What I Happen to Be Reading At the Moment
"A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.”
While not 13 anymore, the desire to read almost anything and everything in order to read for fun and for experience is still around. I'm currently working on my PhD in a physical science, but I love to read and books are one of my non-science hobbies.
When Diana Wynne Jones died, I was worried that a particular brand of British fantasy was gone forever. Well, turns out Neil Gaiman can write anything and everything, because he has written a beautiful novel that strongly evokes the late Wynne Jones. His new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, is his first in years and is a little on the short side. As much as I would have loved a longer Gaiman novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a perfect gem. Our narrator has returned to his childhood neighborhood after a long departure, and his memories of the past, including his friend Lettie from down the street, start coming back to him. It's a frightening remembered reality, maybe from the mind of a fantastical seven year old. Since this is a Neil Gaiman novel, chances are our narrator is not unreliable on this front. With some fairy tale staples as well as elements of a Diana Wynne Jones story (two sets of memories, mysterious woods, cats, and an enjoyment of archaic school girl adventure novels), Gaiman puts together his narrator's remembered world of mystery, terror, and adventure.
I'd bought a copy when it was originally released, but it was one of the many victims of my final semester of undergrad. "I never read this, and now I have to move it home...grumble grumble it better be worth it." Thankfully, it was worth hauling it 1,600 miles home across country, because it is a beautiful and heart-wrenching novel. Tornadoes had been in the news right before I started Falling to Earth, which was the push I needed to start reading. Southwood describes a tornado that decimates Marah, Illinois, a fictional town but a storm based on the Tri-State tornado. One family is lucky, maybe a little too lucky. The family business, a lumberyard, survives the storm and all of the young children were home sick from school that day, avoiding the total destruction of the school house and death of many of their peers. The poor Graves family, it only gets worse. Lumber is necessary to rebuild the town, and the Graves' lumberyard is the only place to go. Their house is fine, though the houses of their neighbors are not, and the grief and destruction that the Graves have somehow missed becomes their own undoing. Neighbors begin to shun them, to suspect that, while no one can control a tornado, something is amiss. The slow implosion of a family and community in the midst of a natural disaster becomes the keen focus of Southwood's concise writing. Each character is fully realized, and the final tragedy that the Graves family faces an astute reader can predict. Instead of a train wreck, though, the emotional investment in these characters is heightened as the reader tries to find any way for this sturdy Mid-Western family to survive. Falling to Earth is well crafted, poignant, and an incredibly literary portrayal of a community in crisis.
Part of my Neil Gaiman backlist catch up for The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Smoke and Mirrors is a collection of short fiction and poetry. From poetry to sci-fi stories to a short passage written for a Christmas card he sent out one year, these are short works that Gaiman has usually published elsewhere first. The range of genres from the more realistic (or as realistic as Gaiman can be) to the more fantastical or sci fi, Gaiman's short fiction is a great introduction to Gaiman's range of work and his quirky, dark sense of humor and plotting.
I received a copy of My Greek Drama as part of a GoodReads First Reads giveaway. Giana Angelopoulos is a somewhat typical driven woman. Her family history and young life are caught up with the culture and history of Crete, and she feels herself destined for greatness, probably as an ambassador, and refuses to take no for an answer. Through her legal career, run for local office, and involvement in the 2004 Athens Olympics, Angelopoulos goes through personal turmoil as well as political betrayal and maneuvering. Hearing how Greek politics works from a former insider was fascinating, though I wasn't sure how much self promotion or spin was involved in the retelling. Angelopoulos does admit that she can be domineering and loud at times, all in service of getting done what needs to be done especially as Greece almost drops the ball in the lead up until the Olympics. The boards are decorated as a collage of snapshots of Angelopoulos meeting foreign dignitaries and the color photograph inserts strongly recall a personal biography for a family audience. Instead of being a rigorous academic work or more of a creative memoir, Angelopoulos writes up a memoir in the style of something that she could pass down to her family as a memory of her life. It's a tone that I'm surprised to be found in a hardcover available commercially, but if anyone needs reminding Angelopoulos is well connected in the business and academic worlds, so maybe her family is more than just her biological one. Despite feeling unsure about her recounting of her political career, I was interested to hear what Angelopoulos thought about the current economic troubles with Greece. Her experiences make her a highly qualified commentator, and her insight puts into context the recent history of Greece.
