Books: Last Book You Read and Rate It
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Oscar Acosta
Registered User
- Mar 19, 2011
- 7,695
- 369
Watchmen - Alan Moore - (1986)
Again coming at everyone with a graphic novel, this one has always been highly regarded and the pinnacle of graphic novels from what I've seen - so I reckoned I should read it.
And it is. Story of a number of "superheroes" that have been outlawed years before, and their lives leading up to and including the end of the 12 book saga. All with an overlying tension of nuclear war on Earth, if they can stop it or not, and the politics behind it all.
Actually think it's far more poignant today than it would have been 2 years ago. When you're reading this book that's from 1986, all the political tension and people uprising vs. each other you have to instantly relate it to today.
It's superbly written with multiple layers, beautifully drawn. It's a book that not only comic fans should read but everyone that's a fan of literature, or who wants to take a break from real life nuclear tensions.
10/10
The Pyramid of Mud, by Andrea Camilleri
The latest in the Inspector Montalbano series finds the Sicilian detective investigating what seems on the surface to be a crime of passion but which in reality is a power struggle between warring Mafioso outfits to control construction sites. As usual, the mystery is a good one, the plot mixes in a lot of humour, and the characters and sense of place are marvelous. Camilleri and Montalbano are never less than in fine form.
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,211
- 17,213
Over the years I have given my mother several books to read. The only one I can recall her having finished was Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson, that because it's about 90 pages long. Midnight's Children? Didn't get past the introduction. The Great Gatsby? Boring. Nothing happens in it. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster? Too much talking. The Handmaid's Tale? Just kept picturing the TV show, it was too weird. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee? I don't remember, actually. All the while she devours shite like identikit airport thrillers and stuff with pictures of small girls on the cover underneath titles like DADDY, NO! (joke c/o Dara O'Briain)
Recently her library started a book club. The first month served up 2008 Booker prize winner The White Tiger by Aravind Ariga, the tale of Balram who goes from being one of millions of children from the poverty-ridden Darkness to being a driver in Delhi to being a murderer to being a successful entrepreneur with a fleet of taxis. She didn't think much of it.
I'm not sure if I do either. I'd say it's interesting to see a rags to riches story presented against a background which is strictly rags, in that he starts out amidst corrupt poverty and ends the story in even more corrupt, ill-gotten luxury. The problem I had is that the whole narrative is presented from that perspective as Balram recounts his life story to the president of China in a series of fanciful e-mails as he's visiting India. That's fine, and it's unquestionable that there's character development as he becomes more and more ruthless and able to finish the story in the successful position he does, but because it's all told through recollections it doesn't really feel like there's anything at stake anywhere. Nor does it really feel like he changes any.
The background to all of this is good, but not enough to compensate for any deficiencies in characterisation. We learn about the corruption in politics at local and national levels. The headmaster at his school sells government-issued uniforms for the children. The head of the village sells off the thumbprints of people old enough to vote (which incidentally is anyone who happens to be around when someone comes looking for voters). Then he chauffeurs around his masters and learns what he can about what's going on. In fact the windfall which he murders his boss for which allows him to run away and start a new life was only available after he drove him to several cash machines throughout the city, after having to bribe someone new after a recent election upset. In a country as large, diverse and endlessly changing as India the second-hand nature of the descriptions of it seem fitting. You could write a book ten thousand pages long and barely cover one person's experience, so the seemingly endless assault of information works very well in depicting the country.
Yet in spite of this, some of it just feels jarring. There are a few pop culture references thrown in and they just feel token and out of place. I managed to get through most of the book in one sitting (and I would have done the whole thing in about five hours if I'd taken the time for it) and it wasn't out of it being inherently readable, just thin. Weak. A scratch of the surface which works well at the time but isn't even effective enough as to leave you wanting more, because it doesn't make enough of an impact on you. Various testimonials on the edition I had hailed it as a work of breathtaking genius and something the Indian government wouldn't thank you for reading, but to me it's ultimately so shallow that any sensation you had while reading it - positive or negative - would dissipate quite quickly when you were finished.
There's a section where Balram's dad dies of tuberculosis in a doctorless hospital and any sense of injustice which he could feel here at the circumstances of his death (ie the system allowing doctors to lie about having been to rural places and still be paid) just don't materialise because life moves on so quickly. I think there's a lot to be written about a setting and inspiration as huge and varied as we have here (see the aforementioned Midnight's Children which manages it much better) but what insight The White Tiger possesses is never focused on long enough to seem profound.
Next month's book is something by Graham Norton because apparently that's a thing he does. I won't be posting about that here.
Recently her library started a book club. The first month served up 2008 Booker prize winner The White Tiger by Aravind Ariga, the tale of Balram who goes from being one of millions of children from the poverty-ridden Darkness to being a driver in Delhi to being a murderer to being a successful entrepreneur with a fleet of taxis. She didn't think much of it.
I'm not sure if I do either. I'd say it's interesting to see a rags to riches story presented against a background which is strictly rags, in that he starts out amidst corrupt poverty and ends the story in even more corrupt, ill-gotten luxury. The problem I had is that the whole narrative is presented from that perspective as Balram recounts his life story to the president of China in a series of fanciful e-mails as he's visiting India. That's fine, and it's unquestionable that there's character development as he becomes more and more ruthless and able to finish the story in the successful position he does, but because it's all told through recollections it doesn't really feel like there's anything at stake anywhere. Nor does it really feel like he changes any.
The background to all of this is good, but not enough to compensate for any deficiencies in characterisation. We learn about the corruption in politics at local and national levels. The headmaster at his school sells government-issued uniforms for the children. The head of the village sells off the thumbprints of people old enough to vote (which incidentally is anyone who happens to be around when someone comes looking for voters). Then he chauffeurs around his masters and learns what he can about what's going on. In fact the windfall which he murders his boss for which allows him to run away and start a new life was only available after he drove him to several cash machines throughout the city, after having to bribe someone new after a recent election upset. In a country as large, diverse and endlessly changing as India the second-hand nature of the descriptions of it seem fitting. You could write a book ten thousand pages long and barely cover one person's experience, so the seemingly endless assault of information works very well in depicting the country.
Yet in spite of this, some of it just feels jarring. There are a few pop culture references thrown in and they just feel token and out of place. I managed to get through most of the book in one sitting (and I would have done the whole thing in about five hours if I'd taken the time for it) and it wasn't out of it being inherently readable, just thin. Weak. A scratch of the surface which works well at the time but isn't even effective enough as to leave you wanting more, because it doesn't make enough of an impact on you. Various testimonials on the edition I had hailed it as a work of breathtaking genius and something the Indian government wouldn't thank you for reading, but to me it's ultimately so shallow that any sensation you had while reading it - positive or negative - would dissipate quite quickly when you were finished.
