I've found that I appreciate Japanese writers for their simple, easy prose. I don't know if it's the translation or if it's inherent in the language oI've found that I appreciate Japanese writers for their simple, easy prose. I don't know if it's the translation or if it's inherent in the language or if it's just a popular style there, but I like turning to Japan for a quick read. Not to mention they get into some weird stuff.
Ryu Murakami is the other Murakami, most famous for Audition, which is an easy going read punctuated by one scene of extreme horror. In that way, In the Miso Soup is very similar. It's the story of a young Japanese man who's guiding an American through the Japanese nightlife districts. The American turns out to be a weird, dangerous fellow.
Halfway through the book, I was ready to give it a single star and rant about it the way I like to rant about Bret Easton Ellis novels. It seemed shallow and juvenile. Yet somehow, Murakami turned it around in the last third of the novel. Unlike Audition, Miso Soup's singular disgusting scene happens at the midway point, and the rest of it is falling action, but that was where the magic happened. ...more
In the old park, in ice and snow caught fast Two specters walk, still searching for the past.
Somewhere between a short story and a novella, this littleIn the old park, in ice and snow caught fast Two specters walk, still searching for the past.
Somewhere between a short story and a novella, this little book focuses intensely on the interior life of one guy who’s in love with an older woman. After being separated for years, is that love still genuine? Can you even love someone you’ve not seen for a decade? Or are you in love with someone who no longer exists?...more
I love when an author or artist or musician can carefully walk a line between beauty and sadness and wonder. Mount Eerie does it in nearly every song,I love when an author or artist or musician can carefully walk a line between beauty and sadness and wonder. Mount Eerie does it in nearly every song, as does Andrew Wyeth in his paintings. And that's exactly what this book does: it's beautiful, it's sad, but it's quite wondrous. ...more
I’ve always been hesitant to pick up any manga or anime, I admit. The style, the over the top emotions, the (sometimes) cheap looking art… they don’t I’ve always been hesitant to pick up any manga or anime, I admit. The style, the over the top emotions, the (sometimes) cheap looking art… they don’t do much for me. This book, however, has something special. The art is anything but cheap, it’s beautiful and disturbing and intricate and strange.
The first few chapters are amazing. It’s about a town that is haunted not by a ghost or monster, but by spirals. Characters get obsessed with spirals, spending their days gazing at snail shells or plumes of smoke or whirlpools in a stream. Or they are completely disturbed and repelled by the sight of spirals… and did you know that you have spirals on your body? Your fingertips, your hair… there’s even a part inside your ear that makes a perfect spiral. And what do you do if you’re terrified of spirals and start discovering them on your own body?
Like I said, the first few chapters are amazing, but it soon gets too ridiculous and melodramatic and far-fetched. The earlier chapters are really disturbing and compelling, but the magic got used up too quickly. There are more than 600 pages and I wish I had stopped around page 200....more
Quite the reputation, this one has. Which can sometimes lead to overblown expectations. While I liked it, I just wasn’t blown away by it.
I thought a Quite the reputation, this one has. Which can sometimes lead to overblown expectations. While I liked it, I just wasn’t blown away by it.
I thought a lot about one of my favorite plays, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, while reading this. They’re both about a female protagonist/antihero who’s undergoing an emotional crisis. But whereas Gabler feels like a Greek myth, a purity plucked from the heavens by Ibsen, something so perfect it was inevitable; Streetcar is much more complex, messier perhaps, more open-ended. That’s not to say it was bad, it was just less impactful to me.
I’ve never seen the Marlon Brando/Vivien Leigh film. Maybe the performances will change my mind. ...more
I'm not kidding when I say that Louis Sachar is one of my favorite authors. I liked him when I was a kid; I've found a deeper appreciation for his worI'm not kidding when I say that Louis Sachar is one of my favorite authors. I liked him when I was a kid; I've found a deeper appreciation for his work as an adult. Sideways Stories from Wayside School is pure joy and zaniness for a child to read, but it's a metafictional delight for an adult to read to a child. Holes shows a greater depth to an author who could have just stuck to silliness. It's a story with twists and turns and important themes like generational trauma and guilt; it's like Dickens for young readers.
