tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70173030086806865372024-02-21T13:09:11.408-05:00Fiction is so overratedA blog about red shells, rum, and book publishing... what has become of my life?Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.comBlogger383125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-49079007133361239542017-09-11T16:25:00.000-04:002017-09-11T16:25:38.292-04:00Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I've loved and cheered for protagonist
who were objectively put, awful human beings, (Alex, <i>A Clockwork
Orange</i>, Humbert Humbert, <i>Lolita</i>, Holden Caulfiled,
<i>Catcher in the Rye</i>, <strike>Katniss Everdeen </strike><strike><i>The
Hunger Games</i></strike>) I don't know that I'd ever cheered for a
character whose actions so clearly brought about her demise. Almost
from the very beginning there is a dichotomy within Edith, the title
character, as to her real life and how she views things. The diary
is Edith's way of hiding; she hides all her truth's she'd rather not
admit, dreams, hopes, and suspicions. It is her fantasy life, and at
times if very clearly leaves mark on her real world existence.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It's not an epistolary novel written in
journal format should anyone reading this have a thing for such
presentation; the diary entries themselves were extremely short and
equally infrequent. It's also not some grand plot driven narrative
with amazing external forces driving things forward. I hate the term
character study, but it may apply: it's long, super intimate and very
very personal.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Brett, Edith's husband, is her perfect
match in the beginning. Cliffie, there son is a monsterous human
being from birth and only gets worse. He has absolutely no redeeming
qualities and everyone, parents included, know. As she ages, her
diary recalls Brett simply fading away from her life instead of
leaving with a younger woman and starting a new family; Cliffie isn't
a horrible person, but educated, highly intelligent, married and has
beautiful children; she expeirences regular visits from non-existent
family and life only gets better.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
One of the most powerful forces in her
life is George, Brett's elderly uncle, who lives with them as his
health declines. Brett doesn't nothing, George becomes invalid, and
Edith in every way becomes a nurse. It was a pretty easily
identifiable starting place for so much of the resentment that mars
her attitude toward other people. George and Cliffie have a very
peculiar relationship...
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Melanie, a distant and favored Aunt
whom Edith really loves is her last bastion of rationality. When she
finally succumbs to advanced age and health problems, it's not the
stark encounter with Drs. Carstairs and McElroy, but Melanie's
passing that truly marks the end.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I never believed she was losing it
until a few impartial third-party characters started mentioning
things that couldn't be ignored and just didn't add up. At that
point, I was sad, sad because I really liked her. I was cheering for
Edith the entire time. I do feel was short-changed and dealt poorly,
and despite those things I do think she handled it all admirably. It
was hard to finally admit that yeah, she's slipping. And while I did
understand that she felt so many people were prying into her life at
the incessant suggestion of 'see a shrink, see a shrink, see a
shrink' before the end I certainly found myself saying she may need
some help....
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Repression; (hiding, as Cliffie hides
the diary in the end!) is her main issue. By the end of the book
nearly every character we like or don't like that at least knows
Edith is begging her in good nature to talk to someone, and share her
feelings. And so, I--even as a reader--feel a bit as though I'm
betraying her as I sit here psycho-analyzing a fictional character
when all that she wanted was to be let alone. She has problems,
repression, and a difficulty stating how she feels, but her problems
come from real not perceived wrongs, and wrongs that anyone today or
then could identify with. I didn't love her because of her flaws,
certainly didn't dislike her for them either. I cheered for her
because she had them; and how she reacted to them, they endeared me
to her because I could see myself, or anyone else for the matter,
behaving in similar fashion.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Part of me feels like all her troubles
started with Cliffie being such an unrelenting dick. He's not a
spoiled brat just a bad egg with no explanation. He tries to
smoother the family cat a child, cheats and gets caught on college
entrance exams, gets drunk and break both legs of a pedestrian, puts
a gun in his fathers face and laughs, and at the least oversaw if not
administered George's overdose: all with no remorse. Edith nor Brett
spend a lot of time dwelling on Cliffie, how he came to be who he is
or what they can do to change him, but his actions certainly have a
tangible impact of Brett and Edith's relationship, and every other
facet of their lives.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Alcoholism is real in this book. To
the point where it may even play a part in Edith's decline. It could
be part cultural and indicative of the time; or these people are
drunks. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Edith is a rare character that never
'grows up' or matures. Her political views were always a bit
extreme; and she only solidifies them as she gets older, while Brett
and her one good-ish friend, soften and relent a bit in older age.
(Boy oh boy did Highsmith have a few Nixon rants in her... ) She
became more of an extremist and isolated herself the older she got,
and the more untenable her life became. She also completely and
totally stopped caring about other people. She became a super
crotchety old lady.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I see a lot of Patricia Highsmith in my
reading future. </div>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-80128180086995280832017-08-20T11:12:00.001-04:002017-08-20T11:12:27.563-04:00And Suddenly... Poetry!Happily for you, it's not my own poetry but someone who was really good at it. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
From C P Cavafy, as translated by Rae Dalven</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Candles</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The days of our future stand before us</div>
<div>
like a row of little lighted candles--</div>
<div>
golden, warm, and lively little candles. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The days gone by remain behind us, </div>
<div>
a mournful line of burnt-out candles:</div>
<div>
the nearest ones are still smoking, </div>
<div>
cold candles, melted and bent.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,</div>
<div>
and it saddens me to recall their first light.</div>
<div>
I look ahead at my lighted candles. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder--</div>
<div>
how quickly the somber line lenghthens, </div>
<div>
how quickly the burnt-out candles multiply. </div>
<div>
###</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
An Old Man</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the inner room of the noisy cafe</div>
<div>
and old man sits bent over a table; </div>
<div>
a newspaper before him, no companion beside him. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And in the scorn of his miserable old age, </div>
<div>
he meditates how little he enjoyed the years</div>
<div>
when he had strength, the art of the word, and good looks.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He knows he has aged much; he is aware of it, he sees it, </div>
<div>
and yet the time when he was young seems like </div>
<div>
yesterday. How short a time, how short a time. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And he ponders how Wisdom had deceived him;</div>
<div>
and how he always trusted her--what folly!--</div>
<div>
the liar who would say, "Tomorrow. You have ample time."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He recalls impulses he curbed; and how much </div>
<div>
joy he sacrificed. Every lost chance</div>
<div>
now mocks his senseless prudence. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
... But with so much thinking and remembering</div>
<div>
the old man reels. And he dozes off </div>
<div>
bent over the table of the cafe. </div>
<div>
###</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Walls </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Without consideration, without pity, without shame</div>
<div>
they have built big and high walls around me. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And now I sit here despairing. </div>
<div>
I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
for I had many things to do outside.</div>
<div>
Ah why didn't I observe them when they were building the walls?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But I never heard the noise or the sound of the builders.</div>
<div>
Imperceptibly they shut me out of the world. </div>
<div>
###</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are many other really really good ones that I like, "Ithaca" and "The City" but I'm too lazy to type them out. So go find a copy and read Cavafy's for yourself. </div>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-88639680583531420192017-02-04T18:20:00.003-05:002017-02-04T18:20:49.732-05:00Clea by Lawrence Durrell<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For
my comments on <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2016/10/justine-by-lawrence-durrell.html">Justine</a></i>, <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2016/11/balthazar-by-lawrence-durrell.html">Balthazar</a></i>, and <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2016/12/mountolive-by-lawrence-durrell.html">Mountolive</a>,
</i>the first three books of the
Alexandria Quartet, follow the respective links.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've
been looking forward to <i>Clea</i> since I finished <i>Justine</i>.
I felt it would be my favorite. I was sure it would have the most to
offer and be the most substantial in the series. My immediate
thought after finishing this book has to be nothing other than, “God
damn. There's a lot of exclamation marks in this book....”
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
war, which was always in the background and even in <i>Clea</i> never
gets main character treatment, is finally such a big deal that it has
to get more than merely casual mention as it had in previous entries.
Darley, the narrator of <i>Justine</i>, is back as narrator in <i>Clea</i>.
He has to come back to Alexandria, and his return is marked by death
all around him: as in warships are actively bombing the city as he
makes his entrance. Its the same intangible, beautiful rambling
narrative and lack of concrete substance that he gives in <i>Justine</i>.
Even while the city is being strategically shelled Darley's general
oblivion is held in perfect tact. The gravity of the matter is only
felt by the reader; why? Because everything we love about the
previous experience of reading three books is embodied in the city
and all the people too. The city under fire works so well but Durell
never indulged it. It was just a thing in the background—we don't
read this book for epic descriptions of war. But the next morning
characters noticed rubble in the streets, inaccessibility of certain
roads, and people died. He in no way painted the picture but he damn
sure sold it to me. Lastly, the juxtaposition of everyday life in
the city: the call to worship; fishing in the harbor; nightlife, in
contrast with the war kinda caused an internal struggle between
'everything is gonna be okay,' and all the drama the actual
characters stirred up. Enough of the war and the city; on to the
good parts...
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
<i>Clea</i>, we see exactly how much of certain characters lives we
missed in <i>Mountolive</i>; Justine's had a stroke, Nessim lost an
eye and a finger, both are on house arrest and aren't free travel
about the city (as if Nessim could be held down). The perfect couple
has fallen but I never thought Justine could be a such a bitch,
especially not in Darley's eyes! She even defends herself to Darley
saying she lied but he lied to himself in deifying her. She's not
only bitter, but defeatist, which is kind of a shocker considering...
ya know... the <i>other</i> three books....
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh,
and if ever I was gonna have a fictional dad it would be Nessim.
Just saying.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's
is a lot going on, and I don't feel bad saying that it took me some
time away from the book after having finished it to say so. Everyone
who remained behind is falling apart: badly. Justine, Nessim, even
Bathazar. His teeth, his terrible and ill-advised love with an
actor, he went full cray with the 'drunk, drugs, and brothels' bit.
A large part of him also enjoyed suffering; if not that then the
being made to endure his self-inflicted wounds. (I'm not gonna talk
about periodontal disease right now, but yeah... that too.) I'd go
so far as to say 'endurance' is a theme for all the characters that
stayed behind. Darley retreated and found some measure of internal
peace; everyone else in Alexandria has further flipped their shit (I
mean seriously; Scoobie “El Yacoub” has been made a saint, and I
even believe it!) which is saying something considering the mental
constitution of some of the characters from the start. If you've read
<i>Justine</i>, and one should most certainly be strictly doctrinaire
when reading this particular series, think of how nutso it is to say
Darley of all people is the normal person and everyone else is the
train wreck. Yeah, that's where we are...
