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Boleyn Obsession

March 10, 2008 in book reviews, books, competition, entertainment, the other boleyn girl | 3 comments

I have no idea how to review the book I just read, The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory.

I don’t really read historical fiction, I think the last historical fiction I read when I was about 15, and this book, though very engaging, is not really in the same league with the stuff I generally read these days, much of it award winning literary fiction and short fiction. Yet, I cannot deny that I was totally obsessed with this book while I read it, and the proof is in how quickly I devoured it. The book is about 660 pages, and I began reading it Tuesday night after work and was finished late Thursday night after work. Three days. 660 Pages. Clearly, I was smitten.

Let’s start by talking about why I even picked this up since it’s so outside my normal reading range. I am pretty fascinated by the whole Anne Boleyn thing, I think a lot of women are, it’s such an interesting time in the history of women, where they literally had no power and were traded as commodities by their fathers, brothers, uncles, and husbands on a daily basis without a thought as to their own desires. Yet a woman could also become a Queen, as Anne Boleyn did…which held great power (maybe, if you were brilliant like Elizabeth I and didn’t marry a guy who could/would take it all away). Anyway, it is a very interesting and horrible time for women and I’ve always been fascinated by it and have thought often of picking up a biography of Anne Boleyn or a good history of that time period. Instead I went for some historical fiction. At least I didn’t see the movie. I was actually afraid I was going to see the movie, and I was afraid it was going to be terrible and put me off of the whole idea entirely, so while at the bookstore I decided to pick up Gregory’s fictionalized interpretation of the Boleyns with the idea that I would also research getting a great biography as well. This is still my plan, I just didn’t think I’d finish Gregory’s book in three days. So, prologue aside, onto my attempt to rate this monster…

The Good: It was completely compelling. The high-stakes narrative drove the story forward so feverishly that I didn’t care that the beautiful literary writing I have come to expect in things I read was absent. I just needed to know what was going to happen to these characters and how it was going to unfold (even though I knew the true end for Anne, Mary Boleyn’s story is largely unknown or unwritten).

The story is told from the point of view of Mary Boleyn, which is quite a brilliant decision because it allowed Gregory to speak from a point of view largely ignored or unknown in the history of the Boleyns and the court of King Henry VIII. It also allowed me to hate Anne with a fiery freaking passion, which I did for about 450 pages. Like any good story though, Anne reaps what she sows, and Gregory successfully turns her around in the last 150 or so pages so that I could feel the requisite horror and sympathy for her ultimate fate.

I feared that the romance factor would be gag inducing and put me off the book immediately, but I was pleased to find there was very little, if any of this. In fact, because Mary and Anne are never really allowed to be in love (except Mary in the end) there was almost no romantic swooning at all, for which I was very very grateful. When Mary finally does swoon in the end, you don’t mind so much because she’s had such a miserable lot of luck most of the time, she’s earned a good swoon.

Gregory also did an excellent job of getting my feminist ideals all twisted up within this web. There is an excellent point in the story, when Anne is becoming successful in her bid for winning the King’s affections (pushing her sister quite roughly to the side without a thought by the way) and she makes an impassioned argument to Mary that basically the world will never be the same for women, because she (Anne) is proving that even women, who are perceived to have no power, can accomplish great things (becoming Queen out of sheer will) by being clever and intelligent and not giving up or letting others set her path.

It’s a good argument, and you almost feel with her for a moment, until you hear Mary’s perspective, which though milder, is equally as feminist and powerful in its own way. Mary sees Anne’s pushing aside of a legitimate Queen (Queen Katherine) who has literally done nothing wrong except for get older and not bear any male heirs, as setting the standard for wives to be removed and tossed aside as soon as a king, or man, tires of them.

And the wonderful thing is that they are both right – which is when feminist perspectives get so interesting. Anne is right to push her way forward and not be bound by the men in her life (father, uncle, brother, and even her King) and though it is ultimately her undoing her daughter eventually becomes Queen Elizabeth, a powerful, brilliant, and eternally clever woman, like her mother was, who is arguably one of the greatest Queens in history. But Mary is proven right as well, in that when the King tires of Anne she is quite quickly beheaded (he has already learned it is quite fine to get rid of a wife, even if she is a Queen) and he goes on to divorce (“annul”) two more wives and behead a third before he dies (not in this text). Setting the stage for men with wandering eyes and lustful hearts everywhere to get bored and move on at the slightest whim. And that has worked out SO well for women.

The Bad: I did hate Anne with a venomous passion. Perhaps that was what Gregory intended, or perhaps she didn’t care and just wanted to present the characters as accurately as she could, but it was a flaw in the book I thought. Despite my drive forward with the book I sometimes wanted to put it down simply because I hated Anne so much. I also think this could have been a real problem if I had not pushed through the book so quickly. If I had been reading more slowly and had left off on a bit about Anne, I might have been more hesitant to pick it back up immediately.

