Bluebeard - Kurt Vonnegut

"Read this, it's garbage!" the back cover may as well state of this fictional autobiography. "I am old and sick of this crap but you greedy readers keep pulling for more, so here it is. Here is my garbage. Have a good look. I have not disguised it but know you will read it anyway. Enjoy!" Vonnegut may as well write in his customary note of introduction. And thus begins one of the most redundant novels ever written. An aging and wealthy Armenian painter, Rabo, lives in a large lonely mansion in the Hamptons. The house used to belong to the Taft family, a family Rabo married into by luck. Now it is also occupied by an especially pushy widow/successful pop culture novelist who shoves her tacky ambitions into Rabo's home and life. In the first 30 pages or so Vonnegut - oops, Rabo - tells us the entire story. He also mentions there is a mysterious something in the potato barn. Rabo's friends and perhaps his readers are horribly curious about that mystery. Curious enough to listen to an old man ramble off his life story, repeating an event five times before it happens, describing the moment in detail, and repeating it again five times after the fact. Rabo is particularly fixated on his first sexual experience, an encounter with an older woman. It is made clear that this was his only moment of real love in life, probably due to the fact he's clung to it alone all these decades.

It's like Vonnegut was determined to test the loyalty of his readers: be patient and maybe, when I am finished, I'll swing open the door of my potato barn to reveal a morsel of undiscovered wisdom/wit. There is a lot about abstract art, war, soul and meat.

This book is written in first person and separated into tiny readable sections for even those readers with virtually no attention span. The characters are at once pretentious, sentimental, and absurd; as alive as a dead fly on the windowsill. This is not Vonnegut at his best. I kept waiting for snappy little explanations which never came and instead left sections unrelated and random. Maybe his earlier works (e.g. Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, and The Sirens of Titan to name a few) set expectations too high. Worth reading for fools and other die hard Vonnegut fans.

Um?
2 out of 5
Buy this Book: Bluebeard: A Novel

The Ice Storm - Rick Moody

This book focuses heavily on masturbation, secrecy, and suburban depravity. The characters are almost all - no, entirely - depressed, depressing, hedonistic people of privilege who, so oppressed by their own sacred boundaries of upper-class-dom, are driven to strange means of pleasure and excitement. The story is centered around the obvious symbolism of a brutal ice storm that freezes the holiday nonsense of New Canaan and maroons the residents in their respective places of deviancy. The adults are drunk and loose and because of that so are the children. Written in quick, confident pop prose, it is almost possible to ignore the hollow plot and glaring metaphors and just enjoy the ride. Perhaps I just don't find the emptiness of American suburbia very interesting, funny, or disturbing, but once again this seems like a good example of over-hyped popular literature (see reviews: Oracle Bones, The Inheritance of Loss).

BOOOOOOOO!
1.5 out of 5
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The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis - Jose Saramago

A quiet novel from the Nobel Prize winning Portuguese author. The protagonist, Dr. Ricardo Reis, returns to his native city of Lisbon after 16 years of self-imposed exile to Brazil. A poet friend has died. He spends a rather uneventful year in decline, talking to the ghost of his dead friend, mostly living in a hotel where he reads newspapers, wanders the streets, falls in love with a young guest and, of course, sleeps with a maid. With a mixture of magical realism, historical references (it's 1936, war in Europe is eminent and wealthy Spanish refugees slowly clog the city) and careful prose this story has potential to be a captivating and beautiful read. Unfortunately the plot is so stationary in its subtlety that the novel leaves instead an impression of painful tedium, which festers and grows to a near spite by the end when, as throughout, nothing happens. His death, portrayed as his taking his coat and following his dead friend to the graveyard, is a good demonstration of the book as a whole: an old man's detouring, distracted, procrastinated walk to the grave. For readers in reflective, time-abundant situations (patient old people) or academics where each minute detail can be reconstructed and massaged until it releases whatever point is to be found, this book may be good fodder for your arrogance. Otherwise, well worth skipping in a world so full of nourishing drive-thru wisdom.

