I found this one though an online algorithm and was not disappointed. Sebastian is a relatable-enough character (even without reading the first installment of this series), and I liked that the mystery was neither obvious nor difficult due to omission.
The story is pretty intriguing. There’s an eccentric nobleman who may have been driven mad in the Amazon, a spate of abused and murdered girls, English suffragettes, a freak show, a local terrorism event, metal health disorders, early electric technical glitches, and lots of other stuff. Without having lived through the era myself, it felt well researched and coherent, even though it gathered a lot of different aspects of the times. And even with all that, I think it was the characters who really drove this story. Sebastian works too much, but is empathetic, and the decisions he make all make sense in the context of the story. He’s surrounded by an autistic son, a working wife (as a hospital administrator), and an old maid sister-in-law, who all have distinct personalities. One event near the end of the novel--too spoiler-y to mention in detail--actually brought me to tears. Overall, a good, easy read that kept me engaged throughout.
!!!!!!! [BxB] [EPISODE 1] !!!!!!! - watch more funny videos
I used to think Jenny Slate was referring to a compilation of EM Forster novels. Then I read The Portrait of a Lady. And yeah, that's definitely what she's talking about. I even tried to appreciate the feminist message here, but the truth is that I don't relate to that goddamn story! Once I figured out that Isabel and Henrietta weren't having a secret lesbian relationship, it got especially boring.
Just read a Dilbert and go to sleep. Now that a new year is upon us, I’m thinking, inevitably, about priorities. I have a deep and somewhat obsessive love of lists, To-Do lists in particular. Some days are successes or failures based on what little box I can check off next to some little (or gargantuan) task. I finish books I hate just so I can mark them as “read” and prepare a short review about them. I put off so many things I would enjoy doing because I’ve filled my list with self-imposed obligations that I prioritize first. Well, this year, I want to focus on other things instead. I don’t want to die wishing I’d spent more time playing video games (or, you know, reading books or spending quality time with family and friends)! Many of you, I know, have new resolutions focusing on productivity and accomplishments. That’s wonderful, and I absolutely support those efforts. But I was talking to someone on January 1 who commented, “Productivity is my drug.” I knew exactly what she meant. And I know that I’ve taken my productivity effort too far. So this year, less time making lists and checking items off. More time considering what I want to do at any given moment—and what the consequences will be if I don’t do something else—and making choices then. How does that impact this blog, this oh-so-popular blog? My reviews may be a little lighter. And I may not post them all on GoodReads or on LibraryThing. Because the truth is that I hate to post negative reviews on those sites, especially for still-working writers. In November, I read The Portrait of a Lady. I hated it. I was already burnt out on classics, but ordered it from the library it because I thought it was short. I was wrong—it’s longer than Moby Dick. And I hated the characters and the plot and the writing style throughout the whole thing. But I finished it because I wanted to have had read it, and the I basically collapsed in mental exhaustion. After that, I read a couple novels that I picked at random from Amazon because they were shorter and not “classics” and no one will care whether I like them or not, except of course the authors who are still living and working. I may post reviews of all of those books on here, and I may not. This blog has always served as a way for me to spend writing time working on something other than my novel. Something lighter and less mentally demanding. So, I’m acknowledging that with the assertion that that is, with mindfulness, what it will continue to be. If a review is difficult and thinky enough that I’d rather be working on my novel, I’ll go do that instead. Because really, I’d rather be making progress on that. (Or, I may try to finish moving the rest of the blog archive over from my dead WordPress site, which is time-intensive but mentally easy.) If you are a regular reader of this blog, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. And please feel free to tell me what you’d like to see in this space. Until then, you may not catch quite as much of me here, but I still appreciate your support.
I’m not a big Science Fiction reader, but the three stories that make up A Canticle for Leibowitz have a lot to offer even a mainstream reader.
