The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
(5/5 stars)

It's just as well I didn't read this book when I bought it in December 2011 on sale.  I probably would have scoffed at the idea that a hard-line fascist patriarchy could take over what was once America.  Reading it in May 2012 now I'm not nearly as skeptical.  Hearing the hard-line stances of those like Rick Santorum and Rush Limbaugh infamously calling a woman a [rhymes with "glut"] for wanting birth control makes me think there is a portion of this country that would enact something just like Atwood describes.

What she describes in "The Handmaid's Tale" is a patriarchal society where most women are stripped of all rights.  There's a caste system of sorts enacted.  At the top are the "Wives" who are (obviously) the wives of high-ranking officials in the new regime.  There are also "Econowives" who are the wives of lesser officials.  The Wives have servants called "Marthas" who toil away in the kitchens and so forth.  And then since most Wives are older and infertile, there are the Handmaidens.  The Handmaidens are tasked with giving birth to a baby, which is then turned over to the Wife to raise.

Now since this is a hard-line religious establishment where doctors and scientists are killed or locked up, they can't use scientific means like artificial insemination.  Instead there's a whole bizarre ritual that takes place every few nights that involves the Commander (the male head of the household) getting it on with the Handmaiden while the wife is present.  There's nothing seductive or kinky about all of it; it's all pretty sterile, which might be why it's ineffective.

The person telling the tale is a Handmaiden known as Offred (as in she's Fred's property).  She describes life in her household and at other intervals talks about life before the new order took over.  In that life, Offred had a real name and a husband named Luke and also a daughter.  She had a feminist mother and a lesbian friend named Moira.

I think if you want to complain about anything it's that not a lot really HAPPENS in terms of plot.  So if you were looking for a taut thriller or anything like that, then you wouldn't enjoy this.  The obvious point of comparison would be "1984".  I would also say that was a better book in that Orwell has more of a story arc concerning Winston being seduced by the "rebellion" and then betraying the one he loves in order to save his own skin, thereby crushing his spirit.  (Oh sorry for the spoilers.)  While Atwood's book is riveting, the world she builds doesn't really go anywhere.  Offred isn't forced to make the same choices as Winston.  And I have to say I found the last 6% or so, the epilogue, to be a little corny.

Still, with the recent events I already mentioned, the hard-line anti-abortion laws being enacted in "red states" and so forth, I think this is an important book to read (or reread) at this point in history.  Especially if you're female you should read this to see the worst that can happen.

That is all.

Life of Pi

This was one of those books I heard people talking about seven or eight years ago and I kept meaning to get around to it.  Though after I read Martel's first novel "Self" I was less inclined to read this because that novel was so boring that it routinely put me to sleep.  But eventually I found a copy of this for a really low price so I figured I might as well do it.

I started to regret that decision during the first 150 pages.  Like "Self" these pages are so dull.  Mostly they concern Pi Patel as he tries different religions like an Indian version of "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret."  This might have been interesting if you haven't read any fiction about India before but I've read Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" and John Irving's "Son of the Circus" which were both far more interesting in terms of Indian culture.  Then too there was also the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" that also dealt with India and its religious divisions.

So all of that made those first 150 pages a chore to plow through.  I kept wondering, "When are we getting to the shipwreck with the tiger?"  That's the hook for this novel isn't it?  Boy in a lifeboat with a tiger?

Well it finally happened once Pi's father decides to move his family to Canada to escape the Idira Gandhi regime.  The ship they're on with most of the animals from their little zoo in India--to be sold to American/Canadian zoos--sinks shortly after leaving the Philippines. 

The crew throws Pi into a lifeboat, where soon he finds that he's sharing space with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger!  That's a lot of animals to cram into what's described as one hundred square feet.  Actually I have serious doubts that you could hide a tiger under a tarp in that small amount of space.

Anyway (spoiler alert!) it eventually ends up with just Pi and the tiger as they cross the Pacific Ocean.  The book at this point deals mostly with Pi's struggle to survive.  Not only to find food and water, but also to deal with his boatmate, the tiger named Richard Parker.  It's a constant struggle, one that forces Pi to compromise many of his religious beliefs, such as his aversion to eating meat.

This was where the book came to life and became much more interesting.  Though the problem with being on a lifeboat is that there's a limit to just how much you can do.  With "Robinson Crusoe" or "Lord of the Flies" or even "Gilligan's Island" where the main character(s) is marooned on an island, there's far more you can do because you have a whole island to explore.  That makes far more potential for adventure than a boat floating on the water, where essentially everything has to come to you. 

For the most part Martel manages to make this interesting with the relationship between Pi and Richard Parker.  Then there are strange incidents like meeting another lifeboat or the mysterious island they come upon.

Although what I think is missing is more about his spiritual state.  A couple of times he says it brings him closer to God, though which one?  Since he believes in the Christian God, Allah, and all the Hindu gods, which one(s) is he getting closer to?  Or maybe there's just one ubergod?

The ending is also a little disappointing and mildly offensive with the vaudevillian act between Pi and a pair of Japanese shipping company officers.  So basically everything off the lifeboat is far less interesting than everything on the lifeboat.  Maybe they should have stayed on the boat.

That is all.

The Hours

The Hours
By Michael Cunningham

I feel cheated by this novel. The sole reason I read the book is because I had just watched the film version and thought the source novel might shed some light on a couple of points, especially the relationship between Richard and his mother. I suppose it helped a little, but not much.

I think that about summarizes my entire problem with the novel--it's too short. I suppose that was in part because it's only supposed to cover one day for each of the three main characters--Virginia Woolf in 1923, Laura Brown in 1949, and Clarissa Vaughn in "the present" or late 90s--and so to maintain that the author couldn't go so much into a lot of backstory. References are made to the past relationship between Clarissa and her former lover Richard, who's dying of AIDS, and his other former lover Louis, who is not dying of AIDS, but still I would have liked to have known more. As I mentioned at the beginning, the relationship between Richard and his mother was something I didn't quite understand in the movie, but it makes a little more sense in the book. In particular I didn't understand how she shows up at the end of the movie when they seemed to imply earlier that she was dead. In the book it makes more sense that she dies in Richard's book in real life and later he asks Clarissa to call her.

I'm sure some people would be annoyed that I'm comparing and contrasting the book and movie and not taking them as separate entities. On the whole, I think it was a push as to which is better. The book does a better job, as books do, of giving characters internal life. The movie conveys much of this through dialog between the characters, which makes for better drama, especially when Virginia Woolf and her husband are arguing at the train station. It works much better in the film version when they're talking than in the novel where most of it occurs in Virginia's head as she sits on a bench. Some of the background characters like Sally, Clarissa's lover, and Julia, Clarissa's daughter, are given more depth in the book than the movie while Virginia's husband Leonard and her sister, niece, and nephews seem to get more time in the film. So it's hard overall to say which is better, though in the end I think I'm more attached emotionally to the film because of the heightened drama, whereas the book seems a little dry.

