Used Books Blog

As I’ve mentioned before I like TV and am not one of those Kill Your Television type of bibliophiles. The other night I’m catching up on TiVo and watch the latest episode of Fringe, which has gotten progressively better, so tune back in if the first two or three episodes left you cold.

This episode, “Ability”, led the characters to a rare book store where we witness a customer selling a copy of Jonathan Carroll’s Land of Laughs. The appearance of Land of Laughs was an illuminating look at the influence literary fiction is having on TV writers. There’s no question this wasn’t a coincidence as Carroll is well known for his amazingly surreal novels which dovetails nicely with the general theme of Fringe.

I’ve read a good deal of Carroll including Land of Laughs, Sleeping in Flame and The Wooden Sea among others. I read all of them before starting this blog so they aren’t currently reviewed. I am reminded that I should do a retro review to highlight the eerie, quirky genius that is Jonathan Carroll. Seriously, go out and read one of his many books. You will not be disappointed.

This is the second time I’ve noticed a J.J. Abrams show paying homage to and telegraphing plot and themes via literary works. The first time was on Lost, when I noticed Benjamin Linus reading a copy of VALIS by Philip K. Dick. Anyone who read VALIS immediately understood that there was an element of time travel involved on the island.

Literature is the fuel for our entertainment, regardless of the final medium and channel. So a big thank you to J.J. Abrams for putting these great writers in front of a mass audience.

This is one of the stranger PostSecret submissions I’ve come across. If you aren’t familiar with the site, I encourage you to check it out. It’s thought-provoking and often heart-breaking. The secrets are sort of like mini-character sketches or micro-stories. I have to imagine it’s a treasure trove of ideas for a novelist!

This particular secret is odd and generates a lot of questions. What does this person do when they finish a bad book? Is eating the last page of a good book a symbolic way to somehow gain knowledge or power? Why the last page? Couldn’t you pick out your favorite passage?

One thing is for sure, don’t lend this person any of your books.

Foop! by Chris Genoa is an appealing science-fiction farce with healthy doses of amusing social commentary. I liked Foop! but wanted to like it more. All the ingredients were there, and it did taste good, but I couldn’t help but think that a dash more of this and a little less of that would have really made it a great read.

The story follows a rather overwhelmed and juvenile Joe, a time travel tour guide. We join Joe in crisis, having to step in for John Wilkes Booth and assassinate Abraham Lincoln. (I can’t help but think of Sarah Vowell right out of the gate and have to believe she’s read Foop!) It’s in these first few chapters that we’re introduced to how time travel works in Foop! and the ’shaved cat’ principle that ensures that any changes made in the past do not effect the future. Or do they?

The story pinballs, nay, ricochets from character to character and wacky, odd-ball scene to the next. There’s Joe’s macho yet tender boss Burk; Martini, an Eeyore-like needy co-worker; Ba Hubba Tree Bob, a new age religious leader; and Boogedy and Nibbles, a mute alien Laurel and Hardy team that stalk Joe throughout time. Genoa stitches these scenes together artfully, particularly since the plot isn’t exactly the cohesive force it could be in the novel.

The vaudeville like tone to Foop! is enjoyable and you can feel a Christopher Moore vibe going on. And perhaps it’s because Moore is so accomplished, or that Tim Scott was successful in doing something similar, that makes me want more from Foop! It’s like early Neal Stephenson, he knew how to start, but had problems really closing the deal. Because there are some deeper messages buried in Foop!, about how we live, about being connected to those around us, and about the general conduct of humans.

But there was too much of the crude Judd Apatow (Superbad, 40 Year Old Virgin) humor steeped in genitalia and bodily orifice jokes. Once in a while and it can be humorous. Frequent use makes me feel like I’m listening to a 14 year-old trying (and failing) to have adult conversation. In addition, the main character seemed a bit uneven, oscillating from spineless stunted geek to acerbic dominant bully.

So, at the end of the day I liked Foop! but hope that, like many first time authors, Chris Genoa turns out an even better sophomore effort.

