The Story of O

The Story of O

By Pauline Réage

The Story of O! O, my virgin eyes!

Back in the late 1980s a Canadian rock band called The Pursuit of Happiness sang these apropos lyrics:

"Adult sex is either boring or dirty."

In the case of The Story of O, I think the line comes full circle. Adult sex is both boring and dirty.

Full disclosure: I read this because it appears on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and I've been using that list as a reference for a few years. The novel dropped into my hands and I took the opportunity to read it.

So anyway... I've got a glass of wine and I'm settled down. Let's see if I can say something about The Story of O without making a complete ass of myself.

The Story of O is an erotic novel written in 1954 by Pauline Réage The pen name for French author Anne Desclos). It is considered one of the most important novels of the 1950s for its stark depiction of female sexuality and its themes of bondage, sado-masochism, body modification and sexual degradation. The narrative follows a woman, referred to only as O, who gradually descends into the depths of sexual slavery via bondage, whipping, torture, piercing and branding. O is prostituted by her lovers and in one alternate ending she asks permission to commit suicide, which her lover grants.

That about sums up the entire book right there. 

Yup!

Oh, you want more, huh? Oh, OK. Let's see....

I'm no prude, but seriously... if sex is consuming this much of your physical, emotional and psychological activity (never mind the actual time and energy one would need to devote to it), I think someone might be in need of a course in time management. And I'm not talking about just the characters in the novel but also Pauline Réage (or Anne Desclos or whatever) herself. I mean I'm a red-blooded male so I certainly understand... um... aspects of this sort of behavior but hell. I just simply couldn't relate to the vast majority of this stuff from both the male or female perspective. I'm sure there is some sexually liberated sort out there that might scream down my throat about this, but I'm perfectly happy with my limited (and entirely standard) sexual mores. To me, sex just isn't worth so much hassle unless, of course, you work in the adult entertainment or prostitution industry, in which case it may be considered a career decision. But I refuse to go down that road. We are talking literature here, right?

I tried to read the novel metaphorically at one point. I tried to read the story as a parallel for the history of the Christian Church (that worked for a time), as a diatribe on feminism (I'm not the best person to be giving The Story of O a feminist reading) as a discourse on the 1912 U.S. presidential election (I have no idea why), but nothing seemed to stick. It all seemed so utterly pointless. Who would go to so much trouble for their sexual proclivities? Anyone? anywhere? If so, I can't imagine I would overly interested in meeting them. Not for any moral reason, but I figure I'd have very little to talk to that person about. Sex is an extremely boring topic of conversation. Six seasons of Sex in the City proved that.

Perhaps you just had to be there. After all, this novel was published in 1954 and I can imagine it would have caused quite the stir at the time. I remember reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac in 2005 and not getting it. I thought it was a pretty pedestrian account of bumming around the country, something a lot of people I know have done or are currently doing. I had the same experience with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I get the idea that these are the sorts of books that spoke to the zeitgeist and have subsequently echoed poorly as they have aged.

Given the pervasiveness of pornography on the Internet, The Story of O loses a good amount of its ability to shock. In fact it is downright pedestrian compared to what a six-year old can find in half a second via a Google search. I'm aware that much of pornography in the early 1970s (Deep Throat, for example) was modeled after The Story of O (and I'm not too sure how comfortable I am admitting to the fact that I know this) but in recent years pornography has far surpassed even the most extreme realms of Pauline Réage's imagination.

Anyway, I'm not terribly interested in delving much farther into this novel. I really have nothing of substance to say about it. I'm glad I read it due to its literary significance, but, like Kerouac and Deep Throat, I think The Story of O was a product of its time and place... nothing more. At this point the only thing I can really say about The Story of O is that it was boring and dirty. In that order. 

Oh well, at least now I don't have to read Fifty Shades of Grey. 

A Spot of Bother

A Spot of Bother

By Mark Haddon

One of the principle reasons that George Carlin remained a relevant comedian well into his later life is that he never once compromised his freedom of speech for the comfort of others. Carlin's brand of social commentary pulled no punches and he was more than willing to spell out the inconsistencies in our system and within ourselves. Although his primary purpose was to entertain an audience, he certainly left his audiences with a lot to think about. A good deal of his celebrity had to do with the ability to make his audience uneasy about the things he said. In the paraphrased words of Louis C.K. , good comedy takes people to dark places and makes them laugh about it. Or, to put it more succinctly, good comics joke about things that people just don't joke about.

Just ask Tig Notaro.

Good comics understand that everything can be funny in the right context, even issues as categorically unfunny as rape, abortion, cancer and death. I tend to agree with Carlin. Comedy is all about delivery and timing. In the right hands, anything can be rendered not comedy. But it's a tricky business, comedy. If the subject matter is handled in any way incorrectly, the crash and burn can be spectacular. Just Michael Richards.

To be sure, comedy in literature isn't at the same level as stand-up comedy. Carlin, Notaro and C.K. have to make an audience laugh with a degree of consistency over a one/two hour period without fail and much of that has to do with pace, timing and delivery of the comedy. Ask an untrained comedian to get up on stage and do a Jerry Seinfeld routine verbatim and I suspect they'd bomb. Writers, I think, garner a little more forgiveness from their audience. That's not to say that writing comedic novels is a breeze. The same pace, timing and delivery inherent in stand-up exist in writing, it's just that readers can choose to put a book down quietly and walk away mid build. They just don't work under the same stressful conditions.

When literary comedy is done right (Shakespeare's comedies, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) it is virtually impossible to put the book down mid-stream (lest you break the rhythm). In the true Carlin tradition, Mark Haddon hit the comedic nail on the head in 2003 with his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It was poignant yet hilarious novel told from the perspective of an 11-year old autistic child. Certainly, in most circumstances, autism isn't anything to joke about. Just ask the parents of autistic children or those that work with them. Yet Haddon handled the subject matter with both tender gravity and brutal levity, finding the perfect balance between what was acceptable and hilarious and what was unacceptable and categorically un-funny.

