Success Somewhere Else: Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw

We hear a lot of things about China, from its oppressive government to how it's going to take over the world (wouldn't count on that). But there is another way to understand what's happening in China, and that is to read the stories of people who actually live there. Oppressive the government may be, but it is one of the more economically prosperous countries in the Asian continent. Tash Aw's place story Five Star Billionaire accounts for a more nuanced perspective on the way life is in modern China, especially city life.

The five characters who come to Shanghai, China's largest city and the most populous city in the world, each want a chance to succeed in ways familiar to Western audiences. The Chinese economy is fully capitalist, and the protagonists' goals start out, at least, as purely material. But committing oneself to the capitalist agenda casts out the virtues of humanity that these characters, one by one, realize they have lost, perhaps irrevocably. In this entangled narrative, Aw shows us that capitalist ideology has the same effect here, to the detriment of the environment and humanity, in the most effective way possible: through small, individual stories.

The tale starts out strong, with an immersive introduction to Phoebe, one of two heroines in the book...though none of the characters can hardly described as heroic. She's an illegal immigrant but desperate to achieve materialistic and romantic success, expressed beautifully in a scene with a wealthy-looking young couple. This first chapter, which weaved in backstory with a wonderfully immersive scene, hooked me immediately.

The other characters, however, had less gripping introductions, Aw dropping the backstory almost all at once for the rest--most notably, Justin and Gary. Justin is the heir and proprietor to the massive family business of LKH Holdings, but we come in just before the moment of collapse. Gary ends up having a similar breakdown and drastic change of fortune, except he's a famous pop star, having won the genetic and marketable talent lottery, who ends up resenting his own fans and hating fame. The other female protagonist, Yinghui, is a successful businesswoman, but is feeling the stigma of being a "leftover" woman. Her introductory chapter is also excellent.

There is a fifth protagonist, who reveals his backstory slowly, recounting moments in his youth and more recent history to give us hints of his true motivations for success, remaining an ever-mysterious figure even as he enters the narratives of the other characters. And the reason why he is so successful may surprise you.

Naturally, as a lot of these novels go, the characters' lives each intertwine at one point or another. In a few cases, it's unknowingly, but we, the reader, are clued in. Seeing how these characters' lives connect is part of the fun in reading, so I won't reveal to much plot, but they all have a few things in common: they all are not native Chinese (all except Gary are from Malaysia), they all have achieved financial success (except for Phoebe, who manages to get there through deception), and they all are lacking in the personal life department, as none of them are married or have steady relationships. In the end, they all feel empty inside, as it turns out that financial success alone does not complete one's life.

The characters are also very calculated in their interactions with most of the people they meet, figuring out how they could use the other person and how the other person could use them. Often, the characters lie their way into success and out of sticky situations, and when they're finally honest with someone else, they get burned in the end. The culture of Shanghai seems to compel them to act this way, and the characters fail hard before they learn from their mistakes and move on to find true happiness.

The plot may appear cliched, but the different setting and culture gives the story a freshness that it may not have in a Western setting. Setting is important in this story, as well, and it is richly depicted in the prose description and characters' colored points of view. However, the women characters became engaged in stereotypically feminine behaviors that does not occur likewise for the male characters and I can't help but cry bias. I got tired of Phoebe's relentless pursuit of men, when I wasn't all that clear on what it was that she really wanted, and Yinghui's growing interest in dating made me sigh and roll my eyes occasionally. Other than that, however, the narrative hardly annoyed me.

Overall, this story is an engrossing portrait of the capitalist dream in Shanghai, which will chew you up and spit you out just like in pretty much every major city in the world. You may be able to save face, but only if it's not too late. Four out of five stars.

Aimee Bender's "The Color Master:" a Three-Part Review, Part Three

The third and final section of this underwhelming collection was...maybe not the best, but I enjoyed every story in this section, up until the very end. It seems that the theme of this collection is primarily unsatisfying endings that make no sense.

I really enjoyed the story "Wordkeepers," a kind of fabulist tale of modern-day distraction, even if the narrator was exasperating. I identified more with his love interest, who insisted upon correct grammar and complete sentences, fighting back against this new realm of easy forgetfulness, but the subject matter was topical and the ending was actually satisfying in its own way--a rarity in this collection.

The next story was the title story and the star of the collection, "The Color Master," was indeed one of the best stories in this collection. The setting was odd, as it was at once fairy-tale and modern-day Europe (a fantastic facsimile, more like) and there wasn't much world-building--not that I would expect any from a literary short story. But the process of choosing colors (as the Color Master did) and the vivid descriptions of color, as well as a well-threaded fairy tale plot in which the protagonist grows into her own and the kingdom is saved, were all expertly woven and a delight to immerse myself in. The final line, though, left me going "huh?", because even though I figured the story of "Donkeyskin" referred to the deposed king, why is the story "hers"--i.e. the Color Master's? Because she knew what was happening all along? Or is the Color Master the "her"? Once again I found the ending needlessly confusing whereas throughout the rest of the story I had been able to follow along and pick up the thematics pretty well. So either I'm not "getting it" or it's just plain nonsense.

The third story, "A State of Variance," was not particularly memorable, a story of a legacy of freakish symmetry and finding love and happiness in the opposite. In a way, though, the story starts out one way--a woman who can no longer sleep for more than an hour and thusly experiences dream states while awake--and then turns into the story about a too-symmetrical young man's hangups and his dealings thereof. Interestingly, she didn't get too much into the boy's dad, and the trend of not naming characters continues.

The fourth story, "Americca," was one of the more interesting ones, and contained plenty of echoes of Lemon Cake: an ordinary family encounters some extraordinary small occurences. But unlike in Lemon Cake, the inexplicable giving mysteriously stops after a while, and happens only once more. One of the most difficult things to pull off in a short story is the flash forward--in this story it would be revealing whose voice it was all along--and this story is not an example of such a device being well-done. The voice was not quite that of an adult (in fact she's a child for most of the story) but all of a sudden she is 27 and crying over some delicious curry, presumably because it was the last gift and it will never be given again? Didn't work for me. I'm not a fan of the title, either. Otherwise, though, Bender's usual talent was on form.

The final story in the collection, "The Devourings," stood out in that it's a very fairy tale type story. For one, it has ogres and honest-to-God magic in it. This is also one of the top five best stories in this collection. From the single narrative of a woman in love with an ogre springs forth two narratives related to devouring, and like the concluding events of the story, neatly wraps in on itself. It's a nicely put together, if strange, story that lends itself more to the Brothers Grimm school of fairy tales than it does to what most people are familiar with. (Then again, most people won't be reading this book)

In the end, the collection had mostly okay stories, and some good ones, as well as a few bad ones. I did not enjoy this collection as much as her first, and I'm starting to think Bender is getting too comfortable with a certain formula. It seems that even experienced writers forget that the formula doesn't always work, and you got to mix it up a little bit to keep your stories fresh and prevent writers' atrophy. I give it 2.5 stars out of five.

Aimee Bender's "The Color Master": A Three-Part Review, Part 2

So, after a disappointing first part, I didn't hold much hope for the rest of the collection. But, I bought the damn book, so I kept on reading. Luckily, the second section improved in quality overall.

"The Fake Nazi" started off as a quite compelling and expertly constructed story, revolving around a man who believed he was a Nazi--even though he wasn't. Through three different people--the man himself, his brother, and a curious legal clerk--we learn more about the strange psyche of this man and the intersection of coincidence and fate. But then, when the legal clerk visits the man's brother at his apartment, she...lets him feel her up on her visit? It was another example of sexism and objectification in a story in this collection that I can't tell if it's showcasing a character's internalized mentality or the author's own.

"Lemonade" is an overall good story--Bender really got the voice and psychology of this insecure and somewhat strange teenage character down to a T. The thing was, though, that at first I thought they were 13, 14 years old--but later it is revealed that they are old enough to drive. (so, 16?) And they use cell phones--so we're talking the year at the earliest is like, 2006. (mayyybe a couple years ealier, maybe) They live in LA. And they're hanging out at a fucking mall? They did some paltry shopping there, but like, nobody goes to malls anymore if they have their fucking driver's license, except maybe to go shopping, I guess. And the voice of the narrator especially seemed so young--I guess because she's a little naive compared to the other characters? And again, the ending was kind of "meh" for me.

"Bad Return", which is another story about two young-ish female friends who are very different from each other, is much more interesting. This also has a scene between a young woman and an old man, but it doesn't get sexual, thank God: instead, it becomes a faintly magical and creepy encounter that brings the protagonist to a profound conclusion about her friend. Perhaps it's more conventional than the other stories, but I certainly enjoyed it.

The next story, a short one, "Origin Lessons," was absolutely fantastic. It captures the students' insatiable questioning and curiosity and the professor's increasing difficulty in being able to explain the origins of the universe. Though I wasn't sure how old the kids were at first, and again, with the ending, the traditionally feminine imagery, that I keep hating for some reason. But this one I liked a lot.

