Book #33: The Notebook

Book #33: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

July 30, 2013


When does night become morning? After midnight? At dawn? It's debatable, since people might say "it's four o'clock in the goddamn morning, why are you up writing another blog post?" But it's still dark out, absolutely silent except for the sound of some traffic on the nearby interstate, and the crickets sounding. I can't sleep, obviously. I have a lot on my mind. The job that I was hoping for didn't work out, and I was pretty bummed for much of the day. But a pleasant afternoon at one of my part-time jobs and a talk with my dad helped me to adjust my attitude and straighten my head out. I have one more interview (tomorrow morning), for a position very different from any I've sought before. But come what may, I know I have to be patient. I had five interviews this past year, pretty damn good considering that I hardly had any interviews just out of college (and I sent out hundreds, literally hundreds, of resumes). I know that being in grad school puts me at a disadvantage, and also that when I do earn my degree in another year, it will open up possibilities that I never had before. I have lots of options, and very little right to piss and moan. Anywho...

So I remember this sleepover that I went to in the 8th grade. Some of the girls wanted to watch A Walk to Remember, and I remember thinking that it was an incredibly stupid movie (though I must admit, I didn't pay that much attention...I do remember this scene with Mandy Moore singing in a school play that went on for much longer than would be necessary or realistic). I've always lumped the sort of people who would be Nicholas Sparks fans with those who would call themselves "Twihards" (*shudder*). So when friends of mine wanted to go and see The Notebook in high school, I was more than a little reluctant. And I actually really loved that movie. Rachel McAdams is so gorgeous and charming, and Ryan Gosling...well, he's just absolute perfection, no doubt about it. I mean, The Notebook is a love story that even men admit to enjoying, so I guess it's right up my alley. So when I was compiling my list of books, and deciding on some contemporary works to try, I figured that if I was going to venture into any contemporary romance (not my favorite genre by a long shot), I might as well give this one a try.

I should note that the film version of this story is different from the book in many many ways, and that really surprised me. The basic premise is the same: an elderly couple in a nursing home (she has Alzheimer's and cannot remember him) are briefly brought back together, sometimes, when he reads to her the story of how they'd loved each other when they were young, were forced apart, but found each other again and rekindled their love years later, before it was too late. The characters are basically the same: Allie, Noah, Lon, and the two lovers' respective parents, and a couple of friends mentioned, make up the story's characters. It also follows the same basic plotline. But the details and the various scenes are, mostly, quite different. I will say here that I liked the book (the last part made me tear up a couple of times, just like the ending of the movie does), but I kind of liked it in a different way from the movie.

I feel that the movie better establishes the love affair that Noah and Allie had as teenagers one summer. In fact, it hardly makes up a chapter of the book, while it's a huge chunk of the movie, and my favorite part. In the book, Noah does not aggressively pursue Allie as he does in the film, and their love is much quieter, still passionate, but not with the sometimes fiery rage of the couple in the film. They don't have scabbles; they enjoy sitting quietly, reading poetry or love letters or whatever. The Noah and Allie of the film are more interesting characters on the whole.

Allie still loses her virginity to Noah, but in the film, it wasn't until their reunion years later. In the book, they had sex during that summer as teenagers. I guess the filmmakers had to be careful about that one, but it was interesting that they kept Allie a virgin all those years. When Noah seduces her (or rather, they seduce each other) after coming in from the rain, it is her first time in the film; in the book, it is a reunion of their bodies. I find that significant, especially since Allie never had sex with Lon, though they were together for several years (in the book). It makes her love for Noah seem stronger, somehow, that they had this physical as well as emotional bond, and that it all came back into place when they reunited.

The back story about Allie's mother's affair with a young working class man was not part of the book; in fact, I felt that in the book, when Allie's mother comes to confront her while she's with Noah, that that whole conflict was resolved much to quickly. It made it seem to me like Allie's choice was not a difficult one, after all, especially since she seemed to have her mother's support in it. There is no doubt that she will be with Noah. In the movie, they try to build up some tension here a little more, make it an actual question, but it never really is.

I could really go on and on about all of the differences, big and small, between the book and the film, but my point is this: even though they are different in so many ways, the spirit of the story and its major themes remain the same in the adaptation. I wonder if any real Nicholas Sparks fans were upset at how much the movie deviated from the book, but maybe because I've loved the movie for so long, I can appreciate the book now. Or something like that. I still find the most heart-wretching part to be the ending, when they are old, and Noah is trying desperately to refresh his wife's memories, to "bring her back" to him each day.

As I read the book, though, I found myself questioning if the true love that Noah and Allie felt for one another could really be true. It's the stuff of so many stories, throughout recorded history. True love...is it for real, though? I mean, does it happen in real life? And if it is real, but it is as rare as people say, then is it likely enough to hope for? What seems tragic to me, personally, is longing for something (like true love) that isn't true or real. I've always been a skeptic about this kind of thing. I don't know why. I've had my heart broken (as I've touched on in this blog), it's true, but not enough to make my bitter. And I've always felt this way, even before those stormy affairs (bahaha) of my later teenage years. But the belief that I have is this: love takes time, and love requires work. I personally do not believe in love at first sight. I appreciate Noah and Allie's story more when it described their children, the life that they'd built and shared together. That is true love, in my humble opinion. And it's real, without a doubt; everyone can have it, as long as they're willing to work for it. I guess my problem with love is, for so long now, I haven't met anyone that I feel attracted enough to, that I have enough compatibility with, or enough of a spark with, or what have you, that I would be willing to put myself out there, to give my heart away. I've always been told not to settle, and I never would, but I have to wonder about my approach to this whole thing. I guess you could say that reading The Notebook has made me want love, real love, love that could be true. It is out there, but like the perfect teaching job, it will not fall into my lap. I have to keep working at it (or actually start working at it?), just like I've been applying relentlessly for jobs. They always say that everything is a matter of perspective, and I suppose it's true. I guess that as I work on adjusting my attitude about my job search, I should try to think differently about the possibilities of finding love (that is true, or real, or whatever you want to call it). I'm not looking for my Noah (haha, weird to put that, since I have a brother by that name); I'm not looking for a man to write me love notes or read Whitman to me. But I guess it would be nice...

Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love. You're welcome, bitches.

Even a callous, cold-hearted person such as myself can't resist this. All together, now: AWWWWWWW!

