I can understand why you might write such a thing, but why would anyone want to read it? (Many people do, apparently, but I don't get it.)I can understand why you might write such a thing, but why would anyone want to read it? (Many people do, apparently, but I don't get it.)...more
Death, death death death death, death death death death death death death death, DEATH death death, death death, death death death death death death dDeath, death death death death, death death death death death death death death, DEATH death death, death death, death death death death death death death death death death death death death death death death death death, deeeeaaaaattttthhhhhhhhhhhhh......more
At the beginning, I thought this might be an easygoing novel of pastoral life in China. But this is Mao's China, so it turned nasty real quick, what wAt the beginning, I thought this might be an easygoing novel of pastoral life in China. But this is Mao's China, so it turned nasty real quick, what with all the torturing of landlords and then the bizarro world red scare, where you are kidnapped and imprisoned for not being a Communist. I didn't know much about Mao's takeover of China, and this book, along with subsequent Wikipedia meanderings was a good introduction to the perversity of his misguided revolution.
It's a really sad book, but that sadness is mitigated by a rather dispassionate narrative style and (possibly) the lack of immediacy inherent in translated works. It's a good book, but not terribly exciting and I found myself more intellectually piqued due to my unfamiliarity with the subject matter than I was emotionally moved by the story....more
I'm not really a huge fan of Stephen King, but I come back to him because he has about five thousand books to read and you kinda know what you'll get I'm not really a huge fan of Stephen King, but I come back to him because he has about five thousand books to read and you kinda know what you'll get from them. This is one of the better ones, and a big part of that is the he showed a modicum of restraint. King has a definite tendency toward ever-expansiveness—why have four characters when you can have four hundred? But Carrie is a very simple story, and it's not dragged out too far. There's a nice epistolary angle, where the narrative prose is interrupted by news clippings or chapters from a study on the "Carrie White Incident", and that's always a fun thing in my opinion.
I can only imagine this book is more powerful if you don't know the story already, which is probably impossible at this point, what with that iconic bloody Sissy Spacek's bright white eyes blaring out of all the pig's red blood. The carnage in the book, however, is much more far-reaching than in the movie, so it's worth a read just to seek-and-find the differences from the movie....more
All the giants of the civil rights movement who are no longer with us—James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X, Rosa Parks et al—what would theyAll the giants of the civil rights movement who are no longer with us—James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X, Rosa Parks et al—what would they think about us today? There are no more laws on the books that overtly discriminate. Klan rallies are not so common anymore. There are no separate water fountains, but has the soul of America really changed?
Like many others, I expect, I was led back in time to this book by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the similarities are striking. Here, Baldwin describes the intimidation he feels in the shadow of the police force, and today Coates sets strict rules for his son that will keep police from destroying his black body. Discriminatory laws have been struck from the books, but what has been left in their place? Has anything changed, or have we done away with obvious racism, only to let the insidious fester? And what is the difference, if black people must still fear the destruction of their bodies?
White America is responsible for this, because it is white America that makes the rules. We said "no more racism" and we pat ourselves on the back for condemning Nazis and making sure every sitcom has one black character, but what does any of the outward progress—no Jim Crow laws, fewer Confederate monuments—mean if every abolished overt racism is replaced by a polite euphemism for racism? "Tough on crime" is the new Jim Crow. "All lives matter" really means "we don't care about your problems." The ever-pervasive fatalism African Americans are trained to feel, the statistics that tell them they are just as likely to end up in prison as in college, are just as effective at keeping the white man in power as any law written in the books long ago.
Baldwin had some amount of hope for change. And things have changed some, but I doubt he'd be satisfied. If he were here to see things now, would he hold on to that hope? Would he still await a quiet revolution, or would he call for the fire this time?...more
I bought my first house, a charming cape cod with scrollwork fascia, and moved in with my new wife. Our neighbors on one side were a policewoman, her I bought my first house, a charming cape cod with scrollwork fascia, and moved in with my new wife. Our neighbors on one side were a policewoman, her landscaper husband, and two teenage girls. On the other side was an old man with two loud dogs.
A few days after we moved in he knocked on our door and I saw a doppelgänger of Jerry Garcia. His messy, long grey hair and beard signified a man who did not care what others thought of him. He wore a tattered shirt with holes in the sleeves, red and black flannel pajamas, and sandals with a broken strap on one foot. Large sores on his skin were covered in pink ointment and his clothes were dusted in dead skin cells.
