I loved every damn page of this book. Holy shit. It was everything I want out of a book - the characters were crisp, compelling, interesting, and flawI loved every damn page of this book. Holy shit. It was everything I want out of a book - the characters were crisp, compelling, interesting, and flawed. The dynamics of their relationships were complicated, nuanced, and at times disturbing, but the tension of them carried the novel from chapter to chapter.
To be truthful, I did listen to the audio version, which was a gorgeous read complete with authentic Australian accents, but the mastery of writing was just as present. Never having been to the outback, or knowing much of anything about it, I explored it like a man seeing an alien landscape. It seemed ugly and cruel and indifferent. It, more than anything, was the constant threat of the novel. It was an ever-present force that every person in the book - good or bad - had to respect or be killed by.
Add on to all of this the pacing, suspense, and cliffhangers delivered and resolved in an incredible fashion, and you get The Lost Man. It is not a literary masterpiece, but it is everything I look for in a book - good writing. I don't honestly care if there is deep symbolism or meaning behind what I'm reading so long as I see the strokes of a master painting it, knowing how to pull a reader from page to page and keep them wanting more, all while creating a world they don't ever want to leave.
I'm thrilled to have discovered Harper, and eager to read anything else she has....more
I wanted to like this more. I wanted to like it because Bruce (our protagonist) and his antics with his friends might be the funniest stuff I've ever I wanted to like this more. I wanted to like it because Bruce (our protagonist) and his antics with his friends might be the funniest stuff I've ever read. Every time a section appears with him lambasting his stupid, selfish, fat friend I would eagerly devour it, laughing hysterically the entire time. Unfortunately, these moments of comic genius are stretched between long, somewhat redundant family passages where the overlying message always appears to be that his family sucks and he hates them (without much meaning there beyond). Similarly, Bruce's forays into politics also fall woefully far into the redundant and not so poignant category. He makes his point rather immediately that politics is stupid, selfish, and filled with incompetent yes men, but he keeps going back to the point, beating the same horse until I was wondering if there wasn't some new meaning I was somehow missing - but no, it is definitely the same, very dead, horse.
Unfortunately, whereas Catch 22 had moments of brilliance, of true statements about existence and strive and war, Good as Gold never gets to those moments. Its critique of America, Jewish identity, and politics, are all fairly shallow and never cross the threshold of brilliant observation. The story also wanders, rather aimlessly, hard in the last half.
It is still Heller though, and he is still hilarious, so there's that at least....more
Itzler is not a great writer. That much is obvious from the beginning, but he is raw. At times you can tell he is playing it up, but at times he seemsItzler is not a great writer. That much is obvious from the beginning, but he is raw. At times you can tell he is playing it up, but at times he seems to be struggling to describe what is a surreal and incredibly bizarre experience - how to bookend living with a madman who demands mad things.
Itzler's approach - and this was certainly a marketing tactic - is to present SEAL (David Goggins) as an entity outside of humanity. He is a machine without a name or a past or a future. In fact, it is only in newer editions of the book that Itzler even tells in the appendix who SEAL is. In this way, he keeps a magical mystique about Goggins up, but it also somewhat cheapened the experience.
What's funny is listening to Itzler on Joe Rogan as he discusses this was a much more authentic account, and I wish Itzler or his editors or publicist had decided to go with the voice he presents there. Still, even with the sensationalist angle, the story is compelling. A billionaire married to another billionaire meets a man that seems above and beyond human condition, and then that man tortures the billionaire for 30 days with fitness and bizarre trials.
It's a fun read, if nothing else, but it is an even better one if you are, like me, a David Goggins fan and want to just get more of his bizarre and surreal story recorded....more
It's hard to say I really enjoyed something like this because listening to it hurts. It's about the ones that survived Chicago, the ones that made it It's hard to say I really enjoyed something like this because listening to it hurts. It's about the ones that survived Chicago, the ones that made it out, but a lot of the stories are framed in terrible, tragic loss. Best friends, brothers, lovers, young poor men who are paralyzed from the waist down in drive-bys but still live in the ghetto trying to find meaning and purpose. It's a tragic thing, but one that is worth listening to so that we know these people exist and so does their struggle....more
This had a great premise, and it even started really strong - exactly where you would want it to start, with the revenge story, the interesting part, This had a great premise, and it even started really strong - exactly where you would want it to start, with the revenge story, the interesting part, the cat and mouse. But here's the problem - that wasn't the book. The book is the retelling of one man's journey, but it doesn't feel like a journey. It is a retrospective, and in that way - and in Dow's bland, dour hand - the story plods along, not aimlessly, but listlessly.
