BOOKS I JUST READ

The Quick and The Dead, by Joy Williams, could easily be mistaken for a small, quiet book if you only read the first few pages. These opening pages, when Alice is still a stranger, and when Williams’ weird world hasn’t quite unfolded yet, are an illusion. It doesn’t take much longer to realize that this book is bold.

Alice, a central figure, seems to be the glue that holds the rest of the book together. She begins as radical, to the reader at least, a teenager who swears while she babysits and gets abandoned far from home by the mom for whom she works. However, as we get deeper, Alice becomes a regular fixture, and it’s against her that we can measure all of the other elements of the book. A rebellious teenager starts to look pretty normal next to a man haunted by his dead wife’s ghost, eerie museums and nursing homes, and a man whose life is dictated by a monkey rambling around his head. Even the only two girls Alice can call her friends become more alluring than Alice herself, the tragedy of Corvus and the quiet persistence of Annabel poignantly showing us true suffering and mystique. Indeed, Alice almost becomes garrulous and obnoxious as we see her striving, striving to become the unusual woman she wants to be but can’t quite develop into naturally.

The best part of this book is finally figuring out what “the quick” in the title refers to. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the book becomes a haunting comparison between life and death in the most original way— Joy Williams teaches us about the mystery that surrounds both, and bends the definitions of the two ideas intimately and inexorably.

Posted at 1:01pm and tagged with: lit, Joy Williams, The Quick and The Dead, one column,.

April 30th 2013

Reblogged from jennirl|320 notes |#

Claire Messud (via rachelfershleiser)

Posted at 5:31pm.

“

For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble.

”

April 29th 2013

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Death and the Penguin

Death and the Penguin has the air of a Coen brothers movie, it was sadly funny, tumbling into its own ridiculous seriousness. Andrey Kurkov’s sensibilities seem recklessly silly, his writing choices impossible to discern. The image of a pet penguin alone is almost stupefying, like a challenge the author set himself, “write a crime novel with a penguin in it.” The result is a smoldering book with a gravitational energy. I felt drawn to the story and mystery that Misha the penguin and his owner, Viktor, experience.

If this book had been written by an American, I feel like the focus would have been this mystery— commissioned, self-fulfilling obituaries. The movie would have Gerard Butler playing the protagonist, or you’d picture him that way, and the penguin would be like, his code name. Instead, Kurkov, who’s Ukrainian and wrote the book in Russian, has imbued the book with something more grave, more deserving of our anxiety. The people dying aren’t our concern, Misha’s health is, as is Viktor’s strange impassivity in the face of threats, and his almost runaway life. We guess at his internal struggle, we observe his zany life, and we wonder about him more than we ever could have if he’d been depicted as a James Bond or le Carre character.

The book is at its best when Vicktor tries to spy, when he closely observes, because he misses so much. He’s oblivious to what’s important, story-wise. This is touching because he is a writer. It almost doesn’t matter what Viktor chooses, not because the choices have no affect on his life, but because we know that no matter what, something wild and strange will happen to him.

Posted at 8:55pm and tagged with: lit, Death and the Penguin, Andrey Kurkov,.

Death and the Penguin
Death and the Penguin has the air of a Coen brothers movie, it was sadly funny, tumbling into its own ridiculous seriousness. Andrey Kurkov’s sensibilities seem recklessly silly, his writing choices impossible to discern. The image of a pet penguin alone is almost stupefying, like a challenge the author set himself, “write a crime novel with a penguin in it.” The result is a smoldering book with a gravitational energy. I felt drawn to the story and mystery that Misha the penguin and his owner, Viktor, experience.
If this book had been written by an American, I feel like the focus would have been this mystery— commissioned, self-fulfilling obituaries. The movie would have Gerard Butler playing the protagonist, or you’d picture him that way, and the penguin would be like, his code name. Instead, Kurkov, who’s Ukrainian and wrote the book in Russian, has imbued the book with something more grave, more deserving of our anxiety. The people dying aren’t our concern, Misha’s health is, as is Viktor’s strange impassivity in the face of threats, and his almost runaway life. We guess at his internal struggle, we observe his zany life, and we wonder about him more than we ever could have if he’d been depicted as a James Bond or le Carre character.
The book is at its best when Vicktor tries to spy, when he closely observes, because he misses so much. He’s oblivious to what’s important, story-wise. This is touching because he is a writer. It almost doesn’t matter what Viktor chooses, not because the choices have no affect on his life, but because we know that no matter what, something wild and strange will happen to him.

