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thelizabeth's reviews
591 reviews
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
4.0
Kind of having a heart attack over this cover art.
I didn't like this book in high school? But I want to reread.
I didn't like this book in high school? But I want to reread.
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
3.0
Oh, my gosh, why didn't I like this more? It is so very up my alley, but this book was simply not a lot of fun to read. I got really, really bored!
What Johnson's strength as a writer is supposed to be is understanding the connection between science and culture: why humans work the way we do, and how we change the way we work because of what we do. In this book, he is giving that scope to history through the story of one influential event. He's telling the story of the outbreak that brought John Snow's famous discovery of cholera transmission, and he's using it to tell a bigger story too, in wider and wider ripples: the fight Snow had to get his findings considered by the establishment (the miasmatists!); his early application of data visualization and information design; how Victorians thought; how people build cities; how people learn; what people fear. By the end, you're reading a book proselytizing about the future of the human race, and, well, I hated it. I didn't buy one cent of it. I wanted to! But he just made me so mad!
This book is good for what it teaches you. Its depiction of Victorian London as the grossest place on earth is excellent, because, it was very gross. And most of all, I liked learning about John Snow. He was a weird, good guy who discovered a lot of things through a lot of devoted, wild experiment. He has a bit of a Nikola Tesla vibe to him, but with being a doctor, too. I liked getting a picture of his personality, when Johnson allowed it, because that's what made the story of his work fun to read about. He had a reserved, unfriendly demeanor completely unsuited for door-to-door investigation, and yet this is what the science demanded so by jove he did it. This somehow made him a lot more interesting than Henry Whitehead, the cleric who also did a lot of the investigating for this case. Whitehead is just like a normal guy. Snow is like a kooky, indie legend. There's something charming as well as heroic in his solitary, dogged determination. "I wouldn't want to be friends with miasmatists anyway!"
You will also learn a lot about cholera, which I only knew about a little, and so, I hope you want to read the word "stools" A LOT.
The style here is just way too dull to sustain, though. He's somehow constantly swinging from vaguely judgey theorizing to utterly dry page-long citations from public records. I've always had a good opinion of Steven Johnson, and I'll probably read more of his books someday — but I constantly wished that this was Bill Bryson's book, instead. Bryson's book At Home is in fact what first taught me about this very cholera epidemic, treating it in just a few pages in a way that was twice as compelling as Johnson's entire book was. I wanted to read about this. I kept remembering that and thinking, "But when does it get exciting?"
So, this was a frustrating read. There's a book I really love in between all this, you know, writing of it. But I guess it just means I'll have to read more about the Victorians elsewhere. IF I MUST. HOW WILL I STAND IT. <3
What Johnson's strength as a writer is supposed to be is understanding the connection between science and culture: why humans work the way we do, and how we change the way we work because of what we do. In this book, he is giving that scope to history through the story of one influential event. He's telling the story of the outbreak that brought John Snow's famous discovery of cholera transmission, and he's using it to tell a bigger story too, in wider and wider ripples: the fight Snow had to get his findings considered by the establishment (the miasmatists!); his early application of data visualization and information design; how Victorians thought; how people build cities; how people learn; what people fear. By the end, you're reading a book proselytizing about the future of the human race, and, well, I hated it. I didn't buy one cent of it. I wanted to! But he just made me so mad!
This book is good for what it teaches you. Its depiction of Victorian London as the grossest place on earth is excellent, because, it was very gross. And most of all, I liked learning about John Snow. He was a weird, good guy who discovered a lot of things through a lot of devoted, wild experiment. He has a bit of a Nikola Tesla vibe to him, but with being a doctor, too. I liked getting a picture of his personality, when Johnson allowed it, because that's what made the story of his work fun to read about. He had a reserved, unfriendly demeanor completely unsuited for door-to-door investigation, and yet this is what the science demanded so by jove he did it. This somehow made him a lot more interesting than Henry Whitehead, the cleric who also did a lot of the investigating for this case. Whitehead is just like a normal guy. Snow is like a kooky, indie legend. There's something charming as well as heroic in his solitary, dogged determination. "I wouldn't want to be friends with miasmatists anyway!"
