Book #146: Welcome to the Monkey House

Book #146: Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

December 28, 2014

Here's an example of an author who doesn't stick to the same themes time and again. This famous collection of Vonnegut stories are some of his earliest works, spanning from the very early 1950s to the early '60s. That's about the only common theme between them. Some are sci-fi dystopian, like my old favorite "Harrison Bergeron" or the title story. Some have political themes, some family themes, some are psychological. Not all of the stories were stellar, but they were all good. I'll give an overview of the stand-outs, though I highly recommend the whole collection.

"Who am I This Time?" and "Long Walk to Forever" are both sweet love stories, and compared to some of the more bitter stories, really show Vonnegut's versatility. "The Foster Portfolio" was an interesting story about a working class man who has found a perfect balance in his life, and his inheritance of hundreds of thousands of dollars threatens that. It's told from the perspective of his flabbergasted investment consultant, who only "gets" it after seeing what his client's interesting side job involves. That's a story I'd possibly use with students, and I wouldn't necessarily say that about all of them (though only because I work in a restrictive environment; the title story, for instance, would be entirely inappropriate). 

I loved "New Dictionary," because I feel that Vonnegut expresses the views of what I call a "progressive linguist": someone who understands that language will and should evolve, and scoffs at language snobs. I wonder what Vonnegut would say about the way language is used online, or about sites like Urban Dictionary (prescriptive, I'd say).

"Next Door" was a brief psychological thriller. My favorite story of the whole collection was "More Stately Mansions." A woman obsessed with interior decorating swoops in on a new neighbor, hounding her to redo her own place. When they finally see this woman's house, it's a shithole...but she has filing cabinets full of ideas of what she'll do when they finally have the money. When her husband is able to surprise her with the home makeover of her dreams, her reaction is fascinating.

"The Euphio Question" was a sci-fi story about the discovery of a free source for synthetic happiness: radio waves from space. Question is, is there any good in it? The effects of it are compared to taking drugs. 

"The Lie" is another teachable story, about a kid from a prestigious family who isn't academically smart enough to get into his father's alma mater, a prep school that his family practically founded. "D.P." is about a German orphan whose father was probably an American soldier, since the boy is mixed race. He meets a platoon of African American soldiers, convinced that the sergeant is his father. He probably isn't, but the boy steals the hearts of the men, and the sergeant promises to come back and adopt the little German boy. 

As I said, all the stories are worth reading, but "Adam" tore me up. A young couple, both Holocaust survivors (the sole survivors of their families, I think), have a baby in a hospital in Chicago. Of course it's a momentous occasion, the first real chance to carry on the family name. And even though the people around him just see it as another thing that happened, this couple knows how big it is for them. So much pain and callousness in this world, and yet such a victory for these survivors.

I've only recently looked into the extent of Vonnegut's published works. Based on the quality of what little I've read so far., I'd almost think I couldn't go wrong reading anything by him. Vonnegut is one author I wish I'd picked up a long time ago. 

Book #145: Blockade Billy

Book #145: Blockade Billy by Stephen King

December 27, 2014

I had to remind myself, upon waking just a couple of hours ago, that today is Saturday and that I have many days off still ahead of me. So I've kicked back, and read a recent novella by one of my favorite authors in one sitting. Blockade Billy is very brief, and because of the engaging narrative voice (King's biggest strength as an author), it was very entertaining.

It's a baseball story for sure, but also a thriller. The narrator is a former baseball coach called "Granny." He's in a retirement home. King skillfully includes himself as a silent character who is listening to Granny tell the story of "Billy Blakely." This young man was sent up from the minor leagues in Iowa to fill the catcher spot on the Titans, a team out of Newark. He seems "slow" but good-natured, and turns out to be a hell of a ball player. He becomes good friends with the successful but narcisstic pitcher, known as the Doo. Everybody on the team likes him. But something's off here.