April 14th 2013

10 notes |#

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin is driven by an overarching, directional, and demanding intelligence. Shriver’s voice is pervasive and insistent, and her writing is swift and consuming. I was unable to put down this book. Each sentence led, if not elegantly, that inexorably, to the next, and pausing just didn’t feel right. And so, I delved deeper into the protagonist, Eva. The book is made up of her letters to her husband, in which she pleads and explains and wishes for their life to be different, the life that led to their son’s murderous rampage.

Her grief and her regret is mixed with her intelligence, which leads to introspection and self-analysis, and enables her to truly explore her own role in her son’s psychopathology. She has had time to think, and she knows herself. She describes his insistent, never-ending infant crying, his refusal to use diapers, and we see her shame, her sadness, and something more. We see flickers of her knowledge that something was wrong, how the cards were stacked against her. Her retroactive powerlessness, combined with the stricken accounting of her family’s life is incredibly compelling.

Even though Kevin is the character in this novel that changes everything, ruins the world of several families and ends young lives, his mother, Eva, is the one who has agency, who impresses. In her pained letters, we see the whole picture, and no self-delusions. Eva accepts herself, both her past self that suffered under the tyranny of a sociopath for a son with no recourse, and her current, bereft self- a self that has lost her self-respect and is almost unrecognizable, but whom she can still intimately know.

Posted at 9:30am and tagged with: lit, Lionel Shriver, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN,.

We Need To Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin is driven by an overarching, directional, and demanding intelligence. Shriver’s voice is pervasive and insistent, and her writing is swift and consuming. I was unable to put down this book. Each sentence led, if not elegantly, that inexorably, to the next, and pausing just didn’t feel right. And so, I delved deeper into the protagonist, Eva. The book is made up of her letters to her husband, in which she pleads and explains and wishes for their life to be different, the life that led to their son’s murderous rampage.
Her grief and her regret is mixed with her intelligence, which leads to introspection and self-analysis, and enables her to truly explore her own role in her son’s psychopathology. She has had time to think, and she knows herself. She describes his insistent, never-ending infant crying, his refusal to use diapers, and we see her shame, her sadness, and something more. We see flickers of her knowledge that something was wrong, how the cards were stacked against her. Her retroactive powerlessness, combined with the stricken accounting of her family’s life is incredibly compelling.
Even though Kevin is the character in this novel that changes everything, ruins the world of several families and ends young lives, his mother, Eva, is the one who has agency, who impresses. In her pained letters, we see the whole picture, and no self-delusions. Eva accepts herself, both her past self that suffered under the tyranny of a sociopath for a son with no recourse, and her current, bereft self- a self that has lost her self-respect and is almost unrecognizable, but whom she can still intimately know.

April 14th 2013

4 notes |#

Renata Adler, SPEEDBOAT

Posted at 9:03am and tagged with: lit, Renata Adler, SPEEDBOAT,.

“

I don’t think much of writers in whom nothing is at risk.

”

March 18th 2013

Dr. Zhivago

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Dr. Zhivago made me sad, and not in the way where I was crying on the train, or lamenting the life of its characters, or even really sympathizing at all. I was sad that this book, which seemed like an epic love story at the outset, became boring, staid, and frustrating. Boris Pasternak begins Dr. Zhivago with the highest attention to detail, but the story ended and I could not for the life of me figure out how we got there.

Aside from the fact that these details are mostly irrelevant and serve to establish deeper meaning to a sneaky relationship that turns out to not even last, they are confusing and unnecessary when the central force of the novel is the main character, the philandering Dr. Yuri Zhivago. And it is his downfall that is not only inexplicable, but frustrating. Zhivago is in love with his wife Tonya, but is also in love with Lara, who is married. Once both these relationships fall apart due to political issues and what I interpreted to be Zhivago’s emotional immaturity, he falls in love again. His ability to fall in and out of these relationships makes me kind of loathe Zhivago, as does his changing attitude, from dedicated writer and physician, to slacker.

I had so much trouble reconciling the promise of romance with the reality of Zhivago’s character that I started to hate this book. But the maudlin ending, Zhivago’s descent into social outcast, and the rotating list of women he takes advantage of were what stood out for me as my least favorite parts of this book.

Posted at 1:27pm and tagged with: lit, Dr. Zhivago, Boris Pasternak, one column,.

March 12th 2013

THE WALKING - Laleh Khadivi

3 notes |#

The Walking is a special book, reveling in its simplicity. Uncomplicated and stark, this novel follows one man’s desperate bid for freedom, and an escape that while he’s been waiting his whole for, he’s not sure he wants. Once he realizes the cost of freedom is rootlessness, Saladin reels with loss and loneliness.