You will also learn a lot about cholera, which I only knew about a little, and so, I hope you want to read the word "stools" A LOT.
The style here is just way too dull to sustain, though. He's somehow constantly swinging from vaguely judgey theorizing to utterly dry page-long citations from public records. I've always had a good opinion of Steven Johnson, and I'll probably read more of his books someday — but I constantly wished that this was Bill Bryson's book, instead. Bryson's book At Home is in fact what first taught me about this very cholera epidemic, treating it in just a few pages in a way that was twice as compelling as Johnson's entire book was. I wanted to read about this. I kept remembering that and thinking, "But when does it get exciting?"
So, this was a frustrating read. There's a book I really love in between all this, you know, writing of it. But I guess it just means I'll have to read more about the Victorians elsewhere. IF I MUST. HOW WILL I STAND IT. <3
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
4.0
What an odd reaction I've had to this book. I really liked it! I would recommend it to you. And, I really want to complain about it!
It is, of course, based on a real hostage event in Peru in 1996. The trappings of the events are all the same: international dignitaries and tycoons held by guerrilla terrorists in a mansion for about four months. In the novel, the terrorists' tactical errors turn out to create a sort of stalemate — they can't get what they came for, but they can't quit without probably getting killed — and it results in a weird, idyllic peace. Everyone knows it is false, but no one can keep up that level of terror for that long (including, apparently, the terrorists), so this is what the novel is about. It's a situation that should never have occurred, but now that it has, there are almost no rules left. They grow into it. It's odd, and strangely nice, and definitely emotionally confusing.
In the novel, weirdly, the location isn't stated, and it's sort of awkward every time the author says "the host country." (Despite one of the girls constantly praying to her patron saint of Lima, which… only exists in one South American nation, that I know of.) I don't really get it. There's some good debate about it in this comment thread. I don't think it is the most important critique of this book, but I mention it because I do have a feeling that there's something culturally blamable on her part, that Patchett is too "but I'm being an artist" to care how her story fits the real world. (This feeling is basically completely confirmed for me just reading the description of State of Wonder, which I will never ever read. Something about it just says "no means no.") Anyway, this book doesn't really need a setting outside of the house it takes place in — it's basically a bottle episode (of Lost, maybe?) — but the intentional void of one draws a kind of weird emphasis to it, and makes me question what the author herself wants and cares about.
Hey! While we're on the subject of uncomfortable voids!
There's a bit of thematic trouble. And this part of the review is going to piss some people off. Feel free to file under, "Stupid Feminists with No Sense of Context." Sorry! But I'm not the only one who's felt this.
So, pretty early on I picked up a few uncomfy signals about Roxane, our opera singer. I'm not sure that I would call her Mary Sue, but she is an ideal in the extreme. Her voice! Enchanting! Her hair! So beautiful! Her presence! So regal! She casts a spell! The trick, here, is that Patchett is such a good author that you get totally behind this. And for a while this is actually interesting, because people drop one by one in love with Roxane, while in fact she is not even that terribly nice of a person. She's all right. But she's worried mostly about herself, and cold, sometimes, and conceited, sometimes. Like interesting characters are.
But then, the events turn so that Roxane is the only woman remaining amongst the hostages, after the women and children are released on the second day, while Roxane is labeled as valuable and kept. (It is nominally her fame that is of value, but already there are a few unacknowledged implications there.) Suddenly, now we've got all Roxane's beauty all the time, every day for all the months of the hostage crisis. And when she starts singing again, forget about it.
But, so, what this book is really about is how strange it is for these people to live together — terrorists and hostages — for months, trapped in this mansion. As the terrorists' plans are thwarted, they... don't make new ones, for whatever reason, and live in a cozy little detente in paradise. And it turns out that everyone is happy there, and doesn't particularly want to return to their regular life. An incredibly interesting situation for a novel, and an interesting way to build relationships in it: the terrorists, they are not so terrifying!
