Ethan reads 2010

[ethan]

Books finished so far in 2010 -

 

Lush Life by Richard Price

 

Great dialogue, this police procedural reads like a screenplay. Lots of short, snappy scenes albeit very familiar stuff for viewers of Law And Order and The Wire, on which Price worked as a writer. Excellent read.

 

Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard by Georges Simenon

 

So slight in length and ambition, I can see how Simenon was able to be so prolific. Easy to read in one sitting.

 

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larrson (Kindle)

 

The trilogy has taken off in the USA, highly unusual for a translated work. The grimmest of grim fairy tales, notable for a pronounced outrage at the violence men inflict on women. Some clunky prose redeemed by a great last 100 pages full of action. The real suspense is whether the emotionally dead goth heroine will be able to find the courage to love another, or at least find a man she can trust.

 

The Secret Scripture by Sebastien Barry

 

Poetic prose and a moving description of how the social, cultural and political intrudes on the personal. There's a twist at the end that's a real head scratcher, but otherwise highly recommended.

 

A Person of Interest by Susan Choi

 

I found the protaganist to be unpleasant and exasperating, but that may be the intent. Falsely suspected of being the infamous Unabomber, Mr. Lee's character is dissected every which way, and found wanting. He is allowed his moment at the climax to find redemption and grace, but it's just not very believable, plot-wise.

 

My intent this year is to confine my reading to authors new to me. Only one book per author, and then on to another. The only planned exception is to read the complete works of one author in the first half of the year, and another the second half of the year. Roberto Bolano is first up. I've already read the massive tomes, 2666 and The Savage Detectives, so my goal seems reachable.

 

Other than that, I have no 'to be read' pile or even wish-list. I rarely keep more than one book in reserve. I love to impulse buy and get to the purchase as quick as possible. It keeps things moving, there's so much left to read.

 

I've recently purchased a Kindle. I'm currently reading Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann on it. I'm also reading The Night Watch by Sarah Waters in book form. I'm going to alternate approximately 100 pages of each, to try to define for myself the differences between the two formats. I'll pass on my reactions in a future post.

[catwoman]

Books finished so far in 2010 -

 

Lush Life by Richard Price

 

Great dialogue, this police procedural reads like a screenplay. Lots of short, snappy scenes albeit very familiar stuff for viewers of Law And Order and The Wire, on which Price worked as a writer. Excellent read.

 

 

 

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larrson (Kindle)

 

The trilogy has taken off in the USA, highly unusual for a translated work. The grimmest of grim fairy tales, notable for a pronounced outrage at the violence men inflict on women. Some clunky prose redeemed by a great last 100 pages full of action. The real suspense is whether the emotionally dead goth heroine will be able to find the courage to love another, or at least find a man she can trust.

 

 

 

.

 

Lsh Life sounds good.

 

as for the Girl who played with fire. I love the series. I have the third one on my TBR pile. I can't wait to read it. Glad you enjoyed the second one as much as me!

 

Nice to meet you.

 

CW.

[sirinrob]

Like your style of review, and your candidness. Would seem we have similar taste, being fellow readers of 'Gravity's Rainbow'. At the moment I'm reading round the world, discovered some writers I like and others I don't.

 

Given your experience, can you suggest any good Cuban or Haiti writers?

[ethan]

can you suggest any good Cuban or Haiti writers?

 

I've not read any books from those two countries. I've wanted to try something by the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, who was the subject of Julian Schnabel's film Before Night Falls, and played by Javier Bardem.

 

I don't know if you have done Turkey yet, but I'm considering The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk as my next read.

[ethan]

Finished two over the weekend

 

Let The Great World Spin by Colum Mccann

One of those too much, too little books. The author presents a panorama of 1974 NYC focussing on the people involved in a car crash that occurs on the day Philip Petit crosses a wire between the Twin Towers, and the effect of the crash on those left behind. Many stories are told, some mere sketches, some not much more than snapshots. Multiple narrators are employed, but none of them can escape from the moment to moment acute perceptiveness of the author's voice. The final section, 30 years later, is very sentimental, but in an honest and heartfelt manner, as McCann's theme of the present being built on the events of the past, ruinous though they might be, is emphasized, along with a nod to the enduring power of goodness. I appreciated this section far more than what preceeded it, which was indeed fast paced, I just wish it had slowed down a bit.

