A kind of redemption story, in the bleakest possible terms. Cass Neary (cf. Cassandra of Greek myth) is a washed-up ex-punk photographer who lives fro...moreA kind of redemption story, in the bleakest possible terms. Cass Neary (cf. Cassandra of Greek myth) is a washed-up ex-punk photographer who lives from bottle to bottle, stocking boxes in the back room of the Strand. She gets a call to go to a remote island in Maine, to interview a mysterious icon of photography, Aphrodite Kamestos, who's holed up there since the 1960s. Cass makes her self-destructive, stumbling way through the frozen wasteland of the "real" Maine, where the economy has tanked and people regularly wash up on the beaches, drowned and frozen. She gets no warm welcome from anyone she meets, and gradually starts to recognize a sinister pattern of missing people that none of the locals seem to see.
This is a book about seeing and witnessing, as well as about making decisions and acting. Palimpsests recur over and over, often in sinister terms: a horrible photograph scratched to reveal something else beneath, clouds spinning in the sky like an iris opening, the suggestion that the world we see is just a thin veil over something else that only reveals itself to the artist or the visionary. It's a tense, building read with a dramatic, satisfying conclusion. Cass is a complicated antihero, someone who does horrible things but who had my attention and sympathy regardless--and in the end, she's the only person who can do what needs to be done.(less)
This is the second in a trilogy, with the third book not yet out. The first book established protagonist Nyx as a hard-ass loner and emotionally repre...moreThis is the second in a trilogy, with the third book not yet out. The first book established protagonist Nyx as a hard-ass loner and emotionally repressed (super)hero. This one picks up several years later, after the dust of those adventures has settled. Nyx is older, creakier, approaching an age that almost no-one in her line of work ever reaches. She's getting a little more reflective, a little less certain. She's also, possibly, getting a little idealistic in her old age--or at least developing deeper conflicts about Queen and country, and the never-ending war.
The story clicks along at a great pace, with plenty of action and intrigue. Because this is the second act of a three-act work, we also see the characters at some of their lowest points. Nyx took a boatload of punishment in the last book, but it's nothing to what she (and others) go through now. Hurley has fully learned the lesson that you have to make your characters bleed.
There are some new developments in the world-building here, which are satisfying and (as always) interesting. Hurley is an amazing world-builder, a real original. One of the greatest pulls for me in these books is just living in her world for a while. I'm fascinated by how she takes elements of our own world and extends, transforms, or otherwise mutates them into her own. Her work doesn't feel didactic--it's not trying to teach me that, say, the repression of women is wrong. Instead, it takes elements of our own familiar patriarchal system, upends them, what-ifs them, and ends up with a complicated, multi-layered world that doesn't look much like ours at all, and has plenty of its own problems.
There are a couple of copy-editing glitches along the way, which are frustrating when they jump out. And the resolution of a final scene felt a little forced and abrupt to me--but came with high drama and realism that satisfied in other ways. I'm curious to see where Hurley will take this in the final book. When does that come out? Soon, I hope.(less)
Like the stars say, I liked this fine. It was a quick read (a single day), and it hit a lot of the points that I think speculative YA novels try for t...moreLike the stars say, I liked this fine. It was a quick read (a single day), and it hit a lot of the points that I think speculative YA novels try for these days. There's a strong young female protagonist whose character develops over the course of the story; a hunky, mysterious love interest dude; a bunch of improbably nasty bad guys and a totally unfair, semi-suicidal set of activities to pass through to triumph. Many of the scenes seemed highly movie-ready (and indeed, I think this is already optioned and on its way to the imagination palace, with generous room left for a sequel) and the romance is frankly rote and predictable. On the other hand, strong young female protagonist. So... The writing is about standard for this kind of thing, which is to say bleah.
The scenarios are often ridiculously unlikely, as is the whole setup--a dystopic post-apocalyptic Chicago in which all residents are categorized as one of five temperamental "factions," with their dress, duties, quarters, and everything else defined by that characteristic. There's a lot of violence, often described in such paper-thin prose, and with such slight knowledge of how fights, guns, or knives actually work, that it's all laughable. If our heroine really did go through half of what she describes, she'd be in a trauma unit and psychiatric care for the rest of her life--but such is the legacy of The Hunger Games, I think. Maybe I should be glad that young women are reading about a girl who can take a punch and keep running, instead of a girl who folds up and dies when her boyfriend leaves town? I guess so.