There aren't really any moments of greatness. The characters have personalities in the way that background characters in films do - angry man #7. Sweet girl #2. No character ever springs to life. No real connection ever exist between characters. When our protagonist is in prison, every single character introduced is just filling. It's all stuffing with no meaning. Instead of the deep resonance that Shawshank Redemption has of a shared misery, we get nothing. This part of the novel, which should be maybe the most interesting, is instead a boring slog of simply waiting for it to end. We don't get beatings - we are told they happen, but we never see them. A guard will say a few words, then we are told he is a vindictive monster - we never see it, but we are told it. And that is the novel's main problem.
Everything that happens is a telling. We are shown nearly nothing. Even the few moments of being shown - such as a kidnapping later on - is somehow turned drab and given only a few rushed paragraphs before it is over.
I did finish the book - I'll give it that, but it was because I held out a ridiculous hope that things would turn around and I would suddenly have a great revelation or moment that would justify the whole book. Sadly, it never comes....more
Having already read Illusions by Richard Bach, this is kind of a prelude, a look at the larger more impressive book that he would one day write. That Having already read Illusions by Richard Bach, this is kind of a prelude, a look at the larger more impressive book that he would one day write. That said, it has most of the other major trappings. It rails against mob mentality, against following prescribed notions of normality, society, passion, and function, and it is told rather quaintly and nicely.
Mostly what I liked about this is how well I think it would work with children. It made me want to go out and read it to my nephews, or maybe to have a few kids of my own just to give them this. It is a good read, simple and uncomplicated, but it should get the brain percolating on all the good things about life....more
Maybe it was my fault I didn't like this. See, I believed what was written about the book, that it was about a tumultuous summer where conflict raged Maybe it was my fault I didn't like this. See, I believed what was written about the book, that it was about a tumultuous summer where conflict raged around every corner and our protagonist would find meaning and solution in a young woman he met. That wasn't really what happened though.
Patterson is an adequate writer, but his narrative rambles, his characters are frail, and he has a modernistic approach to writing of leaving great leaps between character growth and change and leaving us to fill in the details.
I suppose the older brother going from an evangelical, brain-washed, and pious alter-boy to a constantly cursing bad boy that just spends his time with girls is not an impossible transition, but no explanation is ever given. He goes from carrying signs and cursing at women at abortion clinics to suddenly done with all of that shit in the matter of a few chapters all because he got slapped. We never even revisit this.
Similarly, Patterson will jump from one major theme or symbolic piece to another without ever really resolving them. In the beginning, the cats are a central connector, and the narrative swirls around their life with these cats and around them - then they are gone. Next, the narrative funnels around religion and the church, delving deep into his mother's apparent saintliness in the face of a hypocritical church she belongs to. Neighbors even arrive to warn them that their mother is causing a row with behavior that is too middle of the road for their extremism. Then this fades and is replaced by the refurnishing of a table. The table becomes everything, and their father's obsession with it and its completion becomes a central focus.
Patterson doesn't ever feel like he knows exactly where he is going, just that he is playing around with symbols and greater bits of meaning but has no real idea of how to put them together into a coherent narrative. The characters are shallow and silly - such as the mysterious and insane love interest whose main character attribute appears to be that she has father issues.
With a premise that could have held much, what was inside ended up being very little at all, or at least it was very little pretending to be quite a bit more....more
Short story collections are always a bit of a gamble. I don't trust any person who reads an entire short story collection and enjoys it all. The storiShort story collections are always a bit of a gamble. I don't trust any person who reads an entire short story collection and enjoys it all. The stories are too varied, the writers too different. Satire-laced modern narratives suddenly jumping to a narrative driven story in the rural south about racism should feel like a huge and sometimes uncomfortable leap, and it will probably alter and maybe even ruin the experience of trying to approach some of these stories with fresh eyes.
That said, the stories here are generally good. Some are a little self-indulgent, others just kind of boring, but there are a few that were alarmingly clever, especially when viewed from the 21st century. "A Romantic Weekend" by Mary Gaitskill was written in 1988, but it comes off as a modern criticism or satire of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. The clumsy and stupid way in which that book handles not only BDSM but also writing is shone in brilliance by reading Gaitskill's short story about how much mood, trust, and general attraction to the other person plays into these dynamics.
There are, of course, other masterpieces of American fiction such as "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, but for those that read a lot of fiction, these will be much more recognizable.
As far as short story collections go though, Wolff does as good a job as one could expect considering how varied and impossible it is to categorize American fiction into any one genre or bucket. ...more
I don't much like self-help books to be honest. I find them kind of pandering and more a balm than a cure to the issues a person faces. However, a friI don't much like self-help books to be honest. I find them kind of pandering and more a balm than a cure to the issues a person faces. However, a friend of mine told me about Goggins because, in his own words, "He's crazy. He reminds me of you." That was a pretty good reason to pick up a book if there ever was one.
