly - they provided us with delightful tales of horror and mirth" or "I told you: he is adventurous. He's drawn to daring ventures. What's wrong with that?" All I can think is, who talks like this. Really. Or rather, what tolerable person talks like this, let alone one who would inspire the cloying adoration of a husband, an ex and an old man who figured himself well past the point of being interested in much of anything at all?
Ultimately, the story kind of peters out at the end. I felt like there was more build up than delivery, but at the same time I did really enjoy parts of the novel. That must be what the problem is for me, I so enjoyed the parts I enjoyed that it made all of the Jamie business so damned disappointing. I actually groaned aloud driving home from the mountains when a particularly infuriating Jamie scene followed a phenomenally strong one with Amy. I wanted to punch her out, just so she'd shut the fuck up.
A Spot of Bother/mark Haddon
I dare say I can't even begin to say anything about this book without first saying: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a tequila book. You know how when you say the word tequila, at least half your listeners will go "awww" caught momentarily in some horrific tequila memory? It's almost universal. This book elicits a similar response with the exception that the memory is no NO WAY horrific. It's just that good.
So, for a girl who prides herself on her expectation management skills, having just finished some stellar Garland, I truly feel like I am tempting the fates. So, I really hunkered down and told myself as long this book did anything short of sucking I would be happy.
For anyone whose ever felt darkness coming (and who hasn't?) this is your novel.
A Spot of Bother is a novel about George, his wife Jean, their son Jamie, daughter Katie, and the necessary peripheral people that come with each. Jean is having an affair, Jamie is a (gasp) homosexual, Katie is about to marry a man she doesn't love, and George is slowly, relatively gracefully going insane. Which among them is craziest is totally a matter of opinion.
The novel covers about an eight week period after George first discovers his "cancer" at a suit fitting for the funeral of a friend. George, of course, keeps his cancer (and his crazy) secret, which really isn't that difficult when you are surrounded by some of the most self-absorbed people on the planet. To the point where I am a little surprised I was not more wholly annoyed with all of them, George included.
It's the humor that saves it. Haddon's story is damn funny. The perspective changes seamlessly between each of the family members. Often times specific events are narrated from Jean's perspective, only to be completely repeated from Katie's or George's in the very next pages. Initially, it highlights the total self-absorption of the characters, but as the novel progresses it demonstrates the evolutions of the various characters and at the same time illustrates how easy it is to miss the point - for all of us.
As the book progresses, each of the characters has to come out of themselves, to varying degrees. Jamie is probably the funniest and most methodical about it. After a anti-climatic break up and the requisite self-serving wallowing, Jamie decides he wants to fix it. He does so mostly because he realizes he's in danger of becoming one of those people "who cares about furniture more than other people" which would mean he would spend all of his time with others like him, which means they would care more about the furniture than they care about him. You see how this is going. The interior conversations Jamie has with himself about how to go about caring about other people and what it means to him on his way to actually caring about other people is priceless.
So, it's a really funny sad book. All of the "comic caper" reviews had me expecting something a little lighter to be honest. There is real sadness in this book. Sadness about what real life is really like and what it eventually becomes, expectation, fear. It is definitely funny when a grown man of a certain position in life finds himself lying in a ditch to avoid relatives on the street, except that it's really not. Part of the gift of this writer is that he can make us laugh about it, but at it's core it's a comedy about a whole lot of things most of us don't find very funny.
I would call this novel a success. It's not as tight as the previous, but c'mon. There are moments where the characters (Jean especially, I think) become grating to the point where you just don't want to hear it anymore, or you want to slap them upside their heads; however, as soon as you loose patience Haddon somehow turns it around by making you laugh or making you realize you're like that too.
I'm relieved. It's far better than I dared hoped.
So, for a girl who prides herself on her expectation management skills, having just finished some stellar Garland, I truly feel like I am tempting the fates. So, I really hunkered down and told myself as long this book did anything short of sucking I would be happy.
For anyone whose ever felt darkness coming (and who hasn't?) this is your novel.
A Spot of Bother is a novel about George, his wife Jean, their son Jamie, daughter Katie, and the necessary peripheral people that come with each. Jean is having an affair, Jamie is a (gasp) homosexual, Katie is about to marry a man she doesn't love, and George is slowly, relatively gracefully going insane. Which among them is craziest is totally a matter of opinion.
The novel covers about an eight week period after George first discovers his "cancer" at a suit fitting for the funeral of a friend. George, of course, keeps his cancer (and his crazy) secret, which really isn't that difficult when you are surrounded by some of the most self-absorbed people on the planet. To the point where I am a little surprised I was not more wholly annoyed with all of them, George included.
It's the humor that saves it. Haddon's story is damn funny. The perspective changes seamlessly between each of the family members. Often times specific events are narrated from Jean's perspective, only to be completely repeated from Katie's or George's in the very next pages. Initially, it highlights the total self-absorption of the characters, but as the novel progresses it demonstrates the evolutions of the various characters and at the same time illustrates how easy it is to miss the point - for all of us.
As the book progresses, each of the characters has to come out of themselves, to varying degrees. Jamie is probably the funniest and most methodical about it. After a anti-climatic break up and the requisite self-serving wallowing, Jamie decides he wants to fix it. He does so mostly because he realizes he's in danger of becoming one of those people "who cares about furniture more than other people" which would mean he would spend all of his time with others like him, which means they would care more about the furniture than they care about him. You see how this is going. The interior conversations Jamie has with himself about how to go about caring about other people and what it means to him on his way to actually caring about other people is priceless.
So, it's a really funny sad book. All of the "comic caper" reviews had me expecting something a little lighter to be honest. There is real sadness in this book. Sadness about what real life is really like and what it eventually becomes, expectation, fear. It is definitely funny when a grown man of a certain position in life finds himself lying in a ditch to avoid relatives on the street, except that it's really not. Part of the gift of this writer is that he can make us laugh about it, but at it's core it's a comedy about a whole lot of things most of us don't find very funny.
I would call this novel a success. It's not as tight as the previous, but c'mon. There are moments where the characters (Jean especially, I think) become grating to the point where you just don't want to hear it anymore, or you want to slap them upside their heads; however, as soon as you loose patience Haddon somehow turns it around by making you laugh or making you realize you're like that too.
