Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra

A fascinating glimpse into not just one, but a multitude of foreign cultures--gangsters, Bollywood, the police, and, of course, India itself—Sacred Games is nearly 900 pages long but keeps the reader enthralled for the entire journey through the seedy criminal classes of Bombay, and the earnest and corrupt policemen who pursue them. The pages are filled with stories and backstories, and somehow, even though Chandra gives a short history of nearly every character, this never becomes tiresome, but instead offers new layers of insight and connections between the society that springs up, fully formed, between the covers of this novel. The relationship betwen Sartaj Singh, a Sikh policeman, and Ganesh Gaitonde, a Hindu gangster, slowly develops as the chapters alternate between the two of them, between Singh looking to discover why Gaitonde killed himself, and Gaitonde himself narrating his life story. Meticulously researched—based on a real story, no less--and written with a fine control of language—not too showy, but steady and inviting, rife with slang and vulgar words in Hindi and Marathi—Sacred Games is an amazing achievement, for which Chandra deserves, and certainly has gotten, congratulations.

Runaway Horses, by Yukio Mishima

I know I’ve said this a million times already, whether in this blog or in conversation, but Mishima is a genius. Each book I read of his is carefully controlled, beautifully composed, and culturally and psychologically insightful. Though I don’t necessarily sympathize with or understand all of the characters—this novel in particular, the story of a young “patriot” determined to lead a rebellion to restore the honor and glory of the old days of Japan, or, failing that, kill himself to redeem his old honor, was utterly alien to me, mostly because suicide is not held in such high esteem in Western culture--I could still, at least, begin to see where each character was coming from, an impressive accomplishment considering their sheer foreignness. Mishima is also a master of prose, ranging from the subtly funny ("The lady was blessed with the ability to discover in herself ever fresh sources of woner, though she was at the same time able to forgo discovering that she was in fact little by little growing fat") to the vaguely yet gracefully descriptive ("It was as though a length of beautiful, thick golden thread had arched its graceful way past the needle of Honda’s perception, barely grazing it. It had touched the needle, but, just as it seemed about to pass through the eye, it had turned aside and was gone. As though fearful of being woven vigorously into the embroidery material, blank but for the faint pattern sketched upon it, the thread had slipped to one side of the needle’s eye and passed beside it. The fingers that guided it were huge yet slender and extremely supple"). His books, though slow, are a true pleasure to read.

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

I don't know how I always forget, when I'm not reading him, what a genius Dickens is, but there you have it: if you ask me in between reads whether I like him, I might make a face, or claim that he bores me. In reality, quite the reverse is true: Dickens is clearly one of the most talented writers ever, and I love his books--for their wit, their vocabulary, their delightful secondary characters, their plots, their pace, and even, though I gasp to admit it, their length. (After all, the longer the book, the longer I get to spend with the pearls of humanity that Dickens creates.)

A Tale of Two Cities is no exception; in fact, it proves the rule. This is, I think, one of Dickens's best: it's hilarious, with his trademark snarky narration ("the owls made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set down for them") and robust exaggeration ("That they could never lay their heads upon their pillows; that they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that they could never endure the notion of their children laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that there never more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the prisoner’s head was taken off") and minor character absurdity ("Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it"); it's enthralling, with its fast-paced plot of life and death and intrigue and history and sacrifice; and, just as a bonus, it's historically interesting too, as Dickens portrays the French Revolution, that time of horrors, without being overly or underly horrifying, showing the atrocities, as well as the mercies, of both sides. Though, of course, the heroine leaves something to be desired (although reading Lucie Manette was a relief after reading Laura Fairlie, that doesn't mean she wasn't inspid), the other female characters are a joy: the short ("dissociated from stature," as Dickens is careful to remind us) Miss Pross, and of course the famously vengeful Madame Defarge make this book's treatment of women sufficiently appealing to the modern reader.

(I swear I'm not usually so hung up on this issue. I think reading Collins has just made me feel that way.)

Dickens is by far the most talented of the Victorian serialists, in case there was any doubt; what's more, he may be the most talented of, well, anyone. And, with that, I set myself the task of reading all the others. I can't believe what little Dickens I've actually read--curse that short memory for greatness of mine. At least, now, I can look back on my reviews and remind myself of his genius, so that I don't forget in between reads.