Though Gregory’s book is historical fiction and makes no claim to historical accuracy, it’s not that far off. A lot of what is in the book as fact (executions, religious and political moves, movements of the royal family, affairs, children, miscarriages, mistresses, marriages, coronations) is largely accurate. However. while this book is a mere one or two (maybe three?) steps away from being accurate (and makes clear that it is), it has spawned a Hollywood film that is about 100 steps away from this partial accuracy, and from what I can tell, about 100 steps away from the fictionalized though historically based account that Gregory told. While this is premature since I have not yet seen the movie, I can pretty well tell from the trailers, previews, synopsis, and rants from other fans of Gregory that the movie takes incredible liberties with Gregory’s material and the actual history. I’m sure I’ll see the film eventually (though I don’t want to pay so it may be a long time) and I’ll post an update here if I’m not right in my assumptions.

I implore you Hollywood…why? Why spend the money to buy Gregory’s or anyone’s material if you just want to tell your own horrible inaccurate piece of crap story anyway? I’ll never understand you Hollywood…but you sure are pretty and shiny. Good for you. Impressive.

The Ugly: Nothing really. It’s been a very long time since I read something with a historical basis, and a while since I read something with such a strong and direct narrative. I find no major faults with this book, and for what it is, it is extremely effective. I missed my beautiful literary language though. I do wonder if I will feel the same way about this book after I read a couple biographies – my appetite has totally been whet for it – so I’m going to pick some up immediately (anyone have any great recommendations?)

The Rating: Ugh. Here we go. I’m going to dock it one star for just not being in the “upper echelon” of material that I read (god, how snobby did that sound?) and then a half star because it’s not a perfect book. So 3.5 stars.

Beautiful Interpretation

March 9, 2008 in book reviews, books, entertainment, short fiction, writing | Permalink

I finished a couple weeks ago, Interpreter Of Maladies by Jhump Lahiri, the author of The Namesake (now also a motion picture – which looks quite good).

This is an unbelievably beautiful collection of short fiction. I had not read anything of Lahiri’s, except for her piece in a December 2007 issue of The New Yorker, Year’s End, which was equally as stunning.

Interpreter of Maladies seduced me immediately as Lahiri has an eloquent and sparse way with perfect words. Her stories are haunting and complex. I was left with sorrow in almost all of them, yet the book was strangely uplifting. Lahiri does something interesting in Interpreter in that she is not beholden to just one voice, which is somewhat strange for collections like this, usually the author seems to be looking for things to hold the collection together, and point of view is often an easy way to do that, Lahiri switches point of view between stories masterfully, moving from first to third person with ease, and yet her stories link together beautifully, because they are all filled with the same kind of happy melancholy, a private and perfect loneliness, a desperate sadness that still holds mysterious pockets of hope. They also all involve Indian characters in some way or another, which kept things together nicely.

As for best stories, they were all so evenly perfect that it is difficult for me to pick favorites. Because I tend to relate heavily to romantic relationship stories I would have to say that A Temporary Matter, Sexy, This Blessed House, and Interpreter of Maladies were some of my favorites. But that is not to say that When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine, A Real Durwan, Mrs. Sen’s, The Treatment of Bibi Haldar, and The Third And Final Continent were any less powerful or stunning.

It is really quite an amazing feat in any collection, to make each story not only lovely and strong, but also so haunting. I give Interpreter of Maladies 4.5 stars and cannot wait to read more of Jhumpa Lahiri’s work.

Super Old-Fashioned You Mean?

March 8, 2008 in book reviews, books, cheating, feminist rage, misogynistic bullshit, new york city, superheroes | 3 comments

So this is my first book review of 2008. The year in which I am not torturing myself to read a book a week, and I have to say, I’m really enjoying reading again, mostly because I don’t feel so pressured, it’s also of note that I’m getting a lot more done that isn’t reading – so it’s good on all sides.

Adam lent me this book, Superfolks by Robert Mayer (which he has not read) thinking I might find it interesting, both because I love me some superheroes, and also because my novel (and my in-progress second and third novels – part of a trilogy) are basically about a superhero. I think he thought it would be helpful and constructive to read, and that I also might enjoy it. He’s not wrong. I did enjoy it. But it also totally enraged me, and in the end, despite the fact that I concede my rating may be a bit unfair considering that it was originally published in 1977, it only gets 2.0 stars. Here’s why.

The Good: It was enjoyable in a fluffy way. I can appreciate that Mayer was doing something innovative with superheroes for his time. It reads easily and the hero/superhero David Brinkley is likable enough (despite the misogynistic aspects) but he’s also not too sticky sweet and perfect, he seems very three-dimensional.

One of my favorite parts of the book was a little detail that if Brinkley used his powers of ex-ray vision for non-superhero reasons, like looking at an interns boobs through her tight sweater, then he became instantly clumsy, and that despite the consequences, he often abuses the power and as such is often running into things and falling down. It was a funny bit and an element that would make Superman as Clark Kent more believable in his civilian disguise.

I was very interested in the idea, that was unfortunately only touched on, of Brinkley’s inability to perform sexually as his superhero persona, and the other more psychological ideas about the realities of being a superhero that were explored, it was all very interesting, but unfortunately not really fleshed out thouroughly.

