Catching Up, part 1: Books

Wow. Four whole months and not a single post. Not so much as a "hey, I'm really sorry, I have x, y, and z going on in my life right now." Nada. Zip. If somebody were to ask me why I couldn't even be bothered to put up a measely "temporary hiatus" notice I would have to respond in the immortal, if rather lame, words of Beatrix Kiddo: "I don't know... because I'm a bad person?"

But seriously, my main excuse for not writing is that I've been busy moving to Paris. And yes, I know, it's not like they don’t have the Internet here in Paris, but still. I’m not saying that moving here hasn’t had it’s perks, because it certainly has, but not everything has been a walk in the Luxembourg gardens if you know what I mean. But that’s a discussion for another day and another blog. The point I’m trying to make here is that not only has this relocation been a huge adjustment for me overall, it also means that some of the series I was following and writing about in the States aren't as readily available to me anymore. (And I was just starting to get hooked on Sarasah and The Name of the Flower!) I still haven't quite worked out how or if I'm going to continue them, since I don’t think I’ll be in Paris forever, but I decided to pick this blog back up again anyways, since I never seem to run out of random things to obsess over and I'd hate to think of what might happen if I didn't have some kind of outlet.

So before I return to writing more detailed reviews, I thought I’d briefly revisit some of the items I’ve had on backlog since last November. This will actually be quite like the summer summary I posted last August after recovering from surgery, in which I gave a mini-review of everything I hadn’t been posting about lately. This time the whole batch will be broken up into several posts, with the first one (this one) being all about books. So here goes: a condensed review of what I’ve been reading recently.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (translation by Constance Garnett)

So I’d been meaning for a while to tackle the great gaping whole in my high school education that is nineteenth century Russian literature, but I was a little nervous about starting off with one of those famously epic and wildly intimidating thousand-page novels. So what better way to warm up than with a shorter novella written by one of the period’s most celebrated authors? Well, I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting from Notes from Underground but in the end I was completely blown away. By way of introducing the story, I’d like to pull a quote from the text itself:

Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to every one, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. The more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

Notes from Underground is the narrator’s confession of one such “reminiscence”, a confession made in old age and infirmary, made out of spite as much as from any moral or philosophical conviction. Although the first third of the book consists mostly in the narrator’s rambling internal monologue, Dostoevsky’s writing has the rare ability to pierce right into your heart, giving one the impression that the author has discovered your most intimate thoughts and feelings, even (perhaps especially) the ones you’re not very proud to own. And yet while you could also say all of that about Madame Bovary, for example, I found that Notes from Underground managed to retain, in spite of its cynicism, a sort of romantic beauty and wistfulness to which Flaubert’s book certainly never aspired. All these elements made for a very striking combination, and an engrossing read I’ll not soon forget. I’m not sure if any of this is making any sense, but I’m finding it quite difficult to articulate my impressions of the book. It really deserves so much more discussion than I’m affording it in this laundry-list of reviews. Before moving on to the next book, a few more quotes from Notes. What I think so impressed me about the book was that even the parts that didn’t make total sense seemed intimately familiar, perhaps because they were so universally human. I think the following quotes exemplify that a little bit. From the pages of Notes from Underground:

Man is a frivolous, incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess-player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it… He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd.

But why am I made with such desires? Can I have been constructed simply in order to come to the conclusion that all my construction is a cheat? I do not believe it.

I hated his stupid but handsome face (for which I would, however, have gladly exchanged my intelligent one).

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (translated by Constance Garnett)

So after being so incredibly enamored with Notes from Underground I felt quite brave enough to attack one of his longer novels. I read [The Idiot] rather than the (perhaps more obvious) Crime and Punishment simply because I already had a copy; a friend had given me an old, tattered, paperback version many years ago and it had been sitting on my shelf ever since, just waiting to be read. And I have to admit that the novel caused me to fall a little bit out of love with Dostoevsky. I still think I genuinely admire and enjoy his work, but I don’t have as much of a crush on him as I did after finishing Notes from Underground. Essentially, The Idiot examines the question of what would happen when a truly pure and virtuous soul is thrust into the midst a humanly corrupt and degraded society. Reading this book was a very frustrating experience, because I cared so much about the fascinating main character, but in the end I don’t think the author did justice to his own creation and that’s something I have a hard time forgiving. Especially after reading a thousand pages of a story that really could have been told in less than half that amount. I also felt that the ambiguous, selective narration was a bit of a cop-out only rendered necessary by the excessive complexity sheer length of the story. On the other hand: I absolutely LOVED reading any scene with Lizaveta Prokofyevna, a truly delightful character whose personality quirks reminded me a lot of my own mother. From the pages of The Idiot:

There is something at the bottom of every new human thought… which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one’s idea for thirty-five years; there’s something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone, perhaps, the most important of your ideas.

Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.

François Mauriac, Thérèse Desqueyroux

Coninuing with the theme of psychological novels we have Thérèse Desqueyroux In brief, this is not a happy book. A short, intriguing, psychological character study? Sure bet. Overly melancholic? Perhaps just a bit. It tells the story of a woman who cannot escape from her unhappy marriage even after she’s caught trying to poison her husband. In order to preserve their reputations, both sides of the family decide to keep her as a prisoner in her own home. Believe me, it’s not as melodramatic gothic as it sounds; it’s actually a quite sensitive psychological study, and rather subtle in some of it’s finer points. Throughout the story, which is told out of chronological order, it becomes less and less clear who is the real monster and who is the victim: Thérèse or her husband. In spite of its depressing nature (there were plenty of internal monologues about loneliness and despondency), I really enjoyed the way the unique and clever way this story was constructed. It was short enough that the heaviness didn’t really get me down, and there were enough twists to keep me interested. All in all, I’d definitely recommend this to any francophone readers out there. From the pages of Thérèse Desqueyroux :

Rien ne peut arriver de pire que cette indifférence, que ce détachement total qui la sépare du monde et de son être même. Oui, la mort dans la vie : elle goute la mort autant que la peut gouter une vivante.

Sa solitude lui est attachée plus étroitement qu’aux lépreux son ulcère.

Rien n’est vraiment grave pour les êtres incapables d’aimer.

Ok, that’s it for now. After all that I think I’m ready for something a little lighter next time. More short reviews coming up soon (I promise!).

A Touch of Dead, Grave Sight - Charlaine Harris' urbanfantasymystery realm

In order to break up the year-long wait in between releases of the Sookie Stackhouse novels (the series of books by Charlaine Harris on which HBO's hit True Blood is based), I decided this fall to check out a couple of her other publications - one Sookie-related, the other not. And so in this post I'll be reviewing two different Harris books: A Touch of Dead, being an anthology of previously published short stories about the Sookie universe, and Grave Sight, the first in another of the authors' ongoing series. My thoughts below...