The premise of the book ain't no 1984 but it's interesting enough. I wish it could have been executed with a little more care and attention--to the writing, not to the movie options.(less)
This is an interesting book--you don't see a lot of stories about gay teenaged girls at all, let alone gay teenaged girls bad-assing their way around...moreThis is an interesting book--you don't see a lot of stories about gay teenaged girls at all, let alone gay teenaged girls bad-assing their way around the world in pursuit of a group of immortal mystical beings. (There should definitely be more of these.) This is a quick read--it ate up a single day for me--and after some hinky pacing at the outset, it settles into a good adventure story. The two main characters, Gilly and Sam, are well-drawn and complex, and they face down very real challenges. There's some sex, minimally described but emotionally complicated, and loads of drugs. Also plenty of bad language. I'm not actually sure this is a YA novel, although I think it's marketed as one. I give this one points for verve and originality, for breaking a little more ground for LBGT stories, and for casting Christopher Marlowe as a kind of immortal pirate king, forever crossing the globe in search of a good, or at least interesting, time. (less)
I like how Rambo does speculative fiction. Her span is great: there are tragic robots in here as well as enslaved centaurs and zombie girls. There's a...moreI like how Rambo does speculative fiction. Her span is great: there are tragic robots in here as well as enslaved centaurs and zombie girls. There's a beautiful, sad story about Jumbo the elephant (the real one, from Barnum & Bailey's circus) which I highly recommend: "Towering Monarch of His Race." There's a creepy, tragic tale of pioneers suffering through a deadly winter: "Events at Fort Plentitude," also highly recommended. There's humor and epic fantasy and fairy tales and pirates. It's all stuff you might also come across in Steven Millhauser or Kelly Link or George Saunders, but Rambo has her own distinct, highly readable take on it, and I gobbled this collection up in just a few days. Delicious. (less)
The "steampunk" in the title is a little misleading, which is fine by me--I'm not super-interested in clockwork and steam engines for their own sake....moreThe "steampunk" in the title is a little misleading, which is fine by me--I'm not super-interested in clockwork and steam engines for their own sake. Many of the stories aren't really even about ghosts, or at least they don't seem particularly "ghosty" to me. There are Satanic enclaves, mad inventors and their hideous machines, mummies, and time travel, all loosely bound together with phantasmagoric ties. The real throughline of the collection is the nineteenth century, that spooky, obsessive period of colonial expansion and industralization. The stories are all well-written, though some fall short of truly chilling effects. Standouts for me were Laird Barron's "Blackwood's Baby," and Peter Beagle's "Music, When Soft Voices Die." Garth Nix's "The Curious Case of the Moondawn Daffodils Murder" is a light, funny takeoff on Conan Doyle, and a break from the generally grim proceedings. A solid collection, with good representation from Australia and the UK--though of 17 stories, 14 are by men. (We do notice these things, folks.) (less)
I picked this up after reading the first few sentences online:
"Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.
Drunk,...moreI picked this up after reading the first few sentences online:
"Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.
Drunk, but no longer bleeding, she pushed into a smoky cantina just after dark and ordered a pinch of morphine and a whiskey chaser. She bet all of her money on a boxer named Jaks, and lost it two rounds later when Jacks hit the floor like an antique harem girl."
That is a kick-ass entry to a story, if you ask me. Hang on, this is a long review.
This is...science fiction adventure noir, maybe? It's a world of (mostly) post-apocalyptic Muslims of varying degrees of recognizability, in which most technology is driven by insects. Yes. Also, the two major nations of the planet have been at war forever, and partly as a result of this women have come to dominate society. Men get drafted as boys and sent to the front--and women volunteer to fight, too. But on the home front, at least in the country where we spend the most time, women are soldiers and politicians and businesspeople and pretty much everything else. They're also brutal to each other--the main pastime seems to be boxing, and just about every woman we meet has some violent tendencies or history. This isn't a pacifist Hertopia kind of world.
That's one of the things I loved about this book--its bold creation of a world where women dominate, and where women are socially, physically, and in all other ways tough and capable. Setting aside the fact that this is a world where magicians use bug technology to repair amputations and mortal injuries, the women in this world are bad-ass. Or maybe they're just people. It's a sad statement that it's so unusual to read about women in roles that men would usually fill, kicking asses and getting their asses kicked--but it is unusual. And Hurley does a great job of making her women real.
I appreciated so many things about this book--that the dominant religious ideology was Muslim rather than Christian, that the main characters are almost all non-white, that our antihero Nyx isn't a stick figure, and that she doesn't stay pretty. There's a phenomenon in novels and movies that feature "strong" or "kick-ass" women (cf. Tomb Raider, Charlie's Angels, Kill Bill, Underworld, et al)--let's call it the "reasonable facsimile" phenomenon. It's when authors or directors decide they're going to capitalize on a trend provide a strong female role model--and they do so by casting a skinny white girl in a tank top, and telling her to look brooding. Usually the reasonable facsimile doesn't have a realistic or profound story arc, or much character development (if she's a secondary character she may be defined solely by a skill, like rock climbing), or much to do besides fake-fight guys who would kick her ass in real life, because she has wrists like twigs and has clearly come from the Fighting School of Pilates. Seriously, watching Michelle Rodriguez decline from her tough, meaty role in Girlfight to the dumb bullshit action stuff she does now...that's the reasonable facsimile tragedy, right there.
