an adolescent girl's voice, perfectly captured in all of its off-kilter, i-am-not-understanding-this-cruel-world oddness. race, specifically black &...morean adolescent girl's voice, perfectly captured in all of its off-kilter, i-am-not-understanding-this-cruel-world oddness. race, specifically black & white and sometimes black versus white. friendship, challenged. families, challenged. a neighborhood changing in the 60s. school and all of its terrors (and some of its joys). music appreciation, lots of it. lots of it. measure out heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal parts. delicate, tough-minded, sensitive, empathetic, real. lovely!
(1) i read this one because of my fondness for the movie My Beautiful Laundrette, which was written by this auth...more3 Things about The Buddha of Suburbia:
(1) i read this one because of my fondness for the movie My Beautiful Laundrette, which was written by this author. that movie was so generous, its characters so busy, its perspective so uncomplaining about unruly complicated messy awkward life. the book has that same feeling. i have a (too) organized mind and i feel vaguely envious of how Kureishi must see the world, taking in all of the confusion and seeing it as natural, organic, sometimes awful but mainly kinda beautiful. that generosity of spirit is the best thing about this delightful but sometimes rather minor note novel. it is crammed with life. even in suburbia!
(2) the protagonist is casually bi. so am i. this is maybe the only other time i've read of such a protagonist in contemporary literary fiction (the other being The Mysteries of Pittsburgh). beyond sexuality, Karim tries to be open-minded and even-handed; he often fails utterly and holds things against people that he knows he shouldn't. Karim is also a very internal person, yet is surrounded by outgoing people and is part of a dynamic whirl of events, socializing, coming-and-going, people changing, etc. he is a part of different groups while being apart from those groups as well. it was a nice experience to read all about a character who showed me a way of looking at myself.
(3) i should also mention that Karim is a Class A Jerkoff. he makes poor decisions. he is a condescending know-it-all who talks on and on and on. he's such an asshole at times and was quite hard to deal with. at those points it was even harder realizing that i still saw myself in him. ah well. the best character is actually his friend Jamilla ('Jammie') who has a rather adorably pathetic fiance and is a smart, sensible, rather mean-spirited, tough-minded, down-to-earth lady that i would like to marry.(less)
i had forgotten how much i love Dickens. the man is a master at the immersive experience. it is really easy for me to get...moreStatus Report: Chapters 1 - 8
i had forgotten how much i love Dickens. the man is a master at the immersive experience. it is really easy for me to get sucked into the world he is so carefully constructing, to revel in all the extensive details, the lavish description, the almost overripe imagination at work. his strength at creating a wide range of entirely lived-in settings (both brief snapshots of places in passing and crucial places like David's home and school) is equalled by his even more famous skill at sketching the characters - often, but not always, caricatures - that live and breathe in his world. this is the kind of deep-dish experience that i love to have when traveling, on a plane or a bus or in some plaza, a second world to live in while taking a break in exploring the immediate world around me.
i can't help but also remember how many people dislike Dickens. i'm remembering an ex who told me he was her least favorite author, and how her resentment at being forced to read him in high school almost put her off reading for pleasure in general. it is hard to reconcile such a strong distaste for Dickens with my own easy enjoyment of his novels. my automatic reaction is that the reader who isn't enchanted by him either dislikes the style of writing or is simply the sort of idiot who should stick to reading facebook. well i don't date idiots, so i assume her reaction is based around the writing style. maybe that is the basic rationale for most folks who don't care for him.
or maybe it is based on something else. there is something that i've found to be off-putting about David Copperfield, at least so far. namely, the incredibly passive and naive behavior of David himself (and his mother, of course). it's more than just my automatic distaste for reading about victims, although that is certainly a part of it. what it feels like at times is that Dickens is stacking the deck a bit, making miserable situations even more potentially miserable, by having his protagonist (and that wretched mother, of course) be almost developmentally disabled in his inability to understand even basic things about the world around him. it sorta drives me up the wall.
well, that complaint aside, this has still been an awesome time. first and foremost, even more than the world-building and juicy characters, i love the dry and sardonic humor that is constantly working double-time. not only does it create some distance between reader and book in regards to the various horrors visited upon young David... it is fookin' hilarious!
favorite parts so far:
- that brilliant opening chapter "I Am Born"
- the Peggotty boat-house and the warmth of that wonderful family. i would like to live there!
- Steerforth. ugh! what a charming monster.
- the sadly minor note tragedy of Mr. Mell
☂
Status Report: Chapters 9 - 26
i think i was expecting a bit more evil from the Murdstones. the way they treat David is certainly unkind verging on cruel - but i suppose i thought it would be a lot more brutal. this is not a complaint! if anything, i appreciate that Dickens makes David's predicament a much more realistic one. the Murdstones are cold, cold people. and they certainly drive David's tedious mother to an early grave (i shed no tears on that one). but i was surprised that their primary action is to simply send David away to a boring job, one that no child his age should have (and here i am viewing the narrative through my 21st century lense). a callous decision yet not a vicious one. David is merely an irritation that they want to dispense with, rather than harm. interesting.
that brief segment was certainly enlivened by the depiction of the marvelously goofy Mr. Micawber & Family. and by a fascinating look into life in a debtor's prison. i assume this is the classic Poor House?
but then... good grief, poor David Copperfield goes through hell to escape this life of tedium. many emotions on my part, all centered on the idea of such casual cruelty towards a runaway. brought back some unsettling memories of my brief time as a homeless youth counselor.
and then - at last! - some decency. even better, eccentric rather than mawkish decency. Aunt Betsey & Mr. Dick are two more wonderful Dickens creations. especially that tough old broad Aunt Betsey - each and every one of her appearances are a delight. when David finally gets to the safety of his Aunt's house, i felt a lot of tension drain out of me. it is like his story is now truly about to begin, now that the Gothic horrors slash neglected childhood bits are out of the way.