The last story in this section, "The Doctor and the Rabbi," also deals with big questions, asked by a very specific character. I thought it was cool the rabbi was a woman (I wasn't sure rabbis could be women), and this story is expertly crafted, intertwining big questions and personal revelations, teetering on the edge of being "profound on purpose" (a made-up term for something I often loathe in literature) but not going too far.

So this section was a great improvement. I look forward to reading the next (and final) section...maybe it just keeps getting better? Or do we turn back around to worse?

Aimee Bender's "The Color Master": A Review in Three Parts

My latest reading is Aimee Bender's recent collection of stories, The Color Master. I loved her first collection The Girl in the Inflammable Skirt and her second novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Yet, I was apprehensive when approaching this collection. I'd not so surreptitiously read the first story "Appleless" in the bookstore before I went ahead and bought it, and didn't like it too much. (More on that later) And the collection is divided into three parts, so I'm dividing my review into three parts, one for each section.

The first part did not get off to a good start, to say the least. The first story, a three-page story called "Appleless," is an exercise in mythical and literary cliche: the vaguely defined "we" as a narrator, the objectified beautiful blonde woman, and a story that is so blantantly obvious in its attempt to try and make you think. Oh, I thought about it all right. Now, some of the imagery and description of the story is great--the "loaves" of hair, the smell and taste of apples--but it's a story that just plain doesn't make sense, and not in a good way. I probably missed something, but I'm not looking to discuss this story in a class or a book club. Quite frankly, I think the story sucked, especially for a first story--isn't it supposed to be a good one that's supposed to be first? And the funny thing is, I think this was the first story by Bender that I actually came to dislike the more I read it. Whether it's about misogyny or raping the earth, it's old hat. The packaging doesn't fool me.

Next was "The Red Ribbon," which I found interesting at first. When a woman plays out her husband's prostitution fantasy, it changes the way she looks at everything, including their relationship. Her awkward inquiry about intimacy with an intrepid saleslady was funny and poignant in its own way, but the story falls into the failing marriage cliche of storytelling. By all accounts, I liked this one better than the first, and perhaps this subject doesn't interest me, but I found elements of the deja vu variety that just bores me to tears.

When I got to the third story, "Tiger Mending," I thought, "Now we're getting somewhere!" A story about a strangely gifted seamstress as narrated by her sister as they travel to Malaysia to see what the sister's job offer was about. The voices of the two sisters are so distinct, yet they play off each other quite well, and the scenes in which they're at the tiger mansion are bizarre and spooky. But then, the story just ends, and again, it doesn't make sense in a bad way. I'm sorry, but what? They do this to themselves? So then what the fuck's the point of even doing it? Tell her to just not do it, let them die! They are not fit! Let them die out, like the pandas (sorry panda lovers). So another disappointment in the end.

"Faces" conjured up more familiar themes and situations. In fact, the main character in this story, William, exhibited similarities to the brother in Lemon Cake: he's antisocial but still manages to get by in classroom and social situations. The story wasn't that bad, and I commend Bender on giving a protagonist with a disability pov a whirl, but I found so many logic fails. William has face blindness (thank you Arrested Development! Saw it coming the minute the doc took the photos out), which for some reason is called "facial illiteracy" in the story (wut?) and made me wonder if Bender knew if this was a real thing. Now labeling it with a name people don't use is one thing, but the fact that he gives all his "friends" aka the people he hands out with the same name? Um, their voices and clothes would be different, wouldn't they? And wouldn't they call each other by their names at some point? I suppose it's funnier/quirkier/more "profound" for him to just call them all the same name, but face blindness is a real thing. People who actually have this get by by differentiating people by other identifying markers, like voices. Sure, they may forget who's who from time to time (because apparently facial recognition is important for memory, at least as far as remembering people are concerned), but they'll figure it out! Eventually he'd have to call someone by their name.

"On a Saturday Afternoon" was yet another story that started off promising, but kind of didn't do it for me by the end. It started out as the strangely told story of a woman who has become jaded and tired with dating, but then one day she asks her two male friends to enact a fantasy--a sexual fantasy--for her. I found it strange that the friends are unnamed and reduced to merely "the blond one" or something like that, though it becomes apparent that she regrets goading them into doing something that was so objectifying and demeaning, in a way. And the sex scene--which was such a big part of the story--is so awkwardly written I sped read through it the first time.

So, I didn't have high hopes for the next ten stories as I finished this part. Little did I know that I would be pleasantly surprised...

Life After Life After Life

So much for the "Summer Reading Series". Apparently my summer got busier than I thought it would be, and the only book I had left unread lying around the house was Kate Atkinson's generally acclaimed new novel, Life After Life. The premise intrigued me, so I decided to pick it up some months back when it was actually new. While it's certainly a riveting story, there isn't a complete and satisfactory follow-through in the concept, and the story was almost too easy to read, lacking enough immersive prose replaced with exposition. (Atkinson is no Murakami, but come on)

This surprisingly breezy novel (considering it's over 500 pages) begins with the death of Ursula Todd, our protagonist. She dies almost half a dozen times in the first 100 pages of the novel, all before reaching the age of ten (except for the intriguing and gut-wrenching first chapter, strategically placed to pull you into the story). Her first few lives start out normal, but end tragically, and the next few, as she makes some unconsious changes in choice and circumstance, she slowly begins to improve her lot--and potentially those of the people she is close to.

But this isn't your usual reincarnation story: Ursula is born on the same date under (almost) the same circumstances in February of 1910, to the same family, living through both wars in most of her lives. She experiences a few horrors in some lives that she manages to avoid in others--but how she does avoid them is neither entirely clear nor consistent. Initially it is this intense, visceral fear that prevents her from making ultimately fatal decisions, and other times it's an unconscious enthusiasm to actively make a different choice than she had before--as if she wants to try something new.

The story is quite interesting and for the most part I was compelled to read further, if only to get to the point where she (spoiler alert) attempts to kill Hitler. The complex characterizations, and the funny way the other characters tend to stay the same no matter how radically their choices differ--and even Ursula, at her core, remains the same--are major virtues in this work. And while I'm no expert, and surely there are anachronisms, Atkinson portrays the particular era that Ursula lives--from the prewar 1910s to the London Blitz--with intricate realism that allows me to be there, not seeing it through a distorted black and white lens.

However, the development and execution of the concept fell short of expectations--of course, it's not that we need answers to everything. There are hints peppered throughout the novel that others experience this sort of recurring lives as well, and we don't need to know if there's a "set" number of lives or if it goes on forever... It was more in the lack of consistency in Ursula's apparent awareness of the phenomenon. At first it seems like she is becoming more aware of her deja vu, but then the oddly standout section "End of the Beginning," where past, present, and future blend together, she seems more confused in general than anything. Not to mention that killing Hitler, even if the fact that it may not alter history all that much, is kind of a cliche at this point--mind you, Atkinson handles this bit quite well. And there didn't seem to be enough moments where she was "aware;" I wanted this to be weirder than it turned out to be.

In the end, Life After Life is a story about a particular woman living in a particular era, and her active explorations in this cross-section of time and space as she tries to "get it right." It's as decent a read as they come...but perhaps not for the summer. Save it for when the weather is colder--this does take place in England, after all. 3.5 stars out of five.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha ain't so funny

Roddy Doyle's Booker prize-winning novel isn't your typical novel, even among the literary types in which Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha fits so well. There's no real overarching plot tying all the episodic occurrences together, rather, a thin thread of feeling and a sense of security that changes over time--a length of time that is imprecise and imperceptible, as we are given only a vague sense of the order of events that occur in the novel. It is also all told from a 10-year-old boy's perspective, who learns a lot but still is very ignorant about much of the world. This structure may be off-putting to a lot of people, but if you take your time with this subtly pensive tale, you may find the story absorbing and enjoyable.

The story takes place in 1968 Barrytown, Ireland, a very specific time and a very specific place, but Doyle presents the context--even in the eyes of a ten-year-old boy--quite adeptly, so one gets a fairly accurate impression of the setting, and even the prevailing attitudes of the time. The titular protagonist gets into fights, picks on his little brother, participates in gross and masochistic dares, steals from certain shops, and looks down upon the boys who live in the newly constructed corporation housing. Like all his friends do. But slowly, over the course of the novel, the boy changes, and no longer fits in with his boorish peers. Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, his parents' fights come to a breaking point and his father leaves the household for good, and he is drawn to one of the more aloof Corporation boys, Charles Leavy. The change is not much, but profound.

The story is strongest with its authenticity in detail and in Irish manners of speech, transporting to you to this very distinct setting. Roddy Doyle is nothing if not authentically Irish. That said, you'll need to put your context clue sleuthing skills to the test at times if you're not familiar with a lot of Irish-isms, or else have Google handy.