For one, "Billy" pulled some shit in his first game, injuring a player who was headed for home using a small razor on a ring on his finger, hidden from coaches and officials by a Band Aid. And, while Billy has good personal stats, his team doesn't have a stellar season. It's observed more than once that young Billy may be bad luck.

I won't give away what happens at the end. This is a great short read, whether you're a baseball fan or not. I have no love for the game, but the reverence in the tone of the narrator seemed genuine. King grew up on the east coast and is a man of a certain age, so undoubtedly he loves baseball himself. But I didn't find the references difficult to follow. Trust me, this novella is much more than a baseball story. 

Book #144: The Kitchen God's Wife

Book #144: The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

December 26, 2014

When I first saw the title for this book, I imagined that it was about a youngish American woman of Chinese descent in an unhappy marriage to a master chef. I was somewhat off the mark, but not too much. The Kitchen God, so it goes, had been a mortal, an unfaithful husband to a good wife. After running her off, his life fell apart, and when he unwittingly received her aid in her new home, he burned himself to death for shame. For admitting that he was an asshole, he got to be a minor god, one that judged the behavior of mortals. Meanwhile, his good wife got diddily squat. It's understandable that Winnie would feel a connection to a wife who suffered but eventually found a happy situation. 

I enjoyed most of this book. I wasn't really drawn into the first two chapters, told from Pearl's perspective. When Winnie started narrating, I thought, welp, same idea as The Joy Luck Club, I guess. Fortunately, this is not the case. The bulk of the story is Winnie speaking to Pearl directly, telling her about her childhood, then her horrible marriage to Wen Fu. Most interesting of all was Winnie's life-long relationship with Helen. Their's is a love-hate relationship, and I almost felt like that was really the heart of the story. Winnie often criticizes Helen's perspective, claiming that she remembers certain things wrong. Maybe, maybe not; we are only getting Winnie's perspective here, after all. She admits herself that she had a bit of a "butt monkey" complex in regards to her childhood in Taiwan being raised by relatives. Plus, Helen ultimately proves herself to be a smarter cookie than Winnie gives her credit for.

Though there's no doubt that Winnie's first husband Wen Fu is a monster. He would force Winnie to humiliate herself behind closed doors from the start of their marriage, a total dominance sort of thing that she was not at all into. But there wasn't much she could do, as a woman in China. 

I appreciated that this book gave a Chinese perspective on World War II. The Rape of Nanking is mentioned, and there's a bit on how Americans were involved in China. Winnie's second husband, the saintly Jimmy Louie, is an American of Chinese descent, I think in the Air Force. She eventually ends up in San Francisco with him, but only after more years of abuse from her husband (his mental issues worsened after a terrible car accident), the death of her son (she'd already lost two infant daughters), and over a year in prison thanks to her bitter husband. Oh yeah, and getting raped by Wen Fu one more time before she escaped to America, making him probably Pearl's father.

I didn't get at first why the first two chapters were necessary. Yeah, it sucks that Pearl has MS and that she and her mother have both kept such big secrets from each other. And it was necessary to set up why Winnie was telling her daughter her life story. But I thought, why not just get right to it, who needs a reason? But then, I liked the reveal at the end (back briefly in Pearl's perspective) about what Helen did. She's a great character. That wouldn't have been possible without the first two chapters, I guess. These chapters also revealed just how much these two women had kept hidden from their families, and just how much Winnie was revealing.

Tan is best known for The Joy Luck Club, of course, but I thought this book was better. Similar themes, obviously. I'd be curious to read some other of Tan's works and see if she sticks to the same concepts (mother-daughter relationships, starting over, bad marriages and very bad men), or if she moves away from that in her other novels. She does it well in this one, more quality historical fiction than anything else, but I hate it when authors rehash the same ideas time and again. 