Saladin and his brother, witnesses to a political killing, escape their Iranian home. The presence of his brother masks what will become a gaping hole in Saladin’s life, but once the two part ways, Saladin feels bereft and unsure of himself; even though he’s dreamt of America for years, how can he face a brotherless life? Khadivi plays out Saladin’s despair physically- he wanders and walks aimlessly and truly without purpose, as only a homeless, newly arrived immigrant without family can do.

Saladin’s trusting desperation is the catalyst for the most powerful scene in the book, in which he’s savagely beaten, the victim of a hate crime. The violence he experiences closes his life in Iran, but opens his new life in America, a confusing and sore prospect for a witness to his suffering. Khadivi, the most powerful such witness, however, does not bend to the senselessness, she describes it, allows Saladin to inhibit it, and because of this she’s written a book that can truly share the mystifying experience of immigration. The Walking is not a depiction of foreignness, but as the title suggests, of wandering, and a true homelessness.

Posted at 4:06pm and tagged with: Laleh Khadivi, The Walking, lit, one column,.

March 3rd 2013

2 notes |#

WAVE, Sonali Deraniyagala

Posted at 11:09am and tagged with: lit, Wave, Sonali Deraniyagala,.

“

Look at me, powerless, a plastic bag in a gale.

”

March 1st 2013

Jesus’ Son- Denis Johnson

3 notes |#

Stoic, sad, simple. Denis Johnson’s story collection Jesus’ Son had its own aura and seemed like it was in its own world. Each story flowed to the next, the brevity and solidity of each story making their souls hard to grasp. Was the language the point, or the sadness? Was the strangeness of some his characters what stuck out or the sandpaper writing?

I hadn’t read much that I could compare to these stories until recently when I read some Joy Williams. The two seem like writing brother and sister, writing in cramped quarters and writing about deserted imaginary friends. In comparing the two, I was able to see the childlike aspects of their work, as though their communion in my mind made the loneliness and isolation they write about more joyful.

Posted at 5:26pm and tagged with: Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson, lit, one column,.

February 27th 2013

5 notes |#

Cormac McCarthy, THE ROAD

Posted at 5:36pm and tagged with: lit, Cormac McCarthy, The Road,.

“

Where men cant live gods fare no better.

”

February 27th 2013

Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan

3 notes |#

Half Blood Blues was one of those rare books that I knew should be a movie the first page in. Evocative, jarring, and human, Half Blood Blues would need little in the way of conversion from book to film. The cadence of the dialogue is fluid, natural, and of another time. This element makes the world in Half Blood Blues inherently interesting- it’s from a part of history that is fascinating and rich with emotion. But Edugyan’s treatment of the time, her characters, and music is exciting and heartfelt. Despite the tragedy all around her story and her characters, I never felt that Edugyan was playing fast and loose with history or with the feelings of her readers. Her book is no tearjerker.

Half Blood Blues has that interesting element of art within art that, while intriguing, is always difficult to pull off. Edugyan manages to write about music, and the album Half Blood Blues, for which the book is named, with clarity and artistry. The music within literature motif, which could have hurt the novel if rendered in a trite or clicheed way, strengthened the hold Half Blood Blues had on me as I read. The sounds of the dialogue, that patter of a long-gone era, and the desire to hear the music described, was a powerful reading experience. Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues was unique in just how auditory a book it was.

Posted at 5:25pm and tagged with: lit, one column, Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues,.

February 9th 2013

4 notes |#

The Patrick Melrose Novels

Much has been said about Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose Novels. I feel like every person I know recommended these books to me in the past year. And then I read this collection of novellas, and it smacked me across the face.

The four books in this collection fit together, and when you’re reading them all at once they’re more like one long epic than pieces of a story. The first installment is so compelling and powerful, I read it in one greedy gulp, texting some of my friends about how obsessed I was the second it ended. St. Aubyn tells the story of Patrick Melrose, a troubled Englishman of the privileged classes, almost miraculously. This collection is the equivalent of a perfect cashmere sweater, you want to wear it everyday, it looks amazing, and it feels even better. I wondered how it must have felt for the author to follow one character throughout a troubling tortured life, through his fucked-up childhood to his strung-out adolescence and mistake-ridden adulthood. I felt terribly for Patrick over and over again; he makes so many mistakes and experiences so much pain, and yet I felt that none of it was his fault. It wasn’t that Patrick couldn’t help himself from being almost a scoundrel, but these books simply show a man who is himself, who’s life has been almost pre-determined by his childhood, and by his callous parents. The effect is not fatalistic, though the description might sound it. St. Aubyn instead writes something so intimate it might be autobiographical, so painful it could be the cloaked story of his best friend who made him promise anonymity.