- an introduction of the best character yet: Uriah Heep! this is the role that Crispin Glover was born to play. what a wondrously creepy and perfectly realized little villain. all that supplicating, all that writhing! brilliant stuff.
- interesting: David is rarely called by his actual name. two more nicknames are added to the list: Trotwood and Daisy. David is rather a tabula rasa of a character.
- the relationship between Mr. Wickfield and Agnes is not heartwarming. it is downright creepy.
and now the tension is ratcheted up again, but in a way that doesn't make me sorta squirm with discomfort (tales of child neglect ≠ a good time for me). three sets of increasingly dire circumstances...
(1) Lil' Em'ly and the despicable villain Steerforth (2) Agnes and the despicable villain Uriah Heep (3) Aunt Betsey and a mysterious, blackmailing unknown despicable villain
will David be able to intercede in any of these troubling situations? i am doubtful, but also hopeful. go, David, go!
☁
Status Report: Chapters 27 - end
exhilarating, wonderful, awesome, etc, etc. all the good words. i laughed (a lot), i cried (just a little, and in a manly sort of way), i wouldn't change or subtract a single word. perfect!
☼
Final Report
okay this will be less of a Final Report and more of a collection of final thoughts as i think back on the novel and consult with the various threads in Serials Serially - the group that started me reading this novel.
first, the division in the novel. the first third or so, all about young David and his fairly awful travails: vivid and powerful. the remainder of the novel, all about David in his young adult years and following the growth of all those narrative seeds planted in that fertile first third; an excess of details veering on repetitious, and so that the book becomes less of a frightful gothic tale and more of a slow-burning assortment of mysteries (and many, many instances of pure comedy): less vivid and perhaps less powerful. looking back, i have to say that i am in the minority and preferred the last two-thirds. not only was the tension of potential situations involving child abuse and neglect now gone (a personal bugaboo of mine that will quickly render almost any literary or cinematic experience into something hugely uncomfortable and unappealing)... but it somehow all felt more real to me. the first third was visceral but almost cartoonish while the rest of the novel felt as if i was actually living in the novel. such was the extent of the detail and the effect of following these characters as they move throughout many different situations and changes in their lives.
"cartoonish". or better yet, "Dickensian". what does that really mean? a peculiarly stylized version of caricature? i understand the rep that Dickens has with his characters. they are stylized, obviously. but very few of them remained caricatures to me. ultimately, most ended up feeling very real and i was impressed at Dickens' ability to provide multiple dimensions to his characters - although he does it in a rather subtle way. his heroes do not get strong criticism and his villains do not get endearing moments of humanity. and yet it is there. David Copperfield is kind and good, but he is also a passive, foolishly naive fellow whose kindness and naivete often does nothing but make situations worse - especially in nearly every instance involving his relationship with Steerforth. Agnes is also kind and good, but her passivity makes her function as a sort of enabler to her father. Steerforth is a callous and feckless villain, but has moments of genuine warmth and kindness. Rosa Dartle is a heartless shrew - but look at that poor bitch's entire life with Steerforth & mom - i'd become a heartless shrew in that situation as well. Uriah Heep is an unctuous, slimy kiss-ass and back-stabber... but look where he comes from, his context, the kind of person his father was and the ideals he was raised up to worship. and of course Micawber, who would be pure pathos but whom Dickens treats with an extraordinary amount of affection. Dickens is not necessarily an 'even-handed' author, but he is one who is clearly aware of context.
there are some comments in this review's thread about women in Dickens - comments that i initially agreed with. but in retrospect, i actually don't agree. looking back on this novel, the women are often just as full of life as the men. perhaps folks are mainly thinking of the rather anemic Agnes. but now - when i think of dim Dora and vicious Rosa and ferocious Aunt Betsey and tragic Emily and loveable Peggotty and maudlin Mrs Gummidge and pathetic Martha and the eccentric 'two little birds' (Dora's aunts) and pretentious Julia Miles and dignified-under-pressure Mrs Strong and hilariously faithful-to-a-fault Mrs Micawber - i think of characters who leap right off of the page and stay to live in my mind. so, no, i am not critical of how women are portrayed in Dickens.