Book #32: Dracula

Book #32: Dracula by Bram Stoker

July 28, 2013


Still haven't heard about that job that I interviewed for a few days ago. I was anxious going into the weekend, knowing that I wouldn't hear anything until Monday (tomorrow), but reading this book, working, and spending time with my family have distracted me enough that I'm not losing my mind over it. So, here is another novel that is the origin of a pop culture icon...as a matter of fact, this book basically launched its own genre, which is currently popular again (with TV shows like True Blood or Vampire Diaries, or those Twilight books that are currently not, and will probably never end up on, my list). While I had been disappointed with Frankenstein, I enjoyed reading Dracula, because unlike Victor Frankenstein, the characters in this book weren't whiny little bitches.

I was already somewhat familiar with the story. I've seen the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula a few times. I had a thing for Gary Oldman when I was in high school, and I watched this movie, and others like True Romance and Sid and Nancy because he's in them. The only thing I can criticize about this film is Keanu Reeve's performance as Jonathan Harker. Otherwise, the cast was pretty solid, and as far as I've been able to tell, it's probably the most faithful retelling of Stoker's novel that has been put to film.

Except for one kind of major thing, which makes all the difference now that I've read the book. See, in the movie, they made up this whole back story about how Dracula, when he was Vlad the Impaler (he is never directly identified as being this individual in the novel, but his history of being a noble warrior in the Crusades is described), came home from battle and found that his wife had been tricked by his enemies into committing suicide. So, like, his eternal unrest had something to do with that, and when he saw a picture of Harker's Mina, he saw how much she resembled his former love, and decided to make her his own. So when he goes to London, he charms her and seduces her, even though she does go off to tend to Jonathan and marries him (as in the book). Mina, in the movie, is torn between her spiritual lover Dracula and her husband Jonathan, and she willingly submits to becoming Dracula's undead slave (though in the book, he threatens her and forces her into it). But as Van Helsing and the other men pursue the vampire, she does help them (as in the book), though at the end she nearly turns on them in favor of her master. Dracula's death is more dramatic in the movie than in the book, too. Something about the way the movie ended, after the whole tension of this affair is built up between Dracula and Mina, never quite satisfied me, and now I know why. Whoever wrote the movie threw that part in, mingling it with the rest of the story (which is mostly told it as depicted in the book), which changed the whole tone.

Mina in the book is a stronger, more admirable character, and she forms strong bonds with the men who are hunting down the vampire. She is an intelligent woman, but lovely and gentle. Lucy, Dracula's first English victim, is much the same way (while in the movie, she's very entertaining as Mina's scandalously sexual friend; the two even share a full-out kiss in the rainy garden, something that is definitely not in the book!). They were probably what the author imagined to be ideal women. Mina was steadfast in her devotion to her husband, and to her friends, even as she was fighting her (literal) internal demons. I kept waiting for her to waver a bit, to say or do or think something that would justify the filmmaker's interpretation, but no. She has no love for the vampire, only pity, as she realizes that destroying him would save his soul as well as her own.

The book, through the famous character Van Helsing (who really does not become a vampire hunter until his old age, in this text, though he's been famously reincarnated into the role of a vampire or monster hunter in some films), acknowledges that the legend of vampires has been alive in some cultures for centuries. Dracula was one of the first texts to solidify the ideas of vampires that are still popular today (like that they do not like garlic, or that holy symbols hurt their powers, or that they are powerless when the sun is up), but after doing a little more digging, I found that Stoker would have been inspired by the novella The Vampyre by John William Polidori, in which the nobleman vampire gets away in the end. Still, I think that most would agree, whether or not they've read the book, that Dracula was the one that really started it all. For better or for worse, you might say. A few months ago, I remember declaring, "I'm really sick of this vampire shit," so I guess you could say it was refreshing to read the original text, and to find it to be a worthwhile read. The characters knew Dracula to be the enemy, and there was none of this vampires and mortals falling in love crap that for some reason so many people seem to get a kick out of.

Vampire imagery tends to be very sexual. I guess this was the case in the novel, as Dracula attacked Mina multiple times in her bed, for instance, and drank from her neck before forcing her to drink from his chest. Vampires in popular culture today are typically sexual, and some people take the whole vampire thing to extremes. I don't get it, but hey, who I am to judge?

Gary Oldman in True Romance. His appearance is short but hysterical.

Book #31: Everything is Illuminated

Book #31: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

July 24, 2013


I am on edge. I had an interview yesterday morning, my last shot at a full-time teaching position for next year, I think. It went well, I guess, and I know that they will decide on it quickly, with school right around the corner. But I am anxious to hear back, even after just a day. With my summer class ended, and only working a little bit more at my jobs, I am trying to immerse myself in my reading, while I wait and sweat it out, and at the very least, I am grateful to have some time to at least do that.

There seem to be, on the whole, two popular opinions of Safran Foer. On the one hand, he has been praised as being an experimental young writer, an important voice for this generation or something like that. On the other hand, many have claimed that he is overrated, and that he often assaults the reader's emotions (like with his references to 9/11 in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, or the references to the Holocaust in the novel that I just read) in order to add "poignancy" to his work. I find myself feeling torn about him personally, after reading just this work (which he wrote when he was 23, younger than myself...I don't really care what anyone else says about it, I do find that impressive). What I felt like he had here were two very powerful stories...but in attempting to tell them both, he kind of sold them both short.

The story is actually very well structured, considering the mismatched narrative. The novel can be grouped into sections. Each section begins with a chapter told from the perspective of Alex (aka Sasha), a young Ukrainian university student who lives with his parents (a timid mother and an overbearing, very abusive father), and his younger brother, whom he adores. Alex is a pretty typical young man to begin with; he eagerly follows Western culture (to the best of his abilities), jokes around, and claims non-existent sexual conquests. I found Alex to be endearing, and his narrative was charming, somewhat in the same way that the narrator's strange English was charming in Pygmy. But Alex is not crude (usually...his referring to the dog, Sammy Davis Junior, Junior, as a "bitch," might be jarring to seem, though technically correct); his strange English is often silly. The title of the novel is a reference to two things, one of them being Alex's use of the phrase "it was illuminated" to mean "it was understood." Kind of ironic, when I think about it...let me explain.

So Alex's story is very interesting, as is the story of his family, which is pieced together through Alex's letter's to the fictional character Jonathan Safran Foer (who was almost unnecessary in this book, yet was the one kind of tying things together). The author has been criticized for using himself as a character in his novel. I was confused, wondering if the sections about Alex were based on real life, if Safran Foer really had traveled to Ukraine to try to learn about his grandfather, and how he escaped from the Nazis. Not quite...from what I've been able to find, hardly any of it is true. Strange, then, that he wouldn't give his own character another name.