Book #143: A Christmas Story

Book #143: A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd

December 23, 2014

It wasn't until nearly twenty years after the release of the film A Christmas Story that the stories that inspired it were compiled into a single collection. Shepherd was kind of the David Sedaris of his time. He wrote these stories, and many others, based on his life, especially his childhood, and they (like the favored holiday film) are funny. Shepherd wrote the screenplay for the film, narrated it, and made a cameo appearance as the guy who directs Ralphie to the back of the line to see Santa. I doubt the movie would be so perfect if Shepherd hadn't been such a huge part of its creation.

So the only story that actually takes place at Christmas is the story of the Red Ryder: how Ralphie tries to get the teacher, then Santa, on his side, then is surprised by his old man on Christmas. Aunt Clara only sends bunny slippers, not a full suit, and Santa doesn't kick Ralphie in the face, but otherwise it's mostly the same, even some particularly clever turns of phrase. The story of the Little Orphan Annie decoder thingie is a separate story, but pretty much told the same in the movie. The story of the leg lamp and its demise is here, and the story of the Bumpus hounds is actually an Easter story. 

An interesting thing I noticed. Scut Farkas is mentioned as a feared bully, but Grover Dill is also a bully, not a toady, in the story...and the distinction between bullies and toadies is made as it is in the movie. Dill is the one that Ralphie beats up in the story, not Farkas. I wonder if Shepherd wanted to include Farkas instead, as, when I was looking up some information on Shepherd's short stories, Farkus is featured in other works. Just thought that that change was interesting on the author's part.

I liked the story about the Bumpuses because you don't actually see these people in the movie. As depicted in the movie, these people are hillbillies in the extreme. Ralphie makes an enemy of the youngest Bumpus kid, and the hounds' attack on the Easter ham (to put it in perspective, it cost half of the old man's paycheck during the Depression) was his revenge. Of course, that's not quite an element in the movie...

These stories (or maybe all but one) were originally published in Playboy. That would be back when reading Playboy "for the articles" was almost a legitimate excuse. These would be the Playboys that Margaret Simon would read in her parents' bathroom. Shepherd published a lot of stories in magazines, and published a couple of short story collections. He left a fine legacy, as most would of course know him for the movie, but I'd like to check out at least one of his collections.

Book #142: The Grapes of Wrath

Book #142: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

December 22, 2014

I only have a half day of work tomorrow, then a 12 day break! I'm looking forward to it, even though we just had a whole week off last month. I'm feeling a bit worn out, and my goal is to get energized and revamp my curriculum with the time I have to plan and reflect. And of course to read; I've already more than met my Goodreads goal for the year, but more is more when it comes to quality literature.

A colleague of mine at my last job loved this book, and was determined to use it with one of her high school classes. At the time I thought it was ill-advised: it's pretty lengthy, and may not be fully accessible to the struggling readers. But she persisted, and unfortunately, even her most avid readers were unimpressed. Now, I can understand her enthusiasm, as I loved this book, too. I'd say now that Of Mice and Men would have been a much better choice. The length wouldn't psych the kids out, and there are similar themes. Plus, my appreciation for the shorter work led me to pick this one up, and I'm definitely not sorry.

I couldn't help comparing this book to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Both show the problems of a huge, underrepresented population and the injustices they face through the story of a single family. Unlike The Jungle, the story of the Joad family isn't so lugubrious, though lots of shit happens to them.

Now, there are many fictional works about the experiences of farmers during the Depression, especially those in the Dust Bowl. But Steinbeck wrote and published about the plight of the migrant worker while it was going on. It's definitely a political work; Steinbeck shows how migrant workers are subject to harassment by corrupt police officers and how they're ripped off by corporate farms, who lured all these people out to California in the first place! They wanted as cheap of labor as they could get, and fuck the rest. "Okies" are kept from forming unions or speaking out by police brutality. And thousands of families are nickeled and dimed literally to death. 