I'm relieved. It's far better than I dared hoped.
Remainder - Tom McCarthy.
The premise of this book is that a unnamed, 30 year-old narrator was the victim of an accident where an unnamed "thing" fell from the sky injuring him badly. When he awakes from his coma, his life is irrevocably changed for many reasons. The two major ones being that "[he has] to understand things before I can do them" and his "settlement." That first one, although it seems somewhat innocuous on the surface, well let me not get ahead of myself.
The book opens with a first person account of our narrator getting news of the settlement that's been dangled in front of him throughout his PT. As he re-learned to walk, feed himself, dress etc nurses and doctors constantly referred to his settlement and all the comfort it would buy him. Then he receives 8 1/2 million pounds. THEN, he invests it in a fund that replaces it almost as fast as he can spend it, and spend it he does.
Our narrator now has 8 1/2 million pounds to finance his crazy. Think about that for a minute. Having the money to finance whatever brand of crazy you have. Right?
Our narrator has a moment of deja vu after receiving his settlement and remembers a place where he felt whole - or mostly remembers it. The first thing he sets about doing is recreating that place. Not just the apartment in which he lived though, he wants the same views, the same neighbors, the same smells, the same conversations etc. He hires Naz, a project planner of sorts, to help bring his vision to fruition. It starts out a plan to help a displaced man feel at home again, excessive but understandable. But the problem is, if you feed crazy it will grow.
The crazy spreads, oozing into other parts of his life. He ventures out of his new domicile rarely, but when he does so he ends up wanting to recreate every experience he has. Actors must be hired, locations found and reconstructed to match the places where the original occurrence happened. The re-enactments then take place round the clock so that the narrator can come and watch or participate at any time. Eventually, there are re-enactments of events that didn't happen to the narrator but interest him, and eventually the re-enactments kind of sort of take over the real, as you can imagine well-financed crazy would.
It's a good read. For the most part it speeds along except for when it intentionally comes to a crawl. The first person narration is more effective than I originally thought it might be, but as the story progresses maintaining the unnamed narrators perspective is key to accepting the events that take place in the final act of the novel. The only complaint I have about the book is that there are times where the descent into the narrator's thought process that is so key to his crazy goes on for too long. It isn't funny or scary, it flirts with boring, like the person you get stuck next to a party that wants to give you all the finer details of having planted a tree in their front yard this morning.
Ultimately, for me, what worked so well in this novel was the opening conceit: having to understand before you can do. The novel illustrates the things the narrator can eventually understand and do and those he can't and the things he thinks he does and doesn't and things he does but doesn't realize it. You get the picture.
The book opens with a first person account of our narrator getting news of the settlement that's been dangled in front of him throughout his PT. As he re-learned to walk, feed himself, dress etc nurses and doctors constantly referred to his settlement and all the comfort it would buy him. Then he receives 8 1/2 million pounds. THEN, he invests it in a fund that replaces it almost as fast as he can spend it, and spend it he does.
Our narrator now has 8 1/2 million pounds to finance his crazy. Think about that for a minute. Having the money to finance whatever brand of crazy you have. Right?
Our narrator has a moment of deja vu after receiving his settlement and remembers a place where he felt whole - or mostly remembers it. The first thing he sets about doing is recreating that place. Not just the apartment in which he lived though, he wants the same views, the same neighbors, the same smells, the same conversations etc. He hires Naz, a project planner of sorts, to help bring his vision to fruition. It starts out a plan to help a displaced man feel at home again, excessive but understandable. But the problem is, if you feed crazy it will grow.
The crazy spreads, oozing into other parts of his life. He ventures out of his new domicile rarely, but when he does so he ends up wanting to recreate every experience he has. Actors must be hired, locations found and reconstructed to match the places where the original occurrence happened. The re-enactments then take place round the clock so that the narrator can come and watch or participate at any time. Eventually, there are re-enactments of events that didn't happen to the narrator but interest him, and eventually the re-enactments kind of sort of take over the real, as you can imagine well-financed crazy would.
It's a good read. For the most part it speeds along except for when it intentionally comes to a crawl. The first person narration is more effective than I originally thought it might be, but as the story progresses maintaining the unnamed narrators perspective is key to accepting the events that take place in the final act of the novel. The only complaint I have about the book is that there are times where the descent into the narrator's thought process that is so key to his crazy goes on for too long. It isn't funny or scary, it flirts with boring, like the person you get stuck next to a party that wants to give you all the finer details of having planted a tree in their front yard this morning.
Ultimately, for me, what worked so well in this novel was the opening conceit: having to understand before you can do. The novel illustrates the things the narrator can eventually understand and do and those he can't and the things he thinks he does and doesn't and things he does but doesn't realize it. You get the picture.
Tesseract/Alex Garland
First, I love, love, loved The Beach, not the DiCaprio abomination put on large screens all across the land, but the novel in all it's "game over," weed smoking, traveling beauty. There I said it. I should have stared with: First, I wanted to hate the beach, because I did, but I didn't and so you have the first that I wrote first. Then, I read Coma. I was not as immediately stuck by that novella; it crept up on me slowly. It took me almost a week to love it. Enter The Tesseract. I know better than to expect much. Two novels I love by the same author in order with no offending trite bullshit (I'm looking at you Oates) in between? I sat it on it for months. Pulled it out and moved it around on my desk every few days. Read and reread the glowing reviews and thought, yeah, well you can't very well turn on the author of the fist great novel of Generation X now can you? (No shit, reviewers said that about TB) Then, I had to take a trip for work, one that I knew would be unfathomably noxious, so I threw it in the bag. I guess I just outed myself as still hopeful, but I promise my expectation management (something at which I EXCEL) was in full force.
I was almost all the way through page six and almost wholly apathetic, but then the novel took off. "Everything weird was the bottom line, and Sean had reached it quickly." Really? How does it take that little for the hair on the back of my neck to come to full attention and for me to be unabashedly ecstatic for what's to come? I mean really, what kind of whore am I? A sated one I am happy to tell you.