The Famished Road, by Ben Okri

This is another one of those Booker books that didn't do anything for me. It was long--500 pages--and beautifully written, of course, but also completely plotless. Events meandered here and there, with a seemingly endless repetition of "Dad gets beaten up" and "Mom suffers silently" and "strange spirit-child encounters strange spirits." I was severely bored by this plot repetition and meandering, and, what's more, slightly confused at the sheer foreignness of this book: in capturing Nigeria, which of course all the book jacket comments claim Okri did, he captures a world that is utterly alien to me, and indeed much of his reading audience, the world not only of modern Africa but also of spirits and ghosts and witches and wizards who roam freely among the people. Okri has a knack for description and an eye for the magical, but I do wish he'd use those talents in service of a real story, or maybe even real, or at least three-dimensional characters. Sensuous? Yes. Sensual? Yes. Sensical? No.

The Interpretation of Cultures, by Clifford Geertz

A justly famous work by a justly famous author. This is what good scholarly writing is supposed to do: fill, stretch, and utterly transform the landscape of the mind, and this is what Geertz does, all the while charming and obviously brilliant, so that no one who has read this book can ever think about the social sciences in general, or anthropology in particular, in the same way again.

The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier

Luckily I, unlike my poor friend Christine, did not pick up this book expecting it to be brilliant. Instead, I expected a quick, nearly worthless, hour-long read. I got exactly what I expected. Chevalier has one idea--take a famous work of art, tell the story around its creation--and she's been stringing it along for three novels now. It's working for her, which is great, but she's certainly not producing any great masterpieces this way. Her stories are cute, I guess, involving neat twists and turns of plot that explain the details of the chosen work of art--and, to give credit where it's due, she's done her research quite thoroughly--but hardly impressive, in its most literal sense. I read this yesterday, and I can, already, barely remember the details. Her writing, likewise, is nothing to be either bragged about or scoffed at (with a few misguided phrasings, like "ploughing" for sexual intercourse), and, basically, utterly forgettable. So, with this blog entry duly written, let me begin forgetting.

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

The Woman in White is, in my opinion, a far greater achievement than The Moonstone, which lagged, quite dreadfully, in its last 200 pages or so. By contrast, The Woman in White only lags for the last ten or twenty pages, which are the denoument, and which are almost insufferable in their maudlin sentimentality. Everything is resolved happily, never you worry, and Collins is sure to reassure his readers of this fact, as well as of the unending beauty, heroism, and intelligence of his main characters.

And this being a Victorian serial, of lesser quality than Dickens, the characters are unendingly beautiful (the gentle, pliable love interest), heroic (the narrator), and intelligent (the "ugly" yet capable sister of the beautiful heroine). This last, in case you can't tell, was my biggest sticking point in the novel: Marian Halcombe was intelligent, capable, brave, amusing, kind, and an all-round wonderful person. Yet, of course, because she was "ugly," or, at the very least, because her "expression—bright, frank, and intelligent—appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete,” she is completely ignored as a possible love interest by everyone. The narrator falls for her beautiful blonde sister, and she, without ever complaining, rescues said sister, toils away for her, and ends by living with her forever, refusing to marry, instead becoming a spinster aunt to the children of the beautiful one. Nobody sees anything strange in this--it is her duty, after all, as the charmless older sister. Yet, to the modern reader, she is infinitely more interesting than her vapid sister, and it is incredibly frustrating to watch her shunted to the side at every moment, even by herself! She herself is quite possibly the worst offender, in fact, and such pearls of misogyny fall out of her mouth ("my courage was only a woman's courage, after all"), as well as the mouth of the narrator (praising a woman recently married he says that she has transformed, for the better, into a "civil, silent, unobtrusive woman, who is never in the way") that one wonders whether Collins really could get away with this, even in the Victorian age.

Apart from my feminist indignation of such mistreatment of a main character, though, this novel has stood the test of time well. After 150 years, I found it still suspenseful, still well-written, and still thoroughly engrossing. Collins is no Dickens--neither his sense of humor nor his sense of secondary characters quite lives up to the standard of his great friend--but it's still very impressive just how readable he is.

Traveling Mercies, by Anne Lamott

This was a quick read, good for a day at the beach, yet it contained none of the shallowness that such a statement would ordinarily imply. That, in essence, sums up the impressiveness of this achievement: Anne Lamott writes a darn good book, one that is simultaneously funny and wise, reverent and irreverent, light and filling.