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
felt in <i>Clea</i> there was more to concretely dislike than any in
other book in the series. Pursewarden, a voice I most truly felt to
be that of the author's, trivialized Justin's rape; even went so far
as to say in as many words that she enjoyed it—then he defended his
comments. I also felt Durrell just got a bit lazy from time to time.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">“The
Alexandrians still moved inside the murex-tinted cycloram of the life
they imagined. (“Life is more complicated than we think, yet far
simpler than anyone dares to imagine.”) pg 65</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those
are two very fine sentences but I do wish that the primary characters
were experiencing those things first hand than the recap. If only
because Darley is the narrator and that was how such details were
given in <i>Justine</i>. There is also a supremely heavy
over-reliance on Pursewarden; a character that died in the previous
book. He is quoted on seemingly every page. The air of,
“Pursewarden said...” is likened to the teachings of Mohamed or
Jesus as being recited by the Holy. As if by quoting him the speaker
admits to wanting to have lived or live the most messed up life
ever... If the dude had to be such a force in the book—such a
necessary force—then don't kill him; or write a new character to
take his place or just finish the series.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
think we can add anti-Semite to the list of bad things as well.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Durell
loves to rhapsodize about 'art, writing, and style,” usage and
definition of each that to me were tedious from the start and they he
only kept going. All were done from the dead voice of Pursewarden.
Similar points had been made before but done better as they had
previously served to further then narrative. In the “Brother Ass,”
Chapter (that I'm sure the author felt would be remembered by history
in the same light as “The Grand Inquisitor”) Purewarden, Durell,
is being self-indulgent peacock puffing out his chest and tail
feathers. The “Great Stylist,” is begging for compliments after
bashing other prominent English writers to set himself apart. It was
exhausting and more than once I considered skipping that chapter and
upon completion of the book don't feel I'd have been any worse for
the wear should I have done so.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm
sure it all made mathematical clarity to Durell but many of his
“points” are ramblings with no real meaning that get lost in
length and intentionally (artistically; perhaps?) nebulous prose.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The
sexual and the creative energy go hand in hand. They convert into
one another—the solar sexual and the lunar spiritual holding an
eternal dialogue. They ride the spiral of time together. They
embrace the whole of the human motive. The truth is only to be found
in our own entrails—the truth of Time. Pg 141.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seriously?
What does he think he's saying in the above?
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If
I'm to be wholly honest—which I hate doing—I had no idea I
actually liked this book until I wrote this commentary.... And, of
course, it should go without saying that that goes for the series as
well. It doesn't really work; it's not supposed to; it's anything
but traditional. It's also not perfect. It's really really good.</span></div>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-55215287410709642052016-12-08T20:13:00.003-05:002016-12-08T20:13:30.401-05:00Mountolive by Lawrence Durrell<pre class="m_1420629220528226721gmail-western" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">For my commentary on <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2016/10/justine-by-lawrence-durrell.html">Justine </a></i>and <a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2016/11/balthazar-by-lawrence-durrell.html"><i>Balthazaar</i></a>, books one and two of The Alexandria Quartet, follow the respective links. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">"For the artist, I think, as for the public, no such thing as art exist: it only exists for the critics and those who live in the forebrain. Artist and public simply register, like a seismograph, an electromagnetic charge which can't be rationalized. One only knows that a transmission of sorts goes on, true or false, successful or unsuccessful, according to chance. But to try to break down the elements and nose them over--one gets nowhere. (I suspect this approach to art is common to all those who cannot surrender themselves to it!) Paradox. Anyway." pg 115</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
So it's a bit unfair to include the above as it was spoken by the narrator of </span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Justine</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> but I've come to feel that is the true voice of the author (Darly or Pursewarden; I'm not sure yet). Perhaps even a defense of The Alexandria Quartet.
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">"Somehow his friendship for them had prevented him from thinking of them as people who might, like himself, be living on several different levels at once. As conspirators, as lovers--what was the key to the enigma? He could not guess." Page 192</span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
And suddenly, everything is illuminated...
Unlike it's predecessors </span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mountolive</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is simple in it's presentation, flows, and makes sense. It feel like a traditional novel and in that regard it left me wanting a bit of the lavish presentation of the previous two books and also made me sigh with relief.
The Alexandria Quartet being my only frame of reference with the author, reading something straight-forward from Durrell is a bit unsettling. I kept expecting to be literarily attacked--ambushed--in some new clever way but </span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mountolive</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> resolutely marches forward in linear fashion following the lives of it's characters and exposing the plot we been over for what is now the third time through yet another lens. And let me come out and say that that last magic trick--telling the same story through different eyes--truly is magic, because it really shouldn't work.
The title character may have been mentioned once or twice in </span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Balthazaar</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and seeing how such a primary, intregal-to-everyone character, could have been all but left out until now is stunning. We see him spend a year with Nessim and Narouz in Egypt as an English exchange student in his late teen-aged years. We see him and Leila fall all-the-way in love. We see him leave and become a successful diplomat. We also see A LOT of the other characters and gain some serious understanding of their persons.
For instance: "Underneath her lightness he recognized something strong, resistant and durable--the very character of an experience he lacked. She was a gallant creature, and it is only the gallant who can remain light-hearted in adversity." pg 47. That is about Lelia, Nessim and Narouz's mother, not Justine...
"Darley is so sentimental and so loyal to me that he constitutes no danger at all. Even if he came into the possession of information which might harm us he would not use it, he would bury it." pg 210 As spoken by Justine and which completely explains the narrative point of view of the quartet's first novel, fixation on sentiment, and near oblivious eye turned to the obvious thought of every reader, "Something else is going on..."
As for Mountolive, his early relationship with an older woman mars him for life: he seeks out married women in his later liasons, he ages and matures a bit too quickly, and the hold Leila has over him is extraordinary.
Poor Clea is everyone's crutch: she reads to Samira (a brilliant parallel micro-story within the story of it's own), she puts up with Darley, she indulges Narouz, and even buys into Nessim's bullshit.
Of Pursewarden, well, this book is as much Pursewarden's as it is Mountolive's... While the book is about and focused on Mountolive, it is Pursewarden who drives the plot. Pursewarden sleeps with the wrong people--and here I'm not talking about his sister, rather Melissa--and learns some very interesting knowledge about Nessim. While reading </span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Balthazaar</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I had a thought that Nessim was running guns to someone and Balthazaar was a spy. Whom the guns were run to and who the spy really is I was wrong about. Through an event no more subtle than suicide we see Pursewarden give the world the finger and all of his closest acquaintances as well. He forces everyone to act when they would rather be stay where they are. Once the knowledge is out there, it can't be taken back.
The end of the book is a bit of a race to see who will mess up first and on what scale. It takes getting to book three for the true plot of this story to clearly present itself. And even then, once we concretely know what is going on, its still the characters that keep one reading. (I am priding myself by keeping to my original promise of not making comparisons to other works of fiction as I stated in </span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Justine</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.)
As to Durrell being Durrell, his language finally managed to get on my nerves in a sex scene with Pursewarden and Melissa; who, by the way, has slept with everyone but isn't really a ho since 'ho' is kinda her stated profession. He relied too much on analogy and allegory and for far too long and considering the narrative voice in the rest of the novel it almost came across as pulp fiction, base or vulgar. Even though it was just regular old trashy sex. I almost forgave all the intimacy with Pursewarden as it plays on the relationship with his sister: they were lovers, it happened, it could never happen again, and he always sought, and failed to recreate what he once held as an ideal.
Hmm... I ain't said much about the book because as I've said about the first two: there's not a whole lot of 'plot' driving this story. Fans of page-turning thrillers and spy novels beware; this one moves at a leisurely heart rate.
That said, the story given is extraordinary. </span></pre>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-74624241027117801322016-11-14T21:23:00.000-05:002016-11-14T21:23:21.596-05:00Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell<div align="LEFT" lang="en-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; break-after: auto; break-before: auto; break-inside: auto; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Go here for comments on <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2016/10/justine-by-lawrence-durrell.html">Justine</a></i>, book one of The Alexandria Quartet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">How
disgusting, how unfair love is! Here I had been loved for goodness
knows how long by a creature--I cannot say a fellow-creature--of
whose very existence I had been unaware. Every breath I drew was
unconsciously a form of his suffering, without my ever having been
aware of it. How had this disaster come about? You will have to
make room in your thoughts for this variety of the animal. I was
furious, disgusted and wounded in one and the same moment. I felt
almost as if I owed him an apology; and yet I also felt insulted by
the intrusiveness of his love which I had never asked him to owe me</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">."
Page 231</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
above could serve as a microcosm for both <i>Justine</i> and
<i>Balthazar</i>. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Seen
across the transforming screens of memory, how remote that forgotten
evening seems. There was so much as yet left for us all to live
through until we reached the occasion of the great duckshoot which so
abruptly, concisely, precipitated the final change--and the
disappearance of Justine herself. But all this belongs to another
Alexandria--on which I created in my mind and which the great
Interlinear of Balthazar has, if not destroyed, changed out of all
recognition.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">" Page 226</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
above is a hint as to the beautiful confusion and impending
enlightenment that is reading <i>Balthazar</i>. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Durrell
makes much of <i>Balthazar</i> not being a sequel to <i>Justine</i>
but a 'sibling.' Much of the meta fiction in the in the first book
is present in the second and, at very pointed times, he draws so much
attention to the writing itself as to make me roll my eyes. (Not
that it's ever taken much for me to do so…) All said and done, I
have to admit, <i>Balthazar </i>is not a 'new' book; there is no,
'What happens next…' in the story. Rather it's a very curious,
telling of events that were happening concurrently as <i>Justine</i>
only at the time of writing <i>Justine</i> our unnamed narrator (who
finally gets a name in <i>Balthazar</i>!) was unaware. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">While
<i>Justine</i> is so intimate and so forced and focused through one
set of eyes, Balthazar, both the novel and the character are able to
give perspective on events. Which really makes one want to go back
and read <i>Justine</i> again and re-evaluate events we already
thought we knew. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Justine</i>
was essentially a memoir of a very specific time for the narrator, he
sent the manuscript to Balthazar to get it off his chest; Balthazar
basically sent it back with marginalia 'corrections.' It's odd that
we learn the most about the main characters relationships through
Balthazar as he isn't in love with any of the main characters.
