Like many who have spent an extended time there I am in love with Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I would like to consider it my hometown, not that I grew up there; I only spent the best six years of my life there. It has had its modest place in the national spotlight recently with Bon Iver's success at the Grammys. But Bon Iver is just one aspect of a thriving artistic community. There are many other musicians, painters, artists of all kinds and in the woods not too far away, an author: Neil Gaiman.
Now Gaiman is not an actual Eau Claire resident, nor is he a native son. He is a Brit who has taken up a second residence about half an hour from the city in a secret location, presumably to find peace and quiet. I give you all this background not to try and claim his works as the product of my city but to explain how I came across this book. Because the local cultural magazine, Volume One, does consider him part of the local culture and strives to keep us all informed of his activities. Makes sense. When a renowned author chooses to live in your part of the world that's exciting, even if his goal is to escape civilization. So he comes up every few issues.
My best friend from college knows I love and miss Eau Claire, and he knows I love the essays the online editor writes in each issue so, being a great friend, he clips them out and sends them to me. Well, a recent essay used Gaiman's Neverwhere to explain a point about the local cultural scene and my friend had a copy so he sent it along in the mail. Like I said, great guy, and thanks to him I had a new book to read.
Neverwhere is about a secret underworld made of lost and forgotten bits of London from across the ages. Our protagonist, Richard Mayhew, is your typical mild-mannered nobody who accidentally finds himself in London Below. While trying to find his way home and get his life back to normal he becomes wrapped up in a major plot and ends up having to summon his courage and believe in himself to save the world. If it sounds like a cliched action fantasy story that's because it is, but that doesn't make it a bad book outright.
I was skeptical going into this book for many reasons, the first of which was the predictability of fantasy stories. I had never read anything by Gaiman before but I saw the movie Stardust - based on one of his books - and thought it was just completely terrible. My friend who lent me the book has very similar tastes to me and recommends a lot of great stuff, but he also enjoys a lot of things that are, shall we say, less than great so the recommendation is not a guarantee. And really I'm just not a fantasy guy. There are a few devices in fantasy writing that just rub me the wrong way:
1) When authors describe someone performing an action, usually at the beginning of a story, without letting you know who the person is. "The man walked down a dark alleyway, blood dripping from his hand..." The idea of it is to draw in your interest but I think it's a very weak way of creating suspense.
2) When characters in a fantasy world explain things matter-of-factly as if they are obvious and then offer no explanation. The newcomer asks how something works and the native of the fantasy world gives a one sentence explanation, always ending with "of course." This is fine, because that which is fantastic to us is commonplace to them. But I never understood why after this the explainer neither notices or cares that the other person is still visibly confused.
In Neverwhere, Gaiman is guilty of every fantasy cliche that bugs me. And yet I found myself enjoying myself. My skepticism was wrong; I liked the book. There's a joy and a passion in the writing that is contagious. Gaiman clearly loves his characters, and loves his city and loves playing with language. Altogether it just makes for a fun read.
One of the reviews on the back of the book refers to it as a modern Alice in Wonderland. This is a comparison that's made a lot but it's fitting here. It's not like Alice in Wonderland in the way that so many have lazily taken old stories and made them "creepy." You won't find specific characters or events that are analogues to, say, the white rabbit or caterpillar, though at one point Gaiman describing a character as "smiling like a cheshire cat." What you will find is a completely original story written in the spirit of Alice in Wonderland. There is a naive and innocent protagonist with a dull life who stumbles into adventure and finds he was a lot happier being bored. There is a slew of creative characters and locations, and I really do mean creative. I was delighted each time to see what we would be presented with next, and the new arrivals rarely disappointed. But the feature of the book that most emulated Lewis Carroll was the experimentation and manipulation of the English language. The only word I can find to accurately describe Gaiman's prose is exuberant. Even though his story copies other fantasy stories, his language takes common fantasy phrases (i.e. "once upon a time") and turns them on their heads. He seems to be making jokes with himself and sassing the audience half the time and it's really endearing. You can tell he's having fun and as a result you start to have fun. It's the strongest quality of the book.
I'm glad I gave Neil Gaiman a chance even though I hate his movies. Because any adaptation of his work is doomed to fail; it can never capture what makes his work great. The strength of his literature is not in what he writes but in the way he writes it.
