Slaughterhouse Five

 

Kurt Vonnegut’s voice is exceptional.  The main themes of Slaughterhouse Five are deadly serious, yet the story is rich in humor, both simple and mordant, and has a unique viewpoint that features time travel and intelligent aliens.  It’s a perplexing yet commanding combination.  The narrator of the frame story is Vonnegut himself, who was a prisoner of war and one of the very few survivors when Dresden was firebombed in World War II. But the protagonist is Billy Pilgrim, who travels in space and time with a view of his entire life.  Billy witnesses innumerable deaths, each commemorated by “So it goes”, from his unique whole-life perspective.  Fascinating, thought provoking, outrageously funny and heart-rendingly sad by turns.

One Weird Trick (Sex Criminals Volume 1)

When Mark and I visited Arizona over the holiday break, we hung out with his friend Jordan, who works at a comic book store in Tempe. He recommended this smart, fresh, graphic novel to me. One Weird Trick is about a young woman who wants to save her library from foreclosure, her unusual superpower, and her sexcapades with a likeminded young man she meets at a party. A fun and flirty caper with nice illustrations, this is my bookclub's February pick (along with The Picture of Dorian Gray), if anyone wants to read along!

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!

A present from Will, I greatly enjoyed this book of Feynman's reminiscences!  I was familiar with some of the tales, which I enjoyed re-reading, and I was delighted to read many new accounts of Feynman's insatiable curiosity and lively sense of fun.  As a child during the Depression, he bought many broken radios and repaired or recombined them - and then was hired by relatives and, eventually, stores, to repair their radios and other appliances.

Sometimes his ingenious inventions created gigantic and very humorous consequences, as when he devised a rapid-fire string bean slicer and, enthusiastically demonstrating it for the head chef, cut his finger, releasing blood into an entire bowl of beans, dooming his invention! His adventures in drumming, safecracking, deciphering Mayan codices, art, and frequenting topless bars are all absorbing and very entertaining.

The book ends with a transcription of his commencement speech to graduating Caltech students, titled Cargo Cult Science.  I have read this before and again found it interesting; he describes the difference between real science and "phony" science - but his concluding advice was dishearteningly relevant to much of today's academic research:

So I have just one wish for you - the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity.  May you have that freedom.

This is really a very enjoyable read!

Vanity Fair - Thackeray

I told my doc I was reading Vanity Fair, and she asked if a new one had come out. Well... Not since 1848!

Anyway, this gossipy novel follows the beautiful schemer Becky Sharp as she climbs from her lowly beginnings as a poor opera dancer's daughter to the height of English aristocratic wealth and influence. A gorgeous portrait of English and continental life during the Napoleanic war, which sounds utterly blissful (although of course filled with ridiculous intrigue).

Thackeray is a master of the language, and this lighthearted but keen examination of vanity is a delight to read.

Recommended if you liked The Scarlet Pimpernel, reviewed here: http://blogenburyisreading.blogspot.com/2012/01/scarlet-pimpernel-by-baroness-emmuska.html?m=0

Dad's VF review: http://blogenburyisreading.blogspot.com/2009/06/vanity-fair.html

Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories

Breakfast at Tiffany's, featuring Capote's most memorable character, Holly Golightly, is a breezy and captivating story with a perfect concoction of wit, dramatic confrontations, breathless innocence, and lost youth.  Lovely writing - I plan never to spoil it by seeing the movie!  The short stories in this volume were also quite wonderful....very evocative, often funny, and very touching.

Cold Days

"Cold Days", despite what you might expect from the name, is not a heartrending tale concerning furnace malfunctions, but, rather, is the 14th book in the fantasy series, "The Harry Dresden Files", a series which I have been reading for many years now, and have thoroughly enjoyed. And yes, you read that corrrectly: Jim Butcher has 14 books in the series, which beats out just about every other fantasy series I've known (except maybe for the Dragonlance chronicles, but since those are mass-produced by monkeys at typewriters, there is no comparison).

Like the other Dresden books, it was an extremely enjoyable mix of witty banter and fast-paced action, with a hint of mystery and obfuscation that made the big reveal at the book's denouement as enjoyable as laying out a full house in poker. Here, however, is when I am forced to stoop to criticism. Fans everywhere, be warned: Dresden, though it has held out for many years, has begun to reach the point of serialization.

What do I mean by this? Think James Bond: it's the exact same plot in a different country each time. Shark attacks are replaced by barfights, blondes are replaced by brunettes, and Sean Connery is replaced by Daniel Craig (though you can thank the lord that we'll always have the same Harry Dresden, assuming Jim Butcher doesn't die in a tragic automobile accident). The point is, Butcher has run out of new plot devices, and has been forced to reuse all his old characters without adding anything particularly shiny or new to any of them.

This does not mean I did not enjoy the book: in fact, it felt good to re-visit old themes, and appreciate how far things have come since the very first book. If you want a good read, this one is a winner, though reading the first 13 is beneficial (and, in fact, necessary). Just don't expect it to be full of fireworks as the previous books were.

King Peggy

This was truly a delightful book! It is the true story of how Peggielene Bartels, a Ghanaian native, moved to America to work in the Ghanaian Embassy as a secretary, eventually became a US citizen and then, completely out of the blue, got a phone call from a relative in Ghana, saying that she had been chosen as the village's new King! (Her uncle had been King before, but Peggy thought this had to be a joke, because there are virtually no female Kings in Africa!). She finds out that the news is on the level, but she soon realizes that the village elders have chosen her in large part because she is a woman, is much younger than them, and lives far away - virtually guaranteeing that they will be able to dominate her. Guess she moved away from Africa before they ever got a chance to get to know her!! Peggy is a strong-minded, caring person, who develops big plans for her impoverished village - and she cuts off the bribes and corruption that have prevented much progress, eventually doing wonderful things for the village. She also has a wicked sense of humor - and the book is touching and exceptionally funny. A light, but wonderful, read!

