Blankets by Craig Thompson
Blankets is a charming, innocent, long format graphic novel. My friend Molyx gave this one to me for my birthday. With the exception of Moore’s The Watchman, this is the first graphic novel I’ve read that had designs on being considered serious fiction.
Blankets tells us the story of a young man from the American Midwest. He and his brother grow up in a highly religious household, obsessed by “the torments of Christ.” At church camp he falls in love with a young woman. They correspond, have a two week visit during her family’s implosion. Everyone grows up.
Thompson beautifully captures the magic and tenderness and heartache of first love, adolescent grappling with religion, set against the snow-becoming-summer thaw of a Midwest spring. The writing and the artwork are both lovely. I quite enjoyed the novel, which certainly elevates the form.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, June 03, 2018
Sunday, December 24, 2017
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
A junkie is murdered. His next door neighbor in the flophouse motel is down-and-out police detective Landsman, who wakes up beside “the shotglass he’s been dating recently.” Turns out the junkie was shot in the back of the head execution style by a small caliber automatic. And since all of the jews who live in Sitka, Alaska only have another few months before they are exiled into a world that will not take them, Landsman has to move fast.
Thus begins The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, a fascinating alternate history noir detective novel which ends up being a meditation on some of the concepts of judiasm and the self-made traps people and peoples find themselves unable to escape.
As a noir detective novel, this is high quality stuff, which embraces some cliché while defying others. As science fiction alternative history, the novel works well. As a piece of prose, the novel is beautifully written, with more great sentences packed into many paragraphs than many writers achieve in a lifetime. As a truly great novel wrestling with huge themes… Well, it tries quite hard. I’d be curious to know what others think, particular any jewish friends.
I suspect that Chabon may have been seen as a race traitor or an anti-semite by some; I did not find that to be the case, but then, I don’t actually know much about Jewish orthodoxy, and finding fault in one of the world’s major religions isn’t something I’m bothered by.
A junkie is murdered. His next door neighbor in the flophouse motel is down-and-out police detective Landsman, who wakes up beside “the shotglass he’s been dating recently.” Turns out the junkie was shot in the back of the head execution style by a small caliber automatic. And since all of the jews who live in Sitka, Alaska only have another few months before they are exiled into a world that will not take them, Landsman has to move fast.
Thus begins The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, a fascinating alternate history noir detective novel which ends up being a meditation on some of the concepts of judiasm and the self-made traps people and peoples find themselves unable to escape.
As a noir detective novel, this is high quality stuff, which embraces some cliché while defying others. As science fiction alternative history, the novel works well. As a piece of prose, the novel is beautifully written, with more great sentences packed into many paragraphs than many writers achieve in a lifetime. As a truly great novel wrestling with huge themes… Well, it tries quite hard. I’d be curious to know what others think, particular any jewish friends.
I suspect that Chabon may have been seen as a race traitor or an anti-semite by some; I did not find that to be the case, but then, I don’t actually know much about Jewish orthodoxy, and finding fault in one of the world’s major religions isn’t something I’m bothered by.
The Girls by Emma Cline
The Girls by Emma Cline
Disturbing and patient portrait of a young woman who falls prey to a Manson-style cult in Califoria in the late sixties. She is exonerated of any murder charges, but becomes a minor public figure. In the novel, she reminisces about the steps in life that took her to the Ranch and got her ensnared in the cult.
The novel was well written, gripping, just lurid enough to be mildly titillating and deeply sad.
I read in the Times that Ms. Cline has been engaged in a fairly nasty series of lawsuits against an ex-boyfriend, with whom she lived while writing this novel. He has alleged that she cribbed some of the material in this novel from his work and that she “hacked his email.” While I know nothing about this case, I will say that I’d be absolutely shocked if this novel had been written by a man. It just rings too true with the awkward experiences that I suspect characterize girlhood.
Disturbing and patient portrait of a young woman who falls prey to a Manson-style cult in Califoria in the late sixties. She is exonerated of any murder charges, but becomes a minor public figure. In the novel, she reminisces about the steps in life that took her to the Ranch and got her ensnared in the cult.
The novel was well written, gripping, just lurid enough to be mildly titillating and deeply sad.
