Finally, I got to talk my head off about this beautiful, fat book. Here, the first part of my rather long — and incomplete, hur — post: How is everyone? [A perfunctory question. Yes, I am self-involved this holiday season. And frantically tying bloggie loose ends.] Aherm. Last Christmas Eve, if I wasn’t gorging myself with fruitcake or cram-wrapping children’s presents, I was thinking about how I could possiblytalk about [that block of paper on top of that block of wood,] The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. It is very thick, rather yummy, and thus, rather a pain to write about. I finished reading it on the second day of the month, and since then, I’ve been agonizing about how to present a coherent — and not as word-vomit as I could manage — post on the book. My notes, of course, are a mess only I can make sense of, but can’t quite figure out how to share. I think I’ve written a informal book report already. And there is no way I can force that Dorkery on you guys. It’s Christmas-ish, after all. I lay off just a wee bit. Oh, and in case I fail to make it clear: I loved this book. [Although it hasbe said: I will never forgive Franzen for describing somebody’s penis as “a faintly urinary dumpling” — cripes, and I didn’t even have to run to my notes to look up that odious phrase.] Aherm. Yes. Here: And the “here” can be found here: As much as I can allow myself on The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen | Sasha & The Silverfish. Please be the pleasure of yourselves in the post, thank you.
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Finally, I got to talk my head off about this beautiful, fat book. Here, the first part of my rather long — and incomplete, hur — post:

How is everyone? [A perfunctory question. Yes, I am self-involved this holiday season. And frantically tying bloggie loose ends.] Aherm.

Last Christmas Eve, if I wasn’t gorging myself with fruitcake or cram-wrapping children’s presents, I was thinking about how I could possiblytalk about [that block of paper on top of that block of wood,] The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

It is very thick, rather yummy, and thus, rather a pain to write about. I finished reading it on the second day of the month, and since then, I’ve been agonizing about how to present a coherent — and not as word-vomit as I could manage — post on the book. My notes, of course, are a mess only I can make sense of, but can’t quite figure out how to share. I think I’ve written a informal book report already. And there is no way I can force that Dorkery on you guys. It’s Christmas-ish, after all. I lay off just a wee bit.

Oh, and in case I fail to make it clear: I loved this book. [Although it hasbe said: I will never forgive Franzen for describing somebody’s penis as “a faintly urinary dumpling” — cripes, and I didn’t even have to run to my notes to look up that odious phrase.] Aherm. Yes. Here:

And the “here” can be found here: As much as I can allow myself on The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen | Sasha & The Silverfish. Please be the pleasure of yourselves in the post, thank you.

Source: silverfysh.wordpress.com

A theme is surfacing in my reading, in the books I’ve been drawn to lately, those I tend to like: Books whose main characters [usually women] have, uh, questionable sanity. [Don’t judge me.] I had the pleasure of spending several days with Wish Her Safe at Home, byStephen Benatar — an offering from NYRB Classics — and it’s a book that fits the description. Main character a woman of dubious sanity? Check. And, yes, I liked it a lot, and for not entirely objective reasons. Oh, the book was good. But a part of me is disturbed by how much I like Rachel. How much I identify with her. Yikes. As the blurb promises, it’s about a woman, who’s “deliriously happy” not only due to a house she inherits a house from a distant aunt, but also because that’s her nature. The novel details a few choice months in the life of Rachel Waring — happy Rachel, a little too happy sometimes. A neat one-liner about the book would be: A chronicle of Rachel Waring’s ascent [you say descent, I say otherwise] to madness. What impressed me about this novel is how the archetype of the madwoman undergoes a deconstruction through Rachel Waring’s retelling of her own story — and we are witness to this. Is she really mad? Or is this label yet another coercion of society? __________ Excerpted from the full review at the book blog.
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A theme is surfacing in my reading, in the books I’ve been drawn to lately, those I tend to like: Books whose main characters [usually women] have, uh, questionable sanity. [Don’t judge me.] I had the pleasure of spending several days with Wish Her Safe at Home, byStephen Benatar — an offering from NYRB Classics — and it’s a book that fits the description. Main character a woman of dubious sanity? Check. And, yes, I liked it a lot, and for not entirely objective reasons. Oh, the book was good. But a part of me is disturbed by how much I like Rachel. How much I identify with her. Yikes.

