I'm still here

I'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.) 

I'm not yet back to full strength but expect a lot of content to be put up in the following months.  

Apropos of nothing, does Roger Zelazny get the recognition he deserve?  Lord of Light 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.  

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 Radiance (which seems to have a lot going on).  I was there to be a bad person and pester her about book three of A Dirge for Prester John, 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.

So yeah; I'm still here.    

I'm Talking about Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters

In which people saunter, seethe, and swagger way too much… 

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.  

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.  

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.  

'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 Son of the Wolfman that I felt fell flat even though it was working with such strong material.  

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?  

At the end of the day Holly didn't strike me as a three dimensional character, thus made for a very week protagonist.  

There is a great story in here somewhere (starting on page seventy-nine) but I didn't feel it was ever uncovered.  

I'm Talking about 'One of those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies' by Sonya Sones

Don't even begin to ask me where this book came from.  I've been trying to figure it out myself.  Perhaps it's a novel; perhaps it's a book of poems.  Perhaps it's journal kept by a teenager at the time of some extraordinary changes with a few interspersed epistolary sections.  I don't know.  

It works.  And it reads really fast; as in infuriatingly fast.  And there's way too much italics.  (And it's slightly redundant as teenagers really don't have much to say.)

'American Airlines Flight 161

I'm not that depressed, 
Considering that this 
Gigantic silver bullet with wings
Is blasting me away from my whole entire life, 
Away from Lizzie Brody, 
My best friend in the world, 
Away from Ray Johnston, 
My first real boyfriend.

Not that depress, considering I'e been kidnapped 
by this monstrous steel pterodactyl
And it's flying me all the way to L.A.
To live with my father
who I've never even met
Because he's such a scumbag
that he divorced my mother
before I was even born.

I'd say I'm doing reasonably well, 
Considering I'm being dragged
three thousand miles away from all my friends
And my school and my aunt Duffy
And the house I've lived in ever since I was born, 
Three thousand miles away from my mother, 
And my mother's grave, 
Where she lies in a cold wooden box
Under six feet of dirt, 
Just beginning to rot.  

I'm not that depressed
considering that I'm trapped
on this jumbo poison dart
Shooting me away from everything I love, 
And there's this real weird guy
Sitting in the seat right behind mine,
Who keeps picking his nose 
And eating it.

Depressed?
Who?  Me?'

Pages 1-2

That is how the whole two-hundred and seventy page book is written with the exception of a few emails.  It was initially a bit jarring, but--right after immediately--it read like a novel with awkward poetry presentation.  Perhaps that's how all poetry is supposed to read… 

Ruby is the most stereotypical teenager I've come across in fiction in terms of her personality.  Her mother dies (we only kinda learn of what and how) and she goes to live with her father she's never met but knows very well.  Her dad, Whip, is a mega-movie star; think on the scale of Tom Cruise sans the psychosis.  

She hates everything about her new life only because everything is different from what she previously knew.  What I liked--what felt real--was how she had to constantly remind herself that she was miserable.  The weather, the house she is living in, the friends she makes girls and boys, and especially Whip, Ruby has to wake up and tell herself every morning that its all horrible if only on some obscure principle only known to fifteen year olds.  

Despite the title, this is a 'happily ever after' book.  I don't say that as a bad thing as the realism was never sacrificed to achieve that end.  

Its fast (really fast; I had to make myself stop reading twice because I hate that breathless feeling while reading; it's supposed to be a relaxing endeavor for me) it takes about an hour to read; and I'm about as slow as they come.  

It's fun and shallow.  

I'll have another please.    

I'm Talking About Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

This was far too mushy for me.  This is too mushy for anyone…

I really liked the premise for the story: awkward, not cool kids from the wealthy part of town, teenaged first love.  For the most part, everything felt genuine--except the for the host of times Park opened up and Eleanor kinda walks all over him… and then he kept coming back to her.

I also really didn't like Eleanor's stepdad, not because he's an asshat and we're supposed to hate him, but because I was never given a strong enough reason to justify his asshatry.  I wasn't wanting to be endeared to him, or cheer for the bad guy, but I didn't think he was believable in any way.

Neither was Park's dad.

"Hey, Dad.  I'm gonna steal the car and drive my girl friend a few states away."

"Sure son.  Let me give you some cash and road beers for the trip."

Cause that happened speaking of unbelievable parenting.

Park wasn't near as well rounded as Eleanor; he was a bit too perfect; too pretty; too much of everything (hence the mushy.  Hell, I was in love with this kid about two-thirds of the way through…).  Eleanor is insecure about her weight and we have to be reminded of this on every other page.  Park is perfect.  Eleanor has super unruly red hair and we have to be reminded of this on every other page.  Park is perfect.  And so it goes…   Despite the alternating third person point of views, which worked very well to my surprise, I did feel the narrative was trying to endear the reader to Eleanor more so than  equally to both.  My fancy way of saying 'girl book,' not to say Eleanor was a cardboard cutout character because she wasn't.  

The ending was awful, and if I'm to be honest, had some very strong elements of realism too.  I can completely understand why those who loved it loved it, but unless you're in the need for a good cry and jonesing for the cutest sixteen year old boy in a book ever; pass.  

I'm Talking About How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall

About a paragraph into this novel I said to myself, "This is gonna be good."  Thirty pages later I was thinking, "This is gonna be the best book I read this year."  And then I kept reading… and things changed.

What is striking at the start is that the narrative (at least one of the four) is in second person, and doesn't come across as obnoxious.  The next striking thing is how beautiful Hall's prose can be.  Reading her fiction feels good.  If you read it out loud (I'm opening myself up to unheard of realms of dorkiness by saying this) it sounds good.

There are four narratives, chronologically out of order but interwoven and each easy to interpret.  An English landscape artist recalls his life while struggling with his own life threatening situation; an Italian still life painter reflects while cancer has its way with him; a blind girl shows us how she sees the world; and a curator self destructs after an accident takes the life or her twin brother.  Everything matches up and makes sense, initially it felt like Nicole Krauss, (what higher compliment can I give?), but nothing actually happens.

It's difficult to see that nothing happens because Hall's writing is so pleasing, but the pages wear on and to me it became clear that a beautiful writer didn't have a real story to tell.  Musings, pretty prose but no story.

Susan dealing with the death of her brother was the only element that was strong enough for a novel.  We find that Danny died on page one so I'm not giving anything away.  It was amazing to see an event that usually functions as a story's climax (death of a primary character) function as the starting point.  Watching her struggle to deal with the loss and complete lack of him would have worked nicely for an entire novel.  It was visceral and scary.  (And does not end well… )  The other three stories were brilliant and beautiful and work very well too.  But a novel needs conflict, tension, on every page.  Pretty words alone don't get it done.

I'm gonna check out Hall's sic-fi, she's won every award there is, at some time.  Honestly, I'll probably check out everything she's written because she's kinda amazing.  I'll hope to encounter the same prose with much more story.      

Something New

I'm gonna start talking about books.  Figure I'd do something new…

I got this idea from a blogger who wanted to talk more about books without adhering to the rules and form that governed her book reviews.  I've never studied what makes a good book review and I don't care to start now.  I know how I do mine and that's good enough for me.  That said, sometimes I read something that I want to talk about but I don't even want to go through the motions of doing one of my own commentaries.  So…

I'm gonna start talking about books.  I don't merely wanna say it will be more causal, as my commentary are as lax as they come, but it will be decidedly different.  A probably shorter.  I'm starting with How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall.  I'm sitting down to finish Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell now (because God, someone make it stop; PLEASE!)  Those will be the first two.

I'm gonna start talking about books.