The book’s focus is religion, but, thankfully, not just one religion; instead, it talks about general issues of faith and leading a religious life. Lamott has known all types of lives, it seems: unreligious, Jewish, Catholic, Christian, spiritual. She has known hardships—more than her fair share, it seems, with the divorce and death of both her parents, the death of a close friend, the disease of another, serious drug abuse, and a heartbreaking series of bad relationships—but, through those hardships, has come to a place of comfort and wisdom. Her past experiences have made her present faith far richer, and she manages to share that, though this book, without being unduly self-righteous; instead of a self-help book or lecture, this is an honest confession of a troubled, and finally soothed, soul.

There are hilarious moments here--her bat mitzvah, from which she can only remember the question “do Jews camp?”; her descriptions of a fat friend snorkeling, her morning and night prayers of “whatever” and “oh, well”—but also some very serious ones. Though at the beginning of the book she delicately balances funny and serious, by the end, the parenting chapters, the tone turns more serious, and one feels the weight of the world, or at least her child’s life, on her shoulders. It would have been better if she could have kept some of the lightness, some of the frivolity and humor, in her voice, but one understands the failure.

Mostly, though, it delighted me to read a book on faith—not an argument, not a harangueing, not an explication, in fact, not a theological book at all. Simply a book about spirituality, about its benefits, about the ways to live a happy and fulfilled and peaceful life, through all the sufferings that are inevitable. Lamott writes that, “Most of the people I know who have what I want—which is to say, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy—are people with a deep sense of spirituality. They are people in community, who pray, or practice their faith,” and one, or at least I, believe that. That, in fact, is my guiding thought behind the practice of my own religion: my beliefs help me, I think, to attain, or at least strive towards purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, and joy. If we could have a few more people like Lamott, confused but honestly and sincerely striving and open, and a few fewer people like Billy Graham or Pat Robertson, self-assured and closed, perhaps we could honestly have an open and functioning forum for discussing religious issues in America. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the day.

Tender Is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

As I mentioned in my last blog entry about Fitzgerald, I’m waiting to read the book that really uses his apparent potential to the fullest. It wasn’t The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and, alas, it wasn’t Tender Is the Night either.

This is not to say it’s not a good book: it’s an excellent book. It’s just, well, not perfect. The most personal of all his novels, the story of a marriage failing due to fragile mental health on Nora’s part and personality development on Dick’s—this is complicated to explain, but I saw him as being at least equally at fault, considering his initial reasons for going into the marriage and his slow hardening into complacency as the well-off husband and not, anymore, up-and-coming psychiatrist—Tender Is the Night is well-written, with some, if not many, of Fitzgerald’s moments of shining prose (“She crossed and recrossed her knees frequently in the manner of tall restless virgins”), with well-rounded, sympathetic characters (Nora and Dick especially, but the cast of secondary characters, particularly the hangers-on and friends of Nora and Dick) is not easily forgotten either, and a plot that moves well enough, from the end of World War I to the end of a marriage. However, it’s also lacking a certain something—perhaps it’s too long, or perhaps it moves a tiny bit too slowly, or perhaps its being so personal prevented Fitzgerald from really explaining the characters or delving into their lives as he should have—but, whatever it was, it makes the novel slightly less than the perfect gem it should have been. So, instead of claiming a place on my bookshelf along with all the other classic works I enjoy and admire, this one will get given away, or perhaps just left behind, at the end of the year: another day, another Penguin Classic. So it goes.

Fermat's Last Theorem, by Simon Singh

This book was, in a word, flawless. I never thought a book about the history of mathematics could be so compelling: well-written, interesting, and factually deep, I simply have no criticisms to offer. Who would have ever thought that could happen?

And Then, by Natsume Soseki

It is rather a relief, after a long string of positive reviews, to be able to bash something; it is a pity, though, that the book chosen to receive such a bashing is a classic of Japanese literature, widely accepted, or so its introduction claims, as one of the best books by one of Japan’s best authors.

Oops.

Yet, be that as it may, I hated this book. I understood its themes, yes, and I understood why it could be considered a good book: it treats, as so many other novels of its day, the position of Japan vis-a-vis the Western world, the conditions of modernity and the angst and detachment they may bring, and the dilemma of a young generation, or even a young country, trying to find its place in the world.