The story of the Joads lacks in hope from the beginning. In much shorter chapters between the ones following the Joads, Steinbeck describes the bleak situations that displaced "Oakies" faced: crooked used car salesmen, judgemental store owners, cynical money-grubbing landowners, few job opportunities, less and less means for food. The Joad family, kicked off their dusty farmland, head to California with some hopes, but really because they didn't know what else to do. For several months, they lost family members (Granpa, Granma, dead; Noah and Connie, both off on their own; Casy, their ex-preacher friend who started a union but was killed; Tom, who ran off after killing Casy's killer), they lived out of one-room shacks or boxcars or tents; they worked hard for pennies when they could actually get a job; they lived like animals and were just glad when they had enough for food. Things look bleak for the Joads at the end: out of money, heavy rains and no work, car flooded out. Will they die? Will they find a way to...somewhere? Shit, where? They have no where, nothing.

And yet, on the last page, they still give what little they have to a dying man. Rose of Sharon (awesome name) had a stillborn child, but she still had milk, and she gives it to a starving man in a barn. That's heartbreaking, yet described so matter-of-factly. Because the Joads (especially Ma) are strong people, and are determined to move forward. But are they stronger than others who have died or been defeated before them? The reader doesn't know for sure.

It's no wonder that this is Steinbeck's most celebrated work. I think high schoolers should be exposed to Steinbeck, but maybe The Grapes of Wrath would work best with an advanced class. Of Mice and Men could get some younger readers moving in the right direction. I think that both of these are essential classics, and I'm glad they're part of the many books I've been able to read this year. 

Book #141: The Cardturner

Book #141: The Cardturner by Louis Sachar

December 16, 2014

Many sports fans are guilty of "coaching from the stands" (or their couches). They see an unsuccessful play, and they know exactly what should have been done, or who should be sent in. It's ludicrous, of course, that some fatass who only made JV back in high school would think he knows more about football than an experienced coach. Parents of young athletes can be very bad about this, too, but there's a lot of bias going on there.

Anyway, I've noticed that I have a tendency to "write from the bleachers" when I am dissatisfied with a book. I consider what might have been done differently to make the story more effective. Now, I'm not saying that I know better than published, sometimes award-winning authors, but in my defense it's a bit different from coaching from the couch. Coaches have to make snap judgements in the heat of the moment; authors are supposed to reflect on and edit their work. So when I find myself picking apart a book, it makes me think that it wasn't written with care.

The book had its good points, of course. All the explanations for bridge (the card game) were really fucking confusing, and I still have very little idea how to play it. But I have a better idea of it then, say, the dumb-dumbs on How I Met Your Mother. It's a very complex game! I actually want to get a better grasp on how to play it,  so I bought a deck of cards and am gonna walk myself through some basic instructions I found on the Internet. Bridge is typically viewed as an "old people game," but it must be the smart old people who are playing it. If Sachar's goal was to get younger people interested in bridge, he may have one convert right here.

I liked that Alton, the teenage narrator, got into the excitement of bridge while assisting his blind great uncle as his cardturner. I like card games, too. I swear to God, I'm 27 going on 88. But Alton's not the only younger person who gets into it; he describes playing against hipsters around my age at a tournament. I'm curious to see the extent that bridge is catching on with my generation. 

Other than his earnest interest in bridge, and his descriptions of his horrible parents, Alton is such an Everyman...or Everyboy, rather. His character doesn't have much of a personality, and his other conflicts don't even seem like such. He doesn't have any real problems. The girl troubles seem minor...in fact, whatever happened to Katie, Alton's ex who was dating his best friend Cliff but got brushed aside when Cliff met Toni? That had started out as a secondary plot, but never really got resolved. Even when Alton himself began dating Toni (of course), his half-hearted falling out with Cliff was like...nothing. They just weren't as close any more, the end. 

I have a problem with Toni's "mental illness." See, she's diagnosed as schizophrenic because she hears her grandmother (dead long before her birth) talking to her. It's highly probable that Toni would have a mental illness; her grandfather, Senator King, was definitely batshit. See, his little wife Annabel was a great bridge player, and her partner was Trapp, Alton's great uncle (not blind at the time). Trapp loved Annabel, but of course they were only bridge partners. Still, King was insanely jealous, and had his wife committed after she snuck off to Chicago to play in a tournament with Trapp. She was kept isolated for a few years before killing herself.

