Title: Inside Job
Author: Connie Willis
Pub Date: 2005
Genre: Science Fiction, Novella
Nutshell: A confirmed skeptic investigates a channeler who may be more real than either of them realize
Finally, I finished something!
I read a Connie Willis novel last year, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and rather enjoyed it. It was the second in a series, but she wrote well enough and explained things so that I didn't feel like I was missing too much by not having read the first. I mean to go back to the rest of the series some time, maybe for this project.
This particular work is a novella, right at 99 pages. It has nothing to do with time travel, but it has plenty to do with history and science fiction. As usual, Willis's writing flows pretty well, and with a work this short you don't get the dead spots that happened a few times with the longer novel. It might have ended a bit twee for my taste, but it was enjoyable and a thoroughly easy and pleasant read, which I needed after my recent slogs through books about cancer and Puritans.
You don't have to be hardcore into science fiction to enjoy this, as long as you can maintain a fair suspension of disbelief. There's nothing about space or aliens or any kind of technobabble--just a benignly geeky fascination with a certain author (you'll see). I'd recommend it to anybody wanting a quick diversion that's well-written and amusing.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Gah
I've been having a time, I can tell you. I can't seem to find a book to finish since the last one, which I don't even remember offhand. Oh, the Jane Austen. Since then, I've taken a stab at a couple cancer books (still hanging on to The Emperor of All Maladies, but it's thick), ghosts, Puritans, and some fiction, but nothing has much taken. I've gotten a bit of the way through The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, and it's not bad, but it's going to need to pick up a bit if I'm going to get anywhere.
Back to the library again today, this time for some more sci fi. I have a Connie Willis anthology and short novel to find and I'm also going to take a run at Asimov's Foundation trilogy. I just need something with enough of a plot (and no dog deaths) to keep me interested enough to finish. I can't make myself slog through things like I used to when there was a grade on the line, I guess.
Back to the library again today, this time for some more sci fi. I have a Connie Willis anthology and short novel to find and I'm also going to take a run at Asimov's Foundation trilogy. I just need something with enough of a plot (and no dog deaths) to keep me interested enough to finish. I can't make myself slog through things like I used to when there was a grade on the line, I guess.
Monday, April 7, 2014
A Jane Austen Education
Title: A Jane Austen Education
Author: William Deresiewicz
Pub Date: 2011
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir
Nutshell: A young man learns that some of life's most important lessons can be found in the works of Jane Austen
I picked this up on a whim while wandering the college library and read it in one afternoon. It's a small book, with a chapter devoted to Jane Austen's six major novels: Emma, Pride & Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility. A hardcore modernist, Deresiewicz encounters Jane in graduate school and comes to realize that many of the lessons he most needs to learn in life are present in these supposedly "girly" and "inconsequential" works of fiction. Of course, loves of Jane Austen don't necessarily need to be told this, but many Austenites are females and so it's interesting to hear a guy's perception of what these books mean.
Probably it's a bit too neat to boil each novel down to one overarching life lesson. I don't necessarily think that Austen was trying to have a moral to every story--she was writing in part to help pay the bills, after all, and if she had wanted to be moralizing she certainly could have been heavier with it. Such was the age. But this is a critique of English lit after all, and I at least enjoyed his interpretations more than the overheated analytic hoo-ha I myself had to endure during my own graduate school experience.
There are no great revelations in this book to my mind, but it was at least an interesting insight into Austen and what one guy feels she was trying to get at with her work. Deresiewicz himself comes across as fairly likable, naive, young, willing to learn in the end. If the life events that coincide with the books are maybe a bit too on-the-nose for my liking, that certainly isn't an argument that they didn't happen, or that the way he tells his narrative isn't effective. This isn't just a book for Austenites -- it's almost a self-help personal growth sort of book, about becoming an adult in a world where many of us have a great deal of trouble ever figuring out how to grow up.
Author: William Deresiewicz
Pub Date: 2011
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir
Nutshell: A young man learns that some of life's most important lessons can be found in the works of Jane Austen
I picked this up on a whim while wandering the college library and read it in one afternoon. It's a small book, with a chapter devoted to Jane Austen's six major novels: Emma, Pride & Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility. A hardcore modernist, Deresiewicz encounters Jane in graduate school and comes to realize that many of the lessons he most needs to learn in life are present in these supposedly "girly" and "inconsequential" works of fiction. Of course, loves of Jane Austen don't necessarily need to be told this, but many Austenites are females and so it's interesting to hear a guy's perception of what these books mean.
Probably it's a bit too neat to boil each novel down to one overarching life lesson. I don't necessarily think that Austen was trying to have a moral to every story--she was writing in part to help pay the bills, after all, and if she had wanted to be moralizing she certainly could have been heavier with it. Such was the age. But this is a critique of English lit after all, and I at least enjoyed his interpretations more than the overheated analytic hoo-ha I myself had to endure during my own graduate school experience.