First off, A Touch of Dead. I knew that Harris had published a number of short stories from the Sookie-verse in various other anthologies, but the idea never really interested me enough to track them all down individually. Which is probably why A Touch of Dead is such a brilliant marketing ploy, especially since the series itself has become so popular among its genre. Someone like me, who's already a fan of the books, might not care about these peripheral side-stories enough to go out and buy five separate books in order to read them. Gathering them all together in a single Sookie collection, however, suddenly makes the deal a lot more tempting. Another thing that peaked my interest in this little publication was just the fact that I don't own a single one of the Sookie novels. Maybe I'm just a little OCD, but it seemed silly to buy a few of the books if I'm not going to invest in the complete series (and I'm not that hard-core of a Sookie fan). Thanks to libraries and friends, I had managed to avoid throwing down a single cent for my enjoyment of the Sookie series, and A Touch of Dead seemed like a nice little compromise. This way I could have some representation of the Sookie books in my personal collection without having to go all out or be totally random about it. Not to mention, I'd get to read all those short stories I'd been missing. So I bought the tiny, overpriced little book, and was pretty happy about it.

A Touch of Dead includes five separate stories that all feature Sookie herself in some capacity. (I believe there are other short stories that focus on other characters from the same universe, but which were not included in AToD.) In the first story, "Fairy Dust", the fairy twins Claudine and Claude recruit Sookie's telepathic abilities to help them discover who murdered their third sibling (they were actually triplets), Claudette. The funny thing is, Claudine doesn't exactly tell Sookie that's what they're up to when she invites her over. You can imagine poor Sookie's surprise when she show's up at their house and finds all the suspects bound and gagged in various nooks and crannies (one in the pantry, one in the cellar, etc). That's a lot for a girl to take, but considering all the times her fairy-god-mother friend has conveniently pooped up to save our telepath from near death situations I'd say its the least Sookie can do. This story sheds some dearly needed light on the personal lives of the twins (what does one call a pair of triplets exactly?), and so "Fairy Dust" was a welcome addition to the collection.

The second story, "One Word Answer", is significant in that it plugs up a gaping hole in the continuity of the main novels. When the Hadley storyline was rather abruptly introduced in the sixth book, Sookie already knew the whole story of her cousin's entanglement with Queen Sophie-Anne. Unfortunate readers like myself, however, were totally in the dark. "One Word Answer" is where Sookie, and dedicated readers, learn Hadley's history for the first time. In the third story, "Dracula Night", Eric invites Sookie to Fangtasia to take part in the annual celebration of the count's birth into darkness. This standalone story certainly brings the humor, as we find out that the usually cool, confident Eric suffers from a serious case of hero-worship when it comes to all thing Dracula. We also get to see a bit of the rest of the Fangtasia crew (including Pam), which is always a treat. In the fourth story, "Lucky", Sookie and the witchy roommate she picked up in New Orleans, Amelia Bradshaw, team up to figure out what supernatural forces have been plaguing the insurance industry in Bon Temps. This story was enjoyable (Amelia's always a hoot), but not particularly memorable in the grand scheme of things. The final story, "Gift Wrap" was my least favorite of the bunch. In it, Sookie rescues a wounded Were on Christmas eve from the woods surrounding her house. The two bond a little (physically as well as emotionally), before going their separate ways the next day. The reader then finds out that the whole thing was an elaborate set up by her great grandfather so she wouldn't be alone on Christmas. (Niall has the best of intentions, but as an ancient fairy he is a little out of touch with humanity). This story seemed a little gratuitous (Sookie shares an attraction with yet another hunky, but ultimately disposable, 'supe), but overall I was very pleased with the entire collection.

Shortly after finishing A Touch of Dead I decided to check out another one of Harris' series, seeing as how I've found the Sookie books to be so charming and engaging. So I ordered and read Grave Sight from the local library network. Grave Sight is the first in a series about Harper Connelly, a young woman who hunts down missing corpses for a living. Ever since she got struck by lighting in a freak accident as a child (yes, that's right, struck by lightning), Harper has had a powerful connection with the dead. She can locate corpses, and even relive the final moments of the deceased's life. Harper has decided to put her special skill to good use, hiring out her services to a skeptical but desperate clientele, traveling around the country to recover lost souls. Her companion and protector is her step-brother Tolliver Lang. Tolliver has always watched out for Harper since their abusive childhoods at the hands of their drug-addicted parents, and now he's sort of become her business partner and negotiator. The two share a powerful bond, but their relationship is kind of dysfunctional. On the one hand, they introduce live and introduce themselves as brother and sister, but care about each other more intensely than is usual or healthy in a sibling relationship. They're not actually related by blood, but they're not lovers either. I'd bet my bottom dollar that the development of this relationship is the focus of the series in terms of continuing character development. In the meantime they seem to get involved in various mysteries and human drama wherever their unique profession takes them.

Having only read the first book, I cannot really generalize about the series with any credibility, but I did find that it bears some resemblances to the Sookie novels. Both series feature twenty-something women coping with unusual supernatural gifts (telepathy in Sookie's case, a psychic connection with the dead in Harper's) who end up getting involved in small town mysteries. Yet the series differ greatly in that while Sookie lives in a world of vampires, witches, shape-shifters, and other supernatural beings, Harper only has to deal with regular humans in her universe. Now I'm not trying to say that the lack of 'supes makes Harper's world dull per se (humans can provide plenty of fascinating intrigue and drama on their own, no question.) But at the same time I can't deny that I felt something missing from Grave Sight. One of the most engaging aspects of the Sookie novels has been the whole mythology built up behind the series, which is so soundly grounded in the various supernatural communities of Bon Temps, and, by extension, of northern Louisiana. Whereas Sookie's story has this constantly expanding cast of recurring characters, the Harper Connelly series seems only to have the two central figures who travel nomadically from place to place. And after reading Grave Sight, I'm just not convinced that these two characters are interesting enough to carry us through an ongoing series of novels by themselves.

Overall, I didn't enjoy Grave Sight as much as I'd hoped or expected. It offered very little to balance out its melancholy and depressing tone, and its characters were uninspiring and unmemorable. If you enjoy a good mystery, however, you're likely to find that in any Harris book you pick up, the Harper Connelly series included. If you're looking for more character-driven plots, however, stick to Sookie Stackhouse.

Northanger Abbey: finding humor in gothic melodrama. Seriously.

Thus concludes my quest to read all six of Austen’s novels, and boy am I glad I saved this one for last. It’s been so long since I read Emma, I’d almost forgotten that Austen novels could actually be fun. And considering the fact that the last two I read were a little on the solemn side, I was quite pleasantly surprised by how lighthearted and playful Northanger Abbey was. I liked it more than I expected, especially since I feel that it generally gets the least love from Austen fans, though I can’t imagine why. It’s still not my favorite of all six, but it’s definitely in the top three. But more on that later.

Northanger Abbey tells the story of a young girl who travels with family friends to Bath in order to experience fashionable society. She quickly makes a variety of new friends, including the seemingly kind and generous, but ultimately expedient and self-serving, Thorpes, as well as the more elegant and distinguished Tilneys. When the Tilneys invite her to stay at their home, the titular abbey, Catherine’s overactive imagination begins to run away with her. Finding herself housed in one of those old and forbidding structures featured in so many horror novels, she begins to imagine all sorts of dreadful, fantastical things about its inhabitants. Having unknowingly convinced herself that she’s the heroine of a story that doesn’t exist, she attempts to solve a mystery that isn’t really there. The results are amusing, but the consequences aren’t to be taken lightly as she winds up interfering in some rather serious matters along the way.