Justine was playing everyone for a fool--the narrator more than most;
Pursewarden a minor character in <i>Justine</i> becomes a rock star
(basically the real McCoy of how the narrator fashions himself) and
Nessim is both knowingly cuckold and the orchestrater of a grand
scheme not even Balthazar knows in full. I should also say up front
that Balthazar seems a very reliable narrator and is full of
information, but while he fills in many of the blanks in <i>Justine</i>
he also seems equally reticent to 'tell all.' It is done in part to
spare the narrator's feelings and in part to be respectful as not all
he knows is his to disclose. (His cutting off of a few of Clea's
letter's midway was particularly painful.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">At
the heart of the story, insomuch as <i>Justine</i> had a 'story,' we
see that Nessim and Justine's marriage is a business arrangement.
The terms are very tangible and Nessim's endgame is anything but.
More than any other character Balthazar's new information changed the
way that Nessim is perceived. It wouldn't say that <i>Balthazar</i>
makes <i>Justine</i> out to be a story of deception but certainly
nothing is what it seems. And there in lays the most prevalent theme
of the novel: masks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We
sat once more to our meal, fellow bondsmen, heavy with a sense of
guilt and exhaustion. Hamid waited upon us with solitude and in
complete silence. Did he know what was preoccupying us both? It was
impossible to read anything on those gentle pock-marked feature, in
that squinting single eye.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">" Page 214.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having
read the novel, that passage got me thinking about anything but the
moment it portrays. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nearly
everyone is hiding something and it's the few open and honest ones in
the story who seem to get hurt the most; which is probably why
<i>Justine</i> seemed so sensitive as it was written by the most
vulnerable character. Some characters have to hide in domino during
carnival; others--Nessim's family--behind veils or horrific
birth-scars (which makes Nessim's hiding in plain sight so amazing!);
some cross dress; while still others lean on homosexuality to avoid
confronting awkward or unwanted relationships. Finishing <i>Balthazar</i>
in many ways feels like never having read <i>Justine</i> to begin
with; or perhaps that I didn't really read it correctly. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
with <i>Justine</i>, the writing itself is the most arresting part of
the novel. Unlike <i>Justine, </i>the writing is so plain, simple,
oddly tangible, concrete and ultimately linear as to make you think
something is wrong, but then again aren't all books <i>supposed</i>
to read like that? <i>Balthazar </i>isn't the 'artist's attempt' as
the narrator's efforts was in <i>Justine</i>, rather it's the
enlightened professor reading the student's work and saying, "Let
me tell you what's up…" In <i>Justine</i> it was easy to get
lost in the abstract beauty of Durrell's words and presentation.
<i>Balthazar</i> is noting like <i>Justine</i> in that regard but may
be more profound as the scaled down to normal form and substantially
less florid prose make it easy to think about what you're given in
both books. As pretentious as it sounds Durrell pulled it off:
<i>Balthazar</i> is not a sequel: it's the exact same book as it's
predecessor only with one-hundred percent new content. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
suppose (writes Balthazar) that if you wished somehow to incorporate
all I am telling you into your own Justine manuscript now, you would
find yourself with a curious sort of book--the story would be told,
so to speak, in layers. Unwittingly I may have supplied you with a
form, something out of the way! Not unlike Pursewarden's idea of a
series of novels with 'sliding panels' as he called them. Or else,
perhaps, like some medieval palimpsest where different sorts of truth
are thrown down one upon the other, the one obliterating or perhaps
supplementing another. Industrious monks scraping away an elegy to
make room for a verse of holy Writ!"</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Page 183</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">If
nothing else Durrell was a great critic of his own work and a damn
good salesman… </span></span>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"I
wonder why only <i>now </i>I have been told all this? My friends
must all have known all along. Yet nobody breathed a word. But of
course, the truth is that nobody ever does breathe a word, nobody
interferes, nobody whispers while the acrobat is on the tight-rope;
they just sit and watch the spectacle, waiting only to be wise after
the event. But then, from another point of view, how would I,
blindly and passionately in love with Justine, have received such
unwelcome truths at the time? Would they have deflected me from my
purpose? I doubt it." Page 130 </span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">To
say something concrete of the story: I think Melissa knows everything
(which, if true, makes her the most out-of-the-blue complex character
in the whole story); Balthazar is mean to say the least and as
forthcoming as he is, he is equally holding back; the narrator is the
most naive person alive; Nessim is up to something (good or bad, but
<i>something</i>…); I love this book. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
feel duped; you see, I've read this book before. The first time I
read it, it was called <i>Justine</i>. I read it a second time and
it was called <i>Balthazar </i>and it seems absurd to be blown away
upon re-reading such a familiar book. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">There
seems to be a theme in the series: the most unlikely character is
always the narrator, or perhaps that's how it always is (or should
be). We'll never get to read from Justine's point of view or
Nessim's. I have no clue what Mountolive could possibly contribute
but I can't wait to find out. As much as I want to read what Clea
has to say it seems so appropriate that she has the last word. </span></span>
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Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-21450229611690819542016-11-10T22:28:00.000-05:002016-11-14T20:44:36.629-05:00Tenth of December by George Saunders<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Wow; I'm really late
to the party. It seems everyone already knows this collection is
amazing and there is no chance that I'm telling anyone anything new.
So, on-board the thoroughly departed years ago bandwagon I go...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If this collection
is indicative of the rest of Saunders output, I'm torn: he's funny;
really, organically funny. He's also very, very contemporary. Not a
bad thing, only to say I'm not sure the 'jokes' will make as much
sense or be as readily funny as they are now in fifteen years.
(Which means it's really good to be a reader right now! GO READ THIS
BOOK!) If his previous stuff is similarly contemporary, it's
probably reading a bit dated; I'm sure we all have encountered this
'problem' before with writers.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Middle class,
working, Americans of today are all he has to talk about: Blue
collar, military Veterans, and suburbanites. And also SF. Or—let
me be more clear—Science Fiction. A lot of that happens too. It's
hard to call it SF when the New Yorker and Harper's publish the
stories. It's really, really hard to call it SF when you get a NBA.
But a lot of this collection, I'd go so far as to say, “The best of
this collection,” is SF.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's always dark,
and sometimes that is easy to forget, and it's always funny; and that
is unforgettable.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'Victory Lap' was my
favorite. Juxtaposing two family's 'model' children in different
light, making me laugh all the way through. Then scaring me into
thinking something terrible was going to happen to one then the
other, then both. It's the little dose of reality mixed into the
suburban satire that is scary, because it's so real. The, 'this
could never happen to my kids' fears we have never even come to mind
in Saunders' stories until they do; and even when they do, somehow
it's still hilarious. Which only makes things more intense.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sometimes things are
funnier than darker, as in 'Exhortation.' A waaaay too long work
Memo that underscores, the immediacy of a given department's need to
improve and how HQ will 'fix' things if they don't. I've had that
job. Twice. I've seen my take on the real corporate version of that
Memo. Saunders isn't throwing darts in the dark: he knows what he's
talking about. Its a funny 'Ha-ah' not funny 'Laugh at my tears'
kinda story. Or something. (Trump was elected yesterday; I'm trying
so hard to not make appropriate jokes for fear of tarnishing the
authors work!)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The best story, not
necessarily my favorite, was the most SF. Expecting me to say the
'The Simplica Girls Diaries?' The one you may have heard about? No.
I'll say I didn't care for that one, and then not substantiate as to
why though I've many reasons. (I can do that because the Harper's
and New Yorker people don't read my blog and I don't have to explain
myself to them.) 'Escape from the Spiderhead' immediately reminded
me of 'Calliagnosia,' by Ted Chaing but better. I'll say nothing
else until you've read both; then we can talk until the sun comes up.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And all of the next
day too.
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's SF and literary
fiction; who cares? It's really, really good. (But seriously, when
was the last time anyone ever cared about literary fiction?) Don't
miss out; don't put it off any longer. Read it now. I mean, I
haven't even talked about, 'the good stories,' yet! </span></div>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-70716789656794271732016-10-31T20:11:00.000-04:002016-10-31T20:11:00.213-04:00Justine by Lawrence Durrell<div lang="en-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; break-after: auto; break-before: auto; break-inside: auto; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"It
is our disease," she said, "to want to contain everything
within the frame of reference of a psychology or a philosophy. After
all Justine cannot be justified or excused. She simply and
magnificently <i>is</i>; we have to put up with her, like original
sin. But to call her a nymphomaniac or to try and Freudianise here,
my dear, takes away all her mythical substance--the only thing she
really is. Like all amoral people she verges on the Goddess. If our
world were a world there would be temples to accommodate her where
she would find the peace she was seeking. Temples where one could
outgrow the sort of inheritance she has: not these damn monasteries
full of pimply little Catholic youths who have made a bicycle saddle
of their sexual organs." page 77</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">When
was the last time you wrote someone a letter: not an electronic
correspondence of any kind, but a pen-to-paper missive that then
required postage to deliver? As of writing this, I'm thirty-six, and
did so last week to my five-year old nephew who is learning to read
and whom I knew would get a kick out of receiving something in the
mail. Before that I couldn't tell you when; it's not something my
generation does. Keeping up with people and communication is so easy
today, and that is a good thing; it is also something to keep in mind
when reading <i>Justine</i> and some of it's themes of isolation,
loneliness, and outright being alone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">While
I'm sure it can be done, it's substantially harder to fall off the
map and disappear today than it was at the time of <i>Justine</i>,
which is never specified but I'm guessing around the 1930's to
1940's. I'm not so sure that solitude is a theme but upon reaching
the end of the novel it struck me profoundly as I'm not sure it's
even possible to be alone--be it to revel in nostalgia or wallow in
self pity--to the degree of the novel's characters. Because cell
phones, snap chat, Facebook… yeah; alone is much harder to achieve
today than before. </span></span>
</div>
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<br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
summation of all this preamble isn't solely a note about <i>Justine</i>
but presumably the entire series: it's one thing to tell someone they
have to put themselves in another time and place to enjoy and
experience a story. <i>Justine</i> didn't push my capacity as a
reader to do so in anyway, only it was upon finishing that I was
tasked with putting what alone means to me and what it means to so
many of the story's characters that I was able to really wrap my head
around the degree of much of what they were feeling. </span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll
take pride in saying, only I can digress before I even begin a
commentary… </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
has to be the longest book I've ever read (it's really short;
two-hundred fifty pages) that has no real plot, structure, or
tangible tension; all of which make it extremely difficult to tell
anyone why it may be enjoyable for them to read. (Yet, conversely,
very easy to say, 'I didn't like it because…') There is an unnamed
narrator who from a physical and temporal distance reflects upon what
he recalls as the most extraordinary experiences of his life. And
it's here--after all of one real sentence in an effort to communicate
what this book is about--that anyone could stop and say, 'I've read a
book like that.' You'd be right: such books happened before Durrell
and after. It's difficult to not make reference to other writers and
I had decided to not do so before writing this as to not create a
literary influence Durrell doesn't have or undermine any originally
he may have possessed by mentioning those that came before him or
after. (There are English major's and 'critics' who can--and most
judiciously will (and have!)--arbitrate such things; for that is
their sovereignty.) With the most minimal presentation of concrete
plot and through a very biased perspective, Durrell drunkenly
ruminates on love and infidelity; what both mean; and how they effect
people. </span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">So,
I've already used 'ruminative' and 'reflect' and refrained from using
'nostalgia' and it's abstracts such as these that present the only
reason to keep reading: the anxiety the characters feel and express
is palpable. Naturally, it is all centered around the title
character. </span></span>
</div>
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<br />
</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"It
will puzzle you when I tell you that I thought Justine great, in a
sort of way. There are forms of greatness, you know, which when not
applied in art or religion make havoc of ordinary life. Her gift was
misapplied in being directed towards love. Certainly she was bad in
many ways, but they were all small ways. Nor can I say that she
harmed nobody. But those she harmed most she made fruitful. She
expelled people from their old selves. It was bound to hurt, and
many mistook the nature of the pain she inflicted. Not I." And
smiling his well-known smile, in which sweetness was mixed with an
inexpressible bitterness, he repeated softly under his breath the
words: "Not I." page 33 </span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's
one of the best character descriptions from the text I'm capable of
giving. Justine; her ridiculously wealthy husband Nessim; the
unnamed bohemian (i.e. broke-ass 'artist') narrator; Melissa the
narrator's girlfriend, an exotic dancer, and possible prostitute; and
Balthazar who teaches and preaches the virtues of gay sex and the
Caballah in addition to being a possible pederast, comprise the
principle cast. The setting offers the rest of the characters, most
of which are of philosophical importance. Alexandria, Egypt with all
of it's races, ethnicities, religions, impending war that will change
everything, and intervening white people provide an astonishing
amount of very subtle background tension. </span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's
a soap opera in which everyone is sleeping with all the wrong people
and justifying it every step of the way to the point where as the
reader, you say, "Okay, I get it and I feel sorry for you but,
don't touch that!" The rest of the story is learning who is
Justine and how did she come to be the person she is at the time the
novel presents her. It starts with rape and a man she still sees
more or less everyday, and while the event doesn't come close to
defining her identity that crime and the kidnapping of her first
child are without doubt the events that shape her conciseness.
