Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Passing time
I'm reading Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End. Around 80 pages in, and I have to say, it's been hilarious so far. This is one of those rare novels that make me want to take my time and not let the journey end so quickly. With a few hundred (mostly pre-owned) books still waiting to be picked up and read, this is quite rare for me. Last time I had this much excitement on a novel was around June of last year, with Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance. Ferris' novel is very funny in a Catch-22 way: absurd yet plausible, irreverent but not obnoxious. The collective first-person perspective was not gimmicky, something i felt strongly about Jay McInerney's overrated Bright Lights, Big City, when he used the second-person. I'm loving this book, and I hope I'll still feel the same way until the end.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
My mother is a fish
David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest Infinite Jest David Infinite Foster Jest Wallace
It's been a year.
I still remember the two fart jokes.
It's been a year.
I still remember the two fart jokes.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Five books # 2
Last time I said that I was able to read only five books in the last couple of months. The last two weeks, though, have been a fruitful time for me since I was able to read five more. And good books they are.
1. Libra by Don DeLillo - Around six years ago I bought DeLillo's Mao II on a whim, barely knowing who he was other than being a good writer. I tried reading it, and got around to page 40 before giving it up and putting it down. It was difficult. There was no discernible plot, no protagonist, and the sentences were constructed, well, bizarrely. It took me a couple of years to know exactly what his style was called: postmodern. Since then, I've read Barth, Faulkner, Pynchon, and a lot of other writers with prose that is almost inscrutable and really complex. Before reading Libra, I've been used to DeLillo's personal style, having read (and hopefully understood) three other novels of his, including the aforementioned Mao II.
That being said, Libra has been my favorite DeLillo novel so far. I thought White Noise would be his best, since that novel cemented his status as a great novelist, but Libra was a better reading experience, and also has an actual plot. I still have Underworld here to take on, his longest and widely considered to be his masterpiece, but I'm not ready to read it... yet.
The fictionalized story of Lee Harvey Oswald from his adolescence to that historic day in Dallas when he allegedly killed JFK was surprisingly gripping and full of pathos. His character, although deeply flawed, was sympathetic at the same time, and whatever he did was rooted in something more sinister, almost justifying his actions. He was never a good husband to his Russian wife, but I was made to believe that he was a victim of circumstance, not of inherent evil. The final few chapters are as engrossing as a good paperback thriller can provide, but of course with better writing.
I was also reminded of Oliver Stone's film JFK, with his own attempt in explaining the assassination. It was a very good movie, like this book, for having this thought in mind: It's not what you say, it's how you say it. I doubt that Stone, being the paranoid that he is, had his facts straight when he wrote the script for his film, but it doesn't matter. It was really well-made, and I say the same for this novel.
2. Saturday by Ian McEwan - I'm going out on a limb and say that I'm a veteran of this genius of a writer. Someone told me that his prose is too poetic for its own good, which I can't deny. But I'm a sucker for his prose and his oh-so-clever endings, so I was expecting a good read from this novel set in post-9/11 England. It's one day in the life of this very successful neurosurgeon, with a very successful wife (lawyer), a very successful daughter (poet), and a very successful son (jazz musician). One of the questions posed in one of those literary blogs is how can you sympathize with a family that is idealistically perfect, and expect us to feel for them while they're in trouble? Therein lies McEwan's gift for making us do just that, giving its protagonist a sense of vulnerability, making him as human (and humane) as any other person, which puts the story in a whole different perspective. We care for him and his family, and we even share with some of his opinions. The funniest part of the novel is how the protagonist hates reading fiction and considers it a waste of time, this coming from a writer who's so good at creating beautiful passages in his own fiction. I'm sure McEwan was aware of this, and it was a stab of that IRONY (!) that comes with the best novels.
Regarding reading McEwan, I don't suggest starting with Atonement, unless you'd want to read it again. Atonement is a period piece that was somewhat of a departure for him. Warm up to him by reading Enduring Love first or this one, as both employ his overall style and tone. I think of Ian McEwan foremost as a suspense novelist with impeccable writing abilities.