Trapp's story, and his later relationship with Sophie and Toni, Annabel's daughter and granddaughter, was interesting. He's a great character. I wish so much that the story were from his perspective, but that would go against the conventions of YA literature. Anyway, he dies right before he's set to go with Alton and his current partner to another tournament.

I was mostly enjoying the story up to this point. But that's when it went downhill. Toni reveals that she actually does hear her grandmother's ghost, and Alton believes her because he starts to hear Trapp, too. Oh, brother. Why was this necessary? Sachar's works often include fantastic elements. In, say, Holes, this works because that story is full of fantastic elements. It just fits. Here, in a story otherwise so realistic, it felt sloppy and out of place. Why couldn't Alton and Toni play in Chicago in honor of their relatives? Maybe Teodora could have put the idea into Alton's head and given him the tickets that Trapp already printed. They didn't have to win or anything. Because the sad truth is, people don't get a chance to be ghosts and fulfill what they regretted not doing or whatever. 

Obviously I wasn't super impressed with this book. But at the very least, it got me to consider a new hobby.

Book #140: The Time Machine

Book #140: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

December 15, 2014

Just as Wells was an early author of science fiction, he's also a founder of the time travel genre. Time travel is, of course, a common theme in sci-fi today. Dr. Who, Futurama, The Time Traveller's Wife, the Back to the Future series, and countless themed episodes of TV shows (like The Simpsons or Sabrina the Teenage Witch)...need I go on? What I loved about Wells's novel (over a century old) is that it stands up to the test of time (LOL!).

The main character is only called the Time Traveller. The narrator is an unnamed friend, recalling the Time Traveller's first go on his time machine. Now, Wells doesn't address the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle or the Predesination Paradox (the time travel theory that I personally like; I thought it was plausible that Fry was his own grandfather), or any early ideas of those theories, mainly because his character travels forward. Like, hundreds of thousands (then millions) of years forward, while never far from his geographic location. 

The idea that humankind could eventually spliter off into two separate species holds up to my understandings of evolution, and Wells obviously knew his astronomy as he describes the decaying of the Sun and the reshaping of the solar system over eons of time. Good science fiction has to be plausible; if we're dealing with time travel, the path from here to there needs to make sense. Wells's story is both fantastic and plausible, and as I've already pointed out, this work has been influential.

I was curious to see what works may have influenced Wells himself. He is truly credited with bringing time travel to popular culture, but not long before him, other Western writers included such themes in their works. It seems that it was only in more recent time travel fiction that the theories of traveling back in time became prevalent, I think. Maybe in Wells's time, people couldn't fathom going back; go forward, see how civilization continues to improve! But the final message of the book reveals Wells's pessimism about "improvement," and that, like the weak little Eloi, to become complacent is to lose one's humanity and to become a lamb for slaughter. The Eloi and the Morlocks represent a bad side to evolution, as they've adapted to the conditions created by or forced on them, respectively. I think Wells was on to something. Two books in a row with negative views of the fate of humanity, and I can't say that I disagree.

Book #139: No Country for Old Men

Book #139: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

December 14, 2014

Way back when I vowed to read 1000 books, I considered checking out this very one from the temporary library that had been set up in the west side mall (the permanent library has been up and running for over a year now, and that old mall is almost completely torn down, besides a couple of anchor stores), but I hesitated. At the time I had a weird prejudice against books that had been made into movies. I've obviously gotten over that.

What's funny is that on my search for this book in the elibrary, another book about how it was translated into film was also available. And after reading this, I think a whole book explaining it would be unnecessary. It seemed like, the way McCarthy wrote it, that it would very easily translate to film. I've only seen snippets of the movie but intend to watch it in full rather soon.

McCarthy doesn't delve a lot into the backgrounds or feelings of his characters. A lot must be inferred by the dialogue and their actions. I loved it; I felt like the characters reveal so much, and yet the writing wasn't overly complex. I haven't read a lot of Hemingway, but I couldn't help but consider him; so much being said in not too many words.

