An evocative blend of compassion and cynicism. Vonnegut loves people. His compassion for humanity is evident in the character of Eliot Rosewater. Rosewater is heir to the Rosewater fortune and he spends it on helping anyone and everyone who calls him. Vonnegut hates a good many cultural institutions. In short, thoroughly arresting prose passages Vonnegut dismisses nearly all of the systems by which wealth is acquired and passed on in America. The passage about the “Money River” is the key passage of this nature. It’s painful to feel so helpless before the crushing weight of cultural tradition. But there is hope, because people, individual humans, still live and love and have sex and fall down and cry and stand up and carry on. If you have read Vonnegut, you know his message. This book is, perhaps, the most distilled version his message. Dresden and the Tralfamadorians are mentioned, some characters from other works get cameos and this is the first book in which Kilgore Trout appears. It’s the perfect place to start (or continue) your torrid love affair with Vonnegut’s original voice.
26 August 2010
A Review: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
4 / 5 Stars
An evocative blend of compassion and cynicism. Vonnegut loves people. His compassion for humanity is evident in the character of Eliot Rosewater. Rosewater is heir to the Rosewater fortune and he spends it on helping anyone and everyone who calls him. Vonnegut hates a good many cultural institutions. In short, thoroughly arresting prose passages Vonnegut dismisses nearly all of the systems by which wealth is acquired and passed on in America. The passage about the “Money River” is the key passage of this nature. It’s painful to feel so helpless before the crushing weight of cultural tradition. But there is hope, because people, individual humans, still live and love and have sex and fall down and cry and stand up and carry on. If you have read Vonnegut, you know his message. This book is, perhaps, the most distilled version his message. Dresden and the Tralfamadorians are mentioned, some characters from other works get cameos and this is the first book in which Kilgore Trout appears. It’s the perfect place to start (or continue) your torrid love affair with Vonnegut’s original voice.
An evocative blend of compassion and cynicism. Vonnegut loves people. His compassion for humanity is evident in the character of Eliot Rosewater. Rosewater is heir to the Rosewater fortune and he spends it on helping anyone and everyone who calls him. Vonnegut hates a good many cultural institutions. In short, thoroughly arresting prose passages Vonnegut dismisses nearly all of the systems by which wealth is acquired and passed on in America. The passage about the “Money River” is the key passage of this nature. It’s painful to feel so helpless before the crushing weight of cultural tradition. But there is hope, because people, individual humans, still live and love and have sex and fall down and cry and stand up and carry on. If you have read Vonnegut, you know his message. This book is, perhaps, the most distilled version his message. Dresden and the Tralfamadorians are mentioned, some characters from other works get cameos and this is the first book in which Kilgore Trout appears. It’s the perfect place to start (or continue) your torrid love affair with Vonnegut’s original voice.
25 August 2010
Han Has it Just Right
As I mentioned in my review, I could not stop reading A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong. I think it fits within the definition of magical realism. The story is based on personal experience, so there is some amount of reality to it. But Han is not exactly writing his memoirs, he’s trying to convey the voice of the people of the village. What they believe about dream-women and maple demons and purple-teeth soil is real for the purposes of the story. It’s stronger than that, even, because belief is as good as reality to the extent that people act on their beliefs (and who doesn’t). Belief IS reality from each person’s point of view. In that way, all reality is constructed. The very best of magical realism makes one question one’s own point of view. That’s my understanding of what magical realism is.
My point is this: Han’s book has served to convince me that I want to use magical realism for this year’s NaNoWriMo. It’ll be the Iceland / melting glacier / Norse Mythology idea I mentioned before. Is the glacier melting because of climate change? Yes, for the daughter. Is the glacier melting because the kids don’t visit anymore? Yes, for the father. Is the glacier melting because it’s time for the Age of Fire and Gravel? Yes, for the older son. Something like that.
My point is this: Han’s book has served to convince me that I want to use magical realism for this year’s NaNoWriMo. It’ll be the Iceland / melting glacier / Norse Mythology idea I mentioned before. Is the glacier melting because of climate change? Yes, for the daughter. Is the glacier melting because the kids don’t visit anymore? Yes, for the father. Is the glacier melting because it’s time for the Age of Fire and Gravel? Yes, for the older son. Something like that.
