Used Books Blog

Brasyl by Ian McDonald is a bloated, confused novel that obscures an otherwise interesting story. Reading Brasyl was a struggle and I had to fight off the urge to put it down nearly every time I picked it up. The novel is composed of three different stories, one in the past, one in the present and one in the future. The plot revolves around the nature of the universe, or in this case the ‘multiverse’, and how these different stories converge and intersect.

I have never read Ian McDonald before and I’m not sure I will again. He’s received a lot of praise and some nice awards. I can only hope that his body of work that made it difficult for an editor to take a red pen to Brasyl. I’m not a writer (well I am, but I don’t get paid for it) nor an editor, nor an ivory tower literati. However, I think I can spot poor writing when I read it - and Brasyl has it in spades.

The warm humidity help and amplified smells; the fruity, blousy sickliness of the bougainvilleas that overhung the fundacao’s fighting yard, the rank smokiness of the oil from the lamps that defined the roda, the honey-salt sweetness of the sweat that ran down Marcelina’s upraised arm, the fecund, nurturing sourness of her armpit.

That’s but a sample of the overblown prose that litters the pages of Brasyl. McDonald can’t help but attach not one but (at least) two adjectives to every noun. More adjectives do not make better descriptions! McDonald does this repeatedly, not trusting the reader to use his or her imagination to fill in the blanks.

In addition, McDonald overuses native language. Again, it seems McDonald worked to put at least one native word per sentence. I’m not opposed to it as a rule, but in this instance it does little to enhance the story and makes it even more difficult to read. I know he’s trying to reach for Burgess or Gibson like dialects, but it simply never comes together.

McDonald also misses in his use of pop culture references. The mention of Mentos in Diet Coke is lame and far too ephemeral; the use of ‘alt dot’ is dated and misplaced; and the DJ competition scenes are unauthentic. Most of these are contained in the insipid, present day storyline that follows reality-programming producer Marcelina Hoffman.

The future storyline has some interesting elements, but they’re lost amid the prose and a flat romantic plot. Brasyl shines the most when in the past, following Father Luis Quinn and Dr. Robert Falcon into the Amazon. They are the most fully formed characters and their relationship is a strong point in the novel. It’s in this section that you get a (very) faint echo of the great Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

I can’t recommend Brasyl by Ian McDonald. It’s muddled, indulgent prose hides what might be an interesting story. Perhaps someone can comment on whether his earlier works merit reading.

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi covers a wide range of weighty topics without seeming to lose focus and never sounds preachy. The story follows Karim Amir, a teenager in middle-class suburban London, born to an English mother and Indian father. Karim’s coming of age story explores themes of family, love, sexuality and racism.

At under 300 pages it’s a wonder Kureishi is able to cover so much ground with so few words. It’s not that his writing isn’t incisive (it is!), it’s simply economical and efficient. A simple page or two and you can feel the suffocating boredom of Karim’s family life like dust trapped in stale sunlight. But before you have a chance to fully digest and process the scene you’re on to the next vignette.

Purposeful or not, the speed in which events occur mirror the accelerated development that takes place during those teenage years. The time when everything seems to happen at once. It dawns on you that your parents are people with their own foibles; you’re experimenting with sex; you gorge yourself on music as a proxy for self-identity; you fall in love or lust; and you begin to comprehend subtext, drafted into a new and messy adult reality.

The Buddha of Suburbia would be an above average novel if limited to just these ’standard’ story lines. Overlay the cultural and racial tension and The Buddha of Suburbia becomes unique. It is no longer a Catcher in the Rye variant (not a phony), but a layered period piece and social indictment with self-identity as the centering plot device; whether it is Karim’s struggle to find his place in the world; or generations of Indian immigrants grappling with native versus adoptive customs; or the definition of family relationships in modern society.

However, I never really ‘felt’ for Karim, though I understood and appreciated his motivations and actions. Karim seems somewhat disconnected and aloof, which may be how Kureishi is able to quickly navigate from one thematic element to the other. I wanted to feel more for Karim, but instead I felt for his situation. Objective empathy instead of visceral reaction.