As the blurb promises, it’s about a woman, who’s “deliriously happy” not only due to a house she inherits a house from a distant aunt, but also because that’s her nature. The novel details a few choice months in the life of Rachel Waring — happy Rachel, a little too happy sometimes. A neat one-liner about the book would be: A chronicle of Rachel Waring’s ascent [you say descent, I say otherwise] to madness. What impressed me about this novel is how the archetype of the madwoman undergoes a deconstruction through Rachel Waring’s retelling of her own story — and we are witness to this. Is she really mad? Or is this label yet another coercion of society?

__________

Excerpted from the full review at the book blog.

Kasi naman: The narcissistic aspect of a debut novelist having his debut novel revolve around a debut novel is a debatable one; and narcissism itself could be over-intellectualizing what might just be lazy writing. At best, such books would be earnest, occasionally sentimental, reflections on the writing process. Mix it up a little and anchor the narrative with humor; in satire, theoretically, such books could be amusingly self-deprecating, self-aware in the very attempt. Attempt an amalgam of those aspects, and the risks are great, but the pay-off more so. Fail, and it could be disastrous. elsewhere || “A Failed Conceit: How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely,” at POC-Metakritiko « Sasha & The Silverfish
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Kasi naman:

The narcissistic aspect of a debut novelist having his debut novel revolve around a debut novel is a debatable one; and narcissism itself could be over-intellectualizing what might just be lazy writing. At best, such books would be earnest, occasionally sentimental, reflections on the writing process. Mix it up a little and anchor the narrative with humor; in satire, theoretically, such books could be amusingly self-deprecating, self-aware in the very attempt. Attempt an amalgam of those aspects, and the risks are great, but the pay-off more so.

Fail, and it could be disastrous.

elsewhere || “A Failed Conceit: How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely,” at POC-Metakritiko « Sasha & The Silverfish

Source: silverfysh.wordpress.com

Abandoned for now: The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey. This one was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction this year, and I know a lot of you really love the novel — and I know I could love this novel as much. But. We haven’t been getting along. I picked up this book the third week of July, and I am only at the 140th page of this 430-something-pager. I don’t like those numbers. I especially don’t like the fact that I avert my eyes whenever I happen to glance at the spot it takes on my bookshelves. It’s been okay, sprinkled with meh. I’m having a problem with the author’s voice, as well as the language of the storytelling. The dialogue needed getting used to — I tend to not like so much books that spell out dialect [except, of course, if it features a man in a kilt, eherm]. I like the characters, love the relationships that Roffey details, and I’m growing complex feelings about Trinidad, where the book’s set [and isn’t that the point?]. But I’ve been trying to fight the feeling that the actual story is taking place elsewhere. Yes, I’m aware of the form in which Roffey crafted this story — and this risk with the form actually makes me giddy. I guess I mean that the novel refuses to stay with me. Or, rather, it refuses to be with me at all. Augh, I don’t know. I’m at that point in my life — snerk, the drama! Aherm. I don’t have as much free time as I once did, what with the new job and all, and I suppose it’s as good a point as any to learn to set aside some books when the going gets tough. [Yes, I am compulsive book-finisher. I don’t like loose bibliophilic ends.] I can always return to those books later, when I feel like it. And I think I’ll feel like it with Roffey. But right now, no, it’s just not making me happy. I don’t want it to feel like a chore, that I’m just slogging through for the sake of it. Because a part of me still thinks that somewhere in all that Meh is a story, and I do want to get to that. Just not now. So. Until later, Sabine. __________ Crossposted from: marginalia || The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey « Sasha & The Silverfish
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Abandoned for now: The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey. This one was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction this year, and I know a lot of you really love the novel — and I know I could love this novel as much. But. We haven’t been getting along. I picked up this book the third week of July, and I am only at the 140th page of this 430-something-pager. I don’t like those numbers. I especially don’t like the fact that I avert my eyes whenever I happen to glance at the spot it takes on my bookshelves.

It’s been okay, sprinkled with meh. I’m having a problem with the author’s voice, as well as the language of the storytelling. The dialogue needed getting used to — I tend to not like so much books that spell out dialect [except, of course, if it features a man in a kilt, eherm]. I like the characters, love the relationships that Roffey details, and I’m growing complex feelings about Trinidad, where the book’s set [and isn’t that the point?]. But I’ve been trying to fight the feeling that the actual story is taking place elsewhere. Yes, I’m aware of the form in which Roffey crafted this story — and this risk with the form actually makes me giddy. I guess I mean that the novel refuses to stay with me. Or, rather, it refuses to be with me at all. Augh, I don’t know.