Outrageous Fortune by Tim Scott is a rare blend of action, humor, absurdity, science-fiction and personal insight. You know things are going to be interesting when the first word of Outrageous Fortune is ‘Fuckers’, uttered by main character, Johnny X67. He has every right to be pissed. His house has just been stolen. But that’s not even in the Top 10 of strange things that Johnny encounters in this non-stop adventure.

The world that Tim Scott creates is a fantastic collection of interesting ideas, vivid imagery and incisive social commentary. On top of that he’s laid out a riotous action plot coupled with interludes of penetrating observations. I knew I was hooked when he described a city that had been divided by music genres. Such a brilliant concept I’m green with envy!

The Classical section is high-brow and well maintained with sound ordinances and large signs that chide the noisy with large flashing ’shhhhh’ signs. In Jazz you have all sorts of strange free-form architecture but can’t be sure to get a decent pizza since they might be ‘experimenting’ with an ‘all olive’ phase. Or visit Compilation, the haven for those pale, boring souls who don’t have taste enough to identify with any one type of music. And stay away from Holiday Song, an area with perpetual snow and roaming, ho-ho-ho-ing Santas.

Scott takes readers on a fast-paced ride that reminds me of the movie After Hours and Brazil. It’s a desperate, funny, bizarre world where you (and the characters) are struggling to catch-up and digest what is going on. You don’t want to put the book down because you know something else is going to happen in the next few pages.

The only thing that distracted me was the mix of English and American phrases and places. Scott is English and that comes through unmistakably through his prose. However, the novel takes place in America in some sort of composite of Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Perhaps the cultural collision is intentional and part of the alternate reality Scott wants to create. I don’t know, but it jolted me out of the regular reading and flow of the story.

Amid the Monty Python meets Philip K. Dick prose are amazing reflections on relationships, religion, reality and happiness.

On relationships:

I watched her character shrink before me and I felt so helpless. The spirit I’d loved her for had turned into fear, so that she no longer thought she could cope with the world; was so scared of the thought of being on her own that she crushed the present, suffocating any joy from life, and turned everything into a battle for survival. I knew this was not right - not for us, not for people who had a house and food and friends. And the more she clung to me, the more we both drowned, sinking under an invisible sea of desperation.

On religion:

Now the emphasis was on seeking peace rather than clinging to spurious explanations for our existence - and once the focus moved toward peace, religion seemed to lose a lot of its hold over the masses. Religions never had been interested in peace that much, anyway.

On happiness:

What mattered was regaining who I was, because the pleasure of being alive is not pining for different lives, or different things, but just being.

For every talking elevator who tells bad jokes there is a literary gem. Tim Scott gives readers both sizzle and steak; swashbuckling science-opera and high-minded literature. Read Outrageous Fortune and then wait for Scott’s next novel.

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.

Zeroville by Steve Erickson is what I would describe as a mood novel. The narrative, plot, description, imagery, structure and dialog all combine to produce a certain vibe, they strike an emotional chord that produces a general mood. I hear this happens a lot when people listen to jazz. I’m not a big jazz fan myself, but I can relate and would include OK Computer by Radiohead, the theme to Six Feet Under and anything by Ride as music that elicits a very specific mood.

It’s rare that this happens with books in my opinion. Yes, there are some that have a theme, that set a specific tone that you might immerse yourself in, but it’s not the same. What I’m talking about is the ability to create and influence the reader’s mindset. It’s like the ink is tinged with some sort of pathogen that infects you through the fingertips. Thus, every word you read is seen through this filter that the author has instilled in your brain. (That actually sounds like an interesting science-fiction plot don’t you think?)

One of my favorite passages from Zeroville relates to this concept:

It’s like the first time I heard the second Pere Ubu album and throught it just blew completely, I thought anyone who liked it must be stupid and full of shit - and then for about a year it was practically the only album I listened to. It was the only album that made any sense at all. So why does that happen? The music hasn’t changed. The movie hasn’t changed. It’s still the same exact movie, but it’s like it sets something in motion, some understanding you didn’t know you could understand, it’s like a virus that had to get inside you and take hold and maybe you shrug it off - but when you don’t , it kills you in a way, not necessarily in a bad way because maybe it kills something that’s been holding you down or back, because when you hear a really really great record or see a really great movie, you feel alive in a way you didn’t before, everything looks different, like what they say when you’re in love or something - though I wouldn’t know - but everything is new and it gets into your dreams.