But anyway. I loved that this book doesn't dredge up the reasonable facsimile. Nyx, as a protagonist, is thorny and crude and rebarbative, she's physically large and strong, she carries weight both literally and figuratively. She has a full, complete character arc, a history, and (presumably) a future--since this is the first book in a trilogy. I admit I didn't follow all the political intrigue in this one, but that's me--I tend to read lightly over that stuff, and dwell more in the scenes. And it's possible that some of that explanation got a little convoluted, in an effort to propel us to the ending. I can forgive that, because the world of the book is so original and well-imagined, and because I liked the characters that live in it.
The second book, Infidel, just came out in October. A third is in the works. I have a feeling I'll be reading 'em.(less)
John Wade loses his bid for the U.S. Senate primary, because of a revelation that he participated in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. He and his wife Kathy retreat to the Lake of the Woods to nurse their wounds. Winter is approaching. John's state of mind is out of balance. And then Kathy disappears. He has no idea where she's gone--just a few fragmented dream visions of boiling water in an iron teakettle, of standing by her bedside, and of finding himself standing out in the lake. They've had their problems, and it's possible that she's taken the boat from the boathouse and fled from him--or had an accident in the wilderness. But My Lai keeps resurging, along with memories of John's father's alcoholism, abandonment, and eventual suicide. What happened to Kathy--and in the end, to John--is never completely resolved.
This is a haunting book, and even harder to take because so much of it is true. My Lai really happened, and as O'Brien points out in several "Evidence" interludes, the massacre of innocent civilians has happened over and over again, in many (perhaps all) wars. The language and logic of extermination appear in records from the Indian wars, and from the American Revolutionary War. In particular, wars conducted against guerrilla tactics--wars in which soldiers fight in-country, against invisible enemies indistinguishable from ordinary civilians--seem horribly slated to produce these atrocities.
O'Brien shifts the narrative between four or five different times and settings: John Wade's tour in Vietnam (where he becomes known as "Sorcerer" because of the magic tricks he performs), the time he and Kathy spend at the cabin in the woods, various other moments in their lives from college through to the great electoral loss, and a few glimpses of John's troubled childhood. In between, short chapters offer evidence speaking to what may or may not have happened--fragments of real or fictitious interviews, passages from historical texts and documents, transcripts from the hearings after My Lai, and descriptions of the young John Wade's magic trick box.
Over time the footnotes to these entries start to speak to each other, back and forth across the pages, as an unnamed narrator/compiler rifles through for answers. Items from Wade's later military and political life turn up in his childhood magic box. The message seems to be: time is fluid, one thing leads to another, the roots of a thing can be traced back to this or that, but never fully explained. The past doesn't stay in the past.
The narrator never unmasks himself, except to say that he too served in Vietnam and visited My Lai a year or two after the massacre, when he found it a quiet, even cheerful place. He's obsessed with John Wade's story, even while he knows that the mystery of unknowing is part of what obsesses him.
Other chapters hypothesize what might have happened, playing out different scenarios in intimate detail. None of them conclude with certainty.
I might say that the book gets a little samey toward the end, that there might be thirty pages or so that cover established ground and could have been condensed--but that might be part of O'Brien's strategy. We don't want to go back to My Lai after we read about it once, but he takes us back several more times. We don't want to hear again about John Wade's confusion and uncertainties, or about his father's cruelties and affections, but we revisit them over and over.
It could be that we do this because John Wade is forced to do it--to relive, over and over, the awful scenes that drive him. As a child, and then as a grown man, he dreams of using magic tricks to control the world, to make himself disappear completely. Instead, he's trapped forever in a place that torments him--until it finally overcomes him and he escapes into the unknown.
I read it. I admit. I picked it up for free at the library's take-one-leave-one shelf, thinking: I should read one of these mass-market books by Highl...moreI read it. I admit. I picked it up for free at the library's take-one-leave-one shelf, thinking: I should read one of these mass-market books by Highly Successful Authors. They must know some useful things about plot and pacing, right? People buy their books! In mass market quantities! There must be some there there!
So, this does have a plot and it's briskly paced. It keeps characterization to a bare minimum (one woman is pretty much fully characterized by the fact that she's a rock climber) and fulfills most expectations. People like it when books fulfill their expectations, I guess. That's a good lesson to learn.