I don't know how, exactly, to critique a novel fictionalizing true events for being unrealistic. It seems like you can't, that it's against the rules. Somehow, Patchett's set her novel in a criticism-proof ivory tower. I'm not smart enough to bring it down, but something is wrong with this. I do not believe this. Real people are multifaceted, yes. And real people end up risking themselves in situations they are no match for, yes. But I cannot take them at face value, Bel Canto. I won't have it be just so to make your deep story about love and humanity more convenient.
Patchett chose to set her novel in a terrorist crisis, and then seems to want us to forget that that's the case. The only reward we get for our suspension of disbelief is, "See? I made them good people too! So I don't have to worry about them doing anything bad!" Fiction requires you to make a strange power bargain, agreeing to accept its terms on human nature — because it is fiction, because they are not real people, because the author is in charge, so you'd better keep your mouth shut and your criticisms to yourself. Authors do not need to explain themselves.
I read something once that gave a name to the part that bothered me most in this book: the Trigger By Void phenomenon. In this blogger's point of view, this suspension of disbelief in fiction is damaging when a creator is irresponsible with reality. And, it arises quite often with rape: "not because any of the male characters are menacing, but because none of them are."
DING! That is an exact description of this book. In real life, the fact that Roxane could be raped would be one of the foremost thoughts for her and for her captors.
Now, I don't want Roxane to be raped? And I don't want every book I read to talk about rape at length? It's fine to leave the subject alone — except when it's not. Except when your entire concept rests on violence and holding people against their will. Except when you have only one* woman in your story, who is so deeply beautiful, who is so desired.
* (Guess what, actually.)
So, yes, that pair of circumstances did not agree with me. The more people declared their love for Roxane, the worse it got. And the worst, of course, indeed came (so to speak) when the thematic connection was made between lust and opera. Patchett's writing about it is lovely. But what you actually get, on the page, are men getting hard-ons when Roxane sings. Men who are holding her captive, whose entire objective is to dominate her physically — they have boners for her opera, and still nothing bad happens.
BECAUSE IT IS OPERA THAT IS THE BEAUTY. GET IT. GET IT GET IT.
Sure, I'm not really an opera fan. And I won't begrudge anyone's love for it, but it does annoy me a little when it gets used in stories as hands-free symbolism. Like when an aria is put in the background of a scene in a movie as shorthand to instantly artistically-elevate it. I like beautiful art, and I think I might appreciate some opera sometime, but I will not find you more beautiful just because you are singing opera, that won't work on me. (My favorite comment about Roxane's singing, actually, was from the very beginning: when Mr. Hosokawa says her mouth looks really weird close-up, and it sort of makes him uncomfortable to see her sing so intimately, however excited he was. That was realism.)
But you know what? The book is a great read. The prose is beautiful and hugely pleasurable. It has MFA written all over it, but it wasn't too over-laden with any one trait of glory. It's a little wry, a little sad, a little lovely. The characters completely take over. Gen was my favorite early on, and Messner the Red Cross negotiator is amazing. I cried when Simon left the answering machine message.
The theme I loved the most — far more than music, though related — was actually language. The hostage group speaks many, and most cannot speak more than one. It's handled beautifully, and though the book is probably trying to argue that music is the universal one, I'd say that there's more beauty in the mess of it, the people trying to get something out of themselves and out of each other. I think that's what the book is supposed to be about, and I loved that.
And that's why I forgive you, bullshit.
It is, of course, based on a real hostage event in Peru in 1996. The trappings of the events are all the same: international dignitaries and tycoons held by guerrilla terrorists in a mansion for about four months. In the novel, the terrorists' tactical errors turn out to create a sort of stalemate — they can't get what they came for, but they can't quit without probably getting killed — and it results in a weird, idyllic peace. Everyone knows it is false, but no one can keep up that level of terror for that long (including, apparently, the terrorists), so this is what the novel is about. It's a situation that should never have occurred, but now that it has, there are almost no rules left. They grow into it. It's odd, and strangely nice, and definitely emotionally confusing.