But he is the one telling the other part of the story. The way the book is set up, it seems that Jonathan is sending the chapters to Alex to have him read them over and give his opinions. Alex often criticizes the story when it is sad, though he gets into it. I do, too; this is the second story being told in this book. It begins like something of a fairy tale fantasy, telling the story of fictional Trachimbrod (based on a real Ukrainian Jewish shtetl that was destroyed by the Nazis, as depicted in the destroying on Trachimbrod in the novel). The people of late 18th and early 19th century Trachimbrod are whimsical characters. The main character is Brod, a girl who was found as a newborn baby floating in the river Brod after a wagon, believed to belong to a man known as Trachim, crashed into it, overturning. No other bodies were ever found, so Brod's origins could only be speculated.

The Jews of Trachimbrod are a strange sort. There are all kinds of strange anecdotes sprinkled through the book, like the story of the Upright congregation and the Slouchers, and how Brod's husband survived for two years with a saw in the middle of his head (though he was prone to violent tempers). Brod seemed to have the ability to see into the future; she knew that she would be raped on Trachimday when she was 13. Her death is never explained; only the death of her husband, and how her family line continued on down to Jonathan's grandfather, who was still living in Trachimbrod when the Nazis invaded.

Then, there's the story of this grandfather himself. I cannot tell if Safran is based on any actual, real person. If he is, then I must share in Alex's shock at the details of his part of the story. He had been sexually active since the age of 10, because women of all ages and experiences were attracted to his dead arm. He was born with teeth; it is never explained why. He does not have his first orgasm (in other words, does not come for the first time) until his wedding night, when he impregnates his young wife. His child is born in the river Brod when the Nazis invade, after the people panic and jump in during their Trachimday celebration, when it is interrupted by bombing. Safran is saved...that's the link between these fantastical stories of the past and Jonathan's present mission. He goes to the Ukraine to find out about Augustine, a woman whom he believes saved his grandfather. That's how he meets Alex, who is a tour guide for his father's company, and Alex's grandfather, who has his own interesting story of tragedy about the war (and whose part of the story is, in my opinion, left somewhat unfinished).

They never find Augustine. They do find a woman, the only survivor left near Trachimbrod, who punishes herself for surviving by holding on to all of the things left behind by those who were killed, and living in desperate squaller. Grandfather's heart is wrenched by this woman; he, having witnessed the murdering of the Jewish population (including his best friend Herschel) in an adjacent village, is touched and wants to help her, even though she is not really the Augustine that they are seeking. He later wants to find the real Augustine, as though he can atone for his own guilt from the war. But he is unable to do this, and he kills himself. The last letter addressed to Jonathan is from him, basically his suicide note translated by Alex, not from Alex himself, who for some inexplicable reason has become very angry at Jonathan, when they had previously had such good rapport.

I feel a little cheated to not have known about Augustine, either. I mean, if this whole thing had been based on a real search by the author that had come up almost empty, I could accept it, because that's life. But I think that I share Alex's opinion that the writer has the ability to shape the story himself (or herself), and if a writer can create the world, why not create the world as it should be? Yet the author himself wrote those words, he wrote the whole thing. He is Alex, and he is Jonathan, and he isn't either one of them. But I just feel like there should have been more, even if it wasn't tied up neatly in a literary ribbon. Whatever happened to Brod, anyway? And I would want to know more of Alex's childhood. The abuse that he and Little Igor suffer at the hands of their father is more than alluded to, but why would Alex stay? Just...I wanted more, and with the two parts of the story (perhaps three, if Brod and Safran's stories can be viewed separately), I just feel like they were incomplete.

I did find the author's depiction of modern-day countries, which had lost their Jewish populations. Some of the people claimed to have "never seen a Jew," and one young woman was fascinated that Jonathan did not have horns. Prior to the war, the Jewish population was kept separated from the other Ukrainians (the line separating Trachimbrod from the rest of the village is called the Jewish/Human fault line), and violent pogroms were not unknown in their history. In Western countries, anti-Semitism is not socially accepted, and people on the whole are fairly knowledgeable of the Holocaust (though there are still crazies who would deny it). So it can be jolting to think that, in these places where it was actually happening, people would be clueless about it to this very day. But perhaps they are like Alex's grandfather, who actually lived it, and wanted to forget. Guess you can't blame them at that.

I did enjoy this novel, and I got into it, but I don't feel like there was any closure. It doesn't even seem like the relationship between Jonathan and Alex was mended, and that's a shame. It seemed that, contrary to the novel's title, nothing was illuminated. The stories of the past did not enrich the stories of the present, but in this case, rather took away from them (or maybe the other way around?). This brings up an idea that Stephen Colbert brought up on his show last night, when he was interviewing Kenneth Goldsmith, who gathered transcripts from radio broadcasts that were breaking news of national tragedies or significant events (Seven American Deaths and Disasters sounds fascinating in itself, even though  the author looked like a kook in his pink suit and his mismatched Day-Glo socks and enviable whimsical facial hair, so I'm going to add it to my reading list). Colbert, more to get the author's goat than anything else, asked, "Why do we need to go back and relive these terrible events? Shouldn't we forget about the past?" I mean, he knows better than that, but the author lost his cool and was unable to answer. It was pretty funny, although up until that point he'd given a good explanation for the premise of his book (hell, I bought into it). But Colbert's question should be considered.

The answers that we've always given for examining the past have always been the same. You know, "if you don't know history, you'll be doomed to repeat it" or something like that. Obviously, the Safran Foer's intention with including the Holocaust here was not for Holocaust awareness (we've plenty of that in Western nations, I think, and perhaps need more attention shown to how such atrocities have occurred since then, in spite of the "intentions" of our leaders). So really, we do know our history (sort of...are we focusing on the right things?), yet we've still be doomed to repeat it. Goldsmith made the point that disasters will continue to happen, on and on and on, and he's unfortunately right. Can we anticipate it? Can we stop it? Which leads to the question: what was fictional Jonathan's mission in going to Ukraine? What did he hope to find? What did he really find?

Even after examining the book more closely with this entry, I still feel torn about it. Frustrated, on the one hand, yet so much of the story (particularly Alex's situation, and Brod's magical tale) was so interesting. What I know I must do is give Safran Foer another chance. I will aim to read another book by him, and sometime in the near future, I think. But as I sat down to write out a tentative list of books to go through next (I'm trying to get a healthy mix of "classics" and worthwhile contemporary reads), though, I only finding it getting longer and longer. I find that more exciting than overwhelming now. I don't know if or when I'll complete 1000 books, but I'm already satisfied with the variety of books that I've read so far. I think that if I get the job that I want, I will create a collage of book covers: books I've read and loved, books I've not loved so much, ones that I want to read. I will put it in my classroom, and explain to my students that those books, and so many more, make up my literary experience. That's what I really aim for, and what I want to help my students to appreciate: authentic literary experiences, like reading a popular book and having an opinion on it to share. There's nothing magical about books in themselves, but as it is pointed out in this book, "everyone has a novel" (or at least thinks they do), and some of these novels really are worth reading.

