Review: Where's the friction?

The pace of You Shall Know Our Velocity is the strongest aspect of Dave Eggers’s first novel. Somehow Eggers is able to keep the action electric, even when he describes people waiting in an airport for a plane to having them dream up conversations they have with the dead. There are some honest and raw moments when the two main characters come to terms with one of their mutual friend’s untimely deaths, but in addition to the whirlwind pace this is about all the novel has going for it.

The narrator, Will, and his friend Hand decide to take – in a week’s time – a worldwide trip with the extra thousands of dollars in cash they have in order to a) see the world and b) travel non-stop and c) dole out their money to those who need it. Of course, as with any roadtrip novel, things don’t go exactly as planned and the boys don’t get to see much of the world at all – West Africa and the Baltics end up being their only stops, even though their main desires included Greenland, Mongolia, and Cairo.

What bothered this reader about the narrative were the conceits of a) the travelogue and b) the first-world characters believing that they should be charitable to the second- and third-world ones. I never enjoyed the antics received when Will and Hand made their way into a new country and had to figure out the locals. I wasn’t sure if this was an honest portrait or if the author just needed a way of exploring ‘otherness’.

Because the characters weren’t able to spend days or even hours in a location, there really wasn’t a development in the secondary people to the story. Therefore the Senegalese children or the Russians in the Baltic nations were never fully explored; they just became caricatures that perhaps were supposed to represent their respective nations’ plights.

Removing that issue though, the novel then becomes a story about a relationship of two friends: the strains that have been put on it, how they grow closer, how one actually learns how to fully trust another. If Eggers was looking to represent that, then kudos. Otherwise it’s a bit bothersome.

(And I did enjoy the following quip: When asked why they [the main characters] were in Senegal, they respond: ‘Because it was windy in Greenland.’ In regards to the book, that’s a pretty hysterical refrain.)

Review: If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?

I'm generally not a reader of short story collections, and I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, I finish a story feeling unsatisfied and wishing to know more about the characters that I got to know so well. On the other hand, I understand short stories, from a literary perspective—how all it takes is several pages to make a point. And generally, I remember short stories long after I read them.

I was most excited to meet Jill McCorkle at BEA, as I have read some of her other novels. She has a unique southern voice, one that does not just speak from broad generalizations and stereotypes about how people are in the South. She describes southerners without mentioning they're southerners. Yet the characters in her newest short story collection, Going Away Shoes, contain a voice that could be any woman, southern or not.

Going Away Shoes sticks to one pretty basic theme throughout all of its eleven stories: women wanting out, or, as the back of the book describes, "women looking love in the face without flinching." From the opening story of a woman trapped as her mother's caretaker to the closing story of a woman's imaginary perfect man, McCorkle describes women—sisters, mothers, wives, divorcees, and singletons—who know what they want and aren't afraid to hide behind their mistakes.

McCorkle seems to have a gift with American short fiction, as stories from this collection have been featured in the Best American Short Stories series and New Stories from the South: the Year's Best. She tackles weighty subjects with wit and poise, creating a perfect balance between comedy and tragedy that will keep the reader entertained. And as a bonus, these stories were the perfect length for my daily commute on public transportation.

Two of the stories can be found online:

"Going Away Shoes"

"Magic Words"

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

272 pages, Hardcover

ISBN: 978-1-56512-632-9

Review: Youthful sarcasm

James Sveck is snarky. Like a Gawker post. Thus he’s an antihero of our times.

He’s an eighteen-year-old high school graduate who doesn’t like talking. He thinks it’s a waste of time, mostly because the words that come out of his mouth are not the words that fully express himself. So he chooses to be silent.

He doesn’t like associating with other people, mostly because he doesn’t find the conversation gripping and mature enough for him to pay attention to. Therefore, he’s still a virgin and continuously dateless.

He believes that people who go to college are all uninspired and cookie-cutter human beings. And this is why he doesn’t want to attend Brown University in the autumn.

And somehow James Sveck is one of the most compelling narrators I’ve come across in some time.

James tells his story in Peter Cameron’s new novel Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, which has just been published in paperback. Although marketed as a young adult novel, it’s certainly more than that BISAC label – I was able to read this in one sitting as James is riveting, creating a perfect sense of sympathy, humour, and distaste, allowing the reader to re-feel what it was like to be confused, angry, and apathetic towards life as an adolescent.

