This past weekend I was having breakfast with a friend of mine and I happened to look out the window to see two men passing by the cafe. They looked pretty much like any of the other people passing by, and they seemed to be having a pleasant conversation. I didn't really notice them other than to see that they both needed a shave. So did I at that point - nine days without a razor - and it was no big deal, beard brothers one and all.
Fast forward about thirty minutes. Our breakfast finished and paid for, my friend and I walked out of the cafe and on our way. A few blocks later we came upon those same two men again. This time they were propped up against lamp posts at a busy intersection, now wearing dirty, ripped t-shirts, with cardboard signs on their stomachs that said 'homeless, please help.' Evidently their leisurely stroll and polite conversation had been a prelude to fraudulent panhandling.
You ever see those Roadrunner cartoons where the sheep dog and the coyote are just regular Joes working a shift? They walk in with their lunch boxes, punch a clock, and then get to the business of cartoon anvils? That was these guys. Except they were going to their work of... not working.
I was incensed at first - how dare they? Then I realized I hadn't finished that thought. How dare they what? Walk past a restaurant where I was eating? Plant themselves at a busy intersection to increase the odds of getting a handout? Ask for the handout in the first place? What, exactly, was I getting upset about?
Then it hit me. I was upset that this seemed to be their job. When I saw them they were going to 'work.' But that work involved putting on a grody shirt and pretending to be homeless. They had probably driven in, parked down the street from the cafe, three or four blocks from their 'office' and then planted themselves where gentle souls would be assured to see them.
I used to live five blocks over and four blocks down from a Salvation Army residence, and I walked to work essentially across the street from it. I encountered the destitute, the barely-hinged, the drug-addled, and the hopeless every single day. I bought them cigarettes and handed them spare change and gave them $5 bills on Thanksgiving. I know homeless people. These guys weren't. They were lazy. That's what I objected to. Sons of bitches. They could have honed a talent - that same intersection hosts sax players and tap dancers - but instead they sat around, trying to look pitiable.
I left them alone, and later I saw them run off by the cops. Who did not, regrettably, use their tasers. And that's the pity.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Sunday, August 11, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 32: Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
This week's book:
Zealot by Reza Aslan
Grade: A
Score one for the academics. In prior nonfiction by academics I have graded the work down because it tended to be... honestly, a little boring and didactic. This one, however, is the exception. Reza Aslan is a working academic, a scholar of religions. He is also, no coincidence, a professor of creative writing at UC Riverside. So he's kind of like Meg Wolitzer there.
This is the way to write a scholarly book intended for a mass audience. If you have an idea for a nonfiction book and you need a template of how to go about writing it, this is the book you absolutely need to read.
The format is simple, hook 'em early. The very first chapters, in which the author sets up everything else he's going to argue later, are all short. Eight, nine pages. Easily read, easily digested, and focused on one major point. Each chapter made me eager to read the next, and that's always a good thing.
After about the halfway mark the chapters get longer, about twelve to fourteen pages, and by the end of the book the chapters are twenty pages long. Slick. Well done.
As for the content, it's clear that the author has researched the historicity of Jesus thoroughly. The bibliography is 20 pages long, and the Notes are 108 pages long. Yup, 108 pages of notes. In a mass-market book. The author takes his scholarship very seriously.
The whole point of this book is to put the historical Jesus in context. Not Jesus the idea, or the Savior, but the man. The dude, if you will, who lived in Palestine in the First Century AD.*
I know a bit about this already, I studied Latin, and I have a degree in History, and read several of the original sources he cites. In Latin, so, yeah, I'm kind of a smarty-pants. Mr. Aslan gets it all right. That part of the world - the Levant - has been contentious and poorly-behaved as long as people have been alive to write about it, and the first few decades of the First Century were no exception. Lots of politics, lots of conflict, lots of strife, lots of malcontents, lots of death. LOTS of death. Crucifixions all around. The 'good old days' were actually very deadly and horrible, and the author makes this point well.
His main point, though, is that Jesus was a rabble-rouser. He was a man very much of his time and place, and a man of his his people. That is, of the Jews under Roman occupation of Palestine. He dissects Jesus's words in the context of their time, showing that utterances that seem benign or even pacifistic in our age were actually very politically charged and seditious in his time. Jesus was a zealot before there were official Zealots, is what he's saying. Jesus was a man who challenged the status quo, when the status quo was Rome at the height of its oppressive power.
Who should read this book? Well... if you're a particularly churchy sort that's kind of a hard call. Sometimes people don't like their assumptions and prejudices called into question. But if you're churchy and really want to know more about the geographical and historical context of Jesus's teachings, then by all means read the book. If you're churchy and more of a tortoise - meaning you don't want to hear anything that contradicts what you've already decided the truth is - then you should probably give it a pass.
If you're not churchy at all, and you want to have your head filled with details about that era, then by all means read this book. It's really good.
* the author, being a scholar, uses CE instead of AD. Which I hate. The dividing line hasn't changed, and changing the name of your date designation is just an exercise in pointless, mealy-mouthed political correctness. But it's accepted scholarship these days, so what are you gonna do?