The truth is, Goggins is crazy, crazy in a way that few human beings are. He pushes himself to the very brink of self-destruction. He has been doing that for about 20 years now, which might also make him one of the toughest people on the planet.
What this book outlines, really, isn't his advice to be like him - he views himself distantly, almost out of body - but to not let us impose limitations on ourselves. His story is more the story of human limitors being removed. He is the biological version of overclocking a computer.
The writing is sparse, the tone sometimes uneven - as if Goggins came in to a ghostwriter on occasion and said, "make it sound more like me. I say mother fucker. Give me a mother fucker in that thoughtful passage about mediocrity." but it works pretty well.
Goggins is an inspiration, and the podcasts he has done make him even more interesting of a human being. Can't Hurt Me is good if for no other reason than Goggins really is the person he presents, and as near as anyone can tell, he is honest about everything he did. It is one of those things where you scratch your head and have a choice - do I enjoy this as I would a tabloid story about a freak of nature, or do I see this for what it is, a story of a human being that I could be, if I only really wanted it....more
I wasn't sure what to expect from this exactly. The book begins on a fairly personal note about Dan Ariely's being burned rather badly when he was youI wasn't sure what to expect from this exactly. The book begins on a fairly personal note about Dan Ariely's being burned rather badly when he was younger, and it outlines some of his interest in psychology as being informed by this experience. This sets a tone for the book that it never quite follows through with, instead switching to a more professorial cadence and essentially presenting case study after case study.
That said, it is well-written, Dan is incredibly likeable (when he lets his personality shine through his work), and he has a few gems of wisdom and insightful comments about the human experience. Not all his studies are created equal, and some you find yourself knowing the outcome of because they aren't so different than previous ones he has presented to you. But all in all, it was a good read, the kind that provokes conversation and which you want to go around to your friends saying, "Hey, I was just reading this book... and did you know..."...more
Underwhelming is perhaps the best way to describe this novel. That isn't to say there aren't pleasant moments or interesting little King touches, but Underwhelming is perhaps the best way to describe this novel. That isn't to say there aren't pleasant moments or interesting little King touches, but the overall story and structuring is just... dull.
King admits that writing this was largely because he was so often asked about The Shining and whatever did become of that Daniel Torrance boy. I'm not saying that is a terrible motivation to write a book, but... this tends to be a terrible motivation to write a book.
Black House wasn't nearly as good as The Talisman, and this seems to follow a similar trend of digging up past characters and showing their fall from grace. Which isn't entirely interesting enough in-and-of-itself to get my motor running.
I also have to admit to being wildly uninterested in decades-spanning novels. Any sort of time skip, except from childhood memory to adult, tends to put me off and irritate me. It is perhaps more real to have a novel where there are extremely lengthy periods of dullness, but books are anything but reliable portrayals of incidents and events. Even the truest nonfiction narratives are far more interesting than the realities they portray. Days are filled with interesting and odd characters or misfortunes befall in such a rapidity as to think a colossal divine figure had set them forth like falling dominoes. Even when most of us claim to be 'very busy', that is really only true in the stories. Most of us still find the time to waste an hour or two fiddling with our belly-buttons and flicking through channels, which is I guess my long-winded, rambling way of saying books should never try to emulate reality exactly. It just isn't interesting enough.
If the goal is to submerge a reader in a story, I find it hard to hold my breath when the character I am following, with their foibles, flaws, romances, and relationships, suddenly skips five years and sets me somewhere new. This is even more true when it is done so often as to be an element of the structuring, as is done here.
Doctor Sleep does manage to touch on some very interesting things, such as its timid tip-toeing into the realm of death and release. But this realm is largely unexplored - even the title of the book itself is largely unexplored. The book is far more interested in exploring alcoholism and the terrible weight of this disease. And this is where I also found disagreement with the novel. King decides to treat alcoholism in the manner that AA treats it, which is one I find wholly repugnant, which is with an air of defeat and helplessness. I suppose I was destined to dislike that about it.
There are also entire sections which could have been omitted entirely, such as some of the 'episodes' involving the antagonists that focus on unimportant characters who we see only one other time after getting a lengthy introduction chapter. This is sort of the Cannery Row style that King has admitted to liking, and I have to admit to disliking it and feeling it is sloppy. After all, he's the one that told me to trim the fat. What, I should want to ask, are these chapters if not unnecessary, fatty trimmings?