This made The Buddha of Suburbia more entertaining and light, yet less penetrating. Despite this lack of emotional depth, I recommend reading Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole sticks with you long after you finish reading. I was initially turned off as I began reading since the ‘protagonist’, Ignatius J. Reilly, is somewhat unlikeable. In real life, you’d run the opposite direction from Ignatius - and fast! He’s an unkempt, ill-tempered moralist with a dim view of nearly everyone else in his rather large orbit.

I’d heard quite a bit about A Confederacy of Dunces. If you’re at all interested in literature you have likely heard the one about the Pulitzer Prize won by a dead man. Sure enough, A Confederacy of Dunces, written by Toole in the early sixties, won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 12 years after his suicide in 1969. Reading the foreword you learn that it was Toole’s mother, having tremendous faith in her son’s work, who made sure A Confederacy of Dunces saw the light of day.

Ignatius J. Reilly makes A Confederacy of Dunces unforgettable, though I could have done without the descriptions of his gas, flatulence and other ailments. As the centerpiece of the novel, Ignatius is an over-sized bowling ball that flattens everything in his path. Reilly is a self-serving sloth who can rationalize his way out of any situation, responsibility or principle. Toole uses Reilly to look critically at nearly all facets of life: family, sex, relationships, commerce, politics, education, race and class.

A Confederacy of Dunces also succeeds as a historical composition. Toole paints a very visceral portrait of New Orleans. It feels grimy and worn at the edges. It feels like there’s a burgeoning lower-middle class stuck between the past and the future. The characters and dialog are pitch perfect whether it’s the wealthy, quarrelsome couple who own a struggling clothing factory or Darlene, a simple young woman performing burlesque (poorly) in a French Quarter bar.

The story really begins when Ignatius is pushed into the work force to repay a debt that he incurred. Though he certainly doesn’t see it that way! Most memorable are the scenes at Levy Pants, where Ignatius finds a co-dependent doormat as a colleague and boss. It’s here that Ignatius is allowed to do the most damage. We’re treated to Ignatius whip-lashing back and forth between adoration and derision of both the owner and the poor working class. In particular, his ‘leadership’ of a worker’s riot and crippling forged missive to a business partner are astoundingly funny.

It’s tough not to think about Toole and whether this was a chronicle of his own inner struggle. He obviously had many opinions, sometimes conflicting in nature, which found voice in Ignatius. While the events are often humorous, it’s a black humor filled with sharp edges of anger, dissatisfaction and resentment.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole is a fascinating book because I seem to like it more and more upon reflection. That’s high praise for any work of art. So, in this case you can believe the hype.

The Last Juror by John Grisham is awful. Seriously, can I get those hours of my life back? The master of the legal mystery delivers a weak attempt at high-minded Southern literature and ignores all elements of a good suspense novel.

I understand that, after cranking out a number of paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter like novels, Grisham might want to try his hand at something different. I get that. But don’t tell me it’s going to be one thing and then deliver another. Here’s the final line from the back jacket of The Last Juror:

Because as the ghosts of the South’s past gather around Willie, as tension swirls around Clanton, men and women who served on a jury nine years ago are starting to die one by one - as a killer exacts the ultimate revenge …

Sounds exciting doesn’t it? And if that’s really what The Last Juror was about then it could have been a nice, quick read in between more powerful material. I usually rely on a so-bad-it’s-good Stuart Woods novel, but the Stone Barrington series has gotten so bad it’s … well … bad.

Unfortunately, The Last Juror is boring and has little or no intrigue. I kept reading, thinking to myself, it has to get interesting at some point, doesn’t it? Instead the reader is treated to Grisham’s portrait of the South, of small town America dealing with racism and corruption, coupled with a worn out coming of age story. The vengeful killer is an afterthought and, worse, there is no satisfying payoff at the end of the story.

Make no mistake, Grisham is gifted at telling a certain type of story, one that is strong on plot and revolves around the law. However, he fails when the novel is driven by character development and hinges on description and style.

I recommend you avoid The Last Juror by John Grisham and read your voter’s guide pamphlet instead.

Everyman by Philip Roth is a short but satisfying chronicle of a life lived unapologetically. The majority of the novel, or perhaps it’s better classified as a novella, revolves around the ‘golden’ years of a man who has dealt with the specter of death through a series of hospitalizations. The beauty of Everyman is the engrossing delivery of such ordinary material. Roth is a gifted storyteller, and using his nameless character, he allows readers to empathize and relate to this “everyman.”