3. The Nuclear Age by Tim O'Brien - Every book of his I've read is so different from each other that, apart from its similar themes (the Vietnam War chief among them), I think each is written by a different writer. The Things They Carried was full of deep emotion, In the Lake of the Woods was so dark and bleak, and this one is just, to put it bluntly, absurd. Sometimes it works, most of the time it feels contrived and forced. I could compare this to Catch-22 in its humor, but Heller's novel was simply funnier and more relevant. In this novel, there's a part where a boy goes to a therapist, and the therapist just loses it and the boy convinces him to get help. This premise could have been funny, but in the hands of O'Brien, the exchange between the boy and the therapist is like something out of a bad Mel Brooks comedy (I'm thinking of Robin Hood: Men In Tights). Pass on this one. Read his classics instead, those being The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato (which I haven't read, but I will after this stinker has gone out of my system). No amount of good writing can compensate for labored humor.
4. The Dying Animal by Philip Roth - Why the hell do I get so depressed after reading a Roth novel? When I read the synopsis for this novella, it is said to be his most erotic novel to date. I said to myself, "Oh cool. Eroticism. No philosophical arguments on mortality and pessimistic views on aging and being in the minority. I may have a fun time." So what do I get? Yes. A couple of erotic episodes and more rants about being old and senile. But that erotic episode involving an old professor and his student's blood? Classic. Only Roth can think of such depraved perversity. As usual, his writing is out of this world. There's an equation I made to describe him, but I'll have to put it in words: Philip Roth is greater than Saul Bellow, and Jonathan Safran Foer can't hold a candle to both.
5. Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos - What a way to distill myself from going all literary than to read a conventional thriller. But this is George Pelecanos, folks. Only writer I can compare him to is Dennis Lehane. If you're not familiar with Lehane, think of the films Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, since he wrote the novels based from them. Pelecanos isn't as dark, but still has that witty dialogue you only get from the best crime novelists. The novel tells the story of Derek Strange, a hero of some other novels of his. This is sort of a prologue, chronicling his youth until that historic day when Martin Luther King was killed, and the riots broke out. When reading a thriller, I don't expect much, but I at least want my characters to have three dimensions, not just a hero and a villain with a few minor characters getting killed. Some of the villains here are despicable, yes, but there are reasons for being what they are, and Pelecanos draws them out clearly. This is my first Pelecanos novel but won't be my last.
I'm reading a Woody Allen collection right now, so I guess I'll be writing a new post in a couple of weeks or so. It's good to be writing again.
1. Libra by Don DeLillo - Around six years ago I bought DeLillo's Mao II on a whim, barely knowing who he was other than being a good writer. I tried reading it, and got around to page 40 before giving it up and putting it down. It was difficult. There was no discernible plot, no protagonist, and the sentences were constructed, well, bizarrely. It took me a couple of years to know exactly what his style was called: postmodern. Since then, I've read Barth, Faulkner, Pynchon, and a lot of other writers with prose that is almost inscrutable and really complex. Before reading Libra, I've been used to DeLillo's personal style, having read (and hopefully understood) three other novels of his, including the aforementioned Mao II.
That being said, Libra has been my favorite DeLillo novel so far. I thought White Noise would be his best, since that novel cemented his status as a great novelist, but Libra was a better reading experience, and also has an actual plot. I still have Underworld here to take on, his longest and widely considered to be his masterpiece, but I'm not ready to read it... yet.
The fictionalized story of Lee Harvey Oswald from his adolescence to that historic day in Dallas when he allegedly killed JFK was surprisingly gripping and full of pathos. His character, although deeply flawed, was sympathetic at the same time, and whatever he did was rooted in something more sinister, almost justifying his actions. He was never a good husband to his Russian wife, but I was made to believe that he was a victim of circumstance, not of inherent evil. The final few chapters are as engrossing as a good paperback thriller can provide, but of course with better writing.
I was also reminded of Oliver Stone's film JFK, with his own attempt in explaining the assassination. It was a very good movie, like this book, for having this thought in mind: It's not what you say, it's how you say it. I doubt that Stone, being the paranoid that he is, had his facts straight when he wrote the script for his film, but it doesn't matter. It was really well-made, and I say the same for this novel.