I was a little apprehensive in starting the novel, as I knew it contained a good deal of satire of gothic fiction. I happen to be a fan of the gothic novel (everything from Frankenstein to Jane Eyre – I eat it all up), and I was concerned I wouldn’t enjoy a book that basically made fun of another genre. Yet I needn’t have worried. Satire well and lovingly done can always be enjoyed, even by those who highly esteem its object. Northanger Abbey serves as much more than a stern lesson to naïve young girls about the inherent danger and foolishness of reading novels. Indeed, what a silly, hypocritical thing to write a novel about! On the contrary, Austen does not disparage fiction in this particular work of fiction. In fact, she spends the better part of an entire chapter defending the activity of reading novels against its harsher critics. And yet her tale does caution the over-zealous, indiscriminate reader against the unhappiness one can expect if one fails to distinguish properly between fiction and reality, something most readers can probably appreciate all too well. And all of this Austen accomplishes through a very entertaining and amusing story to boot.

The heroine of Northanger Abbey is Catherine Morland, a young girl from a large family who grew up in the countryside reading as many novels as she could get her hands on in diligent, if slightly misguided, preparation for the time she would enter fashionable society for the first time at the tender age of seventeen. Some readers might take issue with Catherine’s poor jugement and lack of perception throughout the novel, but I don’t think that’s entirely fair. The combination of her inexperience (she’s by far the youngest of Austen’s heroines) and her open, trusting nature (having grown up among good, honest people she naturally expects others to be good and honest as well) make her an easy target for those who would take advantage of her innocently unsuspicious character. It was really fun to get inside Catherine’s head, and to watch her grow up over the course of the novel.

I don't really have a whole lot else to say about this novel; although it was very enjoyable, it was pretty straightforward for the most part, which is why it doesn't trump the more complex Emma or Pride and Prejudice in my opinion. Heck, even the horrible Mansfeild Park was more discuss-able than this one.

That being said, Northanger Abbey was one of the most quotable of Austen’s novels, what with the heavy satire and all. Some memorable excerpts from the pages of Northanger Abbey…

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire.

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

________________________________________
Ok, so now that I’ve finished all six completed Austen novels, I can finally rank them. (That was the whole point of reading them, right?) Drum roll, please…

1. Emma. Hands down. The funniest, the most entertaining heroine, the best cast of extended characters, plus a very satisfying romance.
2. Pride and Prejudice. The most romantic. Also, some pretty classic characters. The one with Mr. Collins.
3. Northanger Abbey. See above.
4. Persuasion. Was ok, but not the best.
5. Sense & Sensibility. Meh. Started out great, went downhill. Had lost patience with both sisters long before the end.

6. Mansfield Park. I’ve already said enough about my feelings for this one.

Valley of the Dolls: anti-feminist romp, precursor of modern chick lit?

You've got to climb to the top of Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls

So begins the novel about fortune, fame, and substance abuse in the 1960s. And yes, the writing is just as heavy-handed as the very bad opening poem. But when has this campy classic ever arrogated the status of “great writing”?

A friend of mine lent me her copy of Valley of the Dolls last month, saying that I absolutely MUST read it, and that it was one of her favorite books of all time. Seeing as how the book (and the 1967 film) has become such an enduring cult classic I figured I’d give it a shot, even though it didn’t really seem like me cup of tea.

After reading it, if I had to describe the novel in two words I would say “fascinating” and “sickening”. It was like watching one of those exposes on the Discovery Channel that are so bizarre and grotesque you just can’t look away. You cover your eyes, but can’t resist peering through a gap in your fingers. Similarly, although my gut reaction to the novel’s content was dismay and disgust, whenever I picked up the book and started reading, I just couldn’t put it down. During the week it took me to read it in its entirety, the book was as strangely addictive as the prescription drugs for which it was named, and probably just about as good for me.

As I was thinking about this novel, I actually remembered something David Carradine said on the special features of Kill Bill: that the film wasn’t really about the action or the violence in and of itself, but rather about providing an “inside look at the mind and heart of violent people.” In a similar way, Valley of the Dolls can be said to provide a compelling look into the minds and hearts of pill-popping female celebrities of the 50s and 60s, while neither glorifying nor vilifying their self-destructive lifestyles.

The novel features three friends who each manage to rise to varying degrees of fame and success in the entertainment and beauty industries, and who subsequently sink to the depths of depression and substance abuse. The book’s author, Jacqueline Susann, was an actress and writer who supposedly modeled many of her characters on contemporary celebrities. Anne is a conservative girl with a beautiful face who moves to New York to escape the restriction of her stifling New England hometown. Elegant and classy, Anne can also come off as uptight and cold, yet she harbors a life-long passion for a single man (who is completely unworthy of her irrational idolization, by the way). Neely O’Hara is an uneducated, impetuous girl who makes it big first on Broadway and then in Hollywood. Yet as her success grows, so does her ego and her increasingly uncontrollable behavior. Jennifer is a quiet, mild-mannered girl who suffers no delusions about her “acting career.” (An international sex symbol, her body has been her ticket to success). Deep down she yearns for genuine love, but is finds herself constantly objectified at every turn.

Most of the book’s characters, especially Neely, Anne, and Lyon (the object of Anne’s obsession), are pretty unpalatable in their own ways (Jennifer was the only one I really liked.) Yet I did sympathize with the fact that in a society of which blatant sexism is an integral part, independent women had very few options and were subjected to an endless supply of unnatural pressures. Yet when you get right down to it, The Valley of the Dolls is just a book about how these trashy people got to be so trashy. I got through it pretty quickly, but the overall, lasting impression was not favorable.

Austen's Persuasion is passable

Back in February I made the somewhat belated new year’s resolution that by the time 2010 rolls around I will have finished reading all six of Austen’s novels. To be perfectly frank, this decision was prompted in large part by a delightfully adorable film called The Jane Austen Book Club, which convinced me, among other things, that having read all six of them was either an essential part of my female education or, at the very least, a worthwhile endeavor. It actually wasn’t that daunting of an undertaking, as I’d already read half of them and only had three more to go. Unfortunately the first of the remaining three that I read rather put me off the whole idea. Let’s just say that Mansfield Park won’t be making my top ten list. The arrival of fall, however, has reminded me of my resolution, and that I have only a few months in which to read the final two. And so I cranked through Persuasion last month, and was quite pleased to find it much more enjoyable than MP. If I had to describe the novel in as many words as its title is long, that one word would be “pleasant”. Definitely not as brilliant or hilarious as Emma, nor as dramatic or sweeping as Pride and Prejudice, but overall a very enjoyable story expressed with all the piercing clarity and wit that generally characterize Austen’s novels.

Persuasion features Anne Elliot, the daughter of a noble family who, despite her rank and wealth, has never married despite reaching the lofty age of twenty-seven. Her immediate family are a rather proud and foolish lot who don’t really know how to value Anne’s modesty and good sense. In fact, the only person who really estimates Anne’s true worth is her good friend Lady Russell, an acquaintance of her late mother. The story begins when Anne’s father, who has exceeded his rather generous income, deigns to rent out their estate to another family while her removes himself to Bath. Anne is quite shocked to learn that their new tenants are the relations of a certain individual with whom she was once very intimately acquainted. They were engaged to be married many years ago, but she had broken it off at the disapproval of her family and the advice of Lady Russell, who strongly disapproved. The man, a naval officer named Wentworth, felt wronged and betrayed and cut off all contact with Anne, seemingly forever. Now that circumstances have brought them together again after ten years’ separation, Anne must go through the painful exercise of facing a man who has risen to success and made his fortune while she herself has shrunk to the relative social obscurity of an unhappily unmarried woman, and of enduring the cold politeness of the resentful man she once rejected but never truly stopped loving.