I hear Sphere is pretty good. Maybe I should have read that.(less)
A dense but readable tale of the last days of Yugoslavia, as the country slid into the horrors of the early nineties. Hall clings to his identity as a...moreA dense but readable tale of the last days of Yugoslavia, as the country slid into the horrors of the early nineties. Hall clings to his identity as a travel writer rather than a reporter, both as a disclaimer and at times as a kind of safety position--as things heat up, American reporters become targets, while travel writers are (at least sometimes) just inexplicable. I can't pretend that I can explain the dense, tangled histories of the many ethnic/religious/cultural groups who made up the former country--as people remind Hall over and over, non-Serbs (or Croats, or Muslims, or Albanians, etc.) will never really understand Serbs (or Croats, or Muslims...etc.) The complexities of people's identities are mind-boggling. The same language is called Serbian in one part of the country, Croatian in another. Serbs live in Croatian areas, Croats in Serb areas, and some have lived there for a very long time, or are a substantial ethnic majority--and yet they aren't Croatians or Serbs, they're Serbs or Croatians, and the land they live on is considered Croatian or Serbian based not on who lives there or how long they've lived there, but on its history--except when it isn't. And then there are the Macedonians, and the Dalmatians, and the Bosnians. Hall navigates it all admirably, with humility and compassion, and the frank admission that he, too, is often bemused and baffled at the distinctions. At their best, the people of these regions overlook their differences and intermarry, ignore religious differences, and get along. At their worst they demonize each other and descend into horrible, bloody violence. Like people everywhere, I guess.(less)
Strangely, Goodreads list this book as both "Greyson" and "Grayson." Maybe a UK edition? This is a little book, written by a professional long-distanc...moreStrangely, Goodreads list this book as both "Greyson" and "Grayson." Maybe a UK edition? This is a little book, written by a professional long-distance open-water swimmer. Lynn Cox does amazing things in the water, including happening across a lost and disoriented baby gray (grey?) whale during a training swim off the coast of California when she was 17 years old. Cox stays in the water with the whale for hours, diving twenty feet and more into the bay to find him when he disappears--and in the process seeing sea turtles, rays, sunfish, and plenty of other incredible coastal wildlife. Any other swimmer would have been panicked, exhausted, and overcome by the experience, but Cox is kind of a swimming superhero. She's not fearless, but she coaches herself through her fear and stays with the whale, alerting rescue crews and fishermen to stay out of the area. Finally, (spoilers!) Grayson's mother arrives, and Cox gets to swim alongside a mature gray whale, who acknowledges her either out of curiosity or gratitude. Who can say? But Cox definitely has her take on it, and reads the whole experience as luminous, transcendent, and affirming. It's a terrific read for a time when you need a boost or a reminder that people are capable of doing brave, generous, open-hearted things once in a while.(less)
Wow. This was a terrific book. Beautifully written and wonderfully honest about growing up as a (more or less) colonial white in several African count...moreWow. This was a terrific book. Beautifully written and wonderfully honest about growing up as a (more or less) colonial white in several African countries during revolutionary times. Most of the book is about Fuller's early childhood. She reconstructs times and places in incredible, absorbing detail--the smells, tastes, and feelings as well as the events.
And she has a story to tell. The places where she grew up (poor, remote African farms) were hard-scrabble and dangerous, but they were also humdrum. Driving in the family's mine-proofed Range Rover, with her mother holding an Uzi out the window, is ordinary stuff. The Fuller children squabble in the back seat like any American kids on an obligatory family road trip, and their father, like every father, carps when they need bathroom breaks. Fuller's smart enough to know that this stuff, well-written, is just as fascinating to read as any of her family's more dramatic exploits. (There are plenty of dramatic exploits.)