There's a section where Balram's dad dies of tuberculosis in a doctorless hospital and any sense of injustice which he could feel here at the circumstances of his death (ie the system allowing doctors to lie about having been to rural places and still be paid) just don't materialise because life moves on so quickly. I think there's a lot to be written about a setting and inspiration as huge and varied as we have here (see the aforementioned Midnight's Children which manages it much better) but what insight The White Tiger possesses is never focused on long enough to seem profound.
Next month's book is something by Graham Norton because apparently that's a thing he does. I won't be posting about that here.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by Michael Wolff
Here is a "fly on the wall" account of the first hundred days or so of the Trump White House. First off a word about the author: while Michael Wolff is not in the Woodward/Halberstam/Hitchens league as a political observer, he nonetheless was granted extraordinary access to the meetings, turf wars, and general goings on that took place in the White House during Trump's tumultuous first year. Wolff has written for Vanity Fair and for The Hollywood Reporter and his writing here pretty much splits the difference between the two---thoughtful and perceptive some of the time, slapdash and gossipy in about equal measure. While I raised my eyes sometimes at the words he was putting in people's mouth (though interestingly few of those people have challenged Wolff's account), I nonetheless got an overwhelming sense that in terms of broad outlines, if not tiny details, the picture he was painting of the dysfunction of the Trump White House was believable and wholly convincing.
The book begins with a basic assertion: as no one expected Trump to actually win, including the candidate, no one took seriously the need to prepare for a transition to the White House. As a result when Trump did win, there was nobody on his team with the requisite experience to form a government. Eventually three warring factions emerged represented by different characters: Rance Priebus represented Establishment Republican values, but quickly found that he was dealing with a president-elect who had no discernible values whatsoever, save rampant self-interest. Ever rumpled Steve Bannon represented the ideological side of the equation--an economic nationalist, he was bound and determined that Trump keep the promises he made on the campaign trail at whatever the political cost. And Jared and Ivanka Trump, ever conscious of their personal brand, represented the family's attempts to modify and soften Trump's often bombastic and unhinged behaviour. Then there was Trump, willfully ignorant of everything that didn't relate to his own well being and financial gain, who was a handful for everybody. He didn't read, but he didn't listen either. He had little time for other people's expertise, preferring to trust his gut, which unfortunately kept getting him in ever hotter water. Fire and Fury is very good at showing how the different factions warred against one another and how chaos became a way of life with each new day potentially bringing more self-inflicted disasters for everyone to cope with.
While I could quibble about Wolff's style, no question that he provides the most damning portrait of a United States President that I have ever read; in fact I would say the most damning portrait of any American public figure that I have ever read. While the book is neither as well written nor well organized as it could have been, it certainly gets the job done. If this book could be viewed as a non-fiction novel---and if one squints just a little, that's not much of a stretch--it is a darkly hilarious tragicomedy with Trump at its centre, every thing around him eventually sucked in to the black hole of his vanity. I understand people's reservations about this work, but I found it a mostly entertaining read, especially the last third where things really start to implode. I also found almost all the Steve Bannon bits fun as well--he may be crazy but he is one funny, perceptive guy, and his ongoing conflict with Javanka (his term for Jared and Ivanka) is breathtaking to behold. And where did all those leaks keep coming from? As it turns out, just about everybody, just about all the time.
Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,164
- 851
Great review. I’m about a third through & find it entertaining, at times hilarious , and over the top . Complete chaos.
Feels like it was a bit rushed , & reads like a gossipy article at times, but it makes me excited for the defining book that will come out in about 8 years.
Feels like it was a bit rushed , & reads like a gossipy article at times, but it makes me excited for the defining book that will come out in about 8 years.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1846) - One of the strangest books I've ever read. Both in terms of it's technical execution and it's meandering plot and character. I'm not even sure how I feel about it, even after letting it sit for a few days. I certainly don't dislike it and it's certainly made a lasting impression on me, despite it being a flawed work, IMO. Centered around a low-level bureaucrat named Goldyakin who's mental health is deteriorating at a rapid pace and who begins to see a callous doppelganger, who essentially dedicates his life to f***ing with the original Goldyakin (Hilariously called Goldyakin Sr. while the doppelganger is referred to as Goldyakin Jr.). There's a lot to like in this story. For one, Dostoyevsky captures the essence of the main character's mental health as he creates a confusing atmosphere around the story which does bring the reader into Goldyakin's Sr head in a thrilling way and guides you through the layers of depth in there (which is really Dostoyevsky's greatest strength as a writer IMO, exploring his own character's inner-beings). The prose has a certain charm despite the fact that it's flow often feels amateurish and it's pacing sometimes feels off. For example, certain techniques that I would think would be annoying on paper, end up paying off here in humorous ways. For example, Goldyakin Sr has a tendency to refer to his interlocutor by his name numerous times in a single conversation, or the narrator insulting Goldyakin Jr everytime he's mentioned.
Kinda like this: '' Yes Amerika, of course Amerika, no, you must not believe that, you know we all wear masks, but I do not Amerika, you must not think, no, Amerika. ''
On the other hand, certain choices fall flat. Like the narrator referring to the main character as '' Our Hero ''. Perhaps it's because I've seen this use of the word in other stories, but I find a rather corny way to refer to a main character. With that said, the story is sparsed with brilliants moments of prose, particularly towards the last third of the book, where Goldyakin Sr starts descending into such a madness that he cannot make sense of his surroundings anymore and Dostoyevsky uses these moments to describe, in surreal terms, the world around him in beautiful and horrific fashion. Every action also feels natural, despite the bizarre way in which their characters justify them - similar to The Gambler by Dosto - and this throbbing story comes to a grandiose finish which puts the perfect bow on a story that comes across as a surreal painting which felt like it wanted to convince it's reader it was a wholesome child's drawing and then deliberately failed.
Kinda like this: '' Yes Amerika, of course Amerika, no, you must not believe that, you know we all wear masks, but I do not Amerika, you must not think, no, Amerika. ''
On the other hand, certain choices fall flat. Like the narrator referring to the main character as '' Our Hero ''. Perhaps it's because I've seen this use of the word in other stories, but I find a rather corny way to refer to a main character. With that said, the story is sparsed with brilliants moments of prose, particularly towards the last third of the book, where Goldyakin Sr starts descending into such a madness that he cannot make sense of his surroundings anymore and Dostoyevsky uses these moments to describe, in surreal terms, the world around him in beautiful and horrific fashion. Every action also feels natural, despite the bizarre way in which their characters justify them - similar to The Gambler by Dosto - and this throbbing story comes to a grandiose finish which puts the perfect bow on a story that comes across as a surreal painting which felt like it wanted to convince it's reader it was a wholesome child's drawing and then deliberately failed.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by Michael Wolff
Here is a "fly on the wall" account of the first hundred days or so of the Trump White House. First off a word about the author: while Michael Wolff is not in the Woodward/Halberstam/Hitchens league as a political observer, he nonetheless was granted extraordinary access to the meetings, turf wars, and general goings on that took place in the White House during Trump's tumultuous first year. Wolff has written for Vanity Fair and for The Hollywood Reporter and his writing here pretty much splits the difference between the two---thoughtful and perceptive some of the time, slapdash and gossipy in about equal measure. While I raised my eyes sometimes at the words he was putting in people's mouth (though interestingly few of those people have challenged Wolff's account), I nonetheless got an overwhelming sense that in terms of broad outlines, if not tiny details, the picture he was painting of the dysfunction of the Trump White House was believable and wholly convincing.