 

 

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

A brilliantly described re-creation of WWII London and the post-war reconstruction. You can almost feel the bombs bursting, see the streets in total blackness, and taste the putrid air. It took me almost 200 pages to end my confusion over the identities of Kay, Helen and Viv, I kept getting them mixed up for some reason. Maybe because their dialogue is rendered in identical 1940s British movie actress lingo "oh, yes, ever so much". But they make a memorable love triangle in the end, not least because of their homefront bravery. The author's decision to present her story backwards in time - three sections- 1947, then 1944, then 1941, was interesting. You get little clues in the opening section of what happened in the past, and is ironically yet to come, narrative-wise. The plot is a bit over familiar, but the milieu and the characters aren't, and therefore, a good read.

[ethan]

In re-reading my Night Watch blurb, I see I'm still getting the characters mixed up. Kay, Helen and Julia were the love triangle. Viv liked boys.

[ethan]

To Kindle , or not to Kindle

 

Some random thoughts, for what their worth, for those curious:

 

Aesthetically, a book, with an interesting cover, can set the mood, and draw a reader. A Kindle (Amazon's e-book) always looks the same. A page in a book appears full, and one can see the next page, or any other, with minimal effort. A page, with its alternating bits of dialogue, and various size paragraphs, can present a pleasing appearance. With a Kindle, depending on the font size you choose, you get about a third of a page.

 

I rarely read hardcovers, they're too ungainly for me. I usually read what is often called trade paperback, I never read mass market. Even with paperbacks, when you stop and think about it, it can be an effort as to what you do with your thumbs, at least I often struggle to get a comfortable hold I can maintain for a length of time. Turning the page can also be a chore with sticky pages. The Kindle is super thin and super light, the pages turn quickly, but it can still be a challenge as to where to put your thumbs. There is a next page clicker on each side for added convenience, but I found myself inadvertendly hitting the back clicker on the lower right side too often at first. Navigating back to a table of contents or cast of characters can find you a bit lost getting back to your farthest reading page. Best to use the bookmark function before leaving a page.

 

After a while, though, I found holding the Kindle to grow progressively easier, in fact I now prefer it to holding a book. One must also accustom oneself to reading text against a grey background instead of the conventional creamy color of a book page. You can, however, always clearly see the print on a Kindle even in bright sunshine. I have come to enjoy the small screen of the Kindle, it can be compared to watching a movie pass by, you don't know what's coming next. I find I concentrate better and even read faster. I am far less daunted by how many pages I have left to read. It can become addictive.

 

In the US the Kindle sells for $259 which, for one who reads alot, should be easily recoverable through savings within a year. The convenience of sitting in ones easy chair and downloading a purchase, at any time of day, in 60 seconds, is irresistable. Ironically, my savings may be mitigated by buying, and reading, more at a quicker pace. Then there's the space saved factor which is obvious.

 

I'll continue to read books, there is still alot to read that isn't available on the Kindle. I haven't mentioned the bells and whistles like a very accessible dictionary where you move the cursor to a word and the definition appears at the bottom of a page, or Wikepedia access, the crucial question is will I actually enjoy reading a book on such a device. My answer is, if given the choice of book, or Kindle download, I would, unhesitatingly, pick the download every time.

[Kylie]

I find I concentrate better and even read faster. I am far less daunted by how many pages I have left to read.

 

Thanks for your review of the Kindle. I found the above point particularly interesting. Occasionally I read the text of a book on my computer screen and I've noticed that I appear to read more quickly this way. I can't figure out why this is, but it's handy!

[ethan]

I finished two this week

 

Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo

 

A Peruvian police procedural, sort of. Bumbling, naive Associate District Prosecuter Chacaltana is assigned a gruesome murder case, but gets into all kinds of trouble with his superiors by believing in the letter of the law and actually trying to solve a crime that no one is really interested in seeing solved. Corpses pile up as Chacaltana descends into an over-the-top nightmare world that both mesmerizes and spawns disbelief. At least to this American reader. From what I gather, Peruvian readers, who were buffeted by the violent decade that precedes the action of the novel, of a murderous (70,000 dead) terrorist insurgency and a massacre-prone government counter-insurgency, find the novel's Grand Guignol finale quite plausible.