The setting: New York City, 2003, summertime.

The core of the novel: Working at his mother’s art gallery (his mother James finds to be a flake as she’s on her third husband who recently stole credit cards from her during their honeymoon), James assists this art school genius John, an Ivy League and Courtauld Institute graduate who basically runs the place. One day James decides to play a trick on him and, using the dating service that John uses, creates a profile of John’s perfect match, captures his older colleague’s attention; and, thereafter, awkwardness ensues.

A collection of characters fully illuminate the problems and predicaments of James’s life: from his all-business lawyer father to his sister’s overly-pretentious and in-an-open-marriage boyfriend Rainer Maria; from his once-famous tender grandmother to his Samuel-Beckett-meets-Woody-Allen psychologist. The dialogue between all of these people runs from being ridiculously hysterical to overtly tragic, and, at least to me, all very worth it. Every statement feels weighed and judged. The prose is spare. The relationships between the characters are all painfully exposing. And the psychologist versus James battles do elicit the dialogue one could pick out of Waiting for Godot or Endgame, without being pretentious or terribly venerating. The novel also brings to mind The Great Gatsby in many ways with its New York summer setting and its own version of youth and self-discovery.

It’s a heartwarming and heartretching tale of first love, personal identity, slow discovery, and hysterical sarcasm, packed together in a 229 page book. James’s distant-yet-intimate style of storytelling snowballs this novel to an end and will be the reason you won’t want to close the covers of his book.

Review: Orpheus and Eurydice

I’ve been trying to get into Salman Rushdie for quite some time now. Freshman year, I began reading Midnight’s Children, but as it was a required book for a painful class, I naturally never completed it. Then, a year ago, I picked up Shalimar the Clown, and though I loved the beginning, I quickly tired of of style and found myself simply turning the pages in order to discover what would happen to the characters that I had developed a modicum of affection for.

Still, almost all of the people whose book recommendations I trust continually sang the praises of The Ground Beneath Her Feet. They told me, if you read one Rushdie book, make it this one. From the first page, I immediately recognized Rushdie’s style – sentences teeming with pop culture, historical and literary references, first person narration neglecting to omit even the most intimate details, complete with allusions to future plot twists that compel us to continue reading.

It took me a little while to settle into this style, much like it might take a coddled western teen to settle into India’s densely humid spring monsoon season. Each paragraph can dissected on its own as a fully prose poem, which, while invoking a considerable amount of awe, isn’t a style that I typically enjoy. Still, the novel grew on me, and I found myself becoming rather attached to the unapologetic, reflective, oft hilarious narrative voice and the mythical characters and story it was retelling. Rushdie rewrites the classic Greek tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, casting them as rock gods in a contemporary global setting. We follow Vina Aspara and Ormus Cama through the eyes of Rai Merchant, Vina’s faithful, doting companion from childhood (naturally also in love with her), as the two rockstars captivate the world with their tale and their music.

Though still not a favorite book of mine, I still somehow feel like this is a must read, if only to sample Rushdie’s unique style and perspective. I’ve resolved to read it again, more patiently this time around.

Review: Dark Beginnings

Black and white static images with numerous dark corners make David Small’s Stitches into a terrifying retelling of a disturbing childhood. Small revisits his sordid past with his family in a way few can. Without holding back, Small depicts his formidable years as ones filled with echoless silence. Stitches is a graphic (literal) memoir about growing up in hell.

Small is still haunted by the first sixteen years of his life when he lived in fear of an oppressive mother who considered strict silence the mark of a good home. Small’s father, a physician, tries his hand at taking control of family issues only with disastrous and life threatening results. After a botched surgery leaves young David with almost no voice, home life nearly disintegrates until David finally emancipates himself from his captors.

Stitches is told in a gothic and macabre manner. Distinct blacks and whites throughout the images give the impression that Small sees his past in a similar fashion; there are good moments and bad moments and nothing in between. Other reviews seem to consider Stitches “redemptive,” but I only found anger poured into every page. I don’t get the sense that Small has truly come to terms with his past; he has, however, found an avenue to tell his readers about his origins.