The structure of the novel is a major weak point, however, as each (mostly short) section is individually compelling, and not so much builds up a collectively compelling read. Though the book is under 300 pages, it took me longer than usual for a book of its length to read, largely because I wasn't dying to read more, only reading a few sections in a sitting and satisfied with that. It could be a purposeful device, allowing for deeper ponderation and a more true-to-life look at Irish boyhood, but a few sections likely could have been cut out without impacting the overall story very much. But to each their own.

In sum, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is an engaging, sometimes funny, and occasionally shocking portrait of one Irish boy's life at the age of ten. 3.5 stars out of 5.

Recurring Themes and More of the Same

George Saunders released a new collection of short stories this year, Tenth of December. But that is not the collection I read this past week or so. Instead, it was his first collection, Civil War Land in Bad Decline. I had read the title story back when I was an undergrad, loved it, and had been meaning to pick up the entire collection for some time. Meanwhile, I had read The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil at some point, which was a very quick read and I don't have the faintest memory of what it was about. This collection left a similar impression on me: breezy, funny, smart at times, but a bit behind the times. (Yes, even in the '90s...hell, especially in the '90s)

Civil War Land in Bad Decline is a collection of six satirical short stories and one novella, "Bounty." Each story is narrated in the first person, relating a skewed, disparate point of view in the face of the mounting madness. The heart of the conflict in most of these stories lies in the workplace, mainly between a disgruntled, inept employee and the boss. The title story outlines the quick decline of a historical theme park and the increasingly desperate attempts on the narrator's part to put things right. In "The 400-Pound CEO," the titular character works at an inhumane "humane" raccoon control business, and finds himself in hot water when he accidentally kills his abusive boss. "Bounty" starts out in a similar vein, but broadens into a dystopic satire featuring the ugly and the misfits.


The first writer that comes to mind in terms of influences is Kurt Vonnegut, who also wrote futuristic, satirical stories and outlandish characters and situations with quick-clipped pacing. This was his first collection, and that is allegedly the collection where an author's influences are most likely to show, but sometimes it seemed like he was trying to be like Kurt Vonnegut. Like Vonnegut, Saunders hardly takes part in the literary trappings of detailed description and rumination, which creates a fuzzy, liquid world in which the characters float--perhaps fitting, because the characters are downright cartoonish at times. This is most detrimental in his more futuristic stories, such as the novella "Bounty," which is  one of the better stories in the collection, handing over an almost O. Henry-esque ending. There's nothing wrong with the reader's imagination filling the blanks, and one almost inevitably envisions a penciled watercolor landscape and exaggerated silhouettes. If that's the effect Saunders wanted, and I just think it might be, then good on him.

Saunders' satire remains to be right on the money. Even though the vision of virtual reality depicted in "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz" is very much the '90s-inspired heavy-headset kind, the idea that we may live within our own virtual fantasies is not far off from becoming reality (thanks, Google Glass). And all his commentary on the growing specter of corporate power and influence remain as salient as ever. But his heroes all seem to be relics of Vonnegut's era, with even less gumption: bumbling, disfigured, or nerdy men--though one story features a female protagonist--and most of them meet grim endings. With this comes rather old-fashioned ideas about women and people of color--if they are mentioned at all. I kept forgetting that these stories were supposed to take place in the future.

The stories were very similar in other ways. Each story features an odd workplace--theme parks appear no less than three times--and the protagonist is struggling to make ends meet and kiss up to the boss. Not all stories wound up being about the same thing--the main standout story is "Isabelle," about human kindness and compassion that rises out of chaos and ruin, and is almost kind of sweet in the end. But the themes can get tired--I mean, there are ghosts in two of them. Two!

This is not to say that Saunders isn't a skillful writer. The fast pacing of the stories are easily digestible in short periods of time, and rather expertly constructed in terms of thematic and satirical content. They are also quite enjoyable to read, and not painful exercises in 20th century bombast and bigotry. But I have seen it all before, and done better. Saunders may be different from the other literary stars of the last couple of decades, but he is nothing new. Three stars out of five. Oppression score: 4, as he does root for the little guy.

Karen Russell is different, but not too different

I have read Karen Russell before--and found her to be a good writer, generally, but in the end Swamplandia! was not what I had expected--in a bad way. Her second collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, shows off her literary prowess and the depth of her imagination, but she still sticks to a rather traditional formula. Even if she does mix that of the literary short story and that of fantasy/horror. 

While the reviewer on NPR rained praise upon Lemon Grove, even calling it "completely original," I have to disagree on this point. Not to knock this individual, but he is obviously not very well-read--at least in the mix-it-up literary genre of magic realism and suspense. Various stories reminded me of some by Joyce Carol Oates, Haruki Murakami, and some Stephen King, and others, and apparently one of her stories bears similarities to Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man." Again, nothing is ever completely original. You just invite this kind of criticism when you say something's completely original.

Most of the stories of this collection are a worthwhile read, even if a lot of them get a bit draggy because Russell wanted to show off all the research she did on these stories--and considering that this collection takes us to Meiji Era Japan, mid-19th century United States, and the Antarctic Circle, among other unexpected places, she obviously did some. I commend Russell for writing such a wide range of characters and settings, as in each story they felt vivid and real to my mind's eye. The title story is definitely the strongest in the collection, but I also liked "Proving Up", and the final two stories in the collection a lot--even if they were, as I've mentioned, a bit meandering and pensive. The "Barn at the End of Our Term" is arguably the most creative and brisk story in the collection: mysterious, absurd, and a bit profound--which all of the best stories in this collection seem to have in common.

The weakest story was, by far, "Antarctic Tailgating." The entire story was built upon a gimmicky, nonsensical premise, and I couldn't get past the illogistics of it to glean any sort of significant message from the story. "Reeling For the Empire" is quite good, too, even if the visual of the women working there is unclear--as well as their fates. Finally, "Seagulls," for its clever concept and excellent thematic explorations, falls flat with the most stereotypical teenage obsession of sex and losing virginity--just about everything else in the story was very well-done.

Overall, I do not regret purchasing this collection, and will certainly read some of these stories again in the future. I admire Karen Russell's skill and imagination, but she is hardly a trailblazer in the realm of the literary weird. Worth it if you like something a little bit different, but not too diferent.

I rate the book overall a 3.5. out of 5 stars. And though the collection displayed few instances of oppression and stereotyping, I am disappointed that only two of the stories featured female protagonists--a nitpicky comment, I know. At least in one story it was a horse.

Corn Maidens and Demon Brothers

Joyce Carol Oates is, at the very least, an unsettling writer. I haven't read a lot of her work, but the one novel of hers that I have read, Zombie, made my skin crawl all throughout. This more recent collection of hers maintains that vein of creepiness that seems to have become her trademark. That she is revered in literary circles and not relegated to the genre ghetto is almost incredible. In her stories, though, the idea of supernatural forces influencing the characters is suggestive at best, or nonexistent. The horrors that Oates covers in this collection are entirely the result of the human mind and the society that has failed it.

The title story is unquestionably my favorite, though it is more accurately a novella than a short story. In this tale, a blonde girl is kidnapped by a sociopathic teenager who plants false evidence to implicate the school's computer consultant in her disappearance. While the missing girl's mother frets with worry and regret, the teacher bubbles with anger and resentment, the girl is drugged and kept hidden in a room in the sociopath's mansion, and prepared for a ritual inspired by Native American "corn maiden" tales, twisted in the sociopath's mind. We get a full picture of this story that the characters each grasp only a fragment of, seeing the points of view of all directly involved. Judith's is obviously the most twisted perspective, with her scenes narrated in a manic cadence. And though the mother and teacher's victimization and frustration are understandable and sympathetic, Oates lays bare the very real effects of rumor and prejudices that permeate not only the evening news, but the actors involved. Though the circumstances of the girl's disappearance are highly unusual, Oates presents the harrowing event in a realistic and haunting manner.

Oates' status as a literary writer is quite obvious in the way she richly evokes scenes, weaving into them the characters' emotional state and point of view, following the classic "show don't tell" rule of writing. The final story, "A Hole in the Head," serves as a perfect example, richly detailing the hastened but thorough process of covering up an accidental murder. "Beersheba" also does this quite well, as Oates slowly reveals the details and backstory as we follow the protagonist through his (likely) last day alive. No matter how harrowing or horrifying the experience, we can clearly envision these scenes as if we were there. Oates' stories also debunk the myth that another writing adage, "write what you know," means that you should only write about what you have personally experienced. Because surely Oates has not murdered or kidnapped anyone. With the right amount of research, you can write about anything.

"Unsettling" is a flexible term. In "Nobody Knows My Name," a story with suggested supernatural elements, a large cat kills the protagonist's baby sibling, almost in response to her hatred and jealousy. Supernatural forces are the only explanation that I can think of to explain this bizarre occurrence, because it's just so strange. In a way, though, it doesn't matter how the baby died, for Jessica would have implicated herself in it. "Helping Hands" I also did not enjoy so much, bringing in an out-of-left-field ending. In this story, a recently widowed woman reaches out to an employee and war vet of the titular charity/thrift store. Perhaps she was so stricken with grief that she could not see the "signs,' and perhaps sometimes people whom you'd expect to  be shady are shady, but I thought things escalated much too quickly, in any case.