There was a brilliant (also pretty unexplored) idea about villains (powered or not) that all went to the same boarding school (The Winthrop School For Boys) to be trained to be villains – Lee Harvey Oswald being a current (though deceased) alumni and martyr – it was funny and creative and I wish it had tied more into the overall plot, rather than just being a wonderful little side note. The overall conspiracy/plot was also quite clever, though it made for the most dull reading in the book.

The Bad: The title is terrible. Who came up with this title? The title really does not pertain at all to the story. David Brinkley lives in a world with superheroes and supervillians, yes, but the story does not focus on other heroes at all – there are vague mentions of them – mostly in an effort to create a sense of the world that Brinkley lives in, and I think two super villains and one superhero (retired) make fairly brief appearances. The book is also not really about people with super powers in general or as a comment on society, or science, or the future, or anything, so I can’t figure out the reason for the title choice. The Incredibles, with its five minute newsreel footage at the beginning, which brilliantly sets the political and social stage for that world is more about “superfolks” and how that effects them and the world, than this entire 240 page book.

We never know our “hero’s” superhero name. It’s annoying. He is often referred to as Indigo, but later it is suggested that this is just a code name for him by respective governments. You never know for sure. I’m certain Mayer had a reason for doing this, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out the reason. It only served to frustrate me.

There are little tricks that Mayer uses, which I’m sure many readers like, but which left me a bit cold. Tricks such as using famous names for normal people and normal people names for famous people, for example, Jane Doe is a famous movie star and Gloria Steinem (one of our most powerful women in reality – so of course she must be “brought low”) is described as married with children and wearing a smelly housedress and an extra 30 distasteful pounds. There are a lot of name drops like this and initially I thought it was a bit clever, but it gets old fast.

It’s also not clear what stage he has really set for his world, it’s not the real world, or any other pre-established comic book world (i.e. Wonder Woman exists, as do Batman and Superman, but so does Snoopy the Flying Ace and The Lone Ranger), so but I can’t get a sense of what it’s supposed to be like with any accuracy.

People in Mayer’s book also behave in ways pretty contrary to the way we do in 2008, and I suspect contrary to the way people behaved in 1977, and QUITE often in a borderline pornographic way, but there is no set up for why that is acceptable in this society…did something go horribly wrong…or right…to make people act this way? It came up too often to be ignored but not often enough that I accepted it without reservations…especially with no “historical” explanation. The little in-jokes may have been inventive and inspiring or chuckle inducing in 1977, but in 2008 it left me kind of bored, and without a clear sense of the world in which the in-jokes existed I was left frustrated.

The Ugly: The 1977 publication date is hugely at issue in this review because there are many 2008 socially unacceptable things in the book that were probably the norm in 1977. The same way I bristled at the N-word being used occasionally in Matheson’s I Am Legend (fitting that Will Smith got the lead in 2007 – it’s nice when things come around like that) I bristled at the black/white separation here and the way it was handled. I know I cannot expect things like that not to exist in what is essentially a period piece but it’s also hard to just accept it. And this brings us to my major issue with the book, especially in the final pages…

Spoiler Alert

Women are without a doubt second class citizens in this book.

They are sex objects and wives and mothers and that’s about it. They are certainly not superheroes, the best they can do, apparently, is be a hollow version of Superman’s ‘Lois Lane crack reporter’, in the form of Peggy Poole, who is really not as much a reporter as a vehicle for Brinkley to remember his youth and past sexual desire for her. Women can also be whores, as evidenced in the form of Brinkley’s ex-high school sweetheart Lorna Doone, who also operates simply as a vehicle for Brinkley to remember his youth and past sexual desire for her, though as a whore she is now sad looking and unappealing. Boy we women cannot win. What time period is this set in – the 1500’s? Jesus.

I understand it’s 1977, but really? I mean, Charlie’s Angels was on the air then (1976 – 1981)…I’m not saying that it was a groundbreaking show and the angels certainly used their looks to their advantage in every single frame and they were ultimately taking orders from not one, but two men (one of who lived inside a speaker phone no less) but at least they were the stars. They weren’t sidelined reporters and whores, and little housewives, they were private investigators, and spies, and models, and athletes, and they were smart. You know what else was out in 1977…a little show called Wonder Woman…oh yeah, and this show you may have heard of…it’s not like women weren’t on the rise…they were stepping up and were showing, especially during the late 1970’s, that they were NOT just the little wifey, the powerless sidekick, the whore, the sex object. And these shows weren’t even particularly innovative and revolutionary, but rather mainstream, so I have to say that ultimately Mayer’s book is buried in the opposite of innovation and forward thinking. It’s like he decided to do a superhero novel, which was super innovative for the time, and then decided that that was quite enough innovation and quit.

As if to add insult to injury, the end of the book is like a giant punch in the vagina of all women.

Seriously. In literally the last pages of the book, our “hero” allows his old flame Peggy to give him a blow job…he justifies the fact that he allows this to happen while his wife is literally in labor with their third child, by saying that “he didn’t ask for it or instigate it” and that he “deserves it” for saving the world (yet again). Whoo. What a hero. Someone hold me back from this awesome specimen…this golden example of man. Blech. It turns out that it is actually his apparently gay sort-of-one-time sidekick that is blowing him (his eyes were closed) and so he chases him out of the room when he realizes the mistake, and ‘hyuck-hyuck-hyuck’ we can all feel okay that he didn’t actually cheat on Pamela (his wife) with Peggy (his old flame) because it was really Peter (what’s up with the P names?) and he of course didn’t want that. So we are supposed to overlook the fact that our hero wanted it to happen and that he thought it was happening and allowed it to go on, but since it technically didn’t happen the way he wanted with the person he wanted then it doesn’t matter and all is well. Hahahaha! Isn’t life grand? Totally annoying.