I’m at that point in my life — snerk, the drama! Aherm. I don’t have as much free time as I once did, what with the new job and all, and I suppose it’s as good a point as any to learn to set aside some books when the going gets tough. [Yes, I am compulsive book-finisher. I don’t like loose bibliophilic ends.] I can always return to those books later, when I feel like it. And I think I’ll feel like it with Roffey. But right now, no, it’s just not making me happy. I don’t want it to feel like a chore, that I’m just slogging through for the sake of it. Because a part of me still thinks that somewhere in all that Meh is a story, and I do want to get to that.

Just not now. So. Until later, Sabine.

__________

Crossposted from: marginalia || The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey « Sasha & The Silverfish

Source: silverfysh.wordpress.com

There’s always something infinitely satisfying about books that take risks. Most especially when those books are good. How to balance subject matter or form or technique and the reader it must lead to? How to fine-tune that balance between craft and the artist’s intentions? How to ruffle the bejeebies of a person, and still have her, at the book’s close, go Wow, what just happened to me, do it again, please? And how, dear god, how, to accomplish all that in just a teensy bit over a hundred pages? How does it even work, really? In Véronique Olmi’s slim and tidy and terrifyingly affective book,Beside the Sea, risks come by the bucketful. Its very premise gives you a glimmer of those risks — a mother brings her two sons beside the sea, but you just know all is not well. The novella begins with We took the bus, the last bus of the evening, so no one would see us. Quite mundane, really. The mother is bringing her children out to see the sea. But I’ve always believed that in shorter fiction, the dictum of Every Word Matters is even more pressing: You have a hundred pages to make your story matter; you do not dilly-dally. In Olmi’s novella, we are hooked, then strung along, from that very first line. __________ Excerpted from the full review at marginalia || Beside the Sea, by Véronique Olmi; translated by Adriana Hunter « Sasha & The Silverfish
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There’s always something infinitely satisfying about books that take risks. Most especially when those books are good. How to balance subject matter or form or technique and the reader it must lead to? How to fine-tune that balance between craft and the artist’s intentions? How to ruffle the bejeebies of a person, and still have her, at the book’s close, go Wow, what just happened to me, do it again, please? And how, dear god, how, to accomplish all that in just a teensy bit over a hundred pages?

How does it even work, really?

In Véronique Olmi’s slim and tidy and terrifyingly affective book,Beside the Sea, risks come by the bucketful. Its very premise gives you a glimmer of those risks — a mother brings her two sons beside the sea, but you just know all is not well. The novella begins with We took the bus, the last bus of the evening, so no one would see us. Quite mundane, really. The mother is bringing her children out to see the sea.

But I’ve always believed that in shorter fiction, the dictum of Every Word Matters is even more pressing: You have a hundred pages to make your story matter; you do not dilly-dally. In Olmi’s novella, we are hooked, then strung along, from that very first line.

__________

Excerpted from the full review at marginalia || Beside the Sea, by Véronique Olmi; translated by Adriana Hunter « Sasha & The Silverfish

Source: silverfysh.wordpress.com

My review of Simon Van Booy’s lovely short story collection,The Secret Lives of People in Love, is up on The Philippine Online Chronicles. [For the record, Mr. Van Booy, I would’ve killed for that title.] A snippet from the review: Though the nineteen short stories revolve around love and its many forms, it is “secret” that is the operative word. Defining events in the characters’ lives are mentioned, hinted at, but rarely revealed, almost never elaborated on, although those secrets reverberate throughout the characters’ lives – death, divorces, accidents, disappearances, even origins. It takes guts, especially when common thought bids a writer to ease the reader into the story, to get on the reader’s good side by offering him glimpses of lives. In this collection, Van Booy has taken Anne Sexton’s words to heart – “Tell almost the whole story” – and has elevated it. Let me give you a spoiler of the review: I loved this book, to itty bits and pieces. There’s just something so unabashedly earnest about the entire thing. And yes, forgive me, heartbreaking. How does one react to lines like, My wife is deaf. Once she asked me if snow made a sound when it fell and I lied. We have been married twelve years today, and I am leaving her, which hits you at the beginning of a story? Or something like, I want to feel it somehow happened like that because things happen for a reason. I want to believe this more than anything because if it were just an accident, then God must have died before he could finish the world. Oh, my heart. [Also, Simon Van Booy is cute.] Aherm. If you’re partial to reviews that tell you the reviewer liked the book, without the reviewer having to resort to phrases like “itty bits and pieces,” and calling the author — for shame! — cute, then I suggest y’all head on over there. Please and thank you! __________ Cross-posted from zee book blog.
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My review of Simon Van Booy’s lovely short story collection,The Secret Lives of People in Love, is up on The Philippine Online Chronicles. [For the record, Mr. Van Booy, I would’ve killed for that title.] A snippet from the review:

Though the nineteen short stories revolve around love and its many forms, it is “secret” that is the operative word. Defining events in the characters’ lives are mentioned, hinted at, but rarely revealed, almost never elaborated on, although those secrets reverberate throughout the characters’ lives – death, divorces, accidents, disappearances, even origins. It takes guts, especially when common thought bids a writer to ease the reader into the story, to get on the reader’s good side by offering him glimpses of lives. In this collection, Van Booy has taken Anne Sexton’s words to heart – “Tell almost the whole story” – and has elevated it.

Let me give you a spoiler of the review: I loved this book, to itty bits and pieces. There’s just something so unabashedly earnest about the entire thing. And yes, forgive me, heartbreaking. How does one react to lines like, My wife is deaf. Once she asked me if snow made a sound when it fell and I lied. We have been married twelve years today, and I am leaving her, which hits you at the beginning of a story? Or something like, I want to feel it somehow happened like that because things happen for a reason. I want to believe this more than anything because if it were just an accident, then God must have died before he could finish the world. Oh, my heart. [Also, Simon Van Booy is cute.]

Aherm. If you’re partial to reviews that tell you the reviewer liked the book, without the reviewer having to resort to phrases like “itty bits and pieces,” and calling the author — for shame! — cute, then I suggest y’all head on over there. Please and thank you!

__________

Cross-posted from zee book blog.

Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn’t the world, it wasn’t the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don’t know, but it’s so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. I want to quote the entirety of Jonathan Safran Foer‘s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Yes, it is a difficult book to write about, to talk about — Having read it, feeling the need to speak about it in any way one can: The recourse is to tell as many people as possible, “Please read this book.” So, well, I won’t even try, not now. I won’t even try, beyond: It was AwesomeSauce. And, of course, “Please read this book.” I am opening my left hand: YES. That is all for now. __________ Cross-posted from the book blog.
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Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn’t the world, it wasn’t the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don’t know, but it’s so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.

I want to quote the entirety of Jonathan Safran Foer‘s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Yes, it is a difficult book to write about, to talk about — Having read it, feeling the need to speak about it in any way one can: The recourse is to tell as many people as possible, “Please read this book.” So, well, I won’t even try, not now. I won’t even try, beyond: It was AwesomeSauce. And, of course, “Please read this book.”

I am opening my left hand: YES. That is all for now.

__________

Cross-posted from the book blog.

It took a fourteen-hour power outage for me to finish reading Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky [translated from the French bySandra Smith]. It’s not that I struggled with the novel. It’s just that I wanted to take it slow. Or rather, it told me to take it slow. The novel’s just so lush and detailed and vibrant — and all those words that denote yumminess — that it kept telling me to just chill with it, to savor. With sentences like He had kissed her as if he were bringing a glass of cool water to his lips and The tender June day persisted, refusing to die — this is language you are compelled to bask in [many thanks to the translator!]. I was; I’d been reading this one for weeks now, until a storm had me sit down with it until I was compelled to finish it. __________ I got a widdle excited, this could flood your Dashboard. So. Full review over at ze book blog, or just clickie the picture, if ye’re so inclined.
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It took a fourteen-hour power outage for me to finish reading Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky [translated from the French bySandra Smith]. It’s not that I struggled with the novel. It’s just that I wanted to take it slow. Or rather, it told me to take it slow. The novel’s just so lush and detailed and vibrant — and all those words that denote yumminess — that it kept telling me to just chill with it, to savor. With sentences like He had kissed her as if he were bringing a glass of cool water to his lips and The tender June day persisted, refusing to die — this is language you are compelled to bask in [many thanks to the translator!]. I was; I’d been reading this one for weeks now, until a storm had me sit down with it until I was compelled to finish it.

__________

I got a widdle excited, this could flood your Dashboard. So. Full review over at ze book blog, or just clickie the picture, if ye’re so inclined.