The book begins with a basic assertion: as no one expected Trump to actually win, including the candidate, no one took seriously the need to prepare for a transition to the White House. As a result when Trump did win, there was nobody on his team with the requisite experience to form a government. Eventually three warring factions emerged represented by different characters: Rance Priebus represented Establishment Republican values, but quickly found that he was dealing with a president-elect who had no discernible values whatsoever, save rampant self-interest. Ever rumpled Steve Bannon represented the ideological side of the equation--an economic nationalist, he was bound and determined that Trump keep the promises he made on the campaign trail at whatever the political cost. And Jared and Ivanka Trump, ever conscious of their personal brand, represented the family's attempts to modify and soften Trump's often bombastic and unhinged behaviour. Then there was Trump, willfully ignorant of everything that didn't relate to his own well being and financial gain, who was a handful for everybody. He didn't read, but he didn't listen either. He had little time for other people's expertise, preferring to trust his gut, which unfortunately kept getting him in ever hotter water. Fire and Fury is very good at showing how the different factions warred against one another and how chaos became a way of life with each new day potentially bringing more self-inflicted disasters for everyone to cope with.
While I could quibble about Wolff's style, no question that he provides the most damning portrait of a United States President that I have ever read; in fact I would say the most damning portrait of any American public figure that I have ever read. While the book is neither as well written nor well organized as it could have been, it certainly gets the job done. If this book could be viewed as a non-fiction novel---and if one squints just a little, that's not much of a stretch--it is a darkly hilarious tragicomedy with Trump at its centre, every thing around him eventually sucked in to the black hole of his vanity. I understand people's reservations about this work, but I found it a mostly entertaining read, especially the last third where things really start to implode. I also found almost all the Steve Bannon bits fun as well--he may be crazy but he is one funny, perceptive guy, and his ongoing conflict with Javanka (his term for Jared and Ivanka) is breathtaking to behold. And where did all those leaks keep coming from? As it turns out, just about everybody, just about all the time.
In the right hands, and without it being too on the nose and satire-like, I could see the Donald Trump story as the inspiration/blue-print to a great work of art.
I keep thinking that I wish Joseph Heller was still around. I think he would have been a good pick to do the subject justice. Though British, Anthony Burgess might have taken a decent whack at the Trump saga, too.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol (1832) - Another odd one, although in a more overt way. Sprinkled with beautiful imagery - like the devil stealing the moon that is too hot for it's hands - and humorous moments where the tables are turned on characters you'd expect it the least, I thought the story navigated well between accessibility and organic surrealism although certain plot points (although the plot certainly isn't the most important or rewarding part of the story) felt loose and aimless in a way that felt unintended, which is a fault on such a short work (albeit it's not a short-story, it is shorter than a regular novella) and gives it an air of incompetence that could have been avoided. Read too much like a (gothic) fairy tale at times - which I think was the aim - which isn't particularly up my alley, but it was a lot more immediately readable than should be expected for such a bizarre work and it never lost steam.
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Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,211
- 17,213
I own multiple old books which have blurbs and testimonials on the back and the inside which proclaim how shocking and controversial it was when it was released. An inordinate number of these seem to be French, and the most recent of these is Therese Raquin by Emile Zola. Therese Raquin is the story of Therese Raquin, who as a small child is left with an aunt in some decrepit Parisian side-street where she grows up in the company of her sickly cousin Camille, having to live the same way her aunt and cousin do and becoming a shut-in in the process. Then one day Camille brings a friend home from work who immediately puts you in mind of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and she discovers, hey, I feel some kind of way. Laurent discovers the same thing, and these two odd people duly come together and have to suffer the consequences of their attempts to sate their lust for one another. (Oh yeah Therese and Camille are married, but it's not like they're a real couple)
As you can probably imagine with something from the 1860s which carries a preface by the author defending it and bemoaning the need for him to defend it, this isn't a remarkable thing at all. Two people meet and want to spend their time devouring one another. I'm sure this happens every day in real life. Similarly, two people who experience one emotional extreme experience another when they've killed the only obstacle to their lust and feel terrible about it. The way Zola carries out a temperament study (his insistent word) is interesting if a little laboured. I think if you considered this novel along with similar studies of humanity from the time like Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde you might get a bit further, but it's been too long since I've read either of them to really state that with any authority.
The problem which comes from something which focuses so intently on one aspect is that other elements can suffer, and they do. It feels at times like there isn't enough insight into what Therese and Laurent think, just what they feel. Yet at the same time you find yourself wishing the passages about what they feel would stop because they seem so repetitive. If you're familiar with the book you might enjoy the fact that I read it in a broadly similar way to how Therese feels throughout - I devoured the first 5th or so, took a week for the middle then finished the end at once, coming to an end much sooner than I thought I would. Maybe it's better than I realise because of how subconsciously accurate it is. I certainly wouldn't say anything against the first section detailing Therese's torpor and sudden awakening, that bit's brilliant. The rest can get wearing though.
Other descriptive elements such as the small areas where the story is set are realised very well. It sounds like a horrible place where the Raquins live, and the dissatisfaction Therese and Laurent have with their surroundings are consistent and legitimate. Other minor characters like Madame Raquin and her apparently demonic cat which Laurent throws out a window are hilarious (deliberately or otherwise) and while the novel is interesting enough and short enough to remain so, unless you have a vested interest in mid-19th century popular psychology you might not find much to shock you.
It's also probably worth mentioning that I had to do the book and film for a class once. I didn't have the book or the DVD yet, and the only torrent of the film I could find, I couldn't work the subtitles. So I'm watching this film in French in one window with the wikipedia page with the book's plot in another, since there wasn't a page for the film. This meant I'm waiting for them to go boating, except they go on a train. Then all of a sudden Camille gets thrown off. Wasn't expecting that. I guess I should watch it now, I'll only be five years late.
As you can probably imagine with something from the 1860s which carries a preface by the author defending it and bemoaning the need for him to defend it, this isn't a remarkable thing at all. Two people meet and want to spend their time devouring one another. I'm sure this happens every day in real life. Similarly, two people who experience one emotional extreme experience another when they've killed the only obstacle to their lust and feel terrible about it. The way Zola carries out a temperament study (his insistent word) is interesting if a little laboured. I think if you considered this novel along with similar studies of humanity from the time like Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde you might get a bit further, but it's been too long since I've read either of them to really state that with any authority.
