Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Jonathan Safran Foer makes me mad. Or jealous, rather. I want to be a wunderkind author. On the other hand, I wouldn't have wanted to face the expectations he must have been staring at following Everything is Illuminated. ELIC is a good sophomore effort, and he didn't shy away from taking on something big, in September 11th, although he did protect himself a little by couching himself in the guise of an odd and grieving little boy.

I liked this book. I liked and wanted to protect Oskar, just as I felt for his namesake in The Tin Drum. JSF is talented at exploring the ways that people who love one another deceive and/or misunderstand each other. The members of the Schell family reach out to each other in funny ways and reciprocate another's plea within the overwhelming paradigm of his or her own individual pain.

Life is hard. But it is also incredibly touching.

The Plot Against America

To begin, I'd like to offer one piece of advice: be thoughtful about bringing hardbound books to the beach. Expect (especially if it's windy) that sand will get between pages and everywhere else.

Anyway, I read the new(ish) Philip Roth on a camping trip. It was so idyllic - and in some ways very middle-America too - that it made for an interesting backdrop while reading a dystopia of the 1940s. Overall I was extremely impressed by the novel, and enjoyed it much much more than the other book of his that I've read, Sabbath's Theater. Roth is convincing as a 7 year old version of himself, and touching too. The grand arc of the plot is a little weak though. Provided, yes it seems fantastical (but no more so than some of what's happened in recent American history), but I was able to suspend my disbelief until the last two chapters. Then everything lost coherence. I think this was Roth's intention, but still, it left me confused and unsettled. (Again, pretty sure this is intentional, but I still would have liked a little more closure. Oh well.)

Politics & Plays

Not a book review, but sufficiently similar that I think it belongs here...

I've been collecting programs in the last week. Friday was Chloe's culmination event for pre-school, and last night was the annual spring fundraising dinner at work. Saturday, we went to the Tamarind Theatre to see The Eyes of Babylon, a one-man autobiographical show about a gay Marine's experience in Iraq. Jeff Key, the writer-performer, fulfilled a life-long ambition when he joined the Marines in 2000, at the age of 34, going back in the closet to do so. His naked (sometimes literally) performance challenges whole sets of assumptions about what it means to be: gay, in the military, Southern. It problematizes simplistic views on either side of the political spectrum of what's happening in Iraq - sure, he's in Shiite southern Iraq, and sure, he's a gay actor in Los Angeles so he's probably pretty liberal, and sure, he came out last year to leave the military. But it's complicated, as all things are. In addition, he evoked how foreign things were here in the aftermath of September 11th, in my mind the most serious indictment of how far we've swerved off course in the past 3 1/2 years. And there's a love scene that's so unexpected, so touching, that it still makes me warm inside. Babylon is disarming, challenging, and entirely human.

Sunday took us up to Topanga, to the Theatricum Botanicum, for a series called Botanicum Seedlings, which consists of readings and workshops for plays in progress. It's a way of cultivating playwrights. The reading we saw was of Matt Pelfrey's An Impending Rupture of the Belly, a satirical reverie about a modern-day Willy Loman. In a world consumed with threat, danger, and consumption, can the wussy man survive? Or will he snap? I liked the reading format. Stage directions read, instead of witnessed, props half-assed, or missing. Actors carrying their scripts. Very minimalist. I personally think they should keep the show under-produced like this. As for the play itself, it was very biting and amusing, and certainly topical. But I don't know that it ever really connected with me. It'll find an audience though.

Plays are great fun. And plays, much more than novels, place great premium on being witty. I appreciate that.

Dangling Man

This month's book club selection, courtesy in part of Michael's suggestion to honor the late Saul Bellow. I was a little nervous as I really didn't much like Henderson the Rain King (in fact, it made me like the Counting Crows song a little less for quite some time). And after last month's meeting which was largely (and sadly) a bashing session of Barbara Kingsolver, I was wanting something I could really get behind. The first twenty pages of the book confirmed a lot of my fears. It was meandering and boring, and I couldn't really tell what was going on. I put Michael to sleep twice reading it. Luckily, he acknowledged first that this was not a book for reading aloud and took matters into his own hands. Leaving me to catch up. Which I am now doing. Actually, I should be finishing it right now, but am blogging it instead. At any rate, it's gotten much better, although I don't at all see how it's going to wrap up in 50 pages.

The "dangling man," by the way, is our hero and journal-writer, a Chicago resident in the midst of WWII who is essentially sitting around waiting to be drafted. This has been going on for some time now, due to Army confusion and bureaucracy (and a Canadian birth certificate) and in the meantime he has left his job and become alienated from those around him. He dangles, waiting...

We truly are bowling alone

The book has me partially inspired, and feeling pretty good about where I stand in relation to civic participation. In fact, I marched on a picket line for the first time the other day, and while definitely feeling out of place, was truly warmed by the power of solidarity. On the other hand, I'm also acutely aware now of any and all areas in which my social capital is deficient. Michael and I have had several talks about this in the past week. (Also a little sad: Putnam reverses some on his evangelicals argument, which I had found really fascinating.)

