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Hux

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    Hux Book Blog 2022 (Spoilers)

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    Geek Love (1989) Katherine Dunn

     

    Took me a few chapters to get into this, but once Olympia begins reminiscing about her childhood, that's when the book really started to grab me. She is the narrator, an albino dwarf with no hair who tells us about her travelling carnival family of freaks. Mum and dad are Al and Lil. Whenever Lil gets pregnant she deliberately takes pesticide or other drugs to ensure that her children will be born with unique physical qualities. First there is Arturo (Aqua Boy) who has flippers for limbs, then the Siamese twins Elly and Iphy, then Olympia, then finally Chick who has telekinetic powers. Plus, there are all the other failed pregnancies which they keep in jars to amuse the customers.

    The book jumps from past to present (the present story is somewhat redundant about her daughter Miranda and a rich woman called Lick who pays for women to have disfiguring operations) but the vast majority of the book details the families early years as they turn the business into a success and Arty, in particular, becomes a crowd favourite until eventually he develops his own cult, the members of which have body parts amputated to be more like him. Arty is essentially the villain of the piece, taking over the business from his father and controlling everyone else's lives. And yet, you never really dislike Arty and don't entirely believe he has anything but good intentions for his family. His actions are strange but then so are Olympia's, Lil's, Chick's. All of them.

    When Arty discovers, for example, that the conjoined twins, Elly and Iphy, are prostituting themselves for large sums of money, he nips this in the bud by forcing a husband onto them. Then by giving one of the (now) pregnant sisters a lobotomy. Yet all the time, he and the rest of the family always seem to love each other and care about each other in a profoundly tender and warm manner. They are a truly caring family. But their devotion often goes to extremes.

    When Chick comes along and possess actual telekinetic powers, I was slightly worried because the book, up until that point, had felt very real and grounded. These people could almost exist. So when an actual child with super powers turned up, I was concerned that things would get silly. But strangely, it all makes perfect sense and fits the narrative like a glove. With the possible exception of the ending which felt... slightly over the top. My only other criticism would be the journalist Norval Sanderson's entries which are used as a narrative device. The first few times work very effectively but after a while, it became unnecessary.

    That aside, the book is wonderful. A fantastic and heartwarming story of being normal and being a family. You'll struggle to find a more touching story about family love.

     

    9/10

    What Are You Up To Today?

    in General Chat

    Posted

    14 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:


    Oh no. Cold or Covid?

     

    I prepared my canvas for my sew-your-own bag in Bargello. I now need to prepare the wool and decide on a pattern. Or decide on a pattern and then prepare the wool.

     

    Managed to watch PBS channel on a series on Mental Health, fascinating.

     

    Not sure. How do you tell without getting a test?

     

    I'm putting it down as a standard cold.

    Hux Book Blog 2022 (Spoilers)

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    A Chess Story (1941) Stefan Zweig

     

    An exquisite tale of obsession and mania. The story begins on a cruise ship where the narrator discovers, through a friend, that a famous chess grandmaster is onboard. He wants to meet him, learn about him, but doesn't know how to proceed. With the assistance of another friend, they suggest a chess match which might get the master's attention. This works and the master agrees to play for a significant fee. The amateurs, all playing the master together, unsurprisingly lose but pay for a second attempt. This time, a man watching the game, gives his advice which results in the amateurs getting a draw. The narrator then convinces the man to play the master himself at which point, the man (Doctor B) recounts his own past and explains how he became a student of chess. Here follows a tale of Nazis, imprisonment, torture, and obsessive mania.

    The book is an excellent exploration of that compulsive obsession. Many books attempt this and fail (the old man and the sea, for example, which mostly bored me). Others, meanwhile, come at it from an outsider's perspective which allows a certain amount of romanticism to flourish in the text (The Master of Go was equally superb when dealing with a very similar fixation).

    The book also plays around with notions of self. Doctor B almost creates, or finds access to, an alternative version of himself which is both him but not him. There is something creepy in that, something disturbing, as it suggests a second self which is constantly present within us (often revealed in bouts of unfettered mania).

    The novella is great. To the point. Powerful.