I read in the Times that Ms. Cline has been engaged in a fairly nasty series of lawsuits against an ex-boyfriend, with whom she lived while writing this novel. He has alleged that she cribbed some of the material in this novel from his work and that she “hacked his email.” While I know nothing about this case, I will say that I’d be absolutely shocked if this novel had been written by a man. It just rings too true with the awkward experiences that I suspect characterize girlhood.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
What starts as an interesting sketch of a relationship sparling towards conclusion takes a turn for the Shutter Island and becomes a nightmarish dream sequence before falling apart completely by the end. Great tone in the first third, descent into the mind of a non-character by the end left me irritated.
What starts as an interesting sketch of a relationship sparling towards conclusion takes a turn for the Shutter Island and becomes a nightmarish dream sequence before falling apart completely by the end. Great tone in the first third, descent into the mind of a non-character by the end left me irritated.
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
What a beautiful coming of age novel, told with Mitchell’s pateience, keen sense of observation, obsession with the dialect of different ages, and his not-quite-in-focus-while-passing-through-the-background supernatural influence.
Black Swan Green tells us of a year in the life of a teenage boy in the small British Hamlet of Black Swan Green. He has a strange encounter with a Baba Yaga, probably dies, his dad leaves his mom, he deals with bullies and class and learns about girls and money and generally gets a year older. There’s just so much good stuff here, even wrapped in a fairly traditional bildungsroman.
I’m eager for David Mitchell to write more, because he is really quite good.
What a beautiful coming of age novel, told with Mitchell’s pateience, keen sense of observation, obsession with the dialect of different ages, and his not-quite-in-focus-while-passing-through-the-background supernatural influence.
Black Swan Green tells us of a year in the life of a teenage boy in the small British Hamlet of Black Swan Green. He has a strange encounter with a Baba Yaga, probably dies, his dad leaves his mom, he deals with bullies and class and learns about girls and money and generally gets a year older. There’s just so much good stuff here, even wrapped in a fairly traditional bildungsroman.
I’m eager for David Mitchell to write more, because he is really quite good.
Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You by Alice Munroe
Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You by Alice Munroe
Alice Munroe has a terrific ear for the quiet emotions that motivate average people. This collection of thirteen short stories about the relationships between Canadian women speaks volumes in just over two hundred pages. Their secret fears and hopes and misdeeds large and (mostly) small are laid bare here if you’re patient enough to just listen; they’ll tell you all about their lives, and reading about them will enrich yours.
I’ll happily read everything Mrs. Munroe has written, and I only hope that it’ll help me get a little closer to being able to listen as carefully as she does to all the things people don’t say.
Alice Munroe has a terrific ear for the quiet emotions that motivate average people. This collection of thirteen short stories about the relationships between Canadian women speaks volumes in just over two hundred pages. Their secret fears and hopes and misdeeds large and (mostly) small are laid bare here if you’re patient enough to just listen; they’ll tell you all about their lives, and reading about them will enrich yours.
I’ll happily read everything Mrs. Munroe has written, and I only hope that it’ll help me get a little closer to being able to listen as carefully as she does to all the things people don’t say.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
I enjoyed this novel about a professor from the Dominican Republic and the women he has loved and lost over the years. Diaz writes comfortably, fluidly, lyrically, and with lots of street lingo that feels convincing.
I really appreciated the gift of this novel. Diaz has a unique voice that I’d not been exposed to before, and I appreciated his inner nerd (Wintermute beach reference, etc.) that shined through from the DR womanizer narrator.
Will definitely read another of his books.
I enjoyed this novel about a professor from the Dominican Republic and the women he has loved and lost over the years. Diaz writes comfortably, fluidly, lyrically, and with lots of street lingo that feels convincing.
I really appreciated the gift of this novel. Diaz has a unique voice that I’d not been exposed to before, and I appreciated his inner nerd (Wintermute beach reference, etc.) that shined through from the DR womanizer narrator.
Will definitely read another of his books.