In the novel, weirdly, the location isn't stated, and it's sort of awkward every time the author says "the host country." (Despite one of the girls constantly praying to her patron saint of Lima, which… only exists in one South American nation, that I know of.) I don't really get it. There's some good debate about it in this comment thread. I don't think it is the most important critique of this book, but I mention it because I do have a feeling that there's something culturally blamable on her part, that Patchett is too "but I'm being an artist" to care how her story fits the real world. (This feeling is basically completely confirmed for me just reading the description of State of Wonder, which I will never ever read. Something about it just says "no means no.") Anyway, this book doesn't really need a setting outside of the house it takes place in — it's basically a bottle episode (of Lost, maybe?) — but the intentional void of one draws a kind of weird emphasis to it, and makes me question what the author herself wants and cares about.
Hey! While we're on the subject of uncomfortable voids!
There's a bit of thematic trouble. And this part of the review is going to piss some people off. Feel free to file under, "Stupid Feminists with No Sense of Context." Sorry! But I'm not the only one who's felt this.
So, pretty early on I picked up a few uncomfy signals about Roxane, our opera singer. I'm not sure that I would call her Mary Sue, but she is an ideal in the extreme. Her voice! Enchanting! Her hair! So beautiful! Her presence! So regal! She casts a spell! The trick, here, is that Patchett is such a good author that you get totally behind this. And for a while this is actually interesting, because people drop one by one in love with Roxane, while in fact she is not even that terribly nice of a person. She's all right. But she's worried mostly about herself, and cold, sometimes, and conceited, sometimes. Like interesting characters are.
But then, the events turn so that Roxane is the only woman remaining amongst the hostages, after the women and children are released on the second day, while Roxane is labeled as valuable and kept. (It is nominally her fame that is of value, but already there are a few unacknowledged implications there.) Suddenly, now we've got all Roxane's beauty all the time, every day for all the months of the hostage crisis. And when she starts singing again, forget about it.
But, so, what this book is really about is how strange it is for these people to live together — terrorists and hostages — for months, trapped in this mansion. As the terrorists' plans are thwarted, they... don't make new ones, for whatever reason, and live in a cozy little detente in paradise. And it turns out that everyone is happy there, and doesn't particularly want to return to their regular life. An incredibly interesting situation for a novel, and an interesting way to build relationships in it: the terrorists, they are not so terrifying!
I don't know how, exactly, to critique a novel fictionalizing true events for being unrealistic. It seems like you can't, that it's against the rules. Somehow, Patchett's set her novel in a criticism-proof ivory tower. I'm not smart enough to bring it down, but something is wrong with this. I do not believe this. Real people are multifaceted, yes. And real people end up risking themselves in situations they are no match for, yes. But I cannot take them at face value, Bel Canto. I won't have it be just so to make your deep story about love and humanity more convenient.
Patchett chose to set her novel in a terrorist crisis, and then seems to want us to forget that that's the case. The only reward we get for our suspension of disbelief is, "See? I made them good people too! So I don't have to worry about them doing anything bad!" Fiction requires you to make a strange power bargain, agreeing to accept its terms on human nature — because it is fiction, because they are not real people, because the author is in charge, so you'd better keep your mouth shut and your criticisms to yourself. Authors do not need to explain themselves.
I read something once that gave a name to the part that bothered me most in this book: the Trigger By Void phenomenon. In this blogger's point of view, this suspension of disbelief in fiction is damaging when a creator is irresponsible with reality. And, it arises quite often with rape: "not because any of the male characters are menacing, but because none of them are."
DING! That is an exact description of this book. In real life, the fact that Roxane could be raped would be one of the foremost thoughts for her and for her captors.
Now, I don't want Roxane to be raped? And I don't want every book I read to talk about rape at length? It's fine to leave the subject alone — except when it's not. Except when your entire concept rests on violence and holding people against their will. Except when you have only one* woman in your story, who is so deeply beautiful, who is so desired.