And that’s not all – the WORST offense by far is that at the very end of the book Brinkley is basically losing his super powers (as he was in the beginning) and is lamenting the loss of them and of his lost heritage, but his wife has a baby BOY in the end, and SURPRISE, there are very strong hints (i.e. ridiculous hard to deny proof) that the son will have his father’s power. I guess those two little girls of his didn’t get anything. I mean what a surprise, why would they? Girls should pretty much be drowned like unwanted kittens at birth, or farmed out as strippers and whores, or maybe sold into the slavery of marriage, or oh, I know, they can be “crack reporters” that get captured all the time, so that heroes can have someone helpless to rescue.

BLAH! ANGER!

I’m disappointed in my man Grant Morrison for writing the intro to this and praising this book so much. I’m angry at Stan Lee for saying, “You’ll never look at superheroes the same way again” – he’s right, I can’t. And I’m more disappointed than ever.

Best of 2007, Part Three of Four ~ Books

February 14, 2008 in adrian tomine, book reviews, books, dave eggers, junot diaz, mcsweeney's, the road, the walking dead, x-men | 10 comments

Best Books READ of 2007 (fiction)

It turns out that 5 of my 10 best books of 2007 were in fact published in 2007, and an additional 2 were paperbacks which were released in 2007…so this list has more validity than I expected. Yay for me!…

You can also read Part One and Part Two if you’re feeling left out.

10. Lady Into Fox, By David Garnett. Originally published in 1922, Reprinted by McSweeney’s in 2004.

I’m hesitant to write complicated reviews of each of these books, since I’ve already done that in review format over the year, so I’m just going to link to them here and add a sentence or two if I feel so moved…okay? Great. So Lady Into Fox really surprised the hell out of me. It’s never a book I would have expected to make a top for the year list for me, but I really ended up loving this bizarre story of love and loss…it’s a great creative metaphor for a lot of other things in life. Read more about Lady Into Fox here.

09. Water For Elephants, By Sara Gruen. Published in 2006 (the softcover – which I read – 2007).

Water For Elephants surprised me as well, if only because I don’t consider myself a NY Times Bestseller reader in general, but this book was really beautiful and well conceived. I finished it quickly, which is always a great compliment. Read more about Water For Elephants here.

08. Midnight At the Dragon Cafe, By Judy Fong Bates. Published in 2004 (the softcover – which I read – 2005).

I adored China Dog, Bates book of short fiction, and didn’t figure Midnight At The Dragon Cafe could live up, but I loved this as well. Bates has a brilliant way of turning a story on its ear, just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, read more about Dragon Cafe here.

07. Astonishing X-Men #1 – #22, By Joss Whedon & John Cassaday. Published in issues 2006 – 2007.

I can’t say enough good things about this collection, and my only complaint is that it’s ending soon. The last issue of this arc is due to come out soon, and it will signal the end of the Whedon/Cassaday team up. I’m very sad about it, although maybe it means Planetary will someday get finished? One can only hope. Read more here.

06. St. Lucy’s Home For Girl’s Raised By Wolves, By Karen Russel. Published in 2006 (the softcover – which I read – 2007).

This was a great and really creative collection. The title really beautifully summarized what I should expect and it totally delivered. Read more about St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves here.

05. Shortcomings, By Adrian Tomine. Published in collected hardcover format, in 2007.

I’m a huge Tomine fan and Shortcomings is just a beautiful beautiful work. Read more here.

04. One Hundred And Forty-Five Stories In A Small Box, By Dave Eggers, Sarah Manguso, and Deb Olin Unferth. Published in 2007.

I knew this was going to be great, with the creative format and the brilliant ideas that McSweeney’s is always swinging around, but I was unprepared for how much I was going to love both Eggers and Manguso’s books. Manguso’s collection stands out particularly as wildly creative and heartbreaking, although Eggers has my favorite piece overall. Read more here.

03. Famous Father’s Other Stories, By Pia Z. Ehrhardt. Published in 2007.

Ehrhardt was a new author for me and I was incredibly impressed. A wonderful collection. Read more about Famous Fathers & Other Stories here.

02. The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, By Junot Diaz. Published in 2007.

I freaking LOVED this book. It blew me away, and was an excellent way to end the year. I had been anxiously awaiting Diaz’s follow up novel (like everyone else) after I was shocked by his wonderful first book Drown, a collection of short stories. This far surpasses Drown in so many ways. I don’t care how long I have to wait for the next one, so long as it is as good. Read more about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao here.

01. The Road, By Cormac McCarthy. Published in 2006.

What can I say? You don’t win the Pulitzer for writing a mediocre book. I haven’t ready any of McCarthy’s other works, and I’m very intrigued as I love his style, but I suspect he won’t ever be able to hit closer to home for me than he did with this book. Reading The Road was a singular experience that I will always cherish, and sadly, probably never duplicate…but I’ll spend my life trying. Read more about The Road here.