The problem which comes from something which focuses so intently on one aspect is that other elements can suffer, and they do. It feels at times like there isn't enough insight into what Therese and Laurent think, just what they feel. Yet at the same time you find yourself wishing the passages about what they feel would stop because they seem so repetitive. If you're familiar with the book you might enjoy the fact that I read it in a broadly similar way to how Therese feels throughout - I devoured the first 5th or so, took a week for the middle then finished the end at once, coming to an end much sooner than I thought I would. Maybe it's better than I realise because of how subconsciously accurate it is. I certainly wouldn't say anything against the first section detailing Therese's torpor and sudden awakening, that bit's brilliant. The rest can get wearing though.
Other descriptive elements such as the small areas where the story is set are realised very well. It sounds like a horrible place where the Raquins live, and the dissatisfaction Therese and Laurent have with their surroundings are consistent and legitimate. Other minor characters like Madame Raquin and her apparently demonic cat which Laurent throws out a window are hilarious (deliberately or otherwise) and while the novel is interesting enough and short enough to remain so, unless you have a vested interest in mid-19th century popular psychology you might not find much to shock you.
It's also probably worth mentioning that I had to do the book and film for a class once. I didn't have the book or the DVD yet, and the only torrent of the film I could find, I couldn't work the subtitles. So I'm watching this film in French in one window with the wikipedia page with the book's plot in another, since there wasn't a page for the film. This meant I'm waiting for them to go boating, except they go on a train. Then all of a sudden Camille gets thrown off. Wasn't expecting that. I guess I should watch it now, I'll only be five years late.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
The Van by Roddy Doyle (1991) - My feelings about The Snapper could generally be used for this one as well. I enjoyed it a whole lot and despite being a different story - with different themes - than the previous book, it felt as seamless as if it was one story and the same qualities appear here. I like the fact that there's a lot to read despite the fact that it sometimes feel like the book doesn't say at all. It's a testament to how fun the interactions are between the various characters and how fun Doyle can make the mundane (or worst) seem. I will say though, I felt that the ending felt a bit rushed and a little sappy and easy for what had been building up. Read like Doyle was in a hurry to finish the book. That's my only gripe, though.
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,211
- 17,213
Some time ago I read Child of God by Cormac McCarthy and in being somewhat dismissive of it I upset noted fan Oscar Acosta. I've read it again and I got much more out of it.
I'm not sure I can think of a way of saying this without sounding wildly conceited but I think a lot of the appeal of McCarthy to me comes from the enforced solitude of the characters as they're faced with whatever challenges their lives throw at them. Maybe it appeals to me as an assortment of terse young (and old) men come to terms with the fact that they have no place in the world anymore, and that the world has no place for them. The struggle goes on and, really (excepting the three novels I've yet to read), can you say there's a happy ending? Can you say there's a positive resolution for any of them? Maybe the man in The Road, he has a bit of hope at least.
And so we come to Lester Ballard, a cross-dressing murderous necrophiliac who lives in a hut in the woods. Who's a crack shot with a rifle but is the most careless arsonist you've ever seen. In fact he burns down houses to cover his tracks when he's collecting girls, just like his own hut burns down because of how at peace he is with his fantasised belief that a dead body in a dress is the same as being, well, normal. Or maybe just what he thinks normal is.
I like that as Child of God goes on the descriptions of what he does seem to fall away, as does time itself. Lots of detail when he's first stealing bodies, then it moves on a bit and suddenly he's being chased for "murders," emphasis on the plural, then he's got seven of them underground in a cave lined up like some ancient religious gathering. I think the novel's length works in its favour here because Lester isn't really normal. Of course the description of him I opened with suggests that but you'd say Hannibal Lecter isn't normal because he cuts bits of peoples' brains out and feeds it to them, but he's still lucid and upright and coherent. Lester exists well beyond the margins of civilisation and, apparently, of literary convention.
The novel actually starts like this and there's a great technique McCarthy uses which he seems to have discarded until No Country for Old Men (watch it be littered throughout Suttree when I get to that) which adds to the sense of Lester being an outcast. Small, paragraph-long excerpts from other people who sort of vaguely knew of him. Yeah, I knew he was weird, they say, as we read about being forced off the land he was living on. As I was reading the novel this time I was put in mind that it's like a Flannery O'Connor story in some bad nightmare world, as we learn some part of but not the whole picture about a person's interaction with a society where there's a lingering sense that neither side is quite on the level. It takes some work to make a character like Lester sympathetic, but there is a legitimate sense that he is a victim of circumstance rather than wholly 'bad,' which speaks endlessly to McCarthy's ability as a writer.
The abruptness of the ending is suited well to the story too because, really, how far could a story about Lester go? Short of describing every body he finds and what he does with it, there's nowhere else for him to go once he's started committing his crimes and moved outside of society. So as his departure from that plane is swift, so is his death.
It's interesting that McCarthy seems to be able to switch between writing at great length and in great detail about a subject which he can cover just as effectively in a much shorter amount of words, never leaving you feeling bored in one extreme or short-changed in the other. With that in mind, the moments of subtlely nodding to the audience don't seem out of place either in a work which is so unafraid of exploring the extraordinary:
"He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?"
So, there's your Lester. In a world of such uncertainty and existential dread it's almost comforting to read about an obviously damaged character who lives his life, as much as he can, on his terms. But maybe I'm veering from conceited into dangerous.
I'm not sure I can think of a way of saying this without sounding wildly conceited but I think a lot of the appeal of McCarthy to me comes from the enforced solitude of the characters as they're faced with whatever challenges their lives throw at them. Maybe it appeals to me as an assortment of terse young (and old) men come to terms with the fact that they have no place in the world anymore, and that the world has no place for them. The struggle goes on and, really (excepting the three novels I've yet to read), can you say there's a happy ending? Can you say there's a positive resolution for any of them? Maybe the man in The Road, he has a bit of hope at least.
And so we come to Lester Ballard, a cross-dressing murderous necrophiliac who lives in a hut in the woods. Who's a crack shot with a rifle but is the most careless arsonist you've ever seen. In fact he burns down houses to cover his tracks when he's collecting girls, just like his own hut burns down because of how at peace he is with his fantasised belief that a dead body in a dress is the same as being, well, normal. Or maybe just what he thinks normal is.
I like that as Child of God goes on the descriptions of what he does seem to fall away, as does time itself. Lots of detail when he's first stealing bodies, then it moves on a bit and suddenly he's being chased for "murders," emphasis on the plural, then he's got seven of them underground in a cave lined up like some ancient religious gathering. I think the novel's length works in its favour here because Lester isn't really normal. Of course the description of him I opened with suggests that but you'd say Hannibal Lecter isn't normal because he cuts bits of peoples' brains out and feeds it to them, but he's still lucid and upright and coherent. Lester exists well beyond the margins of civilisation and, apparently, of literary convention.
