Confederates in the Attic

Title: Confederates in the Attic
Author: Tony Horwitz
Pub Date: 1998
Genre: Narrative History, Travelogue
Nutshell: A writer explores the still-present attitudes about the Civil War in the southern states

I have a weird relationship with the south, overall. I think lots of Kentuckians do, especially those of us raised to be upwardly mobile and more citified than our more rural cousins. I come from a long, long line of Kentucky stock--as near as I can tell, we were some of the first into the area back when it was still part of Virginia. But Kentucky is a strange place, and Louisville even stranger--we are perhaps the northernmost city of the south or the southernmost city of the north. We have southern customs and habits with Yankee politics, godless heathen liberals in a republican state (we used to be blue, before the Christian Coalition turned all the unionized democratic coal miners into people who voted their religion).

My family also, up until my parents' generation, were farmers. The oldest relative that I can absolutely prove served in any kind of war at all was my mother's grandfather, who trained to be a school teacher and became instead a career Marine who saw service with the Army in World War I. His two sons fought in Korea. And that is the beginning and end of my family's experience with the military, on either side. 

So my views on the Civil War and my overall identification with the south as a region is conflicted. My family was certainly in Kentucky by the time of the war, but was never rich enough to own anybody--I doubt they completely owned themselves most of the time. And we are of the more traditional WASP-ish makeup, being thoroughly English and quite probably colonial on at least one side. And in history class, I always (and still) identify with the Yanks, because I could never wrap my head around slavery and from an early age I was always more of a Federalist in terms of governmental preference. 

So this book was interesting for me, coming as it did from an author who has much of the same ambivalence as I do about the whole thing. Well, being a true Yankee he was slightly more interested in the Rebel cause than I ever was, living in the middle of it as I did. My middle school mascot was a rebel, and there was a large Confederate flag painted on the football bleachers from when it was a high school (with the same mascot). One year while I was still there they painted over it--a decision I was completely fine with but which incensed a lot of locals for many of the reasons that are documented in this book. I thought it was sheer lunacy to be that enamored with a history that was on the losing side of the moral and historical arguments. I'm still not a fan of the Confederacy and I still have a deep (probably deeper) suspicion of states' rights agitators, but I can at least now understand the underlying romance and mythos that draws people to the idea of supporting "The Cause."

Basically, the plot is this: Tony Horwitz stumbles into a circle of hardcore Civil War reenactors who are obsessed with getting the historical detail absolutely correct and are highly contemptuous of the kind of dilettantes who don't get their costumes right or insist on sleeping in hotels during reenactments. "The only thing left for these people is real ammunition and Civil War diseases," one person says during his travels. "I hope it doesn't come to that." Between reenactments, Tony travels around southern battlefields and other areas that seem to be obsessed with "The Cause," having a singularly depressing experience in Kentucky. He learns that some people still have very strong feelings about the war, and others barely remember what it was about. It's an interesting journey, filled with the sort of unique types you really only get down here. There is ugliness, but there's also acceptance and reconciliation. There's forgetfulness and remembrance, and you wonder which, if either, is the better option.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I wish he'd go back and do a re-tour--I imagine in the last nearly 20 years, attitudes are quite a bit different now than they were then. Of course, it might just be depressing. A lot of people my age don't care so much about history anymore, even our own, and what we are teaching our children is probably highly suspect at this point. But taken in the context of the next civil rights struggle, it's certainly an interesting look at what people still feel about a cause that was lost nearly 150 years ago, and wonder what the next 150 years will bring.

The Glass Demon

Title: The Glass Demon
Author: Helen Grant
Pub Date: 2010
Genre: Fiction
Nutshell: A teenage girl is plunged into a dangerous mystery over stained glass supposedly haunted by a demon

First, some notes: I discovered this book through A Podcast to the Curious, which is about the ghost stories of M.R. James. I found that podcast through the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, which is probably still my favorite podcast ever. If you have an interest in the more traditional ghost story or in weird fiction in general, you could do much worse than checking out those two productions.

Now, on to the book. Author Helen Grant is a devotee of M.R. James, and you can see some of that in her choice of story here. M.R. James was instrumental in the discovery of the missing stained glass from Steinfeld Abbey, which he also wrote about in his story "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas." The Glass Demon takes the idea of lost glass one step further and imbues it with a curse: the man who created the glass made a pact with the devil in order to create such a masterwork. This demon haunts the glass and kills those associated with it. 

Into this story come Lin and her family. Her academic father is obsessed with finding the glass in order to make a name for himself by publishing a book about it. Having knocked about two different graduate departments for a few years, I can tell you that nothing in Lin's father's behavior is that difficult to believe. 

The narrative flows along rather quickly and it was definitely a fairly speedy read. The one thing I really wished for is that I could have felt some amount of sympathy for one of the characters besides Lin and her cohort Michel. Everyone else was just a mess and a few were downright awful. Lin's parents are fairly irredeemable. There is a sister who  is not completely objectionable, but her method of victimization was slightly galling. Also related to her character: if you have trigger issues with eating disorders, you might be wary. Most of the surrounding characters are also not exceptionally fleshed out or irritating. I suppose this leads to your clinging more or less to the main character and feeling as isolated as she does, but it still wasn't the most comfortable reading experience. 

However, if you can get over the irritating characters, this is a good book that moves at a fast clip and was a pretty good mystery. I didn't see the ending coming, which is always a plus. 

The Round House

Title: The Round House
Author: Louise Erdrich
Pub Date: 2012
Genre: Fiction
Nutshell: A 13-year-old boy tries to solve the crime of what happened to his mother on their reservation

I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into with this one, because I just read a blurb about it on the Publisher's Weekly website and of course when I saw Indian I thought 1800s, because living where I do I don't really think of reservations still being a thing now. So I was thrown a bit for a loop when I saw the date 1988 at the beginning, but after a minute of being confused I settled into it.