 

 

Distant Star by Roberto Bolano

 

My first short novel by Bolano, and a highly recommended introduction to the author for those hesitant to attempt his massive epics, The Savage Detectives and 2666. Bolano's mordant voice, both ironically distanced and passionately involved, his obsessions with the arc of our interconnected stories, coincidence, fate, and much, much else, are on display in this slim volume, which is part elegy, part mystery and totally unique.

[Nicola Booth]

I have had the Secret Scripture sitting on my bookshelf from the summer. My mum let me borrow it. Should try to read it soon.

It has got good reviews but something about cover puts me off but you know what they say, don't judge a book by it's cover.

[ethan]

As I mentioned in my Kindle blurb above, the one thing I miss the most about a book is the cover. I often look back at a cover of a book I've finished and the whole reading experience can be conjured up again. My Penguin paperback of The Secret Scripture has as a cover a blurry drawing of a woman with what appears to be angel's wings on her back. Whatever the cover, the book is well worth reading.

 

Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply

 

I finished this in record time. I zoom through books I've been reading on the Kindle. No doubt some of that is due to newness and novelty. Three seemingly disparate narratives alternate in a very compelling read. The overall gloominess (lost parents, lost children, lost siblings, lost identities) is mitigated by the playfulness and suspense of the plot. Chaon brilliantly merges his narratives in a way a clever reader may easily guess, although I sure didn't.

 

I am currently struggling with That Awful Mess on the Via Merluni by Carlo Emilio Gadda (paperback). Dense prose, unpronouncable and un-rememorable Italian names, great literature, I'm sure, but it keeps putting me to sleep. In between naps, I started Tana French's The Likeness(Kindle), hoping for some contemporary briskness, but was immediately put off by a coincidence far more improbable than the one used in In The Woods. But I push on.

[Chrissy]

the one thing I miss the most about a book is the cover. I often look back at a cover of a book I've finished and the whole reading experience can be conjured up again.

How true, and how wonderfully described. I get an almost visceral response when I look along my bookshelves at times.

[ethan]

I only finished one this week

 

The Likeness by Tana French

 

Synopsis

 

A girl is found stabbed to death in an abandoned cottage and is discovered to be the exact likeness of a former undercover agent, Cassie Maddox. The dead girl has been using an invented identity Cassie had adopted in her undercover days, Lexi Madison. Cassie is cajoled by her former boss, Frank Mackey, to assume Lexi's identity and return to Lexi's residence that she shared with four close friends, who have been told that Lexi survived the attack but cannot remember anything about the night it occurred. Cassie's job is to direct the murder detectives, who have no leads or no motive, towards who the killer, and the dead girl, might be.

 

Thoughts

 

About two thirds through The Likeness, one of Lexi's housemates goes on a long monologue bemoaning modern life and the concurrent loss of identity that is being swallowed up by a too fast pace of change and it's inevitable partner- greed. The economy may prosper but perhaps not so the individual. We all may dream, at times, of becoming someone else and escaping our disappointing and unfulfilled existence, drifting off to a seemingly safer and more interesting place. My previous read, Await Your Reply, also confronted this theme, but whereas Reply danced around the edges of genre, The Likeness is a full speed ahead police procedural, and a pretty good one at that.

 

The problem is the premise which is downright incredulous. That Cassie can fool her housemates, who Lexie has lived with for many months on intimate terms, requires a great leap of faith on the part of the reader. One may best approach these fanciful coincidences as fairy tales. French's previous novel, In The Woods, played up a childhood fear of what may happen to you if you venture too far into the deep, dark woods. The Likeness plays the doppleganger angle, a little child becoming aware of the uniqueness of him or herself, wondering if there is someone out there who looks just like them. French's absorption in the fractured lives and sadness of her fictional creations is deeply moving, and therefore I recommend, and look forward to her next.

[ethan]

That Awful Mess on the Via Merluna by Carlo Emilio Gaddo

 

The first 200 pages were a struggle. I hadn't read a difficult book in quite a while. But then I began to click with

the author's voice. Written in the 1940s but set in 1920's Rome, the plot concerns a police investigation into a

brutal murder. This is an author (and translator) drunk on words- their power, their significance, their beauty.