But I wasn't emotionally prepared to read this book aloud to my son. It's about the bully Bradley Chalkers, who is an absolute pestilence at the outset. He torments his classmates, he's never done a lick of homework, and he seems to revel in his villainy. But then you start to see his inner life; his imaginary friends; his yearning to be "normal"; glances of how he came to be this way, his fear of abandonment. Sachar shows that a bully isn't a rotten apple, but something that we could all become, given certain circumstances.
Sachar shows that bullies deserve sympathy, or at least empathy. But more importantly, he shows that they are not lost causes. It takes awhile for even Bradley to realize it, but he doesn't want to be a bully. He doesn't want to be a loner, or to be shunned by teachers; he actually has a curious mind, he wants to have friends, but he doesn't have the tools for it.
But along comes Carla, an absolutely incredible school counselor. I don't know if there are many Carlas out there in the real world, but I'm convinced that with enough Carlas, we could solve all the world's problems. In Bradley's world, she served as a nonjudgmental someone who accepted him as he was, who didn't tell him "the right" thing to do or demand that he get his act together. She just showed him what unconditional friendship is. And it's not really a surprise that, given some time, Bradley started modelling that behavior as well.
This may not be Louis Sachar's funnest book, but it is the only one to make me cry. And it may be his most important....more
This is like if someone tasked Cormac McCarthy with writing a John Irving novel: portrait of a sadsack, written in alternatively spare and florid prosThis is like if someone tasked Cormac McCarthy with writing a John Irving novel: portrait of a sadsack, written in alternatively spare and florid prose. I liked it very much at first. Loved the writing, but the story, apart from some very cool moments, didn't do a ton for me. I haven't seen the movie and it's hard for me to imagine how someone turned this into a sensical Hollywood film....more
This is a book called The Unstrung Harp, about the creation of a book called The Unstrung Harp, written by an anxiety-ridden Mr. Earbrass. Every otherThis is a book called The Unstrung Harp, about the creation of a book called The Unstrung Harp, written by an anxiety-ridden Mr. Earbrass. Every other page has a paragraph of written words, and the pages that are not those pages have beautifully crosshatched illustrations of Mr. Earbrass going about his business. It’s Wes Anderson; it’s British society novels; it’s metafiction; it’s Edward Gorey. ...more
The second wonderfully charming entry into the Wayside School series. As weird as the first book was, this one gets way weirder. A lot revolves aroundThe second wonderfully charming entry into the Wayside School series. As weird as the first book was, this one gets way weirder. A lot revolves around the nineteenth floor, which of course doesn’t exist, and Miss Zarves, who’s the teacher on the nineteenth floor, who of course doesn’t exist. But there are some really trippy scenes involving the floor and the teacher and the class who don’t exist.
But the characters are just the best. All of Mrs. Jewls’s students are back from last year, and there’s the addition of Benjamin Nushmutt, who’s too embarrassed to admit that his name is not actually Mark Miller… and what happened to the real Mark Miller?
These books are just the best. After reading the first book in the series, I thought about my love for postmodern and metafictional novels and thought that it makes a lot of sense that I liked these when I was a kid. But not I think that these books are the reason I now love metafiction and postmodern literature. If you want to raise your kids right, read them weird stuff like this!...more
This is old school sci-fi horror at its most okay. I've never seen any of the movies, but it's so ingrained into our culture that I felt like I knew tThis is old school sci-fi horror at its most okay. I've never seen any of the movies, but it's so ingrained into our culture that I felt like I knew the story. There aren't too many surprises, but one interesting thing I didn't expect is how much this seemed like a stepping stone between HG Wells and modern sci-fi. The main character is very Wellsian: he's a rational doctor who keeps a level head. If you rewrote this book with some late Victorian prose and relocated it to the English countryside, I'd believe it was written by Wells.
A fine experience overall, but I'm not sure it stands up to its reputation....more
This is a dazzling display of Victorian mimicry, punctuated with postmodern games: what we have here is a novel written in the 1960s, aping the style This is a dazzling display of Victorian mimicry, punctuated with postmodern games: what we have here is a novel written in the 1960s, aping the style of British novels of the 1860s, but the twentieth century keeps sticking its nose in to comment from its (more) modern perspective. The author himself appears a few times to wax philosophically on the nature of fiction, on Marx's and Darwin's effects on the environs of his story.