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Friday, December 23, 2011
Book Review: Crumbtown by Joe Connelly
This ended up being a good palate cleanser after two really heavy books. Something short and light-hearted and comical. Another find on the library stacks, this one jumped at me but had its warning signs, too. On the book jacket there were a ton of positive reviews for the author's first book, and none for this one. Highly suspicious. So let's jump right in and see what I thought about it.
The concept of the book at least in terms of plot is brilliant. A serial criminal spends multiple stints in prison, the last of which is for a Robin Hood-style bank robbery where he throws cash to people on the street. But he lives in a town so desolate and run-down that television studios have made it a habit of filming their crime shows there ("It looks more like New York than New York does, they say"). This leads to the prison creating a program where prisoners can receive early parole if they take on jobs on movie sets as crime consultants. Our main character, Don, becomes a consultant for a show romanticizing his own crime spree.
I misjudged the direction of the book at first. I thought it was going to be a story of redemption slowly played out through the making of the show. As it turned out, it was actually a comedy of errors. Within an hour Don goes back to his thieving ways and unleashes a string of chaotic events - including an attempt at robbing the scene of the reenactment of his bank robbery, which for some inexplicable reason is using real money.
In a lot of ways this was a good thing. The story plays out like a modern day Ulysses (which I haven't read and therefore will make no deeper comparisons). It's fascinating to see how one day in one town can change so many lives irreparably. At least it would be fascinating if the whole situation weren't so contrived and impossible.
The style of the book is very punk rock. Things move quickly. People make rash decisions. The chapters fly by in a blur of noise and music. More noise than music. You'll find it almost a chore to keep track of which characters are which, not just because there are so many of them in such a rapid succession. The real reason is because there is so little discerning them. Everyone's a drunk or a junkie with a regrettable past, and it tends to be that the only thing that separates characters are their afflictions. It's not until the final act (the story is divided into acts, like Shakespeare I guess?) that you start to get a feel for any of the individual character's souls. There are some beautiful moments then, but for the most point the train has already come off the tracks and you're left wondering why Connelly didn't build them up when he still had the reader on his side.
This even extends to the main character, who should at least be a little more defined. His first day out of prison, his first hour out of prison, he's immediately into trouble. He's required by law to keep in touch with his parole officer by phone and always answer when she calls. But when he can't figure out how to answer his cell phone (it's 2003 and he's been in prison for 15 years) he panics, runs out of his hotel room and then goes on a crime spree. Now I understand the idea that criminal behavior can be a disease that one never recovers from; I'm sympathetic to that. But after 260 pages I still have absolutely no idea what caused Don to make every possible mistake a person can make.
If I had to go back through and count how many times someone was bit by a car in this book, I don't think I could. Same thing with people getting shot. And people falling in love. There is a woman in the book, Rita. She is the muse of the man writing the TV show that sets everything into motion. She is also the muse of every criminal in the story. And just about everyone who meets here. Yet we know absolutely nothing about her as a person except that she's beautiful, has a Russian accent and is constantly bored/annoyed. Nothing to inspire the reader to love her. I got the feeling that Connelly based her on someone he knows in life, someone he felt deeply in love with. And in the way that a man falls for a woman suddenly and inexplicably, he thought by just writing about her it would make perfect sense to the reader the way it makes perfect sense to him. That or he just writes very one-dimensional female characters.
Reading this far you would think I found nothing positive about this book, but I did. There was a lot of good happening too. There is one fascinating character who is such an obsessive method actor that when asked to play the role of a criminal he becomes a criminal. There's a beautiful moment where a man is reading his list of demands to police and it quickly morphs from a humorous list of things the police could never provide (I want Ted Williams to play baseball again) to a heartbreaking list of things the police could never provide (I want my mother to understand me). There is a man who even as he lies dying from being shot by his wife still tries everything in his power to make her happy.
These moments are powerful but are few and far between. The rest of the book plays out too quickly with too little substance. In a lot of ways it's paced like a TV show. Being a book about a TV show, that could possibly be seen as an interesting commentary. I just felt like my time would have been better spent actually watching TV.
The concept of the book at least in terms of plot is brilliant. A serial criminal spends multiple stints in prison, the last of which is for a Robin Hood-style bank robbery where he throws cash to people on the street. But he lives in a town so desolate and run-down that television studios have made it a habit of filming their crime shows there ("It looks more like New York than New York does, they say"). This leads to the prison creating a program where prisoners can receive early parole if they take on jobs on movie sets as crime consultants. Our main character, Don, becomes a consultant for a show romanticizing his own crime spree.