A large part of my enjoyment of this novel stemmed the fact that Austen does an excellent job of building the emotional suspense leading up to the reunion of Anne and Captain Wentworth, and of maintaining it all throughout their painfully awkward subsequent encounters. It’s all the more agonizing to think of them both suffering such strong feelings while maintaining the front (to themselves and to the general company, ignorant of their history) of indifference and disinterest. That two people who were once so silly-in-love should now be reunited only to be perpetually estranged! It’s all very dramatic and heart wrenching, of course. And of course there’s also a happy ending, as with all Austen’s novels, and Anne and Wentworth do finally come to understand one another once again, having both grown into somewhat wiser and more mature individuals than they were when they first knew each other. Yet stories like these usually hinge less on the destination of marital bliss than on the course of the journey that leades there, and Persuasion is no different.

What I liked about this book was that both of the main characters have healthy flaws to grapple with before they can achieve their happily-ever-after. Perhaps Anne is a little bit on the long-suffering side, but to nowhere near the ridiculous degree of the frustratingly saintly Fanny Price, for example. I like that by the end of the book both Anne and Wentworth come to realize that if they’d been a little less foolish (she more discerning and he more forgiving and understanding) then would probably have spared themselves years of unhappiness. My one complaint about the novel is that I think it was hampered by the lack of any real communication between the two main characters for almost the entire duration of the story. I guess I felt that their estrangement was drawn out too long and then resolved a tad too quickly. Still, I enjoyed this book. I rooted for its characters. I had fun reading it. It definitely wasn’t my favorite Austen novel (so far), but it was still pretty good. Serviceable.

Oh, and since I forgot to work a quote in there somewhere, I’ll just awkwardly tack one on to the end of this review, kay? So here’s Anne pondering the potential pitfalls of poetry (alliteration totally not intended):

It was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.

Whatever Austen may be writing, the gal certainly has a way with words, doesn’t she?

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

One quick note before I jump right into the review: I just want to say right up front that I’m going to do a horrible job of summarizing this book. Although it’s not very long, it is very plot-driven, and full of twists and turns and revelations. Additionally, many of the story’s essential elements hinge on the complex practices of Collins’ futuristic world and require too many explanations for a short review of this nature. Okay, disclaimer over.

Just because I am no longer a teenager (hey, it hasn’t even been two months, back off already!) doesn’t mean I’m too old to read YA fiction. Which is a darned good thing because Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins’ sequel to last year’s The Hunger Games and the second book in a planned trilogy, just came out a few weeks ago, and it’d be a shame to have outgrown fast, fun reads like this one.

Catching Fire picks up shortly after the conclusion of The Hunger Games with Katniss and Peeta, now Victors, struggling to readjust to life in District Twelve, and finding that things will never be the same again, for them or for anyone else. Their dual victory in the Games was pretty much a miracle, but now they have to figure out how to live their new lives, and Katniss is only just beginning to learn the full ramifications of her actions. Her elaborate deception (which ensured her and Peeta’s survival in the last book) has seriously compromised her relationships with both Peeta and Gale, and she now finds herself more alone than ever. Yet as a Victor, the consequences of her actions extend far beyond her personal life, and she begins to hear rumors and whispers of desperation and rebellion in some of the other districts. All of this plays out in the first third of the novel, at which point the next year’s Games roll around and the plot suddenly takes off like a bat out of hell, and doesn’t let up right until the very cliff-hangery ending.

On Katniss, the protagonist: Ok, this girl can be really dense sometimes, and she’s got about the emotional comprehension of a toothpick. I know she doesn’t mean to be insensitive to Gale or Peeta’s feelings; she just doesn’t know how to deal with them like a normal person. She’s spent so much of her life focused solely on survival that she hasn’t had a lot of time for emotional development. Still, it gets kind of frustrating when she’s got these too guys who are clearly nuts about her and she persists in blindly ignoring the complications of the situation.

On the action factor: I’m not sure if this book falls more into the fantasy or sci-fi genre, but it certainly has a lot of action. The Games are quite violent, but they’re not just a mindless bloodbath. It’s as much of a mind game as anything else. Collins really does an excellent job with the action sequences, and they’re always imaginative, entertaining, and well orchestrated.

On the funky names: While some fantasy authors are really good at creating made-up proper nouns that are also believable, this is not exactly Collins’ strong point. Katniss, Peeta, Panem – they’re all kind of awkward and just a bit lame. At the same time, some of the names are quite ordinary – Gale, Johanna, President Snow. I guess, since this world is supposed to be a futuristic version of North America, some of the old names survived and some new ones emerged.

In general: Both THG and CF are the kind of books that I can enjoy thoroughly (albeit briefly), but which I do not necessarily admire completely. They careen along at a break-neck, plot-driven pace that leaves in the dust any possibility for depth of characterization or sophistication of language. With a noticeable amount of grammatical errors (mostly of the who/whom variety), and a present-tense narrative voice (a pet peeve of mine), Collins writing strikes me as particularly unexciting, even for a YA novel. That being said, Collins has some serious story-telling chops, and her books are sky-high on the entertainment factor. The fact that I plunked down $18 for each book, in spite of their many eye-roll-inducing moments, is testament enough to the magnetic pull of the story. These books are a movie franchise just waiting to happen.

Final word: I try to incorporate at least one quote each book into my reviews, just to give a tiny taste of the text, but I found it difficult to choose a good one from this book (see above on Collins' unexciting prose). However, I did managed to find one that I thought worth highlighting: "As the alcohol overcomes my mind, I hear the glass bottle shatter to the floor. This seems appropriate, since I have obviously lost my grip on everything." - from Chapter 13 of Catching Fire.

Never judge a book (part 2 of 2): The Picture of Dorian Gray

So, last time I wrote about a book that defied my low expectations by being kind of awesome. Unfortunately, that means part two of this post will focus on a book that defied my high expectations by, well, sucking majorly. I’m going to try to refrain from turning this into a long, whiney tirade about how much I hated the book, because that’s just no fun (although I make no promises). Instead, I’ll try to look at how such a great author could take such a great premise and turn it into such an un-grate novel.

I formed a favorable first impression of Oscar Wilde as a child when I read “The Happy Prince” in the Provensen Book of Fairy Tales (whose awesomeness I’ve already discussed), and I never found cause to revise my good opinion of him until now. In addition to “The Happy Prince”, a story that while perhaps a little preachy has at least the redeeming quality of being beautifully tragic, I’ve also enjoyed his plays in the past, specifically An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest. His plays are witty, quippy, and endlessly quotable comedies of manners that rarely fail to amuse and generally delight. Wilde also wrote extensive poetry, and was an erstwhile philosopher to boot. Was there anything the guy couldn’t do? Well, write novels, apparently. After finishing the only novel he ever wrote, I can’t help but wish he’s have stuck to what he knew.