Next week:
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
Techincally it'll be in two weeks. I've got stuff to do next week that'll keep me from writing a review.
Zealot by Reza Aslan
Grade: A
Score one for the academics. In prior nonfiction by academics I have graded the work down because it tended to be... honestly, a little boring and didactic. This one, however, is the exception. Reza Aslan is a working academic, a scholar of religions. He is also, no coincidence, a professor of creative writing at UC Riverside. So he's kind of like Meg Wolitzer there.
This is the way to write a scholarly book intended for a mass audience. If you have an idea for a nonfiction book and you need a template of how to go about writing it, this is the book you absolutely need to read.
The format is simple, hook 'em early. The very first chapters, in which the author sets up everything else he's going to argue later, are all short. Eight, nine pages. Easily read, easily digested, and focused on one major point. Each chapter made me eager to read the next, and that's always a good thing.
After about the halfway mark the chapters get longer, about twelve to fourteen pages, and by the end of the book the chapters are twenty pages long. Slick. Well done.
As for the content, it's clear that the author has researched the historicity of Jesus thoroughly. The bibliography is 20 pages long, and the Notes are 108 pages long. Yup, 108 pages of notes. In a mass-market book. The author takes his scholarship very seriously.
The whole point of this book is to put the historical Jesus in context. Not Jesus the idea, or the Savior, but the man. The dude, if you will, who lived in Palestine in the First Century AD.*
I know a bit about this already, I studied Latin, and I have a degree in History, and read several of the original sources he cites. In Latin, so, yeah, I'm kind of a smarty-pants. Mr. Aslan gets it all right. That part of the world - the Levant - has been contentious and poorly-behaved as long as people have been alive to write about it, and the first few decades of the First Century were no exception. Lots of politics, lots of conflict, lots of strife, lots of malcontents, lots of death. LOTS of death. Crucifixions all around. The 'good old days' were actually very deadly and horrible, and the author makes this point well.
His main point, though, is that Jesus was a rabble-rouser. He was a man very much of his time and place, and a man of his his people. That is, of the Jews under Roman occupation of Palestine. He dissects Jesus's words in the context of their time, showing that utterances that seem benign or even pacifistic in our age were actually very politically charged and seditious in his time. Jesus was a zealot before there were official Zealots, is what he's saying. Jesus was a man who challenged the status quo, when the status quo was Rome at the height of its oppressive power.
Who should read this book? Well... if you're a particularly churchy sort that's kind of a hard call. Sometimes people don't like their assumptions and prejudices called into question. But if you're churchy and really want to know more about the geographical and historical context of Jesus's teachings, then by all means read the book. If you're churchy and more of a tortoise - meaning you don't want to hear anything that contradicts what you've already decided the truth is - then you should probably give it a pass.
If you're not churchy at all, and you want to have your head filled with details about that era, then by all means read this book. It's really good.
* the author, being a scholar, uses CE instead of AD. Which I hate. The dividing line hasn't changed, and changing the name of your date designation is just an exercise in pointless, mealy-mouthed political correctness. But it's accepted scholarship these days, so what are you gonna do?
Next week:
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
Techincally it'll be in two weeks. I've got stuff to do next week that'll keep me from writing a review.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 31: The Panopticon
This week's book:
The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan
Grade: A
Brutal. So very, very brutal. Yet lovely.
Good news, now I'm batting .500 with first novels. The Panopticon was a very entertaining read. And, like The Interestings, completely outside my genre comfort zone. Maybe I can't say that any more. Maybe this now is my genre comfort zone. Freaky. Mind bendy...
This is the story of a forgotten girl, Anais, someone who's fallen between the cracks of the social welfare system and is on her way to a permanent place in the criminal justice system. It's also the story of how she copes with her bleak reality, and how she tries to make a family when she has no real family of her own, and how she deals with having very little control over her own life while abject incompetents and outright hostiles move her around like a pawn.
Drugs. She deals with it mainly by doing drugs. Lots of drugs. The heroine is, essentially, high on something for most of the novel. And the novel takes place over the course of about two months. That's a lot of drugs. But as the reader comes to understand the bleak reality she faces daily, the reasons for her constant drug abuse become clear. Almost acceptable.
The novel opens with Anais - not the name on her birth certificate - being taken to The Panopticon, a home for troubled youth in Scotland. It's a tough-love facility, and her last chance before being put in a double-max security penitentiary for juveniles. She has to make good at The Panopticon or else she's going to big-girl jail. But the decks's stacked against her, she's got a long history with the local police, and they have her pegged as a 'Lifer,' someone who's always been in trouble and who always will. But Anais isn't like that, not really. Until she is.
The thing is, Anais is convinced there's something called 'the experiment' that has been monitoring and controlling her, her family, her friends, and everyone at The Panopticon. They're the ones responsible for her situation, they're the ones who made her, and who took away her adoptive mother.
But is Anais really paranoid, is she making it all up, is it a coping mechanism? Or is 'the experiment' real?