The novel actually starts like this and there's a great technique McCarthy uses which he seems to have discarded until No Country for Old Men (watch it be littered throughout Suttree when I get to that) which adds to the sense of Lester being an outcast. Small, paragraph-long excerpts from other people who sort of vaguely knew of him. Yeah, I knew he was weird, they say, as we read about being forced off the land he was living on. As I was reading the novel this time I was put in mind that it's like a Flannery O'Connor story in some bad nightmare world, as we learn some part of but not the whole picture about a person's interaction with a society where there's a lingering sense that neither side is quite on the level. It takes some work to make a character like Lester sympathetic, but there is a legitimate sense that he is a victim of circumstance rather than wholly 'bad,' which speaks endlessly to McCarthy's ability as a writer.
The abruptness of the ending is suited well to the story too because, really, how far could a story about Lester go? Short of describing every body he finds and what he does with it, there's nowhere else for him to go once he's started committing his crimes and moved outside of society. So as his departure from that plane is swift, so is his death.
It's interesting that McCarthy seems to be able to switch between writing at great length and in great detail about a subject which he can cover just as effectively in a much shorter amount of words, never leaving you feeling bored in one extreme or short-changed in the other. With that in mind, the moments of subtlely nodding to the audience don't seem out of place either in a work which is so unafraid of exploring the extraordinary:
"He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?"
So, there's your Lester. In a world of such uncertainty and existential dread it's almost comforting to read about an obviously damaged character who lives his life, as much as he can, on his terms. But maybe I'm veering from conceited into dangerous.
The Sympatizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Sympathizer takes the form of a written confession by an unnamed narrator (The Captain), forced by a Vietnamese Commissar to delineate his sins against fledgling Communist-controlled Vietnam. This is ironic in the extreme as he is in fact a Communist double agent who has served his side admirably, if not always with certainty, as a spy who has successfully infiltrated the South Vietnamese-American community in the United States. He has written dozens of coded correspondences to his "aunt" in Paris detailing anti-regime activity among the immigrants and refugees living in California after the war. His long written statement is not really a confession, but more of an apologia. He cannot in good faith, something his captors don't care about anyway, confess to sins he hasn't committed; rather he tries to explain himself to himself and come to some understanding about the sins he has committed. The novel begins during the chaotic fall of South Vietnam, moves to the States, where the Captain for the most part does what he is told to do but with severe doubts, and then finally returns to Vietnam where The Captain suffers through torture at a re-education camp where he is forced to confront his very own Grand Inquisitor, one worthy of Dostoyevsky.
What makes The Sympathizer an extraordinary work is that it is a view of the Vietnam War (the American War, according to the Vietnamese) from an "in house" Vietnamese perspective. In fact, the novel seems in part intended as a kind of corrective to the more insular, self-absorbed American navel gazing in which the Vietnamese victims of the war are themselves practically air-brushed out of existence. The Captain is cursed by his ability to see things from all sides, but that does allow him to place responsibility for the tragedy where it belongs. All sides end up looking bad. The Americans are portrayed as deceitful, delusional betrayers, ultimately uncaring about the fate of the Vietnamese and almost maniacally self serving in pursuit of their own interests regardless of the cost to others. The South Vietnamese living in the States are perceived as corrupt, irrational and wholly unmoored. The Vietnamese Communists are shown to be despoilers of their own revolution. All of these interests disregard completely the immense human suffering caused by their ideologies.
The writing throughout could best be described as distilled bitterness. The Captain is a very complex character, a Hamlet uncertain of the righteousness of his cause or the righteousness of any cause for that matter (one of the wittier moves of first-time author Viet Thanh Nguyen is to entitle the movie that The Captain briefly works on The Hamlet--hints don't get any broader than that). In the form of the Captain's "confession," Nguyen goes through an immense shopping list of grievances that he has obviously thought long and hard about. The scope of the novel is immense--a fact that I didn't fully realize until I completed the work and starting thinking about its implications. The writing isn't always flawless--Nguyen's tendency to be enamored by metaphors and similes sometimes seems almost intrusive. His frequent use of these figures of speech doesn't clang, but some of his attempts stop right on the tippy-toe edge of clanging.
Overall, though, The Sympathizer is the ultimate Viet Nam novel as it gives voice to the real victims of the war. It is a magnificent achievement though, I suspect, that means nothing to its author.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) - Devoured it in a couple of sittings. A page-turner which excels equally well as an adventure story as it does as a curt but gorgeous lyrical ode to the love between father and son, I can't help but be mesmerized by McCarthy's ability to convey the same image in a million different ways and never have it feel tiring or any less interesting than it was previously - all the while using archiac words and not having it feel like a gimmick but instead like the only word that could have been used in the sentence! - and you end up with a writer who not only is a masterful storyteller but who is also equally adept at moving you simply through the use of his prose outside of it's meanings. Sparsed with whimsical moments in a bleak world which serve to give just the right amount of heart to an otherwise horrific world and this is the sort of setting that could have been executed in a corny manner by many writers without the right sensibilities, but turn out just right when handled by someone as skilled - and morose - as Cormac McCarthy.
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,211
- 17,213
Over the course of my music-listening life I have always tried to listen to a new band's albums in chronological order. Going out every few months when I was 17 and buying a Pearl Jam album I'd never heard before was quite the experience. Although this is something I've always tried to do it's not always happened. I find that experiencing them in order affords me a better understanding of what it was like to have these new albums by a band I loved released new as they were then. Either that or it assuages any guilt I've felt for not listening to them before when I could/should have. That said, it doesn't always happen. For every Pearl Jam and Mogwai there's a Frightened Rabbit and New Order which happened in reverse or all at once, or a Modest Mouse and Smashing Pumpkins which stalled at the first hurdle, lulled into a false sense of intrigue by later, superior works and never getting past the initial unrefined efforts (although Dramamine is a good song).
It's much easier to do this with albums than it is books. If you listen to Ten and Vs. you get something which dominated and defined the age in which it was borne, they're self-contained and (mostly) representative of the period. You read one book from someone written in the 60s, there's no telling what it could be about. There's no telling what connection it could have to that writer's later works. Actually come to think of it I think I read all of Fitzgerald in the right order so I may not be making the best case here. I guess you're in for a treat when I finally get around to re-reading them.