To summarize the plot, it involves three women, as I mentioned above. First there's Virginia Woolf, the brilliant but mad author who in 1923 is living in the countryside of England with her husband, a printer, and not altogether happy about it. She sets off to writing "Mrs. Dalloway," a novel about a woman who is giving a party and what all happens to her and those around her in London that day. Concurrently, Laura Brown is living in LA in 1949 with her husband Dan and son Richie and is pregnant with another child. A socially awkward girl, she seems to have struck it rich when Dan returns from the Pacific and asks to marry her. But three years later she's not happy. She's reading "Mrs. Dalloway" and sees parallels to the book and its author in her life. And parallel to this we have Clarissa Vaughn in the present. Her former lover Richard nicknamed her Mrs. Dalloway for Clarissa Dalloway and like that character, Clarissa Vaughn is giving a party. In her case it's a party for Richard, who has won a prestigious poetry award. This section of the book often has parallels to the Woolf novel, with modern characters recreating the roles of those in "Mrs. Dalloway." (Sally as Mr. Dalloway, daughter Julia as Elizabeth Dalloway, Richard as Septimus, Louis as Peter Walsh, and writer friend Walter as Hugh.) Most of the events of this section also mirror those of "Mrs. Dalloway," which is really obvious to pick up if you do like I did and read Woolf's book immediately prior to reading "The Hours."

All three sections of the book are interwoven together to create a rich tapestry of the lives of these three women. It might have been richer if the author had expanded a little more, as I indicated earlier. Still, it's a good book and an even better film. I recommend both.

That is all.

BTW, it's ironic in the novel that Clarissa thinks she sees Meryl Streep in the trailer of a movie being shot in New York. For the film version of "The Hours" Clarissa was played by none other than Meryl Streep. (This probably explains why that scene was omitted from the film as it would have been pretty cheesy to have Meryl Streep trying to meet herself.)

Anansi Boys

Anansi Boys

By Neil Gaiman

(3.5/5 stars)

"Anansi Boys" is not so much a sequel to Gaiman's "American Gods" as it is more of a spin-off, a literary "Rhoda" or "Facts of Life." In "American Gods" there was a trickster god called Anansi or Mr. Nancy, who was a spider but also manifested himself as a swinging black man in the mold of Cab Calloway.

When "Anansi Boys" begins, Mr. Nancy is dead. He leaves behind two sons. One is "Fat" Charlie Nancy, who is not fat but the childhood nickname given to him by his father has stuck no matter what he does. Though he grew up in Florida, Charlie moved to London as an adult, where he works for a sleazy talent agent and is engaged to a charity worker named Rosie. By any standard Charlie's life is pretty boring.

That is until he meets his brother. Charlie's brother goes by the name Spider. He has no job, spending his time flitting from place to place, having a grand old time. He has no steady girlfriends either. What Spider does have is magic. This is what he inherited from his father and that he uses to make himself the life of the party.

Charlie makes the mistake of inviting Spider to stay with him and before long Charlie's life is turned upside down. And like house guests everywhere, Spider soon overstays his welcome.

If the plot sounds like a sitcom, it's because for the most part it is. It's like "Two and a Half Men" without the kid. And with a bit of island magic. That makes the book more lighthearted and fun than "American Gods" but it also doesn't have quite the same impact. Though a fun and engaging read, it's likely to stick with you as long as it takes to flip the channel.

Still, I'd recommend it, especially if you're a fan of books like Terry Pratchett's Discworld series that similarly combine humor and fantasy.

That is all.

American Gods

American Gods

by Neil Gaiman

(4/5 stars)

I mentioned this in my review of "Good Omens" but just to recap, I came by this book after reading Terry Pratchett's fabulous Discworld series. From there I went to "Good Omens", an apocalyptic comedy penned by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. So now I'm segueing to Gaiman solo in "American Gods." I have to say, for the record, I think Pratchett's books on the whole are a lot more fun. While there is humor in "American Gods" it's darker and a little more subtle--ironic might be the best way. The difference is probably that the Discworld books are written as comedies while "American Gods" isn't. I still enjoyed this, but in a different way.

"American Gods" covers territory covered by Gaiman and Pratchett (or Pratchett & Gaiman) in "Good Omens" and by Pratchett in Discworld books like "Small Gods" and "Hogfather." That territory is the concept that gods exist because people believe in them; gods are an extension of a human belief to believe in something. Over time, for a variety of reasons, belief in gods rises and falls. For instance, thousands of years ago no one outside the Middle East had ever heard of the god we know as GOD. They believed in their own more local gods, some like the Greek/Roman gods we studied in school and still remember because they're named for things like planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto) or Greek restaurants. Others have pretty much faded away from memory entirely, except perhaps for an artifact in a museum.

What Gaiman does in "American Gods" is to take that concept a step farther. For thousands of years people have been coming to America--"Native" Americans, Spanish, French, English, Dutch, and of course the Vikings--and with them they bring their gods and make sacrifices to them and build places of worship to them and so forth. And in the process they give life to those gods in America. But what becomes of the gods after war, disease, slavery, and assimilation have eroded that belief in them? Basically they're left roaming the countryside, living essentially as mortals.

A big man named Shadow gets out of prison and meets one of these fallen gods, a grifter now going by the name of Mr. Wednesday. With no job, no family, and no place to live, Shadow agrees to become Wednesday's bodyguard for a dangerous mission that takes them across the United States, though much of the action is centered in Illinois and Wisconsin. There's a storm coming, one that threatens not just Shadow but the entire fabric of reality. Because, you see, there are new gods being created everyday--gods of Technology and Media and so forth. When old gods and new gods clash, all hell is bound to break loose.

As for Shadow, he has to confront his tragic past and his destiny. Plus he has to find a way to bring his zombie wife back to life.

Overall this is a good book, though the ending seems pretty anticlimactic. I guess that's how life is sometimes. It would help too if you knew more about mythology than I do; I know a little about Greek and Norse myths from school but Gaiman includes myth creatures from pretty much every culture in the world. (Though it seems like the Greek gods like Zeus, Aphrodite, Athena, Poseidon, and so forth are missing.) Anyway, I think this is the kind of book I'd really have to read a second time--or possibly more--to GET it because there's so much going on.

Of course a lot of people will probably steer clear of a book like this because it might challenge their personal beliefs. Though I personally like a religious philosophy where pretty much everyone can be right.

That is all.

PS - I feel a little ethically compromised because Mr. Gaiman is my "friend" on the Goodreads site and I follow him on Twitter.

