A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

So he’s got one trick where, when the frisbee’s coming, he’ll just lay down on his stomach for as long as he can, and then, at the last possible moment, he’ll stand up and then . . . take a few steps and go catch the Frisbee. That’s it. It’s a pretty stupid f@*$ing trick, right?

This book is cool. Vernacularly speaking, it’s quite hip and Dave seems like a pretty cool guy. But think his memoir of sorts comes up short, way short. I like how he doesn’t try to start at the first of his life and bore us with all that David Copperfield crap (Can a brother get an amen for that Holden Caulfield reference?), so I have no problem with him just throwing us in the middle of something. That something was the death of his parents as he described how they, the mother slowly and the father unexpectedly, came to the end. Dave’s (I honestly think he’d prefer I use his first name) life changes as he now, while still in college, decides to raise his 10-year-old brother basically on his own, with some help from his sister. That’s more or less the plot. Of course there are still other sideline happenings such as his work with Might magazine and his tryout for The Real World, the boring transcript of which is almost exactly 1/8th of the 400+ page book.

First of all, there is definite talent in this writing and really the only thing keeping all else afloat at times. But through these anecdotes, I kept asking myself, What’s the point? And this usually means that what’s happening is not entertaining or the person is not interesting enough. This is a problem! I like how he doesn’t try to fill in all the blanks in this memoir by trying to connect each event to the next to make it all linear, but, ironically, the events just aren’t that great themselves. Most of them entail a situation where Dave panics a little bit in a funny way—usually by going, “Oh, f$%*. God. Jesus Christ.” He’s never serious and always reveals the humorous side but I’m guessing most people found this funnier than I did. It was funny at times but, let’s be real, Maddox of thebestpageintheuniverse.com is much better at meandering.

I bet if you’ve read this that you don’t remember any of the characters’ names because there not developed all that well. There are lots of death related situations—friend on the verge of suicide, friend put in a coma, and another actually dies, I forget how—which is all good and fine to write about but at least make us care about that person so we can care about whether they live or not. I dunno. Dave the character is likeable, and Dave the writer is good and kinda funny—I like the quote I inserted—but there wasn’t much happening for me in this book. I thought the ending was pretty brilliant but it really only amounted to hanging a pretty picture in an empty room.

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

Hmm… this book has a lot going for it. It’s short, fast-paced, relaxed (yes, both), fun, and profound. David, a university professor in Cape Town, South Africa(?) and two-time divorcée, begins an affair with one of his female students and it isn’t long before the school finds out and starts hashing out how to deal with the situation. This process is actually pretty hilarious as the deans want David to give a genuine apology but he can’t bring himself to do it. Obviously disturbed by this, the administration decides to discontinue his term at the college so he moves in with his daughter, who shelters homeless dogs, in a rural area. They are soon the victims of a robbery and something more serious. The plot thickens…I just realized that it’s pretty hard to talk about this book without giving too much away, but it as at this point that we see how people act in fear and how senseless it can make us. Despite his disgrace at the first of the novel (and it happens again later on) and his so what perspective on it, David becomes more of the voice of reason. Yet we also get interesting ways of looking at situations in other characters.

I think this book also says a lot about the political landscape of Africa, that of which I know nearly nil about. One of my friends, though, was studying abroad in Botswana and one night he and his friends were walking down the street when a car advertently started coming right for them. My friend didn’t get run over but somehow (I’m not exactly sure) he gashed up his head and was bleeding pretty profusely. His friends had a cell phone but couldn’t speak the native language so they looked at a bystander and motioned for him to use their phone to call the hospital. So they handed him the phone and he ran off with it, stealing it while my friend lay bleeding in the street. This reveals just how cutthroat modern day Africa can still be. And I suspect this is a big motif of this book, though I can’t speak in depth about it.

I will say that Coetzee (phonetically: coo-tsee-uh) has an utterly smooth voice. Beautiful sentences without being showy or complicated at all. The plot is direct and I really like how he doesn’t muck around. For instance, there was both the meeting of the student and the undressing of the student within 20 pages. He also puts in these rhetorical questions in his writing that are absolutely spot-on to the situation. I wish I could extract one for you as an example but I don’t have my copy of the book handy so you’re just gonna have to read it. Love it, though—coming across these rhetorical questions was one of my favorite things about reading this novel. I recommend it. It’s a quick read and, even though serious, it’s quite fun. If my word isn’t enough, this book was the recipient of the 1999 Booker Prize and Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. You might find it hard to see where everything is going in the beginning and maybe even through the middle, but see it to the end. It feels so complete with the last paragraph and the more I think about this book, the more I like it. And I really like thinking that he didn’t put any effort at all into this title. But maybe he did. I dunno. It’s a good one either way.