* (Guess what, actually
Spoiler
there are two more women there, amongst the terrorists. And even though one of them becomes very integral to the story and is a great character, I'd still argue that Roxane is the only woman who "counts" in this safety issue. For one thing, she is the only one who is hostage. For another, we could make this argument really boil over and say that I think because she is the only white woman, she is therefore the only reader/author stand-in to be worried aboutSo, yes, that pair of circumstances did not agree with me. The more people declared their love for Roxane, the worse it got. And the worst, of course, indeed came (so to speak) when the thematic connection was made between lust and opera. Patchett's writing about it is lovely. But what you actually get, on the page, are men getting hard-ons when Roxane sings. Men who are holding her captive, whose entire objective is to dominate her physically — they have boners for her opera, and still nothing bad happens.
BECAUSE IT IS OPERA THAT IS THE BEAUTY. GET IT. GET IT GET IT.
Sure, I'm not really an opera fan. And I won't begrudge anyone's love for it, but it does annoy me a little when it gets used in stories as hands-free symbolism. Like when an aria is put in the background of a scene in a movie as shorthand to instantly artistically-elevate it. I like beautiful art, and I think I might appreciate some opera sometime, but I will not find you more beautiful just because you are singing opera, that won't work on me. (My favorite comment about Roxane's singing, actually, was from the very beginning: when Mr. Hosokawa says her mouth looks really weird close-up, and it sort of makes him uncomfortable to see her sing so intimately, however excited he was. That was realism.)
But you know what? The book is a great read. The prose is beautiful and hugely pleasurable. It has MFA written all over it, but it wasn't too over-laden with any one trait of glory. It's a little wry, a little sad, a little lovely. The characters completely take over. Gen was my favorite early on, and Messner the Red Cross negotiator is amazing. I cried when Simon left the answering machine message.
Spoiler
I had mixed feelings when they started to fall in love; Gen and Carmen were pretty awesome, eventually, but Hosokawa and Roxane made no sense whatsoever. And without any input from the author on what to think, I didn't know what to think. I definitely don't believe that the Epilogue was intended to be about love, so I'm going to pretend that didn't happen.The theme I loved the most — far more than music, though related — was actually language. The hostage group speaks many, and most cannot speak more than one. It's handled beautifully, and though the book is probably trying to argue that music is the universal one, I'd say that there's more beauty in the mess of it, the people trying to get something out of themselves and out of each other. I think that's what the book is supposed to be about, and I loved that.
And that's why I forgive you, bullshit.
In the Woods by Tana French
3.0
Oh book! You make people so mad!
You know what? I don't even have a lot to say. C'est la vie. This series seems pretty divisive, and I'm okay with that. Some of you Goodreads pals only like the early books, some of you only like the later books, everyone tries to love one another in our big wide world.
This here didn't feel like extraordinary writing, but it was fine and it was really fun to read, and I have already bought the second book. I know that this series isn't strictly connected, and that I could skip around if I wanted to, but that's how I do it and I've been intending to read them through all along. (It was this review of #4 that got me interested in the first place.) I'll go on & on.
Because, I… seem to like murder mysteries now. It's news to me but is definitely true over the last year. I only even think they're good about 40% of the time. I just… like them. I'm really not a hard-boiler, and least not with books. But give me something like this with a bucketload of back-story, or an earnest, bittersweet Kate Atkinson, and I'll want to read like fifteen of them, thanks. I'll do it. Okay.
So, I loved reading this! I took a lot of purposeful lunch breaks to do so. It goes quick, even for weekday slowpokes like me. I liked both the mysteries, I followed the leads. The friendship is what keeps the book buoyant, and Cassie is a fantastic character.
Sometimes what's good about the book is the same as what's bad: the voice is too nostalgic, the situation is too on the nose, I don't really get if I even like this Rob guy or not. It just hits the spot; it doesn't need to be nutritious.
But, so: Rage-inciting, for some people, it seems. And indeed, maybe, what's the point if that's the way it's going to be? By the time this happened at the very end I was feeling sort of down (both with the book and with, you know, STUFF) so honestly… I didn't really care. Oh, it's going to be like that? Great, fine. We're done, anyway. LIFE'S IMPERFECT, YOU KNOW?