Overall, this is a pretty good story. It is narrated by a 13-year-old boy living on a reservation in North Dakota whose mother is brutally raped, and the ensuing fallout that results from that crime. I have to admit I did start page flipping a bit just after the middle, because it kept veering off into old legends told by the narrator's grandfather and other bits and pieces that just weren't quite holding my interest. There is an entire side plot involving the narrator and his three teenage friends, and while it's fine, it just didn't really keep me in the story. There is another plot about several of the narrator's family members that was also kind of hit or miss.

This does tell what I imagine is a fairly authentic tale of reservation life, especially in the late '80s. Crime is certainly still a major problem on reservations, and rape is distressingly common and usually unsolved. The Justice Department reported a few years ago that 1 in 3 native women are raped or sexually assaulted, compared with 1 in 5 on the national average. That's disturbing. And the laws that govern reservation land can be charitably described as byzantine. So it's a story that needs telling, to be sure. I just found this tale to be a bit all over the place at times, when maybe more of a focus on the subject at hand might have made it easier to read. But it was not unenjoyable, and I finished it in a day.

On Criteria

My hope in doing this Cannonball Read is to not revisit books I've already read. I may revisit that idea if I get way behind at some point, because it's certainly much easier to read a book you're already familiar with than one you aren't, but the idea is to read different books, not to come back to the same ones again. This does make the process more difficult, however, as I am not in easy possession of these books (I usually never buy a book I haven't already read). Unless it's a really unique book that I'm fairly sure I'll like (like S.), I generally won't have them on hand, so I have to get them from the library, and sometimes they have to be delivered from different branches, and sometimes I have to go on a wait list. Recommendations are also welcome, because there's a lot of books out there and many of them are terrible.

S.

Title: S.
Author: Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams
Pub Date: 2013
Genre: Fiction
Nutshell: Girl finds boy's book, boy and girl make margin notes, mysteries are solved, love happens and doesn't happen.

I read this pretty much exclusively because it seemed enough like House of Leaves to scratch that itch, and also because I really liked what I knew about the concept. My final opinion? There were some points that never really got resolved, and the secondary story was missing some parts, and the narrative style is certainly not for everyone, but I rather liked it. 

There are several stories going on within S. There the is surface narrative of the novel Ship of Theseus, written by V.M. Straka. There is the narrative being written by the guy and the girl who are corresponding within the margins with each other. There is the underlying narrative of what exactly Straka is trying to say within Ship of Theseus. There is another underlying narrative about Straka himself -- who he was, what he stood for, who he was involved with. There are at least three love stories, maybe four. There is intrigue and murder and plotting and backstabbing and theft.

As usual, I don't want to spoil anything, so I will confine this review to non-plot related matters. This is not a conventional narrative. The plot of the novel is a bit strange, but nothing particularly difficult. But a reader will either find the margin notes awesome or irritating. I can sort of compare it in some ways to whether you prefer your foreign language films dubbed or subtitled. I am a subtitle person, and I didn't have much issue in reading the text, footnotes, and margin notes all together as they came up. But I am also a lit major, so that may not be everyone's cup of tea. There are several ways to read the book: You can do it like I did, reading everything at once. You can read the novel first then all the margin notes. Or you can (as I will be doing on my re-read now that I know the novel), make several passes through the book and read the margin notes in sequential order, as noted by the ink colors used. 

This does not even take the inserts into consideration. The book comes with postcards, letters, cards and various other ephemera upon which the margin authors correspond with each other and some outside people. These are inserted into the text at various points when it more or less makes sense within the narrative. If they fall out, there are online resources that will tell you where they belong. For this reason, you probably don't want to fool with borrowing a copy from the library or getting one used unless you're sure it has all the inserts.

Also, a note on the novel Ship of Theseus -- I don't know who was responsible for designing the book, but it's perfect. The cover is exactly what I've seen on any number of contemporary 1950s books. The pages are expertly stained. It even smells old. It's a very visceral experience and one I particularly enjoyed when I opened it, book nerd that I am. 

This is a work that requires some time and effort and probably at least two passes to fully understand. Plot points that I felt may have been disregarded may just be in the notes somewhere. Or they may have been simply disregarded -- it was an idea of J.J. Abrams' after all, and he's not best known for wrapping everything up all the time. But basically, this is a challenging read. Nothing about the story itself is particularly challenging -- at the end of the day, it's fairly straightforward -- both the novel text and the margin story. But the way it's told makes it a bit more difficult and I wouldn't recommend it for someone who just wants an easy read. This took a couple weeks to get through and I'll likely need to read it again before I have down that's in there. It's definitely a book that is also an experience, and if you want there are several online websites that can immerse you further into the world of it. 

I'm not dead...

I've been making my slow way through S. It's not particularly easy reading, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I'm not finding that it's producing the same je ne sais quois that House of Leaves managed, but I do find myself thinking about it when I'm not reading it. And for all that it's not terribly easy to read, it's certainly easier to read than House. I don't have to keep rotating the book or anything goofy. I would say I'm maybe 2/3 through it -- I keep leaving it at work so I haven't been able to read it at home in a bit, plus life sometimes gets busy. But I hope to be done and have my review up soon.

Whoops!

I was trying to read Day After Night by Anita Diamant, but then I got S. in the mail and now I can't think of anything else but that. So I have to read it. I might get back into the former at some point, but I wasn't finding it as compelling as The Red Tent. I think what sold that book for me was the poetry of the narrative, which obviously this newer book doesn't have because it's much more modern.