Watchmen

Watchmen

Written by Allen Moore

Illustrated by Dave Gibbons

(5/5 stars)

I've never been interested in reading comic books, which is ironic because I watched comic book heroes on TV and in movies, but I never could get myself to read any of the source material. Because I'm so out of the loop on comics, I didn't know what a turning point the "Watchmen" series was for the comic book industry until I heard about it on the History Channel. Now with the movie coming out in March, I thought I'd finally give the source material a try. I was not disappointed.

It's important to note straight off that these are not your father's comic book heroes. What "Watchmen" did when it came out in the mid-80s was to make comic book characters REAL--or as real as can be expected. The "costumed adventurers" depicted in the series are not in it for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. They have varying reasons like psychotic obsessions, family pressure, fame-seeking, or just plain old curiosity. Most of these "heroes" might help you if you were being mugged or trapped in a burning building, but don't expect them to help old ladies cross the road or give a lesson on civics to a 3rd grade class.

The story begins in 1985, a very different 1985 from what you might remember. For one thing, Richard Nixon is still president and American won the war in Vietnam thanks to the costumed adventurers, most notably Dr. Manhattan, a god-like being who is blue and pretty much do whatever he wants to matter--including making it disappear. (Another difference is that thanks to Doc Manhattan electric cars were invented in 1960, thus global warming is not so much of a problem, nor are rising oil prices.) Only Dr. Manhattan and an aging mercenary known as The Comedian (like a sadistic Captain America) are still allowed to fight evil by working for Uncle Sam. The rest are all forced into hiding. Most find other jobs while some, like the obsessive Rorshach, continue to operate at risk of prosecution. (The premise of superheroes being outlawed was later used in the Disney movie "The Incredibles.")

One night, though, The Comedian is found dead in his apartment. As Rorshach investigates the case, he begins to see a conspiracy at work and not only because he's paranoid. Someone is out to eliminate or marginalize all the costumed adventurers. But who and why remains a mystery as the world teeters on the brink of Armageddon with a Soviet incursion into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Can the "heroes" find out what's going on and put a stop to it? With the USA and USSR turn the earth into a radioactive cinder? Tune in to find out.

I have to say, for a comic book (originally published as a series of 12 and now packaged together into a novel) this was fascinating. It's not just one slugfest after another between heroes and villains. The narrative not only goes into the mystery and conspiracy, but it delves into the backgrounds of the characters and includes interesting sidebars, notably a comic within the comic about an evil pirate ship of damned souls that makes the Black Pearl seem like a Carnival fun ship. The comic within the comic fits into one of the overreaching themes of the book, which is: do the ends justify the means? And as is frequently scrawled on walls in the book: who watches the watchmen?

Unraveling the various complexities and symbolic elements of this would take a long time, and I doubt I could nail them all own. Suffice it to say if you think comics are kid's stuff then you are dead wrong in this case. This is a comic for adults with adult situations like rape, impotency, and other stuff you certainly won't see on Saturday morning cartoons. "Watchmen" was one of the first books to really focus solely on the adults and revolutionized the industry. Its influence is still felt today in movies like "The Dark Knight" that strive for a more realistic approach to those costumed adventurers.

That is all.

(BTW, as I have no experience with graphic novels there's nothing I can say about the artwork. I thought it was good, but what do I know?)

Hyperion

Hyperion

by Dan Simmons

(4/5 stars)

I can honestly say it took me seven years to read this book. Not because it's extremely long--though at 482 pages it's not short either--or because it wasn't interesting--once I started reading I could hardly put it down. The problem was I originally bought the book, but before I could get around to reading it I moved and the book was in a box that was misplaced for four of those seven years. After the box was found I just didn't get around to reading it, in part because my reading tastes had changed away from sci-fi and in part because I worried this would be one of those dull "hard" science-fiction novels that spend more time on discussion of astrophysics than characters or story. I could not have been more wrong.

Nothing much actually happens in the actual story of "Hyperion." Seven different people from around the galaxy--known as the Hegemony of Man--are brought together by the mysterious Church of the Shrike for a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on the backwater world of Hyperion. Other than what appears to be a murder of one pilgrim, there's not much else involved other than travel arrangements.

The far more interesting part of the book are the stories within the stories. "Hyperion" is a sci-fi update of the classic "Canterbury Tales" where each of the six remaining pilgrims tells their story to the others of why they're on the pilgrimage. The Catholic priest Hoyt needs to get there before he dies from something that happened last time he was on the planet, the warrior Kassad needs to go there because of an encounter with a mysterious woman, the poet Silenius because the strange planet is the muse for his greatest work, the "Wandering Jew" Sol Weintaub to save his baby daughter, the detective Brawne to complete a case she took up, and the Consul, well, I won't spoil that surprise.

The mystery of what everyone wants and what exactly is going on with the Time Tombs and the mysterious creature known as The Shrike makes it hard to put the book down even though not a lot is happening. There are hints of a destuctive war to come, but that's saved for the sequel. I was disappointed after seven years to find out I need to buy the sequel to find out what happens to the pilgrims; I know it won't take seven years to read that.

My only real complaints are first some of the descriptions are a bit purple, especially the erotic encounter between Kassad and the mystery woman. Also, I wasn't happy with the order of the tales. Especially Weintraub's being in the middle of the book. It's such a great emotional tearjerker story that it should have been placed second-to-last in front of the Consul's nearly as emotional tearjerker story. Putting the hardboiled detective story of Brawne between the two takes away some of the flow. Still, maybe that was to keep with the form of "Canterbury Tales"; I wouldn't know because I've never read it.

In any case, even if you're not an avid sci-fi reader this is still a great book. You'll probably be a little confused about what a "farcaster" or a "Hawking drive" or a "fatline" is or how a "time-debt" works, but so was I and I've read a bit of sci-fi. Beyond that, the stories and characters are so classic to appeal to every reader.

That is all.

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces

by John Kennedy Toole

(4/5 stars)

There are two ways of perceiving Cervantes's "Don Quixote." In the modern interpretation Don Quixote is an idealistic dreamer, a hopeless romantic battling the windmills of a bitter, cynical world. The more traditional (and I'd say correct) interpretation is that Don Quixote is a dangerous madman adhering to an outdated ideology and sowing havoc wherever he goes. Based on which interpretation you believe in, the novel can be seen as charmingly comic or darkly comic.

The same can be said for "A Confederacy of Dunces." Ignatius Reilly is Don Quixote of the bayou, a grossly overweight, strangely dressed believer in Medieval philosophy. He espouses these beliefs in notebooks, to his mother, at the movie theater (to the annoyance of patrons, ushers, and managers), and to any perspective employer. The only one close to understanding him might have been his dead collie, whom he loves in a not-entirely healthy way. The second closest is his former girlfriend--using the term loosely--Myrna Minkoff, an heiress turned political activist from New York.

