Story + story + story = novel?

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010)


This book won a bunch of awards. (Or a least the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer.) And I had been sitting on a Slate Audio Book Club podcast since last August. And fiiiiinally I got around to getting a copy.

Here's where it turns out that I had already read a bunch of the book. Probably a third or so. Damn New Yorker. About three stories in, I found myself really frustrated. None of this was really new. Sigh, grr, etc. But then, this is where the structure of the book kicked in and argued its case. For it's not just a collection of short stories. It's a collection of stories that tie together and interconnect. A character in one story reappears in another. And while it seems like the threads that connect them are weak and few in number, they build upon one another, and you realize that you're getting the rich backstory to a throwaway line from 150 pages earlier.

We start in what is roughly the present, then dive back, then way back, then hang out somewhere between the 70s and now for awhile, and eventually finish in the future. Each story uses its own devices - third person, first person, at least one tale told in the second-person you. Another is an article (of the DFW persuasion) detailing a celebrity interview we already know (from however many stories previous) ends badly. But then there's chapter 12, "Great Rock and Roll Pauses," written by an adolescent daughter of characters we knew before. It's essentially a PowerPoint presentation, and it's tremendously effective for all that it's gimmicky. I waxed poetic about this to my boyfriend, venturing out into a reverie on why all the white space is so meaningful in a story about pauses and what is left unsaid. And so he's taken the fall for you, who only have to know that I had lots to say - of varying coherence - on the topic.

And I love the idea that in the not-so-distant future, this is how I children will tell stories. That in its own way, the PowerPoint can be a surprisingly eloquent medium. And then I lost it in the final story, which takes place roughly in that same period(ish). It's a mildly dystopic future NYC that looks quite a bit like Shteyngart's, in which handheld devices have kinda taken over (with a bit of Brooklyn hipster resistance thrown in too). For whatever reason, this felt overdone. Or at the very least out of place with the rest of the book. Ends get tied together, sure. But I didn't need this final story to feel the heft and power of the whole.

(next post coming after I actually listen to the audio book club podcast, scheduled for tonight's drive home...)

Brief? Yes. Wondrous? Uncertain

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books, 2007)

First and foremost, I would like to say that this book, a Pulitzer Prize winner, deserves all the accolades it has received. It is lively and witty and intense and well-written and filled with pathos and history and I don't even know what else.

But I kind of blew it. How? you might ask. Well. I read too much of the hype. People gushed over it, and I think I might have expected too much. I also think that I might not have been the right audience. One of the brilliant aspects of Diaz's prose is the insertion of lots of sci-fi, fanboy references that make perfect sense considering Oscar and the novel's narrator. I recognize them, sort of, but I don't really live them. So while I can appreciate them, I don't get them all the way. My fault, not Diaz's.

Plus, Oscar was a difficult character for me. I felt simultaneously intensely protective of and embarrassed by and for him. This, again, is all to Diaz's credit, but made for a difficult reading experience. I could much better handle Lola and Beli, and the other side stories. And I was absolutely fascinated by the footnotes, the vast majority (all?) of which dealt with Dominican history.

Another thing: at least two excerpts were published as short stories in the New Yorker. (This one actually spans the entire plot.) I remember reading them. But I didn't recognize them reading the novel, as I usually do when this happens. I don't think that's good or bad, just unexpected.

This is a much more tepid review than the book deserves. Seriously, take this as an endorsement. It's good. Really good. You won't be sorry that you read it. But don't let your expectations run away with you.

Behind the Scenes

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
New York: Henry Holt, 2009

I was predisposed to like Wolf Hall for a few reasons: a) I like Tudor history; b) Man Booker Prize!; c) despite all references in the novel to Thomas Cromwell being an ugly, bulldoggish man, in my head he looks like this:


Anyway, I went on a treasure hunt just before Christmas trying to find it at the library, and got lucky (very lucky: at library #3, it was not shelved, but sitting randomly on a table. I looked around like a thief to see if someone had claimed it, then snatched it up and got it to the checkout desk as quickly as possible).

I watched The Other Boleyn Girl earlier this evening, and the experience made me really appreciate Wolf Hall even more than I already had. It (the novel) is textured and complicated, and really makes you feel the passage of time and the machinations that were involved in the dissolution of Henry's marriage. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was a pawn. Cromwell is a sympathetic character, but not entirely. He is conniving, and lucky, and flawed. But you like him well enough, so you root for him. Others have written (no links - too lazy) about how interesting it is that Mantel chose to make Sir Thomas More the great antagonist in the novel, and how this is a gutsy move. I have always found More to be a little obnoxiously holy, so this set up worked for me.