Two people, stuck in their respective lives, are suffering from a sort of middle aged slump. The high points of their lives are going to the London Zoo and occasionally their respective literary professions. Neaera H. is a children's book writer who watches her water bug looking for inspiration for her overdue next book. William G. works in a book shop after his marriage dissolves, frustrated that his life has come to this point. Turtle Diary is told in alternating points of view from each of the two main characters. Telling their story in tandem, the reader sees them meet, come up with a plan to liberate some the turtles in the London Zoo (which is surprisingly condoned by the turtle keeper), and then take an epic turtle road trip to spring some turtles from the zoological joint. The plot is quirky, but the characterization is serious and impressive. Both characters share their frustrations with their middle aged lives, both reflect elements of the book industry that the introduction suggests Hoban was drawing from his own experiences. The turtle adventure bring Neaera H. and William G. together on an epic English car camping trip where they carefully split the costs of their potentially illegal London Zoo turtle liberation. A relatively short novel, Turtle Diary is a majestic look at some ordinary people who decide to go on an adventure.
When I first heard of the story that inspired this novel, I was impressed. Terry Tempest Williams' mother died of cancer and left her diaries to Williams only to be read after she died. When Williams opened the diaries, she found her mother's years of blank notebooks. The blankness of the notebooks and the feeling of mystery surrounding the lack of writing on the notebooks. I picked up the book, and it was even more fascinating than I'd expected.Williams' mother was fifty-four when she died, thus the fifty-four variations on voice. Each variation spans a range of style and topic, from Williams' mother's death to the time Williams spent in field camps and meeting her husband in a bookstore (they bonded over bird field guides). They are expressions of Williams' grief and confusion over her mother's death and notebooks, celebrations of the time they spend together, and reflections of womanhood and life. Williams discusses her identity as a Mormon, as well as her mother's, in terms of what the expectations and beliefs are surrounding womanhood, life, and what the responsibilities of a woman's legacy should be. Williams' prose reflects on the blank pages of the journals as a form of expression in and of itself as well as the legacy of cancer in Williams' family as a result of their living in Utah as downwinders. The family legacies, literary, religiously, and medically, form a fascinating set of short essays and reflections. A moving and fascinating look to modern expectations of women, identity, and reflection inspired by a set of blank notebooks.
In short, The Accursed is Joyce Carol Oates does vampires. The full picture, though, is of course much more complex.In the university town of Princeton, New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson is a nervous wreck. Grover Cleveland and his much younger wife are around causing trouble, and the Slade family is preparing to marry off their oldest daughter. The drama of a university town escalates from petty collegiate squables to something more supernatural, something more dangerous and nefarious than thought. The fairy tale elements, as well as European nobility from a little region called Wallachia, are worked into the historical setting.Annabel Slade is abducted by her vampire/demon lover, and all hell breaks loose. However, the narrator of The Accursed, one M.W. van Dyck, challenges in his historical review that mysterious things started happening before Slade's abduction, like the appearance of a ghost to Grover Cleveland. The Curse, as van Dyck calls it, is the subject of his historical framing of events (because things do get much weirder, including but no limited to children turning into statues and snakes invading a girls' school). He is not always the most reliable narrator but his dedication to decoding secret diaries and proving that his interpretation of events is in line with an asthmatic adventure-academic type personality. So, instead of the narrator being a distraction, van Dyck helps build the suspense and tension around the plot by his erudition on the supernatural. The hauntings extend to Upton Sinclair, Jack London, and even to Woodrow Wilson when he vacations in the Caribbean. There are many faces of the evil force influencing the upright, WASP-y citizens of Princeton and some of the surprise/challenge/delight of this novel is spotting where the vampires and demons choose to reappear. It's dangerous living in Princeton, not just because of the drama associated with social change, like one female character deciding to move to New York City on her own and the lynching that occurs just outside the boundaries of Princeton, but also because there is a realm of demons literally in one family's backyard.In summary, The Accursed is a whirlwind story of the supernatural and the reactions of a famous community to the unknown. At almost 700 pages The Accursed is a brick, but the plot and suspense is handled in such a way that the novel is just long enough to tie up the intricate series of events.
Written in part as publicity for Europa Edition's launch of the World Noir imprint, this reader collects essays, interviews, and excerpts from relevant noir works and authors. I found it interesting in terms of the history of international crime fiction and now appreciate what Jean-Claude Izzo has done for European crime fiction (though I have yet to read anything by him). A great resource to expand the to-read list.