Everyman is about death, lust, love, family, frailty and human nature. These aren’t new themes for Roth or for the world at large. What is different is the pace and structure that Roth builds into Everyman. There isn’t a deeply rich exploration of family or vivid descriptions of modern America. Everyman starts out with the main character’s funeral. So the rest of the story unfolds almost like a Six Feet Under type of eulogy.

To me, it feels like an extended version of the ‘my life flashed before my eyes’ type of scenario. In those harrowing moments before death you relive your life in flashes, a dreamlike meta state that has no time boundaries. So, we do visit the hero in his youth and learn about his father. We see the bonding moments he’s had with his brother, how he met and fell in love with his wife and his affairs and human failings. They’re just vivid snapshots, life’s highlights, that have the most meaning and impact.

Roth creates a great amount of empathy for both the main character and those with which he interacts. It’s a literary feat that he’s able to create a clear portrait with such a brevity of words. Using the everyman device, he’s able to connect with the reader quickly and pinpoint those uncomfortable and messy areas of life that we all encounter. This is Roth at his finest, revealing the intricacies of relationships and the heartfelt turmoil that is part of everyday life.

The main character is not the quintessential everyman, since he’s colored with Roth’s unique perspective. In particular, the introspective ability to analyze and to forgive poor decisions, chalking them up to being human. There are no apologies, only the tacit knowledge that he’s screwed up from time to time, that it wasn’t optimal, but it was what happened and that … is that.

Everyman is also interesting as it pertains to longevity and medicine. Living longer due to medical advances is a double-edged sword in many respects. You get more time to experience the world and people around you, but what happens when some of those people die and parts of the world aren’t available to you anymore? Is longevity for it’s own sake worthwhile? I find these themes increasingly relevant as I (and my peers) get older.

Philip Roth has once again demonstrated why he’s one of America’s best modern writers.

Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen is a fantastic mix of literary fiction and mystery. Superbly drawn characters, psychological punch and vivid descriptions are mixed with an intriguing mystery that revolves around the cause of a swarm of earthquakes in the Boston area. Strong Motion is the Jonathan Franzen version of Erin Brockovich. In it, he deftly and intelligently deals with issues of abortion and corporate malfeasance, while retaining the introspective flow of his dynamic characters and their intense interactions.

The novel follows Louis Holland as he deals with a dysfunctional family, middling career and conflicting love interests. Earthquakes are what set this story in motion. They kill his grandmother and bring Renee Seitchek, a seismologist, into his orbit. The paths of many characters get tangled up and converge seamlessly as they delve into his grandmother’s inheritance, which is composed of stock in a industrial chemical company.

This type of convergence-plot seems in vogue recently and it doesn’t always work. It often feels forced, and you can imagine the author struggling to find ways to unify the various plot lines and characters. The links are sometimes tenuous and there are instances when you simply must employ a suspension of disbelief to make reading enjoyable. That isn’t a problem with Franzen’s Strong Motion. The intersecting plot lines make complete sense and bring natural order to the story.

I have a habit of turning down the corner of a page that has a particular passage that I found extraordinary. Sometimes I’ll review them later and not quite know what I found so compelling, but it’s easy to understand my many markers in Strong Motion.

The hum of the fan in the window was the sound of unhappiness in its rotary progress, always developing and yet always the same, a sound that marked every second of the minutes and hours in which improvement was failing to occur.

Obviously, no one had been eager to be personally crushed by falling timbers or to see their possessions go up in flames, but for a few days in the spring Nature had toyed with the city’s expectations, and people had rapidly developed covert appetites for televised images of bodies under sheets of polyethylene, for the carnival-ride sensation of being tossed around the living room, for a Californian experience, for major numbers.

If you get your life in balance with your death, you stop panicking. Life stops being just the status quo that you hope won’t end for a long time.

If you haven’t already figured it out, Franzen likes long sentences and has a penchant for beautifully describing discontent and those things that we rarely admit to ourselves. Strong Motion is a more raw, blunt version of Franzen’s acclaimed The Corrections, which makes it different, not better or worse.