Honorable Mentions: You Are A Little Bit Happier Than I Am – Tao Lin (Poetry); Tell Me Why – Clare Jacobsen (Non-Fiction); Superbad – Ben Greenman (Short Fiction); No One Belongs Here More Than You – Miranda July (Short Fiction); Transparency – Frances Hwang (Short Fiction); and The Walking Dead – Robert Kirkman & Charlie Adlard (Graphic Fiction/Comic Book Series).

Worst Book Of The Year: I’m not going to say. I know that’s a cop out, but it’s easier than explaining why it is the worst book I read this year. And words like “bitter” would surely be tossed around in the comments section and y’know what? I don’t need that. :0

#52…Which Means Book A Week for 2007 Success!

January 2, 2008 in book reviews, books, entertainment, junot diaz | 4 comments

Whooo-hooo!

I just finished the other day a completely magnificent book, that also happens to be my 52nd book for the year 2007…happily (and barely) meeting my 2007 goal to read a book a week. Okay, so I cheated a bit here, and here, and maybe even here, but you’ve got to admit it’s pretty awesome. I feel good about this accomplishment, that said, I’m not going to do it again for 2008 and here is why…

1. I found that having such a stringent book reading goal kept me away from some more challenging (or just more lengthy) books that I’ve long been wanting to read (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, The Children’s Hospital, Watership Down, The Tropic of Cancer to name a few). Multiple times this year I picked up books (often those books) and was forced to put them down for fear that they would prevent me from making my goal. A good alternative would perhaps be to set a page number goal, rather than a book number goal…that might be something I try in the future, but not this year.

2. I sometimes found myself frustrated or rushing through a book that was dragging or was simply a slower book to read because I was getting (or as of April had become) so far behind. This was not a fun feeling. It took an activity that I enjoy immensely (yes, reading) and turned it, kind of, into a task. It was sometimes unpleasant and the reality is there are enough unpleasant things in my life currently without needlessly adding to the stack.

3. I need to be more focused this year on writing and submitting and yes, the dreaded elliptical trainer (blah!) than happily and selfishly and yes, somewhat detrimentally reading. I’m sure I’ll still read a hell of a lot, but a shift of focus is definitely necessary.

So onto a review of book #52. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Junot Diaz. Fiction. 4.5 Stars.

This was, I think the second best book I had the pleasure of reading this year, second only to McCarthy’s The Road, which was not only wonderful, but I also had the pleasure of blasting through in about three and a half hours in the middle of the night…which is always an awesome experience. Wao is a much more layered, complex, and quite frankly longer work, so it took me a few days to get through, but I enjoyed every second of it.

I was given Diaz’s short fiction collection Drown a few years ago by a wonderful friend and loved it right away. It was a welcome change from much of the short fiction out there…beautifully crafted stories that were just fascinating. Wao is no different as it is rich and amazing in its history and yet it is told with a casual believable voice that was EXACTLY what I wanted…and that was pitch perfect for the book. Even the footnotes were fascinating – while historical and there to be “footnotes” they were all written in the same voice as the book…and with a definitive perspective. I definitely came away sharing all the author’s views of the Dominican Republic.

Diaz has some truly beautiful believable characters, even if they come from a world I cannot even begin to imagine, and it’s the kind of epic book that I fear I will never have in me to write because of my boring boring life and super super boring experiences. Oh Woe Is Me. I never know with Diaz how much is fiction and how much is autobiography that has been recrafted into fiction, and that I suppose is one of the marks of a great writer…that I believe him SO much that I cannot stop fathoming at the truth he has put down on the page, and have to keep reminding myself that much of it must be fiction…must be…it is too fascinating and rich and beautiful and horrible to be really true. Right?

I can only think of two reasons not to give it 5 stars, 1) I did not give The Road 5 stars and this is an admittedly close second on that book and 2) it is told from the perspectives of a couple different characters and is told almost in short story format in the form of chapters – which I love – but occasionally found confusing or maybe distracting. Anytime you switch character focus you run the risk of losing your reader as he/she can become bored with a new character that is not as interesting as one they were so invested in – this was not a major problem as Diaz’s book was pretty well balanced, but a few times I felt like I was getting a frustrating history lesson when all I wanted to do was get back to the point…to the characters I was pining for. It is a minor complaint, but a complain nonetheless I suppose.

Anyway, a brilliant book. If you’re looking for something to blow you away, this is it. 4.5 stars.

#51 McSweeney’s Quarterly #25

January 2, 2008 in book reviews, books, entertainment, mcsweeney's | Permalink

Hard review to write…and I’m going to hold off on both the full review…and the number of stars because about 50 pages into one of the longer pieces there was a misprint in my book which caused the story to be cut off mid-sentence and then about 12 pages of duplication in the next story. Hope that my book was one of few botched copies, but I don’t feel good about reviewing a book without having been able to complete all stories within…but I’ll be damned if it’s not counting towards my 52 books this year…!