The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of a wealthy and beautiful young man who sits for a portrait and, on seeing the finished product, makes an impulsive wish that he might remain eternally unchanged, and that the picture might bear the mark of time in his stead. When he discovers that his bold wish has been granted (by the powers that be?) and that he has effectively sold his soul for eternal youth and beauty, he begins a double life of hedonism and excess, with only the portrait to bear the signs of his true physical and spiritual degradation. This sounds like the premise of a great gothic melodrama, right? Unfortunately, Oscar Wilde is not Mary Shelley. His dark tale of corruption still reads, on the surface at least, a lot like his drawing room comedies, with very odd results. I guess you could say that this book was tonally confused.

Yet my problems with The Picture of Dorian Gray don’t stop there. I also found the book to be quite muddled thematically. It appeared in many ways to be a cautionary tale against vanity and pride, except for the fact that the author spends a great deal of the novel waxing poetic about the philosophy of hedonism and self-indulgence. The chronology was also very rough and ready; the book consists of only a few significant evens/conversations interspersed between awkwardly long jumps in time. And perhaps my greatest complaint with the novel is that the main character is seriously underdeveloped. I’d call him one-dimensional, but honestly he’s not even that well defined. Easily swayed by the slightest influence, Dorian Gray has almost no character of his own. Conveniently spared the burden of guilt for his crimes (which the painting also assumes), he is no more capable of being satisfied with his fate than he is of truly repenting his many transgressions.

I think that, given its chronology and character development issues, The Picture of Dorian Gray could still have made a really great short story. It could have been a good novel, perhaps, if only somebody else had written it. Or maybe if Wilde had had a decent editor. As it so happens, Wilde wrote the book on his own as a full-length novel, and I thought it fell pretty flat. Sheesh, what a bummer.

One last little note in conclusion: whatever else I may say about this book, I cannot deny that, like Wilde’s other works, it is very quotable. It is chock full of witty and original remarks ("All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime"), but I believe it takes more than clever little turns of phrase to sustain a worthwhile novel.

Never judge a book (part 1 of 2): The Great Gatsby

Question: Why should I never be too hasty to judge a book (by its cover or by anything else)? Two reasons: 1) The Great Gatsby, and 2) that other novel that I will be discussing in part 2 of this post. So contrary to my expectations were these two books as to prompt me to question not only my tastes in literature, but also my estimation of one of my favorite writers. When will I ever learn not to decide if I like a book before I even open it? Probably never. Darn.

Anyways, I’ll talk about The Great Gatsby first, and then about that other novel later. I ended up reading The Great Gatsby sort of by accident; I actually went to the library that day on the hunt for a completely different book. As fate would have it, the book I sought proved to be among the missing at my library, and I had to order it from another town. Unwilling to return home empty-handed, I began to wander aimlessly throughout the shelves in search of some little something to tide me over in the meantime. And that’s how I found myself in the “F” section, staring at a copy of The Great Gatsby. Now I’m a little ashamed to confess that what primarily drew me to the novel was its apparent brevity. I didn’t actually expect to like it or anything (I imagined it would be bland and unengaging), I just thought I’d be able to get through it quickly. I guess the idea was to breeze through it and then feel good about myself for having read a classic. Not very admirable, I’ll admit.

The Great Gatsby recounts the summer of 1922 as told by Nick Carraway, a young man who settles on the North Shore of Long Island and gets caught up in the lives of the wealthy, if somewhat shiftless, society that characterized the time and place. I did struggle, in the beginning, to really get into the novel. Maybe it just went right over my head at first, but it seemed to me to be a lot of random details with very little emotional content or plot. I didn’t especially want to read a book that was all atmosphere, no matter how deftly or brilliantly that atmosphere was captured. It was brilliantly crafted, though. The genius and great discipline of Fitzgerald’s prose shines through practically every sentence, such as this little gem:

Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face.

As it turns out, I only found the narrative flow to be bland and disjointed in the very beginning, before the “full picture” of the novel began to emerge and all the seemingly random details began to build upon one another to create a frenzied, tragic, and somewhat pathetic climax. I'm having difficulty articulating exactly what I mean, but I guess you could say that it started out slow but ended up being a pretty intense ride.

Anyways, getting back to the setting and atmosphere of the novel for just a moment… I’ve never been to the Hamptons (and I certainly wasn’t there in the ‘20s), but I did, just prior to reading the book, tour the Newport mansion where the 1974 film version was shot. So I already had a full, sensory conception of the backdrop of the novel, which made it that much more of a treat to read. In reading I was drawn in spite of myself into the luxurious-but-not-altogether-savory world of parties, excess, human folly, and human frailty that Fitzgerald captures so well. And while I didn’t necessarily care about the characters ad much as I might do with a more sensationalized novel, I did nevertheless empathize very strongly with them, so real were even their ugliest and most foolish emotions. I suppose I’m still grateful it was a short book, as I don’t think Fitzgerald’s style would sustain a longer novel. Overall, I thoroughly and quite unexpectedly enjoyed The Great Gatsby, a book that turned out to be not at all boring. In part 2, I’ll elaborate on a book that by all rights should have been awesome, but instead turned out to be a total drag.

Summer Diversions

So, my summer has unfortunately turned out to be rather suckier than most, what with my recovery from surgery being much longer and more complicated than expected, not to mention my having had to move clean across the country and back again in the space of a single month. Still, I did manage to have a little fun here and there in spite of everything, especially in the celebration of my twentieth birthday (yay me!) Although I’ve been woefully negligent of this blog for the abysmally long period of two months, I decided to write a brief summary of all the entertainment I’ve consumed in the interim. That is to say, rather than writing full-length reviews of everything I’ve taken in over the past few weeks, I’ve compiled a list of concise mini-reviews here:

Books

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy). Ugh, I did not enjoy this book. My only previous experience with Hardy (reading The Mayor of Casterbridge for a high-school assignment) was likewise an unpleasant one, but I decided to read this on the recommendation of a person whose opinion I highly regard. Sadly, said person and I must agree to disagree on this one. I did appreciate Hardy's frank, non-didactic treatment of the subject of premarital sex, as well as his vivid portraits of the pastoral life of the farming class. Yet I disliked his characters too much to sympathize with their misfortunes, which they bring entirely on themselves. In this novel, as well as in The Mayor of Casterbridge, I found an unnatural and forced abundance of tragedy and melodrama.

Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways (Diana Wynne Jones). If I had to characterize these books with a single word, I would say "delightful." Not for nothing is Jones one of the most successful and respected writers of fantasy for adults and children on either side of the pond. I held off reading these two for quite a while because, although touted as sequels to Howl's Moving Castle (one of my favorite books EVER), this is only half true. Yet I should not have waited: these books may not be direct continuations of HMC, and they may feature Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer only peripherally, but they nevertheless retain all the originality, charm, and wit of that previous work. They are the sort of books that feature characters with whom one cannot help but fall in love, and about whom one cannot read without smiling continuously and laughing outright occasionally.