The other two stories in the collection were very similar, and less nightmarish than the rest. Both involve twin brothers: one handsome and successful yet sleazy, and the other less successful and well-liked, but intelligent and kind. Over the years, the brothers become estranged, but in the end, they reconcile with each other somehow. And yet they are not the same story: the first, "Fossil Figures," the weaker brother was born with birth defects, spending his life as an artistic recluse, and the stronger brother is ashamed of him. However, when the stronger brother falls from grace, he moves back home with his weaker brother and they grow old and die together. It's kind of sweet, really. In "Death Cup", the successful brother is a cad and a con, while the other is merely an introvert. This story is told from the introverted brother's point of view, and we can understand how much he despises his brother, and how much he believes his brother despises him. When the caddish brother returns to the family estate in the wake of their uncle's death, the introverted brother finds himself incapable of killing him, as much as he fantasizes about his death--always the better man even against this will. But, riding together in their uncle's Rolls Royce, just in time to be killed in a car accident, he finds that perhaps there is something to be said of his brother's life after all.

Though not all these tales are nightmares per se (see above), each story stands to shock or creep you out in some way, and you might find yourself sympathizing with characters you may not have sympathized with otherwise. These tales are authentic Oates tales, stories that could only have come from her enigmatic mind, so any fan of hers is strongly recommended to read  this collection. My rating: four out of five stars.

Grapes of Wrath: Greatest American Novel...until the End

Along with my newfound Doctor Who obsession, I have also been taking my sweet time reading John Steinbeck's greatest novel, The Grapes of Wrath, which also may be the greatest American novel to date. I should have read it ages ago, and as I got started with it, I came to agree with the critics who so highly praised this book...

...until it got to the ending.

The Grapes of Wrath, though it takes place during the worst of the Great Depression, where things were much worse, as a greater proportion of the population was starving or near-starving--still resonates strongly with today's circumstances. The novel, aside from several intermittent chapters that examine the times holistically, follows the Joad family as they reunite (when Tom returns home from jail) only to slowly be torn apart as they travel to California in search of work. Each character has their own epiphany, with only Tom, Rose of Sharon, and their parents holding onto what little hope they have left in the end.

Steinbeck's interludes were poetic and resonant, touching on themes and changes that were both specific to the time and universal: the development of technology, the displacement of poor farmers, the economic disparity, big business' takeover and pushing over of the little guy, the struggle to find work and financial stability. The story could have easily been a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel had it been any other setting, with the struggling masses, selfish masters, and rare little pockets of freedom. The characters speak in thick accented Midwestern English, put it doesn't make them seem ignorant; they're just expressing their feelings and thoughts in their own way. Sometimes what they say is even profound, characteristically and thematically.

And each character goes through his or her own transformation over the course of the novel. Tom, previously ignorant of the rampant injustice, realizes that he can't take all of this lying down, and leaves the family to fight on for equality and justice. Noah would prefer to live alone in the wilderness. Al realizes he would rather have a career as an auto mechanic than work on farms all of his life. This novel was crafted to perfection--or as perfect as Steinbeck could make a novel.

Some things are obviously dated, however: throughout the novel (moreso in the beginning), objects are often referred to as "she" rather than "it," a very sexist pronoun assignment, and several times the characters try to run over animals ON PURPOSE while they're driving their car--an idea that is completely abhorrent and that I had never even dreamed of before. Then, there is a scene from their time in the government camp in which Al rapes a girl he's met in secret--but of course is not characterized as such, and Al is supposed to be a sympathetic character.

Now, I could largely forgive the characters' lack of respect for animal and women's rights, due to the date of the text and the ignorance and struggle of these impoverished characters, and the prose, characterization, and thematic resonance are so amazingly done. But when I got to the final pages of the novel, when the handful of Joads left abandon their makeshift boxcar home to the floods and take shelter in a barn, I was left scratching my head. In the barn, there is a young boy and a starving man who is near death. Then Rosaharn, clothes soaking wet, snuggles up next to the dying man naked as if to comfort him, then looks upwards with a "mysterious smile" on her face.

Seriously. That's how it ends.

I can't figure whether to interpret the ending as good or bad. Is it good because they will still be kind to those who are even less fortunate than they are? Or is it bad because Rosaharn is acting like a slut, a "comfort woman"? Or bad because they're all just gonna starve anyway, and she's smiling because she's insane from illness? I suppose it's whatever you interpret it to be, but it seemed to be out-of-place with all the other thematically resonant scenes in the novel, and the ending is one that makes an impression.*

Still, this novel is one of America's finest. Our writers don't always make sense. 4 out of 5 stars. Oppression score: 4 (though I think most of it would be obvious to 21st-century readers, anyway). Highly recommended to people who would like to write politically-charged, controversial, or other works featuring people who speak a different dialect.

*Okay, so I did some cheatish research, and it turns out to be a reference of to the painting Roman Charity, where a woman breastfeeds her ailing father back to health. So it is, more likely, kindness that she is expressing. Excuse me for growing up so grossly uncultured. Still, it's an odd scene--even after knowing the reference.

Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House": Not as Haunting as You'd Think

Just in time for Halloween, (even if this post is a bit late) I finally finished Shirley Jackson's ghost story The Haunting of Hill House, a critically acclaimed horror novel and said by Stephen King to be one of he best of the 20th century.

Obviously, I missed something.

The novel starts out beautifully, with an amazing opening paragraph that sets up a spooky supernatural force that the characters--Dr. Montague, who engineered the experiment; Luke, the future heir of Hill House; Theodora, a lively artist, and Eleanor--will encounter. But early on the story shifts focus on Eleanor, the lonely, socially awkward young woman, which the House ultimately possesses, and spends a lot of time on her inner thoughts and feelings. These feelings are the equivalent of an insecure sixteen-year-old girl's, but portrayed in a painfully realistic manner. Psychologically, I can understand why Eleanor becomes attached to Hill House and the people in it--and the feelings that make her vulnerable to the spirits within it--but it did not scare me, or hardly even creep me out. Too much time is spent on setting this up, and even once the House starts singling Eleanor out I am not that afraid for her.

Perhaps my generation is desensitized to tales of terror, as we have decades of scary movies and Stephen King novels to have scared us out of our skins, and what was scary to people in the 1950s is probably not the same as what is scary now. Natural disasters? Scary. Mysterious diseases? Scary. Human enslavement and/or oblivion? Scary, but not in a horror-movie way. Stalkers? Scary. Being possessed by spirits? Not so much to godless heathens such as myself. Eleanor barely had a mind of her own to begin with, so there's not much fear of mind-control latent in the story, either.

I suppose that if I were in their situation, I would be scared, too, but I'm not, and in spite of the beautiful prose, it just didn't terrify me in the way it should have. That, then perhaps, is a real flaw, for though I found the characters engaging and interesting--especially Eleanor, as she was much more acutely aware of what was going on than the others--I couldn't identify with them enough to feel their fear. Was I just not reading properly? Did it just take too long to get to that point? Or, perhaps, I just found the "haunting" to be thoroughly below my expectations of acclaimed horror/terror.

The story left me with a lot of questions, for sure. Couldn't Mr. Montague see that she was in fact possessed and not merely being silly? And the spirits made her crash her car so she couldn't leave? What would even be the point of possessing anyone, let alone the most vulnerable of the bunch, in the first place?

I also understand that, like in her over-anthologized short story "The Lottery," the fact that it isn't explained makes the phenomenon that much scarier, but it frustrated me more than anything. Pretty much all that happens in the "haunting," is doors and windows closing on their own, writing written in blood (?) on the wall, unknown beings banging on doors, and Eleanor getting some weird ideas in her mind. Not that ghosts would be able to outright murder anybody, anyway, but I guess it just wasn't that scary to me.

I was so not into the story that it took me almost a month to read 250 pages of the book. For perspective, it took me about that long to read (albeit rushed) Infinite Jest, which is like 4 times as long. Perhaps it's because I'm just not that into the horror genre, especially when it comes to supernatural occurrences. The story really would have been more interesting if Eleanor and Theodora were secret lesbian lovers--which, in my opinion, was heavily implied in parts of the book--and the House was uber-conservative and didn't like that at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure the spinster sister who used to own Hill House took in that girl as a lover, as well.

So, it's an okay book, just not if you're looking for a scare. 2.5 stars out of 5.

A Brave Old World, Indeed

It's been a long time coming, and I have finally read Aldous Huxley's best-known novel, Brave New World. Seriously, can anyone else name another book of his they've heard of, let alone read? As a fan of dystopian and other socially relevant speculative fiction, I had to read this, a classic of the genre. While some of the glaring anachronisms (to the modern mind) are at once funny and frustrating, I did my best to set them aside and evaluate the book in-context. But even with that in mind, I found the book to be less of a novel and more of a weakly woven parody.

