ABAW September Edition

I finished only three books in September, and I’ve already written about one of them, so this will go fast.  Yes, three books is less than A Book A Week, but if I go with my total number of books read this year (63), I’m still well ahead of the 52 book per year curve. Heck, I could quit now and still be good. But I’m not going to do that. I’d rather torture you with my opinion.  

Books I Read in September

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

You can read my reaction to this rather perplexing book here.

Artemis Fowl by Eoinn Colfer

I read this one out loud to the Sonars.  The elder Sonars had read this one on their own before, but for me and Sonar X5 it was the first time.  I enjoyed this book.  I won’t say that I adored it or loved it, but there were several things that I liked and in particular Respected about this book.  It already sounds like a lukewarm date, but I assure you, it’s more fun than that.  Artemis is a twelve-year-old criminal mastermind.  Other than stealing a copy of a very important book from a fairy through the use of threats, intimidation, bribery, and drugs, I wasn’t ever quite clear on the crimes that gave Artemis his reputation, but we are to believe that he is a genius, a hardened criminal, assisted by his faithful servant/bodyguard/thug Butler.  Artemis lives in a world where no one really believes in The People (fairies, trolls, gnomes, goblins, etc.), but they DO exist, living mostly underground and completely in secret.  

In this book Artemis steals gold from a leprechaun.  Except that the leprechaun isn’t a little dude in a green bowler hat, it’s the LEPrecon, “an elite branch of the Lower Elements Police.” And the gold is—oh, well, the gold is just gold. A lot of it.  And he accomplishes this by catching crack LEPrecon Captain Holly Short and holding her for ransom until her bosses pay.  Slightly gritty without being sinister or scary, there are just enough gross jokes to get a snorting giggle, just enough mild swearing to make it feel like you’re getting away with something, and just enough humanity in Artemis to remind you that he is a kid.  A kid with a lot of money and resources, but not a lot of friends.  I liked Holly Short and the struggle she faces as the first woman doing her job.  I liked Butler, who seems like brainless meat at first, but might really be the soul of the series.  I liked the mythology of the story.  I like and respect the honesty in the book and the lack of condescension.  I didn’t feel an instant connection to any of the characters in this book in the same way that I have in other series for kids, but I think that may come in time.  I look forward to the rest of the books in the series.   

Blood Rites (Book 6 of The Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher

This is my favorite Dresden so far.  Fans of the series will recognize the piles and piles of complications, some funny, some terrifying, as Dresden is hired to be the supernatural bodyguard for the taping of a porn movie (In spite of the setting, there is relatively little sex in this book compared to other Dresdens).  Meanwhile a pack of nasty vampires are trying to kill him.  He’s stuck with an abandoned puppy (that may have special powers).  Another, seemingly less nasty but no less dangerous, group of vampires have noticed Dresden and might want him out of the way.  And there’s flying flaming monkey poo.  All in a day’s work . My favorite bits: Orphan Dresden gets some family and the world seems a little less scary.  The door is opened for new romantic involvement for Dresden.  And while Dresden continually reminds himself that he can’t let their humanity distract him into trusting the monsters, it is equally important that he not let their monstrosity distract him from respecting their humanity.  Delicious fun. 

Now Reading

Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi :: A happy gift from my sister.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling :: Out loud to the Sonars. Again.

Want to Read

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Physics of the Impossible: a Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku

Sonars are Reading

The Wide Window, Book 3 of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

One of the Maximum Ride books by James Patterson. I forget which one. Whoops, it’s actually Ark Angel (an Alex Rider book) by Anthony Horowitz. 

N.E.R.D.S.: M is for Mama’s Boy by Michael Buckley 

Book Review: House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition by Mark Z. Danielewski

I found this book incredibly frustrating.  I don’t know how to tell you what the book is about, because it is about so many things.  Irritatingly, the book compels me to draw pictures to try to sort it out.  For you, I’ve made a chart.  Here are the levels of narrative in the book as I see them.  In the spirit of piling-on so pervasive in the book, please feel free to suggest additional layers.