Upshot: the book might be a little dated at this point, and I'd be curious to see a new foreword or any "five years later" analysis of where we are. But still a good read, especially for those of you who don't mind repetition (or are good skimmers) and even more so for people who like graphs and statistics.

Have I been reading lately?

I think I have.

In fact, I remember finishing Fontanka 16, another entry on my age-old books to read list. It's a history - pretty readable for an academic work - about the secret police in tsarist Russia. There are lots of biographies and sideplots to keep the thing moving. But I think I expected it to provide more insight into the Cheka, NKVD, OGPU, KGB (etc) than it did.

Right now I am trying to read Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, another long-time curiosity. It seemed especially relevant to read about the decline in civic participation since my job is all about improving civic education. But it is sloooow. It just started to pick up a little bit though. Fun fact: there is a high correlation of religious participation and civic participation. If you are active in a church, synagogue, mosque, etc., you are more likely to volunteer and join committees, vote, and what not. Even if you take out the church-specific involvement, you're still more likely to be civically engaged. I had had my suspicions about this growing up, when I envied my religiously active friends the community and social capital they were developing. However, and this is the part I find fascinating, it doesn't hold true for evangelical congregations. Members of these groups are likely to be highly active within their religious community, but there isn't crossover into other outlets of civic participation.

Anyway, I think I need to take a break from non-fiction sometime soon and switch to some fun books. (On the other hand, current fiction reading, book club selection Dangling Man by Saul Bellow, is no more engaging than the above selections.)

Periodicals

Newspapers and magazines get in the way of reading books. I spent my weekend primarily reading. But only managed about 20 pages of an actual book. The rest was the LA Times and the New Yorker. I'm not really complaining, but have noticed that this trend is going to get seriously in the way of regular blogging. (Work is also a problem, since there's 30 hours of non-reading time too, but that's unavoidable.)

The Winter Zoo (and more on The Bean Trees)

The Winter Zoo, by John Beckman: do not bother reading this book. Back in the day (i.e. second half 2002) there was a minor spate of books on Eastern Europe right after the fall of communism. The best of these books were Everything is Illuminated, Prague, and The Russian Debutante's Handbook. In some or another review of this trend, Beckman's book came up, and it was the one I never managed to get around to. And I kind of wish I hadn't.

There's a pretty serious amount of deviant sex in the book: cousinly love, statutory rape, pornographic photography, lots of girl-on-girl action, and a free for all orgy. And it seems at first like the sex belongs - that there's a reason for it. But there's not, most of it is just for titillation, as far as I can tell.

I feel mean being this negative, so I'll stop here. The other books I mention are all great and I highly recommend them. But stop before you get to Poland and The Winter Zoo.

[UPDATE: Rahul makes a good point in his comment below. My problem with the sex is not that it was "deviant", or that it crossed lines, but that Beckman seemed to just be looking for ways to try to shock the reader. It didn't work, it just got old. Also, hi Rahul!!! It's nice - and a little scary - to think that someone is actually reading this...]

As for The Bean Trees, we finished just in time for tonight's book club. I have no idea what I'm going to say. I liked the rendering of the toddler's baby talk? If the aforementioned novel had too much sex, maybe this one had too much sexless romance? The book is nice, and sweet, but didn't really provoke much of a reaction from me.

The Bean Trees

We've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees before our book club meeting next week. Like the great big nerds we are, Michael and I have decided to read our club books together - aloud. And since I can do a pretty ridiculous Southern accent on accident (and also b/c this book is so a chick book) I have been doing the reading.

Anyway, I want to save most of my witty thoughts for the meeting, but I'll offer this: even though Barbara Kingsolver was huge on BART a few years ago (Poisonwood Bible mostly), I never really considered reading her. I'm not overwhelmed, but not disappointed either. It's genial, you might say.

Favorite character: Turtle, the toddler
Biggest disappointment: I think I'm wrong on the lesbian prediction I had around page 35. I could still be right though... but I doubt it.

more Moooooo

There's something comfortingly witty about the kind of satire that announces deus ex machina by titling a chapter "Deus ex Machina" - and then proceeds to provide it in spades. Moo is an enjoyable book; my only quarrel is that with the huge cast of characters, Smiley can't possibly provide enough attention to each one, and sometimes I'd rather know more about the ones that she glides over. But really, when your biggest complaint is that you want to know more, that's pretty good.

Does writing matter?

After reading Midnight's Children, I couldn't talk normally for a week, as Salman Rushdie's style had utterly supplanted my own. In this article, he explains why that's important.

And because the LA Times is stingy about how long it leaves links up, here's an excerpt:

One may read and like or admire or respect a book and yet remain entirely unchanged by its contents, but love gets under one's guard and shakes things up, for such is its sneaky nature. When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced. We love relatively few books in our lives, and those books become parts of the way we see our lives; we read our lives through them, and their descriptions of the inner and outer worlds become mixed up with ours — they become ours.