I misjudged the direction of the book at first. I thought it was going to be a story of redemption slowly played out through the making of the show. As it turned out, it was actually a comedy of errors. Within an hour Don goes back to his thieving ways and unleashes a string of chaotic events - including an attempt at robbing the scene of the reenactment of his bank robbery, which for some inexplicable reason is using real money.
In a lot of ways this was a good thing. The story plays out like a modern day Ulysses (which I haven't read and therefore will make no deeper comparisons). It's fascinating to see how one day in one town can change so many lives irreparably. At least it would be fascinating if the whole situation weren't so contrived and impossible.
The style of the book is very punk rock. Things move quickly. People make rash decisions. The chapters fly by in a blur of noise and music. More noise than music. You'll find it almost a chore to keep track of which characters are which, not just because there are so many of them in such a rapid succession. The real reason is because there is so little discerning them. Everyone's a drunk or a junkie with a regrettable past, and it tends to be that the only thing that separates characters are their afflictions. It's not until the final act (the story is divided into acts, like Shakespeare I guess?) that you start to get a feel for any of the individual character's souls. There are some beautiful moments then, but for the most point the train has already come off the tracks and you're left wondering why Connelly didn't build them up when he still had the reader on his side.
This even extends to the main character, who should at least be a little more defined. His first day out of prison, his first hour out of prison, he's immediately into trouble. He's required by law to keep in touch with his parole officer by phone and always answer when she calls. But when he can't figure out how to answer his cell phone (it's 2003 and he's been in prison for 15 years) he panics, runs out of his hotel room and then goes on a crime spree. Now I understand the idea that criminal behavior can be a disease that one never recovers from; I'm sympathetic to that. But after 260 pages I still have absolutely no idea what caused Don to make every possible mistake a person can make.
If I had to go back through and count how many times someone was bit by a car in this book, I don't think I could. Same thing with people getting shot. And people falling in love. There is a woman in the book, Rita. She is the muse of the man writing the TV show that sets everything into motion. She is also the muse of every criminal in the story. And just about everyone who meets here. Yet we know absolutely nothing about her as a person except that she's beautiful, has a Russian accent and is constantly bored/annoyed. Nothing to inspire the reader to love her. I got the feeling that Connelly based her on someone he knows in life, someone he felt deeply in love with. And in the way that a man falls for a woman suddenly and inexplicably, he thought by just writing about her it would make perfect sense to the reader the way it makes perfect sense to him. That or he just writes very one-dimensional female characters.
Reading this far you would think I found nothing positive about this book, but I did. There was a lot of good happening too. There is one fascinating character who is such an obsessive method actor that when asked to play the role of a criminal he becomes a criminal. There's a beautiful moment where a man is reading his list of demands to police and it quickly morphs from a humorous list of things the police could never provide (I want Ted Williams to play baseball again) to a heartbreaking list of things the police could never provide (I want my mother to understand me). There is a man who even as he lies dying from being shot by his wife still tries everything in his power to make her happy.
These moments are powerful but are few and far between. The rest of the book plays out too quickly with too little substance. In a lot of ways it's paced like a TV show. Being a book about a TV show, that could possibly be seen as an interesting commentary. I just felt like my time would have been better spent actually watching TV.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Book Review: The Shining by Stephen King
I am not a reader of horror. In fact, I've never read a horror story before this (except Goosebumps and works of a similar vein as a kid). It's sort of strange that I ended up reading this book. But I was at the library a few weeks back, completely directionless as to what I should read next. So I started walking through the stacks and in the K section The Shining caught my eye.
I had never read anything by King before, besides a nonfiction essay in an English class once. But that essay was fantastic. After years of failed lectures from teahers it was the only thing that ever convinced me that passive voice is something to be avoided. But I had never felt a need to pick up any of his novels. I've always had a negative stereotype of both the horror and mystery genres. I guess I associate them with dime-a-dozen pulp novels. I know it's a totally unfair characterization so I figured I'd take a chance to challenge it by picking up something by the king of horror. I was also curious about if a horror novel could actually scare me. I'm a very visual person so I imagined it would be hard to get me frightened over something I can't see. But the movie of The Shining is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen, so I figured it stood a chance.
I was amazed right away, though I know I shouldn't have been, by the quality of the writing. Horror is by no means a lesser genre. In terms of literature there is a lot of good being done here. The descriptions and characterizations are very clear and astute. For the most part, at least in the beginning, it feels like very real people with real concerns. The first half of the story, the better half of the story, is actually a lot more about a struggling family and a father's battle with alcoholism than any paranormal activity. It's about a man who has made mistakes and is trying once more to piece his family together. He gets a job as the winter caretaker of a hotel up in the mountains because it's the only job he can get after the mistakes he's made but also because it will allow him and his wife and kid more time together .