The Panopticon is written in first-person dialect, kind of like 'Huckleberry Finn,' but with a Scottish accent. That sets the mood, and defines who Anais is. I bought into it completely, after a few pages you get used to it, and then it becomes almost poetry.
I think the author did a great job conveying the mood, and giving the reader insight into Anais's character and the deep emotional scarring that makes her act the way she does. Her inner dialogue reveals her as a dreamer, a gentle soul caught up in a terrible reality that was never intended for her.
Also, the situation felt very real to me. The kids caught in the middle, forgotten, neglected, given-up-on. I don't know if the author has a background dealing with troubled youth, but it sure feels like she's writing from dirty, bitter experience. Tell you the truth, in parts I got kind of pissed off, no one should be treated that way.
If I had one quarrel, it would be that one huge plot thread the author never quite wraps up. Not sufficiently for me. I guess that's a first novel for you. But we do get to know, in the end, exactly who Anais really has become.
Get the damn book and read it, already.
Next week:
Zealot by Reza Aslan
A book about the historical Jesus, written by - gasp - a Muslim. The human shit stains over at Fox News blew a gasket over that one. Just made me want to buy the book all that much more.
The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan
Grade: A
Brutal. So very, very brutal. Yet lovely.
Good news, now I'm batting .500 with first novels. The Panopticon was a very entertaining read. And, like The Interestings, completely outside my genre comfort zone. Maybe I can't say that any more. Maybe this now is my genre comfort zone. Freaky. Mind bendy...
This is the story of a forgotten girl, Anais, someone who's fallen between the cracks of the social welfare system and is on her way to a permanent place in the criminal justice system. It's also the story of how she copes with her bleak reality, and how she tries to make a family when she has no real family of her own, and how she deals with having very little control over her own life while abject incompetents and outright hostiles move her around like a pawn.
Drugs. She deals with it mainly by doing drugs. Lots of drugs. The heroine is, essentially, high on something for most of the novel. And the novel takes place over the course of about two months. That's a lot of drugs. But as the reader comes to understand the bleak reality she faces daily, the reasons for her constant drug abuse become clear. Almost acceptable.
The novel opens with Anais - not the name on her birth certificate - being taken to The Panopticon, a home for troubled youth in Scotland. It's a tough-love facility, and her last chance before being put in a double-max security penitentiary for juveniles. She has to make good at The Panopticon or else she's going to big-girl jail. But the decks's stacked against her, she's got a long history with the local police, and they have her pegged as a 'Lifer,' someone who's always been in trouble and who always will. But Anais isn't like that, not really. Until she is.
The thing is, Anais is convinced there's something called 'the experiment' that has been monitoring and controlling her, her family, her friends, and everyone at The Panopticon. They're the ones responsible for her situation, they're the ones who made her, and who took away her adoptive mother.
But is Anais really paranoid, is she making it all up, is it a coping mechanism? Or is 'the experiment' real?
The Panopticon is written in first-person dialect, kind of like 'Huckleberry Finn,' but with a Scottish accent. That sets the mood, and defines who Anais is. I bought into it completely, after a few pages you get used to it, and then it becomes almost poetry.
I think the author did a great job conveying the mood, and giving the reader insight into Anais's character and the deep emotional scarring that makes her act the way she does. Her inner dialogue reveals her as a dreamer, a gentle soul caught up in a terrible reality that was never intended for her.
Also, the situation felt very real to me. The kids caught in the middle, forgotten, neglected, given-up-on. I don't know if the author has a background dealing with troubled youth, but it sure feels like she's writing from dirty, bitter experience. Tell you the truth, in parts I got kind of pissed off, no one should be treated that way.
If I had one quarrel, it would be that one huge plot thread the author never quite wraps up. Not sufficiently for me. I guess that's a first novel for you. But we do get to know, in the end, exactly who Anais really has become.
Get the damn book and read it, already.
Next week:
Zealot by Reza Aslan
A book about the historical Jesus, written by - gasp - a Muslim. The human shit stains over at Fox News blew a gasket over that one. Just made me want to buy the book all that much more.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 30: Salt, a World History
This week's book:
Salt, a World History by Mark Kurlansky
Grade: A
Yes, this really is a history of salt. Table salt. The stuff you put on french fries even though there's plenty on them already. I loved it. Salt and french fries and this book.
You remember when I mentioned that a way to make people like you is to engage their nostalgia? Well, I was victim of that again this week. One of my undergraduate concentrations was in History, and reading this book was like doing upper division work in history once more.
I do realize that I have alienated a huge portion of the population by even mentioning course work in history, but if more people read books like this they wouldn't automatically associate history with dry dates and dead generals.
The author wasn't kidding when he titled the book 'a World History,' he really does look at salt production, salt trade, and control of salt as it relates to building the world you and I live in today. He starts in China, where salt production led to not only the first brine wells, but also cooking with natural gas. He then moves on to the Romans, the Venetians, the Vikings, the American Civil War, and on to modern times.
This is not - thankfully - a comprehensive exploration of all things salt across all of recorded history. I think even I would consider that boring. The author hits the high points, building his case that salt, the control of it, the production of it, the transport and buying and selling of it, has shaped every culture and thus all of history.