except, maybe, Dora. she is surely one of the most bizarrely stupid characters ever created in classic literature. when she first baby-talks David's nickname "Doady", i practically wanted to barf. she's so stupid that many times i found myself thinking She's Not Stupid - She's Mentally Disabled! good grief! and so i felt bad about my contempt and i started having mixed feelings about David even being with her. it seemed somehow wrong. there is also something so sexless about her character - it was impossible for me to imagine her capable of any sort of genuine intimacy. but i have to give it to Dickens - he doesn't present her as an ideal (unlike David), he satirizes her mercilessly in scene after scene, and in the end, invests both her marriage and her death with such genuine, palpable emotion that i became genuinely, palpably moved. her marriage scene (practically every paragraph beginning with "Of") was one of the most dreamily written passages i've ever read. and her death - not explicitly described, but paralleled with Jip's death - wow. amazing scene.
the combined death scenes of brave Ham and horrible Steerforth was almost equally moving. that last line describing Steerforth at his final rest: superb.
okay i think i'm spent. this is one of those novels that i can probably talk on and on about, so i should just make myself stop. i'll close by saying that the novel is, in a word, brilliant. i loved the language, the humor, the whimsy, the drama; the characters were wondrously alive; the narrative both surprisingly subtle and excitingly larger-than-life. so many scenes were indelible - too many to recount.
I Remember: linked stories about growing up in the Dominican Republic and then New Jersey... a writing style t...moreread during my Punk Rock Flophouse Years
I Remember: linked stories about growing up in the Dominican Republic and then New Jersey... a writing style that is rather tight, clean, stripped-down, deadpan... i would have preferred a looser, rowdier writing style... a narrative that is alive and fresh, with scenes that should jump off the page, and sometimes do... feels real... some surprising charm, many laugh-out-loud moments... and yet it feels somehow minor note - i guess that's life... oh no, am i getting a little bored now?... ah well, it is still a worthy effort. (less)
translates as Chocolates for Breakfast. an american novel. this Italian edition - which i did not read - actually shows a cover. i hate those blank-co...moretranslates as Chocolates for Breakfast. an american novel. this Italian edition - which i did not read - actually shows a cover. i hate those blank-cover GR editions.
read during my College Years.
I Remember: a girl comes of age in trashy 50s Los Angeles by way of sleazy Hollywood and its sleazier residents... a light, fast read... shallow, overly snarky, homophobic... a brightly-hued & fluffy bit of nihilism... somewhat enjoyable, often fun in a pulpy sort of way... the best-selling Less Than Zero of its generation (hopefully Less Than Zero will be equally forgotten as the years pass)... women can be sexist too!... apparently the author published the novel at age 18... and committed suicide at age 26. sad!(less)
perhaps the best things that i can say about this one is that it perfectly captured a perfectly nauseating time period in the mid-80s, and it certainl...moreperhaps the best things that i can say about this one is that it perfectly captured a perfectly nauseating time period in the mid-80s, and it certainly reinvigorated the use of second-person narrative with surprising elan; perhaps the worst thing i could say about this one is That It Drove Me Up The Wall With Its Pathetically Entitled Non-Entity Of A So-Called Protagonist And It Somehow Made It Okay To Be A Pretentious Whiny Twit And Nihilistic Fuck.(less)
Fugue state, formally Dissociative Fugue... usually involves unplanned travel or wandering, and is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new...moreFugue state, formally Dissociative Fugue... usually involves unplanned travel or wandering, and is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new identity. Fugues are usually precipitated by a stressful episode.
in world war 2-era england, young David loses his mother after a lingering illness and begins to experience strange dissociative episodes, often involving the sounds of books whispering to him and usually ending with him falling into unconsciousness. soon enough, his father finds a new wife named Rose - a nurse at his mother's hospice - and David finds himself with a stepmother and an infant half-brother. David is deeply unhappy with this development. after the new family moves out of london to Rose's country home in order to escape german bombers, David realizes a shadowy, crooked figure has sinister designs on him and his brother. one night, after a particularly bad argument with his folks, David hears his mother's voice calling him. following that voice, he crawls into a hole within a sunken garden - just as a german bomber also falls from the sky and crashes into that garden. he emerges into a sinister fantasyland. his quest: Find and Rescue His Mother. his nemesis: The Crooked Man.
John Connolly is best known as a respected writer of an excellent detective series. his strengths have been widely reported: gorgeously dark and lush descriptive skills, a sensitive portrayal of private eye Charlie Parker - an unusually tormented protagonist (tragic even for a genre noted for its sad, sad heroes), and a unsettling ability to mix the prosaic with the supernatural to startling effect. in this book, Connolly takes each of those gifts and streamlines them in a way that is appropriate for the reader of young adult or even children's literature - although this novel is very clearly an Adult Fairy Tale. the result is pleasingly distinctive. there are many scenes that are striking in their psychosocial nuance, their foreboding atmosphere, their ability to evoke that wonderfully shivery feeling of fearful anticipation. my favorite passage happens early on: David's daunting entry into the strange fantasy world... an eerie vignette that is a model of careful, suspenseful writing, featuring unearthly quiet, child-like flowers, a a taciturn Woodsman, the smoking remains of the german bomber, bleeding trees, a house in the woods with a Giger-like exterior, and a gathering of evil wolfish beings.
Dionysian imitatio, a literary method of imitation conceived as the practice of emulating, adaptating, reworking and enriching a source text by an earlier author.