I have to imagine that when Haddon took the challenge of writing a comedy about a mentally disabled child he did so with the utmost care to walk the razor's edge. Building an empathetic cast of characters helped immensely. The novel was a commercial and critical success and deserving of the accolades it has received. Mark Haddon had written a comedic novel about a subject that people don't joke about. I'm not sure whether George Carlin ever read the book, but I'm going to imagine he would have enjoyed it.

In his latest (as of the writing of this blog-post) novel, A Spot of Bother, Haddon tries to do with dysfunctional families and mental illness what he did with autism. A Spot of Bother is a story of a family that doesnt seem to communicate all that well. George, the father, is very quickly loosing his mind, his wife, Jean has been carrying on an affair with a colleague of her husband for 15 years, Katie is the emotionally unstable daughter who is poised to get married for the second time and Jamie is the emotionally distant homosexual son. The family makes my family seem like a walk in the park by comparison. A bunch of things happen, there's quite a lot of blood, irrational behavior and a few good laughs along the way. But it doesn't work.

While there are moments of awesomeness in this novel (George rationalizing that cutting a growth off his leg with a pair of kitchen scissors, for example), A Spot of Bother doesn't really follow through in the same manner as A Curious Incident did. In fact, it falls way short. I tried to pinpoint the problem and the best I could come up with was that they elements he used in The Curious Incident that made it such a pleasure are absent in A Spot of Bother. And I don't mean to judge Haddon's book based on his previous success. That's not fair. It's just that the comparison sort of works with what I'm trying to convey, and this is a bit more about my point than it is about Haddon's novels. Bear with me.

First, in A Curious Incident, Haddon created a wonderful cast of characters in which the reader could relate. This is not so in A Spot of Bother. The entire Hall family are so entirely unlikeable. It's hard to relate to dysfunction if you can't relate to at least one of the characters involved in said dysfunction. The characters are universally selfish, self-absorbed and rude. One wonders how they were all able to find any success in the working world and life in general with those character traits. The parents, George and Jean, continuously allude to Katie's fiancee as being "inappropriate," but I struggled to understand why. Ray seemed like a legitimately wonderful man with very few character flaws. I couldn't understand why anyone, anywhere would dislike the guy and yet the entire family and a few friends seems to instinctually understand he is perhaps wrong for Katie. I thought she should consider herself lucky. I got the impression that the editors (or Haddon himself, edited out an entire section where we would all understand what was so wrong about Ray.

Which gets me to Ray. His one and only moment of irrationality seems so entirely out of character from  the rest of the book I figured it was tacked on to create a couple dozen extra pages of drama. Actually, a lot of stuff seems to be tacked onto this book then forgotten. The story was full of unresolved holes. Did Katie get fired for taking the day off work? What happened to Graham after his and Katie's talk? What about the guy that went blind? Perhaps these were examples of how self-absorbed the characters are, but I kept waiting for the repercussions of their actions to catch up with them and they never seemed to.

Don't get me wrong, Haddon is a great writer. He is articulate and his style reminds me a lot of Douglas Adams (which is a good thing, obviously). It's just that instead of taking the reader into dark places and make them laugh about them (i.e. mental illness, cancer, fear or death, etc...), Haddon simply takes us to dark places, drops us off, says a few quick words and drives off, leaving the reader to wallow in the pathos left in his wake. There seems to be a half-hearted attempt to make light of the subjects and a sort-of but not-quite attempt to create a comedy of errors as a frame, but it all seemed to fall flat on its face. This wouldn't be all that bad, really, if Haddon was treading on safer ground. But it left me with the distinct impression that he had little to no empathy for those suffering from real mental illness or those coping with a truly dysfunctional family.

Given the fact that he wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time I give him the benefit of the doubt. Some of the dialog is quite astute and there are some really funny scenes interspersed throughout but the novel was hardly chortle-worthy. By way of comparison, it's not Michael Richards embarrassing himself on stage, but it's certainly not Carlin-esque either.

It's just that this novel left me saying: "Meh."

The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day

By Kazuo Ishiguro

This is the third Kazuo Ishiguro novel I have read in the past twelve months. If there is one overriding theme throughout them (the others being An Artist of the Floating World and Never Let Me Go) it is that Ishiguro is not interested in the story that appears on his page so much as he is interested in the story going on in your head whilst you are reading the words he put on his page. More directly, Ishiguro's novels are about the story not being told as opposed to the story being told. Furthermore, like his other novels, The Remains of the Day may not even really be about what it's about but rather may be an elegantly crafted metaphor about something entirely different. If I've sufficiently confused you, good. Let's get on with it, then.

The Remains of the Day is Ishiguro's third novel. Published in 1989, it was the winner of that year's Man Booker Prize and has garnered the status of classic since then, and for good reason. The novel is a thematic work of genius that examines (but doesn't examine) the subjects of dignity, loyalty and social constraints in post-colonial Great Britain as well as being a metaphor for the very same Great Britain.

The story centers upon Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, an old country house occupied by a preeminent English gentleman prior to World War II but currently (1956) owned by an American who bought the house (complete with authentic English butler) after the death of its former occupant. The story is ostensibly about short motor car trip undertaken by Stevens from Darlington Hall to the West Country in order to visit a former colleague. The story progresses as a series of journal entries along the way in which Stevens elucidates on the finer points of the domestic services industry and what (not who) makes a good butler. He also recounts several key events that occurred during his tenure at Darlington Hall that speak volumes about himself, his staff, his employer and the world around him. Though Stevens seems like a trustworthy character and one would hardly call his judgment into question, one must continuously question his ability to recall instances with the clarity this story requires. This gives the entire narrative a subconscious haze that must be navigated at all times.

The entire narrative is written in the stiff colonial language of the gentleman class and Stevens, like the people he has worked for in the past is obsessed with how he is perceived. Language and decorum are , therefore, tools in his profession as a way in which to cultivate an air of dignity benefiting a house such as Darlington Hall. ItThey are also self-constructed walls of social and class constraint that willingly bind Stevens to the house and the gentleman therein, regardless of his own opinions.