The Tesseract is a story in three parts. the primary action covers about a sixty minute window on the streets of Manila where a British seaman and a Filipino gangster are set to hash out protection payment issues. The culmination of this meeting brings together the characters from the other two segments of the story, but not before the narrative dissolves into back stories for both. It has no doubt been compared to Pulp Fiction in it's delivery. The novel does a stellar job of weaving the current moment for the three different stories with the necessary back stories as well as keeping them thinly related to one another real time. That means nothing feels cheap, no coincidence that makes your teeth itch, not little tid bit kept from the reader past the second where they should know. It's straight up, honest story telling.
The same voice narrates each of the three stories and so there is a consistency of tone regardless of the age, sex, background of the character. More importantly this allows for each character to be drawn not just from the perspective of the narrator and what the narrator knows, but from what the narrator can report about those around the central characters and their interactions. This is, for this reader, a huge part of the success of the novel. The development of each character in starts and stops from a myriad of viewpoints results in living breathing people on the page. Once you accomplish that, the rest is just easier. If characters are compelling, believable, relatable creations then everything they do becomes interesting even if it isn't. And, of course, everything that happens here is interesting.
Each of the "main" characters spends a fair amount of time in their own head, and I can appreciate the Coma-esque moments that Sean in particular experiences in his panic. The interior monologue gives the reader a glimpse into the how and why easily avoidable events aren't. It also heightens the thrill of the novel even though it makes some of the events even more predictable.
The best part of the novel though, are in these little, almost lost moments where the truly peripheral characters shine. One of the "main" characters is Rosa, an accomplished physician in Manila. Her father is deaf due to an accident. Amid the chaos that is the crescendo of her back story they share an exchange that is both heart wrenching and grounding. She has a similar experience thirty years later in a park with an unnamed stranger. These moments exist for each of the "main" characters, making their lives seem more ordinary, but at the same time more valuable.
He's done it again.
I was almost all the way through page six and almost wholly apathetic, but then the novel took off. "Everything weird was the bottom line, and Sean had reached it quickly." Really? How does it take that little for the hair on the back of my neck to come to full attention and for me to be unabashedly ecstatic for what's to come? I mean really, what kind of whore am I? A sated one I am happy to tell you.
The Tesseract is a story in three parts. the primary action covers about a sixty minute window on the streets of Manila where a British seaman and a Filipino gangster are set to hash out protection payment issues. The culmination of this meeting brings together the characters from the other two segments of the story, but not before the narrative dissolves into back stories for both. It has no doubt been compared to Pulp Fiction in it's delivery. The novel does a stellar job of weaving the current moment for the three different stories with the necessary back stories as well as keeping them thinly related to one another real time. That means nothing feels cheap, no coincidence that makes your teeth itch, not little tid bit kept from the reader past the second where they should know. It's straight up, honest story telling.
The same voice narrates each of the three stories and so there is a consistency of tone regardless of the age, sex, background of the character. More importantly this allows for each character to be drawn not just from the perspective of the narrator and what the narrator knows, but from what the narrator can report about those around the central characters and their interactions. This is, for this reader, a huge part of the success of the novel. The development of each character in starts and stops from a myriad of viewpoints results in living breathing people on the page. Once you accomplish that, the rest is just easier. If characters are compelling, believable, relatable creations then everything they do becomes interesting even if it isn't. And, of course, everything that happens here is interesting.
Each of the "main" characters spends a fair amount of time in their own head, and I can appreciate the Coma-esque moments that Sean in particular experiences in his panic. The interior monologue gives the reader a glimpse into the how and why easily avoidable events aren't. It also heightens the thrill of the novel even though it makes some of the events even more predictable.
The best part of the novel though, are in these little, almost lost moments where the truly peripheral characters shine. One of the "main" characters is Rosa, an accomplished physician in Manila. Her father is deaf due to an accident. Amid the chaos that is the crescendo of her back story they share an exchange that is both heart wrenching and grounding. She has a similar experience thirty years later in a park with an unnamed stranger. These moments exist for each of the "main" characters, making their lives seem more ordinary, but at the same time more valuable.
He's done it again.
Last Dragon/JM McDermott
Man I dig this book. I mean really, really dig.
It's confusing as all hell. I'll say that right up front. You're actually expected to read!?!?! There are no "markers" for the narrative. You know what means? None of those annoying conversations between characters to sum up the action thus far, no dates or times at the beginning of chapters, no establishing of age or location overtly. Halle - fucking- lujah. I'll trade three parts confusion for no parts being led by the nose any day of the goddamn week. Make that every day...
The whole novel gets delivered in short (3 page max) vignettes told (mostly) from the voice of Zahn, now an old woman, assumed to by dying. She is retelling her experience as a young warrior charged with hunting down her own grandfather and killing him. Of course nothing is ever that easy and a task that like that can't be accomplished alone.
One of the things that impressed me about this novel is that the narrative effectively mirrors (what I can believe are) the near death ramblings of a once great warrior. The non-linear, hazy feel of the novel reinforces this initial conceit from beginning to end. On top of that, the narrative is well-paced and some of the descriptions are fantastically compelling, to the point where you start to realize the parts most important to the now dying Zahn are far more colorful than those warrior Zahn might have highlighted then, which is a sign of pretty rich writing in my humble. It's not all perfect. There are some language issues that are distracting scattered throughout the novel. The vocabulary available to second language speakers in short order is often times unrealistic, especially when considered next to the language struggles described on other occasions. Also, the terms aren't always consistent or convincing, but these are small complaints.
I don't read a lot of fantasy, which is to say almost none. I've read other places that this novel breaks form with a lot of fantasy writing and has not been especially well received. Not knowing much about the genre it's hard for me to comment, but I will say for a reader with zero in terms of expectation I really enjoyed this book. The characters for the most part "pop" and remain true to form throughout the novel. Even the unlikable are compelling and the maze of secrets that underlie much of the story are reasonable and well-delivered.
I don't know, this doesn't make it sound all that likable really, does it? And yet, I really like it. There's something about it. Clearly, I can't put my finger on it, but it was wholly worth the read.