He spoke with a slight drawl—I later learned that he hailed from the Marengo Cave area right around Corydon, Indiana—about the kids who lived here before we moved in. They always pulled into the driveway and walked in the back way and he didn't see much of them at all. Sometimes they would let their grass grow long and he would have to mow it. I glanced over at his lawn and saw a scraggly carpet of yellow crabgrass, with untrimmed edges and overgrown holly bushes.
His name was Jim, and we should let him know if we needed anything. It was a nice, quiet neighborhood, but sometimes during football season, spectators would clog the street with their cars while they watched a game at the high school stadium a couple blocks down. The last time that happened he called his friend down at the police department and he ticketed every car down the whole block.
Our house was small and it suited us. We decided to buy a dog, despite our parents' protestations that what we really wanted was a baby. Little Maeby was a hyperactive Schnauzer, so when Jim knocked on our door and invited her to play in his backyard with his dogs, we gladly threw her over the fence. She began staying next door during the days while my wife and I worked.
When I walked to Jim's front door to pick her up at the end of the day, Maeby would jump and bark shrilly and run out to me and jump around my ankles as soon as he'd opened the door. She always returned home tired and smelling of body odor and old marijuana smoke. Sometimes he would carry her to our house and stand in our doorway for half an hour, telling us his latest story of how the employees at the nearby Dairy Queen had been disrespectful to him, or he'd bring gifts of food he'd stewed in a crockpot, or DVDs of Star Trek he'd copied from his computer.
Most of his gifts ended up uneaten and unused. I know this makes me appear ungrateful, but the food all had the scent of Jim about it, an aura of uncleanness, and I couldn't help but imagine his dead skin snowing down as he stirred his dirty pot of beige gravy. I tried to watch the science fiction and cowboy movies he gave me but they were old, low budget, and poorly acted.
I never gathered the nerve to ask him what put his skin in such a gnarly state, but I slowly realized he had a sever form of psoriasis. He talked about his former career as a peace officer, and as a bodyguard for the former governor of Kentucky. He had to retire early because of his condition, but retained plenty of friends in the state government and on the force. Sometimes, after a chemo treatment he underwent a couple times a year, he would ask me to grab some ginger ale for him at the store.
I slowly decoded his political leanings through his daily briefings. He hated Obama and his new healthcare plan, and would listen to none of my nonsense about how it might make coverage more affordable and more comprehensive for him—if there was ever a preexisting condition, he had it. He loved guns and kept several in his basement, and I sometimes glimpsed a small pistol on his coffee table, which also carried several ashtrays of tobacco and marijuana remains, along with a colored glass pipe.
He was skeptical of Mexicans and black people, but he was an Asiaphile. I slowly learned that he was stationed in Vietnam during his Army days, and he had a Korean wife and stepson at one point; the stepson I saw visit every now and then. On Christmas day he surprised me with a set of samurai swords, glistening steel sheathed in red lacquer. I didn't know what to do with them, but they came with a rack so I hung them over the mantle, though they didn't match our style.
Our parents were correct when they said what we really wanted was a baby, so we had a baby. Jim showed little interest in our Ramsey until he was old enough to walk, and then he was surprisingly sweet with him. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Jim would not hold the baby, but he brought toys and clothes that he found on sale at Wal-Mart—scary dinosaurs and t-shirts that wouldn't fit for at least another year. We have a dear picture with Ramsey and Jim holding hands and walking down our driveway with Maeby at their side.
Ambivalence was the dominant mood of our relationship with Jim. He was undeniably coarse and domineering, but he always meant well and for the simple reason that we put up with him, he loved us. We were likely the most consistent people in his life, though he had lots of visitors. We began to itch to move away. Jim was a great help to us in that we could throw Maeby into his yard at any point, for the day or for a vacation, but he was also the main source of stress in our lives. There was no telling when he might knock on our door, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, and deliver a racist rant. But we were too meek to set boundaries, and relocating seemed to be the only option.
I broke out in a cold sweat before I told him the news that we had found a new house closer to my work and we would be closing in a month. He just shook his head, and I could feel our betrayal sinking in. There's no telling who might take your place, he said. It could become Section 8 housing. That seemed unlikely to me, but I expressed regret in the only way I knew how. I shrugged and made the excuse that we were already thinking of having another child and needed an extra bedroom.
We moved, but I would receive weekly texts from him, which were always hard to decipher and, I'm ashamed to admit, largely went unanswered. On occasion I surprised myself by feeling wistful for our old house, and even for our uncouth neighbor. Every now and then we visited so that he could see Maeby and Ramsey. We went on vacation and left Maeby with him for the week. On Ramsey's second birthday we visited so that Jim could give him a monster truck. We were careful not to give him our address, in fear that he might again knock on our door in his frayed underwear.