The Fireman by Joe Hill
The Fireman by Joe Hill
Some say the world will end in fire… And in Joe Hill’s long, sometimes bumbling novel, that’s certainly the case. This is a decent thriller and a half-hearted stab at the type of post apocalypse that his father did so fine a job of in The Stand. Unfortunately, we end up bogged down in small-camp politics and end up missing out on any greater theme or lesson. And since I’m using words like bogged and bumbling, I suppose that tells me that we also miss out on a particularly thrilling adventure or story.
Will still happily read more of Joe Hill’s work, but this was perhaps my least favorite of his so far.
Some say the world will end in fire… And in Joe Hill’s long, sometimes bumbling novel, that’s certainly the case. This is a decent thriller and a half-hearted stab at the type of post apocalypse that his father did so fine a job of in The Stand. Unfortunately, we end up bogged down in small-camp politics and end up missing out on any greater theme or lesson. And since I’m using words like bogged and bumbling, I suppose that tells me that we also miss out on a particularly thrilling adventure or story.
Will still happily read more of Joe Hill’s work, but this was perhaps my least favorite of his so far.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Shantaram is a lovely sprawling adventure story and romance set in the Indian and Afghan underworld as seen by self-aggrandizing escaped convicted Austrialian heroin addict and thief. The novel I swell written, albeit in something of an over-the-top Pat Conroy style in which music and soul and moonlight and a generalized excessive romanticizing of the Indian subcontinent dominate the prose.
Our hero escapes to India, falls in with the locals, lives in the slums, is a heroic doctor, becomes a powerful and wealthy gangster, overthrows an evil madam, loves women, smokes a lot of hash, smuggles drugs, goes to prison, falls in with the mujahedeen, fights Russians in Afghanistan, and returns to Bombay.
There is a lot to like here, and I was happy for the recommendation. This book is alive with the magic and romanticism of India, as seen by Western eyes. This is exactly what Rushdie and Adiga are rebelling against, so in the larger context of literature about the region it suffers a little. But it is a lot of fun, and an enchanting story.
Shantaram is a lovely sprawling adventure story and romance set in the Indian and Afghan underworld as seen by self-aggrandizing escaped convicted Austrialian heroin addict and thief. The novel I swell written, albeit in something of an over-the-top Pat Conroy style in which music and soul and moonlight and a generalized excessive romanticizing of the Indian subcontinent dominate the prose.
Our hero escapes to India, falls in with the locals, lives in the slums, is a heroic doctor, becomes a powerful and wealthy gangster, overthrows an evil madam, loves women, smokes a lot of hash, smuggles drugs, goes to prison, falls in with the mujahedeen, fights Russians in Afghanistan, and returns to Bombay.
There is a lot to like here, and I was happy for the recommendation. This book is alive with the magic and romanticism of India, as seen by Western eyes. This is exactly what Rushdie and Adiga are rebelling against, so in the larger context of literature about the region it suffers a little. But it is a lot of fun, and an enchanting story.
Red Country by Joe Abercrombie
Red Country by Joe Abercrombie
So then Joe took his barbarians into the realm of the classic Western, and it was kinda awesome!
A caravan of merchants, misfits, and those who have lost something important head out into the badlands of wherever. They have a few folks with mysterious pasts along for the ride. After a few adventures they arrive in a depraved town that is caught in the midst of an underworld conflict between two bosses. Our heroes pick sides, get involved in the wild west range war that ensues. Everyone mostly loses, but there are some great heroics along the way.
And yes, Logan is here, if you are an Abercrombie fan. Good times.
So then Joe took his barbarians into the realm of the classic Western, and it was kinda awesome!
A caravan of merchants, misfits, and those who have lost something important head out into the badlands of wherever. They have a few folks with mysterious pasts along for the ride. After a few adventures they arrive in a depraved town that is caught in the midst of an underworld conflict between two bosses. Our heroes pick sides, get involved in the wild west range war that ensues. Everyone mostly loses, but there are some great heroics along the way.
And yes, Logan is here, if you are an Abercrombie fan. Good times.
Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist
A childless couple finds a little girl on the side of the road. But she turns out to be some kind of a weirdo siren, who, as she gets a little older, ends up leading a bunch of other little girls into a weird American Idol style death-cult.
I like his writing, and I like some of his stories, but this one was a bit goofy.