Book of Lost Things is a book of mythopoeic templates - revisited, revised, regurgitated, remixed, and reimagined. we have an entire company of Big Bad Wolves, reconfigured as ambitious wolf-men, born of a grotesquely slutty Little Red Hood and sprung from the nightmares of a juvenile king... a perhaps not-so-Wicked Stepmother... a malevolent and terrifying Sleeping Beauty... Childe Roland, transformed as a brave gay soldier in search of his long-lost lover... trolls and harpies and a savage, hungry Beast... a young girl's spirit in a glass jar... and our villain, a gleeful child-thief, a striker of dark bargains, a Rumpelstiltskin, an old old devil: The Crooked Man.
the use of revisionism is, sadly, not always successful. a comic interlude with the socialist Seven Dwarves and an obese, monstrous Snow White is depressingly unfunny and a little desperate (at least to this reader). and a long part near the end, depicting various torture chambers and examples of The Crooked Man's terrible villainy seems to be merely an excuse for Connolly to indulge himself with a gloatingly vicious array of sadistic tableau. both sequences were eye-rolling and sigh-inducing.
but those are aberrations; despite them, Connolly more than succeeds in creating delightful and intriguing reinterprations of figures from fairy and folk tale. even better, David's character is a slow-burning but dynamic one, changing in bits and starts from boy to man with each new encounter. he is a realistically flawed protagonist as well as a brave and endearing little hero.
Memento mori, a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die"... it names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality.
the novel's extended endings were a brilliant surprise. to avoid spoilers, i'll just say that i was entirely taken aback by the meaning of The Book of Lost Things itself. and - even more memorably, more intensely - the closing pages' no-nonsense illustration of the potential and/or inherent tragedy of human life in general... and the idea of that tragedy - no matter how intimate - somehow not really being that tragic at all - just simply a part of the greater cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
i hate to end a review with a tv show reference... but if you have ever seen the last 10 minutes or so of Six Feet Under's final episode - a wondrously sad, wistful, yet somehow uplifting experience - you will know exactly what i mean. the ending of this rather fantastic book is equally moving.(less)
today i am 15 years old. everything is all bullshit, as usual. i can't believe how fucked everything is around me. like i'm surrounded by...morejournal entry
today i am 15 years old. everything is all bullshit, as usual. i can't believe how fucked everything is around me. like i'm surrounded by zombies. i can't talk to any of my so-called friends, i can't talk to jamie, i can't talk to my parents. who would bother listening anyway. i cannot wait to leave orange county! this place makes me fucking sick. everyone is a hypocrite. everything is so goddamn bright and shiny and sunny and meaningless. FUCK, life is so full of crap.
there is one good thing in my life though. just read this book Catcher in the Rye. blown away! i don't know how a book written decades ago could say exactly what i would say. it is like the author was reading my thoughts and put it all down in this book. things i didn't even realize i felt were right there on the page! I LOVED IT. i think this is my favorite novel of all time. which is not saying a whole lot because there is a ton of pretentious bullshit out there and i bet mrs. durham will force us to read it all. man i hate that bitch.
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today i am 20 years old. life is great as usual. just enjoyed my wednesday morning wake-and-bake session with j-p, the sun is shining, the san diego weather is beautiful, and tonight i'm off to rob & gregg's to destroy them at bullshit. love that game! gregg says that joelle will be there (yes!) but she'll probably bring that prick pete with her. one of these days i'm going to lose it and kick his ass. "i'm in a band"...fuck you, pete! i will never spin your records.
all i have on the agenda today is to go to the gym and then off to keracik's american lit class. it is not a bad class, although it is nowhere close to gender studies with halberstam. or davidoff's survey of modern postmodernism last semester. now that was a class! it blew my mind. so many things to think about. the reading in american lit has been okay. but we've been assigned to read Catcher in the Rye and it is terrible. can't believe i ever liked this book. caulfield is a whiny little bitch. the book has no depth. there is literally nothing going on with the narrative, style, theme, characterization, it is just one rote cliché after another. he thinks he is such a rebel-without-a-cause but in reality he is just another tired representation of rootless, stereotypical masculinity and gender essentialism. completely inane and without meaning. i think my essay will use some acker-style postmodernist techniques to show how simplistic this trite "classic" truly is. i'm going to deconstruct the shit out of this novel, baby!
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today i am 25 years old. another gray, drizzly san francisco morning. i wish christopher would wake up, i really need to talk to him after all that shit last night. notes on my pillow, really?? time to grow up dude, i will never "complete you". well actually i'm glad he's still asleep, my throat is too sore to get into it right now with him. plus Food Not Bombs is happening this morning and i have to get the kitchen ready. john is probably hard at work already, typical over-achieving behavior. i bet the wisconsin kids are still crashing on our living room floor. it's time for them to leave! they've seen The Vindictives at every single Epicenter or Gilman show now and it is time for them to hit the road. or learn to take a shower. this apartment is not the world's crashpad!
i woke up early this morning and thumbed through A Catcher in the Rye. i remember hating this book in college for some reason. probably wasn't po-mo enough for me. or "challenging". feh. what a pretentious idiot i was. this is a beautiful book. it changed my life as a kid, i'm not sure how i would have survived orange county without it. just re-reading parts of it brought back all that old angst about all the fucked-up shit in the world that kids have to deal with. i'm not sure there is another book as insightful or as meaningful. or funny! that part with the clipping-of-the-toenails is hilarious. ackley is such a douche. this book is the foundation of every zine that i have ever loved. a perfect novel. it is so...."human", i guess.