24 August 2010
A Review: A Dictionary of Maqiao – Han Shaogong
5 / 5 Stars
A gigantic Impressionist mural painted in words. This novel is presented as a dictionary. Each word is explained in a story (sweet, funny, tragic, disturbing…), many of them several pages long. Each story reveals just a little more about one of the village’s central figures. Each character is another facet in the overall character of the village of Maqiao (ma-CHI-ow). A work of brilliant little glimpses, this one adds up to much more than the sum of its parts. Han was a young man during the Cultural Revolution, when he was sent to Maqiao (a mountain village in southern China) to learn from the peasants. He did. He kept notes on how language was different for the rural villages than for the urbanites he was used to. That, and decades of reflection, resulted in this book. A Dictionary of Maqiao is something of a coming-of-age tale, something of an old man’s lament for the loss of innocence, something of a search for the Chinese soul and something of an investigation of how all reality is constructed by our perceptions. Perhaps it is that the distant time and place invoke a feeling of the exotic, perhaps it is that each character in the ensemble cast is a compelling study of humanity or perhaps the dictionary format just appeals to the part of me that loves non-fiction. Whatever the reason, I could not stop reading this book! I recommend it for anyone interested in Chinese culture or in Magical Realism.
A gigantic Impressionist mural painted in words. This novel is presented as a dictionary. Each word is explained in a story (sweet, funny, tragic, disturbing…), many of them several pages long. Each story reveals just a little more about one of the village’s central figures. Each character is another facet in the overall character of the village of Maqiao (ma-CHI-ow). A work of brilliant little glimpses, this one adds up to much more than the sum of its parts. Han was a young man during the Cultural Revolution, when he was sent to Maqiao (a mountain village in southern China) to learn from the peasants. He did. He kept notes on how language was different for the rural villages than for the urbanites he was used to. That, and decades of reflection, resulted in this book. A Dictionary of Maqiao is something of a coming-of-age tale, something of an old man’s lament for the loss of innocence, something of a search for the Chinese soul and something of an investigation of how all reality is constructed by our perceptions. Perhaps it is that the distant time and place invoke a feeling of the exotic, perhaps it is that each character in the ensemble cast is a compelling study of humanity or perhaps the dictionary format just appeals to the part of me that loves non-fiction. Whatever the reason, I could not stop reading this book! I recommend it for anyone interested in Chinese culture or in Magical Realism.
22 August 2010
A Review: Mao II - Don DeLillo
3.5 / 5 Stars
More like the beam of a flashlight than a novel, and that’s not a bad thing. This is the first DeLillo book I have read and I have no idea why I decided I wanted to read it. Mao II has a healthy dose of that “20th Century rejection of plot” movement. Not a whole lot happens. There’s not even a lot of character development. Everyone is pretty much the some from beginning to end. It’s hard to say what the book is even about! This leads me to the beam of light analogy. DeLillo gives the reader a series of intimate interactions between strangers and friends. There is a bit of back story and some changes of scene to weave it all together, but the things people say to each and do with each other are the focus. Why live off the grid? Why take pictures? Why help homeless people? Why kidnap a poet? What exactly is wrong with me, medically? The light of this novel shines on all these questions (and more) and provides answers. Not the answer, but an answer. An answer from the specific people in the story. This novel is glimpses of the world around us, brilliant little glimpses. However, it all adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Contemporary literary fiction is a new thing for me, so I don’t think I can say who should or shouldn’t read this. The best I can do is say, “Give it a try. You might like it.”
More like the beam of a flashlight than a novel, and that’s not a bad thing. This is the first DeLillo book I have read and I have no idea why I decided I wanted to read it. Mao II has a healthy dose of that “20th Century rejection of plot” movement. Not a whole lot happens. There’s not even a lot of character development. Everyone is pretty much the some from beginning to end. It’s hard to say what the book is even about! This leads me to the beam of light analogy. DeLillo gives the reader a series of intimate interactions between strangers and friends. There is a bit of back story and some changes of scene to weave it all together, but the things people say to each and do with each other are the focus. Why live off the grid? Why take pictures? Why help homeless people? Why kidnap a poet? What exactly is wrong with me, medically? The light of this novel shines on all these questions (and more) and provides answers. Not the answer, but an answer. An answer from the specific people in the story. This novel is glimpses of the world around us, brilliant little glimpses. However, it all adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Contemporary literary fiction is a new thing for me, so I don’t think I can say who should or shouldn’t read this. The best I can do is say, “Give it a try. You might like it.”