Sure, this is all well and good, and it certainly was treated thoroughly here, though the character of Daisuke, an indolent but educated young man, who wastes his time reading foreign novels and not working, because, or so he claims, “the relationship between Japan and the West is no good.” His very idleness, then, is painted as a rebellion, against the hard-working, stressed-out members of his generation who only try to catch up with and imitate the West, against the traditional older folks who only encourage him to marry and find work, to focus on potatoes rather than diamonds, and against his own self, which loves foreign novels yet rejects them for being “too bald, too self-indulgent, and moreover, too unsubtly rich.”

(That last quote, of course, gratified me, since, as a person used to Western novels and culture, I feel precisely the opposite about Japanese novels: too subtle!)

While I’m all for the theme, then, and while I find those issues truly interesting, I still didn’t enjoy the novel. It was, in a word, boring. The problem with writing a book about an idler, and I’ve seen plenty of other authors fall into this trap, is that the character doesn’t do anything. And, what’s worse, that’s the point. So then the reader has to endure 250 pages of a character waffling, trying to make up his mind: to marry or not to marry? To love or not to love? To work or not to work? To be or not to be? At least in Hamlet there were swordfights; in this novel there are only soliloquies. So, while there were some beautiful images presented, and some beautiful sentences produced, and some interesting issues addressed, the novel as a whole wasn’t worth it. Read a poem instead.

Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes

I’ve read a fair amount of Julian Barnes before (England, England; Before She Met Me; A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters) so I had high expectations going into this book. I must say, though, that I was surprised with what this novel was actually like: not that it disappointed me—far from it—but that Barnes’s voice seemed different: steadier, calmer, far less flashy, and far more, in a word, mature. It is as if, as he ages, Barnes has decided to flatten out the idiosyncracies of his prose and settle for a slow, gentle, and perfectly just narrative voice, a tone that exposes the eccentricities of his characters with mocking them in the slightest, a tone that relates events without commenting on them, and a tone that, essentially, sees the world without evaluating it.

Barnes’s voice is different in every novel, actually, come to think of it, and perhaps that’s part of his talent, shaping his narrative, his very prose, to the requirements of the characters. In this case, both figures, Arthur, or Sir Conan Doyle fame, and George, an English solicitor of Indian descent are calm, completely standard Englishman, one with dreams of knights and chivarly and a career invested in a fictional detective, the other with a vicar father and an utter lack of imagination, and so perhaps it is only fitting that Barnes’s prose, in describing them, be so staid and steady as to be almost unnoticeable.

It’s rather pleasant, too, not to notice it, to receive events seemingly unfiltered through authorial judgement; this case, the events, the wrongful accusation and later acquittal of George, are sufficiently interesting to carry the day, and Barnes’s research is flawless: the ins and outs of the case, as well as the lives of his characters, both famous and non-, are presented in meticulous, all-seeing detail. I should think even Doyle himself could smile on the detective work Barnes must have done here.

It is hard for me, though, to apply any exuberant words of praise to this work: the novel itself is so stolid and unexcitable that it just wouldn’t seem right. Plus, it didn’t make me feel astounded, or amazed, or indeed excited in any way; I read it compulsively, of course, drawn along by the story line, but in a very unreacting and, I would imagine, English way. It’s a feature of the work, I suppose—the reader is drawn in and impressed at the very same time she is totally unexcited. So while, for the sake of its research and writing and character studies, this novel is clearly a great achievement on Barnes’s part, it’s also not the sort of book one, or at least I, would praise from the rooftops. Rather, I would hand it to a friend, someone else who enjoys a solidly enjoyable read from a modern master, and say something like, “Here, you’ll like this one.” And the friend would read it, and like it—because how could he not?—and start the process all over again, in a long chain of pleased, impressed, satisfied, yet totally un-giddy readers.

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

I was reluctant to read this at first, mostly because it was about Greeks and I had just finished that book about the Minotaur. When I started it, I almost discarded it right away, loath to seeing even more facile references to mythology.

I am so glad I didn't. Eugenides doesn't just write about Greeks, he is one. He doesn't just reference mythology, he lives it. His book feels real, feels deep, feels, if one can say this, felt. It is comedic and tragic, deep and wise, well-researched and interesting. The story of Calliope, born a hermaphrodite, raised as a girl, and ending as a man, was somehow, through its hundreds of pages, never dull. Cal's voice is compelling and unique, and, through it, Eugenides not only relates the story of a family, starting with Cal's grandparents in Greece and descending to Cal him (or her-)self, but also addresses issues of gender: to what extent do we depend on nature? Or nuture? Is Cal really, fundamentally, male or female? Or something else altogether? The genius of the book, therefore, is Cal's voice, the narrative that draws us along, forcing us to ask ourselves these questions--Eugenides carefully writes a voice that could, conceivably, be male or female. It is somehow precisely the prose one would expect from a figure like Cal--measured, even, weighing, judging, open-eyed, open-hearted, and somehow neither strikingly male or female. It is, in a word, genius.