Just found out that there is a 2008 film adaptation of this starring John Malkovich and holy freaking crap, that's awesome. It also won the International Film Critics' Award.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

So reads the back of this book, and it is this crime that Truman Capote painstakingly reconstructs to make a “nonfiction novel.” The result is pretty much a masterpiece in my opinion. It’s compulsively readable, in part because it is a true story but largely in how it is presented. Leading up to the murder and aftermath, Capote weaves the narrative of the Clutter family and the people of Holcomb with that of the killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, making an overwhelmingly suspenseful and harrowing account. You can tell that Capote engulfed himself in these murders and investigation by how tight-fitting his research was—although it’s a 350-page book that concerns itself mainly with an event that took place in a couple hours, the information and interviews never seem tangential or boring. Furthermore, although Capote became good friends with people involved in this murder—friends of the family, detectives, and even the killers—his reporting is entirely objective and it never occurred to me that there was any hint of his opinion inserted or some kind of spin put on the tale. And that is why I think this book has stood the test of time, because it reads like a novel, except it actually happened.

A note on Capote’s writing: it is vivid throughout and usually lucid, but I felt at times that he was trying to pack too much information into one sentence using multiple commas and whatnot. So at first I had to go back and reread a few times to make sure I got everything but eventually the style proves effective. If you begin to read the first few pages of this book then I highly doubt you’ll be able to not finish it. This is one of those books is seriously hard to put down. Moreover, unlike most true-crime books, this one is addicting without really being a “perfect murder” or one that involves a long or ingenious investigation. The main draw is the motives. What makes two guys brutally murder a whole family whom they don’t even know? Especially considering the year being 1959 and the place being probably smaller than Newland. However, despite how ruthless these killers were, don’t be surprised if you feel empathy for them at the end. It’s genius.

I watched two movies related to this book as well, with one being the actual film adaption that came out right after the book and the other being a story on the story—how the town of Holcomb wrapped its arms around flamboyant Capote while he researched the crime. The former is black and white and a pretty terrible adaption as far as they go. It was faithful and all but not terrifying in the least. The book actually chilled the blood much more, which I think is harder to do in writing than in movies. The two actors who played the killers were spot-on to what I envisioned them, but I would recommend just going ahead and skipping this outdated movie altogether. Capote, the other movie, which came out just a few years ago, however, gives brilliant insight on Capote, the man, and how involved he was in this work. It took over 5 years to complete, partly because Capote knew how good this book could be and didn’t want to miss his chance to open up a new territory of literature but also because the legal proceedings of the killers and their eventual death sentence took long to carry out with appeals, brought about by Capote himself, and whatnot. Describing this process does get a bit hairy and drawn out in the last section of the book, especially considering the main point of the book has nothing to do with it, but eventually it does lead to the inevitable hangings of Smith and Hickock. A big part of the movie is about the relationship Capote concocted with these killers and although he tries to convince others and even himself that he deeply cares about them as people, it’s clear that he only sees them as complicated puzzles that need to be pieced together. Capote is portrayed as the life of the party and is absorbed entirely within himself who feigns modesty but really knows the power of his personality and his talent. Yet, save his style of writing, none of Capote comes out in In Cold Blood. He, himself, became a huge part of this true story but he is able to forget that and instead chronicle everything like a very smart fly on the wall. That is what makes this a breathtaking work and it is easier to appreciate this fact when you read the book and watch Capote. There is also a featurette on the DVD that has some film of the real Truman Capote that is further insightful. It also reveals that Philip Seymour Hoffman’s impersonation is bulls eye.

According to the last few moments of the movie, In Cold Blood made Truman Capote the most famous writer in America at the time and after completing it, he was never able to finish another book; perhaps daunted by the expectation of equaling it, let alone topping it. Can’t blame the man—this is a magnum opus.

Marry Me by John Updike

Breath left her; she felt the skin of her face as one wall of a sealed chamber bounded by the brown ledge holding the pennies, the low violet clouds against which the elm’s twigs showed pale, the rectangle of glass slashed by raindrops. Jerry’s voice called, ‘Hey?’

As you can see from the quote above, John Updike rather has a way with words and can easily turn even descriptions of mundane, everyday activities into beautiful paragraphs that scream to be excerpted and put into posts like this. So it is really a crapshoot in an Updike novel (Confession: I’ve actually only read this one, but it’s a safe presumption) to find passages like the one above and the one from Jon’s The Music School review. He certainly has a superior command of the English language and, as Jon noted, intricate precision is the adorned result. However, as Jon noted as well, Updike was once described as a major stylist and a minor novelist, and sadly that seems to fit the bill for this book.