Things start to go wrong as the evil forces at the hotel begin to affect him negatively, and as the snow comes and the family is fully isolated it all goes from bad to worse. The horror starts. I was actually dissapointed with how this transformation comes about. King does a good job of taking his time building into the paranormal stuff, but in the beginning there is a really good tension where we don't yet know how much of this is real. Are there really ghosts at the hotel or are isolation and personal demons causing hallucinations? I was excited about this question and then dissapointed to see how early King answered it for us. I would have preferred more mystery and more time in limbo.
I had a tendency while reading to compare the book to the movie. I know this a mistake, but I'm a novice reviewer and I'm doing this as a hobby so who cares? It's inevitable. It actually made the read more fun. There were things I preferred about King's version, such as the aforementioned depth of character. But Kubrick's version is signifcantly more frightening, and not just because you can actually see what's happening. I didn't feel like this book was much of a horror story at all; it's more of a psychological game. All of the frightening moments are based on the feeling you get leaving a basement that you don't feel comfortable in. You know something is behind you but you're not going to look back, you're just going to walk a little faster. Walk, don't run, because if you let it know you're aware of it it will pounce. You rush out of there and then turn to find it was never there but you KNOW it had to be. This happens multiple times in the story, and even though it's relatable it seems like a weak way to try and scare the reader.
I am fascinated by isolation. I was very drawn to the idea of the hotel as a place far away from the world. This isolation is what draws Jack and his family in - a reprieve from his mistakes and from anxiety and alcohol and all the pressures of everyday life. But it eventually becomes what does them in. Isolation is no longer an advantage when you realize the hotel is not a place, it is a character, and its intentions are not pure.
Overall I enjoyed the book, I would recommend it, but there is a major weakness in the fact that King does not (or at least did not at the time) know how to write children. He sets up Danny as being incredily intelligent for his age, and the parents take pride in never talking down to him, but his thought process is way above that of a child his age. And then King tries to make him more childlike by cutely misspelling or misunderstanding words (i.e. Presidential Sweet) and it just comes off as a failed attempt. I'll give you an excerpt as an example. The first three paragraphs are actually third-person narration, but they're describing Danny's wandering thoughts, and then the quote at the end is him interjecting:
But it wasn't really empty. Because here in the Overlook things just went on and on. Here in the Overlook all times were one. There was an endless night in August of 1945, with laughter and drinks and a chosen shining few going up and coming down in the elevator, drinking champagne and popping party favors in each other's faces. It was a not-yet-light morning in June some twenty years later and the organization hitters endlessly pumped shotgun shells into the torn and bleeding bodies of three men who went through their agony endlessly. In a room on the second floor a woman lolled in her tub and waited for visitors.
In the Overlook all things had a sort of life. It was as if the whole place had been wound up with a silver key. The clock was running. The clock was running.
He was that key, Danny thought sadly. Tony had warned him and he just let things go on.
"I'm just five!"
Indeed he is just five. So how is he coming up with this very complex, very adult, very metaphorical thought process? I think this example shows a lot of the inconsistency in this early writing of King. There are unbalances like this throughout a book. A lot of quality ideas executed poorly. It's not surprising to me that Stanley Kubrick took the shell of this story and led it in a more complete direction, even rejecting a script written by King. I'm sure King felt writing this book the way I feel with these attempts at reviews; I know exactly what I want to say but not quite how to organize and present it. This book serves as an interesting stepping stone on the path to him eventually becoming a great writer. Or at least someone people say is a great writer. I wouldn't know. I've only ever read one horror story.
I had never read anything by King before, besides a nonfiction essay in an English class once. But that essay was fantastic. After years of failed lectures from teahers it was the only thing that ever convinced me that passive voice is something to be avoided. But I had never felt a need to pick up any of his novels. I've always had a negative stereotype of both the horror and mystery genres. I guess I associate them with dime-a-dozen pulp novels. I know it's a totally unfair characterization so I figured I'd take a chance to challenge it by picking up something by the king of horror. I was also curious about if a horror novel could actually scare me. I'm a very visual person so I imagined it would be hard to get me frightened over something I can't see. But the movie of The Shining is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen, so I figured it stood a chance.