The one area where Franzen seems one-dimensional is sex. The sexual interactions between characters are confrontational and often mixed with violence. I don’t doubt that this is part of the broad spectrum of sexuality, but it seems a bit one note and distracting at times. I think it’s a red flag if I’m wondering whether Franzen just has some horrible sexual past he’s trying to work out on the page or if he’s trying to make a point through or about sexual intimacy.

I’m being hard on Franzen, but only because there’s nothing else to pick on. Strong Motion is that good. Franzen delivers gripping personal portrayals, frightening human insight as well as a taut and well plotted mystery. I highly recommend Strong Motion, for fans of The Corrections or those new to Franzen’s work.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami is another solid effort by one of the best modern writers on the planet. Sure, it’s not as absorbing and gripping as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or as eerie and complete as Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World. But that’s a massive pedigree to live up to, the former a taut, rich and uncomfortable story similar to David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten, while the latter (one of my favorite books of all time) an amazing mix of surrealism and science fiction.

Kafka on the Shore seems to borrow from both of these former works; from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the exploration of dark themes and revealing personal histories; from Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, the surreal and a convergence of dream and reality. This isn’t a rehash though, it’s a fresh story and perspective. This time it feels more like a collage, with different ideas, images, people and perspectives stitched together in an almost poem like format.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a typical narrative style fiction novel told from three distinct perspectives, a 15-year-old runaway, an elderly dullard and an aimless truck driver. The characters start from very different places and at first it’s not altogether clear how they’ll cross paths. Thankfully, Murakami surprises the reader - or at least this reader - and doesn’t follow a paint-by-numbers plot.

I am immediately drawn to the story when it turns out that the elderly dullard has a talent for speaking to cats. I’ve always liked cats and, as a kid, loved the idea of them talking and doing all sorts of mysterious things. What if my cats could talk to me?! What would they say? What would they sound like? At 7-years-old I pestered my parents to see The Cat from Outer Space. What can I say? I was 7.

That’s the strange thing about Kafka on the Shore. It mixes and matches style and pace. The beginning is more like an X-Files episode trying to determine the cause of unexplained phenomena, full of recollections, eyewitnesses and official interview passages. There is a horror-like vignette, like a dash of salt, added to the narrative as well. Yet there are soul searching passages of personal revelation, poignant philosophical musings, some Greek mythology, a hearty dose of sex and sly barbs at our diminishing grip on culture.

It’s tough not to fall for Murakami when he rattles off some truly gorgeous prose.

Just by looking at that happy smile, you can trace the beautiful path that a contented heart must follow. Like a firefly’s glow that persists long after it’s disappeared into the darkness.

Kafka on the Shore is about how to keep that glow alive once it’s disappeared into the darkness and the everyday, meaningless tragedies that make it difficult to do so. Not for those with delicate constitutions, or for those who want things to be neat and tidy, fully explained and mapped out. The rest of you should pick up Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and enjoy the journey.

Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick is absorbing, interesting but somewhat academic and dry at the same time. The story follows Rose Meadows, an orphan who winds up working for and living with the Mitwissers. Set in the 1930s, the Mitwissers flee Germany, find their way to New York and survive solely on the generosity of a bitter and capricious heir to a popular children’s book franchise.

There’s a lot to like in Heir to the Glimmering World. Ozick captures time and place perfectly, richly describing upstate New York and the Bronx in the run-up to World War II. In addition, the relationships between Rose and her emotionally crippled father, family friend Bertram, and Professor Rudolf Mitwisser are finely crafted, revealing a central father-daughter theme that runs throughout the novel.

Heir to the Glimmering World is about damaged and flawed individuals looking to find their place in a tumultuous world. The character portraits are as interesting as they are diverse: a son who’s only connection to his father was as the source of his books; a strident communist who’s changed her name to Ninel (Lenin spelled backwards); a cynical, gambling single father who resents the yoke of his daughter; a once shining academic star mentally broken by losing her country and profession; and an obsessed academic who hides from his family through his research.

Yet, the plot is rather aimless, and there’s no central conflict to resolve. This natural storytelling element seems to be lost in Heir to the Glimmering World. I’m not wedded to the traditional, but I am looking to connect with the story on both a intellectual and emotional level. So while the relationships that Ozick paints are intense, I don’t feel them in my gut, only in my head. They’re well documented and put on display like a butterfly collection.