  My review of NYRB Classics’ Asleep in the Sun, novel of Adolfo Bioy Casares, is up on Metakritiko of The Philippine Online Chronicles. Casares’ slim novel is only my second NYRB read, and it sort of fell on my lap on BookSale spelunking — I think I hurt the guy beside me reaching for this book. Here’s a snippet: Doppelgängers, body doubles, body snatchers. They’re icing on the cake. It’s Lucio’s perceptions that make the theme-tackling honest. While his wife stayed in the asylum, her jealous and man-hungry sister, Adriana María, moves into the house with her son. What ensues is a rather bewildering seduction — mostly because Lucio is so immune to it due to his absolute love for Diana. But then, but then: One night, missing his wife so much, he comes home, and thinks he sees Diana. But it is only Adriana María — the sisters look so much alike, it’s almost only a difference in hair color, a difference nullified by nighttime. And Lucio thinks this through, so shaken he is by this slight against Diana — how could he mistake anyone for her? Is she just her hair, or even less, the wave of her hair on her shoudlers, and the shape of her body and the way she sits? I enjoyed the book; it didn’t knock my socks off, but I was very satisfied. It was good, a little surreal, unexpectedly sensitive. And funny, yes. What flaws I found had little to do with the story itself — my biggest gripe was the jacket copy, which threatened to leech all possible enjoyment from the experience. [I elaborate on this over at the review]. It’s a good teaser for Casares’ work — I’m dying to read his The Invention of Morel. Though I doubt that that book will fall onto my lap as easily as this one did. Oh well. __________ Cross-posted from the book blog.
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My review of NYRB Classics’ Asleep in the Sun, novel of Adolfo Bioy Casares, is up on Metakritiko of The Philippine Online Chronicles. Casares’ slim novel is only my second NYRB read, and it sort of fell on my lap on BookSale spelunking — I think I hurt the guy beside me reaching for this book. Here’s a snippet:

Doppelgängers, body doubles, body snatchers. They’re icing on the cake. It’s Lucio’s perceptions that make the theme-tackling honest. While his wife stayed in the asylum, her jealous and man-hungry sister, Adriana María, moves into the house with her son. What ensues is a rather bewildering seduction — mostly because Lucio is so immune to it due to his absolute love for Diana. But then, but then: One night, missing his wife so much, he comes home, and thinks he sees Diana. But it is only Adriana María — the sisters look so much alike, it’s almost only a difference in hair color, a difference nullified by nighttime. And Lucio thinks this through, so shaken he is by this slight against Diana — how could he mistake anyone for her? Is she just her hair, or even less, the wave of her hair on her shoudlers, and the shape of her body and the way she sits?

I enjoyed the book; it didn’t knock my socks off, but I was very satisfied. It was good, a little surreal, unexpectedly sensitive. And funny, yes. What flaws I found had little to do with the story itself — my biggest gripe was the jacket copy, which threatened to leech all possible enjoyment from the experience. [I elaborate on this over at the review]. It’s a good teaser for Casares’ work — I’m dying to read his The Invention of Morel. Though I doubt that that book will fall onto my lap as easily as this one did. Oh well.

__________

Cross-posted from the book blog.