Either way, the disconnect which can come from a writer whose career spans more than s single decade seems to lend itself to the blurb of my copy of Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy which hails him as "the author of the critically acclaimed Border Trilogy," which is fine except Outer Dark pre-dates this trilogy by twenty four years. Blood Meridian and Suttree also came in between, the former at least being far more acclaimed than anything he wrote in the last millennium. But what then can I expect from this marketing pitch? Is Outer Dark legitimised by being connected to an acclaimed assortment of books with big name Hollywood adaptations? Is the only reason you'd read an old, embryonic and weird story because it's written by someone who in the years since was able to become a much more refined and accomplished writer? To see where those critically acclaimed stories originated?
I suppose I'm meandering like this because in reading Outer Dark there's so much of later McCarthy which I'm much more familiar with. There's thematic stuff like blind preachers and unwanted children. There's actual physical objects like doomed river crossings and marauding gangs roaming an unspecified area of the American south. Whenever I read The Crossing I find it enriching in a way I never really appreciate because of how grandiose it is. I know I'm reading something good and can appreciate it from a technical sense, but much of the imagery is wasted on me. Outer Dark is in many ways a similar and dissimilar experience, in that it's easy enough to read it and pick up on all the references to dark and light and see where his fascination with unalienable good and evil in later works comes from but that it's filled with so many Biblical references they're all completely lost on me. There also isn't yet that command of paragraph-long sentences which so defined Blood Meridian, but you can see a few tries at the grandiose.
That isn't to say it's not a book you can enjoy without an extensive background in theology or linguistics. It has the same McCarthy quality of featuring an assortment of barely described characters who feel more real and engaging than people with entire biographies who have goals they seek to accomplish for no explicitly stated reason. Yet you always know that these goals will never really be met, and the resolutions will never be described. The story is as sparse as you'd expect. A brother and sister have a child, the brother takes the child off and buries it alive in the woods where it's stolen by a tinker. The sister spends the rest of the book trying to find her son, the brother spends it trying to find his sister. The internet has since told me the story contains loads of Biblical references and allusions but these are lost on me.
If the main focus of the novel is lost on me, can I then enjoy it? And could I enjoy it on its own merits, or because I've read other McCarthy's since and am pre-biased to appreciate it with those later works in mind? I'd say both. It has the now classic McCarthy ability to draw you in and read relentlessly even though you know every page brings you to a conclusion you won't like. I think that outweighs any reservations I had and while I'll never be able to perceive the novel as someone would have in 1968, I still recognise what an achievement it is.
It's much easier to do this with albums than it is books. If you listen to Ten and Vs. you get something which dominated and defined the age in which it was borne, they're self-contained and (mostly) representative of the period. You read one book from someone written in the 60s, there's no telling what it could be about. There's no telling what connection it could have to that writer's later works. Actually come to think of it I think I read all of Fitzgerald in the right order so I may not be making the best case here. I guess you're in for a treat when I finally get around to re-reading them.
Either way, the disconnect which can come from a writer whose career spans more than s single decade seems to lend itself to the blurb of my copy of Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy which hails him as "the author of the critically acclaimed Border Trilogy," which is fine except Outer Dark pre-dates this trilogy by twenty four years. Blood Meridian and Suttree also came in between, the former at least being far more acclaimed than anything he wrote in the last millennium. But what then can I expect from this marketing pitch? Is Outer Dark legitimised by being connected to an acclaimed assortment of books with big name Hollywood adaptations? Is the only reason you'd read an old, embryonic and weird story because it's written by someone who in the years since was able to become a much more refined and accomplished writer? To see where those critically acclaimed stories originated?
I suppose I'm meandering like this because in reading Outer Dark there's so much of later McCarthy which I'm much more familiar with. There's thematic stuff like blind preachers and unwanted children. There's actual physical objects like doomed river crossings and marauding gangs roaming an unspecified area of the American south. Whenever I read The Crossing I find it enriching in a way I never really appreciate because of how grandiose it is. I know I'm reading something good and can appreciate it from a technical sense, but much of the imagery is wasted on me. Outer Dark is in many ways a similar and dissimilar experience, in that it's easy enough to read it and pick up on all the references to dark and light and see where his fascination with unalienable good and evil in later works comes from but that it's filled with so many Biblical references they're all completely lost on me. There also isn't yet that command of paragraph-long sentences which so defined Blood Meridian, but you can see a few tries at the grandiose.
That isn't to say it's not a book you can enjoy without an extensive background in theology or linguistics. It has the same McCarthy quality of featuring an assortment of barely described characters who feel more real and engaging than people with entire biographies who have goals they seek to accomplish for no explicitly stated reason. Yet you always know that these goals will never really be met, and the resolutions will never be described. The story is as sparse as you'd expect. A brother and sister have a child, the brother takes the child off and buries it alive in the woods where it's stolen by a tinker. The sister spends the rest of the book trying to find her son, the brother spends it trying to find his sister. The internet has since told me the story contains loads of Biblical references and allusions but these are lost on me.
If the main focus of the novel is lost on me, can I then enjoy it? And could I enjoy it on its own merits, or because I've read other McCarthy's since and am pre-biased to appreciate it with those later works in mind? I'd say both. It has the now classic McCarthy ability to draw you in and read relentlessly even though you know every page brings you to a conclusion you won't like. I think that outweighs any reservations I had and while I'll never be able to perceive the novel as someone would have in 1968, I still recognise what an achievement it is.
Sean Avery: My Life Crossing the Line, by Sean Avery (with Michael McKinley)
Whatever your opinion of former New York Ranger hockey player Sean Avery, he has written an often very funny, always very candid autobiography about his career in hockey. During his time in the NHL he was not only hated by his opponents but seemingly by many of his teammates. He was willing to say anything and do anything to give his team an edge, but, like the agitator he was on the ice, he didn't always know where to stop. In recounting his time pissing off other hockey players, he admits to only one serious regret--he would take back the "sloppy seconds" comment that he made to Dion Phaneuf in reference to Avery's former girlfriend Elisha Cuthbert. If he could take that one back, he would. What he does in the book, though, is paint a picture of life in the NHL that might cause Gary Bettman to have a stroke, though Avery's descriptions of the various extracurricular activities have the ring of lived experience. He talks a lot about life off the ice, life that entails lots of drugs, lots of booze, and lots of "puck bunnies." Part of Avery's troubles arose from the fact that he wasn't all that interested in being one of the boys, preferring to explore places like LA and, especially, Manhattan, which he loves to this day, on his own. His interest in fashion, art, and the cultural scene set him very much apart from most of his teammates. He has kind words for many including Brendan Shanahan, Brett Hull, Nicholas Lidstrom, and Henrik Lundqvist. However, some of the best passages in the book are about the people whom he didn't like with two coming in for intense scrutiny: John Tortorella, who Avery considers a disaster as a coach and as a human being, and, surprisingly, Martin Brodeur who has some very sketchy skeletons in his closet. Avery spends too much time repeating how the crowd at MSG loved him, but, all in all, Sean Avery: My Life Crossing the Line is a revealing book and a fun read. I'd rate it in the same general tier as Jim Bouton's early tell-all about baseball, Ball Four, which is high praise.