Lest all this weighty stuff deter you from reading, though--and that, plus the length, almost deterred me--let me also testify to the story, its craft, its drive, its sympathy, and its inherent interest. This is, without a doubt, one of the best novels to be published in recent years; it fully deserves all the acclaim it has received. I couldn't put it down, and, when I did, the only disappointment I felt was in finishing--what would I do with my life, now that I've read this? Luckily, life goes on, and so will I, but all the while hoping for another masterpiece like this one to come along.

Snow, by Orhan Pamuk

I've been putting off writing this review for a while, because I'd like it to be brilliant, to be an insightful analysis of why, exactly, I was so bored by this acclaimed work by a Nobel Prize winner, but, after weeks (weeks!) of thinking about it, I still can't quite put my finger on it. This was a deep work, philosophically important, and very well-written (and I thought the translation was good, too), but it was also, alas, dry and slow-moving, with what I suspect must be cultural factors acting as a barrier for me to understand the characters and their motivations. I'll give Pamuk another chance, but I must say, based on this book, I'm not ready to admit him into the canon of People Who Deserved Their Awards.

The Bell, by Iris Murdoch

After several years of resisting reading her, for obscure reasons known only to my subconscious, I've finally become an Iris Murdoch fan. As it turns out, all I needed to effect this transformation was to actually read her works: they’re brilliant, no doubt about it.

“The Bell” somehow manages to simultaneously live up to and disappoint Murdoch’s general standard of excellence. It lives up to it through well-crafted, steady prose, deep character analysis, and philosophical musings. Yet, present though these elements are, none of them stand out. This book is solid, for sure, a fine representative of her work, but not a sparkling standout like, say, “The Sea, The Sea.” Compared to other, less luminary authors, it’s an impressive achievement, but compared, I thought, to what Murdoch can do, it’s nothing at all: the prose wasn’t as beautiful as usual, the characters less interesting than usual, and the philosophy less compelling than usual. I know this is one the favorite books of a friend of mine, and I suppose I can see why, but it just didn’t do it for me.

The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout

This was an entertaining enough book, which is a rare thing for me to say about non-fiction. Usually I’m just about ready to poke my eyes out by the second chapter. I think what made this book sufficiently entertaining, though, was not so much well-written prose—it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t spectacularly good, either—as the abundance, perhaps over-abundance, of case studies. With at least one long real-life story per chapter, reading this felt almost like reading a novel, especially when you consider how much I skimmed the analysis bits.

Which, of course, doesn’t say much for those analysis bits, but that’s the point, I guess. While it was an interesting idea—that up to 4% of people in our society are sociopaths, completely lacking a conscience and therefore free to do whatever they want, no matter how callous or horrible or hurtful to others—I didn’t find it quite convincing enough. While I do agree that those people exist, I just couldn’t bring myself to agree that the incidence is as high as the author claimed. Her main qualification was being a psychiatrist and counseling these people; that would, it seems, heavily skew her view of the world towards containing far more sociopaths than the probable true incidence rate. Also, I didn't feel that the analysis was particularly insightful: beyond claiming that these people have no conscience, she gave very little information. She didn't argue the origins of the issue (genetic? environmental?) or the treatment of the issue (can it be treated?). She did, of course, give long, detailed lists for how the normal person can avoid conflict with the sociopathst in his or her life, and how to "battle" the effects of the sociopath, but that practical advice, while assuredly well-intentioned, seemed to pander a little too much to the reader's paranoia: first, overdiagnosing the problem, and then, second, giving such long lists of "how to deal," as if everyone automatically and naturally has such a person playing a prominent role in their life. It's possible, of course--I'm no expert in psychology, and the author is--but it still seems doubtful to me. Color me skeptical, I guess, but I'll wait for a little more proof.