Was this one? I would say yes...but it alone would never satisfy me, and so my literary mission continues on.

A Polish-Jewish shtetl adjacent to the village of Auschwitz. Obviously, this would be prior to World War II. In Eastern Europe, apparently, Jewish populations who did not live in urban areas lived in these shtetls. The one in this picture was a poor community, as was the entire community of Auschwitz. It would be implied that the people of this shtetl suffered the same fate as those in the fictional Trachimbrod, or that they eventually ended up in the death camp.

Say what you might about Jonathan Safran Foer, but this man here is indisputably an important voice of our generation.

Book #30: The Metamorphosis

Book #30: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (translated by David Wyllie)

July 19, 2013


Two blog posts in a single day? Yup. This morning I finished up my six week long summer course, and I wasn't scheduled at either of my jobs. So what better way to spend a very hot and humid day but by sitting around, waiting for phone calls regarding job applications and interviews (still have some of that going on...I've had encouraging prospects, but no actual contract offers), and doing some hardcore reading? To be fair, The Metamorphosis is a short novella, definitely an in-one-sitting sort of read (and I did run a couple of errands in between parts). Another one of those classic texts that I've always meant to read, but...

Anyway, most people are familiar with the very basic premise of the story. A man (Gregor Samsa) wakes up one morning and has turned into a giant cockroach (I should note that the sort of creature he's turned into is never identified in the text by name, but I've always envisioned it as a cockroach). But obviously there is more to the story than that. Really, this is a family drama (there is some humor infused into the story; come to think of it, I would love to see a stage production of this story). When Gregor's role within his family is first described, it seems like he's a nice guy, a dutiful son. His father had been a businessman, but when his business failed, he went into early retirement...though he couldn't really afford to. His mother was stricken with arthritis, and his sister Grete was a very young girl. And so, Gregor took it upon himself to shoulder the family's financial burden. He must be in his 30's, as it said in the text that he'd been working for his company for over a decade as a salesman. He had already gone to college, and had served in the military. Yet he was not married; he lived in a small room in his parents' flat, saving up to send his sister, a violin player, off to a music school.

Well, Gregor is a sympathetic character at first. He's a cockroach...he's own family is disgusted with him, and he's kept shut up in his room. He begins to behave more and more like an animal, though he maintains some of his humanity, some of his conscious thoughts and feelings. His family doesn't realize that he can understand them still, as they cannot understand him when he tries to communicate. He is aware of their struggles due to his, uh, unique condition. Not only the shame of having a monster to care for and keep hidden away (they lose their cook the morning of the "metamorphosis," the chief clerk from Gregor's job runs out in terror, and the maid stays on for a while under the condition that she may remained locked in the kitchen to see to her duties), but also the fact that they all must return to the work force, even young Grete. This, and their disgust at the sight of the giant cockroach monster, causes them to neglect Gregor. He eventually dies.

In the end, though the family is sad to have lost the Gregor they'd once known and loved, they are optimistic about the future. They even feel good about their occupations, and Grete, a lovely girl, looks forward to a promising marriage. Now, after all of Gregor's lonely suffering in his pitiful state, some might think that the family's reaction to his death is pretty messed up. I disagree, and here's why.

The Metamorphosis is...a metaphor? Oh, yes! You see, Gregor, the ever-devoted martyr of a son, wasn't doing his family any favors by allowing them to be depend on his income. It was observed in the text that, after a couple of years of taking their son's money, his parents stopped accepting it with warmth and gratitude. Maybe they felt that it was time for Gregor to move on with his life, to start his own family with his money and let them take care of their business. They didn't really ask him to take on their financial woes, did they? That wasn't indicated to me in the text. Gregor wasn't even happen doing the job that he was doing, but if he put his parents' debts back on them, he could leave that job and move on to something better.

Gregor saw his family as a burden, though his thoughts of their dependency on his didn't seem bitter. When the tables were turned, however, Grete eventually was the one to declare that Gregor was a burden to the family, and a disgusting monster, and that they should get rid of him. Gregor died that night, unburdening his family. Yes, strange and sad that no reason was ever found for why he turned into a cockroach in the first place, and that there was no hope of his turning back.

I read (on Wikipedia) that Kafka basically wrote this story to express his own feelings of being a burden to his own family, especially to his sister, when he was ill. It was basically his way of expressing his own anguish at not being able to man-up. There's a middle ground, I think. Of course, family should help each other out in hard times, like if someone is sick or someone turns into a giant disgusting cockroach. But at a certain point, family should not be so dependent on one another. It isn't healthy; Grete's act of opening the window each time she entered her brother's room to do some cleaning or leave him some food would indicate that she felt suffocated by his presence. So really, it wasn't Gregor's turning into a cockroach that was so wrong, but his actions prior to this; making his family dependent on him, remaining in his family's home when he ought to be making his own way.

Different cultures would take quite a different view of this, of course. But I would say that some of the family themes of this text struck with me. I've never wanted to be too dependent on my family, especially when it comes to finances. If I've ever had to borrow money from my dad, for example, I've always tried to pay him back promptly. Other people in my family don't feel the way that I do about codependency, but even though I live in the same city, I live on my own and perhaps see most of my family members (certainly my dad, and my sister and her children) once a week or so. Family ties are important; I want to stay in this area, and find a teaching position and settle down around here, but I don't want to move in with any of my family members, and I definitely don't want to shoulder any of their financial responsibilities. Nor do I want them to shoulder any of mine. At the end of the story, Grete was ready to make her way into the adult world. She looked to the future with eagerness and hope, knowing that she would not suffer the same fate as her poor cockroach of a brother.

I hear that.

Ew.

Kafka. He was kind of adorable, wasn't he? And his hat made me giggle.

Book #29: Pygmy

Book #29: Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

July 19, 2013


I was expecting this book to be strange. How could I expect anything less from the author of Fight Club (haven't read it, but of course I've seen the movie...)? I was intrigued when I read the description for it on my local library's online eBook catalog. Having finished it, the only thing that really surprised me about this book is how the main character eventually becomes a sympathetic figure, how his humanity comes out even as the narrative keeps the same cold, brutally matter-of-fact tone.