Reilly's mother caters to his every need--such as supporting him through the better part of a decade of college, though it never leads him to a stable job--until she runs her car into a building while drunk. This leads her to forcing Reilly out into the world. His interactions with employees at a pants factory, a hot dog vendor, a gay man in the French Quarter, and a bar's employees create mayhem for Reilly and those he comes into contact with.

I think the prevailing view is to think of Ignatius Reilly as a madcap fish out of water, the idealistic dreamer interpretation. But it's not hard to also see him as a fat, selfish lout deserving of the scorn and ridicule he receives. Clearly Ignatius Reilly--like Don Quixote--is someone who takes himself and his ridiculously out-of-step views far too seriously, so you're never laughing WITH him so much as laughing AT him. It's up to you to decide just how mean-spirited the laughing at part is.

At any rate, it's unfortunate that John Kennedy Toole did not live long enough to hone his craft a bit more. Had he received some support and guidance he could have been one of the great American authors of his generation with the likes of Vonnegut, Updike, and of course Walker Percy, who at least made sure we could all read this novel. As it is, there are still some kinks in this, like how people are always screaming relatively ordinary lines of dialog or how the gay characters are stereotyped queens and butches.

Still, there's no question this is a good novel, and a funny novel as well, which is why it managed to endure even after the death of its author. NO matter how you should interpret it, you should read it.

On a side note, I think if Ignatius Reilly were around in modern times he would be writing his missives on the Internet instead of in notebooks. Mostly likely he'd be writing reviews in a blog...

That is all.

White Teeth

White Teeth

by Zadie Smith

(2/5 stars)

I think I might have liked this book a lot more if I hadn't listened to the audiobook version. 22 hours of stereotyped Indian and Jamaican accents was enough to drive me up the wall. I'll have to wait a while and read the actual book without the distraction of grinding my teeth at the bad accents.

In the meantime, someone in a writer's group suggested this book should get the Nobel Prize--I wouldn't go nearly that far. I know what I'm supposed to say about how it's a wonderful portrait of the immigrant's dilemma of assimilation versus maintaining tradition and the second generation immigrant's confusion about his/her roots. And how it illustrates modernity versus antiquity with the whole FutureMouse debacle. And I should say how relevant the conflict between Muslims like Samad and Millat and Christians/atheists is in the post-9/11 world. Finally, I'm supposed to say how magnificent it is that the author wrote this magnificent book at the tender age of 23.

Having mentioned all that, I still didn't like this book--and not solely because of the problem I mentioned at the beginning. I think what was missing here was that most basic, primal need: to actually LIKE someone in this book. Simply put, I wouldn't want to know any of the characters in this book. Samad, Alsana, and Millat are loud, pushy, and often obnoxious while Maggad is stuffy and dull. Archie and Iree are timid and weak, with Iree being especially whiny to boot. Clara is practically nonexistent after the first couple chapters. As a reader, was there one person I could latch onto and root for? Not a one.

That was the most grievous problem, but not the only one. The constant authorial intrusions into the narrative became quite irritating, interrupting the flow of scenes with snide comments and sidebar discussions. The lengthy histories of just about every minor character and organization also became tedious, also making for too many characters, none of whom I could care less about. Then of course one of those minor characters makes a sudden reappearance at the end, which really didn't make much sense and seemed like a clumsy attempt at unleashing a surprise plot twist. I was also confused at the rather abrupt way in which Iree rapes one of Samad's sons. Again, this is probably another clumsy attempt at a plot twist. It certainly made me lose whatever sympathy I had left for Iree.

For the obligatory plot summary, this is the story of two families. Samad is a Bengali who immigrated to London and eventually was arranged to be married to the much-younger Alsana, who gave birth to twin boys. Samad is torn between his Muslim beliefs and the temptations of the non-Muslim world, especially a music teacher. This transgression leads to guilt that he partially alleviates by sending one of his boys back to Bangladesh, while keeping the other at home. One boy turns out to be a secular atheist and the other a fundamentalist Muslim who joins a group known as KEVIN, sort of a poor man's Nation of Islam, not to be confused with terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, Archie Jones was left by his wife and determined to kill himself until Fate intervenes and he winds up at a New Year's Eve party where he meets the young Jamaican woman named Clara, whom he marries and they have a chubby daughter named Iree, who loves one of Samad's boys but feels ashamed by her weight and half-Jamaican heritage. Eventually a third family is drawn into this with the father of that family genetically engineering a mouse called the FutureMouse that is opposed by Samad and one of his sons and supported by the other. And that leads to a final epic showdown of sorts settled by the aforementioned secondary character appearing out of left field to wreak havoc.

So as should be obvious, I really didn't like this book. Maybe if I read it again I'll feel differently--that's happened before. In the meantime, I'd recommend another stunning book by a 23-year-old woman: "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers. Also, if you want a better book on Muslims around the Indian subcontinent I'd recommend "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie.

That is all.

American Pastoral

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

October 30, 2006

I found this book to be fascinating and frustrating to read at the same time. Fascinating in that Seymour Levov--the Swede--is such a robust, fully realized character. Frustrating in that the first hundred pages are dedicated to Philip Roth (ie, Nathan Zuckerman) and his class reunion and his prostate cancer and his admiration of the Swede. Frustrating too in that this is a novel that doesn't go from point A to point B directly but instead swoops around in endless circles so that in the end we find there's not much more we know about the plot than we did at the start.

What there is of the plot is that the Swede thinks he has the American Dream. He runs the glove factory his father built, he marries the former Miss New Jersey, he has his dream house in the country (and vacation home in Puerto Rico), and he has a beautiful daughter named Merry. But soon enough everything starts to go downhill for the poor Swede. Merry develops a stutter that won't go away despite the help of "experts" and her interests in the counterculture of the 60s become radical until one night she blows up the post office/general store, inadvertantly killing a local doctor. The pain of Merry's terrorist act and subsequent years on the lam begin the downward spiral of the Swede's inner life as he's tormented in trying to figure out what he did wrong. Eventually we're led to believe his wife (after getting an expensive facelift in Switzerland) is having an affair and race riots in Newark have decimated the Swede's factory. When the Swede does meet Merry again she's wasting away as a Jain so dedicated to her new religion that she won't even bathe and one day will die from starvation.

That's really as far as the story ever gets. We're left to fill in the details from the first third of the book when Philip Roth talks with the Swede's curmudgeonly brother Jerry, but we can't ever be entirely sure what happened to the Swede's first wife or daughter, although we do know he gets a second wife and has three boys at some point. What we can be sure of is that even if the Swede appears happy on the outside he's broken on the inside.

As a character study this book is simply fascinating. Roth really gets inside the Swede, fleshing out all his thoughts, hopes, dreams, and fears for us to see so that we have a complex portrait of a "typical" upper-middle-class American. The object of the book then isn't so much for entertainment but to make us think about our concept of the American Dream and America in general.