It's confusing as all hell. I'll say that right up front. You're actually expected to read!?!?! There are no "markers" for the narrative. You know what means? None of those annoying conversations between characters to sum up the action thus far, no dates or times at the beginning of chapters, no establishing of age or location overtly. Halle - fucking- lujah. I'll trade three parts confusion for no parts being led by the nose any day of the goddamn week. Make that every day...
The whole novel gets delivered in short (3 page max) vignettes told (mostly) from the voice of Zahn, now an old woman, assumed to by dying. She is retelling her experience as a young warrior charged with hunting down her own grandfather and killing him. Of course nothing is ever that easy and a task that like that can't be accomplished alone.
One of the things that impressed me about this novel is that the narrative effectively mirrors (what I can believe are) the near death ramblings of a once great warrior. The non-linear, hazy feel of the novel reinforces this initial conceit from beginning to end. On top of that, the narrative is well-paced and some of the descriptions are fantastically compelling, to the point where you start to realize the parts most important to the now dying Zahn are far more colorful than those warrior Zahn might have highlighted then, which is a sign of pretty rich writing in my humble. It's not all perfect. There are some language issues that are distracting scattered throughout the novel. The vocabulary available to second language speakers in short order is often times unrealistic, especially when considered next to the language struggles described on other occasions. Also, the terms aren't always consistent or convincing, but these are small complaints.
I don't read a lot of fantasy, which is to say almost none. I've read other places that this novel breaks form with a lot of fantasy writing and has not been especially well received. Not knowing much about the genre it's hard for me to comment, but I will say for a reader with zero in terms of expectation I really enjoyed this book. The characters for the most part "pop" and remain true to form throughout the novel. Even the unlikable are compelling and the maze of secrets that underlie much of the story are reasonable and well-delivered.
I don't know, this doesn't make it sound all that likable really, does it? And yet, I really like it. There's something about it. Clearly, I can't put my finger on it, but it was wholly worth the read.
Ice Queen/Alice Hoffman
I don't know why this novel brought Wally Lamb to mind, but it did. The prose are not lush like Lamb's and the story is not as dramatically delivered as Lamb tends to be - this is Hoffman after all. It might be something about the descriptions. In this novel, Hoffman gives the reader a glimpse into the internal life of the characters you rarely see and would never expect. Lamb, I think, does that as well, differently though.
Initially, the conceit of this novel seemed a little too easy to me and having just finished Alvarez the spareness was somewhat jarring, but within twenty or so pages Hoffman had me. Our Ice Queen is a single New Jersey librarian who made a wish when she was a child that ended her life as she knew it ad rendered her emotionally frozen and obsessed with death. Many years later, she is stuck by lightening and the great thaw begins.... See, you're rolling your eyes just a little aren't you? But it's a faerie tale people, and a good one.
I read some reviews that focus on the rebirth of Ice Queen. Her slow thaw to the world around her and what she's allowed herself to miss in her frozen state definitely drive the narrative. The thaw being the catalyst for all the action of the novel. The Ice Queen agrees to participate in a study with other survivors of lightening strikes, ultimately searching out the reclusive Lazarus, whose strike basically set him on fire, permanently. She's frozen, he is boiling, the middle ground is pretty obvious. In the meantime, there is a parallel story line between our narrator and her older brother, who shared in the tragic events set in motion by the young narrator's wish, and their relative estrangement. The study she joins is part of his work; therefore, drawing them closer while at the same time highlighting their distance. And so the narrator evolves into someone else, she sheds her cocoon and ...
but I was more struck by other elements. Hoffman's imagining of a faerie tale and the primal fears that drive such tales evolves into exploration of sorts for the source of that primal fear. The Ice Queen's strike might have sparked some heat into her frozen veins but it also gave her a quantifiable, comparable sort of damage. One that, I would argue, gave her a space from which to see others'. On some level, don't our fears generate as a direct result of our individual damage, or rather how we qualify that damage? It doesn't require the same event between two people for their fears to mirror one another, just a similar processing of their damage...or does it? I can't say I know for sure, but it is the thing at which this novel seems to be driving at - straight through your heart.
Initially, the conceit of this novel seemed a little too easy to me and having just finished Alvarez the spareness was somewhat jarring, but within twenty or so pages Hoffman had me. Our Ice Queen is a single New Jersey librarian who made a wish when she was a child that ended her life as she knew it ad rendered her emotionally frozen and obsessed with death. Many years later, she is stuck by lightening and the great thaw begins.... See, you're rolling your eyes just a little aren't you? But it's a faerie tale people, and a good one.
I read some reviews that focus on the rebirth of Ice Queen. Her slow thaw to the world around her and what she's allowed herself to miss in her frozen state definitely drive the narrative. The thaw being the catalyst for all the action of the novel. The Ice Queen agrees to participate in a study with other survivors of lightening strikes, ultimately searching out the reclusive Lazarus, whose strike basically set him on fire, permanently. She's frozen, he is boiling, the middle ground is pretty obvious. In the meantime, there is a parallel story line between our narrator and her older brother, who shared in the tragic events set in motion by the young narrator's wish, and their relative estrangement. The study she joins is part of his work; therefore, drawing them closer while at the same time highlighting their distance. And so the narrator evolves into someone else, she sheds her cocoon and ...
but I was more struck by other elements. Hoffman's imagining of a faerie tale and the primal fears that drive such tales evolves into exploration of sorts for the source of that primal fear. The Ice Queen's strike might have sparked some heat into her frozen veins but it also gave her a quantifiable, comparable sort of damage. One that, I would argue, gave her a space from which to see others'. On some level, don't our fears generate as a direct result of our individual damage, or rather how we qualify that damage? It doesn't require the same event between two people for their fears to mirror one another, just a similar processing of their damage...or does it? I can't say I know for sure, but it is the thing at which this novel seems to be driving at - straight through your heart.
Saving the World - Julia Alvarez
When is the last time you read a novel where at the end the great flaw in the love story wasn't laid bare to the reader? The dead spouse's lover doesn't come forward, the step-mother isn't hiding some awful secret in her past, no ghost of dead child lurking just a few pages ahead? I'm almost programmed to be guessing which of the myriad of possibilities it will be as soon as any character is established as truly in love with anyone. Julia Alvarez provides two such stories in one little novel. Go figure.