What I still don't understand is the title. Wolf Hall. A place you hear about, as Cromwell takes an interest in the pale and retiring young Jane Seymour (oh, dramatic irony!) but which only makes an appearance after the final pages of the novel. Of course, it's at Wolf Hall that everything changes. For Anne Boleyn though, not so much for Thomas Cromwell, the king's right hand man. Unless perhaps that's where the end begins for him as well...

To sum up, the story of the man who rose from nothing to become as powerful as any man in England is as thrilling as it can be, considering the story has been told again and again, and we all know how it ends. It becomes clear how the forces of popes and princes - making history - are both unstoppable and yet easily swayed by those behind the scenes. I, for one, would rather be a Cromwell.

Another thing I'm behind on...

For some reason, I never get around to reading Boldtype in a timely fashion. It arrives in my inbox once a month of so (except when it gets filtered into spam) and there it sits, waiting for me to realize that it'll only take me about 5-10 min to go through it.

BT is part of the Flavorpill network, which describes itself thusly: "Flavorpill loves culture. We embrace the high-brow, the underground, the low-brow, and the mainstream, and everything in between – as long as it's good." And BT does indeed have some good selections, alongside things that are just too too hipster for me. (And that link doesn't really get at the depths of hipsterdom.)

So why can't I get around to reading it? What is this procrastination?

BTW, did you know that Lily Allen, whose "Smile" brightened much of my spring, is a "passionate reader" who will be judging Britain's Orange Prize? Nor did I, until I read Boldtype.

I love you, Orhan Pamuk

The Nobel Laureate, on what it's like to have won: "I recommend it to everyone."
(from KQED's Forum)

Today in Google Reader

Google Reader is one of my new best friends. I love it. It makes keeping up with websites that I forget to visit regularly sooooo much easier. Except when I don't get to it for a few days and have a zillion unread stories to try to sort through.

Anyway, here's what I discovered along with my morning chai:

Ian McEwan and some other authors I don't really know were shortlisted for this year's Booker. I'm still waiting to get to read last year's winner, Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss.

Starbucks has come to Russia. (And looks awesome in Cyrillic - check the pic) And drinks there are expensive! Also of note: "Moscow has one coffeehouse for every 3,187 people. New York has one for every 365 people, and Paris one for every 126." I wonder what the stats are for LA...

READ ALL ABOUT IT: The Shipping News

When I was told under no uncertain circumstances that I must read E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, I was nervous. Why? I didn't think it wouldn't be good - I've read enough of her stories in the New Yorker, and besides, it won a Pulitzer. So again, why? Because when someone raves to me about a book, I'm always worried that my expectations will be too high, and then I won't enjoy it as much. (Oddly enough, this does not stop me from doing the same thing to friends, family, strangers, etc.)

So my borrowed copy of the book stayed on my shelf roughly forever. Until this past week. And quite honestly, I was entranced. It has this quiet, peaceful energy. I felt very calm while I was reading, even if the particular plot points were not calm indeed. And in my mind I kept comparing Newfoundland to Maine, where I visited last summer. I was infused with a sense of serenity, and slowness. It was lovely.

Proulx is an amazing detailist. As a result, the world of the novel comes through picture perfect. It seems very foreign to a California girl, but utterly believable. And without detracting from the flow of the narrative.

Another point. You want the Quoyle family to find the happiness they so clearly deserve. And so it's a pleasure throughout the book to see them finding it.

Thanks Sophie, for the recommendation!

Book Awards, So Cal style (and other updates)

A reunion, a car accident, and a cold later....

Erin is back with reading updates.

I re-read Jane Austen's Persuasion last week (for the book club). I think Anne Elliott is a mysterious character: not as vivacious as Elizabeth Bennet or Emma Woodhouse, but not as much of a mouse as Fanny Price. She remains, yet, a bit of a cipher in relation to the strong personalities around her. But Austen remains as witty, and comfortable, and biting, and evocative as ever.

Another book that's been on my list won at the 2006 Southern California Booksellers Association awards: Literacy and Longing in L.A., by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. It's supposed to be readerly chick lit, and I'm looking forward to it as a light escape and a reminder that other people in this city are also obsessed with books.

Yay!!!

I'm on my way to my college reunion, but first:

Orhan Pamuk has won the Nobel Prize in Literature

The NY Times article lede:

Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose uncommon lyrical gifts and uncompromising politics have brought him acclaim worldwide and prosecution at home, won the Nobel literature prize Thursday for his works dealing with the symbols of clashing cultures.

And the Swedish Academy:

in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city [Pamuk] has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.

More thoughts coming soon...