As far as narrative mechanics, the author keeps things interesting, even lively. If this were solely a scholarly effort he might 'begin at the beginning' and plod through his research in time order. I'm happy to say that he does not do this (for the most part). For instance, when talking about salt's role in conquest, he talks about salting fish as a preservative, and how that fish was used to feed the vast Catholic population of Medieval Europe, for whom eating meat on Friday was - literally in some cases - a capital offense. He jumps from era to era, for instance coming to modern France, then Enlightenment France, the ancient Rome as he talks about the importance of salt not only to make war but to preserve peace.
If I had one quarrel it would be with the recipes. Yes, there are recipes in this book. Too many for my tastes. I get it, people the world over use salt as a preservative and flavor enhancer. One or two recipes would make the point, but he includes many. More in the first part of the book than the last, but they're not absent anywhere. It seems to me almost a cynical inclusion, there to spice up (forgive me) what might seem an otherwise dry treatise. To me they just interrupt the flow.
It's also long, 450 pages of dense type. I didn't mind at all, but if you're looking for a light Summer read you can breeze through in an afternoon on the beach, this ain't it.
Who should read this book? If you like history books, definitely get this one, it's great. It's going on my bookshelf next to my other must-have history books. If you'd rather poke your own eyes out than read history then you should probably avoid it. Just know you're missing a great read.
Next week:
The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan
This is debut fiction, the author's first novel. I had some awful experiences with first novels so far - Twilight and Ready Player One - but I also had a really great experience too: The Golem and the Jinni. I'll roll the dice again this coming week.
Salt, a World History by Mark Kurlansky
Grade: A
Yes, this really is a history of salt. Table salt. The stuff you put on french fries even though there's plenty on them already. I loved it. Salt and french fries and this book.
You remember when I mentioned that a way to make people like you is to engage their nostalgia? Well, I was victim of that again this week. One of my undergraduate concentrations was in History, and reading this book was like doing upper division work in history once more.
I do realize that I have alienated a huge portion of the population by even mentioning course work in history, but if more people read books like this they wouldn't automatically associate history with dry dates and dead generals.
The author wasn't kidding when he titled the book 'a World History,' he really does look at salt production, salt trade, and control of salt as it relates to building the world you and I live in today. He starts in China, where salt production led to not only the first brine wells, but also cooking with natural gas. He then moves on to the Romans, the Venetians, the Vikings, the American Civil War, and on to modern times.
This is not - thankfully - a comprehensive exploration of all things salt across all of recorded history. I think even I would consider that boring. The author hits the high points, building his case that salt, the control of it, the production of it, the transport and buying and selling of it, has shaped every culture and thus all of history.
As far as narrative mechanics, the author keeps things interesting, even lively. If this were solely a scholarly effort he might 'begin at the beginning' and plod through his research in time order. I'm happy to say that he does not do this (for the most part). For instance, when talking about salt's role in conquest, he talks about salting fish as a preservative, and how that fish was used to feed the vast Catholic population of Medieval Europe, for whom eating meat on Friday was - literally in some cases - a capital offense. He jumps from era to era, for instance coming to modern France, then Enlightenment France, the ancient Rome as he talks about the importance of salt not only to make war but to preserve peace.
If I had one quarrel it would be with the recipes. Yes, there are recipes in this book. Too many for my tastes. I get it, people the world over use salt as a preservative and flavor enhancer. One or two recipes would make the point, but he includes many. More in the first part of the book than the last, but they're not absent anywhere. It seems to me almost a cynical inclusion, there to spice up (forgive me) what might seem an otherwise dry treatise. To me they just interrupt the flow.
It's also long, 450 pages of dense type. I didn't mind at all, but if you're looking for a light Summer read you can breeze through in an afternoon on the beach, this ain't it.
Who should read this book? If you like history books, definitely get this one, it's great. It's going on my bookshelf next to my other must-have history books. If you'd rather poke your own eyes out than read history then you should probably avoid it. Just know you're missing a great read.
Next week:
The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan
This is debut fiction, the author's first novel. I had some awful experiences with first novels so far - Twilight and Ready Player One - but I also had a really great experience too: The Golem and the Jinni. I'll roll the dice again this coming week.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Man Debris
I decided to clean out one of my dresser drawers today. Not the entire dresser, mind you, just one drawer. I don't want to set unreasonable expectations or tax myself too much. There are six entire drawers in this dresser... no need to get crazy.
The driver behind this was my need to get rid of socks with holes in them. Nothing frustrates me more than picking out a pair of socks and discovering, just before my shoes go on, that my toes have extra ventilation. But, seeing as how I'm lazy, more often than not those socks will just go back into the drawer, where they wait for the day I forget about the holes and pick them up again. Hence the need for a periodic cleansing.
This drawer, however, holds more than just socks, it's got lots of flotsam and jetsam. Junk. Man debris. I cleaned it, more or less, when I moved two years ago, but I realized I needed to do a better job. So I emptied the drawer and found more than I bargained for. Here's a list:
This is how I know I'm a grown, adult man. The stuff in my drawer. I have three jewelry boxes of my father's stuff, and just for grins I took a quick peek inside. And what did I find?