There are no great revelations in this book to my mind, but it was at least an interesting insight into Austen and what one guy feels she was trying to get at with her work. Deresiewicz himself comes across as fairly likable, naive, young, willing to learn in the end. If the life events that coincide with the books are maybe a bit too on-the-nose for my liking, that certainly isn't an argument that they didn't happen, or that the way he tells his narrative isn't effective. This isn't just a book for Austenites -- it's almost a self-help personal growth sort of book, about becoming an adult in a world where many of us have a great deal of trouble ever figuring out how to grow up.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Night Film
Title: Night Film
Author: Marisha Pessl
Pub Date: 2013
Genre: Fiction, Suspense
Nutshell: A fast-paced mystery in the vein of House of Leaves but easier reading
This book was on my radar for a while, one of the things that came up when I was doing one of my periodic "books like House of Leaves" searches. There are definitely similarities between the two, but overall this was much easier to read and follow. It's a large book, but there are quite a few pictures and other things scattered throughout and the narrative is fast enough that it's a quick read.
I don't want to spoil any plot (as usual), so let's just say that the main character, Scott, is a disgraced reporter who becomes a bit too fascinated with a reclusive horror movie director and that director's relationship with his daughter. You're constantly questioning which is the true narrative, what exactly is happening and what's just being interpreted... The characters are well-written and Pessl keeps the story going throughout. It veered into a biiiiit too unbelievable at a certain point, but it then righted itself without my even having to ask. It was not particularly frightening, but it was intriguing and suspenseful and you care enough about the people in the story that you want to find out what happens.
Author: Marisha Pessl
Pub Date: 2013
Genre: Fiction, Suspense
Nutshell: A fast-paced mystery in the vein of House of Leaves but easier reading
This book was on my radar for a while, one of the things that came up when I was doing one of my periodic "books like House of Leaves" searches. There are definitely similarities between the two, but overall this was much easier to read and follow. It's a large book, but there are quite a few pictures and other things scattered throughout and the narrative is fast enough that it's a quick read.
I don't want to spoil any plot (as usual), so let's just say that the main character, Scott, is a disgraced reporter who becomes a bit too fascinated with a reclusive horror movie director and that director's relationship with his daughter. You're constantly questioning which is the true narrative, what exactly is happening and what's just being interpreted... The characters are well-written and Pessl keeps the story going throughout. It veered into a biiiiit too unbelievable at a certain point, but it then righted itself without my even having to ask. It was not particularly frightening, but it was intriguing and suspenseful and you care enough about the people in the story that you want to find out what happens.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Grimscribe
Title: Grimscribe: His Lives and Works
Author: Thomas Ligotti
Pub Date: 1991
Genre: Lovecraftian Fiction, Short Stories
Nutshell: 13 unsettling short stories by an author revered as a true successor to H.P. Lovecraft
So I'm a big Lovecraft nerd. My favorites of his aren't even really the mythos stuff -- the Cthulu cults and Nyarlathotep and all that. I was always more of a fan of his one-offs. Stories like The Thing on the Doorstep or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward -- tales where just super weird stuff happens to people for no really definable reason. Dabbling in what you shouldn't is usually enough, and sometimes it's just a matter of being in the very wrong place at the worst time. There may be something bigger animating all this awfulness, but maybe it's just the awful circumstance of being.
Thomas Ligotti really captures that sense of general unease that you get with a lot of Lovecraft's stuff. There's no real overarching theme here, just bizarre things that happen to people that give you the idea of a sinister undertone to daily life that most people don't necessarily grasp. There is nothing schlocky here, nothing grotesque. No guts or gore or anything like that. Just a profound sense of something not being right. Like if you go to the wrong part of town at the wrong time of night you might find something you wish you hadn't, and that something is going to be much worse for you spiritually than a simple mugging. It all feels very much like a nightmare. Well, the kind that I have, anyway, which don't feature much in the way of skeletons or anything obviously scary. I have the kind of nightmares where everything just feels weirdly off and I feel trapped and like I might be in a dream but I can't seem to wake up. That's what drew me to Lovecraft in the first place, is we seemed to have similar nightmares.
That being said, some of this goes a bit long without much in the way of finalization. The thing about Lovecraft, you always knew when it was over. Usually because your narrator had fainted in the face of some sanity-blasting terror. There's none of that here, either. These stories seem to be much more into evoking and sustaining the mood than telling much of a story with a narrative arc, and a little of that goes a long way.