The life of Will and Karen Navidson, particularly their experiences in a bizarre and changing house in Virginia

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The Navidson Record, a movie made from the photos and videos of the Navidsons as they explore the uncanny labyrinth that appears beneath their home

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Popular and academic discussion (ad nauseam) of the film, including bootleg internet copies of film

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Zampáno’s description of the film and compilation of artifacts (introduced to Johnny by his friend Lude, a neighbor of Zampáno)

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Johnny Truant’s edition of Zampáno’s text, with additional footnotes about his own life; internet versions of this text are described here and at the next level

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An edition by unnamed editors that adds documentation about Johnny’s life; a copy of this is carried by Will Navidson during his last exploration of the house

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The author, Mark Z. Danielewski

That is a very pretty, ordered, and linear idea of the book, but nothing in the book is pretty or linear.  Like some post-structural choose-your-own adventure, the reader is constantly pulled away from the central text by footnotes and supplemental materials.  These aren’t the sort of footnotes and appendices that can be ignored either.  In the midst of a bit about Will Navidson, Johnny will go on for several pages about himself, his lovers (especially Kyrie, but also Thumper, his dream girl), or his friend Lude, among other things.  Some of these footnotes have their own footnotes, and in one particularly memorable sideways slide, we are pulled into the extensive catalogue of letters written by Johnny’s mom when she was confined to a mental hospital before her death.

On top of that, there are additional layers of narrative completely outside the text I hold in my hand.  For instance, the nature of the book invites any review (like this one) written about the book to become part of the narrative.  My favorite bit of meta-narrative though, is that Danielewski’s sister is Annie Decatur Danielewski, more commonly known as the singer Poe.  Poe’s album Haunted was produced simultaneously with House of Leaves.  The video version of the single “Hey Pretty” features bro reading a particularly hot and sticky scene about Johnny and Kyrie and a BMW on a hill.  It was certainly “the longest unzipping of my life” in more ways than one.  The unzipping of the book did not have the same erotic tension though as the unzipping of Kyrie’s leather pants.

I’d like to say that at the core of the story we have a haunted house.  Ok, not haunted, but very creepy and unstable, with a vast network of rooms beneath it that change according to the will and mental stability of their occupants.  It’s also possible to say that Johnny’s struggle with his own sanity is at the core of the story.  Alternately you could prioritize one of the love stories (Karen and Will?  Thumper and Johnny?  Johnny and Kyrie?  Kyrie and Gdansk Man?).  So what is it?  Satire on the extensive mental masturbation of academic and popular discourse, along with stabs at our bizarre willingness to overanalyze anything (guilty)?  Ghost story about a creepy house?  Love story?  Self-destructive struggle with drug addiction or mental illness?  All of these?

But wait, there’s more.  The book’s structure is enigmatic and twisting, the sense of time and place in the story is incredibly squishy, and embedded within the text are many puzzles.  Codes embedded in the letters of Johnny’s mom or the corners of pages. Anagrams in the first-letters of the footnotes.  Perhaps picture puzzles in the many different photos and drawings in the book.  Be sure to examine the pub info page and the use of color to highlight or obliterate some words and phrases.

So when I say that the book was frustrating and crazy-making, I’m quite serious.  Cleverly perhaps (on the part of Danielewski), my frustration and disorientation as a reader trying to navigate the structure of the book echoed the confusion of the characters.  The structure and narrative are quite lucid and “normal” sometimes.  At other times the text is upside down, angled, backward, sometimes with words edge-to-edge on a page of multiple columns and inset boxes.  Other times there will be only one or two words on a page for several pages.

The prose is so compelling though that I found myself wishing for a cleaner structure that would allow me to appreciate the very strong writing and imagery.  I quit reading the book repeatedly, convinced that the structure was an irritating manifestation of smug self-indulgence.  If I hadn’t agreed to read the book for Patrick I would certainly never have finished.