So I don't know, it's okay. It cancels itself out, it yins and yangs and whatever, it's just a book. And maybe the next one will be super. I'll probably read seventeen more of them to find out.
You know what? I don't even have a lot to say. C'est la vie. This series seems pretty divisive, and I'm okay with that. Some of you Goodreads pals only like the early books, some of you only like the later books, everyone tries to love one another in our big wide world.
This here didn't feel like extraordinary writing, but it was fine and it was really fun to read, and I have already bought the second book. I know that this series isn't strictly connected, and that I could skip around if I wanted to, but that's how I do it and I've been intending to read them through all along. (It was this review of #4 that got me interested in the first place.) I'll go on & on.
Because, I… seem to like murder mysteries now. It's news to me but is definitely true over the last year. I only even think they're good about 40% of the time. I just… like them. I'm really not a hard-boiler, and least not with books. But give me something like this with a bucketload of back-story, or an earnest, bittersweet Kate Atkinson, and I'll want to read like fifteen of them, thanks. I'll do it. Okay.
So, I loved reading this! I took a lot of purposeful lunch breaks to do so. It goes quick, even for weekday slowpokes like me. I liked both the mysteries, I followed the leads. The friendship is what keeps the book buoyant, and Cassie is a fantastic character.
Spoiler
The way Rob's narration talks about her in such a fatalistic way, I was dead certain she was getting killed before we were done. But it's quite the opposite really: turns out that book two is alllll about her, and I'm pretty pleased.Sometimes what's good about the book is the same as what's bad: the voice is too nostalgic, the situation is too on the nose, I don't really get if I even like this Rob guy or not. It just hits the spot; it doesn't need to be nutritious.
But, so:
Spoiler
the book does not resolve. There are two mysteries and only one murderer found out at the end.So I don't know, it's okay. It cancels itself out, it yins and yangs and whatever, it's just a book. And maybe the next one will be super. I'll probably read seventeen more of them to find out.
Wilderness by Rennie Sparks
4.0
Oh boy, is this going to be the time when I finally explain why Rennie Sparks's writing is so important to me? I've never really been able to. So probably not. She is sort of a hero to me, though, and I've been a huge fan of her songwriting in The Handsome Family for ten years. This is theoretically a companion book to their new record, to expand on what she has to say about the song subjects (which are all animals) in essays. But this really stands alone just fine, which I prefer.
Anyway, this is not an impartial review, and I shouldn't pretend she is everybody's cup of tea or that this book is 100% general interest. I'll buy anything she puts out, no matter how weird it is. I'd pay good money for just a date with her browser history, which, honestly, would not make a bad blurb for this book, since that's kind of what it is. It's hard to picture any of the research here being done at any time other than a late-night bout of insomnia on the sixteenth page of some Google results.
Some bits of this material have surfaced over the past several years in band newsletters Rennie emails out. I knew that I would buy this book immediately, because I am weirdly devoted to these emails. She has to announce tour dates or whatever, but she plunks the news in between twirly, odd information about something else, usually an animal. (The eels email was four years ago and I still corner people to tell them about things in it.) I find them wonderful and hilarious and deeply beautiful and comforting.
She writes in this slicing, sneaky combination of deadpan self-deprecation and earnest, loving belief. You can't necessarily tell when she's kidding, and actually I like that. She has a style that, when it's working right, rambles over the craziest list of subjects and ties it all up in this melancholy little thematic bow. In the "Wildebeest" essay, for instance, she includes: Hannah Duston, de Vaca's doomed expedition, and a completely heartbreaking epilogue on the death of Stephen Foster. It does hold together, and I learned stuff about the animals to boot. A couple of times, when it isn't quite working, the essays get a little bit "This American Life" on their theme, in the "how exactly is this about caterpillars specifically?" way. But it's not a crime.
