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August 08
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Toby
is currently reading:
Atheism: The Case Against God (Paperback)
by George H. Smith
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Toby
is currently reading:
The Talisman (Mass Market Paperback)
by Stephen King, Peter Straub
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Toby
gave
to:
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book)
by Neal Stephenson
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read in August, 2008
Toby said:
"In "The Diamond Age" Stephenson both treads some of the same terrain as his previous novel, "Snow Crash" and foreshadows material from his followup "Cryptonomicon." Nanotechnology, culture, cryptography, subversion, and ...more
In "The Diamond Age" Stephenson both treads some of the same terrain as his previous novel, "Snow Crash" and foreshadows material from his followup "Cryptonomicon." Nanotechnology, culture, cryptography, subversion, and nature-vs-nurture feature as strong thematic elements in this book.
As "postcyberpunk," The Diamond Age posits a world in which the "franchulates" from Snow Crash evolve to their logical conclusion as full-fledged world governments along cultural, not geographic lines. One of these "phyles," the Neo-Victorians, evoke a futuristic futurism, steampunk with nanotech. Others, like the Confucian Coastal Republic and the Mandarin Celestial Kingdom, repeat (or at least strongly echo), the Boxer Rebellion of the turn of the 20th century.
Our primary POV is Nell, who grows from toddlerhood to young womanhood nurtured by the mysterious Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a high-tech ("magic" by Clarkian standards) book that becomes her mother figure and in effect raises her. Also attached to Nell is a touch of Dickensian "Great Expectations"-like benefactor-looking-out-for-her-ness, though this role changes hands from her brother Harv to the Confucian Judge Fang, to Neo-Victorian Finkle-McGraw. When Nell finally steps out from under the umbrella of protection and sets out to make her own way, she's swept into the Big Picture and we ultimately find that she's still the subject of yet another benefactor vis-a-vis her book, with which she never parts.
Stephenson's writing is lush and inviting, filled with ratholes and distractions that he uses to both remind us of history and build his own world. The pacing is uneven, and the strong lean towards worldbuilding in the first few dozen pages makes for a difficult entry, but diligent readers are rewarded with a wonderful tale (and some tales within tales), even if some characters act in seemingly arbitrary fashion....less
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July 27
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Toby
gave
to:
Hamlet (Paperback)
by William Shakespeare
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my rating:
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read in July, 2008
Toby said:
"Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's best-loved works, and it's not surprising. I think this is Billy at the peak of his craft. Unfortunately, this wide acclaim means there's tons of assumptions out there and if you're not careful, you'll have someone else...more
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's best-loved works, and it's not surprising. I think this is Billy at the peak of his craft. Unfortunately, this wide acclaim means there's tons of assumptions out there and if you're not careful, you'll have someone else telling you what the play's about.
Is Hamlet indecisive? I don't see it. Is he truly mad? He might be, but there's a strong case that he's not.
The language is evocative and colorful, and of course it takes some careful reading to tease out the meaning of some of the most obscure turns of phrase. Be sure to read a well annotated copy of any Shakespeare play, but take care not to be unduly distracted by the footnotes. There's a lot you can suss out from context alone.
A big thumbs-up to Hamlet, 400 years later....less
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Toby
read and liked
Josh's
review of Haunted:
"This book is incredibly uneven, that's its downfall. There are some really good moments, some really bad moments, and one or two truly brillant ones. Looking at it as what it essentially is; a collection of short stories, it's really no better or w...more
This book is incredibly uneven, that's its downfall. There are some really good moments, some really bad moments, and one or two truly brillant ones. Looking at it as what it essentially is; a collection of short stories, it's really no better or worse than any other short story collection, and actually should get extra points for its brazen audacity. The unifying material that links all of the stories together is terribly weak, and is what ultimately sinks the book.
The first story "Guts" is the best. Not because it's so incredibly gross (and it truly is) but because it is unblinking in its logic. It creates an outrageous yet believable scenerio and follows inexorably to its horrifying conclusion. It's the one story that really stuck with me on a visceral (ha ha) level.
The rest of the book reads like it's trying to keep up with the pace of the first story, but it can't. No story that follows is a strongly written or as moving as the first one, but more just shock value for shock's sake. For every story that almost hits the right stride (Exodus) there are those that just plain don't make sense (Punch Drunk, Something's Got to Give)
This is the second Palanhuik book that I've read, and I think there really is something there. I appreciate his outrage at society, but I think he needs to dial back his delivery just a hair in order to create truly effective satire. He goes from 0-60 so quickly that the social commentary gets lost in the absurdity of the scenerio. If you can't believe it's possible, it doesn't hit home. Writers like Vonnegut push right to the boundary, then siddle a toe past. Palanhuik sprints to the boundary, then vaults as far as he can go. Vonnegut is a razor, Palanhuik is a blunt instrument.
