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.

This Post Was Going to Review Memory Wall, But...

The last book I read was a collection of short stories by Anthony Doerr, called Memory Wall. It's six stories, and they're all linked thematically, to an extent. Memories do play a big role in them, for one. I liked the one story of his that I'd read in a writing class, called "For a Long Time this was Griselda's Story." It was a little outlandish (the title character becomes a magician's assistant) and folktale-y, but was presented in a very real way. I spotted this book in the library, and decided to take it out, even though I really shouldn't have. I liked it, especially the stories that featured women prominently (that was actually most of them) ... But I don't really want to sing its praises. Turns out I'm still suffering from the Franzen fatigue that came over me last September...I'm just not in the mood to read that kind of shit anymore. Or review it, really.

Books: By dudes, for dudes since 1700

Doerr isn't as infuriating as Franzen, as he doesn't use tired and annoying plot twists and character tics and doesn't stick to reality 100% of the time. Doerr actually brought some new ideas to the table, like visions of the Afterworld through epileptic seizures, and memories recovered through clunky cartridges and viewable by machine. I almost feel bad that I'm not giving this book a review; it's not really that bad--plenty of other people liked it, too.

Not to steer the conversation towards Franzen, but part of what I don't really like about him is how much everyone sang his praises--and I hardly heard anything about last year's National Book Award winner, a Black woman. I read this article, published in last week's Phoenix, that criticizes the publishing industry, the New York Times, and NPR for gender bias in terms of who they publish and how much publicity they get. As a woman who likes to write fiction that doesn't necessarily adhere to realistic boundaries, much less convention, it's discouraging that someone like me will (still!) have greater difficulties in rightful recognition than a male writer writing about men (hell, aside from the fact that I naturally gravitate toward writing about women, aren't there enough stories about men?) And I am also guilty of reading more books by men than women, though I often prefer books by women, rather than men.

Anyway, I've been feeling this way since I went to a reading last weekend--five men went up to read in a row. Once I realized that no women had went up to read, I didn't stick around to find out if there would be any--the fact that none had gone so far said enough to me. The worst part was that I hadn't even noticed until the fourth man went up to the mic. There is the idea that women are generally more timid, and therefore reluctant to share their work--after two years of workshops with a bunch of other writers, and hearing how hard it is to be published, my confidence was crushed. Though I know I have more than potential. If women do need more encouragement, then we need to do that. These problems pervade not just the literary world, either--it's a problem in all media, to varying degrees. It's sad that we still can't get past the fact that women are just as capable as men at creating art (sometimes even more so) and that their stories and perspectives are just as relevant. I appreciate writers like Doerr who do bring in other perspectives--in addition to elderly women, he writes about other countries, like China and South Africa--we could also bring in people who've actually had these experiences, with less risk of objectifying and exotifying them.

But there's something else in that kind of fiction, aside from the narrow worldview--it's hard for me to put my finger on what it is. I do know how to describe it: BORING. Finally, after four years of indoctrination by literary "experts," I can finally admit that straight-up literary realism bores me to tears! That's why no one reads these books--because they're all about the SAME DAMN THING. I'll take robots, wizards and warlords over a broody middle-aged man any day!

All told, I think I'm done reading this kind of fiction for a while. This is not the kind of fiction I want to write, so why should I waste my time with it?

*note: this post was originally written a week ago (1/29/12) so temporal references are a week off. I'm just feeling too lazy to change it.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

In spite of an increasingly busy schedule, I got through Stieg Larsson's final installment of his Millenium trilogy (and the last book he ever wrote ever) in just about a week.

For those who've been waiting for the paperback edition: it comes out next month.

We pick up right where the last book left off, with Lisbeth Salander and her father hospitalized, and Ron Niedermann, the seemingly invincible giant, on the run from the cops. Salander's off the hook from the murders she was originally suspected of, but faces a plethora of criminal charges, including the attempted murder of her father. She accepts Mikael Blomkvist's sister, Annika Giannini, as her lawyer, and prepares for trial while in the hospital. Meanwhile, Blomkvist works together with Lisbeth's old boss, Armansky, to investigate what he dubs "the Zalachenko Club"--the group of men within the Secret Police who aided and abetted Zalachenko's crimes that went unpunished. They enlist the help of a division within the Secret Police after a time. Meanwhile, the remaining members of the Zalachenko Club plot to rid themselves of Salander and Blomkvist forever--and preserving their abhorrent secrets.