Teatime for the Traditionally Built (Alexander McCall Smith). The most recent installment in the very enjoyable "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series does not disappoint. These books are rather like the literary equivalent of comfort food: simple, wholesome, and emotionally charged. Each novel in the series serves up the same basic dish, but it is invariably delicious. I love the reliable comfort of these familiar characters, with all their quirks and foibles. This tenth book features, among other things, another fabulous episode in the hilariously epic rivalry between Mma Makutsi (my favorite character, btw) and the elegant yet evil Violet Sephotho. Niether the series in general nor this book in particular are particularly strong in terms of tight plotting, but what they lack in that quarter they somehow make up for in general awesomeness. It's just hard to go too wrong with a story about the first and only female detective agency in the bright and beautiful country of Botswana.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith). Yeah, that’s right: I read it. I figured the bizarre-0-factor alone would be worth the price of admission, and as an oddity of popular fiction it was pretty entertaining. Just take one look at the cover, and you’ll learn all you need to know about this unholy marriage of a regency romance and a gruesome gore-fest. Not everybody’s cup of tea, to be sure, but I personally was kind of excited about the idea. Still, the actual execution of said idea leaves a little to be desired. If you’re going to go as far as to transport Austen’s beloved characters into a zombie-infested alternate universe, you may as well play around with the story a bit. Grahame-Smith leaves the original story completely in tact, and just sprinkls in the zombie action here and there. Also, the discrepancy between his capabilities as a writer and those of Austen herself are as decidedly pronounced as that which exists between their choices in subject matter. P&P&Z contains just a few too many glaring grammatical errors and typos for a book written in the style of the early nineteenth century. Somebody needs to inform the author that those who truly wish to emulate Austen’s prose do not end their sentences with prepositions, nor do they split their infinitives. They just don’t.

Manga

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, vol 3 (Nagaru Tanigawa). My feelings about this volume are pretty much consistent with my reactions to the previous two volumes: generally positive. I absolutely love the whole Haruhi franchise (here's why), but I must recommend the animated version over the manga adaptation as being the higher quality and generally better presentation of the story and characters. Still, volume three will continue to entertain those already hooked on Haruhi, especially since it features a really great sequence from the light novels that did not appear in the anime. Get your fix of ironic chaos and surreal mayhem in volume three of The Melencholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, in which Kyon and the gang deal with more wild ambitions and violent mood swings from their beautiful, fearless, and insane leader. Expect baseball, group shopping, and time travel.

Fushigi Yuugi, Volume 2 VIZBIG Edition (Yuu Watase). When I bought the previously released VIZBIG edition of this series, which contained volumes 1-3 of the series, I wrote a long-ish post about why I though Fushigi Yuugi withstands the test of time in spite of all its cliched storylines and dated artwork. This second VIZBIG installment, containing volumes 4-6, continues to entertain and to amuse. Additionally, volume four introduces my absolute favorite character in the series. I know Tamahome and Hotohori are considered the main heartthrobs of Fushigi Yuugi, but I'm a Tasuki girl all the way. Actually, now that I think about it, he may be tied with Nuriko for my no. 1 favorite FY character. They're both so side-splittingly hilarious, and yet endearing as well. Fushigi Yuugi has many flaws, but I still consider it to be a real gem of a series.

Bride of the Water God, volumes 2 & 3 (Yun Mi-Gyung). This manhwa is a stellar example of a series that doesn’t quite live up to all of its amazing potential. The artwork is strikingly gorgeous, the mythology is intriguing and complex, and the characters and premise are dramatic and interesting. Yet most of the time Bride of the Water God turns out to be more of a hot mess than anything else. All the elements of an incredible series are present; they just don’t all come together as nicely as they could. The plot is often confusing and unfocused. Still, at its heart BotWG is a very good folk/fairy-tale, something for which I am a total sucker. Also, the plot starts to pick up more in volume 3, what Mui’s strange bargain and Soah’s resulting return to Earth, so we’ll see what happens.

Ouran High School Host Club vol. 12 (Hatori Bisco). I’ve been reading this series online as it’s been released, so I already know that it’s around this point in the story (volume twelve) that things really start to pick up, plotwise. Readers who’ve been patient throughout volumes and volumes of filler arcs with no end in sight will start to be rewarded with some real romantic action from here on out. Not that those filler arcs aren’t great in and of themselves; quite the opposite, really. That’s what makes this series such a joy to read. Even when the plot is spiraling off into a seemingly random vortex of nonsense, it’s still character-driven and that’s what really counts. OHSHC is one of those series with which it is difficult to go wrong: consistently funny, endearing, and well-drawn even when the plot defies the boundaries of the plausible.

Dramas

Sons of Sol Pharmacy House (aka My Too Perfect Sons). This weekend drama, currently in the second half of its fifty-episode run on KBS, has got the market cornered on hilarious, heartwarming family drama, not to mention some of the best romantic comedy storylines I’ve seen in a very long time. The cast exhibits a wide variety of talent, the show is well written, and each episode is fun fun FUN to watch. I find myself truly caring about these characters, oftentimes laughing aloud at their antics, and once or twice I’ve even cried at some of the more touching moments. This show is such a wonderful breath of fresh air compared to some of the dud dramas I’ve watched recently.

Television

“True Blood”, season two. Holy canoli, has this show taken off in season two! I’m a fan of the novels on which the show is based, but after watching the first season I was kind of on the fence about whether or not to tune in for more this summer, but boy am I glad I did. This summer, True Blood has significantly improved in both quality and popularity when compared to season one. Not only are there some great new characters, including the newly-turned teen vamp Jessica and the mythically evil maenad Maryann, but some old characters also get more development and backstory, such as the now-short-haired Eric (yay!) I know that Eric in the show will never be what he is in the books, but I’m really starting to like what Skarsgard and the show’s creators are doing with this manifestation of him. Anna Paquin continues to bring fire and life to the character of Sookie, but male lead Stephen Moyer and his character, Bill, continue to irk me. Still, True Blood’s really an ensemble show, and one to which I look forward to watching each week with much anticipation.

“Dollhouse”, unaired episode 14, “Epitaph One.” The much-hyped fourteenth episode of Dollhouse’s first season turned out to be my favorite episode yet. Set in the not-so-distant post-apocalyptic future that results directly from Dollhouse imprinting technology, “Epitaph One” was fifty minutes of intensely riveting entertainment that would have made zero sense to anyone who missed the rest of the season. It actually made it seem as though season one was little more that an introduction to the main action of season two, perhaps of the whole series. That would be a good thing as far as I’m concerned. I am no officially looking forward to season two; I dare say we might expect great things from this show yet.

Theater

Disney presents “The Lion King” on Broadway. Gosh, what could I possibly say about this show that hasn’t already been said? It was amazing, of course, just as everybody said it would be. But what really got me wasn’t so much the costumes, perhaps because I was expecting that, but just the overall presentation of the story. They took a cartoon movie and, rather than creating a literal translation from screen to stage (as with other Disney musicals), they created a truly theatrical interpretation of the original film and used animal characters to tell a powerfully moving and very human story. I’ll admit that I cried, and I’m not ashamed. Plus, the music was great. I have three new favorite songs. Too bad the tickets cost about an arm and a leg. Each.

How do I love thee, Provensen Book of Fairy Tales

(Tiny disclaimer: this is a subject which most likely won’t interest anyone other than myself, yet since it’s quite near and dear to my own heart, and since I write primarily for myself anyways, I’m going to give it the full attention I believe it deserves.)