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today i am 30 years old. man my head hurts...so hungover! my birthday party last night was awesome. even got to spend some time on the turntables (thanks kraddy for actually relinquishing a tiny bit of control for once). i must have made out with a half-dozen people. sadly, no real action. i think last night's party will be the last big party i will ever throw. things have got to change. no more partying like the world is about to end, i still have my entire life ahead of me! tomorrow i am going to go into AIG and hand in my notice. i am not an entertainment insurance underwriter, that is not me. fuck them. if erika can get me that job working with homeless kids at Hospitality House, than i am set. although moving from the biggest room in the flat to the water heater closet will be no fun. i'm 30 years old now for chrissakes! still, i've got to do something meaningful with my life. it cannot all be about booze, drugs, hooking up, and paying everyone's rent when they're broke. things have got to change.
i cracked open A Catcher in the Rye yesterday before the party and read some of my favorite parts. what an inspiration! seriously, that is a classic novel. it is packed with meaning. i'm twice caulfield's age but i still somehow connect with him in a very direct way. my life is going to change and the attitude expressed in that book is at the heart of that change. i love you, holden caulfied. it's not too late for me to learn from you, to find some meaning in life.
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today i am 35 years old. another intense, sad, but deeply fulfilling week has passed. every day something meaningful happens, something so emotional and real. sometimes i find myself just losing it in a fetal position because of the things i've seen. working with people who are drug addicted or who have been abused or who are dying is HEAVY. but it is also beautiful. it's hard to believe i am dealing with all of that and supporting my folks too. thank God i have good friends to talk to about these things. anyway. so now marcy wants to have a kid. i just don't know how i feel about that. this is such a fucked up world, do we really want to bring new life into it? i dunno. it seems....selfish, somehow. she should just quit her job with the d.a.'s office and get back to her roots in the public defender's office instead. does she think that having a child with me will bring more meaning into her life? my life has meaning enough already. and i really am not sure i can handle that responsibility on top of everything else.
i skimmed A Catcher in the Rye yesterday, after an awkward talk with marcy about having a baby. it was not an inspiring read. caulfield is so full of misplaced angst! i'm not sure i even understand him anymore. why is he so pissed off? he's seen nothing of the world and what the world can actually do to people. i want to like him, i want to re-capture that feeling of affection i had for him, but now his contempt and his anger just seem so meaningless, so naive. he really does not have it so bad. there is so much worse out there. i don't know how i would handle a kid like that. i hate to say it, but i constantly rolled my eyes when reading it. oh the emotional self-absorption of youth! just you wait, caulfield. it sure gets a hell of a lot more complicated once you grow up.
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today i am 40 years old. when did i become a boss? it is like i woke up one day, mysteriously transformed into an old man. am i really a "leader"? what does that even mean? sometimes i feel like i am just faking it all and someone is going to figure it out and blow the whistle on me. last week i made a huge play on the Council, i had all my ducks in a row, and all the votes came in just as i had planned. everyone has their own agenda and the way to get things done is simply to recognize and engage with that disappointing fact. some folks got up and started clapping and then the whole room joined in, even council members who voted against my motion - feh, phonies. the experience was sort of amazing but it also made me feel very odd, almost disconnected from myself. is this who i am now, a public policy figure, a community advocate, a mayoral appointee? ugh, i can't stand the mayor. i don't feel like me. there is accomplishment there, and some satisfaction... but i am missing something, something visceral, something real. sweet Jesus, is this what a mid-life crisis feels like? it is a weird feeling, like i know everything that i need to know about the world, about the people around me, how everything connects, but yet i still feel like i know so little about life. oh, such angst, mark. surely you've outgrown this?
i've started re-reading A Catcher in the Rye. it's so strange, during different parts, i felt like crying. a wonderful and moving novel. i feel like i really understand holden, like he is my guide, my son, my brother, my friend... myself. i think of him and i know that change in the world and changing myself can still happen. it just has to happen. that's life after all, right? (less)
i have a soft spot for The Book of Skulls. it is a thoughtful tale of college students on a road trip slash quest slash metaphysical odyssey, their de...morei have a soft spot for The Book of Skulls. it is a thoughtful tale of college students on a road trip slash quest slash metaphysical odyssey, their destination a secret to immortality. the only problem with obtaining this secret is that major bummer, The Grim Reaper. one of the group has to be sacrificed (i.e. murdered) and another must die by his own hand. the cast of 4 are stereotypes: the studly poor guy, the studly rich guy, the queer, the jew. although on friendly terms, they are decidedly not a group of close lifelong mates. i was absorbed by Book of Skulls' depiction of how social inclusion & exclusion, ability to dominate, class background, and various other differences all cause the characters to continually shift allegiances. unfortunately, near the end, much of the metaphysical stuff started to sorta bore me, like the last 2 or 3 hours of an acid trip.