Race and politics in Africa are obviously complicated, and Fuller doesn't try to solve any problems with this book. She focuses instead on her own family, their struggles and flaws and agonies and joys. By the end of the book I felt like I knew them personally, and liked them despite some of their (in retrospect) questionable decisions and values. I read this ravenously and didn't want it to end. I almost read the Reading Group Guide in the back, just to make the book last a little longer. That's high praise.(less)
A murder mystery rather than an espionage thriller. Not as dense as Tinker Tailor, but written in the same absorbing style. Reading le Carre is like t...moreA murder mystery rather than an espionage thriller. Not as dense as Tinker Tailor, but written in the same absorbing style. Reading le Carre is like talking to the most fascinating dinner partner--the one who's never tiresome or show-offy, just well-traveled and intelligent and perhaps a little mysterious. And oh, George Smiley. Never a better hero.(less)
It's late and I'm tired and I won't review this one as much as it deserves. Pulitzer Prize, FYI. A novel in three or four parts, each focusing on a di...moreIt's late and I'm tired and I won't review this one as much as it deserves. Pulitzer Prize, FYI. A novel in three or four parts, each focusing on a different member of the Howland family of the old South, who over generations become landowners, cotton farmers, timber barons, and ranchers. The Howlands are white, but patriarch William Howland takes up with Margaret, a free black woman. From the 1800s through the 1960s, the family heaves to and fro with the race tides of the country and the region. It's a deeply felt and thought book, beautiful in places, maybe a little oversimplified in others--the author is a white woman, and that's always complicated. But it does something I love in novels, shows the course of entire lives and generations and how they change. That's something I think long forms like the novel are well suited to do, and sometimes it teases apart layers of meaning and experience that don't seem likely to come apart any other way. I didn't entirely understand everything about this book, but I loved huge chunks of it and I respected completely different chunks of it. Sometimes both at the same time, which is saying a lot. (less)
Read it, didn't think much of it. Except that Ellen Datlow, career anthologist and editor, earns her keep. Most of the stories here felt like they nee...moreRead it, didn't think much of it. Except that Ellen Datlow, career anthologist and editor, earns her keep. Most of the stories here felt like they needed more work to make them really shine. I just finished Datlow's Supernatural Noir, and even though some of the authors are the same, the difference seems very obvious. Editing is hard, maybe especially for a genre like horror, which can so easily clang. This one clanged for me.(less)
Another comic highlight. Portis is wonderful, inimitable. He can tell a story about nothing like no one else I know. George Saunders has inherited som...moreAnother comic highlight. Portis is wonderful, inimitable. He can tell a story about nothing like no one else I know. George Saunders has inherited some of this, but Saunders can be a little more brittle and mannered, his characters and situations more surreal. Portis is interested in all the little details of ordinary, not-always-so-bright folks struggling with their drives and limitations, their idees fixes and confusion about the world. Like many of his other books (True Grit, Dog of the South), this is a story about a quest: Norwood's quest to find the man who owes him seventy dollars. That seventy dollars drives the story all the way to New York and back, through a cast of Portis's usual vivid, hilarious characters. This one is a little slighter than Dog of the South, and a little lighter. That's okay; it's a great novel with Portis's stamp all over it.(less)
I picked this up in the Powell's in the PDX airport, on our way to Austin for the weekend. I was hooked by the first paragraph, and if we hadn't been...moreI picked this up in the Powell's in the PDX airport, on our way to Austin for the weekend. I was hooked by the first paragraph, and if we hadn't been on our way to a friend's bachelorette party and wedding I would have finished it the same day. As it was, I snuck it along on the party barge the next day. Clever, light, witty, funny. Definite tones of Douglas Adams, but with the geekiness dial maybe turned down one notch, the focus a little more on character arc and story. Definite shades of Mel Brooks, especially Blazing Saddles. The action never stops, the characters are sketched but recognizable and memorable, and the story has all the right parts and pieces. Rakes and rogues show their true (stalwart) colors, damsels make sardonic comments, monsters are multi-tentacular. Most recommended.
ETA: Re-read in 2012 and enjoyed it just as much second time around. Father in law also got a big kick out of it. Passing it along to my dad and brother next...it's a crowd-pleaser!(less)
I've been meaning to read this for years--since Stephen King dropped Richard Matheson's name as an influence in some early novel--and today I grabbed...moreI've been meaning to read this for years--since Stephen King dropped Richard Matheson's name as an influence in some early novel--and today I grabbed a used copy at Powell's. I started reading it as I waited for the bus (5:30 pm) and finished it about half an hour ago (9 pm?) It's a short book, and it cooks. If you've seen the Will Smith movie or the Charlton Heston Omega Man schlockfest, they have pretty much nothing to do with the novel, which is more introspective and slower-paced. It's also a leetle zany as we get to the end, but hey. It's the first science fiction/horror crossover (according to the back copy on the book I got.) It's a literate post-apocalyptic vampire novel that shows you where Stephen King picked up some of his obsessions. And it's kind to dogs. What more do you want? (less)
Some good stories in this collection--Datlow is a career anthologist and she can put 'em together. There is a little bit of Usual Suspects syndrome, a...moreSome good stories in this collection--Datlow is a career anthologist and she can put 'em together. There is a little bit of Usual Suspects syndrome, and a few stories that aren't so much Noir as just Dark, but I'm not a genre purist, so. Standouts for me included Nick Mamatas's The Dreamer of The Day, and Paul Tremblay's The Getaway. Brian Evenson's The Absent Eye is also (as usual for Evenson) creepy, atmospheric, and impeccable in tone, but I thought the resolution was a little bland. Joe Langan's In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos, wasn't just creepy but also got me emotionally invested about, of all things, military abuse of wartime detainees.