It's unfortunate we have to suffer through a hundred dull pages of Philip Roth, er Nathan Zuckerman, before the story gets going. Once Roth gets out of Roth's way the story begins, although if you're hoping for a straight-ahead plot-driven yarn this isn't it. This is definitely NOT airplane reading or beach reading. It's a very intimidating read with paragraphs that go on for pages and that keeps skewing from one tangent to another tangent, though it all forms a rich tapestry. Perhaps not as good as Updike's Rabbit Angstrom novels, but interesting nonetheless.

So if you can get past the first third of the book the rest is definitely worth reading to give you a lot of food for thought. If you only want entertainment, better look elsewhere.

That is all.

The Stone Diaries

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

October 6, 2006

There are a lot of books out there written purely for entertainment and then are the more scholarly, "artsy" books like "The Stone Diaries" that unless they get Oprah's endorsement usually aren't read in the mainstream. These latter category of books have more freedom to experiment with different styles and techniques. This can make for an interesting story or it can make for a dull, albeit somewhat thought-provoking read. Again the latter categroy best describes "The Stone Diaries."

I hate to say a book is boring because I sound like a five-year-old trying to squirm his through an opera, but this book is BORING. The problem lies with Daisy herself. She isn't interesting. She does nothing interesting. Almost nothing interesting happens to her. Her first husband for all of two weeks gets drunk and falls out a window; that's the most interesting thing that happens to her. That and her birth in the kitchen of her father's Manitoba home when her mother was either too stupid or too lazy to find out she was pregnant. Everything else is as common and ordinary and unexciting as the lint in your dryer. She grows up, moves with her father to Indiana, goes to college, gets married and widowed, visits Ottawa, gets married again to the much-older man who helped raise her after her mother died, has three kids, gets widowed again, becomes a garden columnist, gets fired, gets depressed, gets old, gets sick, dies. The end. It almost sounds more interesting describing it that way than it reads in the book.

The most agonizing part for me is it takes the book so long to even get to Daisy. The first 90 pages of the novel go by without knowing more than basic information about her. We read nothing about her childhood except her getting sick and developing an allergy. We read nothing about her teenage years in Indiana or her time in college. We go through a good third of the book without knowing ANYTHING important about the main character of the story. We're told plenty of background about the people around her--including the life story of her dead mother--but very little about her until she's already widowed the first time and on her way to becoming the Canadian June Cleaver.

The only way to appreciate this book, especially near the end, is to think, "Daisy is like me" or someone you know. But then it's pretty depressing to think most of us are this bland and ordinary. We'd like to think we're special but if we see ourselves in Daisy then we are anything but special.

The narration for this book was confusing as well. It refers to Daisy in the 3rd person most of the time, but then throws in first-person references as well. There's also a paragraph or two halfway through saying how unreliable Daisy is as a narrator. Upon reading that, what am I the reader supposed to believe? All of this as well as the frequent time shifts, cuts to letters, "theories", recipes, notes, and so forth left me dazed, confused, and feeling empty.

Of course you can say, "This won a Pulitzer, so what do you know?" I've read many of the Pulitzer winners over the last 15 years or so and there aren't many I'd recommend reading unless you're a literary snob. I'd theorize it's because most of these winners aren't written with the intent of entertaining readers.

All in all I think there might have been a way to make this uninteresting topic interesting, but Shields doesn't do enough to make that happen. You're better served contemplating your own dull, empty life than reading someone else's.

To close, I'd like to point you to John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom books, starting with "Rabbit, Run" that chronicle a relatively ordinary person in a much more fascinating, entertaining way. The last two books in the series even won Pulitzers. There's a literary experiment that succeeded brilliantly.

The Line of Beauty

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

14 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

March 9, 2006

In many ways "Line of Beauty" compares to a previous Booker Prize-winner, "Atonement" by Ian McEwan. Both feature stellar writing, well-drawn characters, and a very sleepy beginning that puts the reader in mind of Victorian novels. McEwan's sleepy beginning picks up in the second and third acts, leading to a startling revelation. Hollinghurst's sleepy beginning persists right through to the end of the book, without any sort of revelation that could be described as startling.

I'm sure like "Atonement", "Line of Beauty" can be a challenge for an ordinary reader to plow through because it is slow going. Lower-class Nick Guest moves into the upper-class family of his college chum Toby just as Toby's father Gerald is elected to Parliament. The story then follows four years during the Thatcher administration in the mid-1980s as the Fedden family and those around Nick face a few crises.

The problem is the crises aren't particularly interesting or shocking. Gerald is sleeping with his assistant. His former lover Leo dies of AIDS and his current lover Wani is in the process of dying from the disease. That's it. Had this book been published in 1994 instead of 2004 the AIDS angle would have seemed more fresh and surprising, but by now there are plenty of books and movies on the subject so it's not bringing anything new to the table. Gerald's affair, well, that sort of thing has been going on since humans first walked the earth. There's nothing particularly shocking or new about Gerald's affair. If he had been engaging in some kind of really obscene behavior like the cross-dressing politician in McEwan's "Amsterdam" that would have made it a little more fresh.

And then of course this being a novel of the 1980s it falls into the Holy Trinity of '80s stereotypes: greed, coke, and AIDS. Any novel involving the 1980s has to have greedy businesspeople slurping down cocaine like Al Pacino in "Scarface", worrying about AIDS the whole time they're having sex with random strangers. It's like how every '60s novel has to feature hippies, Vietnam protests, and LSD. It may be true, but hasn't it been done to death already? Do we need one more novel covering that same tired ground?

In the hands of a lesser writer this might have made the book tedious, but Hollinghurst is a very gifted author. His sentences are beautiful. Even if he is plowing over the same old ground, at least he's doing it with style.

Would I recommend the book? Sure, just so long as you know what you're getting into. Expect beautiful writing, but no real surprises.

That is all.

Breathing Lessons

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

March 27, 2005

Here's a good litmus test to show how good a book like "Breathing Lessons" is--nothing extraordinary happens and yet I did not want to put the book down. There are no conspiracies to rule the world or cover up some dark secret. There are no car chases, explosions, sex scenes (barely even any kissing), or exotic locations. No one changes or has an epiphany. Almost NOTHING happens--Maggie and Ira go to a funeral and when they come back they try to reunite their son and former daughter-in-law but nothing changes at all. To the average reader this book probably would seem really dull. Heck, if someone told me the plot of this book I'd think it was really dull too, but I didn't want to put it down.