David Small’s artwork is masterful. Each page clearly depicts the haunting images of Small’s memories. Many of the drawings seem akin to Eisner which is probably the gold standard for autobiographical artwork. Negative space, which is used abundantly, makes single moments extremely powerful and resonant.

Unless you are intrigued by Small’s artwork I don’t recommend reading Stitches. Memoirs are profuse among the bookshelves, and David Small adds another work to that already long list. Though I empathize with Small’s unfortunate upbringing, he doesn’t craft a singularly impressive composition that merits everyone’s attention. Perhaps, he has simply released the demons that plague his thoughts. And to that, bravo!

NOTE: Seeing as I am the one who reads comics I will try to write reviews of them when I can, but I plan on limiting my coverage to singular novels. Following serials would be too time consuming and often repetitive.

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 8, 2009
W. W. Norton & Co.
344 pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-393-06857-3

Review: Better Late Than Never

Ian McEwan's Atonement is old news at this point in time. Very old news. Regardless, I am one of the few that has never seen the movie, read the book, nor read any reviews about it, so my knowledge of the story upon picking up the novel was embarrassingly rudimentary. I barely had familiarity of the plot and luckily was not tainted by the movie to the point of picturing the faces of the actors while reading. Despite the fact that everyone else in the world probably knows this story, I am going to review it anyway--partly because I like writing reviews so that I myself remember what I read, and partly because there may be some other lost soul on the planet that is as oblivious as I.

Thirteen year old Briony Tallis, aspiring writer, thinks she's a lot older than one barely out of her preteens. But as she witnesses the flirtatious relationship between her older sister, Cecilia, and the son of their servant, Robbie Turner, in the summer of 1935, she cannot fully grasp the complexities of adult relationships. Her imagination takes control and she tells a lie that wrongly accuses Robbie of rape. The rest of the novel follows the repercussions of Briony's crime, spanning from World War II to the end of the twentieth century.

McEwan has been celebrated for his ability to tap into human psychology, citing this book in particular. While I believe that to be true, I thought that the organization of this novel detracted from the full emotional impact of Briony's actions. The story is told in three "books" that are so different, I found it hard to remember they were related--the first book gives first hand accounts of the fateful summer from various perspectives, and, boy, does it start out slow; the second book tells the story of Robbie during the war; the third book describes Briony's work as a nurse during the war, five years after the incident. The novel then ends with a short chapter of Briony's perspective from 1999, serving as the story's conclusion.

I can understand why McEwan is praised for his understanding of the human psyche, especially that of a thirteen-year-old girl. While Book One gives the backdrop to the story, Books Two and Three serve the sole purpose of demonstrating how Briony's actions affect those that were involved, both situationally and psychologically. Cecilia and Robbie try and maintain a relationship during the war, and Briony tries to reconcile with her sister. McEwan does a good job of illustrating how much of an effect one small detail can have, though it takes many pages in each book before the incident is even referenced.

Overall, I wasn't too impressed by the story, and, though McEwan does carefully detail emotion, I wasn't blown away by it like most reviewers seem to be. The whole time I was reading, I was actually considering how the story would be edited for the silver screen--how the timeline would be adjusted, how Cecilia would play a bigger role for Kiera Knightly screen time. However, the last small chapter of the novel, the one written by Briony in 1999, is definitely the most important part of this story. After finishing the book, I could genuinely praise McEwan for his originality and for writing a brief ending that truly makes the reader think.

BookExpo America 2009!

I was lucky enough to attend BEA using one of my company's passes, and it was pretty much just heaven for a booknerd like me. At least, it seems to be heaven if you don't have to work the company booth. In that case, I hear it's rather boring. Anyway, I attended some of the pre-conference panel sessions on Thursday and returned on Friday afternoon to check out the exhibition floor in full swing. And wow. Every kind of book, publication, and publisher you could imagine was present. The best part was, of course, the free books you could get through author signings, and most of these were ARCs (Advanced Review Copies) that don't hit the shelves til late this year!

From my three-hour stint at BEA, I came home with a good collection of books to read. I spoke to several of the authors, all of whom seemed excited to meet people who were clearly avid readers. So look for early reviews of the following books in the coming months.

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

Eli the Good by Silas House

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Stitches by David Small

Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle

Beg, Borrow, and Steal by Michael Greenberg

Also, the Times wrote an interesting article about BookExpo and what it showed about the future of publishing.