I'm not done with him yet, he's at least shown me enough to give him another try....less
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Toby
gave
to:
Haunted (Hardcover)
by Chuck Palahniuk
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read in July, 2008
Toby said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
While the cover promises that Haunted is "A Novel," the innards te...more
Sometimes in the humor section of the bookstore you can find a spoof of a popular book or writer. That's not what Haunted is, but it's the first thing that comes to mind.
While the cover promises that Haunted is "A Novel," the innards tell a different story: 24 short short stories and 24 prose poems tied together by a thin framing device. This frame is supposed to evoke storytelling parties of the past, such as the Canterbury Tales or the Decameron, in which the participants each tell a story. Henry James' "Turn of the Screw" was structured similarly. In Haunted, each of the semi-anonymous characters from the frame "novel" tell a story and have a poem told about them.
The problem with this approach is that every character tells their story as if they were Chuck Palahniuk, and about halfway through bits of the framing device start slipping into the stories. The novel itself is narrated in first-person although the narrator never participates in any of the activities of the others.
And oh, the activities! The basic hook for the novel here is that a group of aspiring writers have gone off on a weird "Writer's Retreat" in which they hole up in an abandoned movie theater somewhere for 90 days. The dust jacket tells us this is "a satire of reality television" -- and sure, the group of strangers locked in a house together is a common reality TV trope. But if this were a satire of Chuck Palahniuk, what would happen?
What would happen is that the writers would all have horrible personal problems, would begin worshiping at the First Church of Self-Destruction, they would start talking like coroners and doctors with jargon littering their dialogue, they would repeat themselves with a chorus, and they'd throw up a bunch of plot twists.
And that's just what happens. For no reason at all, except that the participants of this "Writer's Retreat" think they can cash in someday if they suffer enough, start chopping off fingers, starving themselves, sabotaging the environmental controls, and consuming human flesh.
Palahniuk is best when he's right at the edge of absurd. Fight Club was there. Survivor and Choke were at the precipice. Those novels worked. Even with its flaws, Rant toed the long drop. But Haunted hurls itself into the abyss, and I understand how Chuck writes and I understand how Chuck wants you to feel when you're reading his books, and this isn't it. This book makes you exclaim aloud "This is fucking ridiculous."
These complaints are all about the framing device, the Canterbury participants with stupid nicknames like "Earl of Slander" and "Lady Baglady." The morons like "The Matchmaker" or "Agent Tattletale" who chop off all but two of their fingers but are still described as holding objects.
if this were a Chuck Palahniuk satire, would one character chop off their penis and another choke to death on it? Would a story involving dressing in drag and getting your ass kicked lead to fundraising for crashing planes?
You bet it would.
Haunted is an obnoxious mess that fails to get any reader buy-in to the things the characters are doing, and Chuck's signature style is turned up to eleven -- to the point that you're constantly reminded that you're reading a book by an author with an identifiable style.
Would a Chuck Palahniuk satire be written that way?
So Haunted is, at best, a self-satire by a writer who maybe recognizes his own tropes and wants to poke a little bit of fun. At worst, it's an unsuccessful experiment at creating a compelling anthology novel.
The stories themselves are mostly really good, but as presented it feels like Chuck cleaned out a file named "Novel Ideas" and threw them into this stew instead of developing them individually.
Of stand-out note are "Guts," which Chuck read aloud on his "Diary" tour and was previously published in Playboy. It's plotless but has a decent 1-2-3 punch to it. "The Nightmare Box" is a great little scary story. "Dissertation" feels like it could get some legs under it. "Obsolete" is a fun piece of speculative fiction. "Evil Spirits" is good enough it should go somewhere, but it doesn't. Many of the others are simply average, and a few are completely forgettable ("Ritual", "Green Room", "Speaking Bitterness").
My advice: if you're going to read this book, skip the "Chapters" and the poems, and just read the stories. The attempt to add context to them with the weak writer's-retreat frame doesn't work....less
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July 01
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Toby
is currently reading:
Learn to Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game (Volume I) (Learn to Play Go)
by Janice Kim
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June 28
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Toby
gave
to:
Bringing Down the House : The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (Hardcover)
by Ben Mezrich
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read in September, 2004
Toby said:
""Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich is a nonfiction work that takes a look at a group of MIT graduates and dropouts who develop and perfect a card counting system, wh...more
"Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich is a nonfiction work that takes a look at a group of MIT graduates and dropouts who develop and perfect a card counting system, which they use to great effect. Specifically, the book concerns Kevin Miller, who is apparently Asian despite the inventive pseudonym, and his involvement with the team of MIT card counters.