     

    8/10

    Hux Book Blog 2022 (Spoilers)

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    Madonna in a Fur Coat (1943) Sabahattin Ali

     

    This is really great. Two novels for the price of one. The book begins with the narrator telling us how he met a man who would forever touch his life -- Raif Efendi. After finding work with help from an old friend, the narrator is put in an office with a quiet, almost invisible man. This man is often berated by his boss but seems willing to accept it, shy and timid, a man who, the narrator believes, has no inner life, no hinterland. As the days, months, and years progress however, the narrator becomes fiends with Raif Efendi, meets his wife and children and in-laws. He recognises that there is a profound soul, sensitive and thoughtful, trapped in this reserved man. Raif is often ill and one day, when the illness seems especially serious, Raif quietly gives his friend permission to read his notebook.

    This is where the second book begins, now narrated by Raif himself. He goes back ten years to 1933 when he was a young man in Germany. This is where he meets the artist Maria Pruder and experiences a relationship that changes him forever. I won't go into the details but suffice it to say, things do not have a happy ending.

    The book is about love and that specific person who can change your world forever; but more so, it's about memory, the way a person's story can touch us and stay with us for life. Like that saying about how one day someone will think of you for the last time. The only method for defeating that is to ensure that the story is told and retold. Maybe that's the appeal of a being a writer. One day, long after you have been thought of for the last time, someone might discover your work again and think of you once more. But most of all, the book is about opportunities. Sometimes you don't even see them when they're right in front of you.

    "The pain of losing something precious -- be it earthly happiness or material wealth -- can be forgotten over time. But our missed opportunities never leave us..."

     

    9/10

    • Like 2

    Hux Book Blog 2022 (Spoilers)

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted · Edited by Hux

    Tropisms (1939) Nathalie Sarraute

     

    Imagine watching a scene with people and places and events. Now imagine watching it again but through a veil of meshed curtain, where everything is blurred, vague, and almost ethereal in nature. Well, that's this book and that's Saraute's writing style. There is no story, only the impression of a story, there are no characters, only pronouns such as 'they' and 'he.' There are no actions or events, only a sense of things, a feeling of something taking place. It's all very delicate and fragile.

    You will either like that kind of experimental writing or you won't. For me, it was mostly unengaging, and left me with a feeling of frustrated uncertainty. I generally don't like that kind of navel-gazing and, truth be told, tend to find it has a very female energy. The whimsical and dainty, the reflective, the pensive, the woman standing by the pond looking at the lilies and thinking about her lost love, 'the autumn leaves, the lilies, the war, the lilies... oh, the lilies.' It all rather boring if you ask me. I've encountered this kind of writing from a lot of female writers over the years and was immediately reminded of 'Good Morning, Midnight' by Jean Rhys. That too irritated me with all its delicate pondering and wistful banality. The truth is only women who swan about cafes and live in country estates write like this. Get them working down the mines for a decade and they'll soon lose interest in the lilies on the pond.

    I'm being a little harsh. But it's not for me. Though it's well written and delightfully short. Definitely worth a read.

     

    6/10

    Hux Book Blog 2022 (Spoilers)

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    Invisible Man (1952) Ralph Ellison

     

    I avoided this book for a long time, believing it to be an account of experiences that I couldn't really relate to. But having finally read it, it was precisely the kind of book I've always loved, namely a narrative which revolves around a young man finding his place in the world and endeavouring to overcome the obstacles that would allow him to achieve that. Yes, it deals with the black experience (or more specifically, the American black experience which has, in recent years, become the annoying default) but it's more about his struggle with himself and his beliefs about what the world is and can be. I've read many books like this (they're right up my street) and I was reminded of a lot of them (notably 'Hunger' by Knut Hamsun).

    The story is about an unnamed young black man from the American south whose life is turned upside down when he is expelled from college. He moves to New York where, after working in a paint factory and having an accident, he gets involved in a (white dominated) equal rights movement. As the story progresses, he becomes an important leader within the movement but increasingly grows uncertain about his role and the people he works for. The turning point comes when another young member of the group is gunned down by the police and he feels that he has been taken advantage of, used, turned into a tool.

    Given that this was written in 1952, it's slightly shocking how so much of it is current. Not just the events, but the people. The white women who fetishise black men. The white liberals who want a round of applause for their social justice campaigning. The black business owners informing rioters that they are 'colored businesses' and therefore shouldn't be attacked. It's all very familiar (if you watch American media at least). But the narrator is very composed, always thinking things through. And he recognises that it's not a simple question of black and white (I couldn't help but notice that most of the people that screw him over are black characters).

    I enjoyed the book a lot, but always felt slightly detached from it. Less so because he was black, and more so because he was American. This book felt VERY American. And I also thought it was far too long, with large portions that could easily have been cut down without affecting the quality. Otherwise, excellent.

     

    8/10

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