2. Saturday by Ian McEwan - I'm going out on a limb and say that I'm a veteran of this genius of a writer. Someone told me that his prose is too poetic for its own good, which I can't deny. But I'm a sucker for his prose and his oh-so-clever endings, so I was expecting a good read from this novel set in post-9/11 England. It's one day in the life of this very successful neurosurgeon, with a very successful wife (lawyer), a very successful daughter (poet), and a very successful son (jazz musician). One of the questions posed in one of those literary blogs is how can you sympathize with a family that is idealistically perfect, and expect us to feel for them while they're in trouble? Therein lies McEwan's gift for making us do just that, giving its protagonist a sense of vulnerability, making him as human (and humane) as any other person, which puts the story in a whole different perspective. We care for him and his family, and we even share with some of his opinions. The funniest part of the novel is how the protagonist hates reading fiction and considers it a waste of time, this coming from a writer who's so good at creating beautiful passages in his own fiction. I'm sure McEwan was aware of this, and it was a stab of that IRONY (!) that comes with the best novels.
Regarding reading McEwan, I don't suggest starting with Atonement, unless you'd want to read it again. Atonement is a period piece that was somewhat of a departure for him. Warm up to him by reading Enduring Love first or this one, as both employ his overall style and tone. I think of Ian McEwan foremost as a suspense novelist with impeccable writing abilities.
3. The Nuclear Age by Tim O'Brien - Every book of his I've read is so different from each other that, apart from its similar themes (the Vietnam War chief among them), I think each is written by a different writer. The Things They Carried was full of deep emotion, In the Lake of the Woods was so dark and bleak, and this one is just, to put it bluntly, absurd. Sometimes it works, most of the time it feels contrived and forced. I could compare this to Catch-22 in its humor, but Heller's novel was simply funnier and more relevant. In this novel, there's a part where a boy goes to a therapist, and the therapist just loses it and the boy convinces him to get help. This premise could have been funny, but in the hands of O'Brien, the exchange between the boy and the therapist is like something out of a bad Mel Brooks comedy (I'm thinking of Robin Hood: Men In Tights). Pass on this one. Read his classics instead, those being The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato (which I haven't read, but I will after this stinker has gone out of my system). No amount of good writing can compensate for labored humor.
4. The Dying Animal by Philip Roth - Why the hell do I get so depressed after reading a Roth novel? When I read the synopsis for this novella, it is said to be his most erotic novel to date. I said to myself, "Oh cool. Eroticism. No philosophical arguments on mortality and pessimistic views on aging and being in the minority. I may have a fun time." So what do I get? Yes. A couple of erotic episodes and more rants about being old and senile. But that erotic episode involving an old professor and his student's blood? Classic. Only Roth can think of such depraved perversity. As usual, his writing is out of this world. There's an equation I made to describe him, but I'll have to put it in words: Philip Roth is greater than Saul Bellow, and Jonathan Safran Foer can't hold a candle to both.
5. Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos - What a way to distill myself from going all literary than to read a conventional thriller. But this is George Pelecanos, folks. Only writer I can compare him to is Dennis Lehane. If you're not familiar with Lehane, think of the films Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, since he wrote the novels based from them. Pelecanos isn't as dark, but still has that witty dialogue you only get from the best crime novelists. The novel tells the story of Derek Strange, a hero of some other novels of his. This is sort of a prologue, chronicling his youth until that historic day when Martin Luther King was killed, and the riots broke out. When reading a thriller, I don't expect much, but I at least want my characters to have three dimensions, not just a hero and a villain with a few minor characters getting killed. Some of the villains here are despicable, yes, but there are reasons for being what they are, and Pelecanos draws them out clearly. This is my first Pelecanos novel but won't be my last.
I'm reading a Woody Allen collection right now, so I guess I'll be writing a new post in a couple of weeks or so. It's good to be writing again.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Five books # 1
I've only read five books in the last two months. I had been busy shopping and getting ready for the holidays. Now I'm back to that frenzy, that state fueled by caffeine and cigarettes wherein I read, and do nothing but that. So, while I'm watching The Tonight Show with Jay Leno without his writers (he's a hit so far), I'm giving short opinions about these five books.
1. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine - Probably the most depressing and pessimistic novel I've ever read, and I've read some. Here's a passage:
"As long as we're young, we manage to find excuses for the stoniest indifference, the most blatant caddishness, we put them down to emotional eccentricity or some sort of romantic inexperience. But later on, when life shows us how much cunning, cruelty, and malice are required just to keep the body at ninety-eight point six, we catch on, we know the score, we begin to understand how much swinishness it takes to make up a past. Just take a close look at yourself and the degree of rottenness you've come to. There's no mystery about it, no more for fairy tales; if you've lived this long, it's because you've squashed any poetry you had in you. Life is keeping body and soul together."