Since Hornet's Nest picks up from the second book, there's no need for a plot setup, and the story gets going right away. While most of the plot occurs within a hospital during the first and second parts, there's no shortage of intrigue taking place within and outside of the complex. The plot also moves breathlessly by, with sharp twists and turns throughout. It moves so fast you hardly know it's already the climax (which, by the way, is a little disappointing for fans of the last book's violent climax). My biggest issues with this final book lie in the ending--everything resolves itself much too quickly. For example, Niedermann disappears entirely in the second half of the book, only to finally turn up again in the epilogue and be defeated by Salander--all in the space of less than 20 pages. And maybe it's because I'm not sure what the differences between Swedish and American criminal law are, but I thought she was acquitted of all charges much too soon--she was released practically the same day.

The best part of this book was the immense focus on Salander--Larsson has finally conceded that she's the real star of the series. Unlike Blomkvist, she does grow and change as a result of her experiences: begrudgingly more accepting of authority (though not by much), a gradual (slight) rejection of violence as a means of solving problems, and a realization that there are people whom she in fact does care about.

Now that the series is over, I'd have to say the best part of the trilogy overall was Lisbeth Salander herself--she's a heroine unlike any other that's been seen before in the mystery/thriller genre that I know of--ruthless, righteous, and asocial. She's also the character that fully develops over the three books--most of the rest remain the same as always--and her strangeness invites us to root for her, even though she has brutally punished the men who have ruined her. In the end, she moves past these more vicious tendencies and moves on with her life.

Nevertheless, I think this may have been my favorite of the trilogy. I give it the same rating as the second: 4 out of 5 stars.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

First Catching Fire (The Hunger Games' second installment), now The Girl Who Played with Fire. There's something about Fire that makes it a great thematic element for a sequel, apparently.

We meet bad-girl Salander and the intrepid Blomkvist about a year after the first book ended; Salander has been traveling the world, spending the billions she stole from Wennerstrom, and Blomkvist has been enjoying his newfound fame. Shortly after Salander returns, and after Blomkvist has signed on to publish an expose about the sex trade in Sweden, its author and his wife are killed unexpectedly--and quite brutally mangled. Salander's prints are found on the weapon, which belonged to her former guardian (also found dead), so she becomes the prime suspect in the police investigation. Blomkvist of course launches his own investigation, as well as her former boss Armansky. What seemed like an open-and-shut case turns into an increasingly tangled web of intrigue involving the secret police and a motorcycle gang.

There actually isn't much to say about Stieg Larsson's sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that doesn't also apply to the first--especially not without giving a lot of the plot away. In many ways it's more exciting than the original. People are actually murdered and tortured in this one, and our protagonist narrowly escapes with her life in the climatic ending. It's also funnier--the police investigation and media blitz, involving people who know nothing about Salander, are at times farcical--they sometimes come to crazy conclusions, and the whole "lesbian satanist cult" thing is often brought up until things get serious. You will get angry at this book several times--not only because of the gross misperceptions of Salander as a cold-blooded psychopath (she's a righteous cold-blooded psychopath) and the horrible violence committed against her and her allies, but also because the immense number of jerks and assholes in this crop. 

It also moves a hella lot more quickly--whereas in Dragon Tattoo it took 300 pages before it became sustainably interesting (rather than a brief burst of excitement for like 5 pages followed by over 50 pages of boring), it took less than 200 in Fire. As expected, we learn a lot more about Lisbeth Salander's past, including "all the Evil" that remains as a gap in her record. With every new revelation there's a new twist, as both Blomkvist and Salander try to solve the murders separately, and with little help from one another. When it ends, with no denouement, there are still questions to be answered. In a lot of ways, this sequel was like a lot of other second-chapters in trilogies: it gets to the action more quickly since we don't need to be introduced to the main characters, we learn some new revelations about the most mysterious character, and we go down a rabbit hole of intrigue that unearths more mysteries than it solves. There's a big burst of action towards the very end, leaving little to no room for a resolution, hanging on a cliff. If you read and watch a lot of trilogies (as I have), they tend to contain these peculiarities of structure that differ from a one-shot. Some movie trilogies make a lame attempt at a resolution, but there's still something left unresolved at the end.

That said, The Girl Who Played with Fire does some things right that many sequels get wrong. The characters are consistent (Salander is still her lovably ruthless self, Blomkvist still insufferably diligent and brown-nosy), there's nothing that comes up that directly contradicts something that happened in the first book (and I HATE that), and while Salander's survival at the end is highly improbable (probably impossible), most of the escalating action isn't. I daresay it's an improvement to the original: more exciting, more Salander, less romance, more mystery. I got through this in much less time, too: while Dragon Tattoo took me 3 weeks, Fire took only 10 days. 4 out of 5 stars.