LAT Festival of Books, and Jane Smiley's Moo

Michael and I spent the weekend at the LA Times Festival of Books - gathering free stuff, checking out books we want but are too cheap to buy, sharing info on where to get the good free stuff with friends, and also going to several panels. We had underestimated the popularity of swarming Ticketmaster for the (free) tickets to panels, so by the time we made it there last Monday, many of our top choices were sold out. We still did pretty well, with 4 panels.

Three were political: Interrogation or Torture: Human Rights After 9/11, Brave New World: Monopoly, Media, & the Right to Know, and Are We Making the World Safe for Democracy? Each had one token conservative, and perhaps one moderate. Facing an audience that was overwhelmingly liberal, this may have been a good percentage, but it was also kind of sad. Facing a hostile crowd, conservatives were faced with the option of insulting the audience by saying they were unpatriotic and "reviled" the troops (Max Boot), announcing that the LA Times was a far-left newspaper that many people in California were rejecting (Hugh Hewitt), or reading your piece as unpassionately as possible and hoping the crowd didn't really notice you (Charles Kesler).

Next year, however, I want to see and hear more about actually writing a book. Our fourth panel was Jane Smiley in conversation with some historian named Zachary Karabell (who was kind of this odd combination of Josh and Toby from The West Wing with a little of The Actor's Studio guy thrown in. here's a picture on a page that suggests he's also a big-shot econ guy). This was great, a very entertaining hour that combined politics and fiction writing and reading.

In honor of our Jane Smiley panel, I began reading Moo on Saturday morning. I gave myself twenty-four hours to get a feel for the author before I saw her speak. Now that the panel's over, I could put the book down, but I'm enjoying it. She is apparently quite catholic in her tastes, so perhaps it's too bad that the only novel of hers that we own is one that satirizes university life, as so many have done before. But what I like about Moo so far is that she's cast her net wide, and takes us into the minds of a wide array of professors, administrators, students, and even a very fat hog.

Claire Marvel (cont.)

Well, I finished the book. In an attempt to not be a spoiler, I will just say that I wasn't dissatisfied with the ending, so that was reassuring. It's a pretty book, and made me pensive for at least a day. There's a blurb on the back from Frank McCourt that, paraphrased, says that you'll be tempted to read this book in one sitting - but you shouldn't, b/c you should give the characters the chance to worm their way into you. I am horrible at taking such advice no matter how much I want to, but the characters got to me nonetheless.

Claire Marvel (part 1)

Today's book is Claire Marvel, by John Burnham Schwartz. It came out sometime in 2002 or 2003. Now that I am not tied into reading history book after history book, I revisited a list of "books to read" that I had started before moving to DC and am, courtesy of the LA Public Library, slowly working my way through it. I don't remember what review I must have read that prompted its inclusion on the list. (Some days I am more exclusive than others about what I might want to read.)

This is one of those books, written by a man, that serve for certain female readers like me as a reassurance that men fall in love as hard, and manage to mess it up through their own uncertainties just as women do. In short, it's a love story with a man as protagonist. And with our narrator Julian a grad student, this book is in some ways strikingly like this novel. (Use this link if the other one doesn't work.)

I feel for this couple; they've touched me. And yet, on page 178 of 316 or so, I am wary. Books that trick me into caring about the characters' plight run the risk of having a dissatisfying ending. Too often the author promises me that I should care about his or her creations, but then allows the ending to trickle away into something lesser. Leaving me feel betrayed. (High on this list is Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy.) You could just say I'm a sucker for a happy ending, and that's probably most of it, but there's more at stake when you deny characters the ending they deserve.

Welcome to my (book) world

At least four years after blogging stopped being cool and started being ubiquitous, I have finally joined the party. For years I've attempted to keep various lists of the books I'm reading, so that

1. I can admire myself for all the reading I've done and all the impressive books on the list
2. I can remember what I've read lately when someone - oftentimes Michael's mom, a librarian - asks if we're read anything good
3. I can quickly recall what books might be good for recommendations to other people
   

Today, walking in Larchmont, I decided it would be easier to do this online, and write capsule reviews to capture my thoughts, which would be easy to share with friends scattered across the globe that might be interested but who never get this news in my e-mails, sort of the Washingtonienne line of reasoning - but without the sex with politcos.

A bit about me: I'm 25, live in LA just south of Hollywood in a ritzy neighborhood that I can't afford on my non-profit salary, and have recently fled a PhD program in DC for the glorious weather of my hometown. (Michael would probably stop here to remind readers that I'm from lame suburban Thousand Oaks, not Los Angeles, but that's beside the point.)

Also, I've been going through a pink phase lately, which is the explanation for the template.

Overtime, I hope to figure out how to add links that will offer favorite books by theme, but that's asking too much for now.