Less like poetry really, more like painting, as the sights and sounds and people of Rome are portrayed in

potentially infinite perspectives. Surprisingly funny at times, with a great introduction by Italo Calvino, who

claims Gadda as a major influence.

 

The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen

 

From the sublime to the mundane. Not an interesting sentence in 400 pages, like many modern novels, a fleshed out

screenplay. Gangsters on the run in the Great Depression, author Mullen has meticulously studied his Hollywood 30s

crime films, he's included every cliche he encountered.

 

I've decided to read some stuff by recent Nobel prize winners, and encounter the greatness that year after year

eclipses that of Thomas Pynchon, who keeps getting passed over much to my amazement. I've completed about one third

of My Name is Red by Oran Pahmuk. It's interesting, but I'm not quite ready to bestow an Ethan Prize.

[ethan]

I have some catching up to do......

 

Alien Hearts by Guy de Maupassant

 

Imagine being a 30-something man of solidly independent means, dabbling in this and that, but never getting too

serious about anything, even love, spending ones' nights consorting with all the interesting artistic types of late

19th century Paris in the salons of high society. Such is the life of our hero, Andre Mariolle, clearly a fictional

version of Maupassant.

 

Then he falls in love, like so many before him, with Madame de Burne, the most desirable woman in Paris. She is

accomplished in the fine art of seduction, and at the peak moment of each triumph, she decides to find another. But

she falls for Andre, much to her amazement. The problem is Andre loves too much, and Madame de Burne loves too

little. Andre suffers.

 

Every description of character, place and situation is a gem, a work of art. I detect a bitterness in Maupassant's attitude

toward women in the power they exert over men, a disgust with the artificial relationships of affluent society, and

even an unseemly class snobbery in the way Elizabeth, Andre's next love, is presented. But the bitter is always

counterbalanced by the sweet. I devoured this short novel.

 

 

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

 

No devouring in this one. A very tough read. Pamuk is a recent winner of the Nobel Prize, wildly popular in his

homeland, Turkey, and this novel received almost universal praise. I found only one dissenting voice from

professional reviewers, and that one was mixed.

 

Pamuk presents a 16th century Islamic world of miniaturists, illustraters of books commissioned by reigning Sultans.

The subject is interesting, but not exactly fascinating, as it needs to be, given the copius amount of information

on the subject that overwhelms the novel. Even worse is a murder mystery in which the reader is hard pressed to

care who the murderer is, all three main suspects barely sketched in as characters. The love story works a bit

better, but I never had a real sense of who these people were. The world they live in (the same era as Shakespeare's

time in London) is so stifling, claustrophobic and unpleasant, I gladly departed after the hurried wrapup of the

final pages. I will admit my negative reaction is due, in part, to the fact that the Islamic world, so far at

least, is beyond the scope of my understanding of human beings.

 

 

By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano

 

An aging Chilean priest tries to justify his life as he lays dying. I'm finding Bolano's short fiction to be

magnificent amplifiers of his two massive masterpieces, The Savage Detectives and 2666, the latter a novel I think

about almost every day. Bolano's subject is the late 20th century, a time of great change, new found freedoms for

ordinary people, but also one of the bloodiest centuries in human history. The urge of people to the irrational, to

totalitarionism lingers on. Man's inhumanity to man (and especially woman) draws from very primitive impulses that

can barely be identified, no less understood.

 

I wish I were capable of explicating the mysteries of Bolano's work. It needs someone far more perceptive than me.

But even I can savor the delicious irony of our apolitical priest teaching a clandestine course on Marxism to

Chile's General Pinochet and his ruling junta on dark stormy nights, or the juxtaposion of weekly literary soirees

in a fashionable Santiago drawing room, while, in the basement, unbeknownst, political prisoners are being tortured.

[vodkafan]

I only finished one this week

 

The Likeness by Tana French

 

Synopsis

 

A girl is found stabbed to death in an abandoned cottage and is discovered to be the exact likeness of a former undercover agent, Cassie Maddox. The dead girl has been using an invented identity Cassie had adopted in her undercover days, Lexi Madison. Cassie is cajoled by her former boss, Frank Mackey, to assume Lexi's identity and return to Lexi's residence that she shared with four close friends, who have been told that Lexi survived the attack but cannot remember anything about the night it occurred. Cassie's job is to direct the murder detectives, who have no leads or no motive, towards who the killer, and the dead girl, might be.