I think the postmodern/metafictional aspects of this novel are overstated, though. At its heart, this is a Victorian love triangle novel and it can be read as such. If you don't want to indulge in the games the author plays between centuries, that's okay. It's still a great story with well developed characters and one very enigmatic character; Fowles could stand next to the great Victorian authors with no shame....more
Ira Levin was the author of Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys From Brazil, novels from the 60s and 70s that are still adored and were Ira Levin was the author of Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys From Brazil, novels from the 60s and 70s that are still adored and were adapted into adored films. They're a lot of fun to read; they're almost written like screenplays and they're particularly good at portraying paranoia and the unraveling of conspiracies.
This book, though, is a trashy thriller that thinks it has the gravitas of a Greek tragedy. It's about divorced fiction editor Kay (described as sexy, of course) who moves into one of New York's sliver buildings (one of those skinny ones) and gets enmeshed with a bunch of residents who all have secrets to hide. There are rumors of suicides and accidents that have plagued the building, which--of course---is 1300 Madison Avenue. It's still fun to read, but in the fun even though it's bad way.
Ira Levin wrote five books between 1953 and 1976; then he didn't release a book until this one in 1991. During that time, the world must have passed him by, because this book feels way more dated than any of his older ones. There's talk of high end video surveillance equipment and you can just imagine a hacker in a dark room, trails of glowing green data flowing down some giant, bulky computer screens. High-powered executives meet for lunch at the Four Seasons and talk about how maybe they'll cross paths with Trump. Sharon Stone, William Baldwin and Tom Berenger star in the film adaptation, because of course they do.
The moral is, read Ira Levin's older books, but probably steer clear of this one.
P.S. I just took the time to read the Wiki entry for the Sliver film adaptation (because there's absolutely no way I'm wasting my time to watch it) and wow, it sounds even worse than the book. (view spoiler)[In the book, the antagonist is the young computer programmer Pete who spies on everyone in the building and kills off anyone who finds out about his surveillance system. He strikes up a romance with Kay and then tries to kill her when she finds out what he's up to, but she gets the best of him. In the film, Carly (changed from Kay) moves into the building where video game designer Zeke (changed from Pete) and old novelist Jack (who was Sam the washed-up film director and obvious stand-in for Levin in the book and was mostly inconsequential to the plot) befriend her. The film opts for dual antagonists: Zeke still spies on everyone, but it's Jack who is the murderer.
Even more interesting, though, is the original scrapped ending, which is mostly closer to the book's plot. Zeke is the bad guy, he still seduces Carly, but somehow--I have no idea how this happens--he decides to confess his crimes to her while they're flying a helicopter over a volcano and then he double suicides them right into the volcano. It somehow gets better though: the pilot crashed the helicopter while filming that scene (no one died, thankfully) and the pilot had his license revoked.
The movie has an 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Big surprise. (hide spoiler)]...more
I must admit it feels a bit uncomfortable reading this book as a 36 year old man. The experience is, in essence, snooping into the diary of an eleven I must admit it feels a bit uncomfortable reading this book as a 36 year old man. The experience is, in essence, snooping into the diary of an eleven year old girl that details her thoughts on boys, bras, menstruation, religion, et cetera. In these pages, Margaret tries out Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, she buys her first bra, she finds and flips through a Playboy with her friend. She and her friends appeal to an unnamed higher power for bigger breasts with chants of "we must, we must, we must increase our busts!"
Some books give you entertainment. Some books increase your knowledge. My favorite books demand and increase your empathy. I can't say that I understand how a young girl feels as they start to go through puberty, but this book put me in that mindset for a little while, at least, and that can't be a bad thing.
Does anyone know what the male-equivalent book to this might be? I don't just mean a good male-centric young adult novel, because there are hundreds of those. I mean one that takes everything about being a young boy and plops it right out there on the page, all the awkward and painful and scary stuff, one that every boy or once-boy can identify with. What book would that be?...more
The first quarter of this book was great, it was about a pompous history professor going to the house of a deranged history professor who claims to haThe first quarter of this book was great, it was about a pompous history professor going to the house of a deranged history professor who claims to have a son who is monster. He meets the son, who is not a monster, but just has some sort of "glandular problem", but he's writing a book. This is all just a frame story for Freddy's book, which the professor reads. Except it's not really a frame story, because it never returns to the professor's viewpoint. Freddy's book is all there is for the rest of the pages, and I was not into it at all... it was about a Swedish knight trying to kill the devil or something, but like old Arthurian tales, it gives very little reason to care about the characters or what's going on.