Understand: absolutely nothing in this book is presented anywhere
near as expressly concrete as what I've stated here; and that's part
of the fun. </span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another
part of the fun is the well disguised meta-fiction in which the
author seems to defend the form, or lack thereof, of the novel to his
reader while coaxing them into supporting the novel's strong points.
Durrell gets away with it in some very creative ways too. <i>Justine</i>
itself is a memoir written by the narrator. There is a second book
about Justine within <i>Justine </i>in which Justine is often quoted,
and by way of parenthesis talks to the reader three times removed
from the actual novel.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: black;">What
I most need to do is record experiences, not in the order in which
they took place--for that is history--but in the order in which they
first became significant for me. Page 115 </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
dream of a book powerful enough to contain the elements of her--but
it is not the sort of book to which we are accustomed these days.
For example, on the first page a synopsis of the plot in a few lines.
Thus we might dispense with the narrative articulation. What
follows would be drama freed from the burden of form. <i>I would set
my own book free to dream</i>." page 75</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
narrator and reader learn the most by watching him interact in his
relationships with Melissa, Nessim, a dying conversation with one of
Melissa's lovers, and the brief and oh so portentous meetings with
Clea; whose perspective I can't wait to read. While she has her name
on the cover, Justine is a bit too intense to deal with directly. </span></span>
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">What
her friends would say of her:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"The
true whore is man's real darling--like Justine; she alone has the
capacity to wound men. But of course our friend is only a shallow
twentieth-century reproduction of the great <i>Hetairae</i> of the
past, the type to which she belongs without knowing it, Lais, Charis,
and the rest…. Justine's role has been taken from her and on her
shoulders society has placed the burden of guilt to add to her
troubles. It is a pity. For she is truly Alexandrian." page
77</span></div>
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<br />
</div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">What
she would say of herself:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I
was able to read:--'my life there is a sort of Unhealed Place as you
call it which I try to keep full of people, accidents, diseases,
anything that comes to hand. You are right when you say it is an
apology for better living, wiser living. But while I respect your
disciplines and your knowledge I feel that if I am ever going to come
to terms with myself I must work through the dross in my own
character and burn it up. Anyone could solve my problem artificially
by placing it in the lap of a priest. We Alexandrians have more
pride than that--and more respect for religion. It would not be fair
to God, my dear sir, and however else I fail (I see you smile) I am
determined not to fail Him whoever He is.' page 72-73</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Excerpts
seemingly don't work with <i>Justine</i>; be it a sentence, paragraph
or twenty pages. The context is the entire novel. </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
said early on the only reason to read was the anxiety of the
characters. Also, the language is beautiful. You have to be okay
with adjectives and adverbs (which so many preach the evils of in
today's contemporary fiction) but they were totally okay by me.
There are tons of gorgeous passages to make note of, some of which
upon further thinking really resonate and others of which kinda
fizzle out and make you say, 'How did he get me to stop and think
this long about such a simple thought that goes nowhere?' </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hand-in-hand
with the 'the language is beautiful' comment is: this book is
dripping in sex. I was originally going to qualify that remark but
after having time to think it over, it stands alone just fine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many
of the narrator's vignettes seem unrelated to anything as a central
story doesn't really come together until near the end. And then when
love presents itself as jealousy or envy and takes form in conspiracy
and murder the scenes are framed in the light of one of Justine's
aphorism as if to say, "This is what you should be thinking
about…" Or as she actually says in the text, seeming apropos
of nothing, "We use each other like axes to cut down the ones we
really love." Page 112</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
book does exert a more than casual racism, an overt sexism, an
atypical form, and all those much maligned adjectives and adverbs.
I've never had more fun reading my notes on a book than <i>Justine</i>.
Seeing some of my early comments and conjecture upon finishing the
novel were in many ways more fun than the reading. I was wrong most
of the time, grasping at air in other places, and desperately trying
to create something physical when at all times the story remains
nebulous. I'm not sure if <i>Justine</i> is indicative of Durrell's
total output or even the remainder of The Alexandria Quartet. It's
certainly not for everybody but it is for me.</span></span></div>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-57021826266540547052015-11-02T14:44:00.001-05:002015-11-02T14:44:55.627-05:00I'm still hereI've been reading a lot lately. I've even written a few commentaries only I haven't posted them. I'm lurking around my own blog and the internet in general. It's really strange but as I reflect a bit on my internet absence I fully see that it's the start of the college basketball season that is bringing me back. (Must have something to do with UNC's preseason ranking.) <div>
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I'm not yet back to full strength but expect a lot of content to be put up in the following months. </div>
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Apropos of nothing, does Roger Zelazny get the recognition he deserve? <i>Lord of Light</i> was amazing. Easily one of the most contemporary books I've ever read and it was written in 1967. It made me think a lot and take an active part in reading. It was far more fiction and story than science; and best of all it never once made me think, 'What happens next?' as I was only all too happy to enjoy being exactly where I was. </div>
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For my last random note for this post; I meet Catherynne Valente this past Thursday. She is awesome--but that's old news. She was reading from her new book <i>Radiance </i>(which seems to have a lot going on). I was there to be a bad person and pester her about book three of <a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/search/label/Catherynne%20M.%20Valente">A Dirge for Prester John</a>, which is important to my life's existence. I kinda got the feeling this book is done and now it just needs a publisher. Nightshade doesn't want it (Boo!) and, understandably, other publishers aren't too excited about printing book three in a series that they didn't print books one and two. I was told to expect a kickstarter by the end of the year: and you'd best believe I'll be supporting that even more than I did exploding kittens.</div>
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So yeah; I'm still here. </div>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-32961041386236141642015-10-01T10:23:00.000-04:002015-10-17T14:39:31.801-04:00We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">"My niece Mary Katherine has been a long time dead, young man. She did not survive the lost of her family; I supposed you knew that."</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"What?" Charles turned furiously to Constance.</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"My niece Mary Katherine died in an orphanage, of neglect, during her sister's trial for murder. But she is of very little consequence to my book, and so we will have done with her"</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"She is sitting right here." </span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Page 93</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think I love everything about this book. The fact that I'm not sure is what is driving me crazy. As I was reading, I kept asking myself, "What is going on?" There is a mystery or uncovering of the past that is fun and very intriguing. When I finished the book I kept asking myself, "What the hell is going on?" My confusion aside, it's always better to leave readers wanting more than wishing you shut up two-hundred pages ago. (I'll name no names…)</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps I need help in understanding something: what are the factors that determine how to read a book? When do we accept what is written on the surface and go with it and when do we search for something deeper; perhaps applicable to the human nature? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A large--and wealthy--family has been nearly wiped out; the accused acquitted; and no motive or further suspects established. That is the concept the story is built on though I wouldn't call it 'the plot.' Learning about Mary Katherine, the novel's main character, is the point of story. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seeing things through the 'eyes of a child' often obscures adult perception. For doing so even half as well as she did Jackson deserves all praise that can be given. However Mary Katherine is eighteen, a rather nebulous age in terms of maturity, added to which she is the survivor of a horrible incident that is sure to have left some mental scars. PTSD initially came to mind; her extreme anti-social behavior, expressed desire to kill everyone in town, and overtly repetitious nature points fingers in many directions, but at some point in time I gave up on reasons for her behavior and rolled with, "This chick is plain old crazy." And suddenly, everything was illuminated. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone in this story is crazy. And by crazy I mean not in a right state of mind. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Uncle Julian, who is invalid, and wheelchair bound is obviously suffering from some sort of dementia. Mary Katherine's sister, Constance the accused, had more problems than I could account for. The town they live in, is comprised of a very stereotypical angry mob, they were most certainly crazy (the town actually made the most sense if that gives any indication as to how bad the others are). </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everything changes when a reader abandons rational thought and stops trying to understand 'why' and accepts the world as a madhouse. All of a sudden Mary Katherine's 'magic' makes sense; only perhaps she is a bit too old to be a 'practitioner' of such arts; her talking to her cat and incessant desire to go to the moon all make sense. Constance's maintenance of daily life, as if her family hadn't just been murdered, makes sense. Uncle Julian's incessant need to go over the details of the family's last day and need of assurance that 'It really did happen, didn't it?' makes sense. It all made sense because they're all crazy. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It took the implementation of a rational, reasonable character in Cousin Charles who is filled with nothing more than the most base human emotions, jealously, envy and greed, to expose the rest of the family as they nuts they are. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a second tragedy occurs (more 'magic' gone awry) another family member is lost, one driven away, and the survivors retreat further into themselves than I would have though possible--even for this book, and yet amends are made between the town and the family. It was upon reaching the end that I was left with my predicament outlined at the beginning as the family and town reconcile on some bizarre level, as all mysteries are solved and everything and everyone is exposed for what they are, is this just a really good story (all kinds of weird though) that I need to accepted on the surface or is there some greater correspondence to human nature that I'm not making at the present? </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I may need more time to think than the few days that have past since I finished reading. It's a really short book and, while not dense, the pages don't fly by. It's extremely well controlled despite the chaos happening on the page; so much so that I can't help but think that the prosaic--near stiff--presentation was intentionally done to better highlight so much complicit, moral, wrongness and the burgeoning psychosis of so many.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's really, really weird and I'll probably never sort out how I feel about it so for now, I'll go with, "It was great!" </span></span>Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-25445792679193215212015-09-27T15:57:00.001-04:002015-10-08T10:25:07.065-04:00Uprooted by Naomi Novik<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">I didn't voluntarily choose to read this book.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/uprooted-2/">Marion</a> raved about it;<a href="http://www.avidbookshop.com/welcome"> I went to a book store</a>--to buy something else--and was told, then forcibly made by Frankie, to buy and read </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">Uprooted</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> instead.