#50. I’m An Idiot

December 24, 2007 in book reviews, books, entertainment | Permalink

#50. The Session. Aaron Petrovich. Fiction Novella. 2.5 Stars

I’m too stupid to read this book. It’s partly my fault, and I partly blame the back cover.

The reality is that the book is written in a kind of stage play type style like Beckett’s Waiting For Godot (although there are no character names followed by a colon, so you have to pay even closer attention to know who is speaking). I have read and enjoyed Godot, but can’t claim to be a super-fan. It’s just not accessible enough to me. I cannot connect to the characters and, for me, that is always the most important thing when I’m reading. That is obviously not Beckett’s goal in Godot and that’s not Petrovich’s goal in Session, but in the case of Session, I was seriously lead astray by the back cover (which is why I usually do not read them and will now go back to my promise to never read them again). Here’s what the back cover says,

“Funny, frantic, and with a subversive intelligence, Aaron Petrovich’s Keaton-esque heroes, Detectives Smith and Smith, stumble upon a bizarre new religion while following the trail of a murdered mathematician’s missing organs. Their investigation to discover the truth – about the mathematician, the men and women who may have eaten him, and ultimately the nature of truth, sanity, and identity – leads them into a lunatic asylum they may never leave”.

AWESOME right? Yeah, no. I got maybe a tenth of that from reading the book. Really, I’m lucky if I got a tenth of that. If I had not read the back cover I would have had no idea that was what this was supposed to be about. This book was almost entirely inaccessible to me. I could connect to nothing and I could follow little. I was expecting a narrative of some sort due to the back cover and found no narrative at all.

I agree with part of the back cover, as below the synopsis is says that “Petrovich elevates rapid fire banter to a hysterical musical litany that carries the detectives, and the reader, right along with it”. The writing was kind of brilliant, and I did feel compelled forward, driven by the two characters dialogue with eachother. It was fascinating, and if I was smarter perhaps I would have gotten the point as well, but I’m afraid in the end I’m just not smart enough for it.

I’m giving it 2.5 stars because I suspect it is quite brilliant, and there is no doubt it is compelling and well written, and I can’t penalize it too heavily just because I’m not intelligent enough to “get it”. So I’m going to give it 2.5 stars for now, and plan to re-read it someday, preferable when I’ve become a more intelligent and enlightened being (that’s for sure gonna happen right?).

2.5 stars.

#49. Loneliness is Lonely

December 24, 2007 in book reviews, books, entertainment, short fiction | Permalink

#49. The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner. Alan Sillitoe. Short Fiction Collection. 3.0 Stars

First of all, can I just say, best freaking title ever. The cover is pretty awesome as well (the one above is pretty great, but not near as great as the version I was reading, I think it was the verison printed in 1987, which I cannot seem to find online). The two (cover and title) together was deadly for me in my “system for picking books” and then this first sentence: “As soon as I got to Borstal they made me a long-distance cross-country runner.” totally put me over the edge.

I love that sentence, I suppose it doesn’t look like much, but the simplicity and matter of factness of it, I just love it. So considering all of these things, and the fact that I already have romantic ideas about long-distance running anyway, I had my expectations up pretty high. I think that is one of the reasons I was ultimately let down. Additionally this book was loaned to me by Adam and I for some reason assumed it was a novel, but it is actually a collection of short fiction, which initially upset me, however this turned out to be for the best, because I really liked some of Sillitoe’s pieces, but fundamentally I found the title piece (Loneliness) to be pretty repetative and frustrating, and I was excited when it was time to move on to the next story.

I found Uncle Ernest, Mr. Raynor The School Teacher, and On Saturday Afternoon to all be quite good, and The Fishing Boat Picture to be heartbreakingly good. The Decline and Fall of Frankie Buller and The Disgrace of Jim Scarfedale were good and had great titles (Sillitoe has a way with titles I must say), but left me a little wanting. The Match, Noah’s Ark, and Loneliness I found pretty greatly wanting, but I suppose only Loneliness really let me down because I had just wanted so much to love it.

I often dream I’m a runner. Not that I am running, but that I AM A RUNNER. Like a great one. Like it is what I was born to do. They are incredibly freeing and wonderful dreams. However, the universe definitely put me in the wrong body for that…so either the universe likes a joke…or it’s just mean (probably the latter), because I will never be a runner, not in this body…even at a drastically different weight, I’m just not built for it. I suppose it’s not Sillitoe’s fault that I wanted his Loneliness And The Long-Distance Runner to fulfill some deep seeded running void that I will never be able to fulfill, but I’m damned if I could keep it from affecting how I ended up feeling about the title piece and in the end the collection overall.

However, even with my lost hopes and dreamlike runner expectations being shattered, the writing was still creative and interesting, and for its time it was particularly beautiful and probably aggressively new I guess, which is pretty impressive. The theme throughout the book was a very obvious Loneliness – more obvious in some stories than in others – and it was a haunting and sad read. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time to be trying to read this book…while the world around me is trying extra hard to be happy and joyous and filled with anything other than loneliness, but I had thought maybe that would make it the perfect time…

3 Stars.

#48. Paving The Way Of The Beautiful Writers That Also Know How To Be Marketable and Accessible…(longest title ever!)