I was amazed right away, though I know I shouldn't have been, by the quality of the writing. Horror is by no means a lesser genre. In terms of literature there is a lot of good being done here. The descriptions and characterizations are very clear and astute. For the most part, at least in the beginning, it feels like very real people with real concerns. The first half of the story, the better half of the story, is actually a lot more about a struggling family and a father's battle with alcoholism than any paranormal activity. It's about a man who has made mistakes and is trying once more to piece his family together. He gets a job as the winter caretaker of a hotel up in the mountains because it's the only job he can get after the mistakes he's made but also because it will allow him and his wife and kid more time together .
Things start to go wrong as the evil forces at the hotel begin to affect him negatively, and as the snow comes and the family is fully isolated it all goes from bad to worse. The horror starts. I was actually dissapointed with how this transformation comes about. King does a good job of taking his time building into the paranormal stuff, but in the beginning there is a really good tension where we don't yet know how much of this is real. Are there really ghosts at the hotel or are isolation and personal demons causing hallucinations? I was excited about this question and then dissapointed to see how early King answered it for us. I would have preferred more mystery and more time in limbo.
I had a tendency while reading to compare the book to the movie. I know this a mistake, but I'm a novice reviewer and I'm doing this as a hobby so who cares? It's inevitable. It actually made the read more fun. There were things I preferred about King's version, such as the aforementioned depth of character. But Kubrick's version is signifcantly more frightening, and not just because you can actually see what's happening. I didn't feel like this book was much of a horror story at all; it's more of a psychological game. All of the frightening moments are based on the feeling you get leaving a basement that you don't feel comfortable in. You know something is behind you but you're not going to look back, you're just going to walk a little faster. Walk, don't run, because if you let it know you're aware of it it will pounce. You rush out of there and then turn to find it was never there but you KNOW it had to be. This happens multiple times in the story, and even though it's relatable it seems like a weak way to try and scare the reader.
I am fascinated by isolation. I was very drawn to the idea of the hotel as a place far away from the world. This isolation is what draws Jack and his family in - a reprieve from his mistakes and from anxiety and alcohol and all the pressures of everyday life. But it eventually becomes what does them in. Isolation is no longer an advantage when you realize the hotel is not a place, it is a character, and its intentions are not pure.
Overall I enjoyed the book, I would recommend it, but there is a major weakness in the fact that King does not (or at least did not at the time) know how to write children. He sets up Danny as being incredily intelligent for his age, and the parents take pride in never talking down to him, but his thought process is way above that of a child his age. And then King tries to make him more childlike by cutely misspelling or misunderstanding words (i.e. Presidential Sweet) and it just comes off as a failed attempt. I'll give you an excerpt as an example. The first three paragraphs are actually third-person narration, but they're describing Danny's wandering thoughts, and then the quote at the end is him interjecting:
But it wasn't really empty. Because here in the Overlook things just went on and on. Here in the Overlook all times were one. There was an endless night in August of 1945, with laughter and drinks and a chosen shining few going up and coming down in the elevator, drinking champagne and popping party favors in each other's faces. It was a not-yet-light morning in June some twenty years later and the organization hitters endlessly pumped shotgun shells into the torn and bleeding bodies of three men who went through their agony endlessly. In a room on the second floor a woman lolled in her tub and waited for visitors.
In the Overlook all things had a sort of life. It was as if the whole place had been wound up with a silver key. The clock was running. The clock was running.
He was that key, Danny thought sadly. Tony had warned him and he just let things go on.
"I'm just five!"
Indeed he is just five. So how is he coming up with this very complex, very adult, very metaphorical thought process? I think this example shows a lot of the inconsistency in this early writing of King. There are unbalances like this throughout a book. A lot of quality ideas executed poorly. It's not surprising to me that Stanley Kubrick took the shell of this story and led it in a more complete direction, even rejecting a script written by King. I'm sure King felt writing this book the way I feel with these attempts at reviews; I know exactly what I want to say but not quite how to organize and present it. This book serves as an interesting stepping stone on the path to him eventually becoming a great writer. Or at least someone people say is a great writer. I wouldn't know. I've only ever read one horror story.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Book Review: Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Hartsad
I never know how to choose books to read. I don't read literary publications or really know where to get recommendations from. I'm also an obsessive spendthrift, so I only get books from the library or borrowed from friends. That's where I found this book, in the New Fiction section at the front of the library. I was drawn in by the beautiful cover (classic mistake) and the fascinating title.