Old wallets. Change but no pennies. Lots of watches. A collar bar. Cuff links. Handkerchiefs. Key fobs. Lighters (my father smoked until I was in college).
The apple never falls far from the tree, does it?
The driver behind this was my need to get rid of socks with holes in them. Nothing frustrates me more than picking out a pair of socks and discovering, just before my shoes go on, that my toes have extra ventilation. But, seeing as how I'm lazy, more often than not those socks will just go back into the drawer, where they wait for the day I forget about the holes and pick them up again. Hence the need for a periodic cleansing.
This drawer, however, holds more than just socks, it's got lots of flotsam and jetsam. Junk. Man debris. I cleaned it, more or less, when I moved two years ago, but I realized I needed to do a better job. So I emptied the drawer and found more than I bargained for. Here's a list:
- My traveling hat, a blue baseball cap I picked up in Hawaii which has been around the world with me twice. It's faded and worn and I never pack a suitcase without tossing it inside. It's what makes the planes I'm on land safely. Tell me I'm wrong.
- Watches. Two nice ones, one cheap one, and one I won from a claw machine at Dave and Buster's.
- My expired passport, with a photo from twenty years ago, almost. I look like a dork.
- My old Ray Bans. I do not look like a dork when I wear these.
- A $5 silver certificate ($5 bill). Not that I could redeem it for silver any more. Fuckin' Nixon...
- Key fobs from when I bought my truck. They have the salesman's name on them.
- Oil change key fob from when I bought my car. I get the fifth oil change free. Not a bad gamble by the dealer considering that car doesn't need its oil changed but every 10,000 miles. Plus, I don't live in Pasadena any more and I'm not likely to drive back for an oil change.
- The warranty card from my new luggage. That I bought six years ago.
- Old wallets.
- A collar bar.
- Change. But no pennies.
- An old checkbook from the very first business I started a year after I got out of college. Yes, it failed. No, I did not learn my lesson.
- Three handkerchiefs. I never use handkerchiefs, I don't like walking around with a pocketful of my own snot. But if I change my mind, I have the hankies.
- Ancient passbooks from a savings and loan that collapsed during the Savings and Loan Scandal while Bush 41 was President. It's cute, I thought $200 was a lot of money.
- Cuff links.
- Shoe laces.
- A pocket square.
- Oh, and dress socks. About six pairs had holes. I threw them out. Finally.
This is how I know I'm a grown, adult man. The stuff in my drawer. I have three jewelry boxes of my father's stuff, and just for grins I took a quick peek inside. And what did I find?
Old wallets. Change but no pennies. Lots of watches. A collar bar. Cuff links. Handkerchiefs. Key fobs. Lighters (my father smoked until I was in college).
The apple never falls far from the tree, does it?
Friday, July 19, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 29: The Ocean At The End Of The Lane
This week's book:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Grade: B-
There is so much more he could have done with this...
I think it would be wrong of me to judge this book on what I wish the author would have done, though. So I'll stick to what he did do.
This is, at its base, just a story. A collection of characters, a setting, and a plot. Things evolve from there. Now, as just a story this is a fairly decent one. A young English boy discovers there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy. He gets in trouble, he makes friends and enemies, and the trouble is resolved in a day or two. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, and it's done. It's imaginative and well-written, descriptive and surprising, and moves at a quick enough pace to keep the reader interested. If the author intended this to be just a story then he accomplished that goal. But I think he intended it to be more.
I think Mr. Gaiman intended this to be a modern myth. The main character states his preference for myth stories at the beginning, and the tropes are there: the outcast hero, the journey to a distant land, the betrayal in his homeland, the magical guide. The family at the end of the lane - where the Ocean is - are three women: daughter, mother, and grandmother. Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Fates. Whose presence, if you've never read Greek, is a pretty big clue that you're reading a myth. There is also a big monster to defeat, something huge and beyond his ability, an unattainable goal. Which the hero decides to deal with in his own fashion instead of listening to the advice of his guide.
Like I said, all the classic trappings are there, this is clearly intended to be a myth.
He doesn't pull it off. I'm a fan of ancient myths myself, I loved learning them when I was about the age of the hero of this novel. If you don't know classical myths then think Grimm's Fairy Tales, the delicious, dark ones, where children kill witches and evil elves steal babies. Those are myths too, relatively recent ones. Myths explained things. Myths were a primitive people's way of understanding the vast, unknowable universe around them. Myths also had a moral. Always. They were allegories of the human condition, usually cautionary tales, that also, for example, tried to explain how people first learned about fire. Or about hope. Or about lies.
This story - this attempt at making a new myth - doesn't have a moral. And, near as I can tell, doesn't attempt to explain anything. Mr. Gaiman takes a stab at it, the hero of the story is a seven-year-old boy who is baffled, repulsed, and fascinated by adults. The author takes great pains to show that his hero, as a child, is already a stranger in a strange land where adults rule and the customs are foreign.