In lieu of thinking for himself, Stevens adopts an unconditional trust in his employer. Loyalty, dignity and professionalism trump all personal issues. In one particular scene which plays out as both comedy and tragedy, Stevens carries out his duties on a especially busy evening while his father falls ill and dies. It is an apt description of the social constraints that bound the class conscious British between the wars.

Buried deep within the bedrock of Steven's recollections is a more personal account of Darlington Hall's housekeeper, Miss Kenton. It becomes plainly apparent to the reader that Miss Kenton and Stevens have significant feelings for one another, but their professionalism, coupled with Steven's inability to read subtlety and nuance (to the point that I began to think Stevens might simply be mildly autistic, but I'll leave the psychological analysis of this novel to more capable reviewers) conspire to keep them apart. Even when a simple word or gesture might have broken the proverbial ice, they remain colleagues throughout, much to the consternation of this reader.

There are a lot of levels from which a reader might read this novel, but the most interesting (at least for me) was that The Remains of the Day is a brilliant metaphor for the end of the British Empire. In fact, the metaphor is so apparent (once you notice it) that it rivals Animal Farm in its bluntness. The novel itself is set in 1956 and although it is never mentioned in the book, that year coincides with the nationalization of the Suez Canal by General Nasser in Egypt. In Great Britain, the loss of the canal marked the end of the Empire. The era of the gentleman, country houses and the butler was over and Stevens himself is has become a relic of the past, a quirky historical curiosity sold along with a house to an American with a great deal of knowledge about colonial Britain but no idea how to actually be a gentleman.

But at a deeper level it is a social commentary on the relationship between crown and Empire. Lord Darlington represents the crown and the butler Stevens represents the Empire in this exquisite analogy of pre- and post-war Britain. Much like the pre-war British colonies in Asia and Africa, Stevens places an undue and undeserved amount of trust in Lord Darlington only to find that, in the end, Lord Darlington was involved in affairs far beyond his scope of understanding. Indeed, Lord Darlington represents a bygone England and his views are not even remotely in tune with the times. Naturally, Stevens remains unconcerned with his lord's affairs and serves him any way he can.

When war breaks out and Darlington finds himself on the wrong side of the line, it is Stevens that suffers most. And when Lord Darlington passes away, Stevens remains, left alone to pick up the pieces under the watchful eyes of an American. The parallels between this story and the demise of the Empire are so plentiful it probably merits a second reading at a later date.

The fact that Kazuo Ishiguro can write novels with so much nuance and subtlety is extraordinary. It takes a very gifted writer to write novels that work on a multitude of levels. Off the top of my head I can only think of a handful that have that capacity. I would hazard a guess that this novel wouldn't appeal to everyone due to its verbosity and pace (it is rather slow in bits) but The Remains of the Day really pays off in the end. I know that Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children has been deemed the Booker of Bookers but I'd give the nod to The Remains of the Day as the best Booker winner I've ever read.

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

By Ray Bradbury

As part of Banned Book Week I am honored to be taking part in an event hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. When she posted the notice a couple of weeks back I was compelled to participate. I mean, how do you pass up the chance to get up on your soapbox and rain invective upon those who would ban books? It sounded like fun and indeed... it was a pleasure to write.

I chose to write about Fahrenheit 451 because I've read it almost a dozen times over the last three years (mainly with students). I have a real affinity for this book and I wanted to take the chance to delve a little deeper into it, flesh out a few of my ideas and theories concerning the novel, why it has gained such a controversial reputation and what it has to offer. In short, this is a long overdue review. Sorry... No giveaways. I'm way over in Asia and sending books off this continent is cost prohibitive.

First, the nuts and bolts...

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953 at the very start of the television generation. In 1953 television was just beginning to establish itself as a viable mass media. Approximately 44% of American households had televisions in 1953 compared to only 9% three years earlier and over 70% three years later. Certainly, television was at the front and center of American popular culture at the time of publication and obviously a subject of much debate. If you listen to Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 is ostensibly a simple science fiction story about the incursion of television on society and a possible future hyper-focused on the newfound instant mass media. In Bradbury's version of America, books have been banned in lieu of the rise of television and a cadre of "firemen" have been formed to root out and burn all remaining books.

But the novel is also so much more than that. It is a veritable tirade (oft-times strident) against censorship, populism and government control. It is a constant reminder of the responsibility inherent in the concept of free speech and how our worse enemy in this world are not governments or corporations but rather ourselves. The agent of governmental and corporate change always and forever boils down to public pressure. They ostensibly work for the majority whether for votes or profits and they act in accordance to our wants and needs (whether we know what they are or not). In the immortal words of Radiohead: "We do it to ourselves."

And for that, Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most often banned books in North America.

Just imagine this. A book about banning books is a banned book in real life. Sounds to me like there is a host of parents, teachers, legislators and concerned citizens out there that don't understand the definition of irony. Talk about meta-banning! Banning a book about banning books? If it wasn't so infuriating, it would be the pinnacle of hilarity.

So, why is Fahrenheit 451, the book about banning books, banned?

Well, I have heard a few reasons. First, Fahrenheit 451 contains strong language. Second, there are instances of violence in the story. But let's be serious here. These are merely excuses. Books don't get banned for language or violence. If they did, the Bible itself could be banned.

Well, damn! There has to be more, right?

There sure as hell better be!

Montag does burn a Bible at one point in the novel and it has been banned for that particular reason in the past. But that doesn't seem to make much sense either since the main characters are trying so very hard to make sure the Bible is not burned and go to great pains to save it the best they can. The novel itself seems to speak favorably of the Bible and the reader is expected to feel a great sadness when the Bible is finally incinerated. So it would seem that those offended by a burning Bible are missing the point a bit.