Overall, it felt like something King wrote because he was bored, not impassioned, which is a rather huge disappointment because I felt (still feel I should say) that 11/22/63 was one of the best things he has ever written. I know his skills are not declining because of it, but I also know how much of a passion project that one was.
This feels more like something he did to idle away the hours. I can't really blame him for getting bored and doing some mental masturbation, but I'd like to know beforehand if I'm looking at doodles rather than finished works....more
Have you ever started eating something, and the first bite you think 'NOTHING HAS EVER BEEN THIS GOOD.' and you immediately eat like, a pound of it, aHave you ever started eating something, and the first bite you think 'NOTHING HAS EVER BEEN THIS GOOD.' and you immediately eat like, a pound of it, and then, at some point as you're shoveling, you think to yourself 'I may have made a terrible mistake,' but you're already a pound in, so you might as well finish the next pound, and then afterward you feel sick, and vaguely confused by the whole ordeal, and then you're not even sure if that first bite really was so great, like you have to retroactively re-evaluate the worth of that bite because of how upsetting all the other bites were.
That's what this was like to read, and, I'm pretty sure, what it was like to write. It starts off with such ambition! Such wonderment! Such adventurous spirit! Answers and meaning seem completely lost, but Lewis-Kraus will find them! Yes! He will find them, and he will take Tom Bissell (it keeps getting better!!!)! And it is exciting and wonderful... for awhile. The problem, I think, is that he started to run out of things to say. I imagine he thought there would be much more to say, or much more to illuminate, but what he found was much that was already sort of lit and a lot of things he didn't really feel like talking about. Which happens.
I would like to point out that the Camino de Santiago sections ARE amazing. They really are. Tom and Gideon's relationship is astounding, and it is the sort that makes you longingly ache for something so comical and farcical in your own life. But the problem is this sets itself up as a bit more than just a travelogue. This sets itself up to answer and fix so many of Lewis-Kraus' problems (and boy does he have some). The beginning reads out like the start of a film, and we bound into it with all the enthusiasm of a popcorn munching soda swilling audience, but by the end of it, I feel what I imagine Lewis-Kraus - Okay, that's it. I'm not writing that anymore. Heretofore he is Gideon and we pretend he and I are intimate like that - Anyway, I'm pretty sure GIDEON was just as sick and confused as I was. In fact, I think the reason I felt that way was because he felt that way.
The Camino de Santiago was supposed to have answers, but it had none. It was supposed to have a purpose, or provide one, but it didn't. What it did have was pain, and, as the book points out at one point - that was the purpose. No one enjoys it, Gideon is told at one point - and it's hard not to feel as crestfallen as he is. The mystical journey has no other reward than a pat on the back from yourself, certainly not anyone else. No one cares. Tom (yeah, we're close too) doesn't seem especially surprised by this either. He simply gets to the end, looks at his broken feet, and seems to transmit in waves of honest, heart-felt feeling, 'fuck this place forever,' and he leaves, not exactly angry at Gideon, but seemingly fed up with all of the idiot pilgrims that somehow made him come.
After that, Gideon goes on a tour de force of pilgrimages and self-discovery, but what he discovers is the same unsatisfying truth all of us probably already know - fixing your problems isn't as easy as beating yourself up until life takes pity. There's a reason self-flagellation fell out of fashion.
He seems to also continue to make the same mistake so many of us do. He perpetually falls in love with women he shouldn't, makes mistakes with them he shouldn't, and pines for them in ways which are all too familiar and he definitely shouldn't. None of his journeys really help with that, and, unfortunately, after the Camino de Santiago, I think we knew, because Gideon knew, that the rest of this journey was really a farce. It was trying desperately to turn the water into wine and knowing deep inside that it simply wasn't going to happen.
I don't want to get started, by the way, on how abysmally depressing the temple pilgrimage (whose name I have clearly forgotten) was. Lord have mercy. At least the Camino had other human beings, and wasn't on the side of a highway. If anything killed my spirit of journey and pilgrimage, it was reading about Gideon hiking a lonely, desolate course through rural Japan and eating at depressing village gas stations. I don't know how either of us made it through the ordeal.
I think somewhere along the way, Gideon lost his desire, or lacked the material, to write everything about the Camino, and when he lost that, he lost the book. The book was about his preparation and then exploration of THAT. THAT was a journey with his friend. THAT was a journey I wanted to follow. THAT was filled with other exciting characters. But it passed in a far too quickly moving blur, and all the things I wanted more of, Tom's snarky comments and bitching, Gideon's late night banter with other pilgrims, fell to the side, and I was left with a book unfinished, and a tale that sort of rambled on like a descent into inebriation.