A childless couple finds a little girl on the side of the road. But she turns out to be some kind of a weirdo siren, who, as she gets a little older, ends up leading a bunch of other little girls into a weird American Idol style death-cult.
I like his writing, and I like some of his stories, but this one was a bit goofy.
The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy
The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy
This wasn’t a very impressive dialog. One guy convinces the other guy that life is shit. That’s basically it. I was unimpressed; just felt like a nihilistic sketch without anything interesting to say or any particularly strong language. Given that McCarthy is such a powerful writer, this one just felt like an exercise that he published to capitalize on the strength of his name.
This wasn’t a very impressive dialog. One guy convinces the other guy that life is shit. That’s basically it. I was unimpressed; just felt like a nihilistic sketch without anything interesting to say or any particularly strong language. Given that McCarthy is such a powerful writer, this one just felt like an exercise that he published to capitalize on the strength of his name.
Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov
Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov
“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita…”
I read this book for the first time my twentieth year, when I was much closer in age to doomed Dolores Haze than to its protagonist. I recognized it then as a masterpiece and a beautiful, powerful, troubled account. Upon rereading it this summer on an extended trip to China I was struck again by the power, the majesty, the terrible tragedy and love of this story. Lolita is a heartbreaking love story between a terrible Old World Grendel and crass, blossoming overripe adolescent America. This is a heartrending feat of sculpting with language.
From the opening paragraph to the closing sentences above, Nabokov’s showy florid prose is both electric and elegiac. This is the kind of writing that makes anyone (me at least) want to put down their pen in despair, with the certain knowledge that you will never write a single page as good as what he is able to deliver in the hundreds.
There isn’t much new to say about this tale that hasn’t been said before. I don’t think I’ll try, except to mention for my own notes that HH’s heartbreak over his inability to achieve any truly lasting immortality with Lolita (who is- at best- destined to grow beyond the transcendent moment of nypmhetism that so captures him) struck me as a reflection on the deep tragedy of any pair of lovers ever to live: None will ever know all the secret languages and moments and passions and conflicts and hopes of a couple but that couple themselves. The full-near-to-bursting emotions and secrets of love that (hopefully) almost everyone is lucky enough to experience at least once in life are doomed to pass, unremarked, unknown and forgotten by everyone else, to disappear, “like teardrops in rain.” Beyond embodying all of that love in offspring – children – then, the creation of inspired art, like this wonderful novel, is the only immortality that lovers may ever share.
“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita…”
I read this book for the first time my twentieth year, when I was much closer in age to doomed Dolores Haze than to its protagonist. I recognized it then as a masterpiece and a beautiful, powerful, troubled account. Upon rereading it this summer on an extended trip to China I was struck again by the power, the majesty, the terrible tragedy and love of this story. Lolita is a heartbreaking love story between a terrible Old World Grendel and crass, blossoming overripe adolescent America. This is a heartrending feat of sculpting with language.
From the opening paragraph to the closing sentences above, Nabokov’s showy florid prose is both electric and elegiac. This is the kind of writing that makes anyone (me at least) want to put down their pen in despair, with the certain knowledge that you will never write a single page as good as what he is able to deliver in the hundreds.
There isn’t much new to say about this tale that hasn’t been said before. I don’t think I’ll try, except to mention for my own notes that HH’s heartbreak over his inability to achieve any truly lasting immortality with Lolita (who is- at best- destined to grow beyond the transcendent moment of nypmhetism that so captures him) struck me as a reflection on the deep tragedy of any pair of lovers ever to live: None will ever know all the secret languages and moments and passions and conflicts and hopes of a couple but that couple themselves. The full-near-to-bursting emotions and secrets of love that (hopefully) almost everyone is lucky enough to experience at least once in life are doomed to pass, unremarked, unknown and forgotten by everyone else, to disappear, “like teardrops in rain.” Beyond embodying all of that love in offspring – children – then, the creation of inspired art, like this wonderful novel, is the only immortality that lovers may ever share.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Slade House by David Mitchell
Slade House by David Mitchell
A short collection of vignettes which reveal the mystery of the sinister Slate House. This is the least impressive book of Mitchell’s that I’ve read; it felt like a few notions from his earlier works that barely amounted to a look at a haunted house tale.