Now, on to the final installment!

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Or, as the Swedish title translates, Men Who Hate Women.

I'm a latecomer to this one, as the English translation to this Swedish thriller came out like three years ago. But I've never been big on mystery and crime fiction--the likes of Grisham, Patterson, and JD Robb don't interest me at all. So, although Dragon Tattoo was a bestseller, the fact that it was crime fiction in fact turned me off a little. There are two fiction genres that I can't really get into, for many reasons: romance and mystery/crime. I like a good romance, and I like a good thriller, but if they take place in the so-called "real world," with all their formulas and conventions, I have a hard time suspending my disbelief. I like Law and Order as much as the next person, but READING that shit is so BORING!

I changed my mind about Dragon Tattoo when I first saw the trailer for David Fincher's adaptation. Suffice to say, it looked really cool. So I decided to read the book.

And, well, I liked it, but it certainly didn't get me as obsessed as Harry Potter or even the Hunger Games, which was 100 times more violent than this adult novel. Though the violence depicted is no less horrifying.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, for those of you who don't already know, follows the story of investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist shortly after his conviction of libel. Wanting to get back at the man who slammed him with the suit and restore his reputation, he agrees to work for the wealthy retired businessman Henrik Vanger, writing a family chronicle and searching for new evidence regarding Harriet Vanger's disappearance, if any can be found. While he thinks this is a cold case, he does stumble upon new evidence, leading him to ever-more dangerous territory, and he eventually enlists the help of Lisbeth Salander, a rebellious idiot savant of sorts, an expert hacker and possessor of great intelligence, even if her social skills are lacking. Though Blomkvist is the ostensible protagonist, Salander is the real star, with her distinctive look, smarts, and mysterious past. She's the one with real secrets, which we learn precious little of in the first installment of the trilogy, and the real reason why anyone has bothered to read the next two--her story is the one left unfinished at the end.

The story is easy enough to follow, and the language dryly straightforward--almost excruciatingly so; Larsson often goes through the mundane details of a character's day with bland precision, summarizing unimportant events in whole pages, and getting vague when it comes to a foreshadowy event--for example, deliberately withholding the identity of a particular place or target until the end. The only bits remotely confusing were the strange ubiquitousness of certain British-sounding terms (such as "blanched" and "draughty") and the consistent use of characters' last names to identify them (which, as an American used to identifying characters by first name, was tough to get used to). While Blomkvist and Salander don't meet until Chapter 18, there are plenty of developments that perk up the story as it chugs along those first 300 pages. I was certainly intrigued and entertaining enough to finish and even pick up the next book.

However, I had a few problems with Dragon Tattoo. For one, it took a while to get to the meat of the story (see mention of painfully detailed unimportant events above). And for another, the sexual exploits of the characters, including Blomkvist and Salander's affair, kind of grossed me out. Of course I anticipated sex, even violent sex (as the books focus on violence against women--though of course this sex is shown as abhorrent), to be depicted in an adult novel, I was weirded out by the fact that Salander and Blomkvist in particular viewed just about everyone of the opposite sex as a potential sex partner, regardless of age. While this may be because Swedish culture and European culture in general is more liberal about sex than the States, I just don't get the thinking about sex so much. I also am weirded out by relationships that feature a big age difference (like Salander and Blomkvist's), and their relationship started out randomly--almost arbitrarily. I also take offense to the assumption that any two characters of the opposite sex who work together will ultimately sleep together (which seems to be the case in Dragon Tattoo) regardless of whether they would even be attracted to each other in real life. The resulting breakup of Salander and Blomkvist didn't move me at all, since I didn't see them staying together anyway. Most importantly, I didn't read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for a love story. I wanted thrills, not sexual tension. Thankfully, it didn't overshadow the real story (though I'm not so sure about the final book, when most of these romances resolve).

On the other hand, like many good mysteries, I didn't see the ending coming--though I did suspect that Harriet was in fact alive somewhere. The climatic chapters were the ones in which I just couldn't put the book down, and the bad guys are sort-of beaten--though perhaps not in the ideal way. And of course, a few live to see another day--and bring our heroes grief in the next two volumes, for sure. While I don't give a shit about the romantic subplots, I'm interested in what the next two books have in store for Blomkvist and Salander--and what Salander's past looked like. Three out of five stars.