The novel opens with a tour of a "hatchery and conditioning center," where children are carefully manufactured and raised to fulfill their duties as defined by their assigned caste. Even though they have time to play (the type of play most often alluded to being "erotic play"), childhood in this world looks like a real drag. And immediately we know that this is going to be a very dry, detached novel. Usually these sorts of novels start out by presenting the protagonist at some point during his daily routine in this weird world. Instead, we get a boatload of exposition. Kudos to not following the formula I guess?

There are several main characters, as well. We meet Lenina first (bet you didn't get that reference right off the bat), a seemingly conventional hatchery worker. Then a bit later we see the world from Bernard Marx's perspective, an Alpha-Plus whose short stature makes him an outcast, and a very bitter one, at that. His only friend is Helmholtz, a lecturer at the university, and who apparently has too much of a good thing going on. All three of these characters become inextricably linked when Lenina, who apparently has a greater proclivity toward monogamy than her peers as well as an attraction to odd men, goes on a trip to a savage reservation with Bernard. While there, they meet a pair of white people living amongst the so-called "squalor": a woman named Linda, who looks way older than your typical 44-year-old would look even then, probably, and her son, John. That last guy is the third main character.

Linda apparently had become separated from the hatchery director while on holiday there, and she was pregnant with their son--an obscenity and an abomination in this civilization. Both of them are outcasts in the reservation, so when Bernard offers John the chance to go back to England with them, he eagerly accepts. However, things aren't so great when they return. Everyone is horrified by Linda's haggard appearance, so she spends the rest of her life on soma (the happiness drug with no side effects--unless you take too much for too long). And John, last name Savage, doesn't find the "Other Place" to be quite as nice as he'd imagined. The infinite sets of twins freaks him out, the promiscuity repulses him, and so does the indulging of "pleasant vices." The only people he can talk to are Bernard and Helmholtz--but since Bernard is petty, John connects more with Helmholtz, who is slightly more thoughtful and understanding. Lenina and John share a mutual attraction to one another, but as she abhors marriage and he, extramarital sex, John drives her away.

After the death of his mother, John incites a riot amongst the hospital workers when he discards their soma ration, and the three men are taken away and dealt with. Bernard and Helmholtz are sent away to an island somewhere, and John is encouraged to stay. However, John wants to be alone (something that civilians are conditioned against doing), and goes to hide in an abandoned lighthouse. However, because he decided to stay in Britain and not, like, go far far away like he should have, he is discovered, and people start flocking to the lighthouse to gawk at him. After a secret "feely" (movies that engage all the senses) is made about him, even more people come, and John is pushed over the edge when Lenina shows up. Enraged, he starts beating her, and the other people beat each other. In the end, he hangs himself.

To give Huxley credit, it's not like all the women are perfectly fine with this society: Lenina does fall in love with John, which other women seem mystified by. However, as it is shown with Lenina and Linda, apparently promiscuity is hard to shake, and perhaps John's undue repulsion at Lenina's advances are a result of his own social conditioning, having seen his mother sleep with a lot of men--and suffer for it. And so of course it is only the men who can defy society. This aspect of the book was a large portion of the outrage expressed when it was first published--and these people obviously missed the point. Sex was one of the distractions to make the people happy and keep them from thinking too much, and monogamy meant committing oneself to a single person--and that could bring all sorts of problems. After all, "everyone belongs to everyone else". And not more to a single person than another person.

I suppose that the blatant references to Soviet leaders, the confusion between Henry Ford and Sigmund Freud, the irony of an American Indian reservation being more civilized than civilization, and the obvious choice of Shakespeare were deliberately satirical--I certainly thought it was funny. (actually the Indian thing wasn't funny--that part's racist). But overall I didn't find the tone very satirical--ridiculous, yes, but not very funny at all. This was in part due to the fact that several chapters are devoted to a few characters merely spouting talking points at each other. In all of chapter 17, the Western Europe controller and John Savage are engaging in a debate about God and unhappiness. And since Bernard and Helmholtz just get sent to an island, the stakes were nonexistent here. Sure, John kills himself, but it was sort of his fault because he stayed in England instead of going to a place where he would be FAR FAR AWAY from people. Yes, this place is horrible because it takes away people's choices, stamps out any capacity for rational thought in the majority of the population, and demonizes nature and biology (making it way more difficult for outcasts to function in society), but, to paraphrase Mustapha Mond, what would there be to gain if they changed now? It's already too late. Everybody's happy, even the Alphas who step out of line. There is no danger.

Perhaps Huxley meant it as more of a cautionary tale, to show the world we could end up living in. Advances in genetic engineering have brought about speculation of "designer babies" becoming our future--though under the free market it would be the rich with perfected genetics and not the lower classes--and thanks to the Internet, we have more ways to distract ourselves than ever. People do have sex more often, and with more sexual partners--however, it's the ignorance of sexuality and slut-shaming that are more pressing problems regarding this topic, not promiscuity itself. More people are also less religious--but as long as they're not worshiping the almighty dollar or a political leader instead, I don't think this is a problem, either. Manipulation of the masses, however, is a problem, and I'll give Huxley credit for that one.

The novel is about as shallow as the world it depicts. Huxley has spent too much time imagining the world, and articulating what is wrong with it, rather than developing the characters struggling in this world. Thus breaking one of the golden rules of writing: show, don't tell. The book was interesting, but I couldn't be moved very much. I finished the book, but I wasn't invested in the characters or the story--though I guess shallow characters make a shallow story. The unhappiest person was John, and of course he would be unhappy, he didn't belong there!

Perhaps, though, that isn't the point. When people talk about this book they talk about the world that Huxley created, not the characters within it. And it has made me think about how happiness can never be guaranteed for everyone all the time, and a guaranteed happiness saps humanity of freedom and meaning (among other musings). A perfect world is impossible. Huxley gets points for thoughtfulness, even with a shallow story.

3 stars out of 5.

Ellen Foster is Pretty Good

A few weeks ago I read a short novel that I had never heard of before, Ellen Foster. It made Oprah's Book club, apparently. The book also won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction in 1987, among other selections so it's passed the literary worthiness test with flying colors. And after reading it, I can see why it did win.

The story takes place in the South during an unspecified time, though one can infer that it takes place probably in the 1970s, as the 1960s are briefly referred to as occurring in the past. The story is told by an eleven-year-old girl who has just recently found a new home after spending the year after her mother's death searching for a new one. She, and her mother, suffered abuse from an alcoholic father, and the spite of her mother's family. While she deals with her mother's death and her father's wrath, she becomes close to a black girl, Starletta, and lives in several different family homes before finally settling in with her "new mama."

The basic premise is one we have seen before: abusive white-trash family, white girl learns to like "colored" people, finds new home. However, Ellen's young yet wise voice gives new insight into this common southern story, and flows in a nonlinear, stream-of-consciousness fashion. No quotation marks separate the dialogue from the narration, and grammatical mistakes left in, making the story all the more Ellen's own. The story hooks you in with the first line, as many good stories do, and considering the idiosyncratic voice, it works better as a short novel. Of course, the initial racism and prejudice against "colored people" on Ellen's part peeved me off at first, but as she is a poor southern white girl it's understandable that she was socialized that way. What wasn't explained, though, was her father's association with rowdy black men when he was racist himself--gambling buddies?

The structure of the narrative was also confusing at times--there were some points where I had to go back and reread the section because there was an abrupt change of scene without even a line break to indicate the scene change. And the lack of quotation marks is unusual, so it can be a bit hard to follow in that sense, too. But people used to reading fiction as challenging as William Faulkner's should be able to read this book just fine.With its thematic exploration of racial identity, class, and abuse, Ellen Foster fits quite well in the Southern literary canon.

In spite of my initial reservations, I found Ellen Foster to be an endearing character and an enjoyable, quick read. I'll give it 4 out of 5 stars.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I recently took up a new writing project (shh, it's a secret--at least as long as I'm still working on a first draft). Let's just say it deals with a certain (and only somewhat improbable--call it a "what-if") post-apocalyptic scenario. To help me along with this, I wanted to read some stories relating to this concept. One was The Road, a Pulitzer Prize-winning apocalyptic novel (and apparent Oprah's Book Club selection), where the future of not just civilization but life in general is bleak.

The Road follows a man and his son as they wander their way south, where they'd more easily survive the winter. It's unclear how long they have been on this journey, nor how old the boy and his father are. While the circumstances of what brought the world into a state of worthlessness remain unexplained (ash covers everything, all plants and animals are dead), it is clear that the chances of survival at this point are slim, with no natural plants coming forth and the canned/preserved goods slim pickings. Their journey is grimmer at some times (such as when they find a charred baby) and less grim at others (such as when they find the untouched underground bunker). While the story ends on a somewhat hopeful note, it is more for the world itself to be able to begin anew, not so much for mankind's survival.

