robertrivasplata's reviews
617 reviews

Is This Guy for Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman by Box Brown

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4.25

Graphic biography in Box Brown's trademark style. Before reading this, I knew next to nothing about Andy Kaufman. I don't think I've even seen a video of Kaufman, not that any of his performances are particularly telling, going off what Brown writes. In a way, even his biography reveals little. The title question would remain no matter how much any biographer could write about this oddball. I guess the answer that Brown seems to go with is that Kaufman was always presenting/performing some combination of sincerity & put-on. Similarly, Kaufman seemed to always be both attempting to please & to alienate his audiences. Brown builds the case that wrestling was a major formative influence on Kaufman, informing the ways that he performed & stayed in character outside of what was recognized as performances. Wild that even the people who worked with him on Taxi thought his illness & death were stunts, & so missed his funeral. 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

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• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Re-read to see how well I remembered it, & to see if my gripes with the movies (the trilogy & the Rankin-Bass) are off base, & also because I wanted to read something fun. The Hobbit really is a lot of fun. I'd forgotten how much character the voice of the narrator has. It's as if it's written to be read aloud by a good-humored storyteller. I forgot how quickly the story moves along, while also packing a lot in. The Hobbit is full of goofy little throw-away lines that hint at the wider world of middle-earth, but makes it clear that such things are not our concern (such as Gandalf's aside that he should see about having a helpful giant block up the new entrance to the Goblin city). I love how the narrator even ends various asides with something like “but that's not part of this story”. I see now that it was the Hobbit that primed my young mind to appreciate food descriptions in fantasy settings. There is no way that I would have been prepared for George R.R. Martin's elaborate food descriptions if I hadn't been prepared by those of Tolkien. Of course my favorite part of the whole book is Bilbo's conversation with Smaug, which the Rankin & Bass cartoon got pretty close to right, but the bloated Trilogy completely fumbled with it's attempts to shoehorn dark LOTR foreshadowing into what is supposed to be kind of a humorous scene. Of course, the 21st century movie wanders even further from the spirit of the book when it has the Dwarves all but defeat Smaug all on their own, but that is a gripe for another review. Now to excavate my Lord of the Rings Trilogy, to see how well they hold up (literarily, & physically). 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

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• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Another should-be COVID-isolation classic (consult your physician), that takes you behind the impossibly heavy eyelids of America, just trying to get through another day at the minimum level of consciousness possible. Full of elements that remind me a little bit of other odd books. The young solitary misunderstood misanthropic narrator on a bizarre quest reminds me of Exalted. The whole quest for pharmaceuticals & the elaborate sleep preparations remind a lot of the elaborate & bizarre drug routines in Infinite Jest. The blackout drug that the main character is using to sleep to avoid feelings, but which has her attending parties, wakes, etc during her supposed “sleeping” hours (along with her ultimate disinterest in these “sleeping” activities) reminds me a lot of TV Severance. The psychiatrist kind of has a Catch-22 character vibe. 

Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard

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• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

The perfect book for quarantining with Covid. A man stranded, isolated, sick, hurting, tiring,weakening eventually forgetting there is any other existence. Applies the Ballard extreme landscape novel template to the land that is stranded between the ramps & viaducts of highway interchanges, effectively taking the general plot & sort of setting of something like the Drowned World, & cramming it into a tiny point on the map. Makes explicit the regressed, atavistic, introversion theme of various other Ballard novels & stories. “The image in his mind of a small boy playing endlessly by himself in a long suburban garden surrounded by a high fence seemed strangely comforting.” In Concrete Island, childhood solitude & loneliness is “mythologized” & being stranded in the middle of a freeway interchange activates feelings of nostalgia, & return to childhood. I would ask “wtf happened to Ballard as a kid?”, but I read Empire of the Sun, so I have a general idea. Of course reading Concrete Island today in 2023, I can't help but think about how today countless spaces like “the Island” across America are settled by veritable communities of down on their luck unhoused people. Maitland would potentially have difficulty finding an open spot for his car-parts shelter, but would probably have a wider community of people whose resources he could draw on, instead of the dubious Man Fridays he does encounter. A very logical follow-up to Crash. 

The He-Man Effect: How American Toymakers Sold You Your Childhood by Brian Box Brown

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4.5

Box Brown's history of advertising, propaganda, & the monetization of nostalgia. Draws a line from the inception of modern advertisement in the early 1900s to the corporate intellectual property franchise nostalgia engineering of today. Also discusses the child-psychology & child-development aspects of mass media children's programming, especially the advertising directed at children. Includes history of U.S. regulation, & sudden de-regulation of children's programming, showing how “the 80s cartoon toy boom ended up being a unique moment in time” that was a creation of the Reagan-era FCC's (un-) regulatory environment. Not that Clinton's FCC overhaul The ending chapter is full of ominous lines, e.g. “Whatever form future nostalgia takes, it'll be more extreme than it is today”. I imagine this book narrated by a being stern, deep, authoritative voice (similar to the Frontline voice, or maybe even a Ken Nordine, or Joe Frank). Brown's art is simple, but very evocative. It looks like it belongs in wordless instructions, signage, or maybe even old-style agit-prop posters. Something about his Mr.Potato Head image on page 115 speaks to something deep in my subconscious; I would vote for Mr. Potato Head. 