 

Thoughts

 

About two thirds through The Likeness, one of Lexi's housemates goes on a long monologue bemoaning modern life and the concurrent loss of identity that is being swallowed up by a too fast pace of change and it's inevitable partner- greed. The economy may prosper but perhaps not so the individual. We all may dream, at times, of becoming someone else and escaping our disappointing and unfulfilled existence, drifting off to a seemingly safer and more interesting place. My previous read, Await Your Reply, also confronted this theme, but whereas Reply danced around the edges of genre, The Likeness is a full speed ahead police procedural, and a pretty good one at that.

 

The problem is the premise which is downright incredulous. That Cassie can fool her housemates, who Lexie has lived with for many months on intimate terms, requires a great leap of faith on the part of the reader. One may best approach these fanciful coincidences as fairy tales. French's previous novel, In The Woods, played up a childhood fear of what may happen to you if you venture too far into the deep, dark woods. The Likeness plays the doppleganger angle, a little child becoming aware of the uniqueness of him or herself, wondering if there is someone out there who looks just like them. French's absorption in the fractured lives and sadness of her fictional creations is deeply moving, and therefore I recommend, and look forward to her next.

 

I liked the idea of this Ethan. Gonna look this one out. Thanks.

[ethan]

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

 

A yes-but book. I read it in two long sittings. I loved the voice of it's 20 year old college student narrator, Tassie Kjetlin, a farmers daughter come to study and learn about life in a town much like Madison Wisconsin. She wise-cracks her way through life, and much of the novel is very funny. There is an eerie foreboding, however, that seems to mock the levity.

 

And the sadness comes in droves. Unfortunately, it all seems a bit forced. The boyfriend who may or may not be a terrorist. The mysterious couple who adopt a bi-racial daughter for whom Tassie nannies. The shaggy-dog younger brother who has his eye on the military (the action occurs the year after 9/11). There is an overall formlessness, as there was in Moore's earlier novel, Anagrams. Characters disappear, and plot lines end, with a jarring abruptness.

 

But then, the section in which Tassie bonds with her two year old charge conveys much of the joy inherent in childhood. Little Emma is beautifully drawn. And the long final section with Tassie working on her father's farm has moments of enchantment, and deep tragedy. I have a feeling the novel will linger in my memory.

 

 

Equal Danger by Leonardo Sciascia

 

An Italian police procedural from 1971, it's author both reform politician and existentialist detective novelist. The judges and prosecutors of an unnamed country are being mercilessly executed on a weekly basis. Inspector Rogas, highly educated and unimpeachably moral, thinks he knows the culprit. But the 'system" pushes him elsewhere. Sciascia campaigned relentlessly against the Mafia and there is little doubt who this system is.

 

At the end there is a sudden and devastating change of perspective that caught me flat-eyed as a reader. The author says in an afterword that he started writing Equal Danger as a comedy, a parody of detective stories, but by the end he wasn't laughing anymore. He's not kidding.

[ethan]

Lots more catching up...............

 

The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

 

A young man crashes his truck, he's severely injured, and when he wakes from his coma, he forgets the night of the accident, which becomes shrouded in mystery, but recognizes everyone, except his devoted sister. He believes she is a well-trained look-alike imposter. He is suffering from Capgras Syndrome, a rare brain disorder in which the victim is unable to believe that those he is closest to are who they say they are. Even his beloved dog is a plant of some twisted conspiracy.

 

Sis enlists the aid of a noted brain doctor, who can offer little assistance, despite his alleged brilliance, and her brother's prognosis appears hopeless. The reader must digest long paragraphs of medical jargon that left me somewhat brain dead, metaphorically speaking. But there are also beautiful descriptions of the migratory habits of the sand crane -the echo makers - all of whom plop themselves down in Kearney, Nebraska, the setting of the novel, and the exact geographical center of the US.

 

In Margaret Atwoods' very perceptive review of The Echo Maker, she notes how subtly and effectively Powers uses The Wizard of Oz as a template and inspiration. I noticed a reference here and there, but not to the extant Atwood did. Her insights have really increased the resonance of the novel in my memory.