the characters felt both on-target much of the time and, at other times, oddly alien - too sharply differentiated from each other, if that makes sense. i saw much that was familiar as far as the lifestyle and behavior of these guys' lives goes, but found no one that i specifically connected to in terms of actual characterization. but still, there is something about reading the story of college guys thinking they know it all, while also trying to figure things out about themselves, while in college thinking i knew it all, while also trying to figure things out about myself, that made it an intriguing and enjoyable experience. many parts really spoke to me on a personal level. and i did see a little of myself in each of the characters. except for the studly rich guy - what an asshole.
a version of this review is a part of a longer article on Robert Silverberg posted on Shelf Inflicted.(less)
a gentle coming-of-age tale set in rustic scotland, depicting the charming misadventures of a precocious lad and his idiosyncratic older brother as th...morea gentle coming-of-age tale set in rustic scotland, depicting the charming misadventures of a precocious lad and his idiosyncratic older brother as they struggle to understand themselves and each other.
this is some hard stuff, and by "hard" i mean Hard Like the Marquis de Sade Is Hard. do not read this if you cannot stomach graphic depictions of animal torture. do not read this if you cannot stomach the murder of children. this one was hard for me to read at times, and i read some pretty terrible things.
but this is actually not a bleak book. perhaps because of the narrator: young Frank is a sadistic creature but his perspective is often self-deprecatingly wry or amusingly pedantic. he may be an affectless sociopath who channels his monstrous emotions into bizarre rituals and vicious traps, but hey - he is also a sensitively-wrought kid with many problems. what makes the book such a unique affair is the tension between the horrors illustrated and the traditional vehicle in which they are expressed: it is in many ways a kind of Young Adult novel, albeit one chock-full of grotesquerie. one in which the protagonist struggles to move beyond his outsider status, to connect with others, to understand his distant father and his, er, 'problematic' older brother. Frank's cruelties exist side-by-side with a cold-blooded version of typical teenage angst, angst that is built around familial relations, gender, and simply finding a place in the world. the ending resolves some truly dreadful plotlines in a truly dreadful manner, but also parallels the typically transformative Young Adult ending in which the hero comes to understand himself and so is able to move forward with his life. clever, Banks, very clever!
the narrative is designed as a chinese box of layered (and revolting) mysteries, but it is also designed as a more subtle trap for the unsuspecting reader: look at you, you just found some sympathy for a remorseless little psycho! the personal problems that he has to struggle with ARE pretty heavy for a kid to deal with, right? and you felt a bit of happiness at his eventual self-discovery, didn't you? well, you should be ashamed, sicko!
the writing is clean, clear, precise and the tone is surprisingly upbeat. the protagonist's thoughts have a quiet yearning and naiveté to them that makes even his most horrific plans and rationalizations seem almost understated, almost innocent. the deadpan humor also relieves some of the viciousness of the very dark activities portrayed. the dissection of gender was fascinating! and the use of the wasp factory itself moves beyond that of a torture maze, becoming a metaphor and a parallel for the fates of each of the characters. overall, a disturbing but very enriching experience.
this is a pretty unique book. if you like it, you may want to search out jack vance's Bad Ronald, which is also dryly and ironically concerned with the deadly fantasy life of a youthful, psychotic outsider.
this is a highly punchable face. don't you just want to punch that smug look right off of his corny face?...moresome books are like the face of Justin Long:
this is a highly punchable face. don't you just want to punch that smug look right off of his corny face? it is a face born for being stomped into the ground. ugh, i hate justin long. although i loved him in the last few seconds of Jeepers Creepers, he was perfect for the role of Gutted Horror Victim.
i also hate Less Than Zero. i blame this book for all of the ennui-laden, masturbatory nonsense that was foisted upon the world in the 80s. shouldn't Bret Easton Ellis be in jail for this crime? who gives a fuck about the so-called lives of a bunch of entitled twits and their nonsensical concerns, their tedious yearnings? for chrissakes, in a civilized society, they would all be taken and shot in the college basement, before they became the financial magnates and doyennes of style whose sole goal seems to be to eat the world. the worst crime of this gag-worthy book is that Ellis appears to take his characters' issues to be genuinely weighty. that is as deluded as the delusions of his extremely lightweight and eye-rolling characters.
instead of reading this jackassery, watch Walt Stillman's Metropolitan instead. a much more pleasant experience!(less)
The Secret History is about as convincing as Less Than Zero. how has this book stayed so popular? well, Less Than Zero also remains popular. i'll take...moreThe Secret History is about as convincing as Less Than Zero. how has this book stayed so popular? well, Less Than Zero also remains popular. i'll take lev grossman's The Magicians over both of them, and that one is aggravating too. (1) i'm so tired of people who are so tired of everything! (1b) ennui is so very boring, almost as boring as (2) pretentious know-it-alls. this book manages to combine all three. i learned nothing except a new way to be irritated. oh, donna tartt... as if!(less)
there is something so annoying yet so forgiveable about a first novel that is less about adventure and more about how the author thinks they have disc...morethere is something so annoying yet so forgiveable about a first novel that is less about adventure and more about how the author thinks they have discovered What Life Is Truly All About. these kinds of novels often combine youthful idealism and cynicism in an awkward way that manages to be both refreshingly honest and irritatingly pretentious. oh where is that golden temple of satisfaction that we all strive so aimlessly towards? oh isn't life such a sad disappointment after all? where is this life leading us to: is that all there is?