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,211
- 17,213
Shortly before HFBoards went on its most recent purge of all its history I went through all the existing book and game review threads (the ones left since the last purge of all its history) to save the posts I'd made. Vain, perhaps. Tragic, definitely. But it allows me to preface a post about Blood Feud by Adrian Dater with the information that in about two and a half years I've read... more biographical work than I had realised actually. And that fabled genre of "semi-autobiographical," for the sort of thing that's based on real experiences but is presented as fiction. Going by what I can see here at least none of the books in that time were about sports though, so I'm on something of new ground.
Biographical writing and film-making can be a mixed bag for me. Pearl Jam Twenty was effectively the film I'd dreamed of seeing, but while the original footage was brilliant I was already aware of so much of the content that its impact was lost on me in places. The same goes for the Ian Curtis biopic Control. Whereas the Foo Fighters documentary Back and Forth, that was about something I was sort of interested in but didn't know any of the details, so it was a much more engaging watch. Blood Feud manages to fit in both categories, since it's about the Avalanche which I care about deeply but about a period just before I even knew what the NHL was, and have only heard/read about second-hand.
As much as this is the case here there's a bit more than I might have expected from Dater. While I'm partially aware of the Avalanche's history there's the added pleasure of being familiar with Dater's coverage of the team and the, er, varying level of quality thereof. I did enjoy him describing a disagreement of some sort with Patrick Roy, remembering the latter's press conference when he became Avalanche coach. "And now a question from Adrian Dater, Adrian?" Cut to Roy's eye-rolling face, quite obviously in disbelief that this clown was still employed ten years later.
Fortunately my fears were allayed somewhat in the amount of research Dater put in to the various people involved in the Avalanche/Red Wings rivalry. Considering the amount of hockey played between them it must have been hard to really set out a coherent structure for putting the book together besides just listing the various playoff series and contentious regular season moments. I'd say the structure of the book here lets it down a bit in this respect, although maybe me reading it in one sitting did more to make it feel like a lot of information thrown at you without being filtered too much.
That research though goes into the background of various people from both sides of the rivalry. I was surprised by the amount of information about Scotty Bowman and Darren McCarty, and I never thought anything could have humanised McCarty in my mind but this book does very well. I imagine there would be three kinds of people who'd read this book: people like me, Avalanche or Red Wings fan and hockey fan aware of what's going on, hockey fan of neither team who knows about the rivalry but not in any detail and someone who doesn't know what hockey is. I'd say any of the three could read the book and get something out of it, and the detail about individuals here goes some way to making that the case.
For me though as someone with more than a passing interest in what's going on I did find lots of it entertaining. Such as Adrian's insistence that sports journalists - print, TV and radio - should be impartial in covering their team. Aside from living in a small, insular country dominated by two teams in one sport and unfathomably shambolic press coverage thereof, I've never got this impression from anything Dater's ever written about the Avalanche. Mainly because it's hard to hide the level of contempt he clearly has, although I suppose I'm basing this mainly on... what, 2007-2014-ish? Still though, the media quoted from clowns like Mark Kiszla and Terry Frei at the time is infinitely more embarrassing than anything Dater's ever managed. I think Dater wanted to show how the rivalry extended from the ice to the management to the fans to the press, but in the latter case there's a distinct impression that the people involved were all jealous they weren't quite good enough to play at this level and were trying far too hard to compensate for it.
Still, I suppose it must be hard to find legitimate sporting journalism where this isn't the case. Certainly I'm far too jaded from Scott football's effort at the craft to think anyone can be capable of it, but few of the writers mentioned in this book come off well.
I probably should have ended with my observation about different people being able to read this and get something out of it. I'd say that's true. When Dater sticks to the facts he's got a subject which is as gripping as anything you could think of, and all of that is great reading. I realise posting this on a hockey board I might be behind the times somewhat but I feel it enriched my Avalanche supporting existence, so I'm happy.
Biographical writing and film-making can be a mixed bag for me. Pearl Jam Twenty was effectively the film I'd dreamed of seeing, but while the original footage was brilliant I was already aware of so much of the content that its impact was lost on me in places. The same goes for the Ian Curtis biopic Control. Whereas the Foo Fighters documentary Back and Forth, that was about something I was sort of interested in but didn't know any of the details, so it was a much more engaging watch. Blood Feud manages to fit in both categories, since it's about the Avalanche which I care about deeply but about a period just before I even knew what the NHL was, and have only heard/read about second-hand.
As much as this is the case here there's a bit more than I might have expected from Dater. While I'm partially aware of the Avalanche's history there's the added pleasure of being familiar with Dater's coverage of the team and the, er, varying level of quality thereof. I did enjoy him describing a disagreement of some sort with Patrick Roy, remembering the latter's press conference when he became Avalanche coach. "And now a question from Adrian Dater, Adrian?" Cut to Roy's eye-rolling face, quite obviously in disbelief that this clown was still employed ten years later.
Fortunately my fears were allayed somewhat in the amount of research Dater put in to the various people involved in the Avalanche/Red Wings rivalry. Considering the amount of hockey played between them it must have been hard to really set out a coherent structure for putting the book together besides just listing the various playoff series and contentious regular season moments. I'd say the structure of the book here lets it down a bit in this respect, although maybe me reading it in one sitting did more to make it feel like a lot of information thrown at you without being filtered too much.
That research though goes into the background of various people from both sides of the rivalry. I was surprised by the amount of information about Scotty Bowman and Darren McCarty, and I never thought anything could have humanised McCarty in my mind but this book does very well. I imagine there would be three kinds of people who'd read this book: people like me, Avalanche or Red Wings fan and hockey fan aware of what's going on, hockey fan of neither team who knows about the rivalry but not in any detail and someone who doesn't know what hockey is. I'd say any of the three could read the book and get something out of it, and the detail about individuals here goes some way to making that the case.
For me though as someone with more than a passing interest in what's going on I did find lots of it entertaining. Such as Adrian's insistence that sports journalists - print, TV and radio - should be impartial in covering their team. Aside from living in a small, insular country dominated by two teams in one sport and unfathomably shambolic press coverage thereof, I've never got this impression from anything Dater's ever written about the Avalanche. Mainly because it's hard to hide the level of contempt he clearly has, although I suppose I'm basing this mainly on... what, 2007-2014-ish? Still though, the media quoted from clowns like Mark Kiszla and Terry Frei at the time is infinitely more embarrassing than anything Dater's ever managed. I think Dater wanted to show how the rivalry extended from the ice to the management to the fans to the press, but in the latter case there's a distinct impression that the people involved were all jealous they weren't quite good enough to play at this level and were trying far too hard to compensate for it.