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">If nothing else, Novik has some kick-ass fans.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More than anything else concerning this book, I love the title. There are nearly endless references none of which feel forced or cliched. The main character Agnieszka (upon finishing the book I was surprised to learn many people didn't know how to pronounce her name--perhaps this is my payoff for being a tennis fan…) is quite literally dragged away from her life to only then turn the life of her captor, The Dragon, upside-down. Then the duo proceed to shake up the world a bit. Oh, and in case you're wondering it's not just the title: the book is really good too. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I almost felt like I was reading two books--and thank the publishing gods (are there such cruel deities?) that such a fate wasn't imparted to this novel. The first book tells the first half of </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agnieszka's</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> life: growing up in a small village (boring) only to be--on what seems a whim--chosen by The Dragon to spend the next ten years of her life in his tower (aggressively more interesting). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agnieszka</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> represents a large sample of my most recent female, teenaged protagonist; horrible and seemingly unable to help herself from complicating her life. She's not good at magic despite having the gift; so naturally she doesn't study or practice and avoids the topic. Somehow, this turns her into a latent savant of sorts (it was never explained) and she becomes a badass wizard. Basically, she fails arithmetic for life but calc III and kinetics are a breeze… </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The purpose of learning magic is to help fight The Wood; the reader learns this half way through. The Wood is sentient, multi-faceted, and very dangerous. I think one has to be a regular fantasy reader for this novel to click. The Wood; heart-trees; even the beginning with it's multiple and vague references to The Dragon, you kinda gotta bring something to the table to fully understand and appreciate the conflict going on. It also wasn't completely secondary-world fantasy which was strange, as words like 'christening' 'matins' and 'Venezia' were used along with Baba Yaga being a character. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a lot going on in the beginning of the book and a lot of points of interest, but there isn't much actual conflict other than </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agnieszka</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> getting on your nerves and The Dragon being obstinate. (I returned to the same bookstore two days after starting and Frankie promised me </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agnieszka</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> would 'get better.') The start of the conflict is the beginning of the 'second book' I mentioned. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After so much intimacy with The Dragon and </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agnieszka</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> her move to the big city and court life felt awkward and none of the other 'new' characters had anywhere near a great enough opportunity to develop as our two previous main characters. The Dragon all but falls out of the book, and </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agnieszka</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> bumbles around with no direction for too many pages. Court intrigue seems to present it self as a 'bad guy.' And giving The Wood enough personality, as well as human embodiment, to dislike it felt rushed and under-whelming. The 'second book' to me felt filler-ish in a 'get to the final battle stuff soon' kinda way. I was always entertained and sometimes even riveted, but never had problems going to sleep with pages left unread. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For all of it's freshness and subversion of themes, the end was surprising run-of-the-mill military fantasy stuff. That's isn't to say it wasn't good or well done, but I was very surprised. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I know it's been awhile and I've kinda fallen out of the habit with book commentaries so in case you've forgotten how to translate The Chad; I'm here to help. I only criticize stuff I like because I want to like it more. I'm not quite back to my usual long-winded form but yeah, Uprooted was kinda awesome. </span></span>Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-53141384589218036792015-08-30T13:57:00.000-04:002015-08-30T13:57:05.057-04:00In which I find myself re-reading a book… It's only odd because I don't do this. I don't have anything against re-reading but I have so much un-read stuff and so much more on my to-be-read list that re-reading isn't an option. There are plenty of books I'd like to re-read for enjoyment or further understanding but not until I run out of new possibilities. <br />
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I once started reading a book by John Green, that I later put down, and years later started reading it again only to catch myself about fifty pages in (I put it down the second time as well). So… <i>The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet </i>by Arturo Perez-Reverte I'd read and enjoyed; it's one that I didn't leave comments for. It's book four in a series and while the plot of each is different the author is so hellbent, in a good way, in communicating Spain to the reader that it was a bit difficult to immediately figure out that I'd already read this book.<br />
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So I should just put it down, right? Read something else that I haven't read before, right? Well I can't do that because I'm one-hundred pages in and while some of it feels familiar; some of it still feels fresh and new and I'm completely hooked as if it were the first time I read the book. <br />
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So yeah… I'm re-reading a book; first time that has happened in a very long time.Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-63887639945784137012015-08-28T11:47:00.000-04:002015-08-28T11:47:22.602-04:00Drown by Junot Diaz<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Slice-of-life fiction, particularly literary fiction, seems to me difficult to get excited about. Trying to make the minutiae of every day life poignant is a daunting task to say the least. Essentially the author attempts to answer the question, "How was your day?" and make their answer genuinely compelling to a third party. It shouldn't work. More often than not it doesn't. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not so much style or voice, but rather the foreignness of what's being depicted and the immediacy in which a culture is conveyed this book, an awesome collection of short stories, reminded me of <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2012/07/buddha-in-attic-by-julie-otsuka.html">The Buddha in the Attic</a></i>. Stay with me I can explain this… </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In <i>Ysrael, </i>and it's companion story <i>No Face</i>, a boy who's face has been severely scarred by an incident with a pig that now causes him to wear a mask, sets the tone perfectly. It's light (most all of Diaz come across as light regardless of plot or themes involved) introduces us to the culture that main character Yunior is from whether or not the culture is in the Dominican Republic or New Jersey, and perfectly illustrates things through the eyes of a child. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That last bit I found very important for a large part of the collection. Children don't judge people, situations, and beliefs the same way as adults do. More often than not they accept things just as the way they are. And so in <i>Ysrael</i> we don't see two bad kids misbehaving, teasing, and bullying; we see merely the facets that make up their life and we see it objectively. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Aurora</i> was the only story outside my comfort zone. We all know about drugs, sex and poverty and the cliches about the people involved, but damn, Diaz really puts you there. It was more compelling than I wanted it to be. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Aguantando,</i> which I liberally translated as <i>Endurance</i>, does so much to place you in the moment and that is perhaps why there is so much room to be surprised. We see Yunior's early life without a father. How he saw his life, how not having a father affected him and his brother, his mother, we even see a bit of the reality that Junior can't convey. And in the end, as if to remind us to get our adult sensibilities out of Diaz's prose and not to put things into perspective as a child can't, we see a single paragraph or two of the hope and sentiment and the romance that Yunior maintains when he conjures a meeting of himself and his father. The contrast isn't subtle and it's used to great effect. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He has a rare gift that I can't convey but, two or three words in and I promise you'll have to finish reading. Walking away isn't an option even when the subject matter may be a bit of a turn off for you. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Diaz's casual revelations of subject matter that is a really big deal to the reader but of no consequences to the those involved in the story is superb.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Rafa?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yeah?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I didn't know you could read.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I was nine and couldn't even write my own name.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yeah, he said quietly. Something I picked up. Now go to bed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"page 82.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's really good <i>out-of-context. </i>I'm just saying… </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Much like the stories' characters you have to expect to be constantly surprised by the circumstances that Diaz characters lives are subjected to. You may think you're reading about the world one misses out on when leaving the neighborhood and going to college when seemingly out of no where you are shown ones first homosexual experiences. "Twice. That's it." Being my favorite line from the title story. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie</i> is a hysterical tutorial that is as absurd as the title. <i>Boyfriend</i> was perhaps the most universal story told while the specifics do encompass a bad break up and why it hurts is familiar to anyone. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These stories are less about narrative and plot and more concerned with the immediacy of letting the reader experience whatever event the characters are currently going through. Back to my Otsuka reference, <i>Drown </i>doesn't share the collective 'we' voice, but you do get the feeling that the stories and characters depicted certainly aren't unique to anyone one person but shared by many from similar backgrounds. </span></span><br />
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<br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are no stories here that are 'at his best.' Everything is this collection is extraordinary; it very well may be the only short story collection that I own where every single piece of writing is top notch. Not a single word wasted. </span></span>Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-41866251435427628272015-01-14T12:07:00.000-05:002015-01-14T12:07:32.877-05:00We Were Liars by E. Lockhart<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> "I knew what I was supposed to say. "I'm more than okay there, I'm fantastic. I love Windermere because you built it specially for Mummy. I want to raise my own children there and my children's children. You are so excellent, Granddaad. You are the patriarch and I revere you. I am so glad I am a Sinclair. This is the best family in America." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> No in those words. But I was meant to help Mummy keep the house by telling my grandfather that he was the big man, that he was the cause of all our happiness, and by reminding him that I was the future of the family. The all-American Sinclairs would perpetuate ourselves, tall and white and beautiful and rich, if only he let Mummy and me stay in Windermere. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> My mother and her sisters were dependent on Granddad and his money. They had the best educations, a thousand chances, a thousand connections, and still they'd ended up unable to support themselves." Page 161</span><br />
<br />
<br />
This book is really hard to talk about without giving everything away, and I've never been one for spoilers. I'm fairly certain everything matched up, but I'd have to read it a second time to be sure. <br />
<br />
Seventeen year-old Cadence (who I accidentally named 'Candice' for nearly the entire book) has had an accident, a head injury, and some very time specific memory loss. The book is about her trying to fill in the gaps. <br />
<br />
Her family is extraordinarily wealthy and spends the summers on their private island off the coast of Massachusetts. It is there, two summers ago, that she had her accident. She spends her time with two cousins, Johnny and Mirren, and falls in love with Gat; Johnny's best friend who also spends summers there. <br />