I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast

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4.25

Roz Chast's tour of dreamland. Discusses some theories about dreams, but mostly depicts various dreams that Chast has had, recurring or otherwise. I am 100% in agreement with Roz Chast that dreams are a perfectly fine topic for conversation. I love hearing & talking about dreams! I could launch into a recounting of my favorite recurring dream, but this is a book review, not a dream diary. Anyhow, I love her rejected dream comic ideas. I think my favorite nightmare is the “PRINGLE”, because she basically described my dog. “Incubation” as a term for the cultivation of “helpful dreams” is a term I want to use sometime. 

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Supernatural occult thriller about showbiz & film in particular, set in 90s Mexico City. An exciting page-turner that is a great example of fiction that can teach you some real stuff; in this case, all about the titular cellulose nitrate film stock. There is also a fair amount about Mexico City, Mexico Christmas season, 20th century German occultists, & film audio. Exciting & sometimes spooky, but not really scary. I still think Mexican Gothic is Moreno-Garcia's best novel I've read. The writing in Silver Nitrate is clunky at times. The interspersing of explication of characters' background & their dialogue could have been more seamless. Character interactions, especially between the two main characters, sometimes doesn't feel natural. Not sure what to make of the recurring flashbacks of jumping into huge piles of grain, & the feel of swimming through the grain (Scrooge McDuck style?). It made me wonder if there were also great piles of dried legumes these kids could have dived into. Could have done without some of the “not like other girls”-ness of the main character. These are minor issues, though. Even though I predicted many plot points, I was still invested to the end, & the cheesy ending didn't detract. I'd still recommend this book to any professor of Latinx film studies with whom I happen to talk at the holiday potluck, & it will make for some good book club discussion. 

The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine by Christopher Miller

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4.0

Firsthand accounts & personal interviews from Ukraine 2010-2023. The journalistic writing style is very readable. I prefer the firsthand approach to Luke Harding's Invasion. Not really a comprehensive history. Many of the stories take place in Eastern Ukraine. I like Miller's stories of his time in Bakhmut back when it was known as Artemivsk, before the war. The connection Miller forms with Artemivsk over the course of the book takes the reader inside the experience of watching from afar a place one knows & loves being destroyed by war. Miller's accounts of the confusion, bitterness, & disinformation of the 2014 secessions of Crimea & Donbas & ensuing war remind me of Andrey Kurkov's Grey Bees. Also similar to Grey Bees, Miller mostly portrays secessionist & pro-Russian Ukrainians as having some real reasons for mistrusting their government, but also being mostly dupes, & deluded. The depiction of the pre-2013 Donbas separatist types reminds me a little of Northern California's “State of Jefferson” people you see sometimes, which I guess illustrates the ways in which harmless fringe types can become weaponized. One of the “themes” of the early 21st century has been how the disaffected & seemingly apathetic masses of the neoliberal democracies contain different groups of people who are waiting to be activated in one way or another. 

Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders

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• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Collection of nine short stories. At least three can be described as dystopian (more, if you count our moment in history as currently dystopian). All are first person narratives, with the possible exception of “Sparrow”. “Sparrow” is probably the most upbeat of these stories, & the only one that is not super disturbing. Social control seems to be a theme of all of these stories, & with “Liberation Day” & “Elliott Spencer” two of the most extreme manifestations. “Liberation Day” & “Ghoul” both revolve around bizarre & sadistic “entertainments”. “Liberation Day” is probably the best story to be first in this collection, as it combines various dystopian & bizarre elements in a way that feels very true to life & to our moment in history. I like the references in “Liberation Day” to audiobook romance novels, modular synthesizers, & American history fetishism. The ending story “My House” is almost like a Poe story in reverse. 

Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin by Susan DeFreitas

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• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Collection of stories inspired by Ursula K LeGuin (to varying degrees) by Portland writers. Some stories are more LeGuin-ish (Night Bazaar..., Wake, Prothalamion, Ib & Nib, Let it Die, Wenonah's Gift) than others, but even the less Ursuline of them (e.g. Old Souls, The Ones Who Don't Walk Away) are really good. Other stand-out stories include Finding Joan, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Mr. Uncle, Hard Choices, & JoyBe's Last Dance. Makes me want to read City of Weird: 30 Otherworldly Portland Tales, which features stories by at least a couple of these writers.