I was drawn to buy this novel because of this French writer's influence on Charles Bukowski, a writer I admire. Yes, the prose is good - excellent, even, but it's also as beautiful as a car crash. And, like all car crashes, it's compelling in the beginning, but gradually you lose your interest and just turn away, not out of its ugliness, but of boredom. The novel has 435 pages' worth of the passage's disposition and tone, and I had to grind my way to finish it. It may seem contradictory to an earlier post where I stated that depressing but well-written novels are to be lauded, but this has just crossed the boundary. Not a single moment of redemption was made, no hint that life, for all its bitter struggles, may be worth living after all. It's just a long and monotonous tirade of hatefulness and resentment. I hated it, pure and simple. A self-indulgent piece of merde.
2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy - I devoured this in two sittings, and as I was reading it I let out a sigh of relief after the headache the last novel gave me.
This is my fifth McCarthy novel, and he never disappoints. A Pulitzer Prize winner, it's his most popular novel yet, and with good reason. It's simply a very absorbing tale about an unnamed man and his son on a road trip to nowhere. The writing is spare, never using four run-on sentences when a three-word sentence would suffice, and the prose is beautiful. Sometimes I would reread a paragraph five times before moving on, just relishing the elegance of his words. Every comparison to William Faulkner is justified. Give the man the Nobel already. If there's an American writer still living who deserves it, it's McCarthy.
An excellent novel, but not my favorite of his. No Country for Old Men is still the novel to beat, and I can't wait to see the film based on it. The Coen Brothers, creators of my favorite movie of all time, Fargo, adapted it, and just the mere thought of the McCarthy-Coens combo gives me the shivers. I'm excited.
3. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - An almost 1,200-page behemoth, I felt like I was exiled on Nerd Street, and actually, it was pretty good for what it was. The most fascinating aspect of the novel is its detailed explanations of the most mundane things, the most memorable of which, in my opinion, is the mathematical equation to mental clarity. Unfortunately, it took me three times to pass College Algebra, so it read like gibberish to me (it could have been useful). Which is also, incidentally, what I didn't like about the novel. It's constant use of mathematical and computer jargon, although interesting to a certain extent, lost me; my knowledge of computer programming and math is elementary at best. Still, I liked it. I couldn't take Thomas Pynchon out of my head though, since its structure was obviously taken from Pynchon's novel V., which I had read a few months earlier, but again, I liked it, and the length was worth the time invested in reading it.
Most of the novel was set in the Philippines, alternating from World War II and the present day (in this case, the late 90's). I loved how Stephenson depicted the country. It was not, as my best friend so beautifully put it, "exoticized" (I looked it up and it's not an actual word, but who cares. It sounds great). Meticulous research was put into this book, and all the credit goes to Stephenson. I had also read another great book of his, Snow Crash, which is considerably shorter and a more fitting introduction to his work.
4. Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson - Forget Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. This is its less hip, more poetic counterpart. If you ever find a copy of this book, buy it immediately. It doesn't glorify the drug culture, unlike Trainspotting, and doesn't give its characters any reverence, but it succeeds in giving them qualities that captivate the reader, in prose that is lean and succinct. The greatest achievement of this collection of short stories about an unnamed narrator and his adventures of drugs and mischief is its giving the narrator and the supporting cast riveting characterizations in so few words. It's a short 175 pages, but full of sentences that I would love to reread and go back to. It's a classic.
5. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro. After reading a slew of guy books, I think it was about time to read some quality chick-lit. Alice Munro is one of the finest short-story writers today. She has released a dozen or so collections, and I suggest picking up Runaway, which was published in 2005. This earlier collection is not as good, but still, it's Alice Munro. If you have a yearning for making a big deal about personal secrets of ordinary people in rural Canada, then I'm sure you would enjoy her. As for me, she just writes how I would like to write when I'm not feeling crazy: gorgeous, flowing prose without being erudite and pretentious, just telling the tale of its characters, and ending it without a bang - just enough to convey its emotions.
So much for that. Time to start a new book. Right beside me is Don DeLillo's Libra, and I hope it's as good as I would expect it to be. Let's move on.
1. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine - Probably the most depressing and pessimistic novel I've ever read, and I've read some. Here's a passage:
"As long as we're young, we manage to find excuses for the stoniest indifference, the most blatant caddishness, we put them down to emotional eccentricity or some sort of romantic inexperience. But later on, when life shows us how much cunning, cruelty, and malice are required just to keep the body at ninety-eight point six, we catch on, we know the score, we begin to understand how much swinishness it takes to make up a past. Just take a close look at yourself and the degree of rottenness you've come to. There's no mystery about it, no more for fairy tales; if you've lived this long, it's because you've squashed any poetry you had in you. Life is keeping body and soul together."