This wasn't an easy book to read, at least at the start. See, the narrator is from an unidentified communist country. He could be from South America, Africa, the Middle East...his English, which is missing some determiners and auxiliary verbs, and his not knowing the "proper" names for things (his factually accurate but crude description of flowers as "genitals of plants" is funny) makes the text a little hard to understand at first. But I found that I went along that, as with Shakespeare, my understanding came easier, and in fact, I was able to enjoy the fun that Palahniuk was clearly having with the language. The narrator's strange English, and that of his "comrades," makes me think of a Russian person speaking English with a heavy accent. So where they're from is impossible to determine; the narrator is small and has dark skin, so he is dubbed "Pygmy" by his American host family. That's a pretty offensive nickname, I would say, but the suburban America that Palahniuk depicts in this novel is severely lacking in political correctness.

There are shocks right from the start; in fact, the most shocking seen of the novel (I actually sat in an elementary school library during my summer graduate course, reading this scene with my mouth hanging open in horror while pretending to work on an assignment) is in the second chapter, in which the narrator knocks down and rapes a bully named Trevor in a Wal-Mart bathroom. This kid, who was wearing a T-shirt with "John 3:16" printed on it (the narrator wore one from his host family that read "Property of Jesus"...these people were stereotypical American Christian hypocrites), had been beating up on the narrator's host brother (known only as pig dog brother, or host brother, throughout the narrative; while his sister, with whom the narrator falls in love, is known only as host sister or cat sister, or some variation). Obviously the kid already had psychotic tendencies, but the narrator's attack on him in the Wal-Mart bathroom really turned a screw loose. Which began to complicate the narrator's plans.

Did I forget to mention that the narrator was part of a group of teenage operatives, on a mission to kill millions of American citizens in Washington, D.C. and beyond? Uh, yeah. It's during the chapters in which the narrator recalled scenes from his life in his home country that he became a sympathetic character. At the age of four, he was found to be an exceptionally intelligent child, along with a small group of his peers. These children were taken from their families. They were lied to, told that their parents were all killed in a terrorist attack...by Americans. And so, they must give their lives to serve their "glorious homeland," and to earn their own fates. Their religion was: the "deity" wants to kill people and send them to hell. When an innocent person dies, it angers the deity; when a sinful person dies, it pleases the deity. And so, these terrorist children must earn their deaths. I guess.

The narrator knows that his parents didn't really die. He recalls a particularly horrible scene, during a parade. They are marching in the streets among the military tanks. One of his young comrades is accosted by a couple; they are clearly his parents. They young man is ordered to shoot his own parents dead, and he does so. Then, the narrator thinks he sees his own parents among the crowd, and he prays that they don't come to him or say anything.

It's no surprise when the narrator betrays Operation Havoc at the end of the book. He was clearly becoming cognizant of how brainwashed he'd been all those years, yet he does still seem to view Americans (on the whole) as being wasteful, probably evil creatures. He was right about the Reverend Tony being evil, as he was a pedophile who may have gotten Magda, another young operative, pregnant (although her goal was to get pregnant, after all; in actual fact, the father of her baby was pig dog brother). I didn't understand the whole pregnancy thing, why this little kids (really, like 13 or 14 years old!) were all trying to impregnate someone or get pregnant themselves. "American anchor babies"...that may have only been explained very briefly, when the narrator describes helping the Americans to flourish, so that they'll keep having an enemy to combat...that didn't make any sense to me, and unfortunately it wasn't expanded on. Maybe the narrator's own understanding of it wasn't clear; he was just a brain-washed kid, after all, if very intelligent and super strong. However, if the goal here is to displease the deity, then of course a continuous line of terrorists would need a line of victims. Still, the pregnancy thing didn't make sense, and didn't work, anyway, as the girls who were impregnated by the foreign exchange students (the narrator didn't have sex with any of the girls) all had abortions or took morning after pills, so the only baby born with Magda's.

Okay, so the whole Trevor thing is probably what started to change the narrator's mind, though his affection for his host sister probably had more to do with it. I didn't get that girl. She would sneak out to her father's office, a top-secret government science building, just to steal office supplies, I think? And she did this a lot. It was very weird. Anyway, the deal with Trevor was even stranger, and much more unexpected. See, after the attack, the reader is made to think that Trevor intends to get revenge. He even pulls a gun on the narrator at a school dance, forcing him to go with him to the parking lot. But not to attack him.

Trevor confesses that since the attack, he has fallen in love with the narrator. The narrator very insightfully points out that Trevor is misguided in his feelings, and that it's probably because he suffered some past trauma. He puts him off as gently as he can, as cold as he is. He continues to defend Trevor even after things get out of control. At the Model UN ceremony (apparently unsupervised, as all these teenagers in the school gym are smoking pot from hookahs and eating hash brownies and taking shots of vodka, all while wearing very stereotypical and racist outfits), Trevor opens fire on the other students...it's later revealed that he was trying to get the narrator to kill him, which he does. Of course, being some super spy kid terrorist, the narrator does some maneuver that takes Trevor's head clean off. "Pygmy" is declared a hero, and Trevor is denounced, though the narrator sympathizes with him.

In the end, Trevor and the poisoned Reverend Tony, the pedophile, are the narrator's only victims in the whole scheme. He sabotages the planned released of poisoned dollar bills on Washington D.C., and is adopted by the Cedar family, in spite of the fact that he had gotten the father put into prison, had sabotaged his host sister's project so that his would win and go to D.C., and his having confessed to raping Trevor (since his mother had already gotten the "suicide" note that Trevor left for "Pygmy," though making it sound more like a tryst than a rape). And having confessed to being a terrorist. I don't think he confessed to killing the pedophile reverend, but that doesn't bother me.

The America depicted in the novel is pretty messed up. The kids were drugging the parents so that they could do whatever they wanted! This seemed to be a regular occurrence...freaky! It really makes me not ever want to have kids, if that's supposed to be realistic. But then, Palahniuk can be over-the-top at times. Some of the observations made of America, told through the eyes of little intelligent brainwashed communist "Pygmy," are hilarious and sometimes spot on. Very dark humor, but I can appreciate that. I think that, the humor laced into this brutal and dark story, is what made it most enjoyable for me. I absolutely loved the narrator's description of KFC as some kind of war memorial for Colonel Sanders, and the scenes of the narrator in "Junior Swing Choir," and his descriptions of American "classics" like "Oklahoma!" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" literally made me laugh out loud. In the end, "Pygmy" basically choose the not-so-bad consumerist hell of America over something much much worse in his home country. Everything basically worked out for the best, you could say...a tidy American ending. U-S-A.