My favorite essays were the ones that start out as the author's personal stories — about a depressing period with a bad job, or an ever so slightly psychotic meltdown in a closet — and then a real encounter with the animal is a moment of transformation. I love those, because the moments are emphasized in this perfect way that is glorious and self-deprecating both. These aren't actually magical moments, in that they could happen to anyone (she drove by some prairie dogs; a crow flew past the window), but they land and I think they will do so for anyone who has ever had to pull themselves through anything. Which is most people. When your mind is crushed and flattened in sadness, and you see something beautiful, and it becomes somewhat religious, somehow, to just read some nice facts. Like, okay, I can probably go on with this world because eels will swim over land to get where they're going, and when they need to get there badly enough their stomachs dissolve so hunger will never distract them again. It's not a Buddhist mantra or anything, or, I don't know, is it.
I get pretty emotional about the eels, you guys.
"The Crow" was definitely my favorite. It made me really sad, and really happy it was written.
This is a self-published book, and you can only buy it from the author. The design is a little indulgent and there are a few spots that could have used extra proofreading (CALL ME, RENNIE!), but it's all in good shape and worth it, and I really hope she writes more books.
Anyway, this is not an impartial review, and I shouldn't pretend she is everybody's cup of tea or that this book is 100% general interest. I'll buy anything she puts out, no matter how weird it is. I'd pay good money for just a date with her browser history, which, honestly, would not make a bad blurb for this book, since that's kind of what it is. It's hard to picture any of the research here being done at any time other than a late-night bout of insomnia on the sixteenth page of some Google results.
Some bits of this material have surfaced over the past several years in band newsletters Rennie emails out. I knew that I would buy this book immediately, because I am weirdly devoted to these emails. She has to announce tour dates or whatever, but she plunks the news in between twirly, odd information about something else, usually an animal. (The eels email was four years ago and I still corner people to tell them about things in it.) I find them wonderful and hilarious and deeply beautiful and comforting.
She writes in this slicing, sneaky combination of deadpan self-deprecation and earnest, loving belief. You can't necessarily tell when she's kidding, and actually I like that. She has a style that, when it's working right, rambles over the craziest list of subjects and ties it all up in this melancholy little thematic bow. In the "Wildebeest" essay, for instance, she includes: Hannah Duston, de Vaca's doomed expedition, and a completely heartbreaking epilogue on the death of Stephen Foster. It does hold together, and I learned stuff about the animals to boot. A couple of times, when it isn't quite working, the essays get a little bit "This American Life" on their theme, in the "how exactly is this about caterpillars specifically?" way. But it's not a crime.
My favorite essays were the ones that start out as the author's personal stories — about a depressing period with a bad job, or an ever so slightly psychotic meltdown in a closet — and then a real encounter with the animal is a moment of transformation. I love those, because the moments are emphasized in this perfect way that is glorious and self-deprecating both. These aren't actually magical moments, in that they could happen to anyone (she drove by some prairie dogs; a crow flew past the window), but they land and I think they will do so for anyone who has ever had to pull themselves through anything. Which is most people. When your mind is crushed and flattened in sadness, and you see something beautiful, and it becomes somewhat religious, somehow, to just read some nice facts. Like, okay, I can probably go on with this world because eels will swim over land to get where they're going, and when they need to get there badly enough their stomachs dissolve so hunger will never distract them again. It's not a Buddhist mantra or anything, or, I don't know, is it.
I get pretty emotional about the eels, you guys.
"The Crow" was definitely my favorite. It made me really sad, and really happy it was written.
This is a self-published book, and you can only buy it from the author. The design is a little indulgent and there are a few spots that could have used extra proofreading (CALL ME, RENNIE!), but it's all in good shape and worth it, and I really hope she writes more books.
Echolocation by Myfanwy Collins
4.0
I read this book in less than a day! This is very much against my usual habit. This was perfect, though, as a compelling holiday-weekend book that I just never felt like putting down. No, I still don't have plans today? Ok, I'll be in bed finishing the book.
I read this on the strength of Kfan's review which is real real compelling too. I wanted to know what was violent and scary! It's cool, how much is packed in a small frame. It's short and fast, and weirdly it's as if the reading experience itself is in character: these people don't have the time or patience to explain more. It's like they're saying, you don't know the half of what we're dealing with. Just take it and go.