I've mentioned before that my own writing style tends to be overly explanatory. This book reminded me that often, less is more, and I will challenge myself to apply this to my own writing. 

The plot made me think of a sort of modern day Western. In a Texas border town, a guy named Llewelyn Moss, out hunting, comes across the grisley site of a massacre. It was a trade-off, drugs for money, that went wrong...or so it seems. 

I still have no clue what happened to the drugs. Moss himself found the money, and when he goes back to the scene, to help the sole survivor, he finds that guy dead and has psychotic Anton Chigurh on his tail.

Moss and Chigurh's adventures are exciting enough, but the heart of the story is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Bell has been sheriff, off and on, for a long time. He's always done his best, considering the increase in drug-related crimes and violence in his jurisdiction. But by the late '70s early '80s, things had gotten bad. And the whole situation with Chigurh is unlike anything he's ever encountered.

There are some interesting conversations in this book between various characters. The story is, for the most part, exciting. Having been published within the last decade, I think that the conditions that Bell reflects on have gotten better and worse in some ways, as far as social issues. I know drug smuggling and violence haven't gotten better, and the cartel are infamous. Bell says that things really have gone downhill, that there really had been good days but they were gone. Maybe he's right, but who knows? He gave up on trying to fix the problems that he had too much goodness to understand.

Bell was a pretty sharp investigator, I think. He was never too far behind Moss or Chigurh, but he never caught up to them in time. In the end, Chigurh, evil, gets away. Bell retires not long after the case wraps up.

This is the first McCarthy that I read. A number of his novels are acclaimed. He's definitely a "masculine" author, but I believe that I'll read more of his work. I'm curious about Blood Meridian; I heard a fellow English teacher say that this was a "hard" book for high schoolers. I wouldn't consider No Country for Old Men to be a "hard" book, but it definitely requires a lot of reading between the lines.

Book #138: So Much For That

Book #138: So Much For That by Lionel Shriver

December 13, 2014

Hmmmm. This book started off with a lot of promise, but was ultimately unsatisfying. Shriver tackles a lot of timely issues, setting the novel (published in 2010) during the time of Terri Shiavo and Hurricane Katrina. I remember the hullabaloo over Shiavo, especially since I was taking an ethics class at that same time as a high school junior. Then, as now, my opinion was pragmatic but not heartless: it was both undignified and wasteful to keep Shiavo alive for so long in that condition. The fact that she kinda put herself into that position, with her eating disorder, was an idea I could never ignore. Jackson, one protagonist of this book, pretty much shared my views, and was not afraid to make them loudly known when it was still a hot button topic.

See, I started off liking the two main protagonists. The novel mainly switched following Jackson and Shep, with a single chapter for Glynis. Shep used to own a modestly successful "handyman" service business, but had sold out to a spoiled trust fund kid who made the business bigger, though not better. Shep, and Jackson, stayed on as managers or something. Why did Shep give away his company so soon?

Because he wanted the money for the Afterlife, his vision of becoming an expatriot in a third world country, where he can live it up on a modest fortune for the rest of his days. Shep's vision and his worldview (hating the rat race, wanting time to relax and take life in, smell a fucking rose) really spoke to me. I don't think he sounds crazy at all. I'd do it if I could, in a heartbeat. 

But Shep is a schmuck. His ridiculously selfish sister Beryl reminds me of my oldest brother, to a T. I stopped allowing him to take advantage of me years ago, but unfortunately my father (essentially Shep with less money) has been sucked in many a time. Beryl sucks. I honestly wanted her to die. And in the end, Shep implies that he may allow Beryl to join him in Africa! Fuck that! I live in the same city as my brother and I see him as little as possible.