Then, of course, the landscaper called to tell us that Jim had died in his sleep. There were only a few people at his visitation—his stepson and some extended family members—and a few more at his funeral the following day, including an old army buddy. Makeup had been caked over his sores and though their outlines stood out, his skin looked smoother and less tortured than I had ever seen it. The program informed that Jim was much younger than I had thought, a year older than my father, though he looked more like my grandfather. A television played a cycle of photographs from his life, memories of other people who were not here at his funeral.
A soldier with green suit and white gloves held a trumpet to her mouth and Taps played out of an electronic device implanted into the instrument, and despite the inauthentic gesture, I found myself choking back tears. I remembered the time recently that Ramsey asked to go see Uncle Jim's dogs. I remembered the times cutting his overgrown weeds when his skin was in too much pain to move out of his recliner. I remembered the time he gave us brownies that we threw in the trash after opening the ziploc bag and smelling a strong odor of pot. Most of all, I remembered the shaking of his head after telling him that we would be leaving him, and all the unanswered texts, and a fresh wave of shame washed over me.
The soldiers folded a flag into a tight triangle and placed it in the casket with the old man. I hugged Jim's sobbing stepson and exchanged phone numbers, told him to let us know if we could help in any way. He told us how much Jim would talk about us, and especially about Ramsey. He was planning to keep his stepfather's dogs and his truck; the house was going to be a chore to ever get into selling condition.
Sometimes I drive by our old house, and though the red brick and white trim looks the same, it feels somehow grey and less charming. I see the cars of the younger couple who bought the house from us, who didn't let Jim stand at their front door and tell them unending stories, who didn't attend his funeral, and they keep the curtains on the two big front windows closed all the time. Jim's house looks the same, and I can see the patch of grass worn away by the fence, where the dogs always scratched and barked at passing cars and pedestrians. I think of knocking on the door and ask if they want to trade back, house for house. Instead, I drive away down our old street, a digital trumpet playing a mournful tune in my head, and I reach my hand out the window, and feel the fresh breeze on my skin....more
This has the feeling of a midcentury classic to me; it feels like something a character on Mad Men would read. It'Edited 3/2/18 to his some spoilers.
This has the feeling of a midcentury classic to me; it feels like something a character on Mad Men would read. It's a subtle, vague, mindbending thing full of ennui, and I think it's Shirley Jackson's most complex novel. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is perfect in its simplicity. The Haunting of Hill House is frightening in its single-mindedness. Hangsaman, however, is beautiful in virtue of its untidiness.
Hangsaman is a puzzle with several pieces missing, which may frustrate some readers, but for me it felt like a breath of fresh air. It showed a broader range to one of my favorite authors, while still hitting all the right notes of Jackson's best work. Ambiguity is no stranger to Jackson's writing—take the ending of The Sundial, in which (view spoiler)[the apocalypse that is the main subject of the book is never revealed to actually exist (hide spoiler)], or We Have Always Lived in the Castle, in which (view spoiler)[it's only hinted that Merricat is the one to have killed her family, but never made explicit (hide spoiler)]—but the symbols and metaphors in this book were thrown well beyond ambiguity into the realm of the insane. (view spoiler)[ Did Tony exist at all? What was with the detective in Natalie's mind that kept accusing her of murder, but disappeared after she left home for college? What significance did the one-armed man have? (hide spoiler)]
At its heart, though, this is a story about a strange, lonely girl who is having trouble growing up, who is trying to get past a trauma, who has an overbearing father who refers to himself as God, and who—like the reader—doesn't have any answers to her many questions. A story can get away with extreme ambiguity if it treats its characters with love and respect, which is something Jackson never has a problem doing.
P.S. A couple more things...
I think Shirley Jackson suffers from being marketed as horror or "terrifying" or with covers that depict nooses surrounding the protagonist or the protagonist being pursued by a sinister-looking group of white-cloaked individuals. "Her shattering novel of a young girl led ever deeper into total terror", one cover claims. "The story of a haunted, brooding young girl trapped in a sinister world of her one making", another says.
Shirley Jackson is most well known for The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House, which are both pretty messed up stories that could easily be called "scary". But Shirley Jackson is not a horror writer. The majority of her work has a dark twist to it, but none of her books are really trying to actively scare you. They may unsettle you, or cause you to look at the people around you differently, but the gothic horror mold people try to squeeze her into (especially in her one time; Penguin seems to have straightened out her covers, and therefore her image, somewhat recently) isn't suiting.