The book is successful in that I didn’t quit it, I won’t forget it, and I’ll likely talk about it a great deal.  That success is narrowly won though.  The structure is a gamble.  Most readers likely wouldn’t keep at it, let alone pick it up in the first place.  Those who love a puzzle and are willing to experience the book as an enigma to be savored will find it a treasure.

Before I Forget: a mish-mash of book comments

I’ve read a few books lately that I haven’t had time to blogify.  Here are some brief reactions to the most interesting of the recent list, divided into books for kids and not so much for kids.  

Kid Books

Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli

This gentle set of poems tells the story of Diana and why her family had to move.  All of the poems (except one) is told from Diana’s perspective.  Diana wins a contest and likes constellations, her friend Rose, her grandpa, and sometimes even her sister Twink.  I really liked this book.  Several poems could stand alone, but the collection offers an interesting departure from a typical early-chapter-book-prose structure.  It might be a great jumping-off point to encourage a child to try to write a poem, or for a kiddo who is already cantoically inclined (to sort of steal a word from another recent read, Stagecoach Sal by Deborah Hopkinson).  It has been nominated for a Texas Bluebonnet Award this year. 

Strega Nona’s Harvest by Tomie dePaola

I love Strega Nona.  I think I want to be Strega Nona when I grow up.  Tomie dePaola has written several books featuring this grandma witch and her friends.  Apparently Big Anthony never learns.  This time his shenanigans highlight once more the importance of generosity and community (and giant vegetables!). 

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

I’ve read this book before and was inspired to return to it during Banned Books Week.  This book is based on the bonding relationship of two male chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo.  It is among the most challenged books of the past four years.  I didn’t talk about banned books with the kids before we read it, but when we finished reading it the other night, Sonar X6 said, “I bet this is a banned book somewhere.”  I asked why he thought that and he said, “Because some people don’t think families should have two dads like that, or that kids should read about families like that.”  We all had a lovely talk then about how all families are different, but one thing they share is love.  That conversation grew to include comments on problems with stereotypes in general, and the kids were more open about the kinds of behavior that is tolerated in their social set and what sorts of things might lead to teasing and judgment.  Any book that gives me a chance to talk understanding and tolerance with my kids, and leads them to think and talk to me about their own experiences with intolerance is a winner.

The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman 

This one is just cheeky fun in which a group of oddly-talented kids, labelled ‘dunderheads’ by a mean teacher, get the upper-hand.  Incites giggles in children ages 4 through 9.  

Not-Kid Books

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

Unlike many of the books on today’s list, this one was not fun for me.  I found it very difficult to read because the descriptions of women’s treatment just kept making me angry and unhappy.  The bookseller of the title is Sultan Khan (not a real name), an Afghani businessman, but the book is about more than just Khan.  It is about his family and business interactions and is a cultural/social snapshot of post-9/11 Afghan life.  Seierstad lived with the family for a time in order to write this profile.  Perhaps because she spent more time with the women, perhaps because she was troubled by the lives of the women, Seierstad spends much more time describing the negotiations of life for Khan’s two wives and the other women of his family.  The book also touches on life before and during the Taliban regime, suggests the complexity of tribal negotiations and of gender hierarchy.  What is weirdly absent from the book is western military.  There is hardly an American or European soldier to be seen in this book even when the aftermath of decades of war is highlighted in the bleak landscape.  I follow news and events fairly well most of the time, and didn’t learn anything new about the socio-political situation of Afghanistan per se, but I understand better how little I know and understand about Afghanistan and its culture.  The book is not without controversy for Seierstad and the family she depicted.  