The reason is that Maggie and Ira are so well-drawn and so familiar to me that they seem like people I know or COULD know. I think I could go to the supermarket and run into Maggie and Ira, that's how real they seemed to me. I suppose ther reason is that Tyler allows me as the reader to know just about everything regarding these two characters and their two personalities just come through so transparently in the story that they don't seem like CHARACTERS acting their parts; they seem like real people.

Because of this, even though very little happens to Maggie or Ira and even though neither of them changes by the end of the book, I cared so much about them that I wanted to keep reading right through the end so I breezed through the novel in a few days. In all honesty, what I really appreciate about this book is that it seemingly disproves almost everything I've ever read about how to write a book. This is purely a character-driven novel with very little "plot" except for the death of Maggie's friend's husband that gets the ball rolling. Everything else seems to happen so naturally as an extension of Maggie's personality more than any artificially-generated plot twists.

It's hard for me to find any real faults with this book, except for the lengthy flashback near the end that perhaps goes on too long. Some people may call this boring or dull, but I would call it purely exceptional. I LOVED this book and highly recommend it.

Rabbit Angstrom Series

Rabbit Angstrom Series by John Updike

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

December 17, 2004

Some authors offer us the "slice of life" in a novel, but with the four Rabbit books, Updike gives us the entire pie by following Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom through four decades, starting in 1959 with "Rabbit, Run" and ending in 1989 with "Rabbit at Rest", the last two in the series each winning a Pulitzer and rightfully so.

"Rabbit, Run" took me two false starts before I finally got all the way through it. It was only after reading some of Updike's other books that I was prepared for this one, because Rabbit, Run is not a very happy book, with no real redemption or epiphanies at the end like many other novels. In this one, Rabbit runs out on his pregnant wife Janice and 2-year-old son Nelson only to have an affair with another woman (Ruth), who he then gets pregnant before returning to Janice for the birth of their second child, who Janice (while drinking, perhaps "post-partem depression" is what they'd call it now) accidentally drowns. This one I think is th weakest of the series as the characters hadn't really come into their own yet and neither really had the author. Rabbit through that book always seems like a whiny jerk while Janice is a drunken slob and if things had stayed that way, I don't think we'd have four books. But it's the foundation for a lot of better things to come. (Three stars)

With "Rabbit Redux" 10 years later, Rabbit has matured and taken a job at the printing press where his father works. He and Janice have a little house in a development and are sort of treading water in a blue-collar existence. This time it's Janice who runs out on Harry and Nelson to hook up with a used car salesman named Charlie. In response, Harry takes in a runaway named Jill and her "friend" (drug dealer really) Skeeter, who tries to enlighten Rabbit on civil rights and his view of the world. As Jill sinks deeper into addiction thanks to Skeeter, Rabbit has an affair with Janice's best friend Peggy. During this, Jill and Skeeter burn down Rabbit's house with Jill being killed in the fire. Because of heart trouble, Charlie doesn't want to stay with Janice and so she and Rabbit after the fire reluctantly get back together. This second part was I think the transitional book, where Rabbit became more of a responsible adult (though still prone to selfish bouts) and someone readers could look at as a more "heroic" figure. Janice also shows more personality through this book. (Four Stars)

"Rabbit is Rich" is probably my favorite in the series. It takes place another 10 years later in 1979. Rabbit has taken over the Toyota dealership established by Janice's deceased father. This leads to quite a financial windfall for Rabbit, as the title suggests. He and Janice spent quite a bit of time at the country club with their new friends, but still live with Janice's mother in her house. Nelson, away at Kent State, has grown froma troubled teen into a troubled young adult. He has impregnated a secretary at the school named Teresa (nicknamed Pru)--like father like son--and they get married. Nelson tries to work with Harry at the lot, but (again, like father like son) can't find his niche there. On vacation in the Caribbean (in part to give Nelson some breathing space at the lot), Harry and Janice and their friends from the country club engage in a little wife-swapping. Harry wants the wife of his best friend, but instead winds up with Thelma, the wife of his long-time rival Ronnie. The vacation is interrupted with news that Nelson is gone and they return home to find out that he's returned to school. Harry and Janice buy their own house, leaving the other for Nelson and Pru to live in after he returns from school. This book, while you could say is the most boring of the series in that no one dies and there are no big affairs, is also Rabbit at his most "heroic", because while still selfish the sins he commits aren't quite as bad. The wife-swapping was a mutual agreement--Janice participated as well--so it's not really an affair. What I liked about "Rabbit is Rich" is that by lacking the big plot twists of the others, it presents more a picture of real American life and even 25 years later is not so different from my family. It's by this point that I think Updike has really got to know the characters to make them even better and his skills as an author have grown as well. (Five stars)

"Rabbit at Rest" concludes the series starting in 1988. Harry (now 56) and Janice are "snowbirds" who travel to Florida to spend winters there while Nelson runs the car dealership. Like many Americans, years of poor eating and lack of exercise are catching up with Rabbit, leading to heart trouble that culminates in a heart attack during a sailing expedition with his granddaughter Judy. Rabbit recovers and back in Pennsylvania gets an angioplasty when he should have gone for a full bypass. It's during this time that Rabbit learns Nelson is hooked on coke and imbezzling money from the dealership along with the company's accountant, who is dying of AIDS and using the money to buy nonapproved medication. Nelson is forced into rehab, Harry takes over the dealership, and Janice goes to school to become a realtor. At one point while Nelson is away, Harry and Pru have a one-night stand. Toyota pulls the plug on the dealership, Nelson comes back as a Born Again Christian, and Harry is left alone for long stretches while Janice goes to school. Now you'd think Harry would be trying to change his life after the near-death experience, but you'd be wrong--he still doesn't really exercise and has a penchant to cram his mouth with salty snacks. In the end, when Janice finds out about Harry and Pru's encounter, she says she'll never forgive him. In response, Harry goes down to Florida early, where he winds up overexerting himself on a basketball court. Enough. This final installment is a step back from "Rabbit is Rich" and incorporates more of the big plot twists. I thought the coke and AIDS were the kind of stereotypical things anyone writing a book about the '80s would work in--if Updike would have worked in some "Wall Street"-type financial stuff it would be the perfect '80s hat trick--so I was a little disappointed. And I had to groan when the Japanese Toyota executive comes onto the scene with his dialogue peppered with "l"s replaced by "r"s. Shameless. A master author like Updike should not have to stoop to such a low-brow device. But what I really respect with this book is Updike did not turn it into a sappy tear-jerker where Rabbit "comes to terms" with death and makes peace with everyone in his family. There is no redemption for Rabbit, even in death. (Four Stars)

People have devoted whole books on the subject of what these books are "about" and what they mean to us and such. What I think is Rabbit is a classic character because he is so real, with some virtues and some vices. He is selfish, but so are Nelson and Janice and you and I. Some of the things he does are far worse than many of us will ever do, but we're all at least a little selfish. But like most of us, Rabbit is also able to make sacrifices for the greater good of his son and marriage, although reluctantly.