The three stories revolve around the monks of the Leibowitz Order in the desert of Texarkana. The first story opens in the 26th century, 600 years after a nuclear war and the resulting Flame Deluge, and the last one closes in 3781, at the start of another nuclear war. We learn that after the Flame Deluge, the survivors rose up against the very technology and knowledge that led to the war, destroying books and killing scientists during the Simplification. Some scraps of knowledge, gathered by a government scientist named I.E. Leibowitz and preserved by the Catholic church, are nearly indecipherable to the monks as the first book opens. In each story, the character of an old wanderer/hermit/homeless man appears and seems to know much more than the monks about what’s really happening. I found the first story, with Brother Francis’s discovery of new Memorabilia and his order’s reaction, to be the most interesting. The characters felt the most developed and relatable, especially Francis, from whose eyes most over the story is told. Their weak understanding of society before the nuclear war and the science that led up to it results in them wrapping this history into their Biblical history, resulting in a narrative that is at once familiar and foreign. The second narrative introduces the beginning of the reawakening of knowledge in the world through the scholar Thon Taddeo, who comes to the monastery to study the preserved Memorabilia. Honestly, I got lost in the political machinations during this story; there were a lot of characters who never appear but whose actions and motivations drive the plot. By now, the monks have become more familiar with and generally more comfortable with the knowledge they’re preserving, and one has even developed a man-powered electric light bulb. By the third story, the world’s political superpowers have again started a nuclear war, complete with negotiations and cease fires and denials of responsibility. The monks scramble to send their Memorabilia and a small group of monks and nuns to space to continue the order. Meanwhile, the head of the order clashes with an NGO that is offering relief services, including euthanasia, to victims of the bombing and radiation fallout. To me, this conflict was the most interesting, as the abbot struggles to understand how cycles of destruction and prolonged suffering fits into his faith. The wandering hermit, called Benjamin in the second story, initiates the action in the first story and has a long, cryptic conversation with the abbot in the second. In the third, though, he appears only briefly and doesn’t participate in the narrative. As the world goes up in flames, again, we’re left wondering who this character was and what his role in the history was. He’s old when he appears in 26th century, and his appearance remains mostly unchanged for the rest of the 1,200 years we see him. In the second story, he states that he’s not Leibowitz, although the wooden statue of Leibowitz (carved in the first book, but reappearing throughout) clearly resembles Benjamin. So who is he? (Update: since writing this, I followed some Internet clues and found the Myth of the Wandering Jew. Now I realize that my confusion here may be due to ignorance!) Although the stories are by no means perfect, this is a good gateway book for mainstreams readers to get exposure to Science Fiction.
This recording is a beautiful, comforting walk that leads you to take a hard look at your emotional reactions to yourself and to others. Tara Brach comes at her advice from a Buddhist perspective, but many of the concepts are recognizable from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She explains the concepts clearly in a gentle voice, and then she walks the listener through some short meditations to reflect on what she’s been teaching. I think most everyone can learn something from here, and I highly recommend it.
(Full disclaimer: I met Ken Foster when he taught a fiction workshop I took as an undergrad at Florida State. I've since kept up with him through social media.)
The Kind I'm Likely to Get is a series of short stories, some of which follow recurring characters and all of which include characters in the same universe with similar emotional voices. Although the settings change, the urban centers through which the characters orbit is nearly interchangeable. Foster paints some really intriguing scenes, although I found myself struggling to hang it all together. It wasn't until I finished the stories and discovered the notes section in the back that it started to click for me. I have trouble investing in stories when I don't like the characters or when I can't understand the motivations of their actions. In the notes, Foster explains that he doesn't expect--or even want--the reader to like some of the characters. Some of them really are toxic and horrible. He's simply painting a scene in which these characters exist. And he paints those scenes brilliantly. So much so, in fact, that I forgot for a while where I'd heard some of the stories. Some images from “Keep it From the Flame” lingered with me, and later I tried to remember if it was a news story or something someone told me or where I'd heard the story. Also, one character's trademark doodle, a cockroach turning into a locomotive, is described in one of the first stories and then mentioned again in a much later story. In the interim, I forgot that the doodle wasn't a real-life graffito or logo and thought Foster must be referencing the non-fictional world. That may indicate that I'm an inattentive reader. Or it may show just how vivid Foster's scenes and characters are, how they come to life and worm their way into your memories.
Jeff Smith consistently has some of the cleanest, clearest, most consistent art I've seen in graphic novels. The characters are easily recognizable throughout the book and different enough from each other that you don't confuse them. Each panel is constructed in a way in which it's obvious what's going on, focusing only on the most important details while keeping enough of the extra information to keep you in the setting. That may sound like faint praise, but it's not. Judging from other comics I've read, this must be incredibly hard to do, let alone to maintain for a book the length of RASL.
So, while RASL has a few problems, the art is certainly not one of them. I think the concept of RASL didn't have quite enough room to spread out, leaving the reader with some forced assumptions and unanswered questions. Mostly, I was left wanting more: more about the art thieving business, more about Sal and his motivations, more about Maya and her motivations, more about what drove a promising scientist to become a dimension-hopping alcoholic art thief. Unfortunately, the reader is just left wondering, even about some of the big, plot-moving questions. In some ways, RASL is fun in the way that Mission Impossible movies are fun. That is, the action and concept and set pieces are all engaging, but don't try to make sense of it later or expect plot threads to be carried consistently throughout the story or rely on characters to be fully developed. It's good, but it doesn't accomplish those storytelling basics.