Um?
2.5 out of 5
Buy this Book: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino

It is difficult to describe this book. Nearly every word and line contains something profound, beautiful, or otherwise memorable. Invisible Cities consists of a series of carefully constructed descriptions of cities, which are divided into various categories, including - but not limited to - Thin Cities, Continuous cities, and Cities and Desire. Each is related by the famous Venetian merchant/explorer Marco Polo for the entertainment of the great Kublai Khan. Through their conversation and Polo's accounts, the Khan expects to gain a greater understanding of his kingdom, but he soon discovers that his guest is not necessarily describing real cities, or different cities. Calvino has created a complex and layered examination of human society, perception, symbols, architecture, and the many manifestations of fear and desire which generate the cities of the world.

Totally Awesome Must Read!
5 out of 5
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You Can't Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe

The semi-autobiographical story of a novelist dealing with the trials of writing and publishing is really a vast, thorough examination of America (circa the stock market crash of 1929) - an America of which New York City is most certainly the epicenter, for good or bad. It is full of detailed, real characters, from elevator operators to aristocrats, all of whom collectively form the great beast of America - and in the midst of it all is George Webber - observing, living, and trying to capture it all in words. The novel begins with Webber waiting for the publication of his first novel, which is based on his youth in a small Nebraska town - when it comes out he experiences an unexpected backlash from the people he had fictionalized. Facing such animosity and ostracism, that he 'can't go home again,' as the title suggests. But in reality, the novel goes far beyond that event. It takes the reader though the theme of being unable to return to something past, destroyed, or otherwise left behind is recurrent. The perspective shifts from close inspection of the protagonist to broader examinations of his surroundings, and the style changes throughout, depending on need, giving it an energizing (and intentional) inconsistency. Wolfe's language is dense, descriptive, and highly analytical - somewhere between Fitzgerald and James Baldwin - but distinctly his own. Having said that, the book is a bit overwritten, perhaps due partially to its immense ambitions, and at times the author's own analysis is too prevalent, but it is nonetheless an important piece of American literature.

IMPORTANT!
4 out of 5
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For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

In his tale of the Spanish civil war, Hemingway stretches out a period of three days into nearly epic proportions. He does so not by tedious glamorization but through a sincere and brutal study of war and all its paradoxes. His characters breathe with intensity and a sense of purpose - for the short time shown they live in the present, and that alone gives validation to their existence. The story focuses on an American mercenary fighting with the Spanish rebels. A special mission takes him to a mountain camp, where the unstable leadership threatens to hinder his task. The language is typical Hemingway - terse and confident - and the dialogue is strange and almost poetic, even at its most vulgar moments ("I obscenity in the milk of thy...!" curse his characters). Through the constant moral struggles of the American and the group of makeshift soldiers, Hemingway gets to the harsh truth of war - that even if killing is necessary one must never believe in it. This is a beautiful, honest book.

IMPORTANT
4 out of 5
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The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai

Passed the piles of purple prose, over the mountains of metaphors and through the slough of adjectives you'll find this is a story of few words and little consequence. As a reader deciding to dedicate some free time to listening to a stranger's thoughts, it is expected that the author offer at least a small amount of respect in return. Most chapters of The Inheritance of Loss begin with reminder phrases, as if the reader is returning from a commercial break - and they may as will be with this stretched out and dulled tale. Ms. Desai chooses to tell and not show most of the story, again and again both insulting the intelligence of her readers and leaving no room for her towers of imagery to enter the confines of imagination or to grow even the least bit recognizable.
The plot follows the members of a family as their lives are affected by change, racism, classicism and related social agitation. A teenage orphan who lives with her wealthy, antisocial grandfather struggles with coming of age and a failed love affair; the cook's son fails to "make it" as an illegal alien in the land of opportunity; a beloved dog goes missing; some things are stolen and some are discovered. This book might be a good read for someone who wants to waste time without thinking but has no television. It was awarded the 2006 Man Booker, which raises questions as to both the legitimacy of that prize and the sanity of their selection committee.

BOOOOOOOO!
1.5 out of 5
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McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thriling Tales - Various Authors

As the introduction explains, McSweeney's editor Dave Eggers permitted fellow writer Michael Chabon to guest edit an issue of the quarterly and fill it with adventure (or otherwise thrilling) stories, which Chabon feels are regrettably underrated these days. The result - here put into book form - is a very inconsistent mix of tales, none of which are very thrilling, from a number of well known authors (Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Sherman Alexie, and both Chabon and Eggers). Most of it seems extremely uninspired, if not unfinished, as if - in response to Chabon's solicitations - the writers churned out whatever slop first came to their minds and sent it off. But within the 'treasury' are a few worthwhile pieces - namely, Dave Egger's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" (which can also be found in his book How We Are Hungry); Rick Moody's long, apocalyptic vision of drug use and memory, "The Albertine Notes"; and Chabon's "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance" (although it claims to be the beginning to a larger work, and thus seems incomplete). One would probably be better off seeking out these stories in other places, as the rest of the compilation is not worth reading.