 

 

Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolano

 

Bolano catalogues the biographies of some noted writers of the 20th century who are aligned, to various extents, with authoritarian governments or movements. Each bio is limited to a few pages in which Bolano indulges himself in one of his great strengths - describing a person's life in its fateful, coincidence-strewn, shabby totality. Even right-wingers have lofty literary dreams, and they often come to naught. There is a cosmic joke here, and it's that Bolano has made it all up in his prodigous imagination. The last section is an abbreviated version of Distant Star, a short novel that would serve as a far better intro to Bolano than this sometimes fascinating, sometimes plodding oddity.

 

 

Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd

 

Alfred Hitchcock would have scooped up the movie rights to this thriller in a nano-second. A man falsely accused of murder goes on the run, pursued by the police, and by the real killer, a scary Afghanistan vet working for a "security" firm protecting the interests of an evil pharmaceutical giant. Our hero proves surprisingly resilient, going underground, becoming invisible in the the belly of the beast, the nooks and crannies of teeming London. I read this novel in one day, so I guess I liked it. It is certainly more than a cut above the norm.

 

 

The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin

 

This thriller would be the norm. A Swedish crime caper, multiple threads, a veteran reader might easily imagine the converging climax, I came close. I still enjoyed the ending, a blizzardy encounter of ghosts and murderers at an eerie, haunted oceanside cottage. Cardboard characters and clunky prose must be endured along the way.

 

 

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

 

Some more darkness, and a complete dud. A group of aging baby boomers try to recall what happened to them (each of them has a different recollection) when they were young in the dark 1960's. They had become entranced by a charismatic guru-type who leads them to a bizarre seance in a dark meadow in which he seems to have conjured up a deadly demon that slays one of the participants. It all seemed like sub-Rashomon nonsense to me, and I found no payoff in the belabored resolution, when all is explained, kind of.

Edited March 7, 2010 by ethan

[ethan]

The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Derek Palmer

 

Steampunk is such a marvelous word I had to unlock my cannot-read-sci-fi-fantasy shackles for a few hours to satisfy my curiousity, and have a taste. Derek Palmer is prodigiously talented, well-trained, and understands the momentum imperative of contemporary fiction. Above all, do not bore us, dear Author! There are the required references - the obvious one The Tempest (Prospero, Caliban and Miranda are major characters), A Winter's Tale, Greek mythology, the ubiquitous Wizard of Oz, Forbidden Planet, The Dark Knight, Pynchon's Against the Day, many more I'm sure. The author even injects himself, meta-fictionally, into a brief humorous scene.

 

The momentum does flag about two thirds in, however, after a horrific climax occurs. The novel pauses for three long, digressive monologues, that although interesting, well-written and vital to the plot, begin to, dare I say it, bore. The overiding metaphor of an endlessly circling zeppelin with a lone survivor(maybe two) powered by a perpetual motion machine never really resonates. The alternative universe bric-a-brac is inventive, I'm sure, but I remain immune to their charms. So what about the plot? A meglomaniac gazillionaire, who can conjure up anything, falls in love with the innocence of his adopted daughter when she is a child, but becomes increasingly deranged as she sheds her innocence in becoming a woman. Our hero, the narrator, falls in love with the girl, Miranda, and the gazillionare, Prospero, diabolically conspires to allow our hero his childhood dream, to become a storyteller, whatever the cost.

 

What I did find interesting were a couple of the meandering themes. Palmer mourns the loss of the miraculous in a world filled with noisy machinery, there is no room for silence. He also obssesses over the impossibility of love in such a craven environment. There is no joy here, not even grace. Indeed, the gloominess is so well described, when I finished I felt like taking a happy pill.

 

 

Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

 

More darkness here, but at least love is possible, although still painful. Three wounded survivors of the malady congregate in the Vermont countryside. Grandad, daughter, granddaughter. Grandad, a widower, spends his insomniac nights creating an alternative-world story, where the red states and the blue states engage in a civil war after the disputed 2000 presidential election. Daughter hasn't recovered from her divorce. Granddaughter mourns her lost beau a victim of an Iraqi bomb. There are a couple of great Austerish scenes - one where Grandad and granddaughter pass away the day watching an endless stream of videos together, and Auster reveals himself as a top-notch film critic. Even better, they spend a long, sleepless night togther in which he tells her the story of her Grandma, and their relationship, and reveals his great love for them both.