The prose is fine, but unimpressive. The revelation(s) are obvious from a long way off.
I enjoyed this book, but it is nowhere near the level of quality of some of his other works.
A short collection of vignettes which reveal the mystery of the sinister Slate House. This is the least impressive book of Mitchell’s that I’ve read; it felt like a few notions from his earlier works that barely amounted to a look at a haunted house tale.
The prose is fine, but unimpressive. The revelation(s) are obvious from a long way off.
I enjoyed this book, but it is nowhere near the level of quality of some of his other works.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Mr. Mitchell’s epic Cloud Atlas spans several centuries, leaps continents and cities in a single sentence, comprises itself of at least five different variants of the English language, and flirts with as many different forms. This is not one novel, but a collection of novellas which loop and coil around one another, inform one another, flirt with greater themes and truths while still (mostly) managing to maintain a coherent shape and an approachable style. This is a masterpiece written by a truly gifted and disciplined craftsman.
Structurally, this book sprawls across five stories: The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (a diary), Letters from Zedelghem (an epistolary), Half-Lives: A Luisa Rey Mystery (thriller), The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (memoir), An Orison of Somni ~451 (interview), Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After (oral history), and then back through each of them for a second visit in reverse order. Each is quite different, sometimes they stop in mid-sentence.
For this reason, the book is long and occasionally frustrating, in the way several of Mitchell’s books can be. Just about the time you’ve got a grip on the new language of a particular section, just as you’ve started to really become engrossed in the narrative or the trials of a particular character, Mitchell changes the channel on you. The metaphor of channel surfing feels appropriate somehow, because it feels that abrupt and disconnected. But unlike channel surfing, these stories are intertwined, sometimes if only at the “butterfly flaps its wings in China” level. And there is a greater whole presented with themes that seem to carry throughout other Mitchell works.
This is a great writer with something to say and a powerful drive to transcend the confines of genre fiction.
I finished this one the morning of December 19th, 2015, the day after our 11th wedding anniversary. We have just arrived here on Dragon’s Cove for two weeks. There is a rainbow over the violence of the sea just to the west and the strange old witch house creaks and groans a little as it warms up.
Time for another cup of coffee.
Mr. Mitchell’s epic Cloud Atlas spans several centuries, leaps continents and cities in a single sentence, comprises itself of at least five different variants of the English language, and flirts with as many different forms. This is not one novel, but a collection of novellas which loop and coil around one another, inform one another, flirt with greater themes and truths while still (mostly) managing to maintain a coherent shape and an approachable style. This is a masterpiece written by a truly gifted and disciplined craftsman.
Structurally, this book sprawls across five stories: The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (a diary), Letters from Zedelghem (an epistolary), Half-Lives: A Luisa Rey Mystery (thriller), The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (memoir), An Orison of Somni ~451 (interview), Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After (oral history), and then back through each of them for a second visit in reverse order. Each is quite different, sometimes they stop in mid-sentence.
For this reason, the book is long and occasionally frustrating, in the way several of Mitchell’s books can be. Just about the time you’ve got a grip on the new language of a particular section, just as you’ve started to really become engrossed in the narrative or the trials of a particular character, Mitchell changes the channel on you. The metaphor of channel surfing feels appropriate somehow, because it feels that abrupt and disconnected. But unlike channel surfing, these stories are intertwined, sometimes if only at the “butterfly flaps its wings in China” level. And there is a greater whole presented with themes that seem to carry throughout other Mitchell works.
This is a great writer with something to say and a powerful drive to transcend the confines of genre fiction.
I finished this one the morning of December 19th, 2015, the day after our 11th wedding anniversary. We have just arrived here on Dragon’s Cove for two weeks. There is a rainbow over the violence of the sea just to the west and the strange old witch house creaks and groans a little as it warms up.
Time for another cup of coffee.
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
Ghost written is one of Mitchell’s early works. It consists of a collection of stories which are connected only through tenuous links. The boy who runs the music shop in the first tale happens to sit near a man from the second tale, and so on.
There is a lot of terrific writing here, and we manage to span the globe, from a lovestruck record store clerk in Tokyo to a Russian con-woman to a Chinese peasant. Almost each of these tales is compelling in one way or another.