I went into Neil Gaiman's back catalog in celebration of the publication of [b:The Ocean at the End of the Lane|15783514|The Ocean at the End of the Lane|Neil Gaiman|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1351914778s/15783514.jpg|21500681], also because I realized the only other novel by Gaiman I'd read was [b:Stardust|16793|Stardust|Neil Gaiman|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328433738s/16793.jpg|3166179]. So, that needed fixing. American Gods starts out in a fairly straight forward way: Shadow has been in prison for various non-violent crimes and has been practicing coin tricks to bide his time. He is looking forward to being released and starting over again with his wife. This being Neil Gaiman, of course this doesn't happen and more than a couple supernatural occurrences leave Shadow feeling out of his wits and means. Mr. Wednesday hires Shadow to be his driver, of course after Mr. Wednesday appears several times in places that Shadow just happens to be, like his flight home to his wife's funeral. Mr. Wednesday is Shadow's guide deep into an underground of American gods, gods that have arrived from other places along with their followers from other places. Some of the gods are more powerful than others, and some are just plain down on their luck. From bizarre roadside attractions to frozen Mid-Western towns, Shadow sees the supernatural underbelly of the rural routes of America. This is more than a road novel, and more than just a Neil Gaiman road novel (which would be awesome if it ever appeared). Shadow has to complete some demanding tasks through the course of the novel, and while a clever reader can figure out the identities of some of the American gods, the plot unfolds in an organic way until the plot begins to take off.
A fortune teller in 1931 Naples has been brutally murdered, and Commissario Ricciardi, the specter-seeing detective, is on the case in Blood Curse, the next volume in the series after [b:I Will Have Vengeance|15812216|I Will Have Vengeance|Maurizio de Giovanni|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1356116568s/15812216.jpg|14567266]. Ricciardi undergoes some personal development in addition to cracking the case. He is not comfortable with his ability to see the ghosts of the newly dead, though there is someone he encounters during the course of the case that gives him insight into his own condition. The mystery is well plotted (though I had my suspicions before the final reveal), though the strong suit of this addition to the Ricciardi series is the development of Ricciardi's right-hand man, Brigadier Maione. Readers of the first book in the series already are aware of Maione's mental anguish over the death of his son, and it is expanded upon effectively as a subplot through the remainder of this mystery novel. One thing that caught me off guard was the change in translator from the previous volume in the series. The writing read differently for me than from the first novel in the series, and it was slightly frustrating until I double checked the name of the translator. It's not a bad translation, but there are enough differences to be noticeable. Despite issues with the change in translator, I'm looking forward to the forthcoming Commissario Ricciardi mystery. Like with all great detective fiction, learning more about the detective is almost as intriguing as the next mystery they must solve.
Elizabeth Winder tries to re-imagine the Sylvia Plath narrative in Pain, Parties, Work. We know the side of Plath who is portrayed as an unstable and persecuted woman who is brilliant but cannot handle her own creative impulse. Winder argues that Plath's summer internship as a guest editor at Mademoiselle is a microcosm of her later breakdowns. Plath bought a whole new wardrobe for her internship, but by the end she throws every piece off the hotel building where she and the other guest editors have been working. She cries in the bathroom before her first photo shoot with the magazine, though by the end she has been given what the other guest editors assume is preferential treatment. The tension between Plath's expectations of herself, her understanding of her own talent, and realization of her own limits as a writer and woman in the 1950s, Winder argues, becomes the central frustration of her career and life. Instead of the flake who has a breakdown, Plath is instead painted as a woman who finally sees the reality behind her literary aspirations and becomes unsure of herself. While there is a temptation to give Plath some sort of reductive psychological explanation, Winder justifiably argues for Plath having what could be considered a quarter life crisis that triggers her life long struggle with depression. While Plath is always a topic of interest, what really impressed me by Winder was her interviews with the surviving guest editors from Plath's cohort. I would have liked more of the original interviews with those women, and I really could have done without the detailed descriptions of Plath's wardrobe, though the first hand accounts of Plath and the Mademoiselle workplace kept me interested. Examining the role of internships and young life experiences is a more original take on the well trodden ground of Sylvia Plath's psychology, relying on more primary documents and memories rather than half baked gossip. Taken in along with Plath's diaries, a new take on Plath the artist can be formed.