However, there were a few standouts that I enjoyed, mainly the first story and the last. "The Last Feast of Harlequin" is dedicated to Lovecraft and his influence is all over it. It has a definite story and certainly holds to a couple of the main Lovecraftian hallmarks (fans will know what I mean and I don't want to give any hints as to the plot). "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World" also has a clearer narrative, and elicits a great deal of uneasiness without losing the thread of the story within. The rest of the stories are an excellent study in setting up a narrative tone that is surely Lovecraftian, but they definitely lack the, well, pulpiness that was usually present in H.P.'s works. They're all threatening atmosphere without much actual threat. I actually missed the fainting Lovecraftian hero. He provided a catharsis that Ligotti never gives you, and maybe that's the point. Maybe the idea is that the feeling doesn't ever leave, and once you're aware of it it's with you forever. But I think I prefer the fainting.
Author: Thomas Ligotti
Pub Date: 1991
Genre: Lovecraftian Fiction, Short Stories
Nutshell: 13 unsettling short stories by an author revered as a true successor to H.P. Lovecraft
So I'm a big Lovecraft nerd. My favorites of his aren't even really the mythos stuff -- the Cthulu cults and Nyarlathotep and all that. I was always more of a fan of his one-offs. Stories like The Thing on the Doorstep or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward -- tales where just super weird stuff happens to people for no really definable reason. Dabbling in what you shouldn't is usually enough, and sometimes it's just a matter of being in the very wrong place at the worst time. There may be something bigger animating all this awfulness, but maybe it's just the awful circumstance of being.
Thomas Ligotti really captures that sense of general unease that you get with a lot of Lovecraft's stuff. There's no real overarching theme here, just bizarre things that happen to people that give you the idea of a sinister undertone to daily life that most people don't necessarily grasp. There is nothing schlocky here, nothing grotesque. No guts or gore or anything like that. Just a profound sense of something not being right. Like if you go to the wrong part of town at the wrong time of night you might find something you wish you hadn't, and that something is going to be much worse for you spiritually than a simple mugging. It all feels very much like a nightmare. Well, the kind that I have, anyway, which don't feature much in the way of skeletons or anything obviously scary. I have the kind of nightmares where everything just feels weirdly off and I feel trapped and like I might be in a dream but I can't seem to wake up. That's what drew me to Lovecraft in the first place, is we seemed to have similar nightmares.
That being said, some of this goes a bit long without much in the way of finalization. The thing about Lovecraft, you always knew when it was over. Usually because your narrator had fainted in the face of some sanity-blasting terror. There's none of that here, either. These stories seem to be much more into evoking and sustaining the mood than telling much of a story with a narrative arc, and a little of that goes a long way.
However, there were a few standouts that I enjoyed, mainly the first story and the last. "The Last Feast of Harlequin" is dedicated to Lovecraft and his influence is all over it. It has a definite story and certainly holds to a couple of the main Lovecraftian hallmarks (fans will know what I mean and I don't want to give any hints as to the plot). "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World" also has a clearer narrative, and elicits a great deal of uneasiness without losing the thread of the story within. The rest of the stories are an excellent study in setting up a narrative tone that is surely Lovecraftian, but they definitely lack the, well, pulpiness that was usually present in H.P.'s works. They're all threatening atmosphere without much actual threat. I actually missed the fainting Lovecraftian hero. He provided a catharsis that Ligotti never gives you, and maybe that's the point. Maybe the idea is that the feeling doesn't ever leave, and once you're aware of it it's with you forever. But I think I prefer the fainting.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Hearts West
Title: Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier
Author: Chris Enss
Pub Date: 2005
Genre: History
Nutshell: A collection of stories of women and men who advertised (successfully or otherwise) for mates in the Western US during the late 1800s.
This was kind of a gimme. I got the ebook for 99 cents from Amazon and it's quite short. But I was behind for the month and I needed something quick.
I read this in a morning. It's a short book and a quick read. It's 17 small chapters (not including forward and afterward) that each tell a story or two about a couple that met through matrimonial advertisements or the history of some of the various schemes to bring eligible ladies out West during the settlement of that area. Definitely the precursor to online dating, although in general people tended to be much more honest about themselves in the earlier era and usually sent accurate photos when requested. A fair number of the correspondents ended up getting married and staying married, and more than a few of those marriages seemed to actually be happy. Given the conditions in the West and the rather unorthodox method of meeting, that's either highly surprising or an argument for being slightly less picky in a life partner.
The book also reprints several advertisements from the period, many from women in the early to mid-20s who were seeking husbands. Some of the women were in their 30s and were either spinsters (awful word) or widows. The ads from older widows are generally hilarious, and you get an idea they had full knowledge of what they were looking for in a husband. Ads from men are mostly straightforward. I find it difficult to get into the mindset that these women, many of whom had jobs and some of whom stood to inherit substantial sums, just had to get married, but I'm a thoroughly modern girl in that respect I guess. Given the dearth of eligible young men in that time period (the Civil War more or less wiped out a generation), ladies had to take their chances where they could if they didn't want to be alone.