Another reason for the ban that I found was the negative portrayal of women in the novel. Admittedly, Mildred and her friends are shallow, callous, stupid and weak to the extreme. When compared to Montag, Faber and even Captain Beatty, these women are nothing more than pathetic, television-obssessed cutouts who represent the pathetic, television-obssessed populace of America in this particular world. Mildred's idea of a good time is sitting in front of her three televisions all day watching inane programming then nagging her husband to buy a fourth television when he gets home. If things escalate with Montag she is liable to head out into the county in her car and run down dogs and rabbits for fun and one of her friends has had ten abortions. But then again, Clarisse McClellan is the catalyst for Montag's spiritual awakening and she's a woman. Furthermore, there are any number of books out there with no strong male characters. Those books surely aren't banned.

Another reason I discovered was the negative portrayal of minorities in the book. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the government itself that bans the books in the world of Fahrenheit 451 but rather it is pressure from the people themselves, specifically minorities (and here Bradbury is referring to literally any group of people who don't represent the majority be they black, white, doctors, hairdressers, cat lovers etc...). Captain Beatty lays it out in explicit detail when he notes that minorities don't want to be offended and the government obliges them in their quest for social equality. In bending to the will of minorities the government is pressured into banning literally every book ever published, owing to the fact that literally every book ever published has the capacity to offend someone, somewhere. In this way, Fahrenheit 451 can be seen either as a polemic against un-fettered democracy or perhaps a reminder that un-fettered democracy can theoretically give rise to populism which, in turn, can give rise to fascism. Interesting notion, that.

But that doesn't really work either, and here's why:

Throughout the novel the populist fascism that has overtaken American society is represented by fire. Fire is the agent of forgetting. It is the force in which the powers that be destroy unwanted social friction (i.e. books). The alternative to this is the ragtag group of intellectuals roaming the country outside the major urban areas. There are thousands of former professors living a feral life in the woods. After Montag hops into the river (Montag's baptism) to escape the Mechanical Hound, this ragtag group seems to be represented by water.

But water, just like fire, has the ability to destroy a book. So what is Ray Bradbury trying to say? Is he saying the the opposite of forced equality is also dangerous? I haven't worked that out. Probably nothing literal, but I'm sure there is something metaphorical in the shift from fire to water. It all sounds vaguely ominous at the end anyway. I've never seen the end of Fahrenheit 451 as hopeful or uplifting. It's as bleak as the beginning. Perhaps bleaker. But Bradbury isn't offering easy answers to these questions.

Anyway, back to why the book is banned.

My guess as to why Fahrenheit 451 is really banned is just as ironic as the the fact that it's banned in the first place. The novel itself is a very long diatribe against censorship. And those in the censorship game, be they parents, teachers, or legislators, would be hard pressed to censor anything with anti-censorship books mulling about. Let's call it a literary pre-emptive strike. Ban the books about free speech before they can gain a foothold in order to pave the way for more bans. One might imply that Fahrenheit 451 was simply banned for promoting anti-establishment sentiments, but I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Fahrenheit 451 is a virtual beginner's guide to critical thinking and the Socratic Method. As a teaching tool, it allows students to use reason, logic and their own judgment to formulate conclusions. Kids that master these skills tend to make up their own minds about things and don't swallow whole what parents, teachers, and legislators have to say. In effect, Fahrenheit 451 has the potential to promote open dialog, create free thinkers and encourage creative and dynamic thought.

Of course, trying to wrap your head around all this irony is akin to watching every episode of Twin Peaks on twelve hits of acid. Perhaps it's not worth the time and effort trying to understand the ban. It's meta-crazy!

If I were designing a one year intensive course in English literature for students between 14-17 years of age, Fahrenheit 451 would be a non-negotiable inclusion on the course syllabus. As far as I'm concerned, Fahrenheit 451 is required reading for all high school kids. As I mentioned about, it's a veritable textbook in reason. It's a brilliant introduction to the Socratic Method (I tend to teach Plato's Allegory of the Cave along with the book) and it literally begs students to think for themselves.

School isn't something to simply be endured for 13 years. It's a lifelong concept of human growth and discovery. The humanities in general (and English in particular) aren't simply a series of bird courses peppered between the job-creation subjects (math, science, business). They are the fundamentals tools that teach us how to remain students long after our institutional schooling is finished. In that respect literature plays an important role in teaching us what it means to be human. We can't simply pick and choose from the human experience.

In an age of ultra-accessible information via the Internet, Wikileaks, Occupy Wall Street, The Arab Spring, the Westboro Baptist Church, scandalous Mohammed cartoons, and any number of other examples, Fahrenheit 451 remains more important than ever. It continues to promote reason, reflection, critical thought and intellectual judgment in the face of irrational belief, superstition, greed and control. We owe it to our students to extol such questioning of authority rather than submission to it. Banning books such as Fahrenheit 451 sends a clear message to our kids that we simply don't trust their judgment.

Their judgment couldn't possibly be worse than our own....

Could it?

South of the Border, West of the Sun

South of the Border, West of the Sun

By Haruki Murakami

If you've never read a novel by Haruki Murakami, let me try to explain exactly what you should expect...

Imagine the most detailed dream you have ever dreamed. Imagine it stretching, not over a single REM cycle or even an entire night's sleep but rather an entire lifetime of sleep. Thousands and thousands of hours spent in a single forever-morphing dream. A dream so loosly-plotted that one suspects there is no plot whatsoever. Ah... but there is. All dreams have some sort of plot, even if we can't immediately identify it.

Imagine that an artist was able to render this epic dream of yours onto a canvas the size of a barn wall. Imagine that every square inch of that canvas was painted so meticulously that you needed a magnifying glass to appreciate the attention to detail. Where's Waldo? meets Jackson Pollock meets Inception. Your entire lifetime of dreams perfectly encapsulated on the side of a barn.

Now, imagine zeroing in on a section of that massive dream art. A section, perhaps the size of a standard Post-It note. 10cm x 10cm, perhaps. Imagine focusing in on that specific corner of the piece and scrutinizing it. There's still a lot going on in this tiny section of dream. It's that detailed! Go over the section with a fine-toothed comb. Rake it for every last feature. Uncover every single secret it has to offer. Open cupboards, find skeletons, read blood-splattered letters in dusty old drawers, decipher codes embedded in people's retinas. Understand and learn everything within that tiny fragment of your dream.