Saving the World is, on the surface, the story of Alma Huebner, happily-married one time author. She has a wonderful little life in Vermont that she came to lateish (39 gasp) with a husband who may be fussy but who loves her, good friends nearby, and an ailing surrogate mother across the yard. Her only problem is that her teeth have started to itch. She's struggling to finish a novel for which she's already taken the advance, she is too easily irritated with her loving husband and is becoming judgmental of her friends. Pretty standard every day stuff. That's the thing, Julia Alvarez, in the first half of this novel, does a stand up job of demonstrating how the everyday can be desperate, compelling, overwhelming, even when we know it isn't - when it's someone else's everyday.
The parallel story to Alma's is the book she's actually writing. It's not a book she had any intention to write, it just started. It's the imagining of the life a barely mentioned woman in the historical accounts of a Spanish expedition in the early 1800s. The kind of thing that's gotten popular lately. Alma, as her life gets to be too much for her, finds solace in her imagined Isabel (which might be one of the most romantic Spanish names in my humble). Isabel has a love story of her own. Again, it is far from perfect, never for a second idealized by the author (although often times by the character), and again there is no stunning twist. So we have these two women juxtaposed beautifully, most effectively in the moments where Alma seems the fictional imagining of someone who tells story for a living and Isabel flesh blood.
I don't generally love the two stories in one format. I generally find myself interest in only one of the two and skimming the other. Not this time. I was not equally interested, but my interest in both stories waxed and waned so that I stayed involved in both. That may be an incredible gift of pacing and it may be a result of my attention span, I'm not sure which. Neither story is happy, but they are woven together in a way that is totally satisfying and I'm prone to sad so your mileage may vary.
Saving the World is, on the surface, the story of Alma Huebner, happily-married one time author. She has a wonderful little life in Vermont that she came to lateish (39 gasp) with a husband who may be fussy but who loves her, good friends nearby, and an ailing surrogate mother across the yard. Her only problem is that her teeth have started to itch. She's struggling to finish a novel for which she's already taken the advance, she is too easily irritated with her loving husband and is becoming judgmental of her friends. Pretty standard every day stuff. That's the thing, Julia Alvarez, in the first half of this novel, does a stand up job of demonstrating how the everyday can be desperate, compelling, overwhelming, even when we know it isn't - when it's someone else's everyday.
The parallel story to Alma's is the book she's actually writing. It's not a book she had any intention to write, it just started. It's the imagining of the life a barely mentioned woman in the historical accounts of a Spanish expedition in the early 1800s. The kind of thing that's gotten popular lately. Alma, as her life gets to be too much for her, finds solace in her imagined Isabel (which might be one of the most romantic Spanish names in my humble). Isabel has a love story of her own. Again, it is far from perfect, never for a second idealized by the author (although often times by the character), and again there is no stunning twist. So we have these two women juxtaposed beautifully, most effectively in the moments where Alma seems the fictional imagining of someone who tells story for a living and Isabel flesh blood.
I don't generally love the two stories in one format. I generally find myself interest in only one of the two and skimming the other. Not this time. I was not equally interested, but my interest in both stories waxed and waned so that I stayed involved in both. That may be an incredible gift of pacing and it may be a result of my attention span, I'm not sure which. Neither story is happy, but they are woven together in a way that is totally satisfying and I'm prone to sad so your mileage may vary.
Our Lady of the Forest - Guterson
Our Anne. She's a pill popping runaway who picks mushrooms to get by because it's better than sharing a bed with her mother's meth addicted boyfriend at his leisure. Her desperation, is however, effectively downplayed in the novel. The matter of factness of her experience is laid bare in a way that isn't exactly shocking but makes it all acceptable. She shares the camp where she squats outside Seattle with Carolyn, the college educated, self-loathing, skeptic who takes full advantage of any opportunity that presents itself. Our Anne's priest is a struggling 30ish man who is exceptional only for his vow of celibacy and how that puts sex front and center in his life. His struggles are far less exalted than current events may lead one to expect - racy novels and impure thoughts being the worsr of his crimes.
The impact of the novel comes from the speed and thrall of events after the first of three promised apparitions by the Virgin Mother herself to Our Anne, as she comes to be known. I was a kid when Mary appeared to (was it six?) kids in Medjugoria. I remember them on 60 Minutes. I had friends who went to visit and came home with golden rosary beads. For reals. The hysteria around events like these vary, I'm sure, and that's the crux of this novel.
Guterson, without getting to preachy for my tastes, gives the reader insight into the effects of these "miracles" on a small fringe community and town on whose edge they live. Pilgrims begin arriving within 24 hours of the first vision and then the miracles begin, large and small: a woman is cured of warts, a lost sheep finds his path, a church that couldn't get financied gets built in under a year, a priest reasserts his faith and focus. And what of the apparitions? Real or imaginary? Does it matter? More importantly, has anyone really changed? Did we expect that they would? Do we need them to? The novel is as much about examining those questions as it is about telling a story, which is does well. As with all stories that deal with these kinds of issues (in my experience), it ends a little too easily, too neat, but it's compelling. Guterson gets less lost in the landscape then he did in my last read of him, for which I am grateful.
I have to confess, I am somewhat drawn to all thingsreligious and ghosty - that might have effected my read.
The impact of the novel comes from the speed and thrall of events after the first of three promised apparitions by the Virgin Mother herself to Our Anne, as she comes to be known. I was a kid when Mary appeared to (was it six?) kids in Medjugoria. I remember them on 60 Minutes. I had friends who went to visit and came home with golden rosary beads. For reals. The hysteria around events like these vary, I'm sure, and that's the crux of this novel.
Guterson, without getting to preachy for my tastes, gives the reader insight into the effects of these "miracles" on a small fringe community and town on whose edge they live. Pilgrims begin arriving within 24 hours of the first vision and then the miracles begin, large and small: a woman is cured of warts, a lost sheep finds his path, a church that couldn't get financied gets built in under a year, a priest reasserts his faith and focus. And what of the apparitions? Real or imaginary? Does it matter? More importantly, has anyone really changed? Did we expect that they would? Do we need them to? The novel is as much about examining those questions as it is about telling a story, which is does well. As with all stories that deal with these kinds of issues (in my experience), it ends a little too easily, too neat, but it's compelling. Guterson gets less lost in the landscape then he did in my last read of him, for which I am grateful.