Still, I suppose it must be hard to find legitimate sporting journalism where this isn't the case. Certainly I'm far too jaded from Scott football's effort at the craft to think anyone can be capable of it, but few of the writers mentioned in this book come off well.
I probably should have ended with my observation about different people being able to read this and get something out of it. I'd say that's true. When Dater sticks to the facts he's got a subject which is as gripping as anything you could think of, and all of that is great reading. I realise posting this on a hockey board I might be behind the times somewhat but I feel it enriched my Avalanche supporting existence, so I'm happy.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir (1967) - Was blown away by the first two stories, but didn't care much for the third, as I tend to struggle with stories written as letter correspondence in general. I tend to find the style incomplete. With that said, the 2nd story, the rambling monologue of a mentally-ill middle-aged woman was perfect. The writer gets the tone perfectly, weaving between incoherence and a sort of false rationality that is easy to see through as a reader but which makes perfect sense for it's character. I was also very impressed by the first story, concerning an intelligent woman who begins to question her previous acceptance of growing older and who deals with a beloved son who makes life decisions she loathes as he begins to diverge from her philosophically. A very nice touch of humor in this one, as the mother's lashing out towards her son and husband (who she partly blames for the situation) while they try to pacify her never seem to work and only lead to a sort of cute and fierce scorn. Proficient in different literary styles with excellent clearness, I greatly enjoyed this woman and as this is the first time I've read de Beauvoir's fiction, I'm excited to get the chance to read more. Also considering how old she was when she published these works, you do get the sense that it's themes (particularly in the first and third stories) hit close to home for her, and her reflections feel genuine, completely her own, and make for an interesting read.
Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,164
- 851
More and more today we are hearing about “plant based diets” and “veganism”, and checking the date this was published , it looks like this may be the book that started that movement, which was later expanded upon in documentaries Cowspiracy & to a lesser extent ,What the Health
Foer briefly discusses the health benefits of a plant based diet, but the majority of the book is about factory farms, animal abuse, animal psychology, pollution caused by animal agriculture , and the culture surrounding how we eat .
Some of the highlights include the insight I into the psyches of the employees of these slaughterhouses, and what it does to them as people . I wish this was expanded upon more , as it was one of the more interesting bits to read .
Some of the other parts of the book are real tough, and at times heartbreaking to read.
With the alarming news coming out about global warming being linked to eating animals , Foers book suddenly becomes a lot more thought provoking , which one day may be looked back upon as one of the books that started the real movement to a greener future.
Would recommend to anyone , and to go into it with an open mind. Easily readable. You could slog it out in an afternoon or two.
9.2/10
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (1971) (re-read albeit a long time ago) - I've always been fond of Hunter S. Thompson and I think he's probably the best example of a famous artist who's public persona became convoluted with his private person to the detriment of the attention that should have been focused on the actual work (something he's talked about as well in the 70s). I had read this work a long time ago as a teenager and decided to revisit it. It's a great read, albeit I struggle with some of the intellectual praise it's received. It's often perceived as this great reflection on the counter-cultural movement but outside of a few well-written passages, it's mostly just a hilarious and utterly charming drug tale. I actually think the book says a lot more about Las Vegas as a city and a concept (and like Thompson says early on the in the book, about the possibilities of living in America) than it does about the 60s. But the prose is nearly flawless - on par with his The Rum Diary - and each chapter can more or less be read as a short story, particularly in part 2 (and the work does lose a little of it's novelty by that point) but the dynamics between the two main characters is some of the best comedy I've ever read, and Dr. Gonzo is a character for the ages (who was also played to perfection by Benicio Del Toro in the film). Wish there had been more of Ralph Steadman's art in the book. His drawings add a lot to the novel.
Still, kind of want to pimp two of my favorite quotes in regards to the real life friendship between Thompson and Oscar Acosta.
'' One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die ''
'' Oscar was not into serious street-fighting, but he was hell on wheels in a bar brawl. Any combination of a 250 lb Mexican and LSD-25 is a potentially terminal menace for anything it can reach – but when the alleged Mexican is in fact a profoundly angry Chicano lawyer with no fear at all of anything that walks on less than three legs and a de facto suicidal conviction that he will die at the age of 33 – just like Jesus Christ – you have a serious piece of work on your hands. Especially if the bastard is already 33½ years old with a head full of Sandoz acid, a loaded .357 Magnum in his belt, a hatchet-wielding Chicano bodyguard on his elbow at all times, and a disconcerting habit of projectile vomiting geysers of pure blood off the front porch every 30 or 40 minutes, or whenever his malignant ulcer can't handle any more raw tequila. ''
Just perfect.
Still, kind of want to pimp two of my favorite quotes in regards to the real life friendship between Thompson and Oscar Acosta.
'' One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die ''
'' Oscar was not into serious street-fighting, but he was hell on wheels in a bar brawl. Any combination of a 250 lb Mexican and LSD-25 is a potentially terminal menace for anything it can reach – but when the alleged Mexican is in fact a profoundly angry Chicano lawyer with no fear at all of anything that walks on less than three legs and a de facto suicidal conviction that he will die at the age of 33 – just like Jesus Christ – you have a serious piece of work on your hands. Especially if the bastard is already 33½ years old with a head full of Sandoz acid, a loaded .357 Magnum in his belt, a hatchet-wielding Chicano bodyguard on his elbow at all times, and a disconcerting habit of projectile vomiting geysers of pure blood off the front porch every 30 or 40 minutes, or whenever his malignant ulcer can't handle any more raw tequila. ''
Just perfect.
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Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach
Spook is very much a fun read, and an informative one. Roach presents an historical overview of what masqueraded as science in the past examining claims of an afterlife. She as well examines modern-day science and some interesting experiments that attempt to answer the question of whether an afterlife exists definitively one way or another. Thus various forms of chicanery--spiritualism, ectoplasm, mediums, attempts to weigh the soul, et al--are interspersed with more serious recent experiments involving electromagnetism, ultra low sound frequencies and computers. The book is filled with marvelous anecdotes and is extremely readable and well-written. The tone throughout is similar to what you might find in a New Yorker or Vanity Fair article--in other words, Roach's approach is urbane, witty and perceptive. Roach is a skeptic but she is willing to keep an open mind. And she is funny as hell and on a pretty regular basis. She is also very insightful. Why did mediums flourish near the end of the 19th century? She posits that people just getting used to electricity, radios, telephones and telegraphs might not have seen communication from the dead as so far fetched--just another unfathomable wonder among many to attempt to assimilate. She also demonstrates why some castles are indeed haunted--it has to do with low frequency radio waves and some people's sensitivity to them. Skeptical though she is, her research has changed her attitude slightly but significantly. From total disbelief, she has moved to a subtly different position or as she puts it "I believe in the possibility of something more, rather than in any existing something more (reincarnations, say, or dead folks who communicate through mediums.) It's not much, but it is more than I believed a year ago."
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