Buzz Aldrin, what happened to you in all the confusion? What a perfect title. It gives you just enough to pique your interest while revealing nothing about the story. Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon. Famous runner-up. What happened to you in all the confusion? What happens to someone who does something amazing, world-changing, and is simply seen as the second person to do it?
So I grabbed the book and was even more excited as I read the jacket. Turns out it was written by a highly acclaimed Norwegian author who had finally been translated into English. Yep, this was the book to read.
So the book is not really about space travel at all. It's about a man about to turn 30, Mattias who lives a simple life in a coastal city in Norway. He enjoys working hard and being a cog in the machine (as he puts it). All he wants to do is live a good life and go unnoticed, which is why he idolizes Buzz Aldrin, the little celebrated second man who was actually a better pilot and scientist than Neil Armstrong. Mattias has two best friends, a girlfriend and a job in a garden and could never want anything more. But everything falls apart and he finds himself in a mental health facility in the Faroe Islands.
I won't give you any more of the plot because I hate spoilers but also because it's not important. The quality of this book comes in its structure and flow. It's very postmodern in the way events are presented. Pages and pages are devoted to exact details of everyday life, routines, late-night conversations and long drives. Then life-changing events occur - getting fired, deaths of characters - that receive no more than a paragraph. I don't think this is done just to be subversive. This is a book about mental health, and the slow battle for recovery. It puts us in the head of Mattias and not just because it's written in the first person. But Mattias is depressed and it's written like the narrator is depressed. Days drift on and on, the whole book seems to be described through a haze. Harstad employs a few tricks to do this. The whole book is divided into short sections, each no longer than two pages. Some describe the smallest details and give them the heaviest weight. Other times Mattias will be talking about something mundane and then slip in an observation profound sadness and wisdom. It's always raining or sunless. All of this works together to make the book move in a calming, directionless phase with sudden manic bursts of plot.
This style is not unique to Harstad, it's quite prevalent in literature these days, but this is one of the few books I've read where I felt it served the plot and strengthened the characters instead of just looking and sounding cool. It also made it personally good to read because I could pick it up for a few minutes at a time, read a section, and then go on to something else. Yes this makes me a lazy reader. I'm sorry.
There are a lot of pop culture references in this book. Deep ones and obscure ones. I noticed this when I read a passage, recognized it and had to spend about ten minutes reflecting on where I knew from. It was the note that Kurtz sends home 2/3rds of the way through Apocalypse Now, something I would have never caught if it hadn't watched the movie a week before. This took me aback. I understand the purpose of all the references, to plant Mattias firmly in my fragmented, connected generation, but references this specific it just made me wonder what else was missing.
Mattias is still lovable. His role as a happy also-ran, a devotee of Buzz Aldrin, is something I think we all can relate to. I'm a baseball fan, a Brewers fan, and my favorite player is Craig Counsell, someone who you would never confuse for a superstar. But I can appreciate the virtue of just being a reliable good person who happily does what is asked of him and doesn't ask for anything more. When Mattias has this idea of himself and of life shaken so fundamentally, you feel his pain. You want him to get better.
Ultimately this is a story about healing. About the peaceful monotony of slowly getting better, day to day. Most of us don't have an experience as dramatic as losing everything you love and waking up bloodied in the rain in the middle of a street on the Faroe Islands. But we all know how it feels to have your life shaken and the daunting journey of just living through it, just making it to the next day. Harstad describes this more realistically than any other book I've experienced.
Buzz Aldrin, what happened to you in all the confusion? What a perfect title. It gives you just enough to pique your interest while revealing nothing about the story. Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon. Famous runner-up. What happened to you in all the confusion? What happens to someone who does something amazing, world-changing, and is simply seen as the second person to do it?
So I grabbed the book and was even more excited as I read the jacket. Turns out it was written by a highly acclaimed Norwegian author who had finally been translated into English. Yep, this was the book to read.
So the book is not really about space travel at all. It's about a man about to turn 30, Mattias who lives a simple life in a coastal city in Norway. He enjoys working hard and being a cog in the machine (as he puts it). All he wants to do is live a good life and go unnoticed, which is why he idolizes Buzz Aldrin, the little celebrated second man who was actually a better pilot and scientist than Neil Armstrong. Mattias has two best friends, a girlfriend and a job in a garden and could never want anything more. But everything falls apart and he finds himself in a mental health facility in the Faroe Islands.