The themes and stylistic trademarks that Mitchell will end up getting a lot of praise for in later works are almost all right here. Good stuff.
Ghost written is one of Mitchell’s early works. It consists of a collection of stories which are connected only through tenuous links. The boy who runs the music shop in the first tale happens to sit near a man from the second tale, and so on.
There is a lot of terrific writing here, and we manage to span the globe, from a lovestruck record store clerk in Tokyo to a Russian con-woman to a Chinese peasant. Almost each of these tales is compelling in one way or another.
The themes and stylistic trademarks that Mitchell will end up getting a lot of praise for in later works are almost all right here. Good stuff.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Jacob Z is a low level Dutch clerk who has just landed on the Dutch occupied spit of land just off Nagasaki from which trading enterprises with Imperial Japan are conducted. The dutch are the only country allowed to trade with Japan for decades and this is the only allowed port. Dutchmen (there are no women present) are only allowed to visit the mainland under heavy supervision. Jacob Z rises in prominence, discovers corruption, falls in love, and meets a powerful mentor. Time passes. The intrigues of the local warlords get complicated. Samauri are involved!
The prose is beautiful. It’s David Mitchell. We get a couple of dizzying perspective shifts and a few abrupt time lapses. The result is an epic, beautiful pastiche of a few lives in a strange place with a few hints of magic. Terrific work.
Perhaps my favorite of the Mitchell books. Perhaps.
Jacob Z is a low level Dutch clerk who has just landed on the Dutch occupied spit of land just off Nagasaki from which trading enterprises with Imperial Japan are conducted. The dutch are the only country allowed to trade with Japan for decades and this is the only allowed port. Dutchmen (there are no women present) are only allowed to visit the mainland under heavy supervision. Jacob Z rises in prominence, discovers corruption, falls in love, and meets a powerful mentor. Time passes. The intrigues of the local warlords get complicated. Samauri are involved!
The prose is beautiful. It’s David Mitchell. We get a couple of dizzying perspective shifts and a few abrupt time lapses. The result is an epic, beautiful pastiche of a few lives in a strange place with a few hints of magic. Terrific work.
Perhaps my favorite of the Mitchell books. Perhaps.
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
This was the first of the David Mitchell novels I read. It was a gift from my aunt, Terry. I was blown away.
First, the writing is really good. Really good, filled with observations and techniques that elevate this one from a novel to literature.
Second, the plot and structure floored me. In what (I now recognize) is David Mitchell’s style, we jump from narrative to narrative, across a span of many years. Of course, they are all interconnected, though it is hard to see how each time we jump narratives.
I don’t want to give away much more here, except to say that this one paid off for me every page along the way, and paid double at the end when I was able to look back and finally see the epic expanse of what he had done.
So I immediately put everything else on the nightstand on the back burner and went out to buy as many of his books as I could find… Since Vancouver no longer actually has, you know, bookstores, I had to go to Tokyo to find the next one, just a block off Shibuya crossing…
This was the first of the David Mitchell novels I read. It was a gift from my aunt, Terry. I was blown away.
First, the writing is really good. Really good, filled with observations and techniques that elevate this one from a novel to literature.
Second, the plot and structure floored me. In what (I now recognize) is David Mitchell’s style, we jump from narrative to narrative, across a span of many years. Of course, they are all interconnected, though it is hard to see how each time we jump narratives.
I don’t want to give away much more here, except to say that this one paid off for me every page along the way, and paid double at the end when I was able to look back and finally see the epic expanse of what he had done.
So I immediately put everything else on the nightstand on the back burner and went out to buy as many of his books as I could find… Since Vancouver no longer actually has, you know, bookstores, I had to go to Tokyo to find the next one, just a block off Shibuya crossing…
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Martian by Andy Weir
Finished this one on a trans-Pacific flight from Canada to China, safe in an awesome spaceship operated by Air Canada. I’ve never read a more delightful, more scientific, sci-fi novel.
Mark Watney gets stranded on Mars when the NASA mission he is a part of goes sideways. Alone, without communication, he… I will tell you no more. But suffice to say this tale is never dull, despite being peppered with hard science. Mark is one of the more likeable heroes I’ve read about in a long time. And while the “man-vs-nature” core conflict seems like something that would have gone out of fashion around the time of Stephen Crane, this one manages to be vastly more engaging than, say, Tom Hanks talking to a volleyball.