Once upon a time, a little girl was given a gift by her stepmother. The stepmother was not evil, you see, but very gentle and kind, if only a little scatterbrained. The gift she gave to her little stepdaughter was an old storybook, very worn and with positively hideous illustrations, but nevertheless containing the most extraordinarily beautiful and magnificent tales. The book afforded the girl countless hours of delight, and she treasured the book among her most prized possessions. And so the years passed, and the little girl grew a little less little, and she visited the stories of the book a little less often, though she still cherished it. One fateful morning, her stepmother came to her with a very apologetic look on her face and regretfully informed her that she could no longer keep the beloved book. It had originally been given to the stepmother’s evil sister by their late father, and now the evil step-aunt demanded its return. The poor stepmother was too gentle and kind to object, and the little girl had no choice but to surrender the book forever, though it nearly broke her heart.

A few more years passed, as they inevitably do, and the little girl was now all grown up. So many other things filled her crowded head that she had all but forgotten about the lost book that she’d loved so long ago so well. Until one day when she was perusing an edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales from her father’s collection of old books, and some little thing made her think of what she hadn’t thought of in years. And then, oh how she longed to see that book again, with all the wistful nostalgia of a homesick traveler. But how could she find it? Communication with the evil step-aunt was so not an option, but she didn’t even remember the book’s name, only vague fragments of the stories it contained. Fortunately for her, she was equipped with some mad research skills, and after about an hour of intensive searching on the web she finally and triumphantly discovered the name of the book: The Provensen Book of Fairy Tales. But what’s this? Out of print and widely unavailable? The girl was not afraid. She boldly availed herself of her trusty library card and within a few short days the book was back in her hands. And then, how it all came rushing back to her as if no time at all had passed. And she lived happily ever after (I hope). The End.

__________________________________

I don’t care how old I get, I’ll always have plenty of room in my heart for good fairytales well told. Which is exactly what fills the Provensen Book of Fairy Tales, a delightful little out-of-print collection of fairytales both common and obscure recounted by a variety of authors. In fact, this book left such an impression on me in my childhood that even after it was long lost to me I retained enough affection and consideration for it that I was able and willing to track it down many years later, and that having finally found it I want to write about it here.

The Provensen Book of Fairy Tales contains what it refers to as “literary fairy tales” as opposed to “folk fairy tales”, explaining in the foreword that “The literary tale borrows shamelessly from the folk tale but gives it a new twist or dimension.” As such, these stories somehow manage to feel delightfully fresh and new, yet also old as the earth itself. Not to mention the fact that many of them are also expertly and ingeniously crafted works of literature. (Although I never did care much for the strange illustrations.) This collection contains several well-known works, such as Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Nightingale”, Oscar Wilde’s heartbreaking “The Happy Prince”, and a version of "Beauty and the Beast" by famous illustrator Arthur Rackham. Yet my personal favorites from among this collection (with the possible exception of “The Happy Prince”) are the more obscure stories taken from lesser-known anthologies. In particular:

“The Lost Half-Hour” by Henry Beston. In which a poor simpleton named Bobo volunteers to find the half-hour lost by the princess when she overslept one morning. His journey takes him around the world and eventually to the land of Father Time and his twelve sons. The hard-won lost half hour proves instrumental in rescuing his true love the kitchen maid upon his return. (Along the way, Bobo also finds a lost reputation, a lost temper, and a lost princess as well.)

“The Seven Simons” by Ruth Manning-Sanders. In which a ridiculously vain emperor sends seven brothers named Simon, who each have a special skill, to steal the only princess in the world beautiful and clever enough to be his bride. But as clever as the beautiful princess may be, is she any match for the seven Simons?

“The Prince and the Goose Girl” by Elinor Mordaunt. My all-time favorite, which is NOT to be confused with the Grimm tale of a similar name upon which the inexplicably popular Shannon Hale novel is based. In this story, a powerful prince rules his kingdom through fear and intimidation, and only a little goose girl (equally proud and stubborn, but infinitely more gentle) refuses to fear him. He falls in love with her, of course, but being proud and stubborn he goes about it all wrong. For herself, she insists she’ll never marry him unless he gets down on his knees and asks politely. Think that’s not too much to ask? You’ve clearly never met the prince.

These are only a few of the wonderful stories contained in this book. For anyone who has an appreciation for truly great fairy tales, I suggest you hunt down the Provensen collection as soon as feasibly possible; it will not disappoint. Now, I’ve just got to see to hooking my own copy because the library’ll probably be wanting theirs one of these days.

Dead and Gone, latest Sookie Stackhouse release

So the vampire community of northern Louisiana has been getting some good publicity recently. HBO recently released some shiny new stills and promotional videos for the much-hyped sophomore season of the show “True Blood”. Additionally, the latest installment of the series of novels on which the show is based also came out earlier this month. Dead and Gone, the ninth book in Charlaine Harris’ southern vampire mystery series, hit stores almost two weeks ago. However, thanks to these annoying little things called final exams I’ve only just got a chance to track down a copy and zip through it. The verdict? I definitely enjoyed this book, as I did the previous installments. This series is such a guilty pleasure for me. I do have misgivings and reservations, which as a responsible reviewer I will fully disclose, but the series continues to deliver a fun, exciting read with an unusually extensive cast of delightful characters.

I already wrote a general review of this series, so I won’t bother to introduce it thoroughly here. I’ll just say that the Southern Vampire Mysteries, aka the Sookie Stackhouse novels (it kind of bugs me that this series doesn’t have a definitive name), feature a telepathic waitress named Sookie Stackhouse who lives in a small town in Louisiana and gets involved with the various local supernatural communities. Some of these communities, such as the vampires and the were-folk, have more or less assimilated into mainstream society. Others, such as the witches and the fairies, haven’t.

While I thoroughly enjoy the alternate universe Harris has created in this series, I often find myself frustrated with her story development (or lack thereof). Each book generally contains one or more stand-alone plotlines, while the series itself doesn’t really boast that much of a big picture, plot-wise. Yet this doesn’t bother me as much as it might; what really carries the series is the ever-expanding cast of colorful characters and complex supernatural politics. Seeing as I’ve stuck with the series this long, I obviously enjoy reading these books and have pretty much committed myself to continuing to do so. Still, with nine books currently published and still no end in sight, the series runs the risk of becoming monotonous, with the same kinds of things happening in every installment. On the other hand, readers who know they like what the series has to offer can pretty much count on it to consistently deliver more of the same. So while the Southern Vampire books definitely fall into the category of “light reading”, I’ve got no major problem with that. I can take my low culture as well as the high any day of the week.

In Dead and Gone, there’s a lot of stuff going on simultaneously. The good people of Bon Temps are dealing with the aftermath of the werewolves’ “coming out” announcement, the Louisiana vamps are adjusting to the recent takeover from Nevada, and the few remaining fairies on this side of the veil are entangled in a bitter and violent power struggle. And once again our telepathic heroine somehow finds herself in the middle of it all. So much for the supernatural political developments; on to the character developments. Sookie starts to mend bridges with her brother Jason while also continuing to get closer to arrogant but charismatic vampire sheriff Eric (although she still stubbornly attributes her affection for him to the blood bond they share.) Bill continues to be a douche (ok, maybe that’s just my personal interpretation) and Quinn turns out to be a sore loser. Oh, and by the end of the book at least one minor but totally awesome character dies. All in all, Dead and Gone provided some very juicy developments to the meandering story of the series, although I would have liked to have seen more of my absolute favorite character (Pam).