I won't give you any more of the plot because I hate spoilers but also because it's not important. The quality of this book comes in its structure and flow. It's very postmodern in the way events are presented. Pages and pages are devoted to exact details of everyday life, routines, late-night conversations and long drives. Then life-changing events occur - getting fired, deaths of characters - that receive no more than a paragraph. I don't think this is done just to be subversive. This is a book about mental health, and the slow battle for recovery. It puts us in the head of Mattias and not just because it's written in the first person. But Mattias is depressed and it's written like the narrator is depressed. Days drift on and on, the whole book seems to be described through a haze. Harstad employs a few tricks to do this. The whole book is divided into short sections, each no longer than two pages. Some describe the smallest details and give them the heaviest weight. Other times Mattias will be talking about something mundane and then slip in an observation profound sadness and wisdom. It's always raining or sunless. All of this works together to make the book move in a calming, directionless phase with sudden manic bursts of plot.
This style is not unique to Harstad, it's quite prevalent in literature these days, but this is one of the few books I've read where I felt it served the plot and strengthened the characters instead of just looking and sounding cool. It also made it personally good to read because I could pick it up for a few minutes at a time, read a section, and then go on to something else. Yes this makes me a lazy reader. I'm sorry.
There are a lot of pop culture references in this book. Deep ones and obscure ones. I noticed this when I read a passage, recognized it and had to spend about ten minutes reflecting on where I knew from. It was the note that Kurtz sends home 2/3rds of the way through Apocalypse Now, something I would have never caught if it hadn't watched the movie a week before. This took me aback. I understand the purpose of all the references, to plant Mattias firmly in my fragmented, connected generation, but references this specific it just made me wonder what else was missing.
Mattias is still lovable. His role as a happy also-ran, a devotee of Buzz Aldrin, is something I think we all can relate to. I'm a baseball fan, a Brewers fan, and my favorite player is Craig Counsell, someone who you would never confuse for a superstar. But I can appreciate the virtue of just being a reliable good person who happily does what is asked of him and doesn't ask for anything more. When Mattias has this idea of himself and of life shaken so fundamentally, you feel his pain. You want him to get better.
Ultimately this is a story about healing. About the peaceful monotony of slowly getting better, day to day. Most of us don't have an experience as dramatic as losing everything you love and waking up bloodied in the rain in the middle of a street on the Faroe Islands. But we all know how it feels to have your life shaken and the daunting journey of just living through it, just making it to the next day. Harstad describes this more realistically than any other book I've experienced.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Book Review: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbough
A few weeks ago I was preparing for a trip to Minneapolis which would involve a 6 hour bus ride each way. I love long bus rides because it's a chance to sit and read uninterrupted , but recently my finger has been far from the pulse of the literary world and I had no idea what to take with me. I asked a friend if she had any books to recommend, and she let me borrow "The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach. It appealed to me for three reasons:
1) Harbach has been compared to Michael Chabon, my favorite author
2) Harbach's from Wisconsin and the story is set there
3) It's a book about baseball.
Enough to convince me. So I read it over the course of a few days and loved it and I'm hear to tell you why. All of this occured before I had a blog, before I made the decision to start composing essays about my opinions of books I read. I didn't take any notes while reading, didn't think about what I would say, and it's been almost two weeks since I finished it. So bear that in mind.
As I mentioned, the book is about baseball, but it's not actually about fielding, as the name would imply. It is a fictional account of a college baseball team at the imaginary Westish College in imaginary Westish, WI. I can hear you groaning as you read this, but don't worry. This book's not about the rise and fall of a team, following their tribulations through a championship season that hinges on a single climactic game. It's about five people who are connected through the team, and it focuses on the interweavings of their lives.
The book has no clear protagonist, but it doesn't make a large statement of that fact or treat it like a gimmick. You start following one character, thinking it will be his tale, until another is introduced and suddenly he is the focused. The story bounces around seamlessly from person to person until you reach the end and realize you wouldn't be able to name one person as the main character. This is a structure that's been around for a long time, Harbach didn't invent it, but his use of it is masterly. The story is written in third person, but the narrator seems to change depending on who is the center of attention. Maybe not change so much as change its focus. Details that are important to the narrator when talking about the chancellor's daughter - such as how a dormroom is decorated and what people - aren't as important as during the chancellor's adventures - when suddenly status and intelligence are what defines a person. It's a very subtle distinction that takes you much deeper into the character's lives much quicker.