BOOOOOOOO!
1.5 out of 5
Buy this book: McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales

News of a Kidnapping - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A nonfiction account of the kidnappings of affluent Colombians by the Pablo Escobar-led "extraditables," so called for the new controversial policy that allows for their extradition to the USA if caught or surrendered. The story begins in 1990 by recounting the latest abduction in a string of high profiled hostage taking - the cartel's angry response to the new policy. Next the tale drops back in time to explain the circumstances surrounding the kidnappings of other people held by the cartels. Marquez's gentle (Nobel Prize winning) prose presents the facts in a careful, believable story teller voice with none of the usual stuffiness of nonfiction. The guerrillas' behavior is neither vilified nor condoned. Their lower echelons are gentle, misguided and confused, while the top monsters appear oddly human and surprisingly unevil. The victims, for the most part, are not tortured or harmed; the pain of their experiences lies mainly in their captivity and absence from their loved ones.

The insight into Colombia's struggles proffered by News of a Kidnapping is priceless and the suspenseful story is difficult to put down. A must read for anyone interested in learning about the further effects of America's War on Drugs.

Important and Highly Entertaining
4 out of 5
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The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald

A logical followup to semi-autobiographical This Side of Paradise, which followed its character through adolescence, this novel focuses on the adult life of the handsome and clever - but uninspired - Anthony Patch, who lives it up on his grandfather's dollar and struggles to forge his own way in life. After marrying the beautiful Gloria, his life degenerates until he exists in a state of selfish depravity, evidenced by increasing alcoholism and the alienation of everyone near him. Though it never seems his pinnacle of his life is very high, he manages to fall quite far. Centering on this semi-tragic story, Fitzgerald exposes the strange, separate lives of the leisure class - those who never know true work; whose entire existences seem to be one interwoven political game in which people are pieces and one succeeds only by arranging his or her position and fortifying it, and one's status can be determined by timely usage of a few cynical, pretentious phrases. Not quite as original or spirited as This Side of Paradise, nor as polished as The Great Gatsby, this is nonetheless a rich and honest book, full of the author's typical lyricism and bitter social commentary.

Worth Reading
3 out of 5
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At War With Asia - Noam Chomsky

This highly academic collection of essays from the early 70s is not exactly light reading. Pick this up if you have a serious interest in American foreign policy and the patience to wade through the facts and undecorated analysis. Chomsky examines - in great detail - the military involvement of the United States in the Southeast Asian nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, drawing on extensive research and his own visits to the area. He is, of course, relentlessly critical of the American government and its policies - the general point seems to be that claims of good intentions and benevolence were/are all bullshit, and that US interventions there and throughout the world were/are really aimed at maintaining the dependence of developing countries on the United States (for the sake of expanding both military and markets). But he also looks home to America, contemplating the health (or existence) of a democracy that allows its government to wage wars against poor nations, especially when against public opinion. "Either the war will have to go," Chomsky says, "or the democracy." While these essays are mostly over thirty years old, they may offer more than just a critical look back in time, as the US has moved on to different regions but its motives remain essentially the same.

Worth Reading
3.5 out of 5
Buy this book: At War With Asia: Essays on Indochina

Youth and The End of the Tether - Joseph Conrad

Two more seafaring tales from Joseph Conrad, both purportedly based on his own Eastern marine adventuring. 'Youth,' the first and significantly shorter of the stories, is well described by its subtitle: A Narrative. In it, a young man's enthusiasm for life is only strengthened by events of danger and hardship on the sea. The second, 'The End of the Tether,' tells of an old, well-intentioned sea captain on the opposite leg of life who finds himself suddenly tangled in a series of dishonest decisions (both his own and those of his mutinous crew). Though the captain is a worldly, respected man, his character displays a cringeworthy innocence as the troubles around him culminate. While at times his descriptions get a little out of hand, Conrad's expertise shines brightly through these contrasting stories of life, death, light, dark, good and evil. His strong voice steers his characters and plot with easy skill akin to that of a seasoned captain steering through well charted waters. This book is both impressive and fun to read.