In the end, the Rabbit novels are a portrait of American life through four decades. Harry is not really an "Everyman" but he's the most human character I've read in a while and most of us can probably see there's a little Rabbit in all of us if we care to look. Read all four of the novels to get the complete Rabbit saga and I guarantee your perception of life will never be the same.

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

August 4, 2004

I made the mistake of watching the movie before reading the book, so along the way I was always comparing the two. I can honestly say the book trumps the movie in that it does not have Rene Zellweger's Ruby, who was in my opinion the single most obnoxious character on film since Jar Jar Binks, but of course the movie (like any decent movie adpatation) moves the story along at a better pace than the book. Fans of casual romances would be better served by watching the movie for just that reason.

Anyway, as for the book itself, I enjoyed Frazier's writing, although I wish he hadn't spent so much time dwelling on what everyone was eating or about the plants all around the characters and spent more time developing his characters. Contrary to popular belief, Inman didn't walk away from the Confederate Army so much for Ada, but because he was tired of the killing and wanted to go home. She was more of a secondary concern and it never did seem there was a great emotional connection between them, even at the end when they are reunited, albeit briefly.

The one area where the movie did a better job was in building up that relationship between them, so it was a journey he undertook for the sole reason of being with her. That kind of emotion was lacking in the novel and while I was glad it wasn't a stereotypical sappy yarn about love, I didn't feel much emotion while reading the book and that's too bad, because the story had potential to really grab me.

Frazier's writing is great in terms of description of the world in 1864-65, so that I felt I had a good sense of how life really was like back then. He really did make the South seem like a dark, mystical place and that, even though I knew how the story went from watching the movie, was why I kept reading. But again, for as well as he did on descriptions of farm life, meal preparation, and landscapes, he didn't do enough to develop the characters. We know a lot about Ada and Ruby's pasts, but Inman's seemed hazy. We as readers might have better felt Inman's change because of the war if we'd had a better sense of what he was like beforehand. Most of the supporting cast was flat, especially Teague and his henchmen, who were never given any detail at all. The goat lady and Veasey were interesting and I wished (in both movie and novel) Veasey could have hung around longer because he was such a contrast to the gloomy Inman.

Still, as emotionally dead as this novel sometimes seemed, it is still a tremendous effort by Frazier and worth the read just for the descriptions of how life really was back then. The movie is also worth watching, although if you're like me, you'll want to mute Rene Zellweger's shrill portrayal of Ruby, who had a lot more depth in the book.

Atonement

Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

October 14, 2003

Here's how I can best illustrate the feeling of reading this book: imagine Game 7 of the World Series, top of the ninth, the home team up by a run, bases loaded, the count is 3-2 to the hitter at the plate. Everyone is waiting for that last pitch to decide the game one way or another. The pitcher gets ready to throw, the crowd holds its breath...and the pitcher throws to first base. Then he walks around the mound to gather his thoughts, has a meeting with the catcher, gathers his thoughts again, shakes off a few signs, and then just as the crowd can take no more, he rears back and gets that last strike and the crowd goes wild.

McEwan is like that pitcher on the mound--so slow and deliberate with the first part of the book that it's like Chinese water torture. The night when everything changes in Briony's life unfolds so slowly that any reader who isn't patient is going to get tired of the book before it really hits its stride. I had to force myself to keep going on faith alone that it was going to get better, that things would start HAPPENING soon, that all this Victorianesque society garbage (where the high drama is what to wear and whether or not to cook a roast on a hot day) would be worth it.

And like the pitcher in my analogy, it is worth it when McEwan throws a perfect strike. The writing is solid, the important characters are well-described and have real flaws, and once it gets going there's the drama pulling me in. I always wanted to know what would happen next. What would happen to Robbie and Cecelia and Briony?

What really got to me was the end. I won't spoil it for readers, but it was so touching that I almost cried. As someone who writes, I can see a lot of Briony in myself and my own work, and her thoughts about writing at the end really gave me pause to take a good look at myself and what I'm doing. The end took me so by surprise and was so satisfying, that I can easily look past any small flaws with this book and give it the five stars it deserves.

If you can get through the first 150 or so pages, the rest is worth it. Don't take my word for it, find out for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

I have read many recent Pulitzer winners like "Middlesex", "Empire Falls", and "Kavalier and Clay", but none of them satisfied me on such an intellectual and emotional level. If you wanted to go find my reviews of all those (which you don't), you'd see that all of them, while great books, had minor problems that couldn't be overlooked. Other than the slow beginning, however, "Atonement" has no real problems for me in its plot or writing style.

Middlesex

Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

March 26, 2003

I'll agree with a lot of reviewers that "Middlesex" is well-written (mostly) and I enjoyed it very much. However, what keeps gnawing at me is, "what was the point?" In my quest to find meaning to this book I even read most of the Amazon reviews hoping for a clue, but it still eludes me. So, for now, I can only see "Middlesex" as a book where a lot of interesting stuff happens.

My first big problem with this book is that it focuses too much on the past generations and not enough on Cal/Calliope him(her)self. I just didn't see why so much time was given to the grandparents and parents. I think the incestuous relationship between the grandparents was in there because that was the "cause" of Cal's condition, but it seemed to me that he also said that because of all the prior inbreeding in the little village that defective gene already existed, so was the brother-sister marriage of the grandparents really the "cause"? I'm not convinced it was and so I don't see any reason to give them such a huge chunk of story.

I also didn't understand the point of Cal's relationship in Berlin. Was this just to give us a glimpse of how he lives as a man? The other part I didn't understand is why after 26 years of not revealing himself, he does so with this woman. It seemed tacked on.

I largely suspect that most of the historical facts and elements in this book are correct (I'm from Michigan but not Detroit so I can't say otherwise), but there are at least two inaccuracies in this novel. First, Cal says they made B-52s in automobile plants during WWII, but the B-52 was not around until the jet engine was perfected in the '50s. The person who read the book before me actually made a note of this in the book. Second, Cal talks about Al Kaline as a great first baseman and it's true that he did play 135 games at first during his major league career, but he was far better known as an outfielder for the Tigers (2,488 games in the outfield). So what? you say, A couple little slips don't matter. I don't know about you, but when I see the author making mistakes in their research, it shakes my confidence so that I have to call everything into question.

The pivotal problem in my mind is that the reason Cal decides to run away from home seemed weak and contrived. He find out that he is male in terms of organs so he decides to just up and start living like a man? Instead of running away, why not confront the doctor and postpone the surgery? Why not just say, "Hey, I want some time to think about this." When Cal does run away, I really didn't like the "Showgirl"esque strip club scenes. It seemed like a shortcut to get Cal to accept being a hermaphrodite instead of really coming to grips with it on his/her own.