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

This was a smart book.  This is the kind of paranormal book I’d like to write.  Smart, independent female characters, practical magic that’s just ambiguous enough that you might call it science, and a steeplejack (everyone needs a hot, educated steeplejack).  The academic setting reminds me of A. S. Byatt’s Possession (loved that one too).  Written by a Harvard grad student who can trace her lineage to the Salem witches, there’s a hint of autobiography amped up with paranormal fantasy.  I learned a great deal about the Salem witches and their historical milieu, but the lessons are neatly disguised and didn’t drag the story down.  I have one more thing to say about this book, but it’s a bit of a spoiler, so I’ll keep it to myself for now.  Let me know if you’ve read it and we can dish together about the nemesis (what? that doesn’t reveal anything).   

Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich

I love the Stephanie Plum novels.  For me, they’re like potato chips.  I don’t eat potato chips very often, but when they’re in the house, I tend to eat the whole bag at once, by myself, after the kids go to bed.  Something about these books makes me stay up late even when I know I shouldn’t.  If there’s one in the house that I haven’t read, I have to read them straight through.  Fifteen was no exception.  My favorites in the series are the first four and number seven, and those ones bear rereading for me.  As the series has gone on, they’ve taken on their own conventions.  Like a particular brand of sweat pants, you know what you’re going to get.  That said, I was a bit disappointed in Fifteen.  For all the talk of barbecue sauce, this one was a little less tangy and zingy than some.  There are hints that Stephanie feels like she’s stuck in a rut, and maybe the routine of this one emphasizes that better than anything.  I’m hoping for some surprises in Sixteen. 

Anticraft: Knitting, Beading, and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister by Renee Rigdon and Zabet Stewart

Like the deliciously wicked, irreverent, and occasionally obscene webzine of the same name, this book is packed with craft projects that don’t evoke stereotypical mid-century granny-craft.  From knitted bondage gear to liquor bottle cozies and creaturific menstrual cup cozies, this book delivers sinister/sexy craft goodies with humor and saracsm.  

Review: The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Candlewick Press, 2009

Peter Augustus Duchene, a boy orphaned by war and the dangers of childbirth, does not expect to find a fortune-teller’s tent in the marketplace.  No one (except the fortune teller) expects an elephant to come through the roof of the opera house.  The characters of this story have grown past expectation, and in some cases past hope.  When the tent, and then the elephant appear, an impossible flicker of hope is ignited within Peter.  “Peter had a terrible feeling that the whole of his life had been nothing but standing and knocking, asking to be let into someplace that he was not even certain existed.”  He knocks, and the response touches an unlikely cast of characters he meets along his way. 

An ailing old soldier ashamed by a choice.  A frustrated magician ambitious to do something great.  A noblewoman unable to forgive.  An open-minded police-officer willing to hope.  A woman with a hearty stew and a loving heart.  A sculptor with a broken back and a broken humor.  A town wrapped in a bleak winter.  All stuck in a series of moments.  

Peter lives in a stark world, but DiCamillo renders it gently, and every word feels chosen with care.  As with  novels such as The Tale of Despereaux, Tiger Rising, and Because of Winn-Dixie, DiCamillo captures the essential and communicates it simply without being simplistic or condescending.  Yoko Tanaka’s drawings accentuate this gentle simplicity, adding their own touch of magic to the story.  

I had planned to include a discussion of this book with the recent post on Julia Child and Laura Esquivel because of a lovely scene in which Gloria, Peter’s neighbor and Leo’s wife, feeds Peter some stew.  Tanaka said in an interview about the book, “Peter’s frozen mind is melted by his conversation with Leo and Gloria—and by Gloria’s stew.”  The book left me feeling so warm and hopeful though, that I knew I had to give it more attention.  

Read The Magician’s Elephant.  Read it to someone else.  And encourage others to read it.

My favorite lines:

Leo, the police officer, asks, “What if?  Why not?  Could it be?”

“…an elephant was a ridiculous answer to any question—but a particularly ridiculous answer to a question posed by the human heart.”

“the truth is forever changing”

“‘Magic is always impossible,’ said the magician.  ‘It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between.  That is why it is magic.’”