John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar

Another classic science fiction novel that I never knew existed.  Written in 1968, Stand on Zanzibar is set in a crowded, decolonized early 21st century.  The world is filled with mass-market psychedelics and eugenic legislation, overstimulated and disney-fied in a way that hits pretty close to home.  The world's crowded cities are terrorized by "muckers," or people driven to the point of berzerk killing sprees.  Brunner's vision is on the level of a Philip K. Dick in terms of sheer affectual prescience.

The novel contains several narrative threads, interspersed with commercials and other snippets from the infosphere, as well as vignettes that act as character sketches of various dysfunctional relationships (usually centered around attempts to circumvent eugenics laws).  Other sections are polemics, written in the voice of Chad Mulligan, who can perhaps best be described as stand up comedian channeling Vonnegut.

The two main plot lines involve a propaganda campaign by a Southeast Asian archipelago claiming that they will genetically modify their next generation to breed a perfect species, and a series of negotiations between a large US corporation and a small African ex-colony which is mysteriously free of violence, and whose people have had a reputation for witchcraft stretching back into prehistory.

The novel is scathing and quite funny.  I find most satire to be a bit cringe-inducing, but Brunner pulls off his tone with an aplomb that reminds me most of David Foster Wallace.

Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio

In this second novel by Amara Lakous, an Algerian now living in Italy, a dozen denizens of Piazza Vittorio in Rome weigh in on whether or not Amadeo, believed by almost everyone to be a native Italian but actually an immigrant from Algiers who speaks Italian better than the Italians and knows the streets and byways of Rome better than an Italian taxidriver, really murdered the crude and offensive Lorenzo Manfredini, known as The Gladiator. The foundation of the novel is the universal plight of immigrants, but the Italians even distrust and dislike other Italians from different parts of the country. The voices are wonderful - sharp, humorous, arrogant, wacky - the characters are lively and the unfolding resolution of the murder mystery is unexpected and interesting. This was easy and pleasurable to read, but also thought-provoking and sad. Very highly recommended!

Lord of Misrule

This quirky novel won the National Book Award - appropriately, as a dark horse entry.  It was issued by a very small publisher, who reluctantly increased the initial printing from 2,000 to 8,000 only when the book was chosen as an Award finalist.  The author, Jaimy Gordon, has taught writing at Western Michigan University for 30 years - the Times ran a very interesting story about her  - here's their description:

Ms. Gordon, who has a graduate degree in writing from Brown but also spent time working at a racetrack and briefly lived with an ex-convict who set fire to their apartment, has never been very conventional. She has a huge corona of springy, tightly curled hair that suggests prolonged exposure to a light socket, and a personality to match: forthright, disarming, uncensored. She is a wiser, chastened version of the reckless young female character who turns up in many of her books and never misses a chance to endanger herself.

 I really liked the book, which tells of some disastrous happenings at a second-rate racetrack.  The chapters (and title) are taken from names of the protagonist horses: Mr. Boll Weevil, Little Spinoza, Pelter and Lord of Misrule.  Kind of like a contemporary Damon Runyon, with very colorful language punctuated by laugh out loud humor - and a streak of darkness.

The Old Man and the Swamp

SO! Another souvenir from Portland.

The book, as it describes on the front cover, details, "The true story about my weird dad, a bunch of snakes, and one ridiculous road trip".

My response: meh.

The funniest parts of the book were when he described his dad, which he did quite well through various anecdotes and choice phrases. As for the road trip and snakes... that's a bit exaggerated. Honestly, most of the book was told in flash back, and so the whole book comes across as more of a biography of a dysfunctional father than it does about an event in the present.

The book lacked a bit of, "So what?", as my Latin teacher would say. Essentially, the book was almost over by the time Sellers had reached the part where I expected the story to pick up.

My verdict: Kinda funny, but not all that great.

Rumpole of the Bailey

I recently finished reading Sir John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey. The witty and poetry-quoting protagonist of this book is Rumpole, a 68-year-old barrister who is a defense attorney for England's petty criminals. The novel is broken down into short stories about different cases that he has been involved in. This book is totally hilarious. The language is also quite pleasing - the book is full of nicely turned phrases. It reminds me a bit of Mr. Sammler's Planet, but is comic rather than existential. I highly recommend it!

When You Are Engulfed In Flames

Finished reading David Sedaris' "When You Are Engulfed In Flames." If you are a Sedaris fan, as I am, then this is a good book for you. The last book of his that I read was "Me Talk Pretty One Day," which I recall as being side-splittingly funny. This one didn't have me rolling on the floor, but it was pleasurable and funny with his characteristic sense of offbeat, awkward humor.

Sedaris describes his life in France and in Tokyo and his language misadventures. He humorously chronicles his struggles to come out as gay and to quit smoking. The NYT Book Review on the jacket fairly calls it "A delightful compilation of essays circling the theme of death and dying, with nods to the French countryside, art collecting, and feces."

I would reccommend.

Vanity Fair

There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing, and fiddling: there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks, (other quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR: not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy.

A lively and delicious read - rather like a practical and entertaining version of Machiavelli!