A few other reviewers have commented on how well the book included women's and queer voices...I have to say meh to that. I don't really get why noir is considered a default masculine genre--or at least a genre that men write more often (better? more comfortably?) than women. Out of 16 stories, I think three were by women. Make of that what you will. (less)
You know how there are free books for Kindle, especially older books, maybe especially out-of-print or not-so-widely-read books? And you know how you...moreYou know how there are free books for Kindle, especially older books, maybe especially out-of-print or not-so-widely-read books? And you know how you sometimes have to take a six-hour plane trip somewhere and you know you're not going to sleep? And you know how sometimes you just want mental Cheetos? Yes? I have a book for you.(less)
It's been a while since I read Stephen King, and definitely a while since I read a new one. But he's one of my first and dearest book loves, and while...moreIt's been a while since I read Stephen King, and definitely a while since I read a new one. But he's one of my first and dearest book loves, and while this one feels a little under-edited in a few places (King has his tics, and he's had them forever, and now that he's been writing for something like half a century, they've started to feel well-worn and comfortable instead of edgy and fresh) it's still great. He tells a story like just about nobody else I've read. I think of him as tapped into story in a large-bore way. Where most other writers are feeding story through a two-inch pipe or a straw, he's got a stand-up city main running straight through him from the night kitchen to us. It's pretty incredible.
Four long short stories, dark deeds, disturbing stuff, etc. etc. I stayed up late for these. (less)
I wish I could say more about this book, because it's beautiful and intelligent and the kind of book we need more of--books about real things in the r...moreI wish I could say more about this book, because it's beautiful and intelligent and the kind of book we need more of--books about real things in the real world, things that need to be changed. The Ninemile wolves are a test case for the restoration of wolves to Montana. The federal government agents (one or two for the whole state) are underfunded and underequipped, and they struggle against state politics that bend to the will of conservative anti-wolf lobbyists. So, while the feds are trying hard to reintroduce wolves to the state, the state agencies are snarling everything in red tape and working to get wolves off the endangered species list. Ranchers and hunters fall somewhere in the middle ground, some of them virulently anti-wolf and some of them intelligent, reasonable people who understand the land and care about the species.
If this were a book by another writer or on another topic, I might call it out for being self-contradictory. Bass constantly reminds us and himself not to anthropomorphize wolves, or to make them into symbols--and he constantly does both. It's forgivable, I think, because wolves, like tigers and bears and other endangered apex predators, are such charismatic, intelligent, complicated, mysterious creatures. We'll never really understand them, and to write a book about them you have to find some way to say that, through comparison or idiom or sheer emotional or moral appeal.
Bass isn't afraid to be emotional, or dramatic or sentimental--call it what you like. He's also funny and hardheaded about lots of things, mostly the right things. He's a woodsman who knows and loves the land, and a journalist who writes honestly and plainly about things that matter. He's good company on a trip like this, through the wolves' woods and out the other side. (less)
What to say? I was deeply resistant to seeing this movie, but I finally watched it and then I had to read the book. The story is about what I thought...moreWhat to say? I was deeply resistant to seeing this movie, but I finally watched it and then I had to read the book. The story is about what I thought it would be--bleak and frightening, pared down to the barest essentials of the bad things people do.
In that sense this book frustrates me, because it feels at times almost pathological. McCarthy's stripped his style down over the years so that now he barely gives you the slightest outlines of, say, the desert landscape or the people in his books--compare this book with Blood Meridian with its crazy florid Faulknerian passages about horses etc. The only place McCarthy pauses to show details in this book is when he describes weapons. In a book that includes a scene with a car on fire without once mentioning the car on fire, he stops the flow to describe guns by make and model, ammunition type, condition and quality, silencers, grips, etc. It feels...unhealthy to me.
On the other hand, this is a book about executions and murders, and from there about fate and free will and the general downward trend of humanity into ignorance, violence, and chaos. So maybe there's a reason we spend so much time on the guns.
There is a moral counterpoint in this book: the sheriff and moreso his wife, who stands in as a higher power, a truly good person who sees the sparrow's fall. She's not a real person, if you ask me--she's an idea (although the homely domestic scenes between them are sweet and down to earth.) Sheriff Bell is our everyman, struggling to do good in a world that frightens and appalls him. It's a fallen world--he spends a lot of his time musing about how things have changed from the old days, when Texas sheriffs didn't carry guns and knew every phone number in the county. On the other hand, he also spends time thinking about the brutal murders that happened in those days, and the clashes between whites and natives that left people gutted like fish--so I'm not sure that the old days were really all that halcyon.
The notion that this new, post-Vietnam generation is inexplicable and possibly beyond hope--that they're something completely different from the generations that went before--returns again and again. Chigurh is in some ways the epitome of that new darkness, the frightening void that produces incomprehensible violence. In other ways it's the drug dealers (and buyers) who run the borderlands. But at times it's also "kids with green hair and bones in their noses," and I'm not sure if McCarthy himself is making this facile conflation, or if he's letting some of his old folks make it because that's what old folks do. It makes me uneasy that I can't tell whether McCarthy really thinks that kids wearing Walkmans are somehow unreachable sociopaths, not in the same human family as Bell and Moss and every other flawed, struggling person--but rather, in the Chirugh camp, just biding their time to pick up a bolt gun and start tossing coins for people's lives.