 

This is a short novel heavily influenced by 9/11 and the resultant dispiriteded response of many to our Iraqi adventure. Auster finds grace through family bonds as a possibility, and I found this aspect very moving.

 

 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

 

Time for an English comedy of manners. Some laughs, please! A retired Major harumphs his way through the maze of modern life, he doesn't

like any of it, but he's a good man down deep, often funny, and finds it in his heart to fall in love with a Pakastini woman, no matter what anyone in his small village thinks. His son fine tunes every emotion and action as to how it will advance his career. A crass and money obsessed American comes to develop the property in the Major's backyard. Some sort of Lord must sell off his grand estate, piecemeal, in order to keep the taxman at bay.

 

It all sounds very familiar, indeed, I think I saw an earlier version on Masterpiece Theater thirty years ago. But there's momentum! Whimsy, too. And the unusual love story of two oldtimers is deftly presented, and the emotions it engenders feel authentic. Although it may take another oldtimer, like me, to truly appreciate it.

 

All you need is love; love is all there is. The Beatles

[poppyshake]

I like the sound of 'Major Pettigrew's Last Stand' .. it sounds like the sort of book I like to curl up with after I've tackled a great big complex 500 pager .. rather like the 'Persephone' books. Is it set in the present day?

[ethan]

Major Pettigrew is set in the present day, poppy. I tend to read a lot of long, gloomy novels and the Major hit the spot for me as a good change of pace. I read it in one day, but I'm on vacation this week, well rested.

[poppyshake]

Thanks for the recommendation ... it's going on my TBR pile now

[ethan]

Some catching up......

 

Your Face Tomorrow Vol 1 Fever and Spear by Javier Marias

 

You fall in love with someone, quite probably their face, in it you see a missing piece of yourself, you see tenderness, approval, desire, sometimes whatever you want to see whether it be there or not. But what will you see in that face tomorrow, or maybe after many tomorrows?

 

In an interview, Marias says that his prose is meant to be read fast. I took his advice, and his long sentences, filled with digressions and qualifiers, a world record perhaps for the ubiquitous use of the word or, becomes the literary equivalent of music, with rhythm and melody rising and falling in every passage, some of them quite beautiful.

 

The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller

 

Life under Ceausescu in Romania, totalitarianism rules, an age never to be forgotten, bleak and surreal, infecting every aspect of life, every human relationship. Short, clipped sentences and paragraphs, some cryptic poetry, possibly more powerful in the original German, so hopeless in tone, even exile offers little real escape, I often felt I was wallowing in victimhood.

 

 

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

 

No totalitarianism in the USA by the government, but the consumer culture, in case you haven't heard, it's got us by the throat, it's destroying everything human in its wretched wake. We are lost souls, the super-hip, the super-rich, the super-struggling, in a vision, despite the satire and humour, every bit as bleak as that in Plums. At least that's the way it appears from the academic world of creative writing classes where Mr. Lipsyte lives.

 

 

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick

 

Great pulp fiction, one from the heart, its poignancy grabs a hold of you, and may never let you go.

 

 

Written in Bone by Simon Beckett

 

Not much heart in this thriller/mystery, more a plea to a Hollywood studio for a lucrative movie deal. I'll admit to a couple of moments when chills ran up and down my spinal cord, and maybe that's all I needed on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Edited April 11, 2010 by ethan

[ethan]

Sleepless by Charlie Huston

 

A plague sweeps the world, a mutant germ bores into peoples' brains, mainly the section that supplies sleep. You sleep less, then not at all, and death is certain within a year. There's an alleged cure, but it is in short supply, and a black market develops. In a rapidly deteriorating Los Angeles, a righteous cop, whose wife is sleepless, and possibly his baby too, goes undercover to investigate the supply train. He's also on a collision course with a paid assassin, working freelance, incurably amoral, who's seeking evidence our hero cop inadvertently possesses.

 

The novel is sometimes overloaded with jargon - armaments, medicine, video games. Huston has done his homework and he wants you to know it. But he also creates a believably nightmarish environment, sudden violence that disturbs, a number of twists and turns you might not see coming, and a surprisingly tender finale. Huston writes from the heart, with set pieces that border on hard-boiled pulp brilliance.