It has a brilliant start as we are introduced to Jerry and Sally, who are in love, but goshdarnit, they also happen to be married to other people. Their affair takes a typical path, and Sally seems to be more invested in it while Jerry still appears to love his wife, Ruth, as well. But then the pair decides to let the cat out of the bag and tell Ruth but leave Richard, Sally’s husband, in the dark. This is where the book becomes quixotic and the characters much less likable. The nature of the divorce conversation is one of small talk over coffee yet it doesn’t lack indifference. It’s hard to explain this part and perhaps this is to show just how capricious our hearts can be; but it still all seems very unlikely that something of this consequence could be talked of lightly while both parties still say they love each other. For instance, Jerry in one moment will be talking candidly and genuinely to Ruth of his true love for Sally, but in a disrespectful way, to which Ruth, in rightful rage, will tell him to get out. The next moment Jerry will kiss his wife after telling her of his feelings for another woman and his wife will let him pathetically kiss her a second time even though she couldn’t be angrier. Behaviors in this book weren’t consistent with my views of reality. Again, perhaps Updike was intent on showing how unpredictable our hearts can be but on the surface level the plot was weak—the idea is there but its execution proves not very gripping. Furthermore the four characters couldn’t be more craven, arbitrary cowards. On a brighter note, it had a nice ending and I think the last chapter was exceptional—a perfectly tied bow on a perfectly wrapped package despite there being, at least for me, not much inside.

Regardless of my qualms with the plot, I can’t say I didn’t like this book. Even with not much substance, Updike’s writing can carry any moment and it is a pleasure to read. If you find writing like this, writing that’s prose begging to be poetry, then look no further than Mr. Updike; however, I can easily see how flowery sentences can be excessive to some people so be warned. I’m looking forward to reading the Rabbit books sometime soon, which aren’t supposed to have much plot, but this isn’t usually a problem for me. I just like for the characters to not be, without explanation, completely irrational, and all of Updike’s characters I’ve encountered (in his short stories) have been rational in their context until this book. I’ll give it a 6.5 of 10.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

I took somewhat of a hiatus from reading because I was throwing back about 3 or 4 hundred pages a week, which was fun, but, alas, my mind has limitations and was ready to implode at that pace. So I said, Alright mate (talking to my wearied mind here), I’ll let you have your break, but when we get back I’m gonna hit you with a off-putting story about a brother-sister romance and the hermaphrodite narrator it spawned two generations later. So that brings us to where we are now, Middlesex. Why would anybody want to read such a weird story? I guess many people ask the same question about Lolita, but in that we find that Nabokov not only pulls off a readable and enjoyable story about a pedophile, he somehow makes us sympathize with ol’ Humbert Humbert and his perversity as well. Middlesex is sort of the same way. But I wouldn’t say necessarily in the sense that you feel sorry for the main character, Cal, but more in that he is part of an incredible story.

For those who haven’t read any blurbs on this Pulitzer Prize-winning work, I will briefly summarize it. The story is told in first-person as Cal traces back the roots of his unfortunate genes to the attraction of his grandparents, who were lovers, but also siblings, and thus very disgusting. He tells the story of their romance in Greece and then their emigration in the 1930’s to Detroit, where they dispose of their identities as brother and sister and start anew as husband and wife. They have sex a couple times, probably more, and then out come two children, without defects, who incredulously are not attracted to each other. However, the boy grows up and eventually marries his cousin, and it is out of this wedlock that a girl, Callie, is born. But astute readers will note that Cal is telling this story and it is he that this Callie turns into late into his teens. Cal then narrates his flee from normal life and attempt to start a new one as a boy.

This is obviously a very dumbed-down summation and I actually feel slightly guilty because this book is really good and contains a story that at times felt so real and true that I had to remind myself that it was just a novel. Before I read this book I was a little turned off by the fact that it traces generations before getting to the main point, but now I can safely say that this journey is worth it and even brushes up on your 20th century US history in doing so. When the page finally turns to Cal, about 3/5ths deep, you actually feel a lot more appreciation for him as a character before he has even set eyes on the world. As I said before, Eugenides surrounds the plot with clues that make it all seem like a real account, which I think really boosts its likability in some way.

There is one flaw in the actions of one of the characters that I thought wasn’t really accounted for, but I can’t really divulge it here without giving away too much of the plot. It may be not be too significant for some but it did make me question, Would he really do that? over and over. If you ever read this book, ask me about it. I think that’s all I wanted to say about this book although it’s a little stale on my mind. I do recommend it though, especially in comparison to the other multiple generation spanning, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver

I've prattled on about my love for this man's work enough. This is of course an amazing collection. That should be obvious. I'll just give you some new favorites, in no particular order:

Nobody Said Anything
So Much Water So Close to Home
Errand
Blackbird Pie
Elephant
Intimacy
Menudo
Neighbors
Fat
The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off
What's in Alaska?
Collectors

Guess I'll stop now, or else I'll end up listing almost all the stories.

And Zach has mentioned it before, but check out that gaze. That's a man who saw things.