Book Randomness: Generosity, An Enhancement by Richard Powers

Generosity: An Enhancement

by Richard Powers

Ferrar, Straus and Giroux

(ARC from Twitter giveaway @FSG_Books) 

Nobody wants to write a dumb review of a smart book.  I finished reading this book several weeks ago, and have been pondering it off and on between other novels, trying to figure out how to talk about it.  To be sure, I really liked it.  It is a richly layered story, dripping with allusion, reaching out through science, literature, philosophy, and pop culture.  It is a book begging to be talked over with clever friends or peers or colleagues, and I have no doubt that it will be.  

Unfortunately, I’ve had neither the time nor the focus to put my thoughts together into a coherent communication about this book.  What follows are some of the ideas that wandered through my brain as I read and then pondered the book (as collected in margins and a notebook).  All of this will likely make more sense after you’ve read the book, which will be released on September 29.  Let me know what you think after you’ve read it.  

I’ve grouped Spoilery comments after some space at the end, for those who’d prefer to avoid hints at the ending. 

I wrote all of these things before I found Oprah’s Reading Questions for the book, but if you read those, you’ll see some overlap.

As an aside, I came across an article about genetic enhancement last week that points to the relevance of the discussion about what we can and should do to ourselves in this genetic age.  

Begin pondering:

My first try at a review

I’m stuck on the word ‘enhancement.’  This book isn’t tagged as a ‘novel’ or ‘allegory,’ though it could certainly bear either of those tags.  No, it is ‘An Enhancement’ right there on the cover.  National Book Award Winner Richard Powers builds a rich, realistic, and complicated world in which enhancements or the search for them pop out around every corner.   Aside from the sexually suggestive use of the term, the implication here is to make something appear bigger or better, or perhaps to make it more attractive.  Revision for improvement by augmenting or trussing.  Here Powers ponders the evolutionary necessity for misery, giving us a story in which he explores an outlier for happiness, a woman who experiences the world with extreme joy and generosity and who is unaffected by even minor malaise.  This Miss Generosity is juxtaposed to a writer who’s own struggle with depression has made him unable to write.  

Devolving into lists

Definitions

—What is Creative Nonfiction?

—Unlike other novels that bear the stamp of “Novel” on the cover, this one is branded “An enhancement.”  What’s the difference?  

 Themes  

—The inside and the outside, the public and the private, the popular and the academic, the phenotype vs. the genotype.

—Fiction is redemptive.  In fiction we can fantasize and revise and enhance.  This is iterated in the genomics of the novel, wherein DNA can be revised.  If the standard story tropes can be fiddled with and recombined, so can the DNA.  Evolution forgets the unviable.

—According to one character in the book, the secret of psychological survival is forgetting but this is a book of remembrance and revision.  

—Russell is a writer frozen by the destruction he has wrought with his pen.

—Human beings? Americans? can’t accept things for what they are.  We must understand what they are and how they work, to dissect and thereby destroy.  

 Complications and Observations

—Provocative, yes; playful, no.

—People self-medicate in many ways: drugs, sex, video games, food.

—We are constantly seeking drugs to heal our misery, but how viable is a life without misery? And what type of life would that be?

—Thassa is like The Giving Tree.  She is referenced in so many different ways, nicknames, first name, last name, full name, epithet. 

—Thassa or Candace are revisions of Grace, givers instead of takers.

—Allegory: Miss Generosity/Happiness (Thassa), Teacherman/Writer (Russell), Counselor/Psychology (Candace), Genetics (Kurton—Curtain?), Popular Media (Oona), Science Media (Tanya), Public, etc. 

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SPOILER comments:

—Thassa tries to kill herself with the drugs that many people need in order to live.

—From the outset, the narrator seems to be conjuring the characters, but at the end it comes across as a revised remembrance. 

—Russell is able to write again, this time not destroying his subject with the words, but rather trying to restore her after she has been otherwise destroyed.  

—Russell struggles with his own misery, but also unwilling to let it go and unable to trust someone without misery.

—Or… Spock tries to rape Thassa, but the narrator does rape her, and only then can Russell accept and love her, when she is broken like he is.