December 22, 2007 in book reviews, books, giraffes, writing | Permalink

#48. Water For Elephants. Sara Gruen. Fiction Novel. 4 stars.

I really liked this book, though I’ll be honest here, I can’t quite pinpoint why. It’s not really my “type” of book, if I have a “type” of book. I generally stay more off the beaten path, and rarely (never?) pick up a book that is a legitimate bestseller and have anything other than a frustrating and desperate reaction. But this was good. There was something beautiful and very much off the beaten path about it, but it was just accessible enough I think that it managed to mainstream itself, and good for Gruen. Good for us all. I wish we could do this with more great books, Water For Elephants is a great example of how to bridge the gap between really great books and what most everyone else is reading (i.e. NOT great books).

I had a few problems with the book, primarily I suppose was the issue that while Gruen told a beautiful and engaging story, I didn’t really feel I learned anything. The characters changed in the course of her book, it’s almost impossible for them not to I would guess, but I don’t know that I felt they “grew”, I didn’t feel the process, it was more just the exposition I suppose of what happened to the people in her story. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think I would have liked the book even more if there had been another layer to it. Although, there was some mention in the author’s interviews/notes in the back of the book of a parallel with the story of Jacob (also the name of Gruen’s main character) from the book of Genesis in the bible. It’s been an age since I read Genesis so I’ll have to go back and re-read and see what I see. Ironically enough considering it is almost Christmas, no bibles have been lying around conveniently enough to pick up, that’s not too surprising though I guess considering I’m an athiest. When I get home I’ll crack my bible open and see if this is the layer I am perhaps missing in Gruen’s book, and if necessary add an update to this review.

I highly recommend this book for people who read a lot of mainstream literary fiction and I also recommend this book to people who generally avoid mainstream fiction literature like the plague. The story was fresh, well researched, interesting, and engaging. Overall a great and enjoyable read. Suitable for a beach read, but not inane in the way that beach reads often can be.

Hats off to you Ms. Gruen…perhaps you have paved the way for the rest of us.

4 stars (out of a possible 5).

#44 – #47 A Pike Fest!*

November 26, 2007 in book reviews, books, christopher pike, writing | 4 comments

#44. Weekend. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 2.5 Stars

#45. Whisper of Death. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 3.5 Stars

#46. Chain Letter. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 2.5 Stars

#47. Chain Letter 2. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 1.5 Stars

*Again, if you want to know what is compelling a 31 year old to have a Christopher Pike fest, read more here.

Okay, first and foremost, let us discuss Christopher Pike’s obsession with class valedictorians.

I read seven of his books in the last five days and every single solitary book featured as one of the main characters the high school valedictorian (or the “likely class valedictorian”). Also of note, is that these were always men. Shame on you Mr. Pike…not one female class valedictorian? And even when there was someone else competing for valedictorian that might take it from one of our main characters…as in the Final Friends Trilogy (Michael Olson vs. Dale Jensen) even that wasn’t ever a woman. I guess all the women were too busy being pretty to be class valedictorian. Oh, I’m sorry, are my claws showing? It must be the bitterness rubbing off after reading 1,467 pages of Young Adult Fiction. My brain is melting…mostly from having to read about too many girls in tight white shorts or tight white pants with a brightly colored blouse. *Sigh*.

Sidenote: He also seems to have an unhealthy obsession with the name Michael, at least three characters in his books have been named Michael – including hero Michael Olson in the Final Friends Trilogy, hero Flynn aka Michael Ryan Richardson in Weekend, and Mike from Bury Me Deep (which I did not read recently, but remember now in all my Pike-like memory recoveries). Perhaps Pike’s real name is Michael? Hmmm…food for thought. Is it really that simple? Pike’s name is Mike and he was or wished he was class valedictorian? Have we really pierced into the very soul of this 1980’s and 90’s prolific tween writer? It cannot be so simple…onto the reviews…!

I still hold that these books hold up surprisingly well over time plot wise, and the writing isn’t horrendous or anything, I certainly couldn’t have gotten through 1,467 pages of it if it was really that bad, but I did notice some of it really beginning to affect me in a negative way as I read along.

It’s also interesting to note that while Pike’s plots were pretty complicated and well hidden, I can’t imagine as a kid first reading these to not feeling a bit ripped off, was I really so dense that I did not catch on to his tedious formula? For Pike’s 1986 – 1990 work he was pretty much just dealing with teenagers and some “mysterious death or accident”, usually this “event” is perceived as an innocent accident, and by the end of the book (or trilogy in the case of Final Friends) you are basically left with a character in a room figuring it out and forcing everyone involved to come clean…in fact Law & Order’s Criminal Intent Character Detective Goren might have stolen his technique from carefully researching Pike books since that is the end of basically every Criminal Intent episode…do I smell a lawsuit? Anyway, by 1990 it seems Pike was running out of interesting ways to get teens to confess at the end of his novels, or perhaps he suspected that people were catching on to his formula and so he turned to the supernatural.