It pains me to say I didn't like it a great deal, because I like him a great deal and because he is a talented writer (talking about Gideon here, keep up), but the truth is that this should have been about only the Camino. I mean, non-fiction has to stop somewhere. We can't just keep following the writer as he eventually admits 'and now I have nothing else to talk about except this huge shit I just took.'
... and now I don't know how to end this.
Why don't we just save both of us the pain and I'll end it now, yeah?
It's a difficult thing for me to evaluate this- Scratch that. It's a difficult thing for me to evaluate ANY book, not just this. Even bad books, ones It's a difficult thing for me to evaluate this- Scratch that. It's a difficult thing for me to evaluate ANY book, not just this. Even bad books, ones I carry deep, dark hatreds for, require a vigorous and focused back and forth. I will always be awed by the spirit it takes for a person to create. I think it is remarkably courageous; even if, for many writers, this is unfounded and block-headed courage, it is courage nonetheless. I imagine many war heroes were not exactly rocket-scientists, which is why they tried to fight 40 Germans with a spoon in the first place and somehow succeeded. There's a point to all of this somewhere. I think it has to do with liking very much parts of a book and disliking very much other parts and making peace with this.
I've read a few things by Tom Bissell now, and I even attended a reading of his. He was magnanimous enough to invite us all back to his apartment afterward, which I for reasons completely unknown, declined. It's probably the single largest mistake of my life, which means I've been very fortunate, because he is a wonderfully introspective and hilarious writer. However, I think his struggle as a writer is one of the things I connect with and enjoy most. It's one of the things I appreciate about Magic Hours, that sense of wandering, bewildered exploration.
See, Bissell has a wonderful voice (and here's the important part) when he can access it. I'm not sure what the disconnect is: subject matter, motivation, state of mind at the time - it's hard to tell. The point is very much that some of the pieces herein fall, by my subjective and arbitrary standards, very flat. It isn't that they are poorly written; it's simply that they are uninspiring.
In Extra Lives, Bissell was there; he was present. I was following him into the depths of his mind and into his tripping, electronic, cognitive dissonance. When he is there, that is what it is like. When he is not, it is like reading the reviews of every reluctant and flaccid critic. Too often reviewers are vitriolic or soporific - and rarely ever anything else.
Bissell's works on The Room, (I still need to get Bissell's The Disaster Artist on it) are amazing. They are amazing because he managed to pour out exactly what his passion and experience with that film was like and I was able to drink from it and see all the vivid and horrible colors. But I think it was because he cared.
Other pieces simply felt like something he was charged with writing. Whether he was charged by some unknown entity or himself I don't know, but there isn't much of a difference in the end, so I don't care. Many times, cracking the whip on oneself to write is just as laborious and unproductive as having someone else do it. And I'll admit, because of this, I may have not finished two pieces which I found a little too academic, and a little too pallid in tone.
The point is, I think, at least right now before I change my mind at some later date, that how I feel after just finishing it is how I'd like to think I feel about the entire book - which is pretty great. Despite the few times Bissell seemed lost, times I opted not to be lost with him, the rest of the journey was exactly what I was looking for.
His honesty, too, is something I can't help but love. There are too few genuine human beings in this world. It's nice to know he is one of them... and that he too thinks that some of things published in McSweeney's aren't meant to be read (or at least enjoyed).
I'd like to start on what was great, and I'll do so with a little history on what this book is about, which is pen-names.
Stephen King was fascinated wI'd like to start on what was great, and I'll do so with a little history on what this book is about, which is pen-names.
Stephen King was fascinated with the idea of a pen-name because he had taken up his own, Richard Bachman, some time earlier - which was an homage to Donald Westlake's pen-name Richard Stark (the evil pen-name/other half in the novel is also an homage, as his name is George Stark ). Now you might already know this if you are a big fan of American writers and their history (as I am), or someone who just farted around wikipedia and read that (which I also am, but I learned this before I saw it there, so nyeh)
Anyway, the point is, the genesis of the novel lies in King's interest in pen-names and writing. One of the reasons I have always and will always respect King is that he is a writer more obsessed with exploring facets of writing through fiction than any other. To take the idea to its more metaphysical level: many writers associate writing with an almost spiritual experience. Muses have been around since before Jesus, and the concept of the artist as a conduit or vessel for art has been around longer (the idea of a genius was similar - a person could become possessed by genius, but they were not a genius). Lots of writers, real writers, people who obsess over it and live and breath and drink it, have discussed this, such as Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame, and though they do not all agree on its place, they all seem to agree that there is something kind of magical about it.
