Fops, orphans, and a mannish lady lawyer, Part I Monday, Sep 29 2008

 

I checked this book out from the library because the back of the book promised a “mannish lady lawyer” named Sally Brass.  Awesome, right? I feel like Dickens exercised a lot of self-restraint in not naming her “Sally Brass Balls” or something.  And since she is kind of a literary mentor for me, obviously, it’s good to know that a lady’s practice of law leads to messy hair (check), spinsterdom and all manner of unfeminine behavior.  Good to know.  

The back of the book also refers, somewhat apologetically, to the “sentimentality” and “pathos” in its portrayal of the usual angelic orphans, which is semi-ludicrous…I think sentimentality and pathos, along with angelic orphans, mannish lady lawyers, gambling addicts, etc etc, are really what you want from a Dickens novel. What did the back of the book expect, Hemingway? 

This book is also notable for the character of Quilp, a malevolent, wife-beating (or just verbal abuser? it’s unclear), evil mastermind of a moneylender who also happens to be a dwarf (stay klassy, Dickens!) and likes to perch on the backs of chairs, rubbing his hands together and laughing evilly over other peoples’ financial ruin.

So, yeah, I like this book so far, but am only halfway through.  To be continued.

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Mysterious strangers and flesh-eating evangelicals Sunday, Sep 7 2008

There is a new(ish) Tales of the City book, & I’m trying to get caught up before I read it.  I got a few pages into this one and realized that I’d already read it but no matter; it’s always a pleasure to spend a few bus rides with Mr. Armistead Maupin.  

Now, all of the Tales books are a little on the soap opera-ish side and I do treasure that about them, but this was even a little more campy than most, what with Michael developing some kind of paralysis that reminded me of the unpronouncable fake illness that plagued Pamela on Dallas, amnesia, mysteriously appearing and disappearing relatives, and so on.  

 

Actually, now that I think of it, that is all par for the course with these books (I just remembered the one where Jim Jones turns out to be alive and living in Golden Gate Park, and then gets murdered and buried in someone’s backyard), and I love it.  

Another thing this book has going for it: the appearance of punk rock kids! Including some sort of punk rock hired assassin 14-year-old named Douchebag, who likes to stick bubble gum up her nose.  Ah, the gritty realism.

These books rule. Now, in the spirit of maudlin twists of fate and paeans to a city from long ago, I am reading some Dickens.

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Absurdistan is so hot right now. Sunday, Mar 9 2008

I loved his earlier work, A Russian Debutante’s Handbook, and one of the best jokes in this book is the irritating rival, Gary Schteynfarb, and his much ballyhooed debut novel, A Russian Arriviste’s Handjob.

Handbook was so hilarious because of his incredibly accurate rendering of every detail of pampered academic life and pampered hipster in New York life,etc. There is definitely a little of this in Absurdistan (notably when he gets hilariously nostalgic for trendy food), but what was a little hard for me to take at first was that he applies this same precise recall to all the Russian literary greats.

I don’t know why this bothered me so much initally, but at first it seemed really pretentious, like he was waving his hand in the air and yelling “Hey, teacher, I know this one! It’s a reference Gogol/Turgenev/Doestoevsky/Chekhov/Tolstoy” etc etc. But then I mellowed out and decided it was a loving homage and, anyway, those guys are really an underutilized goldmine of crazy melodrama and reversals of fortune, the likes of Aaron Spelling. (I myself have had many daydreams of soap opera adaptations of Russian literature, although it would be hard to top that Brothers Karamazov movie starring Yul Brynner as Dmitri — awesome!)

In the end, I really enjoyed Absurdistan, and enjoyed the little Cliff’s Notes refresher of books I enjoyed when I was a deeper, more contemplative, more literary person. My only complaint is: everyone knows that any self-respecting Russian drunken spree, of which there are many in Absurdistan, involves gypsies. You are supposed to cash your entire paycheck, buy some huge amount of booze, and then decamp to a nearby gypsy camp to party until you run out of adult beverages. Where were the gypsies in Absurdistan?

This lapse brings its grade from an A down to a B+.

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Postwar Bohemians and the Women Who Love Them Sunday, Feb 24 2008

One time I was watching an episode of Gilmore Girls and Lane said “Rory, what are you reading?” and Rory said “Dawn Powell — I heard Dorothy Parker stole all her material from her” and Lane said “Blasphemy!”

I am with Lane on this one. Powell is very much a poor man’s Dorothy Parker. She is similarly acerbic and has a similarly tooth-and-claw attitude towards dating. But, and this is the downfall of many satirical books, every single character in “The Locusts Have No King” is so much of a caricature that it is impossible to care what happens to them. (For all my trash talking about short stories, I think Parker — whom I adore — dodges this bullet by keeping her stories very short. You can only keep up the meanness for so long before it gets boring.)