The Road, much like many other post-apocalyptic novels, paints a grim picture of humanity's longevity. At this point it's pretty much every man for himself, and the man gets into a few skirmishes while on the journey. The man speaks of "the good guys" and "bad guys," though he's immediately suspicious of any sign of people. Everything is covered in ash, alluding to a possible nuclear Armageddon or perhaps the eruption of the supervolcano in Yellowstone Park. Of course, it matters not how the world came to be this way--least of all to the survivors who cling desperately on to life. The Road is more of a story of a man and his boy, facing the absolute bleakest circumstances, and the struggle to endure in the face of hopelessness. The imagery mirrors this attitude, with everything being totally gray and colorless, and buildings in various states of disrepair, the man and son disheveled and starved. In a way, it's hard to believe that anyone survived this long, given the cold and rain and lack of food and fire. Many of the scenes are powerful and at times even moving, and you definitely feel sorry for the boy, who will never know the colorful, vibrant world his father knew. I wouldn't say it made me cry, but it filled me with sadness and doubt about the purpose of our own existence. (Let me tell ya, this is not a feel-good read)

One thing that got me, though, was the representation of women--the few glimpses we get of the man's wife were among the powerful moments (the scene where she tries to convince him to join her in committing suicide is wrenching)--but the few women they come across are often described as pregnant. While this is not entirely out of the realm of possibility, what with a lack of access to birth control, boredom, and likely horny/rapacious men--the man and boy were starving. And one group of people ate (or tried to eat) a baby. So I'm guessing the other people they hide from as they pass are also starving. And something happens to women when they're starving, and the medical term is amenorrhea: they stop having their periods since their bodies are smart enough to know when they can't support a fetus. Now, I don't know if all women who are starving get this condition (and certainly not how starved you have to be to stop getting your period), but it happens, and it's not unreasonable. It's also likely that even if these women could get pregnant, few babies would actually be born, since due to a lack of adequate nutrition for even one being, most would probably miscarry early on. So, yeah, while women would more likely to be abused by men in this situation--especially the "bad guys" (which the man uses as code for cannibals)--would they actually be able to bear children? Definitely not healthy ones, if any at all. But would I think a male writer like Cormac McCarthy concerned himself with details like this? Nope. *rant over*

While the world was so cold and lifeless I had trouble believing that people would be able to last even this long, it is a powerful story of compassion and the persistence of the survival instinct. It is up to the reader to wonder whether or not humanity's survival will endure, and whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. It's a novel that makes you think, even if most of it is not so happy. 4 out of 5 stars.

Lydia Davis is Awesome

As a writer, anyway. I haven't met her in person, so maybe she's not super-awesome. After reading that lug 1Q84 I definitely wanted to follow up with some lighter reading, but with my copies of the Hunger Games trilogy back at my parents' house, and a collection of Lydia Davis short stories on my shelf, I decided to read me some short stories. And a lot of them were short: like, really short. Like, one sentence. So I couldn't really quote them in case I get chased down for reprinting without permission. At least in this  particular collection, Varieties of Disturbance.

Aw, fuck it. Here's one of her miniscule gems in its entirety:"Collaboration With a Fly"

"I put that word on the page,
but he added the apostrophe."

The collection contains 57 stories, most of them really, really short. The topics range from the ritual of TV watching, explaining sex to children, caterpillars, babies, and the relationships between friends. Sure, sounds banal, but the stories aren't your typical stories: most of the characters are not named, their focus is somewhat single-minded (on the topic at hand), and there is hardly any scene or dialogue (if any, just one).  Some, like the one above, even have line breaks, like poems. Davis certainly blends the two in cool ways: and not just as punchlines.

Some of them go on for several pages, though, resembling more typical stories, though not quite. "We Miss You" is a lengthy "analysis" of letters written in a fourth-grade class sometime in the fifties or sixties, written to a classmate who was in the hospital. The narrator picks apart these grammar-school exercises in formal writing quite thoroughly, noting the specific phrases and instances of complex sentence structure in each of the letters. Another story, which is much longer, "Helen and Vi," is a report of three women who have lived to be quite old--and the third, Hope, who defies the conventional notions of what it takes to stay healthy and live long, is mentioned peripherally.

Some of the stories are so abstract, terse, and just plain short, I question whether Davis even edited some of these stories, and just submitted them after jotting them down thanks to some inspired train of thought. It certainly puts the idea that writers are supposed to slave and suffer over their drafts into question: sure, you can agonize over perfecting a single sentence, but how much agonizing can you do when that's all the story is? Of course, I don't really know if Davis slaved over her writing or not.

The shortness of many of her short stories/prose-poems also enable re-readability: something that busy poeple such as myself do not really have time to waste with. This increased my enjoyment of the stories as I could easily read them again. And on some occasions, I dwelled on a story for much longer than the time it took for me to read it. Whether the short ones are hit-or-miss, they certainly require thinking about the relationship of the title to the sentence, which is not always apparent.

Lydia Davis's style is reminiscent of David Foster Wallace, with clever and absurd turns of phrase accompanying the ennui and hopelessness of everyday life, in addition to reality-bending realism. However, Davis is much more abstract and much less concerned about details than Wallace was; in fact, a lot of her stories are quite anti-Wallace, the prose vague and bare and conceptual (rather than meticulously detailed and concrete); thus her stories average only a few pages, while Wallace's go into the double digits. Her stories address storytelling and other meta-narratives in much a similar manner, in much less space; so it made me think why I had never heard of her before? Is it because she writes fiction/prose-poetry and not essays too? Because she wasn't in journalism? Because she's a woman? Of course, Wallace is still one of my favorite authors, but I think Lydia deserves some love too.

The short, terse style of Lydia Davis's stories are the real future of American short fiction, which is currently oversaturated with tedious depictions of everyday life for a specific (often based on a real person) character as they go through a change (usually aging or death). Writers: you've learned what the rules are; if you want to know how to shatter them completely, Lydia Davis is a must-read writer for you.*

A rare 5 out of 5 stars for this one. (Not perfect, but I'm grading on a curve here)

*I am basing this after reading just one collection, so I could be incorrect in saying that Lydia Davis eats nails instead of bran for breakfast, if you know what I mean.

1Q84

Slowly but surely, after a month of steady reading, I finished Haruki Murakami's  giant turtle of a novel. It's actually an amazing read--something that I've often found in a lot of long novels, oddly enough. Though the plot swells slowly with every progressive chapter, each page is rich with sensory details and intrigue that pulls me in further to the world with Tengo and Aomame, our two protagonists.

The basic plot of the novel follows the experiences of our protagonists as they enter this alternate version of 1984, and how their journey through this world (dubbed the title by Aomame) brings these two together. Both are drawn into the world unwittingly, and learn of the apparent secrets that few ever come to know: magical "Little People" that are neither good nor evil, two moons hang in the sky, and people who aren't real. It's difficult to explain the intricacies without giving too much away (admittedly, learning as you go along is a part of the fun--and let's face it, a 900+ page novel does not have much re-readability to begin with) but gradually we're drawn from the real world and into this strange magical one--but it's hardly a happy place. Tones of authoritarianism permeate the religion of the Little People, and Tengo and Aomame's most deeply held secrets are found out by complete strangers. People die horribly.

The greatest thing about 1Q84 is how the prose pulls you in so deep you end each chapter gasping for breath. Murakami presents a story so rich in detail, the long slog is more of a scenic route, as with every page we uncover an enticing bit of information about a character or how 1Q84 works as its own world. Each character conceals a fascinating history, full of "aha!" moments where the reader can make connections between the two storylines. The primary challenge of a long novel is keeping the reader interested, and Murakami has no problem with that.

But we don't learn all the answers to all the questions that arise as a result of our visit to this world. This doesn't bother me too much, however. It's fitting that we pretty much know only what Tengo and Aomame know. In fact, the novel ends with the possibility of a sequel, leaving enough unexplored material for another installment. While the point of conclusion may have been somewhat arbitrary (it wouldn't be 1Q84 forever) the novel's long enough that Murakami could have simply decided to stop there. And the ending, while it was great that Aomame and Tengo could finally be together, felt underwhelming. Fo so long we were teased that something major was going to happen--and while Tengo and Aomame finally meeting and escaping from 1Q84 was pretty major, I was expecting something a little more... bombastic? Like the ending of Janacek's "Sinfonietta," which is referenced frequently throughout the novel. Kind of like how in Revolutionary Girl Utena they keep on talking about an impending revolution, but it never happens (though the climax is quite exciting, if confusing because that anime is just one big allegory).  So it really just led to the couple meeting? That's what disappointed me the most.