I have to confess, I am somewhat drawn to all thingsreligious and ghosty - that might have effected my read.
Seeker/Jack McDevitt
The semester is coming to an end and I mean to make up for much lost time in the Cannonball Read. To that end, I made a stop at the library on Sunday and came home with four novels I know not one thing about. Except, I've finished Seeker so I guess I know something about it now.
Many of the reviews of this book say something like: McDevitt creates a world that structurally or texturally much like ours only on epic/interstellar/universal (I'm not sure which is the right word - they all seem pretty vanilla to me) proportions. I don't disagree, but ultimately, I think that might be what disappointed me a little. I honestly got a little bored by then end. The lead characters starting seeming far too much like people I know and who sometimes annoy me. Thirteen thousand years into the future not much has changed.
However, I read this book in just under 48 hours and I have a full time job and teach so that's something of a compliment. Clearly, it drew me in. I have to want to get through a book to get through one that fast these days. Seeker is part mystery, part crime novel, part social commentary. The mystery part is strong enough in the opening chapters to have grabbed me. I should say I'm not much of a mystery reader so in this respect I may be an easy lay. The story then evolves around a pair of "tomb raiders" who aren't completely without appreciation for the treasure they seek, even if they do it mainly in the name of profit. They are some 13000 yearsish in the future seeking archaeological artifacts across a variety of universes to which the human race has spread. Some of these artifacts are as simple as t-shirts and tea cups some less. They also, a la antique roadshow, value people's stuff for them from time to time. This is where our story takes off.
An artifact that sounds an awful lot like a coffee mug finds it 's way into their office via a tacky, low-rent, abused ex-girlfriend of a thief. Turns out said cup might be much more. At this point the reader can go ahead and read in as many holy grail comparisons as they like, or not. Holy grail or not, the race is on. There is a fair amount of rushing around getting the heavy detective stuff concluded in order to propel the story, with a few twists, that you would be hard pressed not to see coming. I don't mean to suggest that it wasn't enjoyable, but having finished I still feel like I just got the broad strokes of a much more nuanced story.
Ultimately, there are two larger theoretical debates taking place in the novel. First, who owns what and what does it mean? Should history belong to everyone equally, has it ever? Does it make a difference? And, what ultimately most influences human evolution? Ambitious questions. I realized about 50 pages short of the finish that there was going to be no way for this novel to end satisfactorily for me. I'm sure it does for many, but I was left feeling kinda...what's the word?
Many of the reviews of this book say something like: McDevitt creates a world that structurally or texturally much like ours only on epic/interstellar/universal (I'm not sure which is the right word - they all seem pretty vanilla to me) proportions. I don't disagree, but ultimately, I think that might be what disappointed me a little. I honestly got a little bored by then end. The lead characters starting seeming far too much like people I know and who sometimes annoy me. Thirteen thousand years into the future not much has changed.
However, I read this book in just under 48 hours and I have a full time job and teach so that's something of a compliment. Clearly, it drew me in. I have to want to get through a book to get through one that fast these days. Seeker is part mystery, part crime novel, part social commentary. The mystery part is strong enough in the opening chapters to have grabbed me. I should say I'm not much of a mystery reader so in this respect I may be an easy lay. The story then evolves around a pair of "tomb raiders" who aren't completely without appreciation for the treasure they seek, even if they do it mainly in the name of profit. They are some 13000 yearsish in the future seeking archaeological artifacts across a variety of universes to which the human race has spread. Some of these artifacts are as simple as t-shirts and tea cups some less. They also, a la antique roadshow, value people's stuff for them from time to time. This is where our story takes off.
An artifact that sounds an awful lot like a coffee mug finds it 's way into their office via a tacky, low-rent, abused ex-girlfriend of a thief. Turns out said cup might be much more. At this point the reader can go ahead and read in as many holy grail comparisons as they like, or not. Holy grail or not, the race is on. There is a fair amount of rushing around getting the heavy detective stuff concluded in order to propel the story, with a few twists, that you would be hard pressed not to see coming. I don't mean to suggest that it wasn't enjoyable, but having finished I still feel like I just got the broad strokes of a much more nuanced story.
Ultimately, there are two larger theoretical debates taking place in the novel. First, who owns what and what does it mean? Should history belong to everyone equally, has it ever? Does it make a difference? And, what ultimately most influences human evolution? Ambitious questions. I realized about 50 pages short of the finish that there was going to be no way for this novel to end satisfactorily for me. I'm sure it does for many, but I was left feeling kinda...what's the word?
Bad Monkeys/Matt Ruff
This is not my usual fair; I will own that going in. I read this on recommendation of someone close to me. I've never read any other Ruff, but I'm told this is somewhat unlike his other offerings.
From the very first page, I was hooked. The novel opens with stage like descriptions of the "scene." "White walls. White ceiling. White floor. Not featureless, but close enough to raise suspicion that its few contents are all crucial to the upcoming drama." As much as I hate to be told how to feel, in this case, I am amused. Laying out the characters in their space, Ruff creates a feeling of claustrophobia. However, no matter how claustrophobic it's still a blank canvas and you have to wonder: who gets to do the painting?
Jane Charlotte it would appear, but then maybe not. I immediately like Jane. She's sassy. She's in the Clark County Detention Center "the nut wing" for killing someone she wasn't suppose to kill. Right away you know she's delusional enough to believe there are people she is suppose to kill. She believes she works for a secret "organization" that fights evil, not crime mind you, evil. So the stage is set with a pithy, supercool protagonist in a novel where all the apparatus are intentionally, and mostly effectively, put on display. Unraveling the mystery of who is delusional or not and why then becomes the action of the novel.
The novel itself is a fast read, so fast that the reader find themselves feeling like they missed something. Sometimes I did, only to realize it was intentional withholding, revealed a few pages later. The work play is probably what kept me reading this novel. As the reader gets further and further into the mind of Jane, it becomes evident how much truth in any situation relies on the language available to express sit. The simple meanings, with all good postmodernist know are never simple, of every day works convolute and confuse not just the telling of the story but the action itself.