But the story never resolves this tension, it never explains anything about the workings of the world or about being an adult, and it never presents a moral. The story includes all the bits and pieces of a myth, and the storytelling intent, but it never quite comes together. What was the purpose of the hero's journey? The resolution of the story makes it impossible for him to learn from his experiences, so... what was the point?
If you're a Neil Gaiman fan you should read this book. If you like fantasy or fairy tales you should read this book. If you have never read fantasy or Mr. Gaiman's work you should give it a try, it's a good introduction to both. It's also a good Summer read, not too taxing on the brain, even though I wish it were.
Next week:
Salt, a World History by Mark Kurlansky
No, this is not the novelization of that terrible Angelina Jolie movie. I'm going back to non-fiction next week, and a book about the only rock people eat.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Grade: B-
There is so much more he could have done with this...
I think it would be wrong of me to judge this book on what I wish the author would have done, though. So I'll stick to what he did do.
This is, at its base, just a story. A collection of characters, a setting, and a plot. Things evolve from there. Now, as just a story this is a fairly decent one. A young English boy discovers there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy. He gets in trouble, he makes friends and enemies, and the trouble is resolved in a day or two. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, and it's done. It's imaginative and well-written, descriptive and surprising, and moves at a quick enough pace to keep the reader interested. If the author intended this to be just a story then he accomplished that goal. But I think he intended it to be more.
I think Mr. Gaiman intended this to be a modern myth. The main character states his preference for myth stories at the beginning, and the tropes are there: the outcast hero, the journey to a distant land, the betrayal in his homeland, the magical guide. The family at the end of the lane - where the Ocean is - are three women: daughter, mother, and grandmother. Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Fates. Whose presence, if you've never read Greek, is a pretty big clue that you're reading a myth. There is also a big monster to defeat, something huge and beyond his ability, an unattainable goal. Which the hero decides to deal with in his own fashion instead of listening to the advice of his guide.
Like I said, all the classic trappings are there, this is clearly intended to be a myth.
He doesn't pull it off. I'm a fan of ancient myths myself, I loved learning them when I was about the age of the hero of this novel. If you don't know classical myths then think Grimm's Fairy Tales, the delicious, dark ones, where children kill witches and evil elves steal babies. Those are myths too, relatively recent ones. Myths explained things. Myths were a primitive people's way of understanding the vast, unknowable universe around them. Myths also had a moral. Always. They were allegories of the human condition, usually cautionary tales, that also, for example, tried to explain how people first learned about fire. Or about hope. Or about lies.
This story - this attempt at making a new myth - doesn't have a moral. And, near as I can tell, doesn't attempt to explain anything. Mr. Gaiman takes a stab at it, the hero of the story is a seven-year-old boy who is baffled, repulsed, and fascinated by adults. The author takes great pains to show that his hero, as a child, is already a stranger in a strange land where adults rule and the customs are foreign.
But the story never resolves this tension, it never explains anything about the workings of the world or about being an adult, and it never presents a moral. The story includes all the bits and pieces of a myth, and the storytelling intent, but it never quite comes together. What was the purpose of the hero's journey? The resolution of the story makes it impossible for him to learn from his experiences, so... what was the point?
If you're a Neil Gaiman fan you should read this book. If you like fantasy or fairy tales you should read this book. If you have never read fantasy or Mr. Gaiman's work you should give it a try, it's a good introduction to both. It's also a good Summer read, not too taxing on the brain, even though I wish it were.
Next week:
Salt, a World History by Mark Kurlansky
No, this is not the novelization of that terrible Angelina Jolie movie. I'm going back to non-fiction next week, and a book about the only rock people eat.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 28: Kitchen Confidential
This week's book:
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Grade: A+
You want to know the best way to make people like you? Engage their nostalgia. I'm sure Mr. Bourdain did not have my nostalgia in mind when he wrote this book thirteen years ago, but he fed it and nurtured it nonetheless. It doesn't hurt that he's a particularly good writer, too.
Flashback to... dear God, twenty-four years ago. Holy crap. Fresh out of college, I didn't have a car, job prospects across the country were miserable for anyone my age, and I was back living with my parents. I took a job as a waiter for two reasons: 1) they agreed to hire me and 2) I could walk to work.
I slaved as a waiter and prep cook for nearly four years, even after I had secured a much better job, because it was hard to leave 'the life.' It really is hard, trust me. My friend Mike says the restaurant business is like a toilet that will not flush, the turds just keep going around and around and around. He's dead right.
'Kitchen Confidential' is the author's memoir, at least up to that point in his life. Some stuff has happened to him since then. And I have no doubt that everything in it is absolutely, 100% true. Because I have similar stories, minus the astonishing substance abuse. He was a child of the 70's, after all.
I have to be careful, because every time I think about a scene in the book it sparks a similar memory of my own time at the restaurant, and things rapidly devolve into 'good times, good times' thoughts and I want to call my friends and ask them if they 'remember when...?'