I think this book would have been a lot better if Glynis had been as vindictive as she sometimes wanted to be. If she'd been torturing herself with a year of cancer treatments to fight the impossible battle with mesothelioma, just to deplete her husband's funds, would have been twisted. I wasn't sure what to make of  Glynis, who was such a perfectionist about her metalworking that she barely ever made anything. There's such a tone of bitterness in the first part of the book that the upswing was startling, and made the whole story unbalanced.

Because Glynis is actually delusional enough to think that she can beat her illness. And her doctors let her keep going, even though they ultimately only gave her a few extra (agonizing) months. The insurance is lame, so Shep's funds for Africa (he's decided on the tiny island of Pemba) are dipped into to cover expenses. That, and paying to care for his sick father and lazy sister, has Shep going broke at the end of the year.

What do they do then? Glynis had insisted on suing the manufacturers of metalworking products she'd used years ago containing asbestos, though it is revealed that she knew the risks when she stole the stuff. But Shep has her give a deposition in which she lies, and boom, the funds are restored. What sucks is that, if Glynis had been fully aware of the severity of her illness, they could have just gone to Pemba in the first place and she could have had a happier last few months than she did. And Shep, too.

The way it all turned out nags at me. It's almost like Shriver is saying, see, it really doesn't do you any good being a "Mug." You have to be dishonest to get ahead. Shep and Glynis both could have been saved a lot of grief, and could have escaped a lot of bitterness, if she hadn't gone through with the impossible treatments. I'm highly skeptical of cancer "treatment" myself, and if I ever get a type where the use of poisons is needed to test it, I'd opt out. Cash in my retirement and head to Pemba, or something. The insurance companies are meant to be the villains here, but I think the doctors were worse. For money or pride, they just wouldn't level with Glynis.

I did appreciate that this story told the financial side of health problems. The story reflects that it's supposed to be a secondary issue at a time like this, but Shep doesn't see it that way and neither do I. I get Shep's pragmatism about money. See, in college, I supported myself, which had its good and bad points. On the plus side, I'm extremely independent, but the downside is that I perhaps worry about money a little too much. Having a good paying job has greatly relieved the stress I felt for years, when I was living hand to mouth and sometimes struggling to do that much. So the continued decline of Shep's bank balance made me feel anxious for him.

Shep was a good person and got his happy ending, but it seemed like a huge cop-out. Then there was Jackson, a hugely disappointing character. I liked him, too...at first. I feel like I, too, would find amusement but some sense in his rantings about taxes and the greed of the government and the pointlessness of bureaucracy. Jackson had a good job (even if his boss was a dick), and a hot wife, but two challenging kids. Teenage Flicka, acidic in a way that appealed to both Jackson and Glynis, has a rare physiological disorder unique to people who are Ashkenazi Jews, and doesn't live to see 18. Her extensive medical care is seen to by her mother Carol, though Jackson does his part. There's also Heather, a tubby brat who is given placebos so that she can fit in with her tubby, drugged-up friends. Jackson's family issues and mounting debt (and a gambling problem) should have been enough to drive him over the edge; I even sense that Jackson struggles with some mental illness. But then he does something really fucking stupid, and almost contradictory to what I thought I understood of the character.

I don't get why Jackson never considered a malpractice suit for the botched surgery on his dick. I mean, if the guy who did it wasn't licensed, then Jackson was unbelievably stupid. But if he could have sued, why didn't he at least think of it? He would have been more than justify, and if it didn't fix his dick, at least it'd fix his debts. Jackson unexpectedly turns into a kind of modern day Willie Loman, though his suicide is much more cruel and gruesome. He was a really big piece of shit to do it the way that he did.

In spite of the title, Shep achieves his dream of the Afterlife, taking his father and Jackson's family along with his own. It seemed like the happy ending was hugely forced. Everything automatically gets better in Africa: Glynis and Flicka both enjoy the time they have left, Shep's father's health is restored, Heather thins out, and Zach, Glynis and Shep's geeky son, puts down the laptop and takes up snorkeling. Tra la la. I should have been happy for Shep, after all he'd been through, but I wasn't.