How surprising to learn that a 162-year-old novel with the dreary title of Bleak House could be so charming, so engaging, and so funny! But it really is. From Esther’s self-deprecating, clever point of view to Matthew Bagnet’s maintenance of discipline in “the old girl” to the acerbic narrator’s description of the English political and judicial systems, every sentence drips with careful craft and intention. The heavy satire and irony reminded me strongly of Monty Python sketches about English manners. Before reading this, Tale of Two Cities was my favorite Dickens (over Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol), but Bleak House has taken its place. (That said, Tale at least has brevity going for it.)
As the novel gets rolling, the reader is introduced to so many characters that it begins to feel like Doctor Zhivago or something. But all the characters are differentiated well in look, in manner of speech, and in their unique ticks. Mr. Snagsby's specific coughs of communication, Grandfather Smallweed's need to be shaken up frequently, Inspector Bucket's roaming index finger... the traits are consistent throughout and help to convey important characterizations. Every character here--even the most minor, and even the ones that never actually appear but are only spoken of--comes alive under the narrator's description. While there are a lot of characters to like, even love, there are many others to like less. Did I really hate any of them? No, because even the worst among them (probably Mr. Tulkinghorn or Grandfather Smallweed, followed by Mr. Vohles) are such delightful caricatures that you just have to smile at their horribleness. The social and political criticism of the novel is shockingly contemporary. You'll have no trouble following the discussions about Boodle and Coodle and Foodle if you can keep up with a conversation about Perry, Bush, and Kasich, for example. Sir Leicester's reaction when he discovers that an ironmaster is rallying voters against him and his party in the North is completely relatable to a modern reader. The description of the court system had me laughing out loud. You heard me: the description of the mid-nineteenth century English civil judicial system had me laughing out loud. It really is a remarkable book! Like many long, old books, I listened to this one rather than reading the text. Simon Vance did a good job with the narration, keeping the voices pretty consistent and pulling out the humor. And he's British, so he sailed through the pronunciations of names that I, as an American, would have stumbled over (even Jarndyce, which Vance pronounces more like "JON-dis"). I've seen some criticism that Esther is too good, too perfect, and therefore irritating. But I encourage you to look little closer, and consider the ideals of womanhood at her time, not to mention her upbringing. Esther's sharper than she lets on. She's also more prideful and vain and judgmental. But she knows how to hold that back and reveal only the most flattering portrait of herself and those she loves (Jarndyce and Woodcourt also seem a little too perfect through her eyes). Even though parts of the narrative are in her voice, she states early and repeats that she's writing it for external readers. That is, this isn't her private journal. She's giving us her public face only. I highly recommend Bleak House, despite its length and gloomy title. I was so wonderfully surprised by it! I'm so proud to announce that Connections: A Comics Anthology to Benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is now complete and available for purchase! The collection includes 22 different comics from 27 diverse creators around the world. The comics are personal and positive and poignant. They tell stories of overcoming loss, showing great strength, living with mental and physical illnesses, and living life to the fullest. This 200-page anthology is available for $20 through the Connections website. All the comic creators and the small editorial team that herded the cats (including me) volunteered their time, effort, and work over two years. All the proceeds above the on-demand printing costs, about $16 per book, goes straight to the AFSP to support suicide prevention advocacy, research and understanding.
Enjoy some great comics while supporting a great cause! Learn more here. I re-read Siddhartha after more than 15 years. While High School Me appreciated it to some extent, I think I got much more out of it as an adult. By now, I've had the chance to make some life choices the way Siddhartha did, and I've been able to see some of their results. During high school, I was still at the stage he was right before he joined the aesthetics. Now, I'm probably somewhere closer to his time as a wealthy merchant. I really enjoyed watching Siddhartha's choices, understanding his arrogance, and being at some points just a little closer than him to knowing what makes life worth living.
I pulled this off my shelf somewhat randomly, knowing I had a couple long plane trips coming up and looking for something smallish to carry around with me. How different travel can be when your head is still floating around Siddhartha's world! I think I smiled like a fool at everyone I saw. Hesse's writing here is quiet and gorgeous. He's not following any of the rules we know about how to write engaging fiction. It begins with a montage of Siddhartha's happy childhood, being loved by everyone--not exactly the action hook we expect these days. And it proceeds in a soft, explanatory voice, interrupting a narrative that spans years with a few specific anecdotes here and there. When we think back on our own lives, doesn't it replay in much the same way? By the end, I found myself reading more closely, wanting to really understand what Siddhartha is saying and doing, even as he was explaining the inherent shortcomings of communicating and teaching. You have to discover it for yourself through your own experience, not seek it from others. Not even from Siddhartha himself. |
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