At the root of the story, is, of course, who or what is evil and who gets to decide. Those lines are at times effectively blurred, and at times so ineffectively that you find yourself not so much caring one way or another.
Finally, for this reader, although I was compelled to follow Jane down the rabbit hole, the ending was too pat. At the end of novel that bends all kinds of rules, I expected much bigger things. But then ultimately that might have been the point. No matter how crazy the maze or how deftly the language is rendered, the final verdict since the days of bad guys in black and heroes with white hats always, by definition feels somewhat mundane.
From the very first page, I was hooked. The novel opens with stage like descriptions of the "scene." "White walls. White ceiling. White floor. Not featureless, but close enough to raise suspicion that its few contents are all crucial to the upcoming drama." As much as I hate to be told how to feel, in this case, I am amused. Laying out the characters in their space, Ruff creates a feeling of claustrophobia. However, no matter how claustrophobic it's still a blank canvas and you have to wonder: who gets to do the painting?
Jane Charlotte it would appear, but then maybe not. I immediately like Jane. She's sassy. She's in the Clark County Detention Center "the nut wing" for killing someone she wasn't suppose to kill. Right away you know she's delusional enough to believe there are people she is suppose to kill. She believes she works for a secret "organization" that fights evil, not crime mind you, evil. So the stage is set with a pithy, supercool protagonist in a novel where all the apparatus are intentionally, and mostly effectively, put on display. Unraveling the mystery of who is delusional or not and why then becomes the action of the novel.
The novel itself is a fast read, so fast that the reader find themselves feeling like they missed something. Sometimes I did, only to realize it was intentional withholding, revealed a few pages later. The work play is probably what kept me reading this novel. As the reader gets further and further into the mind of Jane, it becomes evident how much truth in any situation relies on the language available to express sit. The simple meanings, with all good postmodernist know are never simple, of every day works convolute and confuse not just the telling of the story but the action itself.
At the root of the story, is, of course, who or what is evil and who gets to decide. Those lines are at times effectively blurred, and at times so ineffectively that you find yourself not so much caring one way or another.
Finally, for this reader, although I was compelled to follow Jane down the rabbit hole, the ending was too pat. At the end of novel that bends all kinds of rules, I expected much bigger things. But then ultimately that might have been the point. No matter how crazy the maze or how deftly the language is rendered, the final verdict since the days of bad guys in black and heroes with white hats always, by definition feels somewhat mundane.
immortality/Milan Kundera
I somehow completed a graduate degree in the Literatures and didn't read any Kundera. I'm not honestly sure if any was assigned, or if it was assigned in the those first few semesters where I might have let the occasional requirement slide by unscathed. I picked up immortality because it seemed like I should, not because I expected to love it - but then I did.
If the book were to have a center, and I'm not sure that it does, it would lie in a gesture. A simple, almost unnoticeable gestures any one of us makes on any given day. That gesture is planted in the mind of our narrator, Kundera himself. And from there the reader embarks with the narrator through a series of events and sometimes non-events that track the creative process, as he spins the web of tails around Agnes, her sister and her husband.
Entire characters are invented and developed from the slightest movement another. The all seeing eye of the narrator vacillates seamlessly between the fiction he creates and the one in which he lives. To call the novel pomo, as I'm sure has been done, is selling it short. Honestly, I almost wonder if this novel wouldn't be the most effective reading students in intro fiction labs could read.
If the book were to have a center, and I'm not sure that it does, it would lie in a gesture. A simple, almost unnoticeable gestures any one of us makes on any given day. That gesture is planted in the mind of our narrator, Kundera himself. And from there the reader embarks with the narrator through a series of events and sometimes non-events that track the creative process, as he spins the web of tails around Agnes, her sister and her husband.
Entire characters are invented and developed from the slightest movement another. The all seeing eye of the narrator vacillates seamlessly between the fiction he creates and the one in which he lives. To call the novel pomo, as I'm sure has been done, is selling it short. Honestly, I almost wonder if this novel wouldn't be the most effective reading students in intro fiction labs could read.
the bright forever
The opening chapter of this book ends: "I warn you: this is a story as hard to hear as it is for me to tell" and that's the truth. The "me" telling the story changes by chapter, but by the time you're four or five deep (they're only 3 or 4 pages each) you know whose speaking without the benefit of markers. Certain dates get narrated by an omniscient narrator, who sounds most like Mr. Dees, who is the first narrator the reader meets and arguably the "main" character. Although that might ultimately be a matter of timing, every character is convincingly flushed out spread eagle in their few pages throughout the novel.
The central event of the novel is the disappearance of a young girl, who is dramatically, universally beloved by everyone - even those who don't know it yet - in her fictional Indiana town. The novel slowly unfolds, unraveling the mystery of what happened to the little girl and at the hands of whom. A third of the way in, the action takes a back seat to the character development. The slow unfolding of the pathos just under the surface of every character: rich, poor, happy, sad, male, female, young and old.
In the end, it is our secrets that both hold us together and send us into spontaneous combustion - a slow building, eventual spontaneous combustion. It's not a new idea, but it's successfully executed until the final thirty pages. Maybe it's because I read it all in one sitting and the sad might have gotten to be too much or the drama to intense, but it just kind of lost me. The dignity of the characters began to seep away, they moved from unsympathetic, real people to something else.
Maybe it's the central event - the disappearance and misuse of a child is not something most people can gloss over at the end and no matter how convincingly culpability gets spread among "everyman" in the novel. And maybe it's the direct, calculated way that point is made in the final pages. However, at the end of the day, some of us are more culpable than others and some acts of cowardice, or even non-acts, are just as violent as the ones executed by those who are armed. More importantly, they might be harder to forgive.
The central event of the novel is the disappearance of a young girl, who is dramatically, universally beloved by everyone - even those who don't know it yet - in her fictional Indiana town. The novel slowly unfolds, unraveling the mystery of what happened to the little girl and at the hands of whom. A third of the way in, the action takes a back seat to the character development. The slow unfolding of the pathos just under the surface of every character: rich, poor, happy, sad, male, female, young and old.