While this theme might sound trite, or well-worn, St. Aubyn glosses it with new relevance and brilliance. Imbued with an adult, complex sensibility, The Patrick Melrose Novels seem like they could turn and twist endlessly, that Patrick Melrose is an infinite story. I’m saving the most recent installment, At Last, for a day when I have nothing planned, for when all I want is to leap into someone else’s brain. St. Aubyn has given us this ability, to know what it’d be like to be Patrick Melrose, to know, love, pity, and yearn on his behalf.

Posted at 3:19pm and tagged with: lit, Edward St. Aubyn, The Patrick Melrose Novels,.

The Patrick Melrose NovelsMuch has been said about Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose Novels. I feel like every person I know recommended these books to me in the past year. And then I read this collection of novellas, and it smacked me across the face.
The four books in this collection fit together, and when you’re reading them all at once they’re more like one long epic than pieces of a story. The first installment is so compelling and powerful, I read it in one greedy gulp, texting some of my friends about how obsessed I was the second it ended. St. Aubyn tells the story of Patrick Melrose, a troubled Englishman of the privileged classes, almost miraculously. This collection is the equivalent of a perfect cashmere sweater, you want to wear it everyday, it looks amazing, and it feels even better. I wondered how it must have felt for the author to follow one character throughout a troubling tortured life, through his fucked-up childhood to his strung-out adolescence and mistake-ridden adulthood. I felt terribly for Patrick over and over again; he makes so many mistakes and experiences so much pain, and yet I felt that none of it was his fault. It wasn’t that Patrick couldn’t help himself from being almost a scoundrel, but these books simply show a man who is himself, who’s life has been almost pre-determined by his childhood, and by his callous parents. The effect is not fatalistic, though the description might sound it. St. Aubyn instead writes something so intimate it might be autobiographical, so painful it could be the cloaked story of his best friend who made him promise anonymity.
While this theme might sound trite, or well-worn, St. Aubyn glosses it with new relevance and brilliance. Imbued with an adult, complex sensibility, The Patrick Melrose Novels seem like they could turn and twist endlessly, that Patrick Melrose is an infinite story. I’m saving the most recent installment, At Last, for a day when I have nothing planned, for when all I want is to leap into someone else’s brain. St. Aubyn has given us this ability, to know what it’d be like to be Patrick Melrose, to know, love, pity, and yearn on his behalf.

February 7th 2013

5 notes |#

Roxana Robinson, Phantom Bookstores

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/02/phantom-bookstores.html#ixzz2KFGuR9BY

Posted at 3:00pm and tagged with: lit,.

“

But I had declared myself a reader, and books were a kind of food to me. Bookstores were like soup kitchens, and I grew hungry whenever I approached one.

”

February 5th 2013

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

3 notes |#

There is nothing better than having a huge engrossing book with you when you’re going on a trip. And Donna Tartt’s epic work about a bunch of secretive college students at a privileged liberal arts school is just that, the kind of book that makes you lose yourself in it, ignore the world around you, and enjoy the time you spend in airport waiting rooms.

Compelling and crazy-making, The Secret History needed it’s narrator to succeed. Richard Papen is almost a calming presence, his normalcy a balm. He’s not incredibly wealthy or intelligent, but he’s smart and worked hard to get where he is. That’s why his character stands out, why he is able to both befriend a group of privileged classics students and stay on the outskirts of their clique. I can almost picture Tartt fitting his character into the intricate plot after she thought it up, modeling him after the things he and his friends do.

Tartt’s fully-realized main character is a triumph, I think. His is a character I never questioned. Even though the atmosphere and the thread of anxiety Tartt creates within her reader are huge, Richard Papen is the true achievement in The Secret History. In some cases, a good character can feel like they came to the author fully-formed, effortlessly. Tartt’s Papen is the opposite of this, he feels crafted and assembled, but reading his narration is no less compelling from being able to see the work Tartt put in.

Posted at 5:19pm and tagged with: The Secret History, lit, Donna Tartt, one column,.

February 3rd 2013

10 notes |#

Donald Antrim, The Verficationist

Posted at 12:19pm and tagged with: lit, Donald Antrim, The Verificationist,.

“

Have you ever noticed? —people, no matter how beautiful or desirable, invariably will, if observed closely while going about their daily business of keeping alive, begin to seem like monsters.

”