P.P.S. I felt connections between this book and David Lynch, and that's the first time that's happened. Certainly the ambiguity and weirdness of the images from this book helped that connection: the man with one arm, the imaginary detective, the lesbian overtones and implied sexual violence. And just the fact that it forces you to continue to think about it after you've finished....more
**spoiler alert** It's not often that I have to debate with myself whether I loved or hated a book. This is either a 5-star or 1-star book; it's defin**spoiler alert** It's not often that I have to debate with myself whether I loved or hated a book. This is either a 5-star or 1-star book; it's definitely not a 3-star book, but how else to express such an ambivalent experience?
What I love about this, and Philip K. Dick in general (in my limited experience with him), is how it throws a number of wacky ideas at the canvas and sees what sticks. Half-life, lunar and Martian colonies, telepathy and anti-telepathy, pay-per-use appliances, etc. The shame is that what stuck in this book—half-life—is what I was least interested in, and everything else was neglected. I like Pat Conley's time travel(-ish) powers, but they were not used in any meaningful way, only as a red herring.
The book is a puzzle, and the puzzle is the plot. The whole time you're trying to figure out what's going on. Things are happening at an incredible clip, but you never know exactly what those things signify. I can't think of another book that has protagonists that I legitimately do not know whether they are dead or alive. This book is definitely an experience—I just still can't tell if I loved it or hated it....more
I read this because the adaptation comes up on a lot of top ten lists of horror movies. It's short, so I figured why not? I hesitate to say it was wriI read this because the adaptation comes up on a lot of top ten lists of horror movies. It's short, so I figured why not? I hesitate to say it was written poorly, because with translated literature I never can tell if bad sentences are the fault of the author or the translator, but the writing is just bad. It is psychologically unincisive and simplistic. The foreshadowing is terribly obvious and uninspired. However, I enjoyed the pacing. It did not feel at all like a horror novel until everything just came crashing down in one big plop.
I'm unsure if I'll watch the movie now or not. I'm not a fan of torture porn and why, really, would I want to subject myself to something that would surely be more harrowing than this reading experience. And I really don't want to watch what happens to (view spoiler)[that poor dog. (hide spoiler)]...more
The two books I've read by Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Driver's Seat, were wonderfully tight and hard-hitting short novels. EvThe two books I've read by Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Driver's Seat, were wonderfully tight and hard-hitting short novels. Even though this book is a slim 176 pages, it feels like a sprawling, unfocused tale that can't decide what it's trying to say. No one ever talks about Spark's later work (this is her second to last published book, from 2000), and this may be why....more
A wonderful introduction to pessimistic philosophy and nihilist literature for little ones.
I hadn't read this since I was a kid, but I knew what to exA wonderful introduction to pessimistic philosophy and nihilist literature for little ones.
I hadn't read this since I was a kid, but I knew what to expect. Alexander was going to have a bad day, but on the last page he would go to bed and dream sweet dreams and wake up to a better tomorrow. "It's okay to have bad days. We will have a better one tomorrow." That's not what I found; the ending shook me to my very core.
I cracked it open with my two year old son last night and to my surprise, even though the illustrations are black and white and it takes awhile to flip the pages, he sat rapt the whole time. Alexander woke up with gum in his hair, he tripped on his skateboard, and he dropped his sweater in the sink. He got the worst seat in the car on the way to school, and the school day was more of the same: suffering, drudgery, and existential pain. He lost his best friend, his mom forgot to pack him dessert, and after school he went to the dentist, who discovered a cavity.
Throughout all this, Alexander had hope, and his hope had a name. Australia. When something terribly horrible happened to Alexander, he'd think to himself, "Tomorrow, I'm going to go to Australia." It's a refrain he repeated to himself often throughout the day, and it's the only way he got through the torment. Australia was his land of milk and honey; no matter how bad this is right now, I can always go to Australia where everything will be alright.
But at the end of the day, after he's tucked himself into his bed of sorrows, his mother pecks him on his cheek and delivers this final blow: some days are like this. Some days just kick you in the pants, over and over again. "Even in Australia."
You can imagine Alexander's psyche shattering at this point. Australia is supposed to be the one place that is safe! Australia is the escape from the terror, the horror, the no good, very bad slog of daily existence! But pain permeates everything and knows no bounds. It is all.
The final image of the book is Alexander in his bed, inexpressible anguish on his face, as if an invisible hand is wrapped around his neck. This is the bed that has been made for him, and he must lie in it.