Mr. Bourdain has had at least two shows on cable TV so far - that I know of - and chances are good if you haven't watched either of them you've at least heard of him. He writes like he speaks in those shows. Or he speaks how he writes, whatever. The cadence is familiar, and despite his lower-class leanings, he did go to Vassar. For a while. He knows how to write well and how to engage his reader, is what I'm saying here.
Mr. Bourdain's writing and his unvarnished opinions are delicious, savory bits of literary accomplishment that leave a reader fat and happy. Here's my very favorite from this book:
Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
That's what you're signing up for when you decide to read this book. I love it.
Who should read this book? Anyone who's ever worked in the restaurant business, of course, because you'll see that things are the same all over. But, more importantly, I think everyone who has never worked in a restaurant needs to read this book. Especially those of you who think that you want to be a chef, or own a restaurant or catering business or cupcake store or hamburger stand or what have you, because the author tells it like it is. This is really, truly, the way life in a restaurant is. It's not glamorous, it's gross, and you deal with thieves and lowlifes and horrible people all day, every day, 365 days a year. And that's just the kitchen staff, the waiters and bartenders and customers are even worse. Read it, and if you still want to be in the restaurant business after you turn the last page then you're made of stern stuff indeed. Good luck.
Next week:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Mr. Gaiman can write a comic book, that's for sure. And I dimly recall reading 'American Gods' a few years back. But his most recent TV outing was, hands-down, the worst episode of 'Dr. Who' I've ever seen, and that show's been in production for decades, there are stinkers a-plenty. I hope he does a better job with this book than he did with The Doctor.
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Grade: A+
You want to know the best way to make people like you? Engage their nostalgia. I'm sure Mr. Bourdain did not have my nostalgia in mind when he wrote this book thirteen years ago, but he fed it and nurtured it nonetheless. It doesn't hurt that he's a particularly good writer, too.
Flashback to... dear God, twenty-four years ago. Holy crap. Fresh out of college, I didn't have a car, job prospects across the country were miserable for anyone my age, and I was back living with my parents. I took a job as a waiter for two reasons: 1) they agreed to hire me and 2) I could walk to work.
I slaved as a waiter and prep cook for nearly four years, even after I had secured a much better job, because it was hard to leave 'the life.' It really is hard, trust me. My friend Mike says the restaurant business is like a toilet that will not flush, the turds just keep going around and around and around. He's dead right.
'Kitchen Confidential' is the author's memoir, at least up to that point in his life. Some stuff has happened to him since then. And I have no doubt that everything in it is absolutely, 100% true. Because I have similar stories, minus the astonishing substance abuse. He was a child of the 70's, after all.
I have to be careful, because every time I think about a scene in the book it sparks a similar memory of my own time at the restaurant, and things rapidly devolve into 'good times, good times' thoughts and I want to call my friends and ask them if they 'remember when...?'
Mr. Bourdain has had at least two shows on cable TV so far - that I know of - and chances are good if you haven't watched either of them you've at least heard of him. He writes like he speaks in those shows. Or he speaks how he writes, whatever. The cadence is familiar, and despite his lower-class leanings, he did go to Vassar. For a while. He knows how to write well and how to engage his reader, is what I'm saying here.
Mr. Bourdain's writing and his unvarnished opinions are delicious, savory bits of literary accomplishment that leave a reader fat and happy. Here's my very favorite from this book:
Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
That's what you're signing up for when you decide to read this book. I love it.
Who should read this book? Anyone who's ever worked in the restaurant business, of course, because you'll see that things are the same all over. But, more importantly, I think everyone who has never worked in a restaurant needs to read this book. Especially those of you who think that you want to be a chef, or own a restaurant or catering business or cupcake store or hamburger stand or what have you, because the author tells it like it is. This is really, truly, the way life in a restaurant is. It's not glamorous, it's gross, and you deal with thieves and lowlifes and horrible people all day, every day, 365 days a year. And that's just the kitchen staff, the waiters and bartenders and customers are even worse. Read it, and if you still want to be in the restaurant business after you turn the last page then you're made of stern stuff indeed. Good luck.
Next week:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Mr. Gaiman can write a comic book, that's for sure. And I dimly recall reading 'American Gods' a few years back. But his most recent TV outing was, hands-down, the worst episode of 'Dr. Who' I've ever seen, and that show's been in production for decades, there are stinkers a-plenty. I hope he does a better job with this book than he did with The Doctor.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
A Book A Week - Week 27: Gone Girl
This week's book:
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Grade: A
The first 'A' experience I've had with fiction since May. People in the know pointed me to this book, told me it was a great read. I had my doubts, and... great?... well, it had its moments.
I have to say, I really hated the first fifty pages. Which is less than 10% of the book, but still. I didn't hate them quite so much as I hated the first three chapters of 'The Crying of Lot 49,' but it was very close.
See, one of the things I hate most, more than broccoli, more than shrimp, more than almost anything, is writing about writers. I loathe it. I refuse to read a story about a writer writing. It's lazy, it's navel-gazing, and, for Christ's sake, nobody gives a fuck. If you want to be a writer, then write a story, but if you write me a story about you writing I will go to Starbucks in person and slap you with your own MacBook.*
This novel starts out with not one, but two writers. Laid off writers, a husband and wife who have both lost their writing/journalism jobs in New York City within weeks of one another. They move from NYC to Missouri to take care of the husband's ailing mother and Alzheimer's-ridden father, and they've been there for two barely-tolerable years. The story progresses from there.