Imagine, then, taking that tiny section of dream and creating a three dimensional hologram of its area. Turning it and shifting it and examining it from every angle you can conceive. Toy with the image. Play with it. Turn it to negative, make it sepia-toned, black and white, technicolor. Adjust the pixelation, view it in ultra-violet, infra-red, CMYK, RGB, pantone. Give it sound, adjust the treble, toggle the bass and the frequency. Convert it into a radio wave, a gamma wave, a microwave. Bend it and mold it like silly putty. Smell it, taste it and feel each and every corner and crevasse of that dream fragment.

Imagine toying with that tiny section of your dream in every way you can envision. Imagine that tiny speck of your dream, that one trivial corner of your lifetime of dreams spelled out in infinite detail.

That's exactly what it's like to read a Murakami novel.

South of the Border, West of the Sun is another wild trip inside Murakami's barn wall.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

By Tom Franklin

Larry Ott, or Scary Larry as he is known in Chabot, Mississippi, owes a lot to Stephen King. Twenty years after being accused of, but not convicted for, the disappearance of local high school girl Cindy Walker, Ott, bereft of friendship, finds escape and friendship in the pages the horror books he loves so much. When another local girl goes missing, the locals immediately suspect Ott, who lives a cloistered and spartan life in the backwoods, trying (and failing) to forget about his troubled past as best he can.

Silas "32" Jones owes a lot to Larry Ott. Though twenty years have blurred the reasons, recent events have brought his past back into the present. The former high school baseball phenom and current darling of the Chabot police department, Silas makes a series of grisly, Stephen King-esque discoveries that put the history of Chabot and, more specifically, the relationship between him and Ott into the front and center.

It, therefore, seems rather ironic that Ott, the plaintive protagonist of Tom Franklin's 2007 novel Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter fails to see the similarities between himself and Carrie White, the abused loner in King's first novel Carrie. Franklin, who is generously peppers his narrative with references to many of King's other classics but is careful to steer clear of the obvious comparison.

And thank god for that. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a far superior than a series of frank juxtapositions. While Franklin may have modeled Ott after Carrie, it's heartening that he doesn't see fit to pummel the reader over the head with the comparison. Such is the wonder of literary fiction, a genre that has suffered under the weight of popular fiction these past 40 years (ironically, we have Stephen King to partially blame for that). The social pariah (Boo Radley?) paradigm has been explored on numerous occasions, but rarely in such capably literary hands. And what, exactly makes Ott such a sympathetic character? Well, like virtually every single person who will ever read this novel (myself included), Larry Ott is a voracious reader.

In Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Franklin is preaching to the bookish choir. While the plight of Larry Ott is the worst-case scenario for any high school outcast, it's the sort of story that will hit home for more than a few readers. What lifelong reader (or any other sort of social misfit) hasn't felt the sting of rejection. In one particularly poignant scene, Larry recalls an incident in which he was universally accepted by his peers for a single day (owing to a realistic monster mask he brings to school one Halloween) only to be universally and cruelly rejected again once the novelty of the mask has worn thin. Franklin's depiction of Ott loitering in the parking lot, mask in hand, walking slowly to his car and hoping to be noticed by his classmates is so agonizing that I had to put the book down for a few hours to collect myself (something I rarely have to do).

I could accuse Franklin of picking low-hanging fruit and consciously pulling at heart-strings if it weren't for the fact that he handles the subject matter as deftly as anyone could. Franklin forges a connection between his readers and Ott that is nearly impossible to sever. Had Franklin conceived on his story in any other manner and I fear it would not have provided the same cathartic emotions. Unlike Stephen King, Tom Franklin knows exactly how to end his story.

And while Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is not even remotely a horror story, Franklin's style is decidedly an homage to the early novels of King as well as the small town novels of Richard Russo. Franklin, like King and Russo, has a real talent for describing setting and establishing tone. In fact, Franklin's striking portrayal of the deep south reminded me of King's ability to paint rural Maine (or Russo's uncanny capacity to sketch upstate New York) on the printed page. Franklin's Mississippi is so encompassing that it often bear semblance to the kudzu that has engulfed and stifled the local fauna. There is a certain strangulated, smothered flavor that mirrors Ott's tortured life as a social pariah. Wonderful stuff!

The story unfolds in a series of revealed episodes that follow no particular chronological order. Jumping from the present day back to Ott's childhood, the narrative unfolds in beautiful layers, each more riveting than the last. The characters are not always well rendered (some of the secondary characters are nothing more than cardboard cut-outs of southern stereotypes) but those that matter are treated with the care they require and deserve, particularly Ott. I know nothing about Tom Franklin, but one must wonder if Larry Ott is a literary self-portrait owing to the manner in which he is carefully handled.

Though time will eventually tell (and I may be wrong), I get the impression that in twenty years time Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter will be required reading for future students studying early 21st century literature. It is by no means perfect, but it provides a logical progression from the Horror magazines of the 1950s and 60s, through the works of Stephen King into a new generation of literary fiction writers.

On a personal note I can say with absolute certainty that this is by far the best novel I have read in 2012. If you are a lover of literary fiction, you owe it to yourself to pick this novel up. Books like this are becoming a rarity.

City of Thieves

City of Thieves

By David Benioff

Writing historical war fiction is a precarious endeavor. It's not a genre to be entered into lightly. To be sure, many writers have waded into the troubled waters of historical war fiction only to be overwhelmed by the demands of the material. It takes a particular sort to venture into the genre of historical war fiction. I find that once finished, you can usually organize their efforts in three distinct categories.