Notes from my reading of Shirley Jackson's letters:
- College-age Shirley writes remarkably well; her early letters have almost the same voice as her lNotes from my reading of Shirley Jackson's letters:
- College-age Shirley writes remarkably well; her early letters have almost the same voice as her later letters, as well as many of her stories. - It’s weird that Shirley and Stanley (her husband) like sports so much. She's constantly telling her parents or others about their experiences at baseball or football games, her hopes for her team's chances at the World Series, etc. When I imagine Shirley in her free time, I picture her practicing some light witchcraft, not cheering on her favorite batter. - Shirley found Joyce's Ulysses to be a bore, which gives me some feeling of validation. - Ralph Ellison was a close friend of Shirley and Stanley and wrote much of Invisible Man while staying with them. -Shirley constantly wrote to her parents to ask for financial help. Even with her relative publishing success and Stanley's career as a professor at Bennington College, they always struggled to make ends meet. -Stanley and Shirley had an open relationship, but not in the fun, modern sense. Stanley was a cheater and Shirley reluctantly allowed him to continue cheating with her knowledge. There are hints that many of his lovers were his students. (What a class act, eh?) There's no evidence that she engaged in any extramarital affairs. -Stanley refused to read Hill House because he’s afraid of ghosts. -Shirley LOVES the Wizard of Oz books and they come up constantly. -Shirley, just like me, considered We Have Always Lived in the Castle to be her best work. She has good taste! -In the end, I'm left with the same somber feeling: if she hadn't die of a heart attack at 48, what amazing literature would she have produced?...more
This book is a labyrinth made of gaslighting and paranoia and you're lost in there long enough, among so many lies, that when something true does starThis book is a labyrinth made of gaslighting and paranoia and you're lost in there long enough, among so many lies, that when something true does stare you in the face, you can't recognize it for what it is. If that sounds good to you, then you'll like this book.
(view spoiler)[I wish it had a more concrete explanation and ending. Somewhere near the end, a character says "an answer is always a form a death", and by providing very few answers Fowles is attempting to give his book immortality. I, however, would have preferred to put this book to death if it adequately explained what Conchis was really up to. (hide spoiler)]...more
There was an HBO miniseries last year called The White Lotus and it's about tangled group of tourists in a beautiful Hawaiian resort. You're told at tThere was an HBO miniseries last year called The White Lotus and it's about tangled group of tourists in a beautiful Hawaiian resort. You're told at the beginning that by the end of the week, someone is going to be dead; that's the whole hook of the show. That's basically what Reflections in a Golden Eye does, except instead of lovely Hawaii, it's set in a peacetime US military base in the South.
McCullers's writing is enough to hook me, I don't need some pulpy, morbid hook to get me reading one of her books. Which is a good thing, because the plot is rather unsatisfying. It just does not feel like the author poured her soul into this one. It's worth reading (it's only 127 pages), but this is a far cry from the superb The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. ...more
"The Land Breakers is a saga like the Norse Sagas or the book of Genesis", says the blurb, and those are great comparisons. This book is the story of "The Land Breakers is a saga like the Norse Sagas or the book of Genesis", says the blurb, and those are great comparisons. This book is the story of the settling of the Appalachian mountains by white farmers. There are bears and wolves that stalk around every tree. There's severe weather and harsh winters that threaten the character's lives; no one is ever safe. Which isn't to say this is simply a survival tale of man vs. nature. This is a story that's filled with humanity and complex relationships.
The writing is wonderful and fluid. At times it feels like a folktale, at other times it can feel dreamlike; sometimes it can get very technical in nature as it describes the practical tasks of building a log cabin from scratch or constructing a plowshare. But the writing is always pleasing to read and it pushes you right along.
This is my neck of the woods, or at least close to it. I'm a Kentucky boy and I often drive a couple hours east to be in the mountains. When you're there, it feels like you're in an old place, like the place that the world began. There are still a few bears left, but you can feel the weight of all the bears throughout history that have been driven out by generations of humans invading their territory. And this is the book that comes closest to describing that history that you feel when you take a walk in the woods of the mountains of the eastern United States....more
Christopher
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