I felt like this novel struck a really good balance for me: intriguing story, sympathetic main character, humor. Prior to this book, my only exposure to Palahniuk was through the film version of his best-known work, but at this point I'd say he's batting 2/2 with me. He may be one of the most interesting and important authors of our time, and I will eagerly be adding more of his work to my list.

This book touched on many hot-button issues in our country in the last few years: terrorism, teen pregnancy, teen sexual activity, violence in schools, and pedophiliac religious leaders. Another one briefly addressed in the narrator's cynical observations: obesity. Look, I'm not in the best of shape myself: I smoke too much, I don't eat as healthy as I should, I drink way too much diet soda. I'm barely in my healthy weight range, and I could stand be far more toned. But on the whole, we are a very very fat country, and I do think that people are starting to realize that it's a problem. There have been so many initiatives launched for the sake of national health...have there been any positive results?

Do I even need a reason?

Book #28: My Ántonia

Book #28: My Ántonia by Willa Cather

July 16, 2013


This novel is acknowledged as Cather's most famous. I first heard of this novel years back, but didn't know much about the premise. I was, however, fascinated by the possessive pronoun in the title. I imagined the novel to be some kind of great epic romance. To some extent I was correct, but it definitely wasn't romantic in the sexual sense. But Cather's loving descriptions of the characters and setting, told through the eyes of young Jim Burden, are romantic in themselves.

I heard that some people believe that Cather was a lesbian. While this surprised me at first (I would have assumed she was Mormon, or at least sympathetic to Mormons, from the fact that the narrative mentions their trek to Utah and because one of the Burden's cows was named Brigham Young),  I guess I could maybe see where they're coming from, without knowing much of her personal life (besides what I could get from the text itself). The narrator Jim isn't just enamored with Ántonia, a hard-working young woman who came to Nebraska with her Bohemian family, but with all of the daughters of immigrants who live in his town and in the surrounding country. His descriptions of them, how beautiful they were, how hard they worked, how they had a special view of life and a special glow that none of the pampered girls in town would ever have...I will admit that, when I first read the introduction to the text, I thought that Jim Burden really had been real, and that he had written the manuscript, because clearly whoever wrote this book was very much in raptures over those girls. It has been proven that Cather based Ántonia on a childhood friend; perhaps she felt she had to change herself, in the story, into a boy, so that her feelings for these girls could be expressed openly and honestly. One can really only speculate...

Anyway, for the most part I found this book to be kind of boring. Kind of...I did enjoy the characters, particularly the girls like Ántonia and Lena. I found the stories that Cather came up with for how their lives turned out to be fascinating; like Tiny, the girl who went to the Yukon, preceding the major gold-rush, helping to found Dawson City and becoming a very rich woman in the process (this story only meant anything to me because I've read The Call of the Wild by Jack London). But I was disappointed in how things turned out with Jim and Ántonia. The thing of it is, I sometimes felt like he was never any more in love with her than he was with any of those other girls, especially Lena, since the story is almost as much about them once Jim and his grandparents move to town. Still, it was disappointing that Jim couldn't marry Ántonia and save her from the life of drudgery to which she was doomed (though happily, it would seem) at the end. Now, why couldn't Jim be with her again? It isn't clear, and that would lead me to believe that he never was as much in love with her as he might have supposed. However, if one is to speculate that Jim is standing in the place of Cather herself, then of course it wouldn't be possible to be with Ántonia.

Now, I have to wonder if I would have even enjoyed the book as much as I did (I didn't hate it) if I didn't have some small personal connection to the setting. See, for two years I taught in a very small rural community. Not exactly in Nebraska, but very close to the border. Now, I had a colleague from Nebraska at the time who swore that she could tell the difference between the air in the different states, but I don't know about all that. I know that I'm not impressed with Omaha, though I did think that Lincoln was a pretty little city. It was interesting to read a little bit about the start of the University of Nebraska, as Jim (in the story) was one of the first attendees at the very young school. And when the text described the vast plains and farmlands, and the rough country winters...I knew a little bit of what they were talking about. It didn't make me miss living there, I will say that much. I'm definitely a "city girl" (though not a BIG city girl, as I didn't really like Phoenix, either). I enjoy the convenience in a larger city, but I still feel like I live in a relatively safe place, too, so it's basically the best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned. 

Now, the little town described in the novel (based, I would suppose, on Cather's own little hometown in Nebraska) sounded like a charming little prairie town, and it seemed like it was beginning to grown and expand a bit. But Jim, visiting there after living in New York for a time, detects a depressed feeling in the air. Is it the people, with nothing to do? The failure of the economy? It isn't clear; most signs in the novel would point to success in this little community. But young people leaving for the larger towns and cities was going on even then. Well, I noted in a previous entry about the decline of small rural communities, so I won't harp on that subject any further. I will say this, though; I found myself thinking about corporate farms versus small, family-owned farms. I know that if corporate farms keep growing, and family farms fail, then the small rural communities will be wiped out effectively. How could they not be? And I think that would be a real shame, so I'll just put in a plug here (for anyone who cares to read this) that it is important to support local businesses, and local farmers. I live in a Midwest state, mind you, so it's very easy to go out and purchase corn from a local seller in some parking lot anywhere in town during the summer, or to go to a farmer's market and partake in locally produced goods. But, even though I detest larger corporations, and I try to do all of my shopping at local or regional groceries stores, sometimes I find myself at a certain big-box international chain store. I hate myself whenever I go there, not just because I am aiding in the success of that horrible company, but also because I always find myself being annoyed at the other patrons. It is ALWAYS busy at this particular place (if you know what I'm talking about, then you know what I'm talking about), and (to put it nicely), many of the people there are interesting...Anyway, I try to support local businesses and such, because duh, when you spend money in your community, it goes back into your community, right? 

The characters in the novel are a supportive community, though gossip is common in the little town. Still, when it came down to it, neighbors helped each other out as best they could, in spite of everything. That's the spirit that people expect in small towns, and I could sense that in the community that I worked in for a couple of years. Unfortunately, this was a failing community. Oh, and the year that I moved away, an expanded, say, super, version of the aforementioned chain store was opened just down the street from my old house. I would be curious to see if this place has helped or has only further hurt this already struggling community.

Kolaches, spelled kolacbes in the novel. These are very popular where I live (my sister is especially addicted to them); a nearby small community even has an annual Kolach Festival.