First, many writers tend to get bogged down in the violence, tragedy and gore of war. These novels tend to be very heavy-handed and the moral lessons via graphic violence are more than a little blunt. War, by its very nature, is brusque subject matter and it is tempting to bludgeon the reader with death and disfigurement but, as in actual war, readers desensitize and writers paint themselves into a gory corner from which they cannot hope to escape. While I am certainly not suggesting that writers censor violence in the hopes of a better novel, sometimes enough is enough.

Other writers err on the side of caution and tread far too lightly on the topic of war. What you get is war rendered of all its violence and chaos and emotion. These sorts of novels strip the subject matter of any real emotional or psychological meaning. Of course, the story trumps all, but war provides such an interesting backdrop, it deserves proper development. I often wonder why some writers choose to set their novels in a time of war if they aren't fully prepared to dish the full spectrum of the time. If you wanted to distance the narrative from the conflict, why incorporate it in the first place? But I digress.

The best writers of historical war fiction know how to walk the razor thin line between war's relentless tragedy and absurd comedy. War is humanity at its most extreme. There is no future or past for those caught in the tumult of a major conflict, only now and the hope of later. There is an immediacy to war that forces us to live entirely in the present, whether it is dealing with the dangers at hand or appreciating a small act of kindness. Writing war fiction is an un-ending balancing act between comedy and tragedy.

David Benioff, falls into the latter category. His best seller novel City of Thieves finds that balance with almost perfect symmetry. The novel oscillates so fluidly between the horrors of war and the small joys of the human experience. Like the best war novels, the conflict weaves through the narrative like a character unto itself, presenting itself when it needs to be presented and disappearing when it is time to disappear. Benioff personifies the war with a deft hand.

The story chronicles a week in the life of Lev Beniov, a teenage chess playing Jew born and raised in Leningrad who, upon the arrival of the Nazis in 1942, opts to stay in the city and ride out the siege. Lev is arrested for burglarizing a dead German paratrooper and imprisoned. His life is spared by a Russian army official who, along with a Red-Army-deserter-turned-aspiring-novelist Kolya, sends him out on a mission to find a dozen eggs for his daughter's wedding cake... by any means available. Arms with a letter from the official and a few hundred rubles.

If this doesn't sound absurd enough for you, Benioff's narrative takes any number of twists and turns once the unlikely duo set off on their impossible mission. What makes the story even better is that Benioff reveals much of what is to come in the first few pages of the book, though he leaves out the who, what, where, when, why and how. Having the outcome firmly in hand only accentuates the tone and tempo of this novel. The story veers so wildly from disparity to hilarity the reader can only assume much of this story is actually true.

This novel reminded me so much of Roberto Begnini's film Life is Beautiful. While not strictly the same, the way Benioff incorporates humor and absurdity into the story which is neither funny nor absurd. To be sure, the Second World War was a catastrophe in Europe, and perhaps doubly so in Russia, but it is all in the way it is presented. Benioff could have presented the Siege of Leningrad with the severity and seriousness of a historian, but what would it have accomplished? We'd all be a bit more knowledgeable about the war in Russia, but the human factor would have been denied.

It's a rare treat to find an author that can handle such sensitive subject matter with the care David Benioff displays. Few authors have the ability to simultaneously depict the gravity and absurdity of war the way Benioff does here. Highly, highly recommended.

The Snowman

The Snowman

By Jo Nesbo

I've said it once and I'll say it again: Scandinavians are morbid. They tend to be tall, blond-haired and blue eyed (as if that wasn't creepy enough). They have a propensity for burning churches. Their ancient mythology is brutal, savage and tragic and has spawned an entirely unlistenable sub-genre of metal music only appreciated in Scandinavia... and Brazil). They are just neat enough and tidy enough and socialist enough to make you assume they were all born Virgo and they seem to prefer their crime novels on the darker side of macabre.

(Aside: As if to accentuate the point, the Heavy Metal band, Morbid, was Swedish)

Whether it's the cyber-punk horrors of Steig Larsson's Millennium Series or the more sedate brutality of Henning Mankell's Wallander Series, the people of Norway and Sweden seem thrive on extreme violence and murder. When you add Jo Nesbo and his series of novels featuring Harry Hole into the mix, one has to wonder how three of the best (if not most morbid) writers of the last quarter century have all come from the Northern Europe. Must have something to do with lack of sunlight and fjords.

I mentioned three novelists, but as of the writing of this blog post, we seem to be down to just one. With the tragically premature death of Steig Larsson and the last of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels drifting ever so slowly out of the zeitgeist, it is Jo Nesbo that has remained to carry the torch of the Scandinavian crime fiction genre (that absurd title always reminds me of metal heads who go on and on about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal from the late 1970s). And much like Larsson with Lisbeth Salander and Mankell with Wallander, Nesbo has come equipped with a character every bit as intense and intoxicating as his predecessors: Harry Hole.

Detective Harry Hole is what would be produced if John McClane, Bruce Willis's legendary character from the Die Hard franchise somehow begat a child with Jimmy McNulty from The Wire. Brash, bold and dangerous but also self-destructive, and at times hopelessly lost and completely uncertain about his job, Harry Hole is a man with more personal demons than the people he arrests. He makes giant, terrible mistakes and, although not lacking in critical and analytical thinking, he makes wild, sweeping mistakes. Harry Hole is the Hamlet of Scandinavian crime fiction (though without the tragic endings). He is about the most humanized police officer you will ever read in a novel not written by Richard Price. While Lisbeth Salander is deftly hacking into your computer with nary a typo in her code, Harry Hole is mortally wounding the wrong person while trying to fight the urge to chuck a bottle of Jack Daniel's. How can you not root for this guy?

In fact, I spent a lot of time wondering whether Hole was a metaphor for how Nesbo views Norwegians on the world scene. At one point in the novel one of the characters, Arve Stop a media personality, laments that Norway loves the loser. Losers provide stories with grit and tragedy and pain. Winners are uninteresting by nature. One wonders whether Harry Hole is the embodiment of this sentiment. If so, Norwegians have a lot in common with Canadians. It comes with the territory of sidling up next to an economic  and military powerhouse. But I digress.