The writing in the first fifty pages is just... I can't say terrible because it's not. But maybe... rewritten too much? Rewritten by someone other than the author? Once I got past those first fifty pages things changed, the narrative got tighter, the pacing picked up, and it was overall a much better book.
We get to know the husband first, on the day he learns that his wife has gone missing. Nick and Amy have been growing apart since the move from NYC, and things aren't looking up. Then he makes the discovery that changes his world forever.
We learn about Amy from diary entries, from the time she first met Nick to their time in Missouri, as their lives are unraveling. At first we sympathize with Nick, then, slowly, we learn that he is both more and less than he seems to be, and his time with Amy was fraught with unspoken resentment and, eventually, downright hostility.
And there's where any plot discussion has to end. Because I did like this book - eventually - I have to resist giving away the plot. It's a murder mystery with plenty of twists. REAL twists, Dan Brown, not like the sputum you puked up in 'Inferno.' The story definitely does not end up in the place I suspected it would at the beginning. Not even close.
For my tastes the writing is a little wordy. I wouldn't want this story to be Hemingway-spare, but I think the author could have easily cut 25% of the description. In and among the twists and the plot reveals, we do get a glimpse of the tension in a marriage, of the different things women and men expect from a relationship, and how things can unravel quickly when those needs aren't met. The people seemed real, the motivations real (if more than a little petty and twisted), and the outcomes real as well.
Go on, read the book. Power through the first fifty pages, it gets much better.
* full disclosure: I actually love 'Barton Fink.' Which is a movie about a writer... writing. But it's the Coen Brothers, which means the story's not really about what it seems to be about, and the exception that proves my rule.
Next week:
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
I think Anthony Bourdain and I would get along fine. While I don't drink quite as much - or at all - and I don't have his love of organ meats or bone marrow, I think we share a sensibility. I did work in a restaurant for four years after college, I think I know some of the stories he's going to tell.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Grade: A
The first 'A' experience I've had with fiction since May. People in the know pointed me to this book, told me it was a great read. I had my doubts, and... great?... well, it had its moments.
I have to say, I really hated the first fifty pages. Which is less than 10% of the book, but still. I didn't hate them quite so much as I hated the first three chapters of 'The Crying of Lot 49,' but it was very close.
See, one of the things I hate most, more than broccoli, more than shrimp, more than almost anything, is writing about writers. I loathe it. I refuse to read a story about a writer writing. It's lazy, it's navel-gazing, and, for Christ's sake, nobody gives a fuck. If you want to be a writer, then write a story, but if you write me a story about you writing I will go to Starbucks in person and slap you with your own MacBook.*
This novel starts out with not one, but two writers. Laid off writers, a husband and wife who have both lost their writing/journalism jobs in New York City within weeks of one another. They move from NYC to Missouri to take care of the husband's ailing mother and Alzheimer's-ridden father, and they've been there for two barely-tolerable years. The story progresses from there.
The writing in the first fifty pages is just... I can't say terrible because it's not. But maybe... rewritten too much? Rewritten by someone other than the author? Once I got past those first fifty pages things changed, the narrative got tighter, the pacing picked up, and it was overall a much better book.
We get to know the husband first, on the day he learns that his wife has gone missing. Nick and Amy have been growing apart since the move from NYC, and things aren't looking up. Then he makes the discovery that changes his world forever.
We learn about Amy from diary entries, from the time she first met Nick to their time in Missouri, as their lives are unraveling. At first we sympathize with Nick, then, slowly, we learn that he is both more and less than he seems to be, and his time with Amy was fraught with unspoken resentment and, eventually, downright hostility.
And there's where any plot discussion has to end. Because I did like this book - eventually - I have to resist giving away the plot. It's a murder mystery with plenty of twists. REAL twists, Dan Brown, not like the sputum you puked up in 'Inferno.' The story definitely does not end up in the place I suspected it would at the beginning. Not even close.
For my tastes the writing is a little wordy. I wouldn't want this story to be Hemingway-spare, but I think the author could have easily cut 25% of the description. In and among the twists and the plot reveals, we do get a glimpse of the tension in a marriage, of the different things women and men expect from a relationship, and how things can unravel quickly when those needs aren't met. The people seemed real, the motivations real (if more than a little petty and twisted), and the outcomes real as well.
Go on, read the book. Power through the first fifty pages, it gets much better.
* full disclosure: I actually love 'Barton Fink.' Which is a movie about a writer... writing. But it's the Coen Brothers, which means the story's not really about what it seems to be about, and the exception that proves my rule.
Next week:
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
I think Anthony Bourdain and I would get along fine. While I don't drink quite as much - or at all - and I don't have his love of organ meats or bone marrow, I think we share a sensibility. I did work in a restaurant for four years after college, I think I know some of the stories he's going to tell.
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