The Martian is a light, joyful celebration of human knowledge, scientific inquiry, and the human spirit. It’s also a fine adventure story, and a superb lesson in how to use language to make what could be dry subjects interesting.
Finished this one on a trans-Pacific flight from Canada to China, safe in an awesome spaceship operated by Air Canada. I’ve never read a more delightful, more scientific, sci-fi novel.
Mark Watney gets stranded on Mars when the NASA mission he is a part of goes sideways. Alone, without communication, he… I will tell you no more. But suffice to say this tale is never dull, despite being peppered with hard science. Mark is one of the more likeable heroes I’ve read about in a long time. And while the “man-vs-nature” core conflict seems like something that would have gone out of fashion around the time of Stephen Crane, this one manages to be vastly more engaging than, say, Tom Hanks talking to a volleyball.
The Martian is a light, joyful celebration of human knowledge, scientific inquiry, and the human spirit. It’s also a fine adventure story, and a superb lesson in how to use language to make what could be dry subjects interesting.
The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry
The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry
McMurtry pops the bubbles of several of the western hero clichés in this short novel. Doc Holiday, Wyatt and the Earp Brothers, Charlie Goodnight, Quanta Parker, and a few others bouce from Denver to Texas to Tombstone Arizona. None of them are portrayed as heroic figures; their deeds are pointless, their mistakes and foibles all too human, their lives short and mostly ugly and without meaning.
The writing is elegiac, sprightly, and the dialog humorous in the way that many of McMurtry’s dark/light cowboy duos are. His treatment of gender relations is pretty similar to what he has done elsewhere, in which clueless, work-obsessed men disappoint their ladies with their fumbling lack of social grace.
The only thing that perplexed me was this: McMurtry is busy setting up and knocking down legends here; taking clichés and masterfully subjecting them to the harsh spotlight of a modern sensibility on what they might have really been like. (The casual domestic abuse scene, for example.) But when it comes to the Indians, they are mostly treated like stage villians, no more nuanced than Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove. They torture whites for fun, roast genitals, “invade the privates of female captives with fireants” and so on. The savage redman cliché is treated here with all the nuance of a Michael Meyers film. And I’m not sure why, because LMM certainly is aware of what he’s doing.
The “showdown at the OK Corral” for which Tombstone is best known takes place in less than two pages; we watch see Wyatt Earp’s last days as a geriatric suffering dementia in Santa Monica, well into the age of the automobile. He was, in McMurtry’s telling, a legend who never deserved to be remembered.
McMurtry pops the bubbles of several of the western hero clichés in this short novel. Doc Holiday, Wyatt and the Earp Brothers, Charlie Goodnight, Quanta Parker, and a few others bouce from Denver to Texas to Tombstone Arizona. None of them are portrayed as heroic figures; their deeds are pointless, their mistakes and foibles all too human, their lives short and mostly ugly and without meaning.
The writing is elegiac, sprightly, and the dialog humorous in the way that many of McMurtry’s dark/light cowboy duos are. His treatment of gender relations is pretty similar to what he has done elsewhere, in which clueless, work-obsessed men disappoint their ladies with their fumbling lack of social grace.
The only thing that perplexed me was this: McMurtry is busy setting up and knocking down legends here; taking clichés and masterfully subjecting them to the harsh spotlight of a modern sensibility on what they might have really been like. (The casual domestic abuse scene, for example.) But when it comes to the Indians, they are mostly treated like stage villians, no more nuanced than Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove. They torture whites for fun, roast genitals, “invade the privates of female captives with fireants” and so on. The savage redman cliché is treated here with all the nuance of a Michael Meyers film. And I’m not sure why, because LMM certainly is aware of what he’s doing.
The “showdown at the OK Corral” for which Tombstone is best known takes place in less than two pages; we watch see Wyatt Earp’s last days as a geriatric suffering dementia in Santa Monica, well into the age of the automobile. He was, in McMurtry’s telling, a legend who never deserved to be remembered.
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