A few other little things bothered me throughout the novel, though they were quite minor. Well ok, the mystical pregnancy thing put me off at first (and this is why we need a sequel--does the kid have any special powers or what?); that's pretty major. Mainly Murakami's fixation with boobs (and the female body in general) definitely annoyed me; and it was always the women who were objectified--even Aomame, a straight lady, would comment on how nice another lady's boobs were. But it didn't surprise me. There was also a lot of repetition in the beginning--not just to how small or nice a lady characer's boobs were: Tengo's "older girlfriend",  the fact that Tamaru is gay, and Ushikawa is ugly, among other details repeated ad nauseum. This stops mostly in the third part, and I suppose it's helpful to remind readers of important facts in a long story when there's a lot to keep track of, but it was a bit too much. Oh, and the phrase "from the bottom of my heart" popped up in the last three chapters at least twice as many times, appearing nowhere before then (and I HATE HATE HATE that saying! Like, it doesn't even make any sense! If you care so much why do you keep it at the bottom???) though I'll chalk it up to translation goofs, since there's no way the original text literally translates to that super-cliche saying.

But overall, it's an enthralling story. The characters are infinitely interesting, the alternate world intriguing, the love story cute and squee-worthy, the details that tie these together fascinating to find. I would suggest lovers of literature that is immersive, suspenseful, and a little bit weird to take the time to read it--and go slowly. 1Q84 is a lovely place to wander. 4 stars out of 5.

(Not) The Best American Short Stories

Thanks to Jennifer Egan and George Saunders, I picked up a copy of last year's Best American Short Stories from the library to read. I've occasionally perused through the series' previous volumes to get a sense of who got published, and where they were published. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the selections come from the likes of The New Yorker, Tin House, and McSweeney's. Well la-di-da. I actually did try to read through an entire volume once, and I liked some of the stories, but I've forgotten all of them already. I think there was one about an old Jewish man, one with a married couple in Paris... or I could be mixing them up with some other collection. So yeah, they were good all right.

More like Best American Bedtime Stories!

So I don't know why I decided to read more than just two or three of the stories in here. I was setting myself up for disappointment. But Geraldine Brooks made them sound so good in the introduction! (though I guess that's the point). Most of them were well-written, and from an objective point of view I could appreciate them, but for the most part I found them either annoying or boring. I was this close to not even finishing the way-too-long "Bridge Under Water," which did sort of pay off at the end--but even that was a shallow satisfaction.  Many of the stories smacked of the artful literary pretension that pervades this sort of fiction, which I've already discussed before. What is the magic here that I'm not really seeing?

Granted, I did like some of them: namely, the ones that toyed with reality. "Phantoms," "The Sleep," and "ID" were my unequivocal favorites. I also didn't have that much negative thoughts on "Peter Torelli, Falling Apart:" that story was moving and engaging in all the right ways, and was at least a little bit different from the literary mainstream. There were only two Holocaust-related stories included this year: "Free Fruit for Young Widows" presented an interesting moral question regarding a man's murderous tendencies bred by captivity in concentration camps; the other story, "The Hare's Mask," was about rabbits or something (guess which one I liked more?). Jennifer Egan's story "Out of Body" presented NY teens in a realistic light, though I'm not sure if the "you" narrative was really the ticket; and this, like a lot of the other stories, gets big-picture at the end (and maybe someone dies?). You can't really get more cliche with a short story (or any story) than having somebody die. George Saunders' piece, "Escape from Spiderhead," starts off too silly and ends too sentimental; I liked "The Call of Blood," but didn't get it until I read the contributor blurb; I also liked "To the Measures Fall," but it's pretty pretentiously meta. "The Dungeon Master" and "Soldier of Fortune" reek of the melodrama of Oscar-winning films, even if the funny moments are redeemable. The rest were worthy of bedtime--they'll put you to sleep in minutes! I don't even want to waste my time going over them; the thought makes me want to nap.

Still, I think it was worth reading these stories; as always when reading as a writer, I've got to keep in mind what kind of stories I want to write--and if this hipster bullshit is not what I want to write, I got to know what it looks like so that I can stay the hell away from it... and if I catch myself writing like this, stop before I shoot myself.

Overall, then, I actually enjoyed slightly less than half of the stories, many of which are pretty memorable--a far cry from the other Best American collection I read. I might even read more stuff by the select authors that I actually liked. Other than that, I'm going to continue sniffing out anything that seems new and different--a nigh impossibility in this age, but it's out there! for example, I'm intrigued by this Flame Alphabet book...

Swamplandia! is uh, ok

I picked up a copy of this New York Times bestseller way back in October, at the Boston Book Festival--and I even met the author! And I finally got to it last week. And... no offense to Ms. Russell, but I am not that impressed. This novel is good, but way over-hyped; it didn't deserve the amount of praise it got. (Like Jeezus, the first four pages are positive blurbs! Oy)

Swamplandia! has an intriguing setup: a gator-wrestling theme park located in the fringes of Florida, near the swampy Ten Thousand Islands. It's family-run, a modest operation. But when Swamplandia!'s headliner and matriarch dies, the family (and park) experiences a downward spiral, hitting rock bottom more than a year after her death. Swamplandia! closes and the Bigtree clan spends the summer apart: the Chief making money on the mainland to pay off debts, Kiwi working at the rival park, Osceola running off with a ghost; and Ava (our protagonist and mostly-narrator) goes off on a journey to find her, accompanied by a shady character known only as "the Bird Man."

Now gator wrestlers, theme parks, ghosts, and a journey to the underworld seem like a recipe for a delightfully goofy (if somewhat creepy) story. Not quite. About halfway through, the plot takes a dark turn (way darker than I was expecting) that made me want to put the book down for a while. I did not expect rape and fights to the near-death in this story. Hell no. So I thought why the fuck is this shit in here? And the answer is that once you take away all the larger-than-life trappings, it's nothing more than a variant of the coming-of-age novel, lost virginity/innocence and all. There's nothing wrong with being a coming-of-age novel, but you have to be original with more than just your set pieces. So much of the novel is amazingly mundane--especially as we see more of the mainland world--which is still wacky to an extent (especially to the isolated islanders of the Bigtree clan) that it's not that much different from your typical literary novel.

The novel's not all mediocrity though. The depiction of the swampland makes it seem magical, thanks to Russell's vivid descriptions and Ava's childlike perspective (and I love the nakedly ridiculous moments on the mainland).  It's at times borderline cartoonlike in its representation of theme parks and mainland antics (is there an Adult Swim cartoon about a theme park? If not, I call dibs!) I really preferred this as a comic novel, with less heavy stuff--it would have been more fun, at least. I actually kind of liked it until the story took that dark turn.

Russell reminds me somewhat of Stacey Richter, who really cranks up the ridiculousness levels in some short stories, mixing the light stuff up with the heavy. But at least Richter didn't rationalize the incredibility of her stories' premises, writing off ghosts as symptoms of a mental illness and the underworld as a place pervs lure you to rape you (Russell really had me going there--for a minute I believed in the Underworld as much as Ava did, and was probably more crushed than she was when I realized it was a ruse--was I really so eager to believe that something fantastic would happen?) And Richter isn't the best writer, either. I do also see a resemblance of Russell to Kelly Link and George Saunders, whom she does credit as influences. (I was reminded of Saunders' story "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline", which I liked...but I'm also not a fan of Kelly Link. She's good, but her stories annoy the shit out of me. But that's another post.)

In summation, the family separates, and comes back together at the end of the summer. The children have changed, and they leave the island behind. And that's another thing. The ending was rushed and too brief--there's not even a mention of the last time they see their island; the narrator absent of affect, as if that summer robbed her of the ability to feel emotion. She says they'll stay strong, but she sounds so weak. I expect that life on the mainland would be a drag for them, devoid of the enchantment of the wilds. There's no mention of what Ava's doing. So much for a happy ending.

What bugs me the most about it is how ordinary it turned out to be: Osceola wants romance, Kiwi wants a career, and Ava wants to be like her mother. Sound familiar? I felt a strange sense of deja-vu all throughout the novel, as if I've heard the same story from a different voice before.The setting and characters are pretty unusual, but the story isn't. When it comes down to it, the Bigtrees aren't that different from your typical family--they just seem strange because they ran their own theme park, and thus are eccentric. (I can't be the only one who was disappointed that there weren't more theme park shenanigans) In the end the story is tragic--they've lost their mother and their home--and they learn to move on. Nothing too original or innovative there.

Karen Russell has potential--if she keeps at it, this could be the worst book she ever writes (and really, it's not that bad)--but there was no need to inflate her ego with meaningless praise. When you strip away the trappings that make Swamplandia! extraordinary, you have a novel that is saddeningly ordinary. The literary establishment succeeds in fooling us again. 3 stars out of 5.

"Downtown Owl": the Humor of Small-Town Strangeness

I'm back! More or less...