As I read this book, I kept flipping back to the frontispiece and wondering, sometimes aloud, why Mezrich has six other titles to his credit. Two of them are pseudonymous, to be fair, so maybe it actually got to the point where editors were asking themselves the same question. Or maybe this guy just won the literary lottery and no one else wanted to write this book.
This literary abortion breaks every rule I’ve established for how to write. He uses adverbs, puts exposition in dialogue, uses cliched similes, and every attempt he makes to “pretty up" his bland writing just makes you want to fly to wherever this jackass lives and punch him in the kidneys.
Some examples of this guy’s exemplary writing style:
"[his sisters were] helping his mother with the dessert — something to do with apples, cinnamon, and sugary pie crust."
Could it be an apple pie, asshole? Just say it! It’s okay to use the words “apple pie.” We’re not going to laugh at you (for that).
"[She] found the thrill of [blackjack] almost as addictive as the field of consulting."
I don’t get it. Does that mean she thought card counting was really boring, or is she just so ridiculous that she actually thinks “consulting” is an “addictive” proposition? I shudder to think. Is that what business school actually does to people?
"The team was operating like a well-oiled machine."
Did you really just say that? You’ve got to be kidding me. Who edited this trash?
"He said, “We’ve got costumes — some of the best money can buy — from some place in LA.”"
Okay, that’s technically proper use of a dash, ignoring the fact that it occurs in a completely unremarkable sentence (what's more important, that the costumes are expensive or that you can't remember where you bought them?). This stilted dialogue is just exposition with pointless quote marks wrapped around it. Maybe Mezrich reads a lot of Clive Cussler. There's a lot of this in the book, and to say that Mezrich has a tin ear for dialogue would be to play the game on his level. It's entirely possible that Mezrich has never, in fact, heard people speak.
Not only is this book poorly written, it’s boring. Avoid it and everything else Ben Mezrich has his hack name on. Remember, though, just because it doesn’t say “Ben Mezrich,” that doesn’t mean he hasn't been blacklisted and is now using another pseudonym.
One last snippet of this dude's literary brilliance:
"The two were best friends, cut from a similar mold."
Really. What a waste of time.
Oh, I guess I should tell you how it ends: the team gets banned from all the casinos and they have to fall back on their incredibly lucrative MIT engineering degrees. Poor little babies....less
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June 08
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Toby
is currently reading:
Long Tail, The: WHY THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS IS SELLING LESS OF MORE (Audio CD)
by Chris Anderson
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May 24
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Toby
gave
to:
101 Reykjavik (Hardcover)
by Hallgrimur Helgason
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read in May, 2008
Toby said:
"I read the English translation of this book. The translator, Brian FitzGibbon, has his name buried on the copyright page, which is a shame because a novel like this has got to be a tough one to translate. FitzGibbon seems to have done an admirable jo...more
I read the English translation of this book. The translator, Brian FitzGibbon, has his name buried on the copyright page, which is a shame because a novel like this has got to be a tough one to translate. FitzGibbon seems to have done an admirable job, but since I can hardly compare his work to the Icelandic original by Hallgrimur Helgason, I can't be sure.
I had trouble with the first third or so of this novel; the style of writing that puts the reader inside protagonist Hlynur Bjorn Haffsteinsson's head is littered with pop culture references, long stream-of-consciousness word-association games, and private jokes. When Hlynur deigns to speak to someone else, his dialogue is usually a vocalization of whatever's going on inside his head, which has got to be a strange experience for anyone within earshot: unless you're inside his head, Hlynur speaks in non sequitur. Most other characters pass him off as "funny" but he's really just odd. He's a crazy Icelandic Hamlet.
Hlynur makes other mommy's boys look like hardened men doing hard time. This thirtysomething kid -- who else would be happy about the prospect of being the father of his mother's child (by possibly impregnating his newly-bi mother's girlfriend Lolla, not incest)?
Hlynur can't decide if he hates women (he calls their genitals a "bacon sandwich" and watches live birth videos as porn), but he spends his time masturbating and trying to get laid, which, to his credit as a misogynist for whom no other woman can measure up to mommy, usually brings him to consider his sex partner a piece of meat, not a person. He'd be just as happy to screw a farm animal.
But Hlynur's world is nonetheless fascinating, his whirlwind year of parties and sex and self-discovery that is detailed in the book. His heartbreak when he finally chooses to love a woman, an Internet pen pal, only to have her already in the arms of another; his quixotic suicide attempt by AIDS by having unprotected sex with a Parisian hooker; his bizarre dealings with the oddball Timer and their pseudovoodoo attempts at aborting Lolla's unborn child.
And all through this FitzGibbon keeps the language and style on key: puns are still puns, fake palindromes and all. Gotta be a feat....less
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