Rascally John Barth... it would be just like him to put an endless story right at the beginning of his book of short stories. How am I to ever get to Rascally John Barth... it would be just like him to put an endless story right at the beginning of his book of short stories. How am I to ever get to the second story when the first has no beginning or end?
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Secondarily... how am I supposed to read this book when I don't like your stories? (To be fair, I usually have trouble with short stories.)...more
A wonderful little (admittedly, not too complicated) puzzle of a book, a whodunnit where you don't know who dunn it or what was dunn until nearly the A wonderful little (admittedly, not too complicated) puzzle of a book, a whodunnit where you don't know who dunn it or what was dunn until nearly the end of the book. I must confess I was skeptical of this book when I read that Simenon produced nearly 500 novels in his lifetime—if you write that much, it can't all be gold—but that worry was unfounded. This is a well written, smartly contrived psychological thriller and I'll be excited to read more of Simenon....more
So now I know why everyone is calling this brutal, or a savage little book, ruthless, etc. It's true. This is a mean, red boil, and about as distressiSo now I know why everyone is calling this brutal, or a savage little book, ruthless, etc. It's true. This is a mean, red boil, and about as distressing a read as they come.
Halfway through, I felt a pit in my stomach, thinking that I was in the middle of another Less Than Zero, a detestable novel that has many surface similarities to this book. Both feature aimless and drug addicted actors wandering through Los Angeles in an ennui-fueled haze. Both are incredibly depressing.
The difference is that Didion is a good writer. Despite being so hard to process emotionally, the book is a delight to read. Each short chapter flows into the next, most of them vignettes of a depressed life, wasted talent, and veiled threats. Each sentence is packed tight with meaning.
If there's one thing I can complain about, it's Kate. (view spoiler)[She didn't serve a purpose that I can tell. There's no explanation of her illness or why she is being treated for depression when she's only twelve years old. (Certainly there's plenty in her family life to make someone depressed, but she's four! I don't think even the sixties were that messed up.) Didion insists that Maria loves Kate, and as the reader you'd expect that Kate is the reason Maria decides to keep "playing the game". But Maria insists that the answer to any question is "nothing", not even her daughter. There is no reason to keep playing the game, so there is no reason for Kate or her undefined disease. (Interesting sidenote: in the movie, which Didion cowrote with her husband, Kate apparently has brain damage, though the cause of the brain damage is not explained. This differs from the book's only offered explanation that she has "an aberrant chemical in her brain". (hide spoiler)]...more
Here's a life hack: if you read a trashy, violent crime thriller that's thin on character development, thick on action, and comforting in its predictaHere's a life hack: if you read a trashy, violent crime thriller that's thin on character development, thick on action, and comforting in its predictability, but it's written by an ascot-donning French guy and published by New York Review Books, you can pretend that it's highbrow literature....more
Just an amazing, well-paced, incredibly thoughtful, important, terrifying and beautiful meditation on the value of human life. Basically a treatise inJust an amazing, well-paced, incredibly thoughtful, important, terrifying and beautiful meditation on the value of human life. Basically a treatise in dramatic form on Blackstone's formulation that "it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." If I were to make one of those lists of books that everyone should read, this would be near the top....more
This is going to make a lot of people mad. This book kinda sucked.
Some writers like to experiment with the mechanics of fiction. What would happen if This is going to make a lot of people mad. This book kinda sucked.
Some writers like to experiment with the mechanics of fiction. What would happen if I took this thing that makes literature work a certain way and threw it out of the window. What if I took all these things that make stories good and just ignored them, did the exact opposite? Every now and then, lightning strikes and something magical is born by ignoring all the rules. Other times, unsurprisingly, you get something that just doesn't work.
In this case, you get a mash of hallucinations with no substantial reality; nameless characters without any significant traits or development; a lot of style and no plot; and a general dullness that makes reading feel like trudging through feet of wet snow.
Sorry, everybody! I guess I just didn't get this one. Its brilliance is lost on me....more
A fun little puzzle that clicks everything into place at the very end. "Ohhh, that makes sense now," you will say as you close the book. "That's prettA fun little puzzle that clicks everything into place at the very end. "Ohhh, that makes sense now," you will say as you close the book. "That's pretty messed up."...more
Three rather bland stories by the master of dialogue. The first one is worth reading, the second and third seem pointless compared to the rest of his Three rather bland stories by the master of dialogue. The first one is worth reading, the second and third seem pointless compared to the rest of his published work. I'd say only read these if you're a completist. Unfortunately, Salinger gave us readers so little of his world to enjoy. ...more
Christopher
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