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With the obvious exception of Gat, an Indian boy, Cadences's family is the most stereotypically wealthy--and shallow--whitest, white people ever: super wealthy, uber-American and either blissfully ignorant to the world around them or willfully bestowed with a powerful sense of entitlement. <br />
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Cadence calls them 'liars,' her whole family but primarily in reference to her three compainions. I felt the term a bit harsh when she defined it and it never really set well with me in the end either, but I certainly understood the idea in which she was trying to apply the term too: that they could all lie to themselves and others about the idea of their family, the state of the rest of the world, even tragedy and death, all to support the perfect image of their family. <br />
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So much of the book is lesuirely that I was nearly begging to be told 'What was her accident?' just to have some point of tension to move on to as opposed to moving on from the incessent milieu of Cadence's day-to-day activities and migraines, which really wasn't terribly interesting.<br />
<br />
I don't think Lockhart could have told the story in any other way. As the climax in the past unfolds the previous present events are cast in a new light and all the stories content has new meaning. It was a surprise ending that certainly caught me off guard and felt genuinely satisfying--not a mere cheap trick. <br />
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It's a simple and easy read and well worth the time it takes to get through it. This was a good way to start the year-in-reading. <br /> Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-59759957273955562162015-01-12T21:32:00.000-05:002015-01-12T21:32:30.361-05:00First of Many Post in the New YearOh that's right… I have a blog…<br />
<br />
Been two whole months since I remembered that. Oh well…<br />
<br />
No 'End of the year' rewards--which I greatly missed doing after reading over my past ones--as I simply didn't read enough this year to qualify 'the best of.' Sad in so many ways…<br />
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No 'New Year's Reading Resolutions' either because we know I won't keep them. I'll read more than I did last year, which ain't saying much. And I'll even blog about what I read, which is saying even less than the previous statement. <br />
<br />
As to not put my foot in my mouth right off the bat, I'll start with tomorrow. First, of hopefully many, commentaries of the year coming soon.<br />
<br />
And if you're curious, it was a really good read. Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-32055209721887229182014-10-23T13:28:00.000-04:002014-10-24T23:20:39.993-04:00A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong by K J ParkerI finished 'A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong' by KJ Parker last week. It's a short story from the collection <i>Academic Exercises. </i> It felt very much in line with <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2010/07/purple-and-black-by-kj-parker.html">Purple and Black</a></i> and <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2011/03/blue-and-gold-by-k-j-parker.html">Blue and Gold</a></i>, which is a good thing. <br />
<br />
There's two main characters, and Parker chooses to follow the less interesting of the two; not sure if this is a twist or not but it certainly makes for some 'uphill' reading. One is a brilliant but apathetic, musician, turned murder; the other his teacher. As the student goes into hiding, never publishing again, for fear of immediate recognition and capture, the teacher passes off his students work as his own and watches his status soar. <br />
<br />
It's a good story but in every way, to me at least, feels a bit like an early work newly published. Particularly the end feels off when our bad guy--who has proven to be genius in more areas than just musical composition--just gives up and things come to a very abrupt end. <br />
<br />
Music was my primary point of contention. I've covered this ground with other fiction that I've reviewed, but there was horribly off commentary that made me give up on believability. There are some topics that a writer can't casually research and then write about in any convincing way. The story happens in a secondary world that in many ways feels like western Europe. Since it's all made up, I guess I'm supposed to forgive everything. But every reader brings certain knowledge to the table and I couldn't turn my mind off. Reference to a certain page count of manuscript for a symphony made me laugh out loud, as did passages of how music was copied in this time before modern publishing. A composer referencing their own, 'slow movement' as opposed to saying, 'the Andante, or Largo' (what any musically inclined person would have said) made me roll my eyes. <br />
<br />
Yeah, it was a good piece of writing and a story that felt like ground work for <i>Blue and Gold</i>, but as I always seem to say when music and literature come together: assume you don't know what you're talking about unless you actually do… Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-21861941495331293252014-09-04T10:03:00.002-04:002014-09-04T10:03:14.917-04:00Month in Review<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I did a lot of reading this much; most of which wasn't to completion.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I started and put down two books by John Green (one of which felt familiar and I may have tried to read in the past), one by Sara Zarr (which I never thought I'd do) and a book of poetry which was a bit too much 'whatever' for this neophyte. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to starting and discarding lots of fiction, I also did the same with about five non-fiction books. I'm still trying to wrap my head and hands around bookbinding. I perused about six books from the library. Most all that I came across were written as text books for the aspiring professional; as such they were completely un-helpful to me. I'm not there yet, I'm a beginner trying to get my feet wet and gauge my interest. I did glean one great passage from one of the books, to paraphrase ' a text is needed to explain all the details and issues that a master craftsman may take for granted in explaining what he/she is doing.' I've been involved in music long enough to hear the truth in those words. It's why we ask questions during a lesson. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of the books I got my hands on the two that I'm keeping--that appealed most to me and my immediate curiosity--are <i>Bookbinding Basics </i>by Paola Rosati, and <i>Simplified Bookbinding </i>by Henry Gross. If you're interested I'd say start with the former then the latter. Neither have expectations of you spending thousands of dollars or having access to professional equipment nor do they try to get you working with leather and silver filagree on page ten. And as a note to future craftsman who may think of making an instructional manual on bookbinding: The pictures really, really help. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moving on to things I read and finished the list is unsurprisingly short. <i>Openly Straight </i>was fun. And I kinda loved <i>County O</i> by Robert Hedin and will be tracking down more of his poetry soon. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Regrets of the month: I didn't go to any event at the Decatur Book Festival, and I haven't read Lev Grossman's new book yet. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm pretty sure that's it. Like I said, I read a lot; I didn't finish a lot. </span></span>Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-40514541557503903012014-08-17T18:18:00.004-04:002014-09-01T09:10:23.093-04:00Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It will be easiest if I come out at the start and say that I love just about everything about this book. Because I learned while reading, coming out and saying it at the end cheapens a bit of the commentary that precedes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rafe doesn't like labels. He is openly gay and after two years of high school he only wants to be a boy; not a gay boy. He feels there is more to him as a person than to be forever identified by his sexual preference. He doesn't want to go back in the closet; just hide out in the threshold for a while. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not sure if this idea qualifies for high concept but it is both socially aware and very very, fresh. Rafe enrolls in an all boy boarding school on the other side of the country essentially to carry out an experiment: what exactly does being gay mean to him and can he be gay without being defined by the word. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No one knows Rafe is gay at his new school. He's not denying that he is; he's just not telling anyone. He finds himself playing football and soccer and hanging out with guys that he would deem jocks, and having the time of his life. He becomes a jock. And then he starts to question the labels and labeling that he ran away from to being with. Gay; Straight; Jock; Nerd; Winner; Loser; weirdo; etc… </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are lot of really good ideas being expressing in this book. Rafe's situation, where he's lying to himself and everyone else by omission. Bryce, the school's token black kid, and his depression. And my favorite discussion at the end where much was said about marching in parades and why some people choose to do so and others don't. The book is more than merely a great title. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I didn't think any of the conflict was fully indulged. I couldn't tell if the author wanted to suggest thoughts to the reader and let the reader go from there or if he felt his points were made and so he'd move on to the next one. (That is certainly not how I felt.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The story focus on Rafe falling in love with Ben. There are extremely close and Ben is starting to wonder how close 'close' can be. Rafe knows what he wants but he's stuck between telling the truth and pissing Ben off, or keeping his secret and dealing with the anxiety of knowingly lying to someone he truly cares for. The relationship aspect is really well done. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My primary complaint is Rafe's sheer intelligence and the fact that he never saw himself as aggressively vapid and shallow as he views everyone else. He labels absolutely everyone--right down to all the stereotypes of being named Kaitlin, Brittany, or Ashley--and is happy to do so as long as no one labels him gay. He definitely carries a bit of 'high and mighty' greater-than-thou attitude on his shoulders and does so with no regard for how much a jerk he may come off to anyone else. In essence he 'struts.' My dislike for his character should not suggest that he was poorly drawn, but I certainly didn't love him as much as his eccentric hippie parents do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"A lot of the kids, Steve included, seemed to be writing that down, and I almost laughed. It was like, 'This isn't going to be on a test,' dummies. Listen. Stop worrying about memorizing things you don't even understand. I turned my eyes to Scarborough, and I watch as he saw the same thing I did. I could see that the class's silence was even more disappointing to him." Page 142 Scarborough was the teacher twenty something years Rafe's senior. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He even gets worse than that… I kept thinking that in addition to realizing that he couldn't suppress such a large part of his identity that Rafe would realize something to the affect of "Hey! I'm a shallow sixteen-year old prick too!" Because I felt that would have had more emotional impact on his growing up process than suppressing his sexual preference. </span><br />
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There's a second narrative in the book, one that Rafe writes for his English teacher, Scarborough, who is the only person on campus that knows he's gay. It deals with Rafe looking back to how he got here and draws so much attention to itself that it was almost as if the author wanted to explain--and even worse, justify--his writing style to reader while the reader was reading the book. Happily, these sections were short. </span><br />
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My final gripe is dialogue and what I always say about well-written 'chatty' books and why I stay away from them. The dialogue is perfect. P-E-R-F-E-C-T. Which is as far away from real human speech as one could possibly be. No one in this book--not a soul--ever reflects and says, "ya know what I should've said/done/acted thusly…" They have the perfect, witty reply, snarky remark, clever comment queued up to go at any given time and it's wholly unrealistic. Konigsberg's characters are very well drawn but about as believably sixteen as <a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2013/05/clockwork-princess-by-cassandra-clare.html">Cassandra Claire's</a>. </span><br />
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So I've done some complaining, cause that's my style, which means I liked it. I checked this book out from the library, but since I believe in supporting the authors I really like I've since bought my own copy. </span><br />
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Oh, and Rafe, at your age--or any age--if you ever find yourself in a novel again, you only get to say 'non sequitur' out loud once. Or preferably never… SINCE <i><b>NO ONE</b></i> TALKS LIKE THAT! </span><br />