Book #137: Midnight's Children

Book #137: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

December 7, 2014

I've been meaning to read something by Rushdie for a while now. He's one of the most acclaimed authors of our time, and this is probably his best known work. It not only won the Booker, but has been declared to be one of the (maybe even the) best novel it's ever been given to. And yet...I don't quite know what to make of it.

The story of Saleem Sinai and the family that raised him is bloated with symbolism, mixing the fantastical with the human and tragic. Throughout the text, Saleem's reliability as a narrator is questioned. He, who at 31 believes that he is cracking beneath his skin and that his bones are on the verge of disintegration, is writing his version of his life story. He acknowledges many times that while certain elements (his ability to read minds as a child, and to smell emotions and danger as a young adult) seem unbelievable, but over and over he defends his story as being, uh, almost totally true. As he writes, his girlfriend Padma listens as he reads the work aloud to her, expressing her opinions and disbelief at intervals. 

Saleem went through a lot in his relatively short life. He (and his counterpart and nemesis Shiva) were both born on midnight  exactly on August 15, 1947: the very moment that the Indian Subcontinent became free of British rule. This auspicious time of birth led to Saleem, Shiva, and hundreds of others throughout India proper to gain fantastic powers. Saleem is able to unite them all with his psychic abilities, until the snot is drained out of his giant nose. At that point, his psychic sense of smell kicks in. You see, when Mac and Charlie wanted to write their movie, they were inspired by more than one India-born cultural icon. 

Here's my thinking about Saleem's life story: there's a lot that's true and a lot that's fabricated, but he believes in it all. Perhaps he almost says this very thing at some point. See, he became famous for being born at midnight on Independence, because he was born at the stroke of midnight to wealthy parents, while Shiva was poor. Saleem and Shiva were switched at birth by Mary Pereira...maybe. Because Saleem acknowledges that that could be untrue, to justify his later love for his "sister" Jamilla. Anyway, baby Saleem's face is seen in newspapers all over the country, and he gets a letter from the Prime Minister. Great things are expected of him, simply because of when he was born. So, I feel that Saleem gave significance to the time of his birth, and in his traumatized mind (the details of the story that are "true" would traumatize anyone) he believes it. 

This novel is very complex, and as I sit here attempting to judge it and dissect it, the more I can appreciate what Rushdie put together here. The truth is that, even with the powers that Saleem gave himself, his life never really fulfilled any purpose. Rather than having a hand in deciding the fate of his country, his "twin sister," the turmoil of the new nations on the Subcontinent decided his. In an "autobiography" of questionable truthfulness, that's the most true part of it. Saleem wants to be important...who doesn't? He wants his life to have significance, and he was built up with more expectations for it than most other kids. In the end, he acknowledges his truth: you really can't be what-all you want.

This book gave yet another perspective of life in India (also Pakistan) after Independence. Damn, people really did not like Indira Gandhi, and this book and others that I've read this year have given me some good reasons for why that would be the case. And there was a lot of warring going on; between the new nations on the Subcontinent (and of course, Western nations throwing in support for their favs), plus China threatening. Bombings in Pakistan killed most of Saleem's family, and his famous sister is eventually bumped off by the Pakistani government. It was interesting to get some further perspective on the forming and growing pains of these nations. I briefly taught a course on Asian history last year to my middle school students, but the course materials only briefly touched on Independence and its aftermath in India. Just one valuable thing about this book is its perspective on this time. 

While this is a unique, well-written, and well-constructed story, I do have to agree with one Goodreads reviewer who described Saleem as being alienating. I think I know what this person meant. Saleem, if viewed in the context of being traumatized and mentally ill, is pitiable, but his desperation to find meaning in his life, while very human and relatable, is maybe...too desperate? Plus, an unreliable narrator in such a long story can be frustrating. Overall I would say that this is an important novel, and I'd recommend it to others, but I certainly wouldn't call it the very best book of our time. I do, however, fully intend to read more Rushdie, and soon.