This book is, however, an interesting slice of life in New York City immediately after World War II. The soldiers come home to a huge housing shortage and to a workforce that’s been filled with women while they were gone. (The attitude towards working women is fascinating, and a little creepy.) And it is definitely a different, and more caustic, view of the 1950s than usual.

In sum, I give this book a C+. Fine if you are on an airplane or something. Not below average, but not really above average, aside from a few above-average witticisms. This book is kind of the Debutante Divorcee of its time.

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Heartbreak of the Superrich, Part I Sunday, Feb 24 2008

This book is by one of those Vogue writers who update us every month on the latest bikini waxing trends and which $15,000.00 Hermes bag we should get on the waiting list to buy, all in this breathless, faux fish-out-of-water tone that gets a little grating when you realize you read one of these articles every month.

I love the title of this book: The Debutante Divorcee. It is a chick lit book about divorce among very rich housewives in New York; its premise is basically that being divorced from a very rich man is even more fun than being married to one. I like reading about rich people. I think everyone does. It’s soothing.

I was sort of disappointed that this book was not trashy enough. Our ingenue of a heroine never even gets divorced! And the main debutante divorcee in the book — who seemed sort of exciting and Dynasty-esque in the begininning — turns out to have a heart of gold as well. I thought that romance novels were supposed to be cheesy and melodramatic! I am no expert, I guess. But I would have enjoyed a little more Aaron Spelling-style (“No man takes me to bed and the cleaners in the same day!”) dialogue.

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Absinthe, election stealing, and newspaper barons Sunday, Nov 18 2007

I am still totally obsessed with the razzle dazzle,** as discussed in my last post, but am trying to move beyond cocktails to discuss other literary aspects of “1876.”

I adore the Empire series so far, as I am sure I have mentioned before. This is the third in the series. First, there was “Burr,” which is awesome. The chief’s review of this book is forthcoming.

Second, “Lincoln,” which is good in a different way but is much drier and less dishy than “Burr.” Also, I got bored with all the military strategy, but I understand that Gore Vidal, not to mention every other member of the less fair sex, likes that sort of thing.

“1876″ is fun because it takes place in an era I don’t know much about. Also, it reintroduces Charlie Schuyler, the (fictional) narrator of Burr, only now he is kind of a debauched old man. There is a ton of political scheming, and we meet the Sanfords (also fictional), who will turn out to be important in “Washington D.C.” K., if you are getting bored of “Lincoln,” I recommend just skipping ahead to this book. And then we can have an early-American cocktail party — I mean, book club meeting –to discuss.

**I hear that absinthe is accessible over the Internet, even if its legality and historical accuracy are questionable. If anyone wants to explore early American cocktail history with me, we can do further research on the subject.

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One City, One Book: Your mom’s book club edition Sunday, Oct 14 2007

This whole book club phenomenon is interesting. On the one hand, I feel like Oprah’s Book Club has greatly improved the quality of books you can find at the airport or a bad book store and has gotten me out of many a tight spot, like receptionist jobs where I would finish my book by lunchtime and be faced with an entire afternoon of playing solitaire.

Also, I love the lists of questions they have started putting at the end of these books, such as: “Elisabeth called all her descendents to her bedside when she knew she was dying. What were the long-term repercussions of this act for her family?” This brings back fond memories for me of the Great Books program in my elementary school, whose point I never really understood but was a great way to get out of class and spend the afternoon windbagging about some silly Ray Bradbury story.

On the other hand, I think maybe it leads to books that are better understood as  conversation starters for your afternoon scrapbooking session than as, I don’t know, books. Take Cane River. Written by “a former vice president of Sun Microsystems to immerse herself in family history” via a UC Berkeley Extension writing class (rad!), this book traces the author’s family origins from slavery in Creole Louisiana to relative prosperity in 1930s Louisiana.

You can tell it is meticulously researched, and she found great records, from a written family history to tons of court records to a series of newspaper articles about the murder of someone in the family. I would be much more interested in reading about that process from a first-person perspective than in the awkward narrative she constructs from it. I think that this might, however, have been a marketing decision, based on the many, many book clubs (including Oprah and One City One Book) that probably prefer the novel format.

Personally, I think that slapping a treacly narrative on top of Tadeny’s meticulous research robs this story of its inherently good qualities. And as one alumnus of the UC Berkeley Extension to another, I have a tiny word of advice for you: Sentences like “The day was cold and foggy, like his spirits” should be avoided, if possible. For more information, I recommend the the Extension’s copy editing certification series of classes.