The nameless narrator of Anna Seghers' Transit is on the run having escaped a work camp. He is trying to escape the war in Europe by emigrating, and the novel tells the story of mistaken identity, bureaucratic frustrations, and the multifaceted landscape of Marseilles at the beginning of the Second World War. Weidel, who our narrator is on his way to deliver a letter to, dies with coveted transit documents in a suitcase containing the manuscript of his last work. Weidel's estranged, ex-wife is in Marseilles and our narrator decides to travel there, maybe to deliver the papers and passes but maybe also to use them to get himself out of France. He is on the run, after all having escaped a German work camp. With wine, pizza, and the familiarity of a cafe, Seghers' narrator takes the reader along with him in the seedier, less romantic version of "Casablanca". The first time Transit has appeared in English, not only does the publication make available a unique work by an author who lived through the Second World War and in East Germany afterwords, it is also a complex work about desperation and almost unending waiting.
A Russian doctor searching for her missing sister, a man who just barely qualified as a doctor, a young girl whose family is taken away, and other characters of Anthony Marra's A Constellation of Vital Phenomena are broken, and justifiably so. One man writes a history of Chechnya only to destroy all thousand pages of it, while a son loses touch with his father because he informs on others to survive. Alternating between the two Chechen civil wars in 1994 and 2004, the stories of these fractured characters take shape. The managing of so many different times and characters is done well, through good writing and also a helpful timeline that appears at the beginning of each chapter with the year in question for the chapter bolded. I would like to think I'm a reader that could have done without that device, but with the large cast of characters, including the Russian doctor's sister who falls in and out of her own misfortunes, it is helpful to keep everything straight. The story is richly layered and connected, and switching between times makes for a more suspenseful and layered telling of these characters' personal histories. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is engrossing and a powerful novel of human interaction in extreme circumstances.
When The Panopticon showed up in my Indiespensable box, of course I poked around and found that karen had given it a glowing review, so I was excited. I was slightly less excited the more I read. For sure The Panopticon is well written and the use of dialect paints an impressive and informative picture of the world in which Anais lives. At the same time this is one I would have almost preferred to listen to as an audiobook since I found myself a couple times reading out loud to get the gist of the writing (which reflects exactly what Anais' brand of English sounds like). Fortunately I adapted eventually, since this novel is much more than just the UK setting. Anais believes that she is part of an experiment where someone somewhere is constantly watching her. Part of the challenge of this novel is figuring out how reliable Anais is as a narrator, and in the end I came to the conclusion that she has been coping with so much that she needs an explanation, any explanation. The first couple chapters I was trying to figure out if this was one of those urban dystopia things, but The Panopticon deals with the much darker reality of at-risk youth. The panopticon is an experimental half-way house/low security prison where young offenders are sent before they are sent to prison or released into the care of their social workers or foster families. The inhabitants are a broken but also finding their own unique ways to survive, and Anais bonds with them. Anais is waiting for a determination of whether or not she put a police officer in a coma, and thus how the state will deal with the rest of her life. Anais is also sassy, tough, and her ways of coping with her orphaned and foster-cared for make this novel more than just a depressing story. From somewhere within, the foul-mouth Anais is able to navigate her world with a combination of spunk and her own quick wits. So, while not exactly my reading cup of tea, The Panopticon is a strong well written novel about young offenders, identity, and the consequences of the juvenile justice system.
After reading [b:The Dud Avocado|1059856|The Dud Avocado|Elaine Dundy|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320519470s/1059856.jpg|1046442] last summer, I was eager to read something else by Elaine Dundy. I liked The Dud Avocado, but I loved The Old Man and Me. The Old Man and Me starts out with the same mid-century American girl abroad as The Dud Avocado, but it quickly morphs into a revenge and intrigue plot. It's very easy to give a lot of it away, so I'll try not to say any more besides that the plot unfolds very neatly and there is a lot more complexity to it than a simple means to revenge. Go read it already! It's a neat one.
Renata Adler is so far my favorite discovery in 20th century American fiction this year. Adler's debut novel from 1976, Speedboat captures the episodic and loosely connected ideas that run through the mind of Jen Fain, a reporter. Fain's world ranges from the company of Fulbright scholars, flying lessons, and even to news events about children becoming lost on school trips. The threads of Speedboat are pulled together loosely, like how one would expect someone to actually think. Both the form and topics covered by Fain's wandering mind are fascinating and captivating.