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It's only August but this is probably my book of the year. </span>Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-24874266401904007902014-08-16T11:59:00.001-04:002014-09-01T08:57:36.123-04:00Tie-Over PoetryTo keep you entertained until I post my comments on <i>Openly Straight </i>(hopefully tomorrow) some poems by Robert Hedin from his collection "County O."<br />
<br />
Owls<br />
--for William Pitt Root<br />
<br />
Owls glide off the thin<br />
Wrists of the night,<br />
And using snow for their feathers<br />
Drift down on either side<br />
Of the wind.<br />
<br />
I spot them<br />
As I camp along the ridge,<br />
Glistening over the streambeds<br />
Their eyes small rooms<br />
Lit by stone lamps. <br />
###<br />
<br />
Last Poet<br />
<br />
This man is a lover<br />
Of canyon walls.<br />
The first to read by moon alone. <br />
<br />
During the day<br />
He lives away from the sun,<br />
Prone in the cool dirt<br />
Under ledges,<br />
Revising that one long last narrative line<br />
On sheets of mica.<br />
<br />
Now is the time<br />
He chooses his closest friends:<br />
A piece of jagged rock,<br />
A cricket who's run out of songs.<br />
<br />
Near evening<br />
He makes his way to a precipice<br />
And scours<br />
The stones for scratches<br />
Other than his own.<br />
<br />
And as the moon curls over the rim<br />
He recites his work<br />
From memory,<br />
Then listens as the canyon reads back<br />
Again and again.<br />
And then he claps<br />
And the whole canyon applauds. <br />
###<br />
<br />
End<br />
<br />
<i>At the end of the open road we come to ourselves</i><br />
<i> --</i>Louis Simpson<br />
<br />
All right, Louis<br />
we're here<br />
We're here at the end of the open road,<br />
At the end of our ellipsis.<br />
<br />
A wind and slight drizzle hide<br />
Any other footprints.<br />
They curl the road<br />
Around our feet,<br />
Sweeping it back into itself.<br />
<br />
Louis, in the darkness we think<br />
We see trees, giant sequoias<br />
That break around an open marsh,<br />
And are compelled to give them green,<br />
To give them sway,<br />
A hard mossy bark,<br />
Rain dripping from their leaves.<br />
<br />
Listen. A bullfrog's call.<br />
Smell the wet calm in the air.<br />
<br />
We wait for the moon,<br />
For the song of the white bird<br />
<br />
Any backdrop<br />
of light.<br />
###<br />
<br />
Transcanadian<br />
<br />
At this speed our origins are groundless.<br />
We are nearing the eve of a great festival,<br />
The festival of wind.<br />
Already you can see this road weakening.<br />
Soon it will breathe<br />
And lift away to dry its feathers in the air.<br />
On both sides the fields of rapeseed and sunflowers<br />
Are revolting against their rows.<br />
Soon they will scatter wildly like pheasants.<br />
Now is the time, my friend, to test our souls.<br />
We must let them forage for themselves,<br />
But first--unbuckle your skin.<br />
Out here, in the darkness<br />
Between two shimmering cities,<br />
We have, perhaps for the last time, chance<br />
Neither to be shut nor open, but to let<br />
Our souls speak and carry our bodies like capes. <br />
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That last one reminds me a Khalil Gibran for some reason. I think <i>Owls</i> is simply amazing and the type of thing most people wish they could write with they say they want to start writing poetry. There is some heavy word repetition and imagery as well but for the most part I've really enjoyed this collection. Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-51677994623454636132014-07-31T15:54:00.002-04:002014-07-31T15:54:40.044-04:00Month in Review July has been full of books; that said, I've only read two. It's usually my wont in an effort to get myself out of a funk to buy or check out a ton or stuff, looking for inspiration and to get out of my reading rut. <br />
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I only bought one book, and honestly I forgot I purchased it. <i>Academic Exercises</i> by KJ Parker was one I pre-ordered a while ago and when it arrived it was a very pleasant surprise. Her novels haven't really worked for me, but I love her short stories so I'm hoping for the best. <br />
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<i>Love Minus Eighty</i> by Will McIntosh was a birthday gift. This is without doubt the coolest looking book I own. To the point where I feel bad for those with e-readers as they never got to see it. Cool as it is, I admit to having to take this dust jacket off when I actually sit down to read it, but damn, it's cool. It's also sci-fi, which I probably never would have picked up of my own volition but I know the giver of this gift knows my taste so I wouldn't be surprised if I love it. <br />
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I checked out five young adult novels from the library, each of which could feasibly be read in a day or two, all of which I'm excited about. Lastly I got three poetry books from the library ranging from 'thick' 'medium' to 'thin.' I read slowly. I read poetry very slowly, so I've no plans to get through this small stack quickly, but hopefully I'll find some good stuff. <br />
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As to what I've actually read in July, there isn't much to report. I knocked out a few more stories from Better living Through Plastic Explosives and I'm about halfway through <i>Love in a Time of Cholera</i>--which is the huge and dense and dense and huge. My most odd bit of reading this month was <i>A Street of Clocks</i> by Thomas Lux, a poet who I really like and has been my 'go-to' since discovering I liked poetry, except I didn't care for anything in this collection. It's a collection like this that really makes me wish I could express myself better about poetry so I could say what didn't work for me, despite all the books critical acclaim. Oh well… <br />
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Much as I'm excited to skip to the new stuff, I really want to clean up loose ends and finish <i>Better Living Through Plastic Explosives </i>and<i> Love in the Time of Cholera</i>, that said, August--usually my best reading month of the year--has potential. Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-31038696983959175672014-07-22T10:28:00.000-04:002014-07-31T15:54:59.071-04:00I'm Talking about Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In which people saunter, seethe, and swagger way too much… </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I read this book in a day; which felt great as I've had problems reading anything--let alone to completion--in a a long time. I finished the book, which means I liked it; I spent most of the day wishing I liked it more. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's the story of a girl, Holland, coming out. And out and out and out and out… (No seriously, she comes out on every page to the point where I started wishing she'd do something else.) It hasn't aged terrible well; nor does it feel super dated. I have an older sister who is gay, out and proud so a lot of the conflict felt luke warm to me, but I'm trying to keep personal experience out of my mind. I really wish this book started on page seventy-nine instead of page one. But yeah… I finished it; I liked it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Peters' must have had a sketch pad on which she jotted down the fifty most tense, nerve wracking plot scenarios she could come up with; this entire list she came up with was awesome. Then she pared the list down and managed to cram as much as she could into the book by dialing back on all that made each scenario awesome to begin with. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">'Should have started on page seventy-nine," aside, I don't know how this book didn't have more momentum and power. A teenager coming to terms with sexual identity while in a healthy and positive sexual relationship with the opposite sex, and being the most popular, image-conscious kid in the school. It reminded me of Michael Chabon's short story <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2013/10/werewolves-in-their-youth-by-michael.html">Son of the Wolfman</a></i> that I felt fell flat even though it was working with such strong material. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I erased about twenty paragraphs in writing this next phrase: I never bought into Holland being gay. At the snap of a finger, she sees a girl. Learns this girl is gay. That's all it takes. Now, Holland is gay. Her character wasn't that shallow, but it wasn't much more substantial either… All the problems--inherent to the story's framework--that could have been exploited but weren't: Seth, Holly's boyfriend, their eventual fallout and all the other subsequent boys she has to fight off; her family stepsister, stepfather; the student body president bit did nothing for the story even though she can identity a hate crime and bullying when she sees it; why use any of that material? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At the end of the day Holly didn't strike me as a three dimensional character, thus made for a very week protagonist. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There is a great story in here somewhere (starting on page seventy-nine) but I didn't feel it was ever uncovered. </span></div>
Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-69649218660232210962014-07-01T18:50:00.001-04:002014-07-01T18:50:53.660-04:00The Month in ReviewI can't skip this post for June since I actually, ya know…, read some stuff. Not a lot but some and considering my recent reading dry spell we'll take 'some' over nothing.<br />
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I read <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2014/06/torn-away-by-jennifer-brown.html">Torn Away</a></i> at the start of the month and finished it so quickly that if feels like a year since I read it! I also loved the book--which I kinda knew I would before I started reading. With only a month since I finished, I can already say that it hasn't stuck with me the way <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2013/07/perfect-escape-by-jennifer-brown.html">Perfect Escape</a></i> has. And while I think it would be foolish to say Jennifer Brown has already written her best book, I would tell anyone who wanted to get into Brown to do so, but save <i>Perfect Escape</i> for last or last--ish. <br />
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Today, I finished <i>The Mysteries of Pittsburgh</i> by Michael Chabon. If you've read my blog before, you know I love Chabon. So how did his first novel go over with me? To quote the much more literarily expressive than I <a href="http://deedsandwords.com/">Marion Deeds</a>, I finished reading and said, "Huh?" <br />
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I got both the book and what he was trying to express or communicate, but if I read the book and didn't know it was Chabon I never would have ever guessed that he wrote it. It's good, and not because it's dated but I'm sure it was even better when it first came out twenty years ago. There were a few beautiful passages and descriptions that are shades of who he would later become, but none of the characters felt grounded. I didn't mind all the characters being a caricature of themselves (or at least that's how they came off to me) or super pretentious and knowing I'd never hang out with these people in real life, but what killed me is they weren't real. None of them felt like flesh and blood beings. They were great vessels for ideas and living embodiment of concepts and ideals but that was all. <br />
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I love Michael Chabon and I'll read anything he writes (no, seriously; I will.) but all I'll say about this book is, "A writer and change/develop/grow a lot in twenty years."<br />
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I'm still about halfway through <i>Better Living Through Plastic Explosives</i> it's great but not really what I'm feeling right now. I may read the remaining stories at a later point in time to appreciate them more than my current stupor will allow.<br />
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Since I'm blogging again, I wish the google sidebar thing where I post my 'most recent commentaries' links worked like it used to… Oh well. Also, I've been giving a lot of though to re-reading stuff. I've been doing so, as so many of the new-to-me-books I've picked up as of late have been misses that I'm thinking, 'Why not revisit the good stuff?'<br />
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I think I'll make a list, not merely of books I liked but ones that I really feel would benefit from a second (or third) visit and then after doing so I'll see if the idea of reading what's on the list still seems appealing or if I need to keep forging ahead. <br />
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Nonetheless, I'm reading again which feels good. Scouring my shelves for more quick and dirty; fast and easy stuff for right now i.e. not Garcia-Marquez, Krauss, or Fowles which is the kinda stuff I own that is staring at me. I think it's helped me that I'm not setting reading goals a month in advance like I usually do. When I'm on a roll, doing so is a motivator and helps me read even more, but when I'm not, the opposite is also true. <br />
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Lev Grossman's new book is out in August…Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-1595271923934860202014-06-26T16:33:00.004-04:002014-06-26T16:33:48.274-04:00Something DifferentCan I talk about a movie? I don't usually do that. It's based on a book I read, so it should be okay to talk about. Right?<br />