For whatever reason, I felt a distance from the characters and actions in the novel. Instead of being sucked into the story, I was analyzing the story. Worth reading, Heir to the Glimmering World is thought-provoking … it just didn’t touch me.

Company by Max Barry was, to be direct, not very good. I had high hopes for Company, coming on the heels of Barry’s very interesting Jennifer Government. Unfortunately, Company has all the snappy dialog and cheeky humor but falls short on nearly every other front. My copy of Company has the image of a glazed donut on the cover, which I find an apt metaphor: sweet sugary exterior with nothing but airy dough on the inside. Oh, and there’s a hole in the middle and it’s not at all nutritious.

Barry’s aim is to explore and poke fun at large corporate business culture and their reliance on Six Sigma, KPI, TQM and other management techniques. Trust me, I’ve experienced some of these corporate torture devices and they are absolutely inane. Thing is, others have been down this road, most notably Douglas Coupland in Generation X. While not the direct assault that Barry is looking to deliver, Coupland winds up capturing the soul-sucking combination of boredom and stress far better than Barry.

In Company, Stephen Jones, a recent business graduate, joins Zephyr Holdings, the antithesis of a toxic corporate culture. His co-workers are a pale Glengarry Glen Ross and Office Space amalgamation who have no real idea what the company does or sells. There are some clever bureaucratic gags, anecdotes and insights, but not enough to offset the stale setting and hollow characters. In particular, Eve Jantiss, the model-like, amoral love interest comes off more like a caricature of a junior high version of a corporate fantasy girl.

Perhaps he’s too far removed from his days at Hewlett Packard, or there’s a cultural difference or time-zone like delay on this type of corporate satire. Whatever the reason, Max Barry’s Company is an easy read but, like a donut, you’ll search for something else to fill you up the minute you’re done.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is a dense, sprawling epic that successfully marries a unique family experience with Greek and American history. The story follows the Stephanides family from a small town in Greece to Detroit and finally suburban Grosse Pointe. The impetus for this trip back in time is a gender identity struggle by Calliope Stephanides. In other words, why exactly is Calliope a hermaphrodite?

Yes, the central subject matter of Middlesex is the incestuous relationships that cause a recessive gene to bubble up to the surface. So if you’re uncomfortable with sexuality, incest or hermaphrodites you may want to pass on Middlesex. However, that would be your loss because Eugenides does a brilliant job of making these topics accessible and relevant. I’m not the only one who thinks so, the Pulitzer Board thought so too.

The story starts out with an exploration of Greek history and a frightening look at the destruction of Smyrna in 1922. I’m always impressed when a writer makes me uncomfortable. And there are passages in this section of Middlesex that made me wince, to think and to appreciate what I have.

Desdemona and Lefty, a brother and sister, escape Smyrna and make their way to Detroit. Through Desdemona and Lefty we are immersed in a number of detailed and evocative vignettes that range from the conditions of the Ford automotive plant, to rum-running, to a nascent ‘Nation of Islam’ sect to the race riots of 1967. If there’s one flaw to Middlesex it’s the sometimes tenuous relationships that string these scenic detours together.

By this time you’re wondering when exactly you’re going to learn about Calliope. (A subconscious backseat ‘are we there yet?’ whine.) It’s a very clever device to keep the reader moving forward in the family history. In discussing Middlesex with others, it seems many had problems with this structure. They just “couldn’t get past the first 100 pages” or found it “too slow.” I say, stop to smell the roses! These sections, though disconnected from the plot, are pitch perfect. Say no to instant gratification and just enjoy the top notch writing.

Sure enough, the next generation is introduced and we then ride along with Calliope’s parents, Milton and Tessie. It’s here that the novel shifts away from history and more toward interpersonal drama. The writing is too detailed and descriptive to ever devolve into a soap opera, but all the ingredients are there. We also begin to delve into Calliope’s formative years which finally culminates in an intense relationship with a redheaded female classmate dubbed the Obscure Object.

Then, finally, the payoff. Eugenides chronicles the awakening, struggle and journey of Calliope into adulthood. There’s no doubt that this part of the novel is compelling and gives Middlesex something other similar novels lack. Certainly you’ll remember this theme, but it’s what surrounds it that really has a lasting impact: the struggle for identity, the complex nature of family, the random events that bring about change in a person’s life.

One of my favorite books of 2007, I highly recommend Middlesex.