20 August 2010
A Review: Hope Beyond Hell – Gerry Beauchemin
2.5 / 5 Stars
A great theology that wants for better explaining. This is a book for anyone who as ever wondered how an all-loving God fits with the Dante-style image we have of Hell. The two don’t fit, because that idea of Hell is wrong. To say it simply; the word commonly translated “everlasting” is more properly translated “an age.” Also, the world that is translated “punishment” in those same verses is more closely related to the word for pruning trees. Thus, eternal suffering in Hell is not a Biblical concept, but something Christians have cooked up on their own. The Bible promises someday “every knee shall bow” and how will this be achieved? A period of painful correction is due for those that have strayed, but that’s all. No one is lost, because not even death can stop God’s redemptive purpose. This is what Beauchemin calls the Blessed Hope. This is great news! So why the low rating? The book is just poorly written. It jumps around a lot, tackling bits of Christian theology like Election, Justification and the meaning of “Gehenna” in a somewhat random fashion. Beauchemin quotes copiously from scripture and from many other authors but it all comes across like a mere listing of facts. He also focuses a lot of attention on things that just don’t need it. There are focused parts of the text (particularly Chapter 1), but the balance is so haphazard. This is a message that needs to get out there, but someone else needs to present it.
A great theology that wants for better explaining. This is a book for anyone who as ever wondered how an all-loving God fits with the Dante-style image we have of Hell. The two don’t fit, because that idea of Hell is wrong. To say it simply; the word commonly translated “everlasting” is more properly translated “an age.” Also, the world that is translated “punishment” in those same verses is more closely related to the word for pruning trees. Thus, eternal suffering in Hell is not a Biblical concept, but something Christians have cooked up on their own. The Bible promises someday “every knee shall bow” and how will this be achieved? A period of painful correction is due for those that have strayed, but that’s all. No one is lost, because not even death can stop God’s redemptive purpose. This is what Beauchemin calls the Blessed Hope. This is great news! So why the low rating? The book is just poorly written. It jumps around a lot, tackling bits of Christian theology like Election, Justification and the meaning of “Gehenna” in a somewhat random fashion. Beauchemin quotes copiously from scripture and from many other authors but it all comes across like a mere listing of facts. He also focuses a lot of attention on things that just don’t need it. There are focused parts of the text (particularly Chapter 1), but the balance is so haphazard. This is a message that needs to get out there, but someone else needs to present it.
18 August 2010
A Review: The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 1 – Lee Gutkind, ed.
4 / 5 Stars
Every piece in this collection is top notch writing. What is “creative nonfiction?” It is an essay format that relates real events (or emotions) by using writing techniques more commonly used in fiction. This union is a great thing. The content gets a snappy presentation and the techniques get wider use. So if you want to write about an attempted seduction you could structure it as a series of statements about your feelings. Or, if you wanted to assess the current state of a particular science you could project it a little forward in time and introduce us to people affected by its development. If you really want to know what it’s all about, read this book. It is an introduction to the wide world of creative nonfiction. More than one piece in this collection prompted me to exclaim, “Mmm, that was good writing!” If there is a drawback to the collection it is that the sort of real events (or emotions) that most often inspire written reflection are intense interpersonal experiences. I mean, how many essays about bad mothers can one read? The best of these best are “The Pain Scale” by Eula Bliss, “Pimp” by Olivia Chia-Lin Lee, “The Woot Files” by Monica Hsiung Wojcik, “The Answer that Increasingly Appeals” by Robin Black and “Wild Flavor” by Karl Taro Greenfeld.
Every piece in this collection is top notch writing. What is “creative nonfiction?” It is an essay format that relates real events (or emotions) by using writing techniques more commonly used in fiction. This union is a great thing. The content gets a snappy presentation and the techniques get wider use. So if you want to write about an attempted seduction you could structure it as a series of statements about your feelings. Or, if you wanted to assess the current state of a particular science you could project it a little forward in time and introduce us to people affected by its development. If you really want to know what it’s all about, read this book. It is an introduction to the wide world of creative nonfiction. More than one piece in this collection prompted me to exclaim, “Mmm, that was good writing!” If there is a drawback to the collection it is that the sort of real events (or emotions) that most often inspire written reflection are intense interpersonal experiences. I mean, how many essays about bad mothers can one read? The best of these best are “The Pain Scale” by Eula Bliss, “Pimp” by Olivia Chia-Lin Lee, “The Woot Files” by Monica Hsiung Wojcik, “The Answer that Increasingly Appeals” by Robin Black and “Wild Flavor” by Karl Taro Greenfeld.