Temple's combination of genuine sincerity and young-man-angry-at-the world IS often eye-rolling... but, just as often, it is sweetly fetching. it's easy to form a guilty kind of crush on this appealing and sensitive young novel. it means well, and it's ever so earnest.
the best time to have read this would have been in high school; the bitterness may have appeared less dogmatic. still, the protagonist deserves his place on the bookshelf between Catcher in the Rye's aggravating seeker of truths and The Wanderers' gang of confused malcontents.(less)
paul russell's first novel (i think) is basically a chamber piece with four instruments. his strong ability with fluid, rich characterization was clea...morepaul russell's first novel (i think) is basically a chamber piece with four instruments. his strong ability with fluid, rich characterization was clearly intact from the start of his career. unfortunately the novel suffered from monotony and triteness, traits that still occasionally plague one of gay fiction's preeminent and perenially under-recognized writers.(less)
i feel smugly happy in saying that i have many of the original zines. i wonder if they're worth anything? ah, cometbus...for a brief period of time, r...morei feel smugly happy in saying that i have many of the original zines. i wonder if they're worth anything? ah, cometbus...for a brief period of time, reading those wonderful scrabblings made my college self feel as if i had someone else i could actually talk to. hadn't felt that way since reading john waters' Shock Value in high school. but then i moved to san francisco and i was surrounded by people i could actually talk to. too many, in fact.
still, despite the many years that have passed, i'll always love you, aaron cometbus. for a few years there, you were my secret best friend! you were the first person i knew who convinced me that being punk rock didn't necessarily mean being an annoying, pretentious asshole who hung out at the campus radio station, judging the records i played. it could mean so much more, a whole new way of looking at life. long live cometbus.
as far as my review goes, it is almost silly to even try and write an actual review. reading these zines is like looking into someone's mind - a mind that is humble, kind, thoughtful - and occasionally, critical. i can't review that kind of mind, i can only hope to aspire to it.
well anyway, this is a collection of the various writings of aaron cometbus, a drummer for various bay area punk bands. his writing is unpretentious, melancholy, funny, insightful. the various zines are also a portrait of a particular kind of life and a particular way of looking at life, especially life on the road and life on the cheap. re-reading these zines makes me happy and sad in equal measures. time passes so fast!(less)
it is clear that the author is trying for Harry Potter through the lens of Bret Easton Ellis. nice try! but all the carefully placed bits of minor not...moreit is clear that the author is trying for Harry Potter through the lens of Bret Easton Ellis. nice try! but all the carefully placed bits of minor note ennui and teenage boredom cannot hide the fact that the author actually has a lot invested in writing pure, thrilling fantasy with a healthy dose of phantasmagoria. i will take the moments of awe over the moments of bored disdain any day... and i think the author secretly agrees. Grossman's description of a transformative flight (heh), the Beast's first entrance, a climactic battle in an underworld, and the final bizarre appearances of the narrator & friends are the best parts in this novel. in the future i hope he replaces Less than Zero with The Golden Compass as his touchstone. (less)
Edmund White portrays his younger life in a narcotic and poetic style. not exactly the most flattering self-portrait... the protagonist's travails are...moreEdmund White portrays his younger life in a narcotic and poetic style. not exactly the most flattering self-portrait... the protagonist's travails are emotionally affecting yet he remains creepily distanced from the events and people in his own life - in particular from his equally creepy, distant, self-absorbed father. the apple does not fall far from the tree, i suppose. overall, the language is some of the most beautiful, in my experience, of all of gay fiction - rivaling even Giovanni's Room. the prose is sometimes so gorgeous it becomes hypnotic. the man certainly knows how to write!
the episodic nature of the book - in some ways disguised by the circular narrative - is rich with at times dreamy, other times cruelly crystal clear recountings of key moments in this boy's life. i was so impressed by this one that i've forced a couple friends (straight ones) to give it a go. unfortunately, they both found the narrator to be, well... "poisonous" would be an accurate word, although i'm sure stronger, angrier words were used. i suppose i can see that. but the narrator is a character of depth, full of wry introspection and canny circumspection. he lives in a marvelously layered and mysterious world, one where he often turns out to be more predator than prey. the whole thing flows together in a way that is impressively cohesive and memorable. a very individualistic achievement in the Gay Coming of Age subgenre.