Back at the Boston Book Festival, I picked up one of Chuck Klosterman's books (not the new one... you think I'm made out of money?): his first novel, Downtown Owl. The title and premise were intriguing. I started reading it over Thanksgiving, and went from enjoying it thoroughly to being very annoyed with it--though the annoyance lay with the characters and their disagreeable thoughts and actions. Really, the residents of Owl are quite a pathetic bunch. Not to mention that the typeface got on my nerves--which was the same one as his new book. (the REAL reason I didn't buy it; take note, Simon & Schuster!)

The novel mainly follows three characters in the months leading up to an apocalyptic blizzard in a small town in North Dakota: a high schooler named Mitch, a novice teacher, Julia; and an old man, Horace. The three never cross paths, nor do they all die in the deadly storm (only two of them do). Each has their own foibles--Mitch's is depression, Julia's alcoholism, and Horace, resignation--and through their circles we get a glimpse of the foibles of the other residents of Owl, which seem to be pretty much the same problems. While the story is delicately strung with humor, the overarching tone of the tale is one of hopelessness. Ironically enough, the only one left with any hope at the end is the old man, whose life is filled with real sorrow and regret. Perhaps this is why I liked him the most: even after all he'd been through, he still managed to go about life, and as much as he might like to die, he has the will (and wit) to live. Oh, and it takes place in 1983-84--though I don't think it makes much of a difference.

I didn't find Downtown Owl to be nearly as over-the-top as I expected it to be; for the most part, it was as realistic as you'd expect a small-town novel to be, for someone who has never lived in such an isolated area. The most fantastic thing was the intensity of the storm, and that it seemed to have been summoned by sociopathic high schooler Cubby Candy before a fight that was discussed so much its occurrence became an inevitability. And it had the humor of despair, a dark and desperate humor that rarely prompts one to laugh out loud (I did a few times). I was faintly reminded of David Foster Wallace, only less eloquent. Most of the narration came from the characters' minds, who often projected their ideas onto other people (Mitch being the most prominent example, with his animosity towards the football coach). Of the three, Julia was the most pathetic character, a woman who hadn't bothered trying to direct herself in life, and naturally wound up stuck in the middle of nowhere.

The last 40 pages, beginning with a brief glimpse into Cubby Candy's perspective, are when Klosterman really shines as a storyteller: in short increments, we learn the fates of Mitch, Julia, and Horace the night of the storm. In fact, I would have preferred that the novel's entire time progression crawled along that slowly--aside from football season, there was no reason not to start in the middle of winter. (plus the football could have been flashbacks--which it mostly was anyway). There's not much time for navel-gazing, and the events are jarring and idiosyncratically depicted. The old man is the only one who makes it out alive, in an ironic twist, but predictable. (As in: having the old man die at the end is predictable, as he's old, so to have him not die would not; and considering that most of the other characters are young, it's even ironic; and considering the ironic nature of much of the novel, it is therefore predictable--however, the predictability of plot-advancing events has no bearing on the quality of this novel)

In spite of that, the story ends with what I can only call a punchline--possibly. It ends with a fake news clipping about the death toll of the storm, focusing on the most prominent victim: a football player nicknamed "Grendel," and Cubby Candy's foe in the fight that had been so exhaustingly discussed throughout Mitch's part of the book. While the other victims are not named, so it's possible that Cubby died, too, it's also possible that he lived--and therefore won the hypothetical matchup between him and Grendel. He literally killed him. Needless to say, I cracked a smile upon that realization.

I was also reminded of Annie Proulx, though not so much in the writing than of the setting and that one story about the steer (or was it a deer?). Try as I might, I kept seeing the men in the bars Julia frequented as cowboys, even though they weren't. While Klosterman's prose is not similar to Proulx's, the similar settings makes Downtown Owl somewhat like a townie version of Close Range, focusing on the township part of isolated Midwestern life--and more depressing.  Oddly, though, I wasn't bored, certainly not as much as the other characters were, perhaps because of my spectator role in their suffering. Anyway, I commend Klosterman for presenting the dull and hopeless side of such a life, and injecting humor into it was in fact a necessity, and not a choice. I'd say.... 3 out of 5 stars. I'm pretty neutral on this one.

Freedom Isn't Free...except at the Library

I have to admit, I decided to read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, this oft-acclaimed novel by an oft-acclaimed author with much prejudice against it. It was this book that caused a kerfuffle in the literary world and sparked conversation about how women writers are not given their due as men are, even though more women are participating in writing programs these days. So, I kind of resented Freedom at first because it's by a dude, and sounded overrated. Another novel about middle-class white people by a middle-class white dude, hooray.

But I heard some positive things about it (or at least Franzen) from my co-workers, so I decided to put my re-reading of the Harry Potter series on hold, and give this book a shot. I was being unfair about not reading it, anyway.

And...it was well-woven web. Franzen can write an artfully crafted sentence, when he tries. Though at over 500 pages and with very lengthy chapters, it was easy to forget what was happening in the first place. Focusing on character development is an admirable achievement, but sometimes the reader can lost in pointless meanderings.

**WARNING: SPOILERS**

The premise is outlined in the first section, "Good Neighbors," in which we're introduced to the central family of the story: Walter, a rabid environmentalist; Patty, a passive-aggressive housewife; Jessica, their "good girl" daughter; and Joey, the spoiled but charming son. Life is mostly good, until their neighbor gets a new beau and Joey moves in with them. His smothering mother is severely upset (compounded by the fact that he's sleeping with the neighbor's daughter, whom she didn't like very much) and Walter practically bursts a blood vessel about it. This results in about five years of estrangement between the parents and son, with very little interaction between them.

But the real story revolves around Walter and Patty's marriage--a love story, of sorts. It appears at first to mostly have been a one-sided thing, with Patty lusting over Walter's best friend Richard (who of course is a musician...almost nothing is sexier) even before they started going out. Of course, they both cheat on Walter one summer by sleeping with each other. Freedom is, above all else, a character study on this couple and how their relationships and personalities change and affect one another as time goes on. This is obvious because the years before they met are confined not even to one chapter each.

At various points throughout the book, I found each main character to be very, very annoying. Walter was annoying because of his bottled-up rage at everybody, and having the hots for his assistant Lalitha (who in turn was annoying because of course she had the hots for him!), Joey was annoying because he was a selfish prick (though he learns the error of his ways), and Richard--the least annoying of the bunch, for he was cool and more honest than his bff (the second-best character)--annoying for giving in to Patty's advances and fucking everything up. Patty was all-around annoying at almost every turn, redeeming herself at the very end--like, the last chapter the end. I did not understand her appeal. So I didn't like any of them. Yet I stuck with these people for 500 pages, I guess the story was compelling enough. Though I wasn't rooting for Walter and Patty to stay together.

But--oh, man, the buts. Perhaps I was just looking for something to hate, but I didn't like how the main women were all typical, except maybe for Patty. And we get to see her as more than just a housewife and ex-basketball player because a good chunk of the story is told in her voice. All the other female characters are fuzzy and flat: we get most of the input about them from the main characters (e.g: thus, Lalitha is the sexy, earnest, hot-for-her-boss assistant archetype we've all seen before). It also irked me that Joey gets more of the spotlight than Jessica--we get his background and perspective, why not hers? Though now that I think of it, a lot of the characters were pretty cookie-cutter (see descriptions above). I also think Lalitha was totally fridged at the 500-page mark to allow for a nice, clean resolution. Yes, I didn't like her much, but I resent plot twists that pop out of nowhere in what is supposed to be "literary" fiction and not pulp chick lit (which is what this book would be if it wasn't so long and meandering and political).

The ending was...cute. Everyone kind of got what they wanted and found their happiness. Which is...again, cute. Perhaps not the feeling Franzen was going for?

Then there's the premises: a failing marriage, cheating, hypocrisy. Plus the freedom thing. We've seen it before in different incarnations. As I read on, I started to think, I'm not the target demographic for this. And I'm definitely not: this novel is more for college-educated adults in their 30s-50s, and grad students who have gotten over their experimentalist phase. Franzen is probably unpretentious, even down-to-earth, if we are to go by his in-depth portrayals of a "modern" American family (that's still white, middle-class, and patriarchal). This perspective is all too familiar to me, which makes the subject matter somewhat tired. Perhaps it's my youth, but I crave fiction that's new and different, in a way.

Which begs the question...why is the title "Freedom"? What does "freedom" have to do with it? There are several allusions to it in the book, mainly when characters are discussing walking away from marriage, plus the phrase "how to live" pops up frequently. As hard to define "freedom" is, it could be applied to just about everything in this novel--and that's the point. The freedom to fuck up and make up? To leave your spouse, your family, and still hope to come back someday? To do what you want? Probably all of the above. Obviously it's meant to provoke thought. But seriously, reading this book gave me realism fatigue. It's the only way to describe it. I don't want to think about this effing book anymore. 3/5 stars. Back to Harry Potter!

*In addition to realism, I will also be taking a break from book reviews for a little while. Maybe I'll put up some reviews about music, movies, or TV. Stay tuned.*