Write Away, by Elizabeth George

I've read writers on writing before, and found many of those works suberb--Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" springs to mind here, as well as, surprisingly, Stephen King's "On Writing"--but, while this one was certainly a competent description of the writing process by a competent writer, it failed to charm in the process. That is, Elizabeth George, in addition to writing New York Times bestselling novels, teaches writing; she's clearly good at both churning out solid, well-written mystery novels and teaching others to do so. However, her style of writing is not artistic and neither, as it turns out, is her style of teaching writing. With each chapter meticulously labelled and organized, this book reads better as an actual manual of writing technique than as a pleasure read. Maybe, then, if I were looking to write my own novel, I'd appreciate it, and turn to it when I got stuck for THADs ("Talking Head Avoidance Device") or maybe plot-charting strategies, but, as someone not actually looking to write myself, it was rather prosaic to be thoroughly enjoyed. I never thought I'd say this, but give me Stephen King any day.

No Touch Monkey, by Ayun Halliday

No Touch Monkey fits right into the grand tradition of contemporary travel literature, following the spirits of the Pico Iyers and the Bill Brysons and other luminaries of the genre, yet it does so not so much as an equal but as an adoring acolyte; it may not attain their level, but at least it reaches, showing a quite admirable ambition; for this, at least, though not its literary perfection, it is to be appreciated.

A collection of essays about super-budget travel (and we’re talking spending weeks eating only bread and packets of ketchup here, not just searching online for the cheapest possible economy fares), this book is, undeniably, amusing. Halliday has a strong and unique voice, and a gift for storytelling, though her stories do, after a while, get rather repetitive. She’s funny, no denying it—one hilarious incident of her trying to imitate an electric can opener to people who don’t speak English springs to mind—but the entire collection is lacking a certain something.

The irony, though, is that, as much as just one essay whets the appetite and leaves the reader begging for more, knowing that where that one hilarious experience—taking a shower in the sink of a train station bathroom, for instance, or being treated for a dislocated knee by a rural witch doctor in Sumatra, or traipsing around Thailand looking for a monk met on a train—appears, more are sure to follow, an entire collection of these essays is quickly grating; each experience follows the same pattern and, eventually, offers the same lesson, which, disappointingly, is rather shallow: travel is fun! And exciting! Ha, ha, ha. Where Iyer and Bryson shine is to vary their experiences, to balance serious and researched with wacky and light, and to, through it all, sound like the kind of person you’d actually want to travel with, steady and dependable as well as fun-loving, insightful and incisive as well as witty, where as Halliday only sounds like the sort of person you’d want to chat with at a party: momentarily mesmerizing, and certainly talented in her brand of humorous personal experiences, but, by the end of the evening, rather tiresome—you’re glad to go your separate ways. Overall, her stories made me grateful—incredibly so, overwhelmingly so—that I didn’t have to travel with her, to catch malaria in Africa or be attacked by a dog in Bali, and, therefore, grateful, as well, that I got to close the book at the end, ready to go my separate way.

The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford

Some books speak to all mankind through being so general, or possibly even allegorical, in their scope they could apply to anyone, at any time, in any place; others are so specifically linked to a time and place that they speak only to those who have experienced that setting, valuable more for sentiment’s sake than for literary merit. Others, though, and these are the truly great works of literature, pinpoint, with merciless detail, the atmosphere of a particular time and place, and how that atmosphere, that culture, that location, that era, affects its characters, and then use those details, that ruthlessness, to illuminate, somehow, the entire human condition.

The Sportswriter, thankfully, is one of the latter type. It is so relentlessly American, and, in fact, so relentless middle American, that neither the novel, nor the characters in it, could ever take place without that setting. The story of a divorced man in early middle age, the sportswriter of the title, and his fumblings to find love and, more importantly, peace and contentment, with his slow, rather lonely life, the novel showcases the suburbian doldrums of New Jersey, the stubborn hopefulness of the midwest and its inhabitants, and the strivings of the individual, in its essentially, if not uniquely, American conception, to find his place in the world.

The writing here is beautiful, as indeed is the entire book. Though slow, and not necessarily driven by a forceful or compelling plot, the characters, and setting, and prose, and message, more than compensate for the book’s not being a real page-turner. Ford writes that, “deep down we’re all reaching out for a decent rewarding contact every chance we get,” and he lays bare, smoothly and easily, the consequences, positive and negative, of such random reaching. This is a serious book, long and lovely and restless and rhythmic and solemn and sombre, but in these very qualities, in its depressive thoughtfulness and tender idleness makes me, if this is not too strange, proud to be an American.