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For me, movies are usually always awesome: they go from zero-to-WIN in less than three seconds; classic to gold; to platinum and then 'instant vintage' about ten minutes in, or in some cases before the opening credits are finished. This is because I have no expectations when going to see a movie. <br />
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I'm weird and I know it--un-American in many many ways--but, all things considered, movies are not a medium of story telling that I enjoy. So how is it I love most all of the movies I see? Well, I only see about two or three a year so it doesn't take much to get me excited. I don't sample enough to be critical; I don't have much grounds for comparison. X-Men "Let's kill off all the old cast" was awesome. Maleficent "The bad guy wusses out and becomes the good guy and what the hell was that rape scene doing in a Disney movie?" was awesome. Divergent <a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2014/02/divergent-by-veronica-roth.html">(book commentary here</a>) was epochally bad.<br />
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Divergent was awful.<br />
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It was just like the book; verbatim, which is odd as I didn't particularly care for the book but neither was it as painful as watching that movie. Same problems, same complete lack of direction or forward motion, same "what the hell is going on in this world and why is anyone putting up with it?" except the book takes about two hours to read; in my comfy chair, and libations to ease the occasional pain. The movie takes three hours to watch and sometimes the person next to you sneezes…<br />
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Obviously I'm wrong right? The movie made truck loads of movie, they are already filming the sequels (right here in Atlanta, Georgia), and I'm sure it's gonna help launch old girls career if <i>The Fault in Our Stars</i> doesn't manage to do so. But still… it was bad… I'm not a film critic; neither do I aspire to be one. I don't care how much money it makes. That movie was like pop music specifically catered towards 14-17 year olds that anyone, ANYONE, could 'sing' because the track can't fail; only in film form. <br />
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Divergent was awful.<br />
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Damn… <br />
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Did you see it? Did you like it/love it? Tell me why! Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-11243125424714901902014-06-20T10:41:00.000-04:002014-06-20T10:41:10.399-04:00Where's the Story?I find myself reading two books at once. Usually when this happens it means I started one, it's doing little to not much for me, so I start another. This is the first time I can recall reading two books at once where the above isn't the case. <br />
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I don't think I'll be leaving comments for <i>Better Living Through Plastic Explosives </i>by Zsuzsi Gartner as I've already found so many reviews online that state my feelings better than I could, but I may talk about it. It's the kind of literary fiction that people who don't like the genre point to: not because it's 'not good' in some vague way (it's actually amazing) but because there aren't stories being told. <br />
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I started <i>The Mysteries of Pittsburg</i> yesterday and it's flying by. The ease in reading has nothing to do with the plaudits that come with being Michael Chabon as opposed to being <strike>anyone else</strike> Gartner, rather Chabon has a narrative going, a story. After reading half of Gartner's collection, picking up Chabon is the first time I've ever condoned seeing 'A Novel' on the cover of a book. <br />
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I get it now.<br />
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I understand because I've now come to see that not all works of fiction are novels, or in Gartner's case not all short stories collections are narrative stories in the typical sense. I don't want to turn this into an author vs. author and even if I did I'd be the first to point out Chabon's near inability to wrestle a story out of <i><a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/2012/08/gentlemen-of-road-by-michael-chabon.html">Jews With Swords </a></i>as he fell further an further in love with his word play and himself page by page. (And if I were Chabon I'd be totally in love with me too.) All that said, I like stories. Settings; characters; narrative; plot; tension; conflict; resolution. Ideas are great and so is social commentary--Gartner has a lot to say and does it extremely well.<br />
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But with the points she's trying to make and concepts she wants the reader to think about, many of her stories feel like essays shoehorned into short stories. (As if one of those two genres has substantial sales clout on the other… ) "Okay, this is good. Now just add some characters names and try to craft some narrative direction." I'll talk about it a bit more when I finish. <br />
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But I like stories. Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-10460691068135976302014-06-17T13:46:00.001-04:002014-06-17T13:46:56.215-04:00Making The Same Mistakes Again... I put down a book two days ago. Actually, I dropped it on accident and it landed on the floor, the book mark came out, and I haven't bothered to pick up the book since. I don't know why this is so hard for me to admit to myself and then act upon, but I just can't read high fantasy like I used to when I was a kid. I know this to be true, through and through, and yet I have to periodically reaffirm this assertion which has already been proven. I want to but I can't. I need to get my fix with cheap TV and "B" movies: they serve to hit me up with my dose of guilty pleasure, are just as painful, and are completed in a much much shorter time. <br />
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I do not think that my reading hiatus had anything to do with the book I was reading at the time that I went on break; it was merely coincidence that it happened to be fantasy. I was loving every part of the story; I don't think there was anything bad with the book; but something about 500 pages of 700 and three more books to go to finish the story just overwhelmed me to the point of running away despite my good intentions and enjoyment. <br />
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I can't do fantasy of this kind, and I'm vowing to never attempt to do so again. <br />
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I'm going to read <i>Inkdeath </i>and finish that series at some point in time. Not because I'm a completionist but for whatever reason that series has stuck with me. So long as the narrative doesn't prove too stiff, I'll keep at the <i>Earthsea </i>series. Other than that, I'll have to keep the fantasy novels I read to the contemporary kind: more Lev and Austin Grossman than Tad Williams; not because I feel one writer is better than another rather I just can't do the latter.<br />
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Fantasy short stories I can do because they usually have a more pointed and concentrated story to tell than the expansive stuff that makes me cringe. <br />
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I'm reading again, and I even seem to be blogging again, but don't expect too much fantasy commentary. Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7017303008680686537.post-46662363389292114882014-06-15T12:24:00.001-04:002014-06-15T12:24:19.810-04:00Torn Away by Jennifer Brown<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">"At this point, I could believe almost anything.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">People think a tornado drops down on a cow pasture or a trailer park and everything is fine.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">They never think about things like infected cuts and broken legs and old ladies crushed by air conditioners in their bathtubs.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">They never think about orphans."</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Page 176-177 </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Can't you feel the happy and positive energy exuding from the words above? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jersey Cameron, survives an F5 tornado in her small town of Nowhere, Missouri. A great deal of other people in her town didn't; including her mother and sister. As is the norm for <a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/search/label/Jennifer%20Brown">Jennifer Brown books</a> what would seem like the climax happens on the first page and where the narrative ends up from there is the unique ride that is reading to the end of one of her novels.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So much of Jersey's identify is communicated so quickly in this leisurely reading three-hundred page book that I was winded after five pages. How's that so, you ask? Because on page one we are told everything in her life gets knocked off the planet by an F5 tornado. If getting five pages in was a rush, the rest of the book was exhausting. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The tornado takes everything about her life and identity away; absolutely everything. (And unless you've survived one of these horrible instances before, be prepared to be overwhelmed and humbled by how much 'everything' encompasses.) After the tornado takes her mother and sister, her house and her town, she watches it take everyone else that had been important in her life away in it's wake. There's no communication. None. There are missing people. Her friends are gone; the boy next door is gone</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">; her step-father finds himself incapacitated to do the duties of his station and be her parent</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>2</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So she goes to live with her biological father, who she has never met or seen in a picture and things start to get really bad. Like, worse than a tornado bad… It's a bit of a Cinderella story. It's a bit of a coping with PTSD story. And in the oddest way, being a Cinderella PTSD person makes Jersey, and vicariously the reader, appreciate what they had even more, and to a higher degree, what's left. Even as a jaded, bitter "I know what's coming next" reader it's really, really hard to see any positive signs in Jersey's life, and yet as she has absolutely nothing, when she's willing to look it's not hard to find something positive because she's literally got nothing. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She has to start over, and she has to make do, and do the best she can with what's she's got, because as she's constantly reminded; she doesn't have options. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">From having read two others, this absolutely felt like a book by Jennifer Brown and I love reading her novels and seeing her develop as a writer. (There were about twenty pages at the end I didn't like, but that was it.) In some ways <i>Torn Away </i>is a book that rehashes some of her old standby staples she always writes about, in other ways it's new and different. One issue I missed that I'm so accustomed to getting from her is how her protagonist deal with relationships. Jersey's story is easily Brown's most intimate of the novels I've read: everything is about, her her her her her. And that's not a bad thing, only I was surprised. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I'd always felt Brown's strongest quality lie in her interaction with characters: volatile Kendra and her mentally ill brother Grayson; guilt soaked Val vs herself, her family, her therapist and the world. Jersey is alone.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This isn't a light-hearted, easy, or fun book to read, nor is it difficult or a chore in anyway. It's sad and not in the 'this author is manipulating my emotions in a cheap way to get an effect' kinda way either. Things get bad and then progressively worse. I don't think Brown does 'happily ever after' endings. More like 'We've been through some shit and there's still more ahead, but I think you got it from here…' It was a very <a href="http://chadnhull.blogspot.com/search/label/Sara%20Zarr">Sara Zarr like book</a>. (How awesome of a thing was that to say?) </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I've never once gotten the story I expected from the premises of a Jennifer Brown novel. She is amazing. I thoroughly enjoy her books. I hope I never get what I expect from a Jennifer Brown novel.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1) The kid next door was a particular source of anxiety for me and the reason why I finished reading so quickly. He was such a huge symbolic character for Jersey and I couldn't stand the heartburn of worrying about him. Read it; let me know if you felt the same way.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">2) Ronnie, was easily the most oddly sympathetic character I'd ever come across. Bizarre in every way. Even as he's kicking Jersey out of his life, and she is begging him to let her take care of him she forgives him. It's a character like this that makes me say, "Wow… Brown looked into to how tornados effect people more than even she wanted too…" Ronnie. Wow.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></span></span>Chad Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17774092046594256969noreply@blogger.com4