 

 

As A Man Grows Older by Italo Svevo

 

Some background on the author. His first novel (late 1800s) is critically well-received but doesn't sell. He persists, writes another (As A Man Grows Older), ignored by readers, reviled by critics. He gives up writing, works as a clerk in a bank, marries, eventually runs his father-in-law's business. He needs to learn English, his duties often take him to England, and he hires a tutor, a young James Joyce, who is intrigued to hear Svevo is a failed novelist, lingering for 25 years in literary obscurity. They become friends, Joyce reads the two novels, thinks they're amazing, gets them published in Paris, acclaim pours in, by the time of his death Svevo is well on his way to becoming one of Italy's most admired authors.

 

As a Man Grows Older snuck up on me. At first, I thought I was reading an ironic comedy-of-manners. Our hapless hero, Stefano, is a man of artistic tendencies, working as a clerk for an insurance company, in his late thirties, living with his spinsterish sister, neither has ever known love. He finally finds it with a young, adorable, but flighty girl-about-town, he's heard rumors of a scandalous past, and present, but he places them on a back burner. He's besotted, filled with desire for the first time in his life. He believes he can control the situation, but he is a man of monumental indecision, he breaks it off, he reunites, he's often consumed by jealousy.

 

The tone has been deceptive, or maybe I just didn't notice, for this is a deeply mournful tale. Stefano's single-minded, foolish quest for a doomed love has blinded him to a tragedy that develops right in front of his eyes, with one he truly loves, and who truly loves him. Svevo's estimable accomplishment is in granting a universal dimension to this ordinary man's emotional downfall. Stefano's dilemma, his inability to see clearly, is in Svevo's view, the human condition. If I were a reader inclined towards proclamations, I surely would proclaim this novel a masterpiece.

Edited April 17, 2010 by ethan

[ethan]

The local weather has been nothing short of miraculous these last few weeks after an abominable and interminable winter, the soft spring breezes billowing through my house, me often sitting on my front door stoop marvelling at the procession of life inching forward on my quiet street, daydreaming away. After sixty years on this planet, I'm still in awe of this kind of stuff, so my indolence has produced only two humble and brief reports from my reading experience.

 

 

The History of Mr Polly by H. G. Wells

 

The life of an ordinary man who feels trapped by the conventions of society, a loveless marriage, and an unfulfilling occupation. Often the story veers close to an illustration of points the author holds dear. The soullessness of the capitalist world being one, a point I would vaguely subscribe to myself, there are indeed dead souls walking among us, but I'm not always sure the deadness comes from without or from within.

 

Evil as an immutable force of human nature being another point. It must be recognized, faced up to, and valiantly opposed. The three campaigns of Mr. Polly's War with a dastardly villain who arises out of the bushes of a Mark Twain novel, encompass the most entertaining section of the story, truly hilarious. And there is a modicum of contentment in the victorious aftermath I can relate to - being able to sit peaceably under a shade tree at twilight of a summer's day, with a congenial friend, pondering on fate, while watching the river flow.

 

 

 

The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven

 

An Israeli woman worships a man, she's seventeen, he's a few years older, they have a marraige of convenience, it keeps her out of her military obligation. They develop a sexual relationship, she knows it will not lead to anything steady or permanent, he's not that kind of guy. She gets pregnant, decides to keep the baby, he drives her to the hospital when she gives birth, and then immediately disappears from her life for years. He's not the fatherly type either, she understands that, forgives him. They ultimately rekindle their friendship and the sex, although he marries another, she never remarries, she remains at his beck and call for decades, he just rings her bells, it's all she needs.

 

I found this central conceit of the novel preposterous, and irritating. Every few pages there are some poetic lines of adoration aimed towards this **** of a guy. I guess anything is possible relationship-wise in this wacky world, maybe it would look more plausible from a female point of view, and as I have never been worshiped by another, sexually or otherwise for more than a few moments, perhaps this type of life-long obsession is something beyond my ken. When the boytoy is off stage the novel is quite good, like a foreign film, even if the plot drags one does get a sense of place, local customs, what life feels like in a distant and somewhat mysterious country. I should also point out that the novel has won several awards including a recent Best Translated one, and that my record with award-winning authors and novels is very poor.

 

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Edited May 8, 2010 by ethan