Their lives are fairly harsh, and there's a surprisingly large cast for such a small book. They're like a little constellation of characters over this small, wintry town. A weird pick for July 4th weekend, it turned out — how cold this book is, how brutally frozen. It's not entirely unlike Fargo, actually. Or Winter's Bone. It would not take a whole lot of shift to make this book a real cool movie. Can I get this movie? I never asked anyone for Divergent, let's do this one instead. No one ever asks me.
The narrative omniscience offers you a good amount of dramatic irony, linking them together in ways they won't ever figure out. It pushes your buttons, too — there are the slightest brushes with incest, in like at least three places; there are lost identities, missing parents here and returning parents there. You're not 100% sure who is being straight with you, so to speak. You think you know something she doesn't know. But maybe she does? But she'd never do that if she knew what you know, right?
So, I would call this gripping, and really super impressive based on how much happens. A lot. You should read it! Truthfully, though, I was disappointed when I reached the ending. Maybe my balance was off because I tore through it, didn't savor a thing or build it up. But for some reason it felt like it wasn't what I wanted. But, probably? Wanting something for these characters, for this story — wanting something more! — means they're realer to me than they seem to be on paper. And that's a thumbs-up, always.
I read this on the strength of Kfan's review which is real real compelling too. I wanted to know what was violent and scary! It's cool, how much is packed in a small frame. It's short and fast, and weirdly it's as if the reading experience itself is in character: these people don't have the time or patience to explain more. It's like they're saying, you don't know the half of what we're dealing with. Just take it and go.
Their lives are fairly harsh, and there's a surprisingly large cast for such a small book. They're like a little constellation of characters over this small, wintry town. A weird pick for July 4th weekend, it turned out — how cold this book is, how brutally frozen. It's not entirely unlike Fargo, actually. Or Winter's Bone. It would not take a whole lot of shift to make this book a real cool movie. Can I get this movie? I never asked anyone for Divergent, let's do this one instead. No one ever asks me.
The narrative omniscience offers you a good amount of dramatic irony, linking them together in ways they won't ever figure out. It pushes your buttons, too — there are the slightest brushes with incest, in like at least three places; there are lost identities, missing parents here and returning parents there. You're not 100% sure who is being straight with you, so to speak. You think you know something she doesn't know. But maybe she does? But she'd never do that if she knew what you know, right?
So, I would call this gripping, and really super impressive based on how much happens. A lot. You should read it! Truthfully, though, I was disappointed when I reached the ending. Maybe my balance was off because I tore through it, didn't savor a thing or build it up. But for some reason it felt like it wasn't what I wanted. But, probably? Wanting something for these characters, for this story — wanting something more! — means they're realer to me than they seem to be on paper. And that's a thumbs-up, always.
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
This was one of my favorite books as a middle schooler, but I wonder what I'd think of it now.
Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays: Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the Zig-Zag Woman, Patter for a Floating Lady, Wasp by Steve Martin
I used to own this collection in high school, and I saw Picasso performed once and really thought it was great and hilarious.
I also thought it was pretty great and cool that Steve Martin had this intellectual playwright side to him, which objectively I suppose is still true. But in this post-Shopgirl society in which we live, perhaps the shine is off of him as a pretentious literary figure. I haven't read any of his books for several years, and while I liked them all, they somehow didn't leave a great aftertaste.
I guess that I went to college with too many guys exactly like him, only not famous.
I also thought it was pretty great and cool that Steve Martin had this intellectual playwright side to him, which objectively I suppose is still true. But in this post-Shopgirl society in which we live, perhaps the shine is off of him as a pretentious literary figure. I haven't read any of his books for several years, and while I liked them all, they somehow didn't leave a great aftertaste.
I guess that I went to college with too many guys exactly like him, only not famous.
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
I know I liked this when I read it, but I'm not sure I could stand it again. It felt like it had lush language and descriptive settings, and I probably even identified closely with Mirabelle, because I felt shy most of my young adulthood. And whatever else she is. It's sort of like Steve Martin wrote Mary and Gary Sue so all the young ladies would fall in love with him, and all of his loneliness. My barfometer's been recalibrated a few times since, I guess.