In the end, it is our secrets that both hold us together and send us into spontaneous combustion - a slow building, eventual spontaneous combustion. It's not a new idea, but it's successfully executed until the final thirty pages. Maybe it's because I read it all in one sitting and the sad might have gotten to be too much or the drama to intense, but it just kind of lost me. The dignity of the characters began to seep away, they moved from unsympathetic, real people to something else.
Maybe it's the central event - the disappearance and misuse of a child is not something most people can gloss over at the end and no matter how convincingly culpability gets spread among "everyman" in the novel. And maybe it's the direct, calculated way that point is made in the final pages. However, at the end of the day, some of us are more culpable than others and some acts of cowardice, or even non-acts, are just as violent as the ones executed by those who are armed. More importantly, they might be harder to forgive.
A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby
It might just be the place I'm in these days, or the season with all of the holiday bullshit, or my predisposition to depression, but this book did not make me laugh.ever.once.
That is not to say I didn't love it. I have to be honest, I've not read any Hornby since High Fidelity. Somehow he fell off my radar, and if it weren't for a delayed flight in Chicago a week ago he might not have found his back on, but low and behold there in the window right across from the gate that would own my ass for the next 5 hours, Hornby.
A Long Way Down is a book about 4 almost suicides that probably never really would have been and one definite suicide that we know virtually nothing about. Again, taking my above mentioned predispositions to heart, I have to say this book rang about as sadly, pathetically, and shockingly true as anything else I've ever read on the subject. There is no romance here. I don't just mean that Hornby takes all the mystery and romance out of the act itself, but he robs the survival of any melodramatic, hopeful romance too. There are no kittens running through the fields while resurrected families picnic in the foreground when this book is over - but I like Hornby's final image far better than I would have liked that.
Every single one of the characters in this book is fucked in the way that people you know are fucked, or that you are yourself. That's not to say they don't have issues with which you may not have dealt, but you could paste a host of your own over theirs and get the same psychological result - and that's what's scary. At one point, a lying, cheating, suck of a husband wrecks his own car because it's "easier than actually telling the truth. That look you get, the look which lets you see right through the eyes and down into the place where she keeps and the hurt and the rage and the loathing...who wouldn't go that extra yard to avoid it." And who reads that and can't think of all the little things they do in the course of the day that are the equivalent of this guy's car wreck? We all do it. Some just do it larger than others. The book is full of scenes you've lived between people you know. It vacillates between fatalistic, hopeful, pathetic, and eventually just being. I did not laugh once, and I will be honest, I cried more than once. It wasn't a sad cry though, or not wholly. It was the kind of cry you have when even knowing something really bad is okay if you aren't the only one.
There are moments of community among the mismatched foursome that didn't. They bond speciously over music, the beach, swearing. The brevity of these exchanges says more about humans and community and want than any number of psychological tomes out there. It works because Hornby gives us these truths and these experiences of these people and flat out refuses to let us feel sorry for them - ever. You relate because you can't stand to feel sorry for them anymore than you can stand the self pity you briefly allow yourself driving home alone at the end of the day. It's just too...ick, And they would punch you in the throat, everyone single one of them, if you offered them your sympathy anyway. So they all escape caricature, and we respect them even if we don't like them; We want them to be okay even though we know they did it to themselves.
The characters' message over and over again in the book is that people who are sad don't fit in. As a culture, we don't know what to do with them, and yet, it demonstrates clearly that we're all sad most of the time - some of us climb to the top of Topper Tower and some of us don't -- but it's clear in A Long Way Down that the climbing or not may be the only difference among us.
That is not to say I didn't love it. I have to be honest, I've not read any Hornby since High Fidelity. Somehow he fell off my radar, and if it weren't for a delayed flight in Chicago a week ago he might not have found his back on, but low and behold there in the window right across from the gate that would own my ass for the next 5 hours, Hornby.
A Long Way Down is a book about 4 almost suicides that probably never really would have been and one definite suicide that we know virtually nothing about. Again, taking my above mentioned predispositions to heart, I have to say this book rang about as sadly, pathetically, and shockingly true as anything else I've ever read on the subject. There is no romance here. I don't just mean that Hornby takes all the mystery and romance out of the act itself, but he robs the survival of any melodramatic, hopeful romance too. There are no kittens running through the fields while resurrected families picnic in the foreground when this book is over - but I like Hornby's final image far better than I would have liked that.
Every single one of the characters in this book is fucked in the way that people you know are fucked, or that you are yourself. That's not to say they don't have issues with which you may not have dealt, but you could paste a host of your own over theirs and get the same psychological result - and that's what's scary. At one point, a lying, cheating, suck of a husband wrecks his own car because it's "easier than actually telling the truth. That look you get, the look which lets you see right through the eyes and down into the place where she keeps and the hurt and the rage and the loathing...who wouldn't go that extra yard to avoid it." And who reads that and can't think of all the little things they do in the course of the day that are the equivalent of this guy's car wreck? We all do it. Some just do it larger than others. The book is full of scenes you've lived between people you know. It vacillates between fatalistic, hopeful, pathetic, and eventually just being. I did not laugh once, and I will be honest, I cried more than once. It wasn't a sad cry though, or not wholly. It was the kind of cry you have when even knowing something really bad is okay if you aren't the only one.
There are moments of community among the mismatched foursome that didn't. They bond speciously over music, the beach, swearing. The brevity of these exchanges says more about humans and community and want than any number of psychological tomes out there. It works because Hornby gives us these truths and these experiences of these people and flat out refuses to let us feel sorry for them - ever. You relate because you can't stand to feel sorry for them anymore than you can stand the self pity you briefly allow yourself driving home alone at the end of the day. It's just too...ick, And they would punch you in the throat, everyone single one of them, if you offered them your sympathy anyway. So they all escape caricature, and we respect them even if we don't like them; We want them to be okay even though we know they did it to themselves.
The characters' message over and over again in the book is that people who are sad don't fit in. As a culture, we don't know what to do with them, and yet, it demonstrates clearly that we're all sad most of the time - some of us climb to the top of Topper Tower and some of us don't -- but it's clear in A Long Way Down that the climbing or not may be the only difference among us.
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