  Lydia Davis and I meet again. I have been reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, and just recently finished with Almost No Memory. I reviewed her first short story collection, Break It Down, and I’ll mostly echo what I wrote there. Yeah. Meaning, Nothing much this time around. Especially when it comes to form, Davis’ 1997 collection is not that different than 1986 one — short, concise, a little cryptic, a little pun-totally-intended. Occasionally, though, in Memory, Davis hits the spot — stories that make you gasp. Stories that make you go, Oh god, I think she’s talking about me. But. Very, very, very occasionally. Inconsistency, yes. [9 gasp-worthy stories over 51 in all ain’t a good statistic.] A little laziness, too — that This will do feel to some of the stories, especially the wordplay-concentrated ones. Maybe it’s a matter of taste? Then again, I know that I can freely say, “Man, this was a disappointing collection,” because I was much more fulfilled with her first one. Memory is uneven, I suppose. Uneven and a little too self-involved. And even though that uneven-ness was its greatest failing for me, I find the self-involvement fascinating. Speculating on how personal things could be for writers always gives me the fuzzies. Again: Maybe it’s a matter of taste. Case in point: One of the stories I like best was “Wife One in Country.” One of her trademark short short stories, almost a list, an enumeration. A simple take-you-through-the-scene. And I liked it because the conciseness worked for what Davis wanted to put forth. Wife one calls to speak to son. Wife two answers with impatience, gives phone to son of wife one. Son has heard impatience in voice of wife two and tells mother he thought caller was father’s sister: raging aunt, constant caller, troublesome woman. Wife one wonders: is she perhaps another raging woman, constant caller? No, raging woman but not constant caller. Though, for wife two, also troublesome woman. And it ends, about two hundred words later with: Pain increases in wife one, wife one swallows food, swallows pain, swallows food again, swallows pain again, swallows food again. It’s a forgivable selfishness: I could feel Davis pouring chunks of her life into her fiction. And there’s a plain-spoken quality to those stories, an announcement: This is what I am feeling right now, and yes, I feel like shit. In these stories, I found the prose more fluid. More honest, I guess. I know I’m projecting. I know I’m honing into that inevitable nugget of autobiography in fiction, and blowing it up. But I like it. I like those parts best. … __________ Full review over at the book blog.
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Lydia Davis and I meet again. I have been reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, and just recently finished with Almost No Memory. I reviewed her first short story collection, Break It Down, and I’ll mostly echo what I wrote there. Yeah. Meaning, Nothing much this time around. Especially when it comes to form, Davis’ 1997 collection is not that different than 1986 one — short, concise, a little cryptic, a little pun-totally-intended. Occasionally, though, in Memory, Davis hits the spot — stories that make you gasp. Stories that make you go, Oh god, I think she’s talking about me. But. Very, very, very occasionally. Inconsistency, yes. [9 gasp-worthy stories over 51 in all ain’t a good statistic.] A little laziness, too — that This will do feel to some of the stories, especially the wordplay-concentrated ones.

Maybe it’s a matter of taste? Then again, I know that I can freely say, “Man, this was a disappointing collection,” because I was much more fulfilled with her first one. Memory is uneven, I suppose. Uneven and a little too self-involved. And even though that uneven-ness was its greatest failing for me, I find the self-involvement fascinating. Speculating on how personal things could be for writers always gives me the fuzzies. Again: Maybe it’s a matter of taste.

Case in point: One of the stories I like best was “Wife One in Country.” One of her trademark short short stories, almost a list, an enumeration. A simple take-you-through-the-scene. And I liked it because the conciseness worked for what Davis wanted to put forth.

Wife one calls to speak to son. Wife two answers with impatience, gives phone to son of wife one. Son has heard impatience in voice of wife two and tells mother he thought caller was father’s sister: raging aunt, constant caller, troublesome woman. Wife one wonders: is she perhaps another raging woman, constant caller? No, raging woman but not constant caller. Though, for wife two, also troublesome woman.

And it ends, about two hundred words later with:

Pain increases in wife one, wife one swallows food, swallows pain, swallows food again, swallows pain again, swallows food again.

It’s a forgivable selfishness: I could feel Davis pouring chunks of her life into her fiction. And there’s a plain-spoken quality to those stories, an announcement: This is what I am feeling right now, and yes, I feel like shit. In these stories, I found the prose more fluid. More honest, I guess. I know I’m projecting. I know I’m honing into that inevitable nugget of autobiography in fiction, and blowing it up. But I like it. I like those parts best.

…

__________

Full review over at the book blog.