Anyway, I have a number of complaints with this book, but it is an entertaining narrative. It does keep you reading through the end. I was just hoping for more. And if someone does figure out the overlying point of this book, don't hesitate to share it.

Martin Dressler

Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

January 13, 2003

Instead of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, I found I'd purchased the written equivolent of an A&E Biography, or E! True Hollywood Story or VH1 Behind the Music, or any of those shows that take a life story and compress it into about an hour. That is as much depth as Martin Dressler has, which is unfortunate, because the premise is sound. The son of German immigrants goes from rags to riches in turn of the 20th Century New York, but ultimately goes too far and loses it all.

I'm astonished that a Pulitzer Prize can be awarded for such lousy storytelling. The entire book rushes along, with no attention paid to developing individual scenes or conversations. Millhauser seems to have an aversion to writing dialogue and instead glosses over entire conversations with a couple of sentences. The big drawback to this is that readers are confronted with monotonous pages of solid paragraphs with nothing to break up the white space.

Martin Dressler keeps moving along like a two-minute drill in the 4th Quarter of the Super Bowl, never allowing readers to really enjoy the book. As Martin builds one cafe, he's suddenly building five more. He's scarcely bought one hotel before construction begins on another. Some time needed to be given to WHY does he want to build and build. WHY isn't the latest hotel good enough for him. The author needed to dwell on these questions a little more.

And maybe it's because I've read too many John Irving novels lately, but Millhauser is so coy about the sex between Martin and various women in the book that it's hard to realize that anything has happened at all. It's just another symptom of the whole novel moving along too quickly instead of allowing things to develop.

Millhauser does give a lot of description, but sometimes too much at once. Instead of going through each hotel floor-by-floor all in one paragraph, it would have been nice if readers could have got to explore it through the eyes of Martin or maybe even some of the guests. That would have allowed us to experience the wonders of the Dressler, New Dressler, and Grand Cosmo (or perhaps the oddness of the Grand Cosmo), instead of simply being told an inventory of the hotel.

I've read a lot of books where authors lingered over the story too long, but Martin Dressler is one of the few where the author just didn't take enough time to fulfill the story's potential. In the end, it's the readers who are cheated by getting an episode of Biography when they could have had so much more.

The Shipping News

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

October 22, 2002

It's rare that I would ever recommend a movie over a book, but the movie of the Shipping News is far superior in my mind because the reader isn't subjected to Proulx's short, choppy prose. The movie also sticks close enough to the story of the book (though it chops out some unimportant stuff for time) that if you just watch it and don't bother with the book you really aren't missing anything. It's not that the movie was perfect either, but it's not as bad as the book.

The problems with the book are numerous. First is Proulx's overall writing style. Bad. Real bad. Choppy sentences. No flow. Author Ignores Basic Rules of Grammar. Looking at excerpts of her other books I have to assume this writing style was intentional, maybe to make it seem like an article from the Gammy Bird, but that technique would have made more sense if the story were told in first-person with Quoyle as the narrator. After a while her style just grated on me and more importantly it kept me from really getting into the book. The story, even the characters were decent enough that I would have enjoyed the book had it been written in complete sentences.

I also never understood a few things. Why doesn't Quoyle have a first name? Everywhere he goes he just introduces himself as "Quoyle". Who does that? If I go somewhere and meet someone for the first time I say, "Hi, my name is BJ Fraser." I don't say, "Hi, I'm Fraser." It's revealed after a while that his first initials are R.G., so his name is probably Bob or something equally anonymous that there's no need to go to great lengths to keep it secret. Also, why does he always refer to Agnis Hamm as "the aunt"? Maybe it's because I have several aunts, but I say "Aunt Mary" or "Aunt Jane" not "the aunt". It could just be the way people from New York or Newfoundland talk, I wouldn't really know.

The area I think the movie really excels over the book is that the movie plays up the relationship between Quoyle and Wavey Prowse a little more. It never seemed to go anywhere in the book, nor did I really care because Wavey sounded like an unattractive bore anyway. Also, I liked the last sentence of narration in the movie where Quoyle says (though I can't quote it exactly): "if a drowning man can come back to life, , then I believe a broken man can be healed." That really sums up the whole point of the book and movie, a great way to end things. Better than the end line of the book, which I can't remember at all.

Chalk up "The Shipping News" as another Pulitzer dud but also another screen gem.

Independence Day

Independence Day by Richard Ford

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

October 18, 2002

Independence Day is the story of a long (oh, so very, very long) Fourth of July weekend for middle-aged real estate agent Frank Bascombe. Over the weekend he maybe makes some slight changes, turning his life in a new direction (possibly).

I'm not a middle-aged guy, but I've had some revelations in my own young life, so I get what Ford is saying. Frank is mired in the "Existence Period" where he pretty much just tries not to let things bother him, just keep everything even keel. On this holiday weekend, Frank and his son Paul, who's been getting in trouble for shoplifting, vandalism, so on, are going to the Basketball and Baseball Halls of Fame. At first glance, I thought the book would revolve around the travels of father and son, but this is not the case. Instead, for a good two hundred pages or so we readers are mired in the dull life of Frank Bascombe as he tries to sell a house to middle-aged former hippies who have yet to discover the comfortably numb bliss of the Existence Period. And there's Frank checking out his hot dog and root beer stand outside town, trying to collect rent from his deadbeat tenants, and having overly philosophical talks with his girlfriend, whom Frank really can't commit to because it would upset the delicate balance in his mundane life.

When the father and son jamboree finally does get underway, I almost wished it hadn't, because Paul is a very weird kid. He reminded me of a couple cousins of mine, which is not a good thing. After Frank tries to bond with his son at the Basketball Hall of Fame and on the way to Cooperstown (without lots of success) Paul is mercifully hit in the eye when he stands directly in the path of a batting cage pitching machine and has to go to the hospital. Inexplicably, Frank's half-brother takes him to the hospital why Paul is choppered there. The half-brother appears from nowhere and his sudden appearance seemed a little too convenient for me.

Anyway, after Paul's injury, Frank begins to realize that maybe he should try to get out of the Existence Period and commit to his girlfriend, have a better relationship with his ex-wife and kids, so on. The book grinds to a halt before it's really clear what exactly Frank is going to do, which left me wondering, "I read all this way for what?" A book so long and plodding, I wanted some kind of conclusion, something to make me feel it was worthwhile, and I don't think I got that.

My biggest complaint is that some of the characters didn't seem real to me. Paul (and his sister) are so weird, the girlfriend is too cerebral, and the ex-wife was flat. Maybe I just don't know enough people...

However, this is a fairly good book. The story, as slow as it is, is engrossing and the writing is almost top-notch. I'd recommend giving it a look, especially if you're a middle-aged man in an Existence Period of your own.