Zeroville follows Vikar Jerome as he lands in Hollywood in 1969. He’s easy to spot, what with the tattoo of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift on his shaved head. He’s prone to quick violence, particularly if you mistake Clift and Taylor for James Dean and Natalie Wood. Yes, Zeroville is about movies and if you’re even a little bit interested in movies it will make the story that much more fulfilling. Erickson often doesn’t come out and tell the reader what movie he’s referring to, encouraging you to piece together the reference.

Vikar’s love of movies leads him to work as an editor. That’s about the most ‘normal’ thing I can say about the plot, which pinballs from one strange situation to another, chopped up into over 400 ‘chapters’ that range in length from a word to a few pages. This is quintessential Erickson, weaving together the odd and bizarre into something that is entrancing. There are times when you may not fully understand what he’s driving at but it feels interesting and important.

In this city a person can hide from God for a long time.

He uses film as a metaphor for life, and editing as a mechanism to manipulate, or to make choices by showing the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ profile of an actor. I highly recommend Zeroville and any other Erickson for that matter. Simply be prepared to absorb the material on a different level and let the mood of his work take over.

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff is a condensed, fast-paced, insightful romp that walks the line between gritty literary realism and surreal science-fiction. I’ve been waiting for the next Ruff novel for quite a while and Bad Monkeys will hold me over until I get my next fix.

Bad Monkeys revolves around Jane Charlotte as she converses with a psychologist and explains how and why she’s now arrested for murder. The explanation is, as you’d expect from a Ruff novel, a whopper! Jane details two secret societies locked in a battle of good and evil.

She explains how, as a child rejected by her mother, she found herself in central California on the trail of a serial pedophile and murderer dubbed The Angel of Death. It’s here that she first encounters the ‘organization’ and uses an NC gun to fend off and kill the The Angel of Death. What’s an NC gun? Come now, it’s a gun that kills by Natural Causes. Quintessential, inventive Ruff!

As you may have realized, the topics covered by Ruff aren’t shallow or glitzy in an Elmore Leonard way. Like Set This House In Order, he’s dealing with serious issues that fracture the lives of people. Bad Monkeys covers some of the same ground as Set This House In Order, and nearly feels like a mash-up of that novel and Sewer, Gas & Electric.

But Ruff makes it different enough and keeps you guessing as to whether Jane is just a very troubled woman who’s built a fantastic and bizarre world as a coping mechanism, or if she’s on the level and is on the front lines in the war against evil. Just when you think you know which way it will go, that’s when the plot twist(s) make you doubt yourself.

I read Bad Monkeys in two round-trip BART rides. It’s a rather short novel, particularly for the usually Homeric Ruff. So part of me wishes he’d taken one more year and written another 200 pages to fully explore the fantastic framework he established. Another is happy that the next novel is that much closer.

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff is a good read and Fool On The Hill is required reading. Extra credit? The Matt Ruff home page.

Men and Cartoons is a collection of short stories from Jonathan Lethem, which ranges from science fiction to surrealism to literary works. Lethem’s imagination is on bold display and you can see links to his earlier works like Gun with Occasional Music or Amnesia Moon. Some of these stories seem more mature, more layered and more … eerie. Mind you, Lethem has always had an intriguing dark side to his work, but these stories seem just a shade darker than his others.

The abrupt Access Fantasy, strange Super Goat Man and surreal The Dystopianist stand out to me as the highlights to the collection. Though nearly all the stories, upon inspecting the contents, bring back some sort of emotion or mood. So while I likely would recommend Lethem’s other short story collection (The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye) before this, it’s a pleasure to see Lethem return to these quirky worlds instead of working within the realm of the pseudo-real. I loved Motherless Brooklyn and was luke warm on Fortress of Solitude. However, both were real life stories and for me, Lethem’s genius is still better expressed through science fiction and other surreal genres.

Jonathan Carroll’s Outside the Dog Museum is par for the course as Carroll goes. Having read many of his quirky, surreal, out-of-left-field titles, this one is thematically on point, but seems incomplete. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it - in all it’s odd eeriness and existentialism.