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, by Steven Sherrill

In this lovely little novel, the once-fearsome Minotaur is no longer a monster hidden in a labyrinth, demaning human sacrifice, but a half-man, half-bull oddity hidden in a trailer somewhere in the anonymous Midwest, working as a short-order cook in a restaurant, and, when he gets the chance, fixing cars. Though immortal, the savage bloodlust of his youth has faded, leaving only a quiet, lonely melancholy and occasional nightmares of violence and gore. The Minotaur can speak, but only barely, and prefers, generally, to spend his days in silence, with occasional grunts of assent to sustain conversation with those around him, his colleagues at the restaurant who, maybe, could become friends. Yet even small acts of reaching out are difficult for him, and easily misdone, since, as Sherrill writes, “in the Minotaur’s world it is far easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of scracked ice, than to accept tenderness and return it.”

This last, though, this quest to accept tenderness and return it, is the focus of the novel, and as such it offers a measure of hope: the Minotaur, strange and freakish though he may seem, is, deep down, more man than bull, and “like everyone else, mythological character or no, the Minotaur leads a life fraught with incongruity and contradiction.” In his very strangeness, the Minotaur reveals the fundamentals of human life, the sympathetic contacts for which we all long.

The novel is clever on other levels too; the descriptions of how the Minotaur manages the details of daily life—how he moves his horns around a trailer, how he fits his cook’s uniform—are well thought-out and interesting; the writing, though less than fully confident, has a sort of understated beauty; and, most of all, the occasional references to the Minotaur’s past—his desire for Greek coffee, his dreams of divine bloodlines—make this absurd situation somehow, strangely, believable.

On the side of criticism, this is a first novel, and it shows; some scenes are slightly too long and others too short, and somehow it contains that tint of timidity, unsureness, that too often haunts first novels. Yet Sherrill, a winner of several creative writing prizes, clearly has great potential, and this work itself, while not destined to be a classic, shows off that potential and talent. Strange that it would take such a monstrous character, a hybrid mythical abnormality, to reveal to us the fundamentals of life, but such is the mystery, and miracle, of fiction.

Booty Nomad, by Scott Mebus

I’m glad I didn’t read the hype surrounding this book before reading it; the discussion of “lad lit” and whether this genre aimed at males, the XY equivalent of chick lit, those frothy feminine paperbacks, spearheaded by this very book, could ever attain the same status as its insanely popular female counterpart. (The conclusion overall, by the way, seems to be “no.”)

Thus, I got to read this book with a completely open mind: I picked it off a shelf at my friend’s house and, knowing nothing but the jacket cover blurb, began reading.

My final impression, therefore, independent of any market gossip or professional critical judgement, is that if lad lit never makes it off the ground, it’s certainly not due to quality; while this book is certainly no prize-winner, it’s competently written and eminently amusing, which is more than can be said for many of the chick-lit bestsellers.

The story of a 20-something single guy in New York City and his dating adventures, Booty Nomad quirkily showcases the male perspective on this story, which has already been told and re-told by females. While the male perspective is not something the female reading demographic may want—the main character is promiscuous and, what’s more, in the habit of forgetting the names of his amours; he therefore nicknames them soi-disant clever things like Bendy Girl, who practices yoga, or Opera Girl, who is all about “me, me, me,” or the Eater of Souls, his ex-girlfriend about whom he is still heartbroken—it is a slightly different twist on the story and therefore entertaining in its own right.

Mebus is also reasonably talented as a jokester, if not a prose stylist; his description, for example, of the main character’s job as a producer of a children’s television show, to which he is indifferent, made me laugh out loud. (Dave claims, probably not without truth, that the episodes, which teach life lessons like don’t take candy from strangers, brush your teeth every day, and don’t staple your dog to a bus, are all simply copied off Sesame Street; in a similarly lackluster spirit, he recites a litany of mistakes the show has made, including giving God a producer’s credit to check the level of editing and, unfortunately, reading “Niagara Falls” as “Negro Falls” for the entirety of one episode.) Though often sophomoric and rather juvenile, both in its approach to relationships and in its humor, there are moments of genuine quality shining through; I guess that’s another element of its similarity with chick lit—overall, a throwaway, meant to be devoured in one sitting and passed on to the next friend with several hours to spare, but with a few, only a few, moments to make it worthwhile. Indeed, this is like a mirror image of the majority of the chicklit genre, telling the same “searching for the One” story, only with everything exactly reversed—more farts, less shoes; more sarcasm, less tenderness; more sex, less love.