Kids in some Czech festival. There is a significant Czech history in my community; as a matter of fact, I am Bohemian on my mother's side.

Book #27: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Book #27: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

July 10, 2013


A few months ago, I was subbing a reading class at a local middle school (I currently have five active job applications out for schools, and this one happens to be one of them). The kids were reading their choice of science fiction. One of the options was this one, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was surprised to see it included among the young adult options, since my understanding was that the humor it it could be a little...mature. But I imagine that some kids that age would "get" it. Not many kids were reading it, so I was able to get my hands on a copy for a couple of class periods and start reading it (I'd forgotten whatever book it was I was really reading at the time). I actually got a good way's in, since it's not a very long book at all, but I couldn't get another copy until I managed to download it from the library on my Kindle.

I first heard about this book when the movie came out. If I'm remembering right, it kind of tanked. But I remember hearing people say that the book was amazing, so it was kind of one of those books that I've always meant to read, but haven't gotten around to. So for that reason alone, I'm very glad to have read it now, even if I didn't find it to be as amazing as others think.

Don't get me wrong. I very much enjoyed the book. The humor in it is very British, with the logical fallacies and the overall silliness. The scene at the beginning, with Arthur (the main character, the last surviving male from the planet Earth) and Mr. Prosser was very silly, as were the philosophers in the other dimension (where mice, apparently, were like super-intelligent beings or something like that?). The plot of the story is driven by coincidences and absurdity. Though there were several books written by Adams after this first one continuing Arthur's adventures in the universe, there doesn't seem to be any real reason for why he happened to be the only person to survive the destruction of Earth (besides Trillian, who, by complete coincidence, happens to be a girl that Arthur has met previously, and had even been interested in). I was maybe expecting some sort of revelation about Arthur's destiny. You know, like on the cartoon Futurama, where this young pizza delivery guy named Fry is cryogenically frozen for a thousand years, and the real reason for it is that he has to save the planet...the plot lines for that TV show, which take place in a future that could be compared with the cultures and lifestyles of the aliens in this book, are ultimately tied together by this guy's fate. But Arthur isn't some sort of bumbling hero (though he does make himself useful among the people whom he is traveling in space with, especially when he flips a switch and saves them from being blown up by missiles). I find myself feeling a little disappointed that there isn't some big revelation, that somehow Arthur is part of this predestined plan, and he must save the universe or something.

Okay, so there's some hinting at the possibility when Zaphod, the eccentric two-headed humanoid president (and Trillian's boyfriend), reveals that he stole the Heart of Gold ship in which they are traveling for reasons that he does not understand, because after learning them, he had tampered with the connections between his two brains, and basically fucked up his memory (though not permanently, it would seem). There isn't much about this, maybe just a chapter, and I'm still not sure what Arthur's connection would be with that whole thing. I don't feel like I'm jumping out of my seat to read the next one in the series; I don't even know that I would add it to my list at this point.

It should be noted, though, that this book was published in 1979, so it probably would have been a very innovative science fiction text at the time. Adams does create many interesting things in different words and in space, some absurd, some very beautiful. Good descriptions of the interesting inventions (it was almost eerie, as I was reading this on my Kindle, how similar to an eReader the description for the electronic Hitchhiker's Guide..., the text after which the book itself that I read is named, is). I  probably would have gotten into this more if the text had been longer! I guess one could argue, well, why don't you just read the next one in a row and just pretend it was one book? I guess I could...I don't really feel like it.

But apparently this book has had quite a cult following for decades, and it really isn't any wonder. The author pushed a long time for the movie to be created. There was some quote from the author included at the end of the text (in my electronic edition, there's like 50 pages worth of crap just about the movie...I didn't read any of it), that said something like, Arthur had to be British, but all the other actors could be any other nationality. Um, okay, I guess, but I really question the casting of Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. See, for one thing, I'm not a fan. I actually have wanted to like her; I used to want to be a whimsical-cute girl, so I think that her shtick appealed to me back then. But in the last couple of years, I find myself just annoyed at her woman-child bit. Now, I'm a bit of a woman-child myself (hello, how many times have I mentioned watching cartoons here?), but I feel that she should give the cutesy stuff a rest. She's in her 30s. There's just something very off-putting about her. She seems smug in her forced quirkiness, knowing that just enough people will buy into it...

Anyway, Trillian is described as being like Middle Eastern, and I'm sure that if Arthur met her at a party in London, she was probably British, too. So to get a pastey white American...I don't know. I don't get it. Hard not to imagine Ford as Mos Def, though (he's hot, but apparently he has taken on a Muslim name, and was very recently filmed undergoing the practice of forcing feeding, ala Gitmo, to protest the cruel practice?), even though the character is described in the book as being red-headed. You know, that made me think of The Shawshank Redemption. The novella after which the movie was based (from Different Seasons! By Stephen King! I used "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" with a couple of senior boys...they liked the cursing, and liked watching the film) was also told from Red's perspective, just as Morgan Freeman narrated the movie. But in the story, he actually has red hair! Imagine that! Well, the red heads of literature just can't make it to the big screen, can they? In the movie, they apparently couldn't give the guy who played Zaphod an extra head. I mean, come on...do Zaphod with two heads, or don't do it at all, I think (though the pictures of a two-head Zaphod from the very earlier stage or TV productions are very silly).

Apparently the story started out as a radio series by Adams himself, so it's no surprise that he'd push for a film. Pretty impressive that it crossed over genres, and some of the humor does translate well to the book, though I could see it getting exhausting after a while. The radio show was probably a hoot. I don't know, maybe I will actually catch the movie sometime; I've seen snippets on IFC, and from the little I've seen, it seems very different (like, I see a scene where Trillian finds out that Earth was destroyed, and it's very different from the book). I suppose that I can't get too upset about a movie that isn't entirely faithful to a book that I'm not emotionally invested in, anyway; I guess as long as the humor is in the right spirit (which is probably how Adams would have wanted it, along with some decent special effects), it would be entertaining enough.

Lovable old Bender...definitely a more fun robot than the moping Martin.

Now, Morgan Freeman is a great actor, and obviously a popular film narrator (like this one, or that movie about penguins), and I do love this movie, but...why would they call a black guy Red?

Book #26: Bright Lights, Big City

Book #26: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

July 8, 2013


New York City is the most vastly populated city in the US, with over 8 million people (maybe closer to 9?). I've never been to New York myself. My only trips to the northeast have been to Boston and New Hampshire, when I had family living out there (they've since relocated back to California). I like Boston from a historical aspect, all the old buildings and streets and stuff. I've always been interested in it, if I haven't been a big history nerd. But the northeast is somewhat known for not being as friendly as, say the Midwest, and...well, I have tender feelings, and I happen to think that people in my hometown, for the most part, are really very nice and polite people, all things considered.