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Entertainingly, Semi-Frustratingly … Adverbs Sunday, Sep 30 2007

I am rooting for Daniel Handler because: (1) he lives in San Francisco, (2) I adore the name Lemony Snicket, and (3) I have read hilarious little snippets from/interviews with him in the Media.

This is a book for grown-ups, unlike the famous Series of Unfortunate Events. And I am somewhat reluctant to call it a novel because for me it never really coalesced into a coherent whole — it was more like a series of short stories about people with the same names. The theme, also, was something cheesy like: That’s How Love Is. Now, Mr. Handler/Snicket, I am sure that the author of last month’s hilarious piece in Ready Made — an article about redecorating one’s fridge that made me laugh out loud — could come up with something better or more interesting than that. Or am I just totally insensitive and unromantic, as usual?

This was too uneven to be an especially good book. Parts of of it, however, are very good and most of it is fun, which all in all is more important than consistency or coherence in my book. I hope Mr. Handler/Snicket keeps cranking out the books because I am sure one of them will be excellent. I have now resolved to read the Lemony Snicket books.

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One City, One Boring Book Monday, Sep 3 2007

As I mentioned, I love the idea of the One City, One Book program, even though I am sure it will lead to lots of strange conversations with my fellow crackpots on Muni who are reading the same book. (This can’t be worse than what happens when you read any Pynchon book on Muni — strange old men coming up to you and mumbling about crocodiles in the sewers and postal service through dumpsters etc. etc.) I mainly read this book on Caltrain, so there was not much community bonding.

Unfortunately, this is classic New Yorker/MFA literature: well-researched and well-written, but without any underlying sense of fun or of having anything to say.

For example, when I read my chick lit earlier this week, I think I understand Mr. Maupin’s motive in writing it: he loves his characters, he loves San Francisco, he wants to depict a social group — gay culture & the sort of extended, bohemian urban family — that is not well represented in mainstream lit. Similarly, to use the example of a more serious book that I loved, “The Known World” seems like it has a similar motive: he loves his characters, he loves the South, he wants to depict a social phenomen — slavery — in a more nuanced way than it has been represented in the past.

Allegra Goodman, however, does not seem to care that much about her characters or their social context (science/research/academia). Instead, it is like she thought, “Hmm, I haven’t seen one of those trite New Yorker stories about the shifting nature of truth in a long time. Also, I would really like to impress my peers by learning everything there is to know about doing scientific experiments on mice.”

And to that I say: eh. I hope next month’s selection is better.

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Thai Prisons, Naval Defections, Nipple-Ringed Aristocracy, and Mr. Darcy Sunday, Sep 2 2007

Last Sunday, I was sick and in bed with two scions of chick lit, Armistead Maupin and Helen Fielding. Good times.

First, Maupin’s “Babycakes.” (Am trying to get up to date so I can read his latest in the series, which for some reason is neither available in my local library nor from my estranged friends at booksfree.com.) He is in his usual fine form in this book. It is the 1980s now, so Mary Ann is into aerobics and everyone in England has that awful Princess Diana haircut. I love the subplot with the errant British navyman and his secret carny/midget bloodline; the whole Michael/Mona/Lord whatsisname plot is hilarious; and all the bad local television in the book made me miss the days when I had access to the hilarity of the newscast on KRON 4. (Are they even still around? I fear they are not because I can never find it when I’m watching TV at the gym.) Good stuff — I highly recommend it.

Having whetted my appetite for light, entertaining fare, I moved on to “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,” which for those not in the know is the sequel to “Bridget Jones.” The book is a little embarrassing in those rare moments when it takes itself too seriously, but much of it was funny enough that I was laughing aloud on the train. (B at pompous dinner party full of lawyers: “The point is that you are supposed to vote for the principle of the thing, not the itsy bitsy detail about this percent and that percent. And it is perfectly obvious that Labour stands for the principle of sharing, kindness, gays, single mothers, and Nelson Mandela as opposed to braying bossy men having affairs with everyone shag-shag-shag left, right, and center and going to the Ritz in Paris and then telling all the presenters off on the Today program.”)

I found it so poignant how B.’s relationship is nearly spoiled by her application of the knowledge gleaned from self-help books to which she is addicted; I myself reach the brink of divorce nearly every day because certain people in my life do not appreciate the wisdom that I glean about relationships from the ladies’ magazines I can’t stop reading. You know, What Men Want and so forth. Apparently, what they want is for us to stop quizzing them with questions about their commitment level from the popular media, but that is impossible because it is so fun to do that. Anyway, Bridget at least prevails in the end.

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