Chigurh is an interesting character too, for all that he's not really human. At times he seems to be Fate, or even sometimes Evil--I'm not sure whether McCarthy thinks those are the same thing. At other times he seems more complicated and fissured, more human. Bell wonders a few times about the land itself--if there's something about the desert landscape that makes people inhuman and violent. It's an interesting idea but I'm not sure I know what he wants to do with it. The easiest read on Chigurh is that he's the Walking Dude, a dark force slipped into a human character like wind into an envelope.
It's a fascinating, frustrating, thought-provoking, solipsistic, tight-controlled, self-indulgent, philosophical, dark, possibly unhealthy book. I haven't read The Road and I don't plan to, but I bet if I did I'd think some of the same things about that. McCarthy may be a pessimist and a downer, the kind of guy who'd bring the stock market down because he fears the worst and by fearing it, brings it about. Or he may be a clear-eyed man standing on a vantage point that most of us can't reach. I can't argue with him that people do terrible, inexplicable things. But I hope McCarthy's world view isn't the right or only one, because if it is, we're all up a creek.
YOU GUYS. How have I never read Le Carre before? I picked this up at ALA because I'd seen that a new film was coming out with Gary Oldman, and I admit...moreYOU GUYS. How have I never read Le Carre before? I picked this up at ALA because I'd seen that a new film was coming out with Gary Oldman, and I admit, I am base and low, I read literature because it is made into movies with Gary Oldman. I got the gorgeous new Penguin edition which was a pleasure to hold and read. And did I read it. I did.
Le Carre is a real writer. The book has weight and it's serious, it's not messing around. The turns of phrase are delicious and original ("studs" of sweat on a man's forehead, an old woman retired from the service has "a low belly like an old man's.") The dialogue is almost painfully acute. Everyone says just the thing they would say, only one or two steps ahead of your expectations. Conversations are truncated, irony isn't footnoted for convenience.
"Sure you don't want me to come with you?" Mendel asked. "Thank you. It's only a hundred yards." "Lucky for you there's twenty-four hours in the day, then." "Yes, it is." "Some people sleep." "Good night."
And the details--the old Christmas calendar hung in the call box, the crate of tonic water bottles in the back room of the safe house, the vain old man's gesture of pulling down the flesh beneath his chin between finger and thumb while he talks, the waiter in the cheap restaurant swinging the bottle of red like an "Indian club"--amazing. It's worth reading just as a study in economy and precision of detail, even if you don't follow all the intrigue. (I admit, I didn't follow all the intrigue.)
Smiley is an amazing character. He's pathetic and fallible in some senses, grim in others, lovesick and betrayed in still others--and he's so patient, so careful and dogged and polite as he does his job, teasing apart the knots. He's a moral man sidelined by an immoral world. He's just lovely.
Gary Oldman will completely rock the role. Movie opens Sep 16. I'll be there. And will probably be reading The Honourable Schoolboy as I wait for the curtain to go up.(less)
Half the pleasure I got from this book came from its salty epithets. These are cowboys of the weird (aka alternative) West, wrangling with gay wizards...moreHalf the pleasure I got from this book came from its salty epithets. These are cowboys of the weird (aka alternative) West, wrangling with gay wizards and Aztec blood goddesses and plenty else. They talk almost as rough as Shakespeare. Some samples (using spoiler tags to shield tender eyes from bad language):
(view spoiler)[ stupid fuckin' ox goddamn skinned bear cat-eyed bitch prancing molly warlock fancy-man harlot in trousers Sodom-apple son-of-a-bitching little redhead faggot motherfucker you witch-rode ox you Bible-drunk king prick you gimcrack bitch you hex-Mex hellbitch skillet-hopping little hot pants you incredible goddamned dumbass (hide spoiler)]
I mean, right? That is some crackling (and hilarious) language. And half of that is love-talk between Rook and Chess, two of the main characters.
Overall...Files is a fine writer with great command of language. The Aztec mythology stuff is interesting but a little goes a long way. The plot goes a little off the rails once we get gods and goddesses rising anew. But the book has so much energy I didn't really mind.
Plus, gay magical pistoleers. What's not to love? (less)
UKLG is awesome. The title story is brutal and good. The essays and interview are a little flimsy. But the book is small and beautiful and nice to hol...moreUKLG is awesome. The title story is brutal and good. The essays and interview are a little flimsy. But the book is small and beautiful and nice to hold.(less)
Better than a lot of the books I've read this year. A quick, satisfying read set in a future world where people get surgically improved to be generica...moreBetter than a lot of the books I've read this year. A quick, satisfying read set in a future world where people get surgically improved to be generically attractive when they turn 16. The moral's pretty clear from the get-go but Westerfield covers good ground to get there. Strong female protagonist with a complicated story and a real personality. Plus, flying cars!(less)
Quick read. Seems like this one follows directly from a prior book (Green Angel?) and it's a little hard to understand why they weren't published and...moreQuick read. Seems like this one follows directly from a prior book (Green Angel?) and it's a little hard to understand why they weren't published and sold together, since they must both be pretty slim. Oh, wait, it's not hard to understand why that is.