Whisper of Death, despite the horrible title (and even worse cover) was not bad, and I believe was one of his first “supernatural” focused books, published in 1991. It’s actually a pretty creative plot in which five teenagers, end up alone in the world. Handsome Pepper, attractive pretty legged Roxanne, chubby potential valedictorian Stan, big scary and apparently acne-faced Helter, and knockout future model/ porn star Leslie are the only ones left in their town and apparently in the world. It is the wrongs they have committed against a red-headed teenage witch they know that committed suicide a month ago named Betty Sue that has brought them into this purgatory in which they are killed off one by one in the same manner as Betty Sue wrote they would be in short stories that the doomed characters find in the dead town. Whisper gets major props for being WAY off the map from Pike’s other works in taking risks. By page 22 Roxanne and Pepper are aborting their love child, although Roxanne thinks she has stopped the procedure in time (has she???). Pike also kills off all his characters in this book in horrible ways, it is a decidedly risky move and one that pays off in some ways. This is by far the darkest of his early works that I read and one I remember sticking with me as a kid, I think this was a smart book for him to do, however he botches it by not giving you a chance to care about any of the characters…the very thing that make Final Friends work so well, even without the creative plot twists present here. It is the books downfall that you don’t really care when any of these characters bite the dust, even Roxanne the main character. In fact, the only truly good character was Stan…and you can’t figure out why he’s getting thrown into purgatory with the rest of the jerks, so it’s a bit unfulfilling.

Chain Letter 2: The Ancient Evil (ugh, can you believe that title? only the cover is worse than the title) was the only other book I read in the past week that would fit in with Pike’s “supernatural works”, I don’t remember liking many of his supernatural books when I was a kid, which is odd, cause I like me some good supernatural stuff. Anyway, I remember disliking Chain Letter 2 intensely as a kid, and I only purchased it along with the rest because I knew I intended to read Chain Letter and would instantly be curious about how the hell he made a supernatural sequel to a pretty good first book some six years later (boy do I know myself, I’d finished Chain Letter for all of 20 seconds when I went digging for part two).

Chain Letter held up pretty damn well, despite the hokey-ness of the idea of a chain letter driving a book forward and it was pretty interesting to follow super thin neurotic but attractive Fran, gorgeous lithe blonde actress Brenda, gorgeous raven haired actress Alison, badass superhot female amazon Joan, burning hunk of man-meat athlete Tony, big nosed future valedictorian Kipp, and slight sweet innocent Neil as they receive a horrible chain letter threatening them to do as requested or they will be punished (or their crime of the previous summer – hitting a possibly already dead man with their car – shades of I Know What You Did Last Summer – will be revealed). The pace moves well and the characters are interesting enough, there is also a traditional killer chases girl scene towards the end set in an abandoned housing track that had my heart moving pretty fast and must have had my little 12 year old head under the covers for a week the first time I read it. Like most his books, the ending is a bit disappointing…all is resolved largely as a huge misunderstanding that is solved with “love and…understanding, of course” but at least it made sense.

Chain Letter 2…ugh. I don’t know what he was thinking. It had none of the drama of the first book, largely because he tries to squeeze in explanations of how the first book really was supernatural with all this exposition about all the stuff they didn’t reveal in the first book. It is not well done in the least and it is a perfect example of how show don’t tell should be used in books. Rather than having the characters do anything or discover anything, they just sit there while other new characters explain old plot developments to them. Pike proves he’s not afraid to kill his cast, but as a reader you already know that if you’ve read his newer work, and so the power of it is less intense. It was really quite bad.

Weekend held up pretty well and I believe is one of his first books, published in 1986. This was also before he went over to the supernatural side, although I should mention that there are always elements of that in his books, even the early ones…but in the early books they are usually red herrings. In Weekend we have, as tradition dictates, an “accident” to a beautiful young teen full of promise (Robin)…in this case she’s not dead, but slowly dying and the teens/friends that were with her at the time of said accident – her beautiful buxom fiery red-headed slutty though likable adopted sister Lena, cute but annoying and weak Kerry, gorgeous slightly ditzy blonde Angie, gorgeous intelligent sweet perfect dark haired Shani, beautiful mysterious foreign Flynn, good natured athlete Bert, ruggedly handsome bad boy Sol, and strangely attractive future valedictorian Park as they are trapped at a beach house in Mexico as one of them (or two??) try to find out who is responsible for Robin’s accident. The ending, as always, is a bit convenient, but unlike Chain Letter 2, Pike does a pretty great job of letting the story unfold rather than just dictating it to us and taking away all the suspense. The characters are about as likable and unlikable as always and as always, the women are gorgeous in their tight white shorts and colored blouses, although I found the protagonist Shani to be a bit weak and poorly developed compared to some of Pike’s other female protagonists.

Okay, that’s it for the YA books and review (thank the heavens I’m sure some of you are saying). It was enjoyable, but I have to say, I’m pretty off the idea of YA books. When the idea struck me to read these I thought “hey…I could do this…maybe I’ll just bang a couple crap teen books out be able to quit my job and still work on my great American novel on the side…” but it’s hard enough to write a book you love and feel proud of and to get someone else to love it and publish it, that it’s a waste of time writing something you think is crap from go…so I’ll be passing on that…for now.

Update: A brief bio I found on Pike reveals his real name to be…Kevin…not Mike. So disappointing…

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