Some of the stories are quite charming, and most of them end happily. Overall, a nice little book. There are a few typos and small problems, but for 99 cents I'm not going to complain. It was something easily read with historical insight into the lives of women 150 years ago.
Author: Chris Enss
Pub Date: 2005
Genre: History
Nutshell: A collection of stories of women and men who advertised (successfully or otherwise) for mates in the Western US during the late 1800s.
This was kind of a gimme. I got the ebook for 99 cents from Amazon and it's quite short. But I was behind for the month and I needed something quick.
I read this in a morning. It's a short book and a quick read. It's 17 small chapters (not including forward and afterward) that each tell a story or two about a couple that met through matrimonial advertisements or the history of some of the various schemes to bring eligible ladies out West during the settlement of that area. Definitely the precursor to online dating, although in general people tended to be much more honest about themselves in the earlier era and usually sent accurate photos when requested. A fair number of the correspondents ended up getting married and staying married, and more than a few of those marriages seemed to actually be happy. Given the conditions in the West and the rather unorthodox method of meeting, that's either highly surprising or an argument for being slightly less picky in a life partner.
The book also reprints several advertisements from the period, many from women in the early to mid-20s who were seeking husbands. Some of the women were in their 30s and were either spinsters (awful word) or widows. The ads from older widows are generally hilarious, and you get an idea they had full knowledge of what they were looking for in a husband. Ads from men are mostly straightforward. I find it difficult to get into the mindset that these women, many of whom had jobs and some of whom stood to inherit substantial sums, just had to get married, but I'm a thoroughly modern girl in that respect I guess. Given the dearth of eligible young men in that time period (the Civil War more or less wiped out a generation), ladies had to take their chances where they could if they didn't want to be alone.
Some of the stories are quite charming, and most of them end happily. Overall, a nice little book. There are a few typos and small problems, but for 99 cents I'm not going to complain. It was something easily read with historical insight into the lives of women 150 years ago.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
This Book Is Full of Spiders
Title: This Book Is Full of Spiders
Author: David Wong
Pub Date: 2012
Genre: Horror Fiction
Nutshell: Really messed-up things happen. Again.
To get some housekeeping out of the way, I'm about 2/3 through Faulkner's Light in August. But the weather turned cold again and I cannot read Faulkner without it being warm. Plus it was getting to be a slog. So I'm still working on it, but in the meantime, I read this because I had it at work and I figured it would be fairly quick.
If you read John Dies at the End, then you'll have a flavor for what this book is like. I started it, but had to return it to the library and didn't ever get too far in. So this was more or less new for me. And overall, I liked it. It was very quick and I had a hard time putting it down. Oh, and it's gross, but it's also funny. It reminds me a lot of Shaun of the Dead that way, in that it's horrifying and gross but also funny and kind of sweet.
Basic plot, there's two guys, John and Dave, who see things they shouldn't. Then these insecty things (some are spiderish, but some have lots of more legs than that) show up and all hell breaks loose. More or less. There are lots of guts and brains and explosions and violence and some that is funny and one part just honestly broke my heart because of who I am and what I love. I was not happy with that part, but I understand the reasoning behind it.
If you like Lovecraft and don't mind irreverence, I'd suggest this. It's amusing but manages to tap into that world that Lovecraft kind of pioneered.
Author: David Wong
Pub Date: 2012
Genre: Horror Fiction
Nutshell: Really messed-up things happen. Again.
To get some housekeeping out of the way, I'm about 2/3 through Faulkner's Light in August. But the weather turned cold again and I cannot read Faulkner without it being warm. Plus it was getting to be a slog. So I'm still working on it, but in the meantime, I read this because I had it at work and I figured it would be fairly quick.
If you read John Dies at the End, then you'll have a flavor for what this book is like. I started it, but had to return it to the library and didn't ever get too far in. So this was more or less new for me. And overall, I liked it. It was very quick and I had a hard time putting it down. Oh, and it's gross, but it's also funny. It reminds me a lot of Shaun of the Dead that way, in that it's horrifying and gross but also funny and kind of sweet.
Basic plot, there's two guys, John and Dave, who see things they shouldn't. Then these insecty things (some are spiderish, but some have lots of more legs than that) show up and all hell breaks loose. More or less. There are lots of guts and brains and explosions and violence and some that is funny and one part just honestly broke my heart because of who I am and what I love. I was not happy with that part, but I understand the reasoning behind it.
If you like Lovecraft and don't mind irreverence, I'd suggest this. It's amusing but manages to tap into that world that Lovecraft kind of pioneered.
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