Fairy-tale apocalypse, with a teenaged female hero who goes out after her lost boyfriend and...some other girl. A little, shall we say, overstylized. Some magical realism. Kind of loose and flimsy. And strongly based on whatever happened in book one...so basically just one half of a story. Not a whole lot there to respond to.
I had issues with this book from the first page. The writing is...not good. I know Trussoni went to Iowa (which is usually a...moreAll 452 pages of it. Yup.
I had issues with this book from the first page. The writing is...not good. I know Trussoni went to Iowa (which is usually a yardstick of some kind) and she wrote an acclaimed memoir before this, and this very book is a NY Times Notable Book of 2010. So you'd think she'd write a good sentence. But no. The book is full to bursting with things like:
"Verlaine stared at her, flabbergasted at what this otherwise rational woman had just said."
and:
"The chaos of people slogging through the slush, the squish of buildings, the incessant movement of traffic in every direction--New York City was deeply familiar, despite her years away."
The squish of buildings?
So, overall the book feels rushed and superficial. It's also about 100 pages too long, in part because there's so much redundant and unimportant information--and long, long passages devoted to careful reiteration of past events and their possible significance. At the same time it's missing major appendages--like believable character development, realistic motivation for a shoe-horned-in romance, thoughtful description of many places people & things...
I made myself read to the end of this one because I'm interested in literary writers who turn their hand to genre. Sometimes this can go very well (Michael Chabon, Alden Bell) and sometimes it goes very badly (Justin Cronin, Danielle Trussoni.) I think the secret to writing good genre fiction is not assuming your readers are simple-minded, and not treating it like a cash cow for the movie rights. Where I think both Cronin and Trussoni did very well.
So hey, this could be a really long, overwrought movie at a theater near you soon!
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. The setup is promising, for a YA novel: an eighteen year-old woman in a post-apocalyptic desert sett...moreI wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. The setup is promising, for a YA novel: an eighteen year-old woman in a post-apocalyptic desert setting (bear with me!) sets out to rescue her kidnapped twin brother. Hijinks ensue, right?
Quest novels usually have a leg up, because they have an inbuilt story engine. I mean, come on! This book had:
* enforced gladiator-style cage fighting * rigged-up desert sail-cars piloted by crusty, untrustworthy desert characters * ravening giant sand worms out for flesh/blood * drugged-up slave laborers cultivating a narcotic crop for an evil overlord * a psychotic, hopped-up evil overlord * a charming, untrustworthy male romantic interest * a band of rogue fighting girls called the Free Hawks * a band of rogue fighting dudes picked up at a mountain inn and toted along for the ride * a spunky little sister * a hyper-intelligent crow and horses that wait around to rescue you in times of trouble
The only problem is that so many of those elements are pulled from other big, recognizable cultural works--Road Warrior, Star Wars, Dune, and every action movie ever made. (Shout-out here to the Ur-psychotic, hopped-up evil overlord Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, played by my husband and yours, Gary Oldman. Genuflect.)
OK, so this isn't Death in Venice. It's an action thriller, or something like that--but I still admit to irritation when novels reproduce the familiar visual effects and stunts that (sort of) make sense in movies, but really don't translate well to print. So, for instance, when fighting a Big Bad, our heroine Saba overcomes it by (view spoiler)[flipping up onto its back and stabbing it in the eyes (hide spoiler)]. Sort of the way most action heroes overcome Big Bads in classic or retread action movies, right? Sort of the way you have to do it in Shadow of the Colossus, come to think of it. And probably a ton of other video games I've never sweated my way through.
There are better ways to write action. You don't have to just take the cud you get from Hollywood, transcribe it, and call it good. Prose and film have different strengths. It's not actually that interesting to read a Hollywood stunt described on paper. Use your words. (Although Matthew Reilly does make a ton of money off cud, so...)
So, yeah. Not a great book, not an inspired book. An okay book, I guess. I might have liked it okay when I was twelve. Although since the whole thing's written in first-person Hayseed Dialect (I guess there's no edyukayshun in the post-apocalyptic future) I might not have made it very far. Again, I have to refer back to Alden Bell's excellent The Reapers are the Angels. Temple's got her colloquialisms too, but they feed the story instead of crowding it. And for my money, Temple could kick Saba's ass any day.(less)
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