I realize I jumped right ahead to describing the conceptual and structural strengths of the story without giving a proper plot synopsis. That was because the plot is unimportant. There is no defined conflict that needs to be resolved by the end. This is one of those postmodern novels that focuses on interactions between characters and the minuate of life as years go by. If you like that sort of book, you will like this, if not, you won't. And you don't have to be a fan of baseball to dig it, though basic knowledge is a prerequisite.
I'm not the most keen literary mind, so a lot of my response to a book is on the emotional level. Chances are if I can relate to the plight of the characters I'll be drawn in. This book spoke to me because a lot of the themes resonated. One major focus of the book is how you react when you and your friends work hard towards a common goal, and then they become successful when you don't. In the book it takes the form of teammates having to congratulate each other for their continued success while they themselves fail. As a recent college graduate who hasn't found the success he wished or the success his friends has, this spoke to me. It was good to read about a character living with the same pains and know that at least I'm not making the rash decisions he is. This book spoke to me because I am going through exactly what one character did, but I don't think that means it is exclusively a book that works for me. The characters go through such an array of experiences and problems that I feel someone at any point in life will find something in here.
Perhaps that's the strength of "The Art of Fielding." Harbach speaks about life so accurately and creates situations so human that we all see ourselves in them. I do not recommend this book for anyone seeking escapist literature. You will be confronted with the problems that happen in every day life, and it doesn't all wind up as neat and happy as we would like in our books, but the ride is beautiful and hopefully you can learn from it.
1) Harbach has been compared to Michael Chabon, my favorite author
2) Harbach's from Wisconsin and the story is set there
3) It's a book about baseball.
Enough to convince me. So I read it over the course of a few days and loved it and I'm hear to tell you why. All of this occured before I had a blog, before I made the decision to start composing essays about my opinions of books I read. I didn't take any notes while reading, didn't think about what I would say, and it's been almost two weeks since I finished it. So bear that in mind.
As I mentioned, the book is about baseball, but it's not actually about fielding, as the name would imply. It is a fictional account of a college baseball team at the imaginary Westish College in imaginary Westish, WI. I can hear you groaning as you read this, but don't worry. This book's not about the rise and fall of a team, following their tribulations through a championship season that hinges on a single climactic game. It's about five people who are connected through the team, and it focuses on the interweavings of their lives.
The book has no clear protagonist, but it doesn't make a large statement of that fact or treat it like a gimmick. You start following one character, thinking it will be his tale, until another is introduced and suddenly he is the focused. The story bounces around seamlessly from person to person until you reach the end and realize you wouldn't be able to name one person as the main character. This is a structure that's been around for a long time, Harbach didn't invent it, but his use of it is masterly. The story is written in third person, but the narrator seems to change depending on who is the center of attention. Maybe not change so much as change its focus. Details that are important to the narrator when talking about the chancellor's daughter - such as how a dormroom is decorated and what people - aren't as important as during the chancellor's adventures - when suddenly status and intelligence are what defines a person. It's a very subtle distinction that takes you much deeper into the character's lives much quicker.
I realize I jumped right ahead to describing the conceptual and structural strengths of the story without giving a proper plot synopsis. That was because the plot is unimportant. There is no defined conflict that needs to be resolved by the end. This is one of those postmodern novels that focuses on interactions between characters and the minuate of life as years go by. If you like that sort of book, you will like this, if not, you won't. And you don't have to be a fan of baseball to dig it, though basic knowledge is a prerequisite.
I'm not the most keen literary mind, so a lot of my response to a book is on the emotional level. Chances are if I can relate to the plight of the characters I'll be drawn in. This book spoke to me because a lot of the themes resonated. One major focus of the book is how you react when you and your friends work hard towards a common goal, and then they become successful when you don't. In the book it takes the form of teammates having to congratulate each other for their continued success while they themselves fail. As a recent college graduate who hasn't found the success he wished or the success his friends has, this spoke to me. It was good to read about a character living with the same pains and know that at least I'm not making the rash decisions he is. This book spoke to me because I am going through exactly what one character did, but I don't think that means it is exclusively a book that works for me. The characters go through such an array of experiences and problems that I feel someone at any point in life will find something in here.
Perhaps that's the strength of "The Art of Fielding." Harbach speaks about life so accurately and creates situations so human that we all see ourselves in them. I do not recommend this book for anyone seeking escapist literature. You will be confronted with the problems that happen in every day life, and it doesn't all wind up as neat and happy as we would like in our books, but the ride is beautiful and hopefully you can learn from it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)