Enter King. The idea of a pen-name is in this mix is kind of an interesting thing, a foreign element. It posits that the writer needs to, or may want to, attempt to try channeling in a different way. The theory is that something as simple as changing one's own perceived identity could actually change the writing - if not the style, then the content. Some might say it is just to escape the fame of real names, as J.K. Rowling did, but... but King wants to explore the idea on a psychological level, that maybe the writer becomes attached to a style and a type of content that becomes hard to break from. It isn't just public opinion on the matter. It's a way of moving around a mental roadblock, and if any writer has ever experienced writer's block, they will know it is a real thing, a real thing which can be tricked.
So the idea of the novel is to explore the reality of such things. It is a bit like Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author", which I talk entirely too much about, but if people can talk about their cat and what they ate all the time I can talk about one of the most thoughtful writings of all time. So nyeh. Anyway, the intent of the novel is to explore the real and the unreal, the created and the born, and just how thin is the veil between.
It's a lovely idea, but I wasn't drawn to the story. It bites of a little too much of some of King's other tendencies to rely on gore and vitriol to turn the pages and not stunning characterization. In the end, the idea was far more lovely than the book, but for a person who has never thought about such things, I would definitely recommend it as a beginners guide to the more 'meta' side of writing...more
First of all, it's pretty awesome that Upton Sinclair brought attention to all of the issues that he did. It's even more awesome that he did it througFirst of all, it's pretty awesome that Upton Sinclair brought attention to all of the issues that he did. It's even more awesome that he did it through a fictional medium which would be more appetizing and consumable to the broadly uneducated masses. It's amazing to think of it like that, that a man changed world views by showing people a picture of an imaginary world. For some reason, we can much more easily find fault in something like that and then start asking questions of our own. For some reason, this is infinitely more appealing to us than simply being told about these faults in our world.
For what he accomplished, and what he set out to do, I have nothing but respect for Mr. Sinclair. I'll admit to being grossly fascinated by the pervasiveness of the cronyism in the Coal industry - cronyism that is far too familiar in our under-regulated business world of today.
Granted, people today aren't being blown up in mines and forgotten about (not in American... er, not as regularly anyway), but it is fascinating in a horrible kind of way to see the lack of agency of any of the workers or citizens of these coal cities. It must be similar to what it's like trying to regulate a small coal town today, just with less brutal beatings since everyone has a camera phone.
Point being, the characters are silly, the events largely uninteresting except in a historical sense, but a good read for someone wanting to see the darker side of industry and history. (I'm saying it's not great, okay? I'm saying it's kind of poopy. I'm saying it's like reading a history book which I kind of like sometimes so I enjoyed this)....more
I generally get the feeling that I'm wrong in all of my opinions of literature and story-telling because it just is not copacetic with what smart guysI generally get the feeling that I'm wrong in all of my opinions of literature and story-telling because it just is not copacetic with what smart guys like Ford say. Did that sound sarcastic? Man, even without inflection I sound like a jackass.
But really, most American authors have a propensity towards the modern or post-modern form of writing - slice of life or stream of consciousness if you like, since these are often the same. Richard Ford, who I do respect as an author and a writer very much, is no different in this regard. Which is to say, I liked this about as much as most of the American story collections I've read, which is not very much.
And this is difficult for me. I'm fond of American's, or the idea of them anyway. And I'm very fond of stories, so there should be some place these two intersect where I'm very happy, in theory anyway.
I think there must be something to the American spirit, or at least the creative American spirit, which finds some sense of camaraderie with something which is rambling, often pointless, and fiercely insistent on its importance.
Wait, I think it makes sense now, nevermind....more
I'm not sure what I expected upon picking this up. I suppose I didn't actually expect N. Korea to be as batshit crazy as they are represented in the mI'm not sure what I expected upon picking this up. I suppose I didn't actually expect N. Korea to be as batshit crazy as they are represented in the media. I thought, it all has to be an exaggeration; this will be some enlightening facts - things that other people aren't 'in the know' about. Oddly enough, I was wrong and I was right.
They are ratshit batshit crazy, to quote Carlin, but, unexpectedly, it turns out every nation is a little bit of that. Sure, they have mythos about their leader descending from a mountain and creating all of these ridiculous things, but that is a near carbon-copy of the Japanese mythos surrounding the emperor. Myers even points out that N. Korea creates its own Mount Fuji to make the myths even more similar. In fact, their nationalism and nearly their entire identity is copied from Japan. Their perspective of racial or moral superiority is also largely similar to many Asian countries sentiments (at least China and Japans). After all, China is still arguing that they are the oldest nation, going so far as to thwart anthropologists by cutting off skeletons heads so they can't be clearly identified and dated.
Unfortunately, Myers is mostly interested in his own personal and academic thrust of proposing N. Korea as a mother nation than he is trying to understand it entirely. He will go to great lengths to explore misconceptions about the one-sided portrayal of N. Korea in the media and then spend great gouts of time explaining how they are all obsessed with this notion of motherhood, all while not seeming to understand the irony of it whatsoever.