It’ll probably be about a year until the next book gets published, but in the meantime there’s the second season of “True Blood” to keep me occupied.

Count 'em up: The Basic Eight, by Daniel Handler

First, I gotta say that I’m a huge fan of Daniel Handler. He’s funny, he’s smart, and he plays the accordion. What more could you ask for? One of the greatest regrets of my life (so far) is that I didn’t get his autograph when I met him. O cruel fate, why? Why?

So, um, anyways…

This is a very twisted book, but with a delightfully black sense of humor. But then what would one expect from the man who gave us a best-selling series of children’s books in which terrible things happen to orphans, and bad people get away with murder? Truthfully, it was primarily out of love for the aforementioned series, and curiosity as to what kind of adult literature the author would produce, that I picked up this one. Actually, first I tried reading another one of his books (Adverbs) because it had a cooler cover and I’m shallow like that, but I couldn’t finish it. It’s not that it wasn’t brilliantly strange and strangely brilliant; it was just a little too episodic and disjointed for my microscopic attention span. So I picked up The Basic Eight and was able to polish it off within a couple of days.

The Basic Eight employs some rather interesting narrative devices. Basically, the text consists of the high school diary of Flannery Culp, heavily edited and annotated by herself as she types up the manuscript in her jail cell sometime after the action of the story. You see, Flan sort of beat one of her classmates to death with a croquet mallet her senior year. You know, high school can be stressful, right? Actually, Flan makes for a pretty entertaining narrator, despite the fact that she’s certifiable. I guess the book kind of begs the question as to what extent do her very serious problems and stacked odds really excuse the things she does? (And I’m not just talking about the murder, but all the other poor choices she makes throughout the story.) Where do we draw the line between condemnation and circumstantial non-culpability. Or maybe we’re not supposed to draw any line (or conclusion) at all, as the constantly sarcastic, ironic, and derisive tone of the narration seems to undermine one’s desire to make such judgments.

Interestingly enough, whereas the last book I read had a kind of demoralizing effect for me, The Basic Eight actually made me feel pretty good about myself. I may think my life’s screwed up, but I’ve got nothing on Flannery Culp. I found her life and circle of friends to be about as realistic and true-to-life as the Lemony Snicket books themselves, which is to say, not very realistic at all. But then I don’t think that’s what Handler’s going for in either case. I still got lots of enjoyment out of the reading. I especially enjoyed how Flan would constantly correct her own grammar, making her sentences really awkward just to satisfy obscure grammatical conventions. Lynn Truss would be so proud of her. She’s one of those kids who always seems to have a snappy line or comeback, and her writing’s just chock full of acerbic perspicacity. (She likes to write things like, “The books on the wallpaper had no discernible spines, like the people in the room”.) Too bad she couldn’t turn that oh-so-sharp and clever gaze on herself in time to recognize the extent of her own problems.

Oftentimes I think the little blurb on the inside flap of books do a pretty shabby job of conveying the essence of whatever story they’re trying to condense. But I think in this case the blurb does a pretty bang-up job of showing potential readers what kind of things to expect from The Basic Eight:

It’s first semester senior year, and Flannery Culp needs her friends more than ever. Her homeroom teacher is a tyrant, her biology teacher is a pervert, and in a few months the Winnie Moprah Show will broadcast vicious lies calling her a Satanic murderer when they really mean murderess… Flannery needs all of the Basic Eight, because high school can get so stressful, you just want to kill someone.

Vocabulary: TYRANT INCESSANTLY SCARCELY REQUITED PANACHE

Study Questions:

1. In order to sell, a work of literature now has to be condensed into a few pithy paragraphs on the front flap. Does this seem right to you? Why or why not?

2. Really, the only way to tell if a book is any good is to purchase it for yourself, take it home, and read it all the way through. Don’t you think? Why or why not?

3. If a boy is messing with your head, is it okay to pummel his head? Why or why not?

Gustave Flaubert is an evil genius

I finally finished Madame Bovary this week, but I almost didn't write anything about it here for a couple of reasons. Since its initial publication in 1857 the novel has been one of the most widely discussed/debated/dissected works of western literature. At the time of its publication it represented a significant rupture with classic French literature that was not really understood by critics of that period. Both modernist and post-modernist literary critics would later hearken back to Flaubert and identify in his work the roots of their own ideals (which in and of itself speaks to the multiplicity of interpretations the book affords). Considering all the historical and ongoing discussion surrounding Madame Bovary, not to mention the novel's sheer complexity, what could I possibly say about the book that would be worthwhile? But then I thought, Aw hell, I slogged my way through this whopping 19th century novel, in French no less, and I'll be damned if I don't at least have an opinion about it. Or at the very least a reaction, however insignificant. So here goes.

In the course of my reading of Madame Bovary I found myself constantly torn between the desire to laugh and the desire to cry. By that I only mean that all aspects of the novel afford many potential interpretations that range from the cynical to the satirical, but rarely fall unequivocally into one camp or the other. The book's just dripping in irony, a fact that nevertheless allows for certain characters to be portrayed both sympathetically and negitavely in turn. Even the penultimate scene of the book (Emma's death) has elements of both humor and tragedy alike. That's what Madame Bovary really is, among other things: a tragicomedy, deftly told by a rather ambiguously affiliated narrator.

Certain elements of the book were also very disturbing to me. It isn't just a novel about adultery with respect to Emma's extramarital affairs, but rather a novel about adulteration on a much larger scale: the corruption and perversity that pervades all aspects of society. One definitely gets the sense, reading Madame Bovary, that Flaubert didn't really think too highly of nineteenth century France, or of the human condition in general. But what really scared me about this book more than anything else was how close to home parts of it hit, and how it made me relate to a very unlikable heroine.

Like many aspects of this novel, the character of Emma Bovary is complex, elusive, difficult to pin down from a reader's perspective, and open to a variety of interpretations. For someone of my relative insecurity it was difficult not to read in her the confirmation of the things I most fear to be true about myself: for example, her warped view of reality, overly distorted by the medium of fiction and fantasy, her duplicitousness, and ultimately her weakness. I do consider myself to be rather more self aware of my own problems than Emma is, but I can't help sympathizing with her in all her misguidedness. I'm not her, but if I had lived under the intellectual, psychological, and social restraints that were placed on women in 19th century France, I can understand how I might have turned out similarly. Which is kind of a sobering thought considering the fact that by the end of the novel Emma is wretchedly miserable, a psychological mess, a liar, an adulteress, a debtor, and a suicide victim.

Of Flaubert's genius there can be no doubt. Yet did he use his powers for good or for evil? That's a harder question for me to answer. When I was reading Madame Bovary I felt like his writing exposed me in some way, revealing and forcing me to confront something banal and unattractive about myself. Needless to say, it did not leave an entirely pleasant taste in my mouth. Yet nor was it wholly unpalatable. It was rather like the bitter taste of just desserts. Something Emma would have hated.

(***Quick language note: I read the novel in the original French, but I also referenced the English translation from time to time on the internet. I tried to balence out my desire to stick to the original text with my desire to maximize my actual comprehension of this really complex novel. It took me quite a while to get through it, but I felt pretty good and proud when I finally did.)