Highly Entertaining
4 out of 5
Buy this book: Youth; Heart of Darkness; The End of the Tether (Our version is Out of Print)

Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

A true account of the adventures of 24 year old Christopher McCandless, an upper class East Coast suburbanite, who, upon finishing college, gave away and burned all his money and attempted a sort of "return to nature." McCandless travels around North America in a haze of youthful discontent, naivete and stupidity, relying on the kindness of strangers and dumb luck to survive. Eventually he heads north to the ever romanticized textbook wilderness of Alaska where his innocence becomes painfully clear as he dives into the Denali wilderness in April - his life prolonged once again by an astonished stranger who gives him some basic gear before he trudges out of sight. It is still winter, and he quickly realizes that his life is in peril; luckily, he finds an old abandoned bus which has been converted to a hunting cabin of sorts.

This is a cautionary tale, not a guidebook. The story has gathered a cult-like following worldwide since the release of the film. Everywhere we go, whenever we meet crazy, lucky-to-be-alive-for-the stupid-things-they've-done backpackers and they hear any mention of Alaska, their eyes star up and, like obsessed teeny-boppers, they gush over how their dream is to "disappear" into the Alaskan wilderness like their "hero" McCandless. Most add, as an afterthought, as though some crime of nature has been committed: "I can't believe he died." If you are one of these senseless, itchy-footed idolaters this book isn't for you. Otherwise, it is a well written story that shows many sides of America and its people: kind, selfish, idealistic, etc. and leaves questions about the honesty and accuracy of the American education system's portrayal of the West.

Worth the Read
3 out of 5
Buy this book: Into the Wild

Wild Swans - Jung Chang

This book may as well be handed out to expats in China along with their visas. It seems every foreigner associated with the country within the past fifteen years has read it. But, having been through it, its appeal and ubiquity are much easier to understand - it is essentially a crash course on recent Chinese history in a highly-readable story form. Jung Chang uses the experiences her own family as a center-point, around which she forms a general account of China's bizarre twentieth century, from the collapse of thousands of years of dynasty rule to the short-lived republic, the Japanese occupation, installation of Communism, and the tumultuous years of Mao Zedong. The result is a story that often seems impossible - the years of glorified ignorance and repression of the Cultural Revolution could be passed as science fiction, some horrifying Orwellian vision manifested. Jung Chang manages to maintain humility and composure, even while describing the most violent or painful episodes, though at times the narrative is bit too heavy with her own sentiment and, towards the end, stumbles in and out of repetitiveness. The subtitle of the book is Three Daughters of China, suggesting the presence of a definite Mom book; but, while the author relies a little too heavily on possessive adjectives (my mother, my mother, my mother...) and occasionally delves into unnecessary emotional reflexion, it is just as much a story of her father (and China in general), and is on the whole rather subdued and somber.

Worth Reading
3.5 out of 5
Buy this book: Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China

Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter S. Thompson

The strangest thing about his rambling, angry, often incoherent collection of a year's worth of political writing is that there are actually moments of genuine, clear insight. Somehow, the late Dr. Thompson's unorthodox journalism manages to capture - or reflect - the true nature of the American political process - maddening, gruesome, something akin to a meat grinder that threatens to destroy the sanity and stability of everyone involved, so long as they have a sliver of humanity in them. Indeed, by the final pages, Thompson himself is unwell, and unable even to write - at times bare transcripts are given in place of his trademark narration. Through his suffering he appears to have gained something of an inside understanding of how our country works, and as a self-labeled power junkie, Thompson seems to intuit (and still deplore) what motivates the maneuvers of many politicians. Alternatively hilarious (as in his account of crashing a pro-Nixon youth rally), tedious (he throws out a lot of numbers), and incomprehensible, this is ultimately an entertaining and enlightening account of a bizarre aspect of America; and readers may notice some uncanny resemblances between the events of the '72 election and many of our recent ones.