When it’s a case of [Bibliophilic] It’s Not You, It’s Me. I found a copy of Samantha Hunt‘s novel, The Invention of Everything Else, and bought it because a] I like the title, b] Hunt was part of The Millions’ “20 More Under 40” — that article calledInvention “a fabulist meditation on Nikola Tesla.” “Sir, I was wondering, how did you steal the electricity yesterday?” He smiles at the very mention of it, color comes to his cheeks, electricity makes him blush. “Steal?” he asks. “I didn’t steal it, dear.” He steps closer to Louisa so that she is forced out into the hallway. “It was always mine,” he says and shuts the door between them. Now that’s a chapter-power-ending. Note that almost every chapter in Hunt’s novel ends with this kind of stare-off-into-space bang. It can be amusing. Occasionally, rewarding [as I found the quote above], since I found Hunt’s prose fluid enough, with touches of whimsy here and there. The is a fabulist meditation on Nikola Tesla — essentially an outcast in the world he [arguably] made better, living in abject poverty in a hotel whose room he has long since stopped paying for. He meets Louisa, a snooping chambermaid with secrets and stories of her own. The narrative jumps from Louisa’s point of view, some meta-stuff, some friends, and [my favorites] Tesla’s own meditations. Charting the key points of Tesla’s life, and stuffing a lot of, well, inventiveness in the hints of magical realism, sentimentality, and low-key sci-fi, it could’ve been awesome novel. Discarded and broken as an old dust rag in the rubble of the street, I gave over to complete breakdown, though not without first registering the last thoughts that crossed my mind just before the flood of consciousness. The first: there is tremendous potential energy in sound waves. The second: if I am to be an inventor I must never fall in love. But I wasn’t paying attention. I liked what I found well enough, but I was too distracted: Mostly, I couldn’t get into the story. I don’t know why. I loved Tesla’s character — and thanks to The Prestige, Tesla has forever been printed onto my consciousness as David Bowie, and that is nothing but awesomesauce. I liked Louisa too, though I was aware that most of the time, she was a foil. And that no matter how compelling her own issues may have been, I liked Tesla’s issues more. My interest kept flagging. I skimmed — looking for Tesla, really. Eventually I skipped to the end. Shrugged. The book has some good language, regardless of those easy shots [aforementioned chapter-power-endings]. But we just didn’t jive, this book and I. Maybe it was the wrong read at the wrong time. Maybe it’s just me. Le sigh. So, no, nothing to see here, folks. Move along. __________ Cross-posted from ze book blog.
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When it’s a case of [Bibliophilic] It’s Not You, It’s Me. I found a copy of Samantha Hunt‘s novel, The Invention of Everything Else, and bought it because a] I like the title, b] Hunt was part of The Millions’ “20 More Under 40” — that article calledInvention “a fabulist meditation on Nikola Tesla.”

“Sir, I was wondering, how did you steal the electricity yesterday?”

He smiles at the very mention of it, color comes to his cheeks, electricity makes him blush. “Steal?” he asks. “I didn’t steal it, dear.” He steps closer to Louisa so that she is forced out into the hallway. “It was always mine,” he says and shuts the door between them.

Now that’s a chapter-power-ending. Note that almost every chapter in Hunt’s novel ends with this kind of stare-off-into-space bang. It can be amusing. Occasionally, rewarding [as I found the quote above], since I found Hunt’s prose fluid enough, with touches of whimsy here and there. The is a fabulist meditation on Nikola Tesla — essentially an outcast in the world he [arguably] made better, living in abject poverty in a hotel whose room he has long since stopped paying for. He meets Louisa, a snooping chambermaid with secrets and stories of her own. The narrative jumps from Louisa’s point of view, some meta-stuff, some friends, and [my favorites] Tesla’s own meditations. Charting the key points of Tesla’s life, and stuffing a lot of, well, inventiveness in the hints of magical realism, sentimentality, and low-key sci-fi, it could’ve been awesome novel.

Discarded and broken as an old dust rag in the rubble of the street, I gave over to complete breakdown, though not without first registering the last thoughts that crossed my mind just before the flood of consciousness. The first: there is tremendous potential energy in sound waves. The second: if I am to be an inventor I must never fall in love.

But I wasn’t paying attention. I liked what I found well enough, but I was too distracted: Mostly, I couldn’t get into the story. I don’t know why. I loved Tesla’s character — and thanks to The Prestige, Tesla has forever been printed onto my consciousness as David Bowie, and that is nothing but awesomesauce. I liked Louisa too, though I was aware that most of the time, she was a foil. And that no matter how compelling her own issues may have been, I liked Tesla’s issues more.

My interest kept flagging. I skimmed — looking for Tesla, really. Eventually I skipped to the end. Shrugged. The book has some good language, regardless of those easy shots [aforementioned chapter-power-endings]. But we just didn’t jive, this book and I. Maybe it was the wrong read at the wrong time. Maybe it’s just me. Le sigh. So, no, nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

__________

Cross-posted from ze book blog.