I was drawn to buy this novel because of this French writer's influence on Charles Bukowski, a writer I admire. Yes, the prose is good - excellent, even, but it's also as beautiful as a car crash. And, like all car crashes, it's compelling in the beginning, but gradually you lose your interest and just turn away, not out of its ugliness, but of boredom. The novel has 435 pages' worth of the passage's disposition and tone, and I had to grind my way to finish it. It may seem contradictory to an earlier post where I stated that depressing but well-written novels are to be lauded, but this has just crossed the boundary. Not a single moment of redemption was made, no hint that life, for all its bitter struggles, may be worth living after all. It's just a long and monotonous tirade of hatefulness and resentment. I hated it, pure and simple. A self-indulgent piece of merde.
2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy - I devoured this in two sittings, and as I was reading it I let out a sigh of relief after the headache the last novel gave me.
This is my fifth McCarthy novel, and he never disappoints. A Pulitzer Prize winner, it's his most popular novel yet, and with good reason. It's simply a very absorbing tale about an unnamed man and his son on a road trip to nowhere. The writing is spare, never using four run-on sentences when a three-word sentence would suffice, and the prose is beautiful. Sometimes I would reread a paragraph five times before moving on, just relishing the elegance of his words. Every comparison to William Faulkner is justified. Give the man the Nobel already. If there's an American writer still living who deserves it, it's McCarthy.
An excellent novel, but not my favorite of his. No Country for Old Men is still the novel to beat, and I can't wait to see the film based on it. The Coen Brothers, creators of my favorite movie of all time, Fargo, adapted it, and just the mere thought of the McCarthy-Coens combo gives me the shivers. I'm excited.
3. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - An almost 1,200-page behemoth, I felt like I was exiled on Nerd Street, and actually, it was pretty good for what it was. The most fascinating aspect of the novel is its detailed explanations of the most mundane things, the most memorable of which, in my opinion, is the mathematical equation to mental clarity. Unfortunately, it took me three times to pass College Algebra, so it read like gibberish to me (it could have been useful). Which is also, incidentally, what I didn't like about the novel. It's constant use of mathematical and computer jargon, although interesting to a certain extent, lost me; my knowledge of computer programming and math is elementary at best. Still, I liked it. I couldn't take Thomas Pynchon out of my head though, since its structure was obviously taken from Pynchon's novel V., which I had read a few months earlier, but again, I liked it, and the length was worth the time invested in reading it.
Most of the novel was set in the Philippines, alternating from World War II and the present day (in this case, the late 90's). I loved how Stephenson depicted the country. It was not, as my best friend so beautifully put it, "exoticized" (I looked it up and it's not an actual word, but who cares. It sounds great). Meticulous research was put into this book, and all the credit goes to Stephenson. I had also read another great book of his, Snow Crash, which is considerably shorter and a more fitting introduction to his work.
4. Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson - Forget Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. This is its less hip, more poetic counterpart. If you ever find a copy of this book, buy it immediately. It doesn't glorify the drug culture, unlike Trainspotting, and doesn't give its characters any reverence, but it succeeds in giving them qualities that captivate the reader, in prose that is lean and succinct. The greatest achievement of this collection of short stories about an unnamed narrator and his adventures of drugs and mischief is its giving the narrator and the supporting cast riveting characterizations in so few words. It's a short 175 pages, but full of sentences that I would love to reread and go back to. It's a classic.
5. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro. After reading a slew of guy books, I think it was about time to read some quality chick-lit. Alice Munro is one of the finest short-story writers today. She has released a dozen or so collections, and I suggest picking up Runaway, which was published in 2005. This earlier collection is not as good, but still, it's Alice Munro. If you have a yearning for making a big deal about personal secrets of ordinary people in rural Canada, then I'm sure you would enjoy her. As for me, she just writes how I would like to write when I'm not feeling crazy: gorgeous, flowing prose without being erudite and pretentious, just telling the tale of its characters, and ending it without a bang - just enough to convey its emotions.
So much for that. Time to start a new book. Right beside me is Don DeLillo's Libra, and I hope it's as good as I would expect it to be. Let's move on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)