Anyway, of course, NYC is a big part of popular culture. Many famous sitcoms take place in NY, like Friends or How I Met Your Mother. Sex and the City (which I love, by the way, I still enjoy the reruns, but I thought the first movie was only okay and the second movie was horrible), of course, takes place in New York. It's historically significant, too, as it was the "passageway" to the country for people coming from European countries (Statue of Liberty, hello?). I remember reading somewhere, prior to downloading this book to my Kindle Fire, that every New Yorker should read Bright Lights, Big City. After doing so myself, I sort of wonder why.

The story of the main character (unnamed and referred to in the second person; that style worked for the narrative, I thought) is pretty unspectacular, so I guess it really could have been the story of any young educated New Yorker in the '80s. The main character has had a pretty shitty year. First his mother died (this, for some reason, isn't revealed until pretty far into the story, though it's hinted at a little in a couple of places when the main character mentions disappointing his father when he got fired, or not wanting to tell his father that his wife left him). His wife Amanda became a model and left him to live in Paris. However, when she was back in New York and ran into him at a party, she was there with a male escort (uh, maybe...his buddy Tad might have made that up to cheer up the main character, who, wired up on coke, had a laughing fit when he finally came face-to-face with his wife again for the first time in months). But he's over his wife, and may have a new relationship springing up with a Princeton grad student.

But at the end of the book, his life is pretty much shit. Not that it was great to start with. Abandoned by his wife, he goes out and gets all coked up with his crazy friend Tad all the time, when really he claims to just want to stay home and read a book. He's a writer (sort of), well-educated, and he works for a prestigious magazine. But his coke habit gets in the way of him being able to do his job well, and after messing up a piece that he was supposed to fact-check (that's what he does, a job that he finds very dry and dull, when he would rather work in Fiction), he gets fired. Then he and Tad let a ferret loose in the office, and he leaves a drunk coworker, an old man at that, lying on top of an overturned book shelf in his boss's office. This dude is a hot mess.

His brother shows up on his doorstep and the main character runs away from him. I laughed aloud when that happened. But Michael eventually catches up with him at his apartment, and the brothers have a physical fight before reconciling. They go out and have some drinks, talk about their mother (the main character hasn't been able to get closure about her death), go back to his apartment. He snorts like 8 lines of coke while Michael falls asleep, goes out with Tad, and that's when  he runs into Amanda. Then on the way home, he trades his sunglasses for a bag of fresh bread, and starts eating it on the street. And that's the end of the book.

I'd maybe view this as a kind of coming-of-age novel. I mean, the character is only 24. That still seems young to me; a year younger than me, and I definitely don't feel old yet. Of course, I did throw my back out two weeks ago (that put me out of the mood for reading for a little while), and I found the second grey hair of my life that same week, so I'm not exactly feeling young and sprightly here. But I definitely feel like I'm still "developing," though I guess we all are. This main character is definitely in the process of developing. I wish that I could see how it goes, but that will require him leaving the city, I think. Going with his brothers and father to Michigan to spread his mother's ashes at last, to gain some perspective on his life and his situation. Divorced (not even yet), jobless...what's keeping him in New York, besides coke and parties? And he doesn't even seem to like the parties...although he is developing a drug addiction.

It seems pretty normal, though, for the time and place. As the main character clears out his desk after being fired, he finds some coke at the bottom of the drawer. He lines it up on the desk and offers it to a coworker, who must be at least 10 years older. She doesn't even hesitate in snorting it up. Even his seemingly straight-laced brother Michael agrees to some coke, but falls asleep before he can take it, I guess? Was coke in New York in the '80s like cigarettes in the '50s and '60s...everybody just did it? I mean, I wasn't surprised or shocked by the main character snorting it from a toilet seat in a club with a couple of women...that I would expect.

Anyway, he gets a nose bleed on the street before he buys the bread, but I don't know if he's thinking of giving up coke. The last lines of the book (which ended very strangely, very abruptly, it seemed) indicate that he is at a new beginning, but nothing is mentioned or indicated about getting off drugs. Well, drugs weren't his big problem at the start. They didn't kill his mother, and they didn't send his wife away. In fact, if the narration is to be believed, he was a pretty good husband. Maybe, maybe not. I found myself thinking that the guy was kind of a douche, sort of pitiable, but kind of an asshole. It's like, okay, if you don't want to go out and party, then don't go out and party...just stop bitching about it! His wife really was horrible to him, and it's unfortunate that there was not more closure there, but he did say that he was done with it. Maybe that was true.

I feel somewhat the same way about this book as I did about Fear and Loathing...in that it does give a snapshot of an important time and place in American history and culture. New York in the 1980s. I wouldn't necessarily call this an essential read for all New Yorkers; I'm sure that the main character's misadventures would now seem a little out-of-date for today's scene. However, at least I could feel something about the main character (a bit of pity, and while, yeah, he could be a stupid asshole at times, he seems like he had a decent heart, and I must admit that I could relate to him a little...I wonder if that was an effect of the narrative style?), other than annoyance and amusement.

I've read a couple of different comparisons between McInerney's work and that of Bret Easton Ellis. Besides characters who are young urban-dwellers, upper-middle class, and it being the 1980s, I don't see the similarities. Granted, I have yet to read any Ellis. I can't get my hands on any through the library; he must be banned. From what I know, his characters are psychotic killers or drug fiends (I wouldn't call the main character in this book a fiend, just an average everyday addict) or child rapists, the scum of the earth. The main character in this text wasn't at all a bad guy. He was a relatable guy, a guy who'd had a hard time lately, still immature in his years in spite of his experiences, somewhat of a dumb ass. I might speculate that he was an Everyman for 1980's New York City.

Women love Sex and the City not only because the bold sexuality of these characters, but also because they were so relatable. It was a thing for a while to be like "Oh, I'm a Charlotte" or whatever. Miranda was smart and strong, Carrie was intelligent but open to love, Charlotte was lovely and soft and wanted everything to be beautiful, and Samantha was a woman who was very strong in her sexuality, to say the least. Strong, successful women having good sex...who wouldn't want to relate to that? (And not snorting coke, either).

A Midwestern icon, the Field of Dreams. The Midwest, and Iowa itself, isn't all farm lands and small towns. Unfortunately, many of those communities are suffering (meth isn't a very positive contribution, for one thing), while urban centers are growing and thriving.