The farther I get from the moment I closed this book, the more it resonates. I could go back and leaf through the pages, look at the pages and passages that I’ve marked, and I am immediately brought back. And scenes change the more I read them. And, oddly, the scenes are more vivid in this revisiting. [A collaborative, interactive dimension to this particular reading experience that I hadn’t foreseen.] And sometimes, well, I’d just be minding my own business, and Nick Carraway’s words would filter in, or I’d see Daisy’s face in profile, and (weirdly) Gatsby’s shoulders. It doesn’t take much to figure out that, hey, I love F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby. I loved it while I was reading it, and I now love it more because it sneaks up on me and just wrenches me. It could be read as a novel of class, of how the roaring 20s — the Jazz Age, as Fitzgerald himself coined so — lived glamor, and especially anomie; ridiculously wealthy people with attitude problems and an atrocious lack of child-rearing abilities. Likable or not, these was how people lived then, at least this was how Nick Carraway showed us. In Matthew J. Bruccoli’s introduction to the “authorized” text, he writes: “The Great Gatsby does not proclaim the nobility of the human spirit; it is not politically correct; it does not reveal how to solve the problems of life; it delivers no fashionable or comforting messages. It is just a masterpiece.” And in my experience, I treated it as a masterpiece because of how Gatsby’s relationship with his ennui-stricken, much-married-to-a-douche Daisy exists, struggles, in this context. [How could I resist?] He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs. And even then, it was not so much the love story of Gatsby and Daisy, but, well, primarily, Gatsby’s overwhelming [at times, misguided] love for Daisy. He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously — eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand. The kind of love that made me go, eventually, “C’mere, Gatsby, I’ll love you the way you want.” Creepy, I know. I was taken by how earnest Gatsby was, how fully in love he’d decided to be, no matter the consequences, no matter what lengths he had to take to convey that love. Imagine him holding extravagant parties, just in the hopes that his Daisy would wander in, intrigued by the noise and the bright lights. How tightly he held on to the past, and to the hope that the future would continue in the same vein. As I went over to say goodbye I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man stores up in his ghostly heart. As Carraway himself shouted to Gatsby across that ever-present yard:They’re a rotten crowd … You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together. I wholeheartedly agree. I could inflict violence on aforementioned rotten crowd, and I’ll be all-too-willing to whisk Jay Gatsby away. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… . And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past. Beautiful book, one difficult to write about. It just is, for me — this is how I can talk about right now. [Oh, affect, I like you.] We clicked, this book and I. And, well, I’ll just let it soak some more. ________ Cross-posted from ze book blog.
View Separately

The farther I get from the moment I closed this book, the more it resonates. I could go back and leaf through the pages, look at the pages and passages that I’ve marked, and I am immediately brought back. And scenes change the more I read them. And, oddly, the scenes are more vivid in this revisiting. [A collaborative, interactive dimension to this particular reading experience that I hadn’t foreseen.] And sometimes, well, I’d just be minding my own business, and Nick Carraway’s words would filter in, or I’d see Daisy’s face in profile, and (weirdly) Gatsby’s shoulders.

It doesn’t take much to figure out that, hey, I love F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby. I loved it while I was reading it, and I now love it more because it sneaks up on me and just wrenches me.

It could be read as a novel of class, of how the roaring 20s — the Jazz Age, as Fitzgerald himself coined so — lived glamor, and especially anomie; ridiculously wealthy people with attitude problems and an atrocious lack of child-rearing abilities. Likable or not, these was how people lived then, at least this was how Nick Carraway showed us. In Matthew J. Bruccoli’s introduction to the “authorized” text, he writes: “The Great Gatsby does not proclaim the nobility of the human spirit; it is not politically correct; it does not reveal how to solve the problems of life; it delivers no fashionable or comforting messages. It is just a masterpiece.” And in my experience, I treated it as a masterpiece because of how Gatsby’s relationship with his ennui-stricken, much-married-to-a-douche Daisy exists, struggles, in this context. [How could I resist?]

He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.

And even then, it was not so much the love story of Gatsby and Daisy, but, well, primarily, Gatsby’s overwhelming [at times, misguided] love for Daisy.

He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously — eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.

The kind of love that made me go, eventually, “C’mere, Gatsby, I’ll love you the way you want.” Creepy, I know. I was taken by how earnest Gatsby was, how fully in love he’d decided to be, no matter the consequences, no matter what lengths he had to take to convey that love. Imagine him holding extravagant parties, just in the hopes that his Daisy would wander in, intrigued by the noise and the bright lights. How tightly he held on to the past, and to the hope that the future would continue in the same vein.

As I went over to say goodbye I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man stores up in his ghostly heart.

As Carraway himself shouted to Gatsby across that ever-present yard:They’re a rotten crowd … You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together. I wholeheartedly agree. I could inflict violence on aforementioned rotten crowd, and I’ll be all-too-willing to whisk Jay Gatsby away.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… . And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.

Beautiful book, one difficult to write about. It just is, for me — this is how I can talk about right now. [Oh, affect, I like you.] We clicked, this book and I. And, well, I’ll just let it soak some more.

________

Cross-posted from ze book blog.