Worth Reading
3 out of 5
Buy this book: Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

Cathedral - Raymond Carver

This poignant collection of stories from a Northwestern author are steeped in genuine experience - in failure, struggle, and common human interactions. The premises are surprisingly strange: in the title story, a man admits his uncertainty about meeting a blind man, only to find a strange sort of comfort in the new experience. But in scenarios such as this, Carver avoids both didacticism and sentimentality; his subtle, unpretentious language simply shows, with almost haunting honesty, a very real world. The characters within his barren situations are full of doubts and weakness (in 'Careful,' a man convinces himself that it's ok to drink Champange straight from the bottle in the afternoon by himself), have little aspirations, and make errors - in other words, they are very authentic. Each of these twelve short works offers a unique glimpse of both the emptiness and possibility of life.

Worth Reading
3.5 out of 5
Buy this book: Cathedral

A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present - Howard Zinn

This heavy volume is, foremost, a history book, as it says, and so it is laden with sometimes tedious examples, excerpts, facts, and dates - but it has a distinctive purpose: to counterweight the majority of our historical works, which Zinn believes tend to be too sympathetic of states and dismissive of people. In other words, it is a conscious effort to shift the perspective of American history to those who have, in the United States' approximately 230 year history (and prior), been marginalized, oppressed, forgotten, or otherwise victimized. While he devotes plenty of space to deploring the actions and attitudes of governments, Zinn mainly focuses on People's movements - rebellions, protests, strikes, dissent - the essential motivating force behind democratic change. In a sense A People's History is a compassionate history, in that it does not dismiss war and violence and oppression as necessary events in light of our present situations. But its greatest purpose, it seems, is its attempt to override the many still-common American myths, including - but not limited to - that the country's founders had pure, righteous intentions; that politicians were once honest and fair; that unjust military intervention is a recent blemish; and that, in general, our country needs to return to its old values. This book is dense and extensive; for those looking for a shorter path to cynicism, Zinn recently released an illustrated version.

IMPORTANT
4 out of 5
Buy this book: A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)

Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger

This is J.D. Salinger's intricately descriptive story showing the relationship between two remarkably well sketched sibling characters. Broken into two different episodes, the reader is first introduced to Franny, the youngest of the seven famously precocious Glass children (also mentioned in a few of Salinger's Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction), grown past her early genius into a beautiful and concerned 20-year-old undergraduate who's exposure to a mysterious religious text has left her teetering on the edge of a mental collapse. The second, much longer section - Zooey - picks up focus on the Glass family's youngest son, Franny's older brother. Zooey, 25, is an actor by trade. Through a conversation with the title characters' mother we discover Franny is home and indisposed. The story flows through beautifully realistic dialogue and though very little actually happens in the plot, enough is revealed about the characters to make this a compelling and entertaining read.

Worth Reading
3.5 out of 5
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Last Go Round - Ken Kesey

Kesey's rodeo tale most closely resembles Sailor Song, his Alaskan adventure, rather than his cerebral and cunning earlier works. His characters are colorful but not exceptionally deep, and he dances around the edge of cliche, but there is always the sense that he might throw you off when you're not expecting it. Inspired by stories of the first Pendelton Roundup told to Kesey (and friend Ken Babbs) in his youth, Last Go Round fully embraces the actual event's mythicized history - naturally, Kesey adds some of his own flavor into the pot. Related from the perspective of an aged rodeo star, the language is bright and amusing and full of twisted cowboy wisdom (infused with some North American and Asian mysticism). For anyone who has ever attended the bizarre event of the Pendelton Roundup, it provides a unique perspective; otherwise, it is a rollicking tale from a more conservative, but still confident and sly, Kesey.

Worth Reading
3 out of 5
Buy this film: Last Go Round: A Real Western

The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories – Nikolai Gogol

This collection of short stories by Gogol, an early 19th century Russian, is both impressive and entertaining. The tales contain heartwarmingly pathetic, believable characters with qualities still relevant to contemporary society, as well as occasional self-reflexive quips from the author (100 years before Vonnegut’s overuse drove them out of style). The line between reality and absurdity bends, blurs, breaks and returns reshaped within the cruel social structures and tedium of daily life, producing original didactic tales. Gogol employs very few time cues but when he does (such as poking fun at the French and Germans) they provide interesting insight into the historical period. The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is fun and enlightening; whether you’re looking for an easy distraction or for a heavier, layered journey, you’ll get something worthwhile out of this book.

IMPORTANT!
4 out of 5
Buy this book: Diary of a Madman and Other Stories