17 August 2010
Mid-Month Check Up
So, how am I doing with the whole Write Fifteen Minutes a Day challenge? Well, fifteen minutes a day for seventeen days is four hours twenty-five minutes. I haven’t kept a record of the time I’ve spent writing, but I think I’ve done at least that much writing. I have worked on two different fiction pieces, written a slew of book reviews (they will post over the next couple of weeks) and composed a poem. What I have not done is write every day. I think that is the more important point of this exercise. I have taken time to sit down to write about every third day. I guess that’s better than nothing…
03 August 2010
A Review: The Bhopal Syndrome – David Weir
3 / 5 Stars
An introduction to a world of deeper issues. Weir, an investigative reporter, wrote this book in the wake of the Bhopal Disaster – where poisonous MIC gas leaked from a Union Carbide factory in India and killed thousands. To some extent, the book attempts to capitalize on the media attention the disaster generated to reveal that the potential danger of modern industrial chemicals is even greater than what happened at Bhopal. The Bhopal Syndrome has little to do with Bhopal, the syndrome is the modern world’s reliance on complex systems we can barely control. Something is bound to go wrong. The book is mainly a litany of horror stories about large, Western-owned chemical factories operating in the developing world releasing all kinds of things into the air, water and soil. The unseemly and altogether too-intimate connection between government officials and business interests is also highlighted. As I read the book in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a lot of Weir’s points about openness of information, lust for profit and government culpability still ring true; 23 years later! This book has a bit of a “historical” feel to it now given that it was written right at the beginning of the environmental activism movement. Near the end there is also what has to be one of that earliest warnings about the potential dangers of genetically-modified foods. This is not a solutions kind book, this is a “get the information out there” kind of book. What is left unstated is Weir’s belief that in a democracy, once the information is out there, people will act on it in a powerful way. You have the information. How will you act?
An introduction to a world of deeper issues. Weir, an investigative reporter, wrote this book in the wake of the Bhopal Disaster – where poisonous MIC gas leaked from a Union Carbide factory in India and killed thousands. To some extent, the book attempts to capitalize on the media attention the disaster generated to reveal that the potential danger of modern industrial chemicals is even greater than what happened at Bhopal. The Bhopal Syndrome has little to do with Bhopal, the syndrome is the modern world’s reliance on complex systems we can barely control. Something is bound to go wrong. The book is mainly a litany of horror stories about large, Western-owned chemical factories operating in the developing world releasing all kinds of things into the air, water and soil. The unseemly and altogether too-intimate connection between government officials and business interests is also highlighted. As I read the book in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a lot of Weir’s points about openness of information, lust for profit and government culpability still ring true; 23 years later! This book has a bit of a “historical” feel to it now given that it was written right at the beginning of the environmental activism movement. Near the end there is also what has to be one of that earliest warnings about the potential dangers of genetically-modified foods. This is not a solutions kind book, this is a “get the information out there” kind of book. What is left unstated is Weir’s belief that in a democracy, once the information is out there, people will act on it in a powerful way. You have the information. How will you act?
02 August 2010
A Challenge for August
One of my writing buddies has clued me in to the Write Fifteen Minutes a Day challenge. The gauntlet has been thrown down by Laurie Halse Anderson and I am going to pick it up. Every day in the month of August, write 15 minutes. That’s the only rule. As others have pointed out, it’s more than a little like a warm-up for National Novel Writing Month in November. I accept the challenge! I have just finished a Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. book (a review is coming…) and I can’t help but be inspired by his artfully compassionate cynicism. The last time I read a Vonnegut I was inspired to emulate him in my failed 2009 NaNoWriMo. This time around I had also begun a story inspired by Vonnegut. I already had a page or so about a mundane anti-hero and his strange connection to a pseudo-science movement when I learned about WFMAD. It’s a natural fit. The stream of consciousness style I am going for with this probably can’t be (shouldn’t be?) maintained for too long anyway.
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