Regardless, Myers, through sheer presentation of facts, helped me to realize that every nation, when viewed through a very narrow scope, seems pretty ratshit batshit crazy. What do we say of our founding fathers? Wooden teeth, cherry trees, never lying. Republicans constantly revise history and the founding fathers to mold the points they are trying to propose, so we can hardly say 'look at crazy old North Korea rewriting history' when we do the same, and so do China and a wealth, if not all, other nations. They certainly do it more, and they certainly are a very broken and divided country, but the pigeon-holing is rather silly.
It's a shame Myers didn't expand the book to be a greater focus and examination of North Korea's similarities to other nations and other revisions throughout history. That would be an enlightening read, because I really don't feel what they are doing is that much out of the norm.
This is pretty much exactly what a soap opera would look like transcribed into a literary form. I don't mean everyone is banging one another and thereThis is pretty much exactly what a soap opera would look like transcribed into a literary form. I don't mean everyone is banging one another and there's some long lost uncle brother who starts an affair; I mean the character's actions are laughable - just pure overly dramatic nonsense. I can certainly understand how a writer gets caught up in a moment, in an emotion they are trying to channel, but often that happens at the expense of logic. Eric's wife is introduced as a normal person, but the next morning she is a miraculous, illogical bitch. The entire conversation Eric has with her is some bizarre, poorly written and clunky metaphor for their current situation. She dramatically (and for no reason) turns away from him and suddenly begins discussing the seasons - something I, at least, have never had happen to me. All of the dialogue is forced, completely nonsensical, and ridiculous. It reminds me a lot of an often mocked line from Star Wars II - Attack of the Clones.
"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating... and it gets everywhere."
That was a horrid attempt to remind the viewers of past tragedy, just as this book continually tries, in no small number of bad ways, to allude to the troubles and mystery the characters are facing. It is the epitome of stretching dialogue to try and fit an idea, which is pretty much the opposite of what dialogue should be - which is natural and flowing....more
I'm not sure I've ever read a book like this before. Not necessarily because of anything Begley did, at least not that I can see, but more something II'm not sure I've ever read a book like this before. Not necessarily because of anything Begley did, at least not that I can see, but more something I experienced. I liked reading this book, but I really have no idea why. There's usually something I can point to, some characterization or descriptions or cadence, but I can't really point to any. I can say that something about his prose is sort of lilting and soporific, and maybe that is what drew me to it, but beyond that, I'll be damned if I can find a positive thing to say.
The characters were flat, boring, and pretty much all the same. Every character seemed to be a self-indulgent, narcissistic asshole that couldn't see past their own opinions and blind-sighted prejudices. Furthermore, except for Schmidt, I have a hard time identifying any real main characters. The first of the novel is far more interested with Schmidt's deceased wife than, well, any of the rest of it. The novel seems to promptly forget this story element a little before it forgets that he has a daughter that was the apparent central conflict of the novel. However, for being the central conflict, his daughter does a remarkable job of simply not existing. Everything is phone calls, letters, or go-betweens of other individuals. And when his daughter does happen to appear, she is almost always talked about, then glossed over and disappears. The one thing I can say about his daughter is that she is the only character, and I think I'm correct in this, that isn't portrayed as being an immoral philanderer who casually disregards any emotions or semblances of feelings in pursuit of what appears to be mindless sex with zero emotion, although she is still a snotty bitch.
Miraculously, every character cheats on their spouse, boyfriend, etc., and all of them are hopelessly devoid of feeling even the slightest bit bad about it. In fact, I'm a little confused why these characters have such roller-coaster sex lives other than for the sheer drama and sexiness of it. I hardly feel that women constantly swoon for retired, alcoholic, lawyers, but it certainly seems to be the case (no wonder I've been striking out). There's also a remarkably creepy lolita complex going on with Schmidt that may transfer to feelings for his daughter. It's all extremely unsettling, but the book does a good job of completely ignoring the creepiness of pretty much every character.
In fact, the appeal of the book may be in that it manages to completely dispassionately examine and follow Schmidt, who is shitty human being, as he interacts with his social circles and family - which is full of nothing but shitty human beings. It may be the most neutral voice I've ever read in a novel, which is hard considering how easy it would be to criticize everything that these characters do.
Probably the largest problem with the book is that it seems to have no idea what it is doing. The story wanders from abstract and hard-to-follow diatribes about walking into the ocean and committing suicide over a deceased wife to exploring the nuances of screwing a clearly mentally scarred and screwed up young waitress who is also screwing some emotionally unstable craftsman. How the latter comes to dominate the novel I really have no idea, especially considering between these two points is a conflict with his daughter and her new life and finances.