The Snowman recounts the events of Norway's first really artistic serial killer and it's up to Hole, Oslo's best if not brightest, to lead the investigation. The killer, dubbed the "The Snowman" due to his penchant for building snowmen at the scene of each of his crimes, has somehow flown under the radar of the police for a couple of years. When a new detective, Katrine Blatt, joins the Oslo police force she and Hole begin to make the connections between the victims of several missing persons reports. A series of increasingly grisly murder scenes seem to validate the assertion that they are dealing with something more than the average Norwegian gangland killings and Scandinavian church burners. As the crimes begin to spiral ever closer to Harry Hole, it becomes evident that the killer is engaging in a battle of wits with the policeman himself. Something rotten north of Denmark.

The story is incredibly complex with all sorts of the twists and turns one expects from good crime writing but without the implausible elements that leave many readers rolling their eyes. Often a writer tries to make that one last twist to shake off those final readers who may have actually solved the mystery before the protagonist leaving a bitter taste of the ludicrous in the reader's mouth. Nesbo doesn't go in for such shenanigans. While Nesbo certainly serves enough twists and red herrings to open a seafood bar and grill, they were done with the panache of a writer working at the top of his game. It took the entire first half of the novel for me to realize that trying to stay ahead of the investigation was futile because Nesbo was manipulating the reader with the deft and clarity of vision. Nesbo knew exactly where both the story and the reader were going.

I admit, I had the culprit pegged somewhere toward the end of the second third of the novel but it didn't seem to matter. In fact, I'm actually pretty confident that Nesbo wanted me to guess the killer by then. Like the characters in his book, Nesbo was playing me right into his hands. Knowing the killer hardly dissuaded from the enjoyment of the novel. I simply needed to understand how it all went down. I continued on, often like a reader possessed. The Snowman is so psychologically intense that over the course of the week I spent reading it, my wife repeatedly asked whether something was bothering me. I would always answer with: "Yes... The Snowman is bothering me."

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the superb translation done by Don Bartlett from the original Norwegian. Obviously, I didn't read this in its original language (my Norwegian is a little rusty after 37 years of having never once studied it) but Bartlett conveyed what I can only assume was the intensity and ferocity of the narrative without much compromise. What little may have been lost in translation was lost to me and if the story suffered as a result I was none the wiser.

If you are lamenting the end of the Wallander series or still in mourning over the untimely death of Steig Larsson and you haven't yet read or even heard of Jo Nesbo I strongly urge you to get out there and pick up a copy of The Snowman (or any of the other novels featuring Harry Hole). If you are already a

The Angel's Game

The Angel's Game

By Carlos Ruiz Zafon

It is often said that one must suffer for their craft, whether it is woodworking, sculpture or writing. David Martin, the protagonist in Carlos Ruiz Zafon's vampish, moody follow-up to Shadows of the Wind is such an artist. A writer of popular gothic tales, Martin is the very embodiment of the suffering artist, though it is left unclear whether it is a suffering of his own design or whether a certain element of fate is involved in his grotesque descent into darker realms.

Despite fair warnings from his friends, Martin somehow becomes involved with a silver-tongued Parisian publisher by the name of Antonio Corelli who commissions a very specific project, one rife with peril. Over the course of the novel Martin 's relationship with Corelli sours as strange and unfortunate incidents begin occurring within Martin's circle of friends and family. Corelli manifests himself as some sort of incarnation of Satan, and Martin, in a tragic bit of irony, becomes embroiled in a mystery every bit as melodramatic and macabre as the "penny dreadfuls" that he seems to write at the conveniently regular pace of 6.66 pages per day.

The Angel's Game is, in essence, a literal tale about the creation and sale of art. The notion of an artist selling their soul to the devil for material gain is hardly new. 

“Every book has a soul, the soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and dream about it.” 

Any writer who has made money from their stories has, in a sense, has sold a portion of their soul in the form of their writing, leaving it in the hands of others to do with it as they may. Zafon hardly conceals the notion that a novel is a part of a writer's soul and the publisher plays the part of the devil in the literary transaction. To be sure, my favorite portions of The Angel's Game were the discussions between Martin and Corelli about the nature of good and evil and the political necessity of organized religion as a way in which to direct human faith toward political gain.

But let's not let Faustian imagery get the way of a good story, shall we? Zafon certainly doesn't. He's not interested in waxing intellectual on the philosophical nature of good and evil. A light dusting of critical thought on the subject as color for his narrative is more than enough to satisfy his whims. And although the The Angel's Game pays homage to dozens of classic works of fiction including Faust and Great Expectations, it is, at its heart a lurid romp through the streets of pre-Civil War Spain. He rarely stops long enough to chew the heavy issues fully, opting to wipe the slate clean and steam ahead with the narrative at hand. In this way, The Angel's Game is every bit the work of David Martin as it is that of Carlos Ruiz Zafon. 

Although there are moments in this novel that beg the reader pause for thought:

“It seems that in the advanced stages of stupidity, a lack of ideas is compensated for by an excess of ideologies.” 

As mentioned before, it is unclear whether the descent of David Martin is a construct of fate or of free will, and such ambiguity give the novel an esoteric theme. But one cannot help but feel a certain level of pleasure from witnessing Martin become a victim of his own brand of gothic fiction. Unlike the adorable Daniel Sempere in Shadows of the Wind, David Martin is an unlikable and smug knave who seems to deserve all the pain and punishment inflicted upon him. And as the body count increases toward the end of the book, Zafon seems unafraid to take the novel to its unbearably tragic end. In this sense, The Angel's Game is delicious vision into the mind of a man intent on taking his troubles to the end of the line.

The narrative itself is long, convoluted and braided. It weaves through the dark corners, sinister alleys and saturnine houses of 1920s Barcelona, making stops at both Sempere & Sons Bookshop and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (familiar locales for anyone who has read Shadows of the Wind). Zafon is a modern master of tone and mood, plotting his story through an relentless parade of eccentric characters who inhabit impossibly rank settings. I found myself time and again comparing the structure and pace of this novel to the work of Umberto Eco (and specifically Foucault's Pendulum). Confusion simply for the sake of confusion (and a good story). So long as the confusion remains plausible to the reader, we are willing to follow along the increasingly convoluted trajectory.