all that, plus i've never read a more sinister depiction of a blowjob in my life! (less)
surprisingly dark and perverse. this is NOT the movie, and is far more akin to Last Exit to Brooklyn. there are many laugh-out-loud moments but they a...moresurprisingly dark and perverse. this is NOT the movie, and is far more akin to Last Exit to Brooklyn. there are many laugh-out-loud moments but they are a distinct minority when compared to the number of disturbing parts. the chapter with the devil-child luring a 'best friend' to his doom is wonderfully chilling. one negative: there is something very off-putting about price's insistence on what i suppose could be considered realistic characterization, and he seems to wallow in squalid situations a bit much. but most of the situations depicted do ring perfectly true. the scene with the kids at the end, realizing it is indeed the end of their lives as they know it....very affecting! overall, the novel's grey tones and utter lack of sentimentality made it rather the opposite of a nostalgic experience.(less)
this was a cultural touchstone when it came out, and that's when i should have read it. couldn't even finish this one, the ideas are flat, characteriz...morethis was a cultural touchstone when it came out, and that's when i should have read it. couldn't even finish this one, the ideas are flat, characterizations non-existent, and the concepts are surprisingly uninterestng.(less)
Ellis is one of those authors that seems to grow in stature as time marches on. i see him on so many Favorite Author lists and i just have to roll my...moreEllis is one of those authors that seems to grow in stature as time marches on. i see him on so many Favorite Author lists and i just have to roll my eyes a bit. personally, he'll always be the author i laughed at on a regular basis: hilariously pretentious and embarrassingly convinced that pretension equals depth. American Psycho? sorry, the film version was a better portrait of capitalist consumerism and had the intelligence to re-route the author's misogyny so that it existed solely within the central psycho. Less Than Zero? well, it's very hard for me to muster any empathy for spoiled brats who are unhappy with their oversexed, well-fed lives - and who have the lack of tact to complain about their emptiness. gosh i guess this turned out to be a review of 3 books!
but The Rules of Attraction is something different, something special. its playfulness with narrative and perspective is actually rather brilliant. i'm not sure i've read another novel where fully one-third of the narrative was a jerk-off fabrication by one of the characters (one who isn't a psychotic serial killer, that is). perhaps prior to Rules, Ellis somehow exorcised all that repulsive self-pity that inundanted Zero and then replaced it with malevolent wit. and better yet, he puts his usual snarkiness in the mouths of characters who - although soulless - still genuinely face more life challenges than his prior student portraits.
most surprising of all, the nearly-marginal story of the suicide: bitterly ironic, entirely moving, and wonderfully written. and hey, there's even a teensy little light at the end of the tunnel that didn't feel forced. good job, Ellis. i never thought i'd say that phrase!(less)
Absolute Beginners is remarkable - a dream of a novel. It is fast-paced, sweet-tempered, open-hearted, a golden book in many ways – a paean to youth,...moreAbsolute Beginners is remarkable - a dream of a novel. It is fast-paced, sweet-tempered, open-hearted, a golden book in many ways – a paean to youth, to a future brimming with possibility, to a present that is lived vibrantly and joyfully. It is also about selling out, junkies, prostitution, and race wars. How can this be? I suppose it is all about point of view, and the protagonist’s perspective is the embodiment of Live Now and Love It. This is one of those rare novels that make the reader feel even more alive by reading it. The enthusiasm of its narrator was equaled by my enthusiasm of the world that MacInnes plunges us into headfirst. It depicts, it mocks, it leaps forward, it grabs your hand and carries you along.
I was young once, gosh, just a decade or so ago. I lived a life full of punks, hippies, goths, ravers, djs, fags, dykes, trans girls & guys, straight guys who made out with other guys and straight girls who were angry and ardent feminists, vegetarians and vegans, girls who stripped for cash in dives and guys who waved their hard-ons for free in print, fighters and peacemakers, guys who carved symbols on their bodies and girls who dressed like vampire princesses; we lived in junked-out flats filled with too many people, we shared clothes and went on road trips and had neverending parties and made protests against the government and danced all night and consumed amazing amounts of booze and drugs and sex and live music. I read Absolute Beginners during that period, and one of the best things about this novel was that it felt completely real and true to me, despite the difference in social scenes that were separated by decades, by an ocean. It showed the true diversity available to people in their late teens, in their 20s; it illustrated – and so nonchalantly – values that were not just held dear, but were unspoken, values that defied the middle class and that were simply assumed to be shared by everyone we knew. To read oneself and one’s peers in a novel written in 1958 is something special, something wonderfully moving to contemplate, even many years later.
What lifts Absolute Beginners above the idea that life for the young and unencumbered can be a great time, a fun carnival, is its complete awareness that this is also rather an illusion, and a crushingly temporary one at that. So many wonderful things can happen, so much excitement – and yet the world around this world still exists to be fought against. For me and my friends, that world to rail against did not just include asshole yuppies who came to our neighborhoods from time to time, it included police brutality, the WTO, the wars abroad. In Absolute Beginners, that world above includes race warfare. "Race" is clearly interwoven throughout the narrative, and yet it is one of so many things that the narrator is aware of, just one facet of the world that the narrator comments on... the reader could almost lose sight of it. But race and racism are there the entire time and slowly but surely become the whole point; by the end, the reader and the protagonist see how fragile a life full of living can be when the world is singling out his peers for destruction, and those peers are turning to him for alliance. The protagonist chooses, and chooses well. But it marks an ending of sorts, an ending of an attitude and a lifestyle, and the beginning of an understanding that no matter what he and his peers have built, he lives in the world still, as does everyone, and that world is one of both wonder and horror.(less)
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