By the end of the novel, Begley rather lazily Deus ex machinas the few conflicts he feels he should address. Schimdt, however, doesn't seem to really have found a purpose, his relationship with his daughter is still awful (and she is still a terrible bitch), and none of the characters have changed. There is zero development from start to finish. Circumstances change, but everything that has gone between is essentially meaningless because the characters are exactly the same.
I suppose that's probably the point, as this is clearly more modernist/realist than it is anything else (why no quotation marks other than obfuscation?), but it's also rather boring and disappointing. Life, actually, is about change. I'm not so interested in the idiots that refuse to accept it. In fact, I spend most of my time avoiding those people.
The crafting of the world, the characters, the pacing, and the conflicts, are all lazy, sloppy, and uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy reading it (well, parts of it). What voodoo magic did you weave Begley?...more
A friend of mine was rather upset at me for my dis... taste, yes let's go with that one, for Flannery O'Connor. As usual, I had to begin with the normA friend of mine was rather upset at me for my dis... taste, yes let's go with that one, for Flannery O'Connor. As usual, I had to begin with the normal defenses. I understand her pioneering role as a writer in the history of our country, especially as an important modernist, realist, and woman; however, being historically relevant does not a writer make, and there is very little of O'Connor's writing, perhaps any, that made her stand out as especially powerful, unique, or beautiful (to me I have had to add to alleviate the frothing mad fans, as if that simple statement is anything other than a placebo to alleviate inflamed sensibilities).
What struck me about O'Connor's writing is that it is rife with ideas. Gimmicks or concepts are terms also bandied about that mean roughly the same thing. An idea, though, is not a story, and it certainly doesn't mean you have characters. Some of these ideas are indeed rather good, but anyone who has ever talked copiously with people about their creative aspirations knows that good ideas can be found in every individual in every walk of life. An idea is, really, not very impressive. It's interesting, even a little exciting if it's good enough, but that's all it is. The same people who value ideas are the ones rather terrified of submitting work or talking about it; cocooned in the silly fear that people will steal their idea, they seem to believe that that is where artistry lies, in the 5 minutes it took them to come up with an idea and not in the months or years it took them to make something fantastic of it. O'Connor, to get back to my point, has ideas. She does not have, however, stories (for the most part) and certainly not characters.
It took me a bit of time to realize what it was that bothered me about O'Connor's writing, and it was funny because it was one of the only things that I knew about her. She's a realist. Realists occupy a fascinating state of being wherein they generally attempt to accurately reflect life and instead reflect a fun-house mirror state of existence, one which always leaves me feeling a bit queasy, and a bit over-saturated. In that I didn't live during the 1940s or 1950s as a woman in the south, I can't entirely account for how realistic her characters dialogue is, but I can say from a contemporary stand point, it isn't very.
Nearly every one of her characters in every story have the remarkable tendency of repeating themselves endlessly. I am fully aware that some people, most even, repeat themselves; however, the manner and awkwardness of it within O'Connor's stories makes her characters seem socially maladjusted or autistic. The dialogue is, bluntly, awful. Every moment a character speaks is like the cacophonic smashing of glass. It did nothing but reveal to me, at every step, that I was reading an obviously crafted simulacrum of life, and a poorly constructed one at that. Good dialogue sounds like the dialogue in Elmore Leonard novels - smooth, flowing, and unobtrusive - but judging by the fashionista who occupy my local bookstore and discuss the wonders of O'Connor, it's unlikely most people who like O'Connor would ever go anywhere near the plebian writings of an Elmore Leonard.
Her characters actions are similarly absurdist and illogical, bordering on the schizophrenic, but, of course, that is realism in all its ironic grandeur. Characters follow strangers obsessively around town, tend to details and minutia with an attentiveness that could only accurately be described as symptomatic of OCD, and they are all tragically flawed and blind to the emotions, needs, and attitudes of all around them. It is as if every character in every story occupies their own world, and they all orbit the center of the story, refusing to ever draw near one another.
Realist or not, absurdist or modernist or whatever title she or anyone else may decide to give her, her writing is the antithesis of what a story should be. At no point did I sink into the depths of the characters, the story, or the dialogue. I was at all times glancing down at the glossy surface and seeing that the rippled, shimmery image was merely an illusion. The greatest rebuttal I can find for her works would be Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, which is perhaps the greatest and most insightful work of metafiction our world has yet seen. It examines what exactly literature and words and make believe do to draw us in and make us see things we've never seen before. Unfortunately for O'Connor, those things are the opposite of what she does. ...more
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