I got the impression that Zafon was trying to convey that writers can talk all sorts of big talk and throw all sorts of themes and styles and form into a story but at the end of the day, it's the story itself that prevails and it's the story that draws the reader in above all else. 

“Everything is a story, a narrative, a sequence of events with characters communicating an emotional content. We only accept as true what can be narrated.” 

And for that, the artist suffers.

Replay

Replay

By Ken Grimwood

(Warning... very mild spoilers ahead. They won't matter, though. This book is too awesome to be ruined by spoilers.)

Most people cringe when they are asked "What is your favorite film?" or "What is your favorite book?"They tend to get angry at the questioner and reply with something like this: "How can I choose just one from so many!? It's not a fair question! Can I choose my favorites based on mood or time of day or period of my life?" And while I empathize with those who can't answer such straightforwardly impossible questions, I have no problem with them.

Granted, I have dozens of favorites films and books, and I can answer these questions in more obtuse tones if the situation requires, but if, for some reason, my questioner demands me to boil it down to one from each film and books, I can do it. I can actually answer both questions with definitive and unwavering answers. Without question, my all-time favorite film is The Big Lebowski and my all-time favorite book is Replay.

Technically, I read Replay four years ago, which means I'm breaking a blog rule (writing about the last book I finished), but not really. I recently finished re-reading this novel with a class of students and since I'm still ankle deep in an especially long novel, I thought I could add a little blog content in the interim.

For anyone who hasn't read (or heard of) Replay, drop whatever nonsense you are reading right now and find this gem of a novel. It won't be easy. It took me a while to track down a copy, but they are out there. And with all due respect to Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, Replay is simply the best piece of science fiction I have ever read (and, like I said, my favorite novel). Set in 1988, the novel begins with the death of 43 year-old, mild-mannered radio journalist Jeff Winston. Winston is the very definition of ordinary. Until the instance of his death, Jeff had been a middling man of middling ambition living out his mediocre life with his increasingly bitter wife, Linda... no kids. Well, that's the way this mortal coil works, right? We're born, we live as best we can, and we die... the vast majority of us in a haze of relative obscurity. Right?

Well, not Jeff Winston.

Jeff Winston's life begins with death.

In one sense, Jeff Winston does die in his office in 1988, in that his life to that point ceases to exist. but instead of a cessation of existence or some sort of progression into an afterlife, Jeff Winston wakes up as an 18 year-old in his dorm room at Emory University in 1963, complete with all his memories of his past life. A life that has not yet been lived. He has not met Linda. His best friend is still alive and every major event that has happened, from the assassination of JFK, Vietnam, the moon landing, Watergate, Heaven's Gate, etc... are all events yet to unfold. It is as if the entire world resets, save for one man's consciousness, leaving Jeff with a 20/20 vision of future events until 1988.

Once the premise is established, Ken Grimwood essentially begs the question: If this happened to you... what would you do?

The novel is a riveting exercise in what many (if not most) of us would do given the chance to live our entire adult lives over again with all the cheat codes available. Imagine a crystal clear notion of the next 25 years of time. Election results, sporting results, disasters, news stories, financial information, cultural trends, technological advances, Yanni. This isn't simply stumbling upon a sports almanac owned by a weird kid with an orange life jacket in 1955 that provides you with an aspect of future events, but rather all your collective memories and recollections from a world that has not yet caught up with you! It's a variety of reincarnation that is as tantalizing as it is scary. And it has provided me with a little game that I have placed since I read this book back in 2008.

If this were to happen to me I would begin replaying in 1993 (that's when I was 18 and the Toronto Blue Jays were about to win their second straight World Series in dramatic fashion (touch 'em all Joe!)) and on nights when I am having trouble falling asleep I often fantasize about what I would do if this phenomenon did occur (well, it beats counting sheep). There's the good stuff: A good portion of my fantasies surround (like Jeff in the book) betting insane amounts of money on sporting events, investing in sure thing stock (Google, Nokia, AOL, Apple, Amazon, Facebook (giggle) etc...) and I'd probably use the phenomenon in ways that I don't want to explore online since my mother tends to read this blog (though Ken Grimwood goes there with Jeff). But there would also be the bad: It's highly unlikely that I could recreate the exact circumstances that lead to me meeting, dating and ultimately marrying my wife (among other important people in my life) and I wonder whether I would be able to refrain from interfering in the space/time continuum (could I really, in good conscience, sit back and allow the events of September 11th to happen again? Or Columbine? Or Triumph the Insult Dog? Or any number of other tragedies that I know are impending?).

Replay is such an intriguing premise. One with so many variables. And if the premise of this book was simply replaying your life from the age of 18 until the age of 43 it would have been excellent, but Grimwood doesn't stop there. On the exact date and time of his death in 1988, Jeff Winston dies again and begins replaying his life... for a third time. This continues to a fourth and fifth and sixth life, each slightly shorter than the last, but to a human being, an almost infinite amount of living to be done. And just imagine, for a second that perhaps Jeff Winston isn't the only person experiencing replays.

Each time I finish this novel I curse Grimwood for ending it. There was so much more that could have been written. It could have been the first infinite book. Alas, I understand that an artist should always leave there audience wanting more. In this respect, Ken Grimwood is a genius. Rumor has it that he was working on a sequel to the book when he died in 2003, but left us with an unprintable manuscript which he went off to, presumably, replay his own life. Jerk.

There has been rumor of a movie for years (including one that would have starred Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts) but as of yet it has not materialized. It's a shame, too because I think it would make a killer film if done right.

Until such time, there is still the book. I am surprised that it isn't as well known as it should be. Given the premise of the novel I figured it would have been a runaway best seller rather than a cult classic. But what do I know about taste? My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski.