BY THE BOOK

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) — It’s Halloween, and Anne Rice has a new book — a memoir, in fact — that’s climbing best-seller lists. Everything is normal, then.

Normal if it were 1994 — the height of Rice’s megaselling fame as a queen of Southern Gothic pulp.

For those who haven’t been paying attention lately to vampire lit, America’s most famous chronicler of bloodsuckers doesn’t live in New Orleans anymore — and hasn’t since before Hurricane Katrina hit — and she’s riding new waves of enthusiasm: the memoir and Christian lit.

Her memoir, “Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession,” is the latest piece of evidence that Rice is reinventing herself in an attempt to build a reputation as a serious Christian writer.

In the memoir, the 67-year-old writer doesn’t disavow the two decades she spent churning out books on vampires, demons and witches — with a batch of S&M erotica thrown in — following the breakout success of her first novel in 1976, “Interview With the Vampire.”

But she’s clearly moved on.

In a telephone interview from her mountain home in Rancho Mirage, California, Rice laid out her goal:

“To be able to take the tools, the apprenticeship, whatever I learned from being a vampire writer, or whatever I was — to be able to take those tools now and put them in the service of God is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful opportunity,” she said. “And I hope I can redeem myself in that way. I hope that the Lord will accept the books I am writing now.”

The memoir follows the release of two books in a planned four-part, first-person chronicle of the life of Jesus.

And in this new 245-page memoir, Rice presents her former life as vampire writer as that of a soul-searching wanderer in the deserts of atheism; as someone akin to her most famous literary creations — Lestat, her “dark search engine,” Louis the aristocrat-turned-vampire and Egyptian Queen Akasha, “the mother of all vampires.”

“I do think that those dark books were always talking about religion in their own way. They were talking about the grief for a lost faith,” she said.

In 2002, Rice broke away completely from atheism — nearly four decades after she gave up her Roman Catholic faith as the 1960s started. It happened when she went off to college and found her peers talking about existentialism — Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre. Religion, she writes, was too restrictive to the young Rice. Too out of step.

Yet, religion had to come back into her life, she writes. For her, it was something she’d have to face up to again like an absent parent or a long-lost love child or Banquo the ghost in “Macbeth.”

By the late 1990s, when she went back to Mass, Rice — the author whose books sold in the tens of millions and who had recharged Hollywood’s appetite for vampire-inspired horror — had fallen on hard times.

Her husband, poet and artist Stan Rice, died of a brain tumor in 2002. And she had become victim to diabetes.

Always over-the-top and beyond the rational, she writes that her return of faith was preceded by a series of epiphanies — many while on travels to Europe’s cathedrals, Israel and Brazil. In one episode, when she visited the giant Jesus statue above Rio de Janeiro, she writes that she felt “delirium” as the clouds broke and revealed the statue.

Her professed revelations recall the religious intoxication she describes of her childhood.

When she was 12, she had her father turn a room on the back porch of the family’s Uptown home in New Orleans into an oratory modeled after St. Rose of Lima — the saint Catholics believe turned roses into floating crosses. She wanted to be a saint, she writes.

In the memoir, Rice describes a familiar Catholic upbringing imbued with opulence and mystery. The incense. The statuary. The stained glass. The darkness. She learned the world, she writes, through her senses, through a “preliterate” understanding of the world. She writes that she possessed “an internal gallery of pictorial images” that, lamentably, was replaced “by the alphabetic letters” she learned later.

“You might call it the Mozart effect, but it was the Catholic effect on me,” she said.

In a sense, the memoir also is a confessional about her struggle as a writer to be a reader, a thinker and an author with a distinct literary style. Her stories often are reveries with no end in sight — and all too often ugly with pedantic unwinding, numbing in detail and overly simplistic, a pastiche of cliches.

Her turn in direction — from vampire fiction to Christian musings — still isn’t winning the critics over.

In The New York Times, Christopher Buckley slammed Rice’s memoir as “a crashing, mind-numbing bore. This is the literary equivalent of waterboarding.”

And the bar is high when it comes to writing about Jesus.

“The best may be Nikos Kazantzakis’ ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,’ ” said Jason Berry, a novelist and journalist who has written extensively on the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal. “But also (G.K.) Chesterton, Norman Mailer. … A lot of narrative artists in both literature and film have taken on Jesus, so to speak.”

Rice isn’t out to impress the critics, though.

“My objective is simple: It’s to write books about our Lord living on Earth that make him real to people who don’t believe in him; or people who have never really tried to believe in him,” she said.

She pressed the point: “I mean, I’ve made vampires believable to grown women. Now, if I can do that, I can make our Lord Jesus Christ believable to people who’ve never believed in him. I hope and pray.”

For her devotees, whatever she writes invariably goes down like a smooth bloodbath, that favorite Goth beverage sometimes made with raspberry liqueur, red wine and cranberry juice.

“There are so many people dedicated to her. They want her to write more vampire books,” said Marta Acosta, author of the popular “Casa Dracula” series, a “comedy of manners” that plays on vampire themes. She also runs the Vampire Wire, a book blog for fans of gore and the undead.

As for her, Acosta couldn’t care less if Rice sinks back into the vampire vein.

“People think it’s sexual, but it’s not. It’s suppressed stuff. Southern Gothic,” Acosta said. “How many centuries is Louis (played by Brad Pitt in the movie ‘Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles’) going to whine?”

Never again, it seems.

Rice is busy writing about Jesus as a minister. And that’s a tall order, Rice said.

————-

Yeah, hell of a minister.  What happened to Merrick though Rice?  You don’t want to know the real Dracula Anne, trust me on that.  Too hot for your butter cakes, I can assure.

clay.

p.s.  caught you at the virgin store in times square when i visited n.y…. you looked happy from up there.  i didn’t have my snipper rifle with me so you needn’t have worried.

We are certainly onto something here with Henry James, below this review you’ll see James’ Washington Square and The Bostonians, and there seems to be no reason that we shouldn’t keep with this “Jamesmania” for the present.  The Portrait of a Lady is James’ in ‘full flower’ I’d say, a much more expansive view of a James world than I have yet seen from this undaunted and scintillatingly talented writer.  Here for the first time I find a James applying the full script to his passions, allowing his characters full form and vigor in a truly large and complex world.

Like many of James’ works the story of The Portrait of a Lady involves a Heroine, Isabel Archer a young American woman who is ‘rescued’ by her Aunt (Lydia Touchett) from a life less ordinary.  She is taken from American to Gardencourt in England to meet Lydia’s Husband Daniel Touchett, who is older and somewhat emaciated with death surrounding the ‘old fellow’ like a moth to a flame.  Here, at Gardencourt Isabel also meets the son of Lydia and Daniel, Ralph Touchett who idolizes his father and is rather taken with his young cousin.  Ralph is also a bit infirm as well with ailments that James goes to some length to identify.  Lydia as the Mother and Wife is shown to be something of a ‘traveller’ as she does seem to stay a distance from her husband and son.  It is into this world that Isabel begins to find a full flower of her as yet youthful positions and dreams.

Isabel is very much more intellectual in my opinion than his last few heroines in The Bostonians and Washington Square.  Here I feel that James isn’t going to any lengths to present Isabel as anything but herself.  Her beauty isn’t ‘amazing’ and she doesn’t have ‘powers’ of charm as does Verena Tarrent of The Bostonians.  No, Mrs Archer appears altogether more full than the earlier James women, more serious and less accommodating to her surroundings.  She actually isn’t much ‘fun’ for us as readers and it has been written by Noted Critic and James Historian Harold Bloom that: “The novel (The Portrait of a Lady) being James’ portrait of himself as a woman.  All to the good then as we are carried through some really interesting and verbose scenes with Isabel Archer and these cast of interesting characters.

As the trust of the novel takes shape Isabel is looked upon as someone really rather valuable to her surrounding admirers.  She is often spoken of in glowing terns and the book does really go into overdrive, as it were as we are shown a number of men or suitors who vie for Mrs. Archer’s hand in marriage.

There is a one Lord Warburton, a lord of an English Manner down the road from Gardencourt who takes an instant fascination to Isabel.  He goes to great lengths to present himself to her, yet Isabel is always seemingly out of his reach.

There is Casper Goodwood a wealthy and young American Mill Owner who follows Isabel to England to stake his claim, he a haunting presence in the book, as his love for Mrs. Archer is unrequited and unremitted as well.

Then and finally foremost is Isabel’s most likely to succeed in this area with the dark and somewhat sinister Gilbert Osmand, an American living in Florence with a young Daughter.  Isabel is introduced to Mr. Osmand by Madame Merle yet another Ex-Pat living in England with a long friendship with Mr. Osmand.  It is with Isabel’s meeting with Madame Merle where we really see the book take us into unexpected places.  Mrs. Merle is described as ‘brilliant’ and very talented indeed, yet she is also kindly dismissed by Mr. James rather completely and often as someone who ‘never made a success’ of her own dreams.  In other words her lofty pursuits were not met with success in life, still Mrs. Merle is known by a great many and is an iluminary to her vast circle of friends.

Madame Merle introduces Isabel to her old friend Gilbert Osmand, a reclusive and very intelligent soul who is really very biting, in fact.  Mr. Osmand would not be the first choice that would come to ones mind in the meeting of a young potential bride like Mrs. Archer.  His daughter, Pansy, is brought up far away from him in a Catholic Nunnery, as if her very presence were something of a trouble to this dark character, who paints and apparently enjoys the shadows.  This interesting relationship between Mr. Osmand and Mrs. Merle does come to light latter in the book as Madame Merle guides her new friend Isabel into wedlock with her exact opposite.

Further into the book I won’t stray, you will surely want to read the musings of Mr. James without the verbiage here to do this work any further credit.  The way James ended this book was a bit perplexing to me though, as there is not a clear break with Isabel and Mr. Osmand, I could quite see Mrs. Archer returning to her non-committal husband in Florence, after all she did choose him over a Lord and a Mill Owner of wealth, still James is probably not allowing us a clear cut away that another more say ‘ordinary scribes’ might.  No James is indeed very serious here, in that we not mistake his intentions.  Mrs. Archer is surely a ‘catch’ by anyone’s estimation, her ‘value’ seems to be most important to her and her friends do go along with that for some way.  Still as critic Bloom wrote that Isabel is James and vice versa, is a compelling statement, and perhaps good strategy on Mr. James’ part as he surely needed to vivify his way into these strange and mysterious “Womanly Waters”.  On a lighter note, Mr. James was indeed “Gay” as Wilde and his note are often tagged, so it was probably no problem for James to wear the ’skirt’ for a while, at least metaphorically.  This note and tone would surely only increase Mr. James’ fine and lasting words in this work.

I’m still somewhat puzzled by the James Cannon.  His words and thoughts do flow through me somewhat vibrantly, but I seem to have some trouble picking up upon his baser motives and attractions.  He doesn’t seem to actually ’speak’ to us now does he, and as a Master of the Craft, he surely has all the right not to.  Still, I’m not a student and will have to penetrate further into this very great and esteemed man of the past.

I’ve recently had an opportunity to peruse a few new Henry James books.  Only a few weeks ago did I review The Bostonians by Mr. James and found that book quite worth the reading.

In this newest book Washington Square however, there are not nearly as many pages as a ‘normal’ James work, somewhere around 120 pages or so.  I’d certainly put it in the Novella category.  Be that as it may Washington Square is nothing that will tax the ordinary reader, it’s intentions are rather clear and it goes about telling its story in a quick and intelligent manner.

I did however find that Washington Square lacked the lyrical language of The Bostonians, I often felt that this work felt like a younger less experienced James were at the helm.

The book itself concerns a Doctor, one Dr. Austin Sloper,  He’s a noted physician at about 55 or so when we meet him, he’s married a beautiful woman who gives him a son who soon after dies.  Heartbroken the couple have another child a girl who is rather simple and plain, her name is Catherine Sloper and she is the Heroine of our story.  A week after Catherine’s birth the doctor’s wife dies of complications due to childbirth.  Mr. James does explain this all very quickly, yet we do recognize a few trace elements of bitterness coming off the good doctor throughout our little novel here.  Indeed he does once say to Catherine later in the book that he isn’t a ‘good’ man.  Which surprises Catherine who actually loves her father somewhat.  The crux of the matter is that Dr Sloper doesn’t think very much of his plain daughter.  He compares her to his beautiful wife who is long dead and Mr. James does go on about Dr. Sloper’s intelligence and humor at parties etc, so we see quite clearly that the doctors ambitions will not be realized by his remaining daughter who he actually considers to be something of a bore of all things.

Catherine for her part loves and admires her father and wants only what he wants.  She doesn’t quite see her father’s poor treatment of her in his pert and ironical manner.  One gets a sense that he does love her yet that he is often short and ironic and sarcastic when around her.  When a young man enters Catherine’s life, Morris Townsend, who at about thirty is described by Mr. James as a very beautiful young man.  Mr. Townsend is a ‘fortune hunter’ he has squandered his life savings on foolery and being ‘wild’ as he mentions, yet he is intelligent and does seem to have a real attraction for Catherine.  However, Dr. Sloper grows to despise the young man and forbids his daughter to marry him.  He suggests strongly that she will not receive his share of inheritance if she does.

This is the basic thrust of the book then, as Dr. Sloper grows increasingly against the young man who has his daughter’s intentions.  Catherine for her part is loath to do anything against her father and it is difficult for her to part with the attractive young man, even though he is a rake.  After all Catherine isn’t a pretty or lively girl in any way, as Mr. James so clearly reminds us any number of times.  This ‘poor’ girl as Mr. James writes of her, is really at a loss as what to do but then does indeed side with her lover in the end, after a long journey with her father throughout Europe….

Washington Square is a very spare book.  I can’t say that I actually enjoyed the story much.  Although I’ve read that many seem to take to this story of a Father’s bitterness towards his Daughter as good, I found it pretty bloodless actually.  The father does seem to be a real wet blanket for sure, he makes bones about protecting his daughter from the Rake Morris Townsend yet one does get the sense that he is only getting back at a life that took his beautiful wife and family from him, he is really rather mean in my estimation.  The doctor doesn’t seem to care much about his daughter’s happiness at all, and as the book ends one sees that Catherine really has become a bit as her father envisioned her.  She looks back on the business with Mr. Townsend with a bit of unhappiness for sure, as she must often wonder what could have been.  Yet it’s an ignoble end for her as Mr. Townsend does visit, much changed.

Mr. James is surely into some deep waters here, and his telling is well done but without the usual ‘James’ flair that I am used to.  I also read that Mr. James himself found this work rather beneath him and couldn’t even re-read it for inclusion into a special Addition of his work.  I must side with the Aurthur then that this one does feel a bit less spectacular and can be easily skipped over.  Not a bad novel to while away a rainy night but not one to clutch to in the bane of greater pursuits!

Absolution Gap is the final volume of Alastair Reynolds ‘Revelation Space’ series of novels.  We here at By The Book have reviewed all of them.

In this one Absolution Gap Mr. Reynolds begins us back to where the last book essentially left off on Ararat the Pattern Juggler World where the Lighthugger ‘Infinity’ (the ship had become Captain John Brannigan through the Melding Plague, if you remember) was crash landed into the Pattern Juggler Ocean.  It is here where we pick up on some old favorites of the series.  There is Scorpio, the genetically altered pig and leader of the colony, and we see that it has been over twenty years since the colonization.  He is in search of his friend, Nevil Clavain, the old war hero from the past who you may remember from the earlier books, he is now somewhat older and in seclusion upon the new settlement.  There is a pod that has landed nearby with someone in it… and fearful that it might be Skade, Scorpio enlists the now reclusive and weary Clavain to assist.

Turns out that it’s Khouri, Villanova’s assistant… she tells them that her baby (Aura) was stolen from her womb by Skade who crash landed on Ararat recently in the Pattern Juggler Ocean.  This baby, Aura apparently has helped the Conjoiners fashion new weapons to fight off the Inhibitors, deadly machines that are set on destroying sentient life throughout the Universe.

This is the general scheme of the book, Mr. Reynolds keeps things going at a pretty good pace at first.  Some of our ‘favorites’ from the first two books are killed but the book continues rather well after ‘offing’ some pretty powerful characters.  Of course the whole thing is about the danger of the Inhibitors, the cube like machines of intelligence that can destroy whole worlds and people.

Mr. Reynolds introduces us to a new world and setting upon our travels in the dangerous space.  Hela an airless moon of the gas giant Haldora.  There was an ancient and extinct alien race that once lived on Hela, called the Scutllers, and Mr. Reynolds really does a good job at weaving this story into the larger text.  By bringing in a Horris Quaiche, a scavenger of noted repute who has been forced to find something valuable upon the Hela landscape.  His shuttle crashes and he sees the gas giant Haldora disappear before his eyes.  Later as the book progresses we see that there has become a religion and society upon Hela and this is where Mr. Reynolds introduces us to Rashmika Els, a very precocious girl of one of the Hela Badland families.  In this side story she supposedly seeks out her brother who has joined the caravans of religion, that she disproves of.  She has also become something of an expert of Scuttler anatomy and wants desperately to join the caravans that must keep moving so as not to miss a glimpse of the gas giant Haldora disappearing again.  In fact these adherents stare at Haldora constantly, and Quaiche, himself now old and infirm sits in a coach without eyelids and stares at Haldora exclusively…

There is lots going on as Mr. Reynolds shifts from the one story about Scorpio, Aura, Clavain and Skade to the one on Hela regarding the adventures of the mysterious Rashmika Els.  I was pretty hopeful about the character of Quaiche actually, I did find him rather refreshing as he went into the Hela world to explore for riches.  I was waiting to return to his story, but then realized that much time had passed as Mr. Reynolds did go on about the Quaicheist Religion, and then suddenly after some odd pages we are faced with an old skeleton, Quaiche himself, quietly mad apparently, still he did seem a bit more commanding at the first and in my mind very interesting… I was thinking along the lines of a new male character… I didn’t realize that this was the last book of the Revelation Series.  Still, it’s not unlikely that Mr. Reynolds won’t start on a new Revelation Space tack sooner than later.  I would encourage him in that endeavour, I didn’t care for the epilogue, however, and felt that he should have simply left the Inhibitors as unmatched instead of explaining them a bit too simply in my opinion.

This is essential reading, however, if you are in any way interested in Mr. Reynolds work.

Absolution Gap is a fitting summery to his Revelation Space books, we can only wait until the wheels spin again for Mr. Reynolds as we surmise his worlds and imagination with eager if not hopeful steps.

Let’s continue now upon our Reading Adventures with Mrs. Stephenie Meyer’s The Host. I’m not one who often reads very popular fiction, and The Host graced any number of best seller lists for quite a long time if I remember. The Host is something of a yearning for a return to Romance, actually, and although it has a Science Fiction Plotline, it somewhat succeeds in this endeavor. I can almost assure you that 90% of Mrs. Meyer’s readers are women. There is a very sensitive side to The Host and Mrs. Meyer is fairly instinctive to her surroundings here.

The Story of The Host can be summed up rather easily. The book begins with a young woman being chased and then falls down an elevator shaft and apparently is dead, except that her pursuers are Aliens from another creation entirely separate from our Earth. These are advanced beings who implant themselves within the living bodies of their “Hosts”, thusly becoming them. And this is exactly what happens to young Melanie “Mel” Stryder, whose body is cured by a ‘Healer’ of the Alien race then implanted with the Alien Creature.

After this occurs the young woman who was implanted in Melanie’s body goes about her new life with her new consciousness and body. What is clear, however, is that ‘The Hosts’ have already taken over the entire planet with just about everyone, that was once ‘Human’ now of this Alien Sustenance. The Aliens are really rather more relaxed about things then we are, they abhor violence, and even money itself isn’t exchanged anymore for goods and services. It is into this new world that the young alien woman in Melanie’s body traverses. It becomes quite clear at the outset, however that Melanie is still somehow just under the surface of the host that has taken her over, and there is much trouble as the voice of Melanie is vibrant and rather obsessive to this host within her. There is also a backstory at this time about Melanie’s love for a young man, Jared and her young brother Jamie. The host of Melanie is really rather well meaning and finds it hard to live with Melanie, and she even finds herself loving Jared the young man herself.

It is with this backdrop that the new Melanie tries to come to grips with her new body and spirit. She is actually hounded a bit by a Seeker, one who is more on the law and order side of things amongst the aliens. The Seeker is pretty strongly portrayed as snide and unruly with a single minded devotion to her duties, and she does belittle and frighten the Host in Melanie. The host as Melanie decides that she needs further guidance and considers leaving Melanie’s body for another body. It is then that she travels by car across the desert. Where she finds that she is more attached to Melanie than she first suspected. They travel to find Jared and Jamie and go deep into the Arizona desert to find them. They nearly die but are rescued by a Rag-Tag assembly of surviving humans, Uncle Jeb is in fact Melanie’s old Uncle.

Jared and Jamie are actually among these but Jared hates Melanie very much because he sees that she is an alien now. The other survivors of humanity also hate her and the book goes into some pretty intense detail about the fears of the young alien inside of Melanie. She is hit quite a lot by Jared and others of the tribe, but survives pretty much intact. It’s sad in my opinion that these young men were able to so manhandle this woman, alien or not. I did long for some muscle from real men at this time, simply because a lady is a lady. Yet Melanie and the host within her still love Jared and she gains some friends within the caved compound. Her brother Jamie loves her regardless and another named Ian who was at first as hateful as many of the rest do come to love her quite a bit.

The romantic play between these characters is handled rather clearly, and here Mrs. Meyers does have a pretty good way of bringing out her characters. I did grow weary of the host in Melanie always in fear of being killed by the ‘humans’ in the cave, and wish these long drawn out sequences could have somehow been shortened. Still it’s an effective story told with a certain flair. This isn’t ‘deep’ reading but reading which you won’t be too upset about. It gives one pause to think of future books by Mrs. Meyer, she could soar someday as a writer and here’s hoping she succeeds.

 

Now we continue with our further explorations of Haruki Murakami’s work. Our last two reviews of Mr. Murakami, you may wish to read as well (Sputnik Sweetheart and A Wild Sheep Chase).

In this one Mr. Murakami often enters the Fantasy area of fiction, interspersing an unusual mix of real life characters with an alternate fantasy world. The main character of Hard Boiled is known as a “Calcutec” which means that he is basically a human number cruncher who is able to decipher complex binary codes and such within his own scull. He’s another of Mr. Murakami’s male ’stock’ main characters. He lives in a small apartment, is divorced and is about 35 or so. He’s disconnected from life in general and basically lives a lonely existence with only himself to concern himself with. As a Calcutec the unnamed narrator works for a group called “The System” an underground organization that protects important data from “The Semiotecs” who steal such data for their own ends. There is no James Bondish touches to Mr. Murakami, however! His touch is unusual to say the least as a Murakami work is not easily defined under normal circumstances.

I was pretty well surprised to find Mr. Murakami in this fantasy area, all his works that I’ve read so far, are firmly steeped in the everyday existences of life itself, but here Mr. Murakami does enter into some science fiction elements. The outcome is ‘interesting’ to say the least.

To continue with the story, however, the narrator meets with an aged scientist and his young charge, a fat teenaged girl (17), who wears only pink and is the Granddaughter of the scientist. The meeting takes place at first in a high security building in Tokyo, where after much delay; the narrator is whisked into a closet of an office and is made to wear a rain slicker. Suddenly the closet opens up and there is a subterranean world just underneath, with a river, trees and the scientist’s laboratory under a waterfall. Not what you’d expect in a Tokyo Skyscraper. It is while meeting the scientist that our hero, the narrator and Calcutec, is to perform his data encryptions for the professor. The professor himself is eccentric to say the least, he has important data concerning the state of sound, and can indeed seemingly ‘take sound away’ with his devices. He is much older and a ‘go-getter’ type of elder gentleman, with much energy throughout the tale.

The narrator with this meeting is told that he must return in a few days with the important data of ‘the world will end’. And so it goes, I won’t say too much more, but quite a few things do occur to the narrator in the actual life sections of the book.

The other part of the book is the narrator in a fantasy land called, The End Of The World, which turns out to be a creation of the narrator himself, it’s an odd world where there is a wall containing the entire population. There are Unicorns and the narrator becomes a “Dreamreader” in this fictional land, by reading the ‘memories’ of the sculls of dead Unicorns in the Library of the town itself. There is much about “Shadows” that are separated from the inhabitants of the town causing them to be trapped there forever. It’s an ‘afterlife’ of sorts, if you will, but no one will be mistaking this man’s afterlife with Heaven, say. It’s really rather dreary really.

The book is an honest attempt at fantasy but here, for the first time I feel that Mr. Murakami has ’stepped’ into an area where he may not have been altogether there. My main trouble with this present Murakami work is with the narrator, he’s just not that interesting to me personally, he goes about life with a large chip on his shoulder but pretends to be a bit too humble in my estimations. We’ve seen this man a bit too much in Mr. Murakami’s books, and unfortunately in this one, the book itself doesn’t rise to the occasion as in other Murakami works. Again Mr. Murakami’s female characters, are always somewhat more interesting than his male characters. The scientist, I found to be dull… his nonsensical approach lost me almost at the get go, he seemed to be a bit too jocular for the ‘concerns’ of a tactician.

I can’t recommend that you read this work by Mr. Murakami, in fact you may be assured that you can skip it if you are aware of Mr. Murakami’s other fine and lasting works. In this one the pieces just don’t fit for us as readers. So it is regretful that I must vote thumbs down upon this one.

Most of us know of Mr. Kafka’s work by way of The Metamorphosis, which has become required reading in High School classes. I’m one of those who found the Metamorphosis rather inventive and highly exceptional, so it was with no little surprise that I did decide to pick up one of Mr. Kafka’s books, The Trial.

The Trial is just that a Trial of one Josef K, who as a respected bank official, is suddenly accused of a crime. Interestingly the crime itself is not revealed in any way and we never learn of the actual charges against Mr. K. The book is very strange indeed, and if you were expecting a straight forward ‘crime drama’ you will be disappointed, as Mr. Kafka isn’t interested in the facts, as it were but in the undercurrents and perceptions of the legal proceedings that ensnare the young bank official.

As Josef K looks further into his trial, we meet many very unusual and often singular characters from his life. His lawyer is a sickly fat man with a young girl as a servant that often has illusions of love and intimacy with the lawyer’s clients, including Mr. K. In fact the women in The Trial are often looked upon as really rather frivolous, yet somewhat real in that Mr. Kafka is a very intense writer of much imagination and depth.

The accused Josef K. proclaims his innocence often and most everyone does believe him, yet although he has supposedly committed a real crime, or is accused of one he is not arrested but hounded by the courts of the land itself, presumably Germany, Mr. Kafka’s home nation. Kafka’s scathing portrait of a twisted and insane legal system, that is ineffectual and inept is surely at the core of The Trial. There seems to be no way at all to resolve any crime at all, and the best one can hope for in the book is to go unnoticed by the legal officials who seem to go to great lengths not to exonerate anyone.

The main character Josef K. is very strong in thought and deed, he is straightforward in every sense and does seem to be his own worst enemy in these circumstances. He is certain of his every move and I think the reader may not be all that sympathetic to Mr. K, who does often appear to think perhaps a bit too highly of himself. Still he is a very well drawn character, and one would assume that he mirrors, Mr. Kafka himself a bit. Mr. Kafka, I was rather surprised to learn had a law degree! His demonstration here is complete abhorrence to the legal system, he clearly dismisses any semblance of honesty, grace or dignity to the profession. One is almost reminded of Orwell’s 1984 when reading The Trial, at times, Kafka’s Legal Eagles, are Vultures in a time with possible totalitarian tendencies. Was this Kafka’s purpose, to warn us of upcoming atrocities within the Law Offices and Justice Systems of the future, or is his The Trial to be looked upon as more whimsical then? I believe that that would depend upon the reader.

One doesn’t read Kafka, however with a shower of sunshine upon the shoulder, however. The Trial is surely a book that will keep you wondering at the intricacies and talents of this singular man who does still tend to enliven and enrich our reading pleasures.

 

Let us now turn our attention to The Bostonians by Henry James. I must admit that I’d never read anything by Mr. James before, but his reputation has, of course proceeded him. So it was with some interest that while I was shopping for other books, that I decided upon The Bostonians. I usually try to start at the beginning of a writer’s career but with Mr. James there are quite a few books and I just felt that I finally needed to ‘pick one up’ as it were.

A quick perusal of its back cover told me that it would be about the so called ‘Woman’s Movement’, the Woman’s Suffrage Movement. There are three main characters, Olive Chancellor, a stalwart of the Movement who is wealthy, cultured and attractive. She is very single minded in her pursuit of a woman’s dignity during a time of much turbulence amongst the sexes. Olive is really nearly sexless as described by the very lyrical text as Mr. James describes her. Indeed, she has no need of a man at all and looks at the ‘Species’ as something less than savory and/or necessary, and although mannerly and strict to men, in general, the tone of the book leads the reader to understand that Olive despises Man most completely.

Into Mrs. Chancellor’s life comes the other adult member of the novel, one Basil Ransom, a Civil War Veteran, who has moved to Boston for a time to enliven his prospects, he is a very distant cousin to Olive and when they meet, at the very beginning of the novel, Olive takes him to one of her ‘ladies meetings’. Mr. Ransom is a staunch Conservative of the Old School, he has no feelings whatsoever for the rights of women, in general, and would indeed prefer that they cater to men as they have and had done so in this very early time in American history. Mr. Ransom is charming to be sure, at times one would think of Rhett Butler, from Gone With The Wind, at times while Mr. Ransom makes himself agreeable to the women of The Bostonians. Olive’s older sister Mrs. Luna, who is much older even falls in love with him, all to her own consternation as he sours upon her and vice versa. While at the Woman’s Suffrage meeting continues at a wealthy and well to do feminist of the time, the third member of our little party speaks to the assembled, the Pretty and Talented, Verena Tarrant.

Mrs. Tarrant, is terribly young but remarkably brilliant in speech and manner, and she wow’s, for lack of better terminology, the assembled guests, no so more than Olive and Mr. Ransom, who although cutting and disagreeable to the woman’s movement, makes a standoff appearance mostly while this is all going on. Mrs. Tarrant is unformed and the interplay that develops between her and Olive is at the core of the book. Each of Verena’s talks at various parlors and houses of the time is treated to glowing notices by Mr. James, he doesn’t go so far as letting us know what she is saying only the reactions of the surrounding listeners, especially Olive and Mr. Ransom who for himself disagrees with everything she has said, yet seems to find her very presence illuminating. Olive for her part is in a Rapture of love for Verena and after this first encounter spends some pages of the book securing Verena, from her parents into her very own home. She literally pays off Verena’s parents for their daughter, and in the book, Mrs. Chancellor is very cold to these two. In fact Mrs. Chancellor is dismissive of just about everyone in her space preferring her own company to that of others. She is set in her ways and sees no need to change in any way.

As the book progresses Olive and Basil Ransom obviously fall out of favor with one another, and at first one doesn’t get the sense at all, that Mr. Ransom is in love with Verena, very much, although Mr. James does go into some detail about Basil’s ‘feelings’ for this young girl. Mr. Ransom then moves to New York and the book proceeds without him altogether, mostly focusing upon the fears of Olive pertaining to Verena falling in love with a man, something that Mrs. Chancellor abhors and wants to see Verena avoid seemingly at all costs. Verena doesn’t lack for the attention of men and any number of young specimens do arrive to coax her into their fold. Mrs. Chancellor has a way of dismissing these various suitors as wholly unnecessary and crass for any number of reasons and does indeed receive Verena’s promise not to marry any of them.

The book proceeds in this manner until it returns to Mr. Ransom, who is doing actually very poorly in New York, he is a lawyer and it appears, via the narrative of Mr. James that Mr. Ransom is a very bitter man indeed, mostly about the southern loss in the Civil War. Then as Mr. Ransom visits Boston again he decides to see Mrs. Tarrant, Verena alone in the park, it is here that he ‘makes his play’ for the young riser. Verena herself is taken aback by the passions of Mr. Ransom, and his complete disagreement about the Woman’s Movement that Verena is apparently transfixed with. He basically takes over this young attractive and talented woman with his charm and so forth.

As the book continues into its final stage, Olive realizes that she is indeed losing Verena and of course to her most ardent enemy, Mr. Basil Ransom.

I won’t go too much into the end and I must warn many of you who may wish to read the Bostonians not to venture to Wikipedia, until after you read the book, the whole plot is summarized there in about two paragraphs and the beginning, middle and ending are there for all to see! Taking any drama at all from us as readers!

I was taken by Mr. James’ writing itself, his ‘flow’ is purely invention, and at first I didn’t quite understand his meanings or his thrust. His writing to me seems almost sing-song in nature, a lyrical exercise of almost uncommon depth and excellence. I quickly found myself caught up in The Bostonians and read sometimes whole sections rather quickly and with much interest. I’ve never known anyone who writes like this, Mr. James is a force of One, in the high literary circles, as his reputation will warrant. Still, Mr. James is completely in control of his work and owns it rather completely, his interest isn’t in us as readers but his own informed and lucid interpretation of things. We aren’t going to get our usual Lollipops then from a James work! That I could see. Over at Wikipedia, however I did read that The Bostonians was roundly unfavorable to the critics of the time as being not altogether fair to the Woman’s Movement of the time. I do believe that perhaps the times were to immediate to see a clearer picture of The Bostonians and now that there has been so much water under the bridge, that Mr. James’ work here will be much more admired and cheered for new and modern audiences that have the distance of the Woman’s Historical Movement to see a larger picture of this very fine work.

With that said I can’t say I enjoyed the ending very much, but am agreeable to it as being completely real. Mr. Basil Ransom, in my own humble opinion was less than gentlemanly and I really had very little sympathy at all for his ways and means. I didn’t wish him harm in any way, yet I felt that he was more concerned with the ‘battle between the sexes’, his war with Mrs. Chancellor, to be the main thrust of his intellect. He, in many ways seemed to need to push this individual unhappiness of his into the lives of these very fine individuals, perhaps, I think because of his bitterness with the loss of the South in the Civil War. Unlike, Rhett Butler then, Mr. Ransom is, in my eye, lacking that very singular Southern Charm of which he infused himself with, like a shadow of the true metal was my guess.

One is wondering about these things and more as Mr. James does state at the end that Mrs. Verena Tarrant is surely in for more tears. Not something that a newlywed would be accustomed to whilst considering such a singular state as wedlock.

 

The Bostonians, Highly Recommended.

Now we turn to Redemption Ark, the third book in the Revelation Space Series of Science Fiction. The first two books are Revelation Space and Chasm City which we have reviewed and recommend that you read these.

This time as we travel further into the World of Redemption Ark we see that unlike Chasm City which mostly takes place on land, Mr. Reynolds has fashioned Redemption Ark mostly in space, keeping more to the tone of Revelation Space. Some of our old friends are here, Triumvir Ilia Volyova, Ana Khouri and Captain John Brannigan is back as well.

In this one we learn a good deal more about the Conjoiners, the first Conjoiner Galiana, who Legendary as she has become, is a ‘victim’ of The Inhibitors, artificial creatures, who are apparently bent on not allowing sentient life freedom in space. Galiana is placed in a sort of suspended animation by the Inhibitors, and that is essentially how the book begins with Skade, a Conjoiner Elite, investigating the ship, finds Galiana and keeps here in this bio-freeze state against the wishes of Galiana, who only wants the freedom of death.

Ten years later Nevil Claivain the lover of Galiana and father of her warped and feral child Felka wonders about Galiana not realizing that she has been found. There is another story about where Claivain rescues Antoinette Bax, of Yellowstone from certain death as she attempts to jettison her father’s ashes into a gas giant, his last wish apparently.

After this Nevil Claivain who has so far resisted becoming a Conjoiner completely is convinced to do so by Skade. During this Claivain decides to disagree and takes Skade’s ship and enlists the help of Antoinette Bax.

Meanwhile Volyova and Ana Khouri are becoming more aware of the Inhibitors somewhat near Resurgam and of course Volyova pretty much stays with the Lighthugger ship that has actually become Captain John Brannigan, due to his troubles with the Melding Plague. Also on the ship are the “Hell Class” weapons that Galiana created with the help of the Inhibitors of the future, about 60 very deadly machines or weapons, each capable of great damage. It is these weapons that the Conjoiners want back. That is the center of Redemption Ark, and Claivain and Skade race to retrieve these valuable killing machines to hopefully (they seem to think) thwart the intentions of the Inhibitors, who are coring a planet near Resurgam to destroy that planet.

Volyova won’t release the weapons, of course, and there is much made of who will get them. Essentially the story focuses upon Volyova and the Military Mastermind Clavain and how one or the other will win this conflict for the weapons. Volyova wants to use all the weapons right now but Claivain wants to wait for a better opportunity. Also the inhabitants of Resurgam are air lifted off the planet and sent to the Lighthugger ship which has a great deal of room but in infected by the Captain who is very deep in the Melding Plague that has infested the entire ship.

The book really shines when it’s about the Captain and the ship rather than about Claivain and the Conjoiners who seem to talk a bit much for my taste. In fact I believe that the Captain is the one that everyone is concerned with even more than the Inhibitors. At one point The Captain is able to fire one of the Hell Class Weapons upon himself, the ship, deciding to destroy himself and it with him. I was thinking that that would be a-ok, but Volyova has other plans and thwarts this plan, which in the end seems ok, I suppose as the Ship finally crashes down on a Pattern Juggler World and seems to be ‘evolving’ into something interesting.

I believe that the so called ‘Pattern Jugglers’ are the Enablers, the other side of the Inhibitors, so this is interesting and will be better explored in the fourth book of the series titled, Absolution Gap, of which I will be reviewing here soon.

I’ve been a bit dry in this review, but I think you get the gist.

‘Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi’ by Jon M. Gibson and Chris McDonnell

 

A loving look at the creator of such classics as ‘Fritz the Cat’ and ‘Wizards.’

By Charles Solomon, Special to The Times
June 26, 2008

It’s strange to recall that during the early 1970s Ralph Bakshi was hailed as the filmmaker who would revitalize the American animated feature. Thirty-five years later, except for “Fritz the Cat” (1972) and the cult favorite “Wizards” (1977), Bakshi’s films are largely forgotten. Contemporary directors look to Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki and the Pixar artists for inspiration rather than to the creator of “American Pop” and “Cool World.”

Bakshi’s career, which has had more ups, downs and hairpin turns than a roller coaster, is overdue for a serious examination. “Unfiltered” is not that book. Compiled by two avowed fans with heavy input from Bakshi and his family, it’s a sloppily written paean that reads like the product of a vanity press.

Throughout his career, Bakshi has generated controversy. When he and producer Steve Krantz adapted “Fritz the Cat” for the screen, they turned Robert Crumb’s satiric portrait of a superficial college student into a gritty, angry, violent film.

American audiences were shocked to see sex, dope and blood in an animated film. Although it did well commercially, Crumb hated the adaptation. In a final comic, he turned Fritz into a decadent Hollywood star, ruthlessly exploited by “Ralphy” and “Stevie” — caricatures of Bakshi and Krantz. A disgusted ex-girlfriend stabs Fritz with an ice pick (”Another casualty of the ’sixties”).

The success of “Fritz” and the semi-autobiographical “Heavy Traffic” (1973) was overshadowed by the furor surrounding Bakshi’s third film, “Coonskin.” When it previewed at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1974, representatives from the Congress of Racial Equality objected to its depictions of blacks and disrupted the program. As the controversy over “Coonskin” grew, Paramount dropped the film; Bryanston Films distributed it.

Bakshi still doesn’t seem to grasp that in 2008, as in 1974, many African Americans take offense at ugly, thick-lipped caricatures — and at a white man writing a song titled “Ahm a Niggerman.” On “Coonskin’s” release in 1975, Time magazine critic Richard Schickel dismissed both the film and the surrounding controversy: “No one who does not wear white sheets in public could intentionally offer such a blatantly distasteful representation of blacks on the screen at this late date and hope to get away with it. Irony was surely intended — and sorely missed in the end.”

According to Jon M. Gibson and Chris McDonnell, though, “Coonskin was a pure Bakshi production — unhindered, unabashed, and most outstandingly, unapologetic. Because if you ask Ralph, apologies are for someone who did something wrong.”

For his most ambitious film, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”(1978) Bakshi used a technique he’d developed on “Wizards.” He shot the film in live action, then had his artists copy the figures frame by frame. Bakshi told The Times, “We shot the whole film in live action, with costumes, beards, makeup — like we were shooting it to be a live-action film. Then I virtually traced every frame of film. Why? To get the total realistic motion that animation has never gotten before. The film is not animated. The film is something else.”

“The Lord of the Rings” proved what other animators had learned decades earlier: Tracing live action produces stilted, unconvincing movements. Combining the traced characters with regular drawn animation and reworked high-contrast live-action footage resulted in a visually discordant muddle. Many artists felt Bakshi had turned his back on the art of animation when he used the tracing technique for “American Pop” and “Fire and Ice”; these films, they claimed, were essentially live-action.

Not surprisingly, Gibson and McDonnell tactfully omit mentioning the utter failure of “Cool World” (1992). An animation-live action combination starring Kim Basinger and Brad Pitt, “Cool World” was billed as a racy answer to Disney’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” Frenetic, incomprehensible and not even vaguely sexy, “Cool World” appeared on many critics’ 10 worst lists.

In between “Fire and Ice” and “Cool World,” Bakshi did some of his best work on the new “Mighty Mouse” television series, breathing life into the threadbare Terrytoons character. The series was done in by another scandal, this one as undeserved as it was overblown. In an episode titled “The Littlest Tramp,” which aired in October 1987, Mighty Mouse sadly sniffed up the desiccated remains of a flower that Polly Pineblossom had given him. In June 1988, Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Assn. asserted that “The Littlest Tramp” showed Mighty Mouse snorting cocaine. A media kerfuffle ensued, and CBS canceled the series. Ironically, “Mighty Mouse” may well rank as Bakshi’s most influential work. It boosted the career of John Kricfalusi, who went on the create “The Ren and Stimpy Show,” a series that altered the course of television animation.

Bakshi’s “Fritz the Cat” and “Heavy Traffic” opened new areas of content in American animation, but his vision proved too dark, too violent, too ugly and too lacking in taste for many viewers. His work has not aged gracefully and is mostly disregarded at a time when animated features have achieved greater prominence. A thoughtful, balanced study might attract new audiences to Bakshi’s films, but a superficial apologia like “Unfiltered” cannot benefit the reputation of the man or his work.

 Remember those moments in middle school-smoking cigarettes behind the dumpster; drinking Gatorade after football practice; stealing baseball cards from K-Mart-when you told nasty jokes with a wicked smile and a punch to the shoulder?

What’s grosser than gross? When the head cheerleader does the splits and five class rings fall out. What’s grosser than that? When one of the rings belongs to her brother.

Back then, there was no such thing as too far, too much. Now there is. It’s called Chuck Palahniuk’s latest novel, Snuff (Doubleday, $24.95).

By no means am I a Palahniuk-hater. Fight Club is an important, ballsy novel. Invisible Monsters and Choke are well worth your dollar. There is such manic energy to his writing-such switchblade precision to the way he turns a sentence. And I can’t help but marvel at how he has become a prophet to so many teens and twenty-somethings, speaking their language with his constant allusions to pop culture, his fuck-the-establishment sensibility, his rapid-fire paragraphing like a stream of text messages from a pimply English major hopped up on a diet of Adderall and Mountain Dew. I’m glad he’s out there, shaking things up, pissing people off, making the grim-faced rheumy-eyed literary moles nervously chew their fingernails. But I often can’t help but feel he needs to slow down and force his work into deeper waters. Never has this been more evident than in Snuff.

The novel concerns Cassie Wright, an aging porn star who has been ridden hard and put away wet, as my grandfather used to say. She plans to cap her career with the ultimate slumber party-600 men on camera-thus breaking the world record for serial fornication in World Whore Three: The Whore to End All Whores. During the filming she hopes she will die-from a vaginal embolism (I’ll spare you the explanation)-making the film a guaranteed blockbuster the revenue of which will go to the child she long ago gave up for adoption (the result of a “wasted” money shot).

Snuff progresses from the shifting perspectives of Mr. 72 (who may or may not be her son), Mr. 137 (a scandal-hounded television star looking to rejuvenate his career), and Mr. 600 (a too-tan washed-up porn legend with saggy pecs, an enormous package, and a history with Cassie), who await their turn with the other 597 “dudes” in a green room stocked with bowls full of pretzels and condoms.

And though we’re in alternating first-person, I never got to know these people. Or maybe believe is a better word. I never believed in them. Perhaps because they all spoke with the same voice. Or perhaps because their brains seemed similarly hard-wired for self-loathing and destructiveness. Shuffling between them felt a little like shuffling through back issues of Hustler-what might have initially shocked or stimulated you begins to make you feel bored and vaguely sick.

You could say that’s the point-a roulette wheel of human despair-but having read so many of Palahniuk’s novels and having encountered this same voice and same perspective and same devices no matter what the circumstances, I would equate it more with his seemingly maniacal hurriedness to get out another book.

Palahniuk often employs repetition-choruses, he calls them. Sometimes this comes in the form of pop-trivia-or images-or behavioral or conversational quirks-and sometimes it works. But in Snuff the cyclical devices wear out their tread quickly. Consider the unremitting references to porno flicks with cheeky titles: Chitty Chitty Gang-Bang, To Drill A Mockingbird, The Da Vinci Load, The Postman Always Cums Twice, The Tale of Two Titties. It’s funny the first few times-but after the fortieth and then the sixtieth porn-pun, I’m counting how many pages I have until the novel ends. Palahniuk uses the same trick with Sheila, the stage manager of World Whore Three, who apparently cannot refer to a man without using some masturbatory play on words: pud-pullers, pud-pounders, jerk-jockeys, etc. Razor-sharp wit this isn’t. I’d equate it more to getting your eyelid caught on a nail.

There are many things that Palahniuk could have done that could have made this novel more full-bodied and muscular. He brings up feminist theory-the possibility of female empowerment via porn-and then drops it entirely. He brings up a character struggling with his sexuality-reduces the struggle to a kind of gag-and then drops it entirely. Whenever things start to get complicated and knotty, he drops them.

He hurries. And if he would only slow down, I know that I would too, reveling in his pages instead of hurrying to get past them.

 

 

Q: At the age of 82, you will be publishing your new collection of essays this week, which seems likely to confirm your reputation as one of America’s last public intellectuals. Why do you think that critics have traditionally praised your essays more than your fiction, which includes “Burr,” “Myra Breckinridge” and 20 other novels? That’s because they don’t know how to read. I can’t name three first-rate literary critics in the United States . I’m told there are a few hidden away at universities, but they don’t print them in The New York Times .

 

Are you saying your novels have been critically neglected? I don’t even read most reviews, unless there is a potential lawsuit on view. I’ve never had much attention paid by critics — nor has anybody else in the United States of America, as Mr. Obama likes to call it.

 

And what about Mr. McCain? Disaster. Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?

 

Everyone knows he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. That’s what he tells us.

 

Why would you doubt him? He’s a graduate of Annapolis. I know a lot of the Annapolis breed. Remember, I’m West Point, where I was born. My father went there.

 

So what does that have to do with the U.S. Naval Academy down in Annapolis? The service universities keep track of each other, that’s all. They have views about each other. And they are very aware of social class and eventually money, since they usually marry it.

 

How, exactly, is your cousin Al Gore related to you? They keep explaining it to me, and I keep forgetting.

 

What about your grandfather, Thomas Gore of Oklahoma ? He invented the whole state. It was Indian territory. There was no state until Senator Gore.

 

In 1968, during the Nixon-Humphrey race, you became the voice of liberalism in a series of televised debates with William Buckley. Any plans to be a pundit at the coming presidential conventions? No.

 

How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year? I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred.

 

You live in California , where last month the State Supreme Court overturned the ban on same-sex marriage . As someone who lived with a male companion for 50-plus years, do you see this as a victory for equality? People would ask, How could you live with someone for so long without any problems of any kind? I said, There was no sex.

 

Were you chaste during those years? Chased by whom?

 

Are you a supporter of gay marriage? I know nothing about it. I don’t follow that.

 

Why doesn’t it interest you? The same reason heterosexual marriage doesn’t seem to interest me.

 

If we look at the situation apart from you — It’s my interview, so we’ve got to stay with me.

 

Have you ever considered leaving the United States permanently? No, it’s my subject.

 

Do you read a lot of contemporary fiction these days? Like everyone else, no, I don’t.

 

Anyone in the 20th century you might have a kind word about? Yes, I liked Italo Calvino, and I thought he was the greatest writer of my time.

 

Your new collection includes an essay in which you note, “Calvino does what very few writers can do: he describes imaginary worlds with the most extraordinary precision and beauty.” What about American novelists? Can’t think of one.

Norman Mailer? Oh, dear, we’re not going to go into pluses and minuses now.

Philip Roth? Ditto.

 

I admire Roth. He never became complacent. He had no reason to. He’s a good comic writer.

 

What do you think is your own best novel? I don’t answer questions like that. Ever. And you ought not to ask them.

 

Well, it was a great pleasure talking to you. I doubt that.

 

 

 

 

 

Merkur Heavy Duty Double Edge Razor #178

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. Our second Murakami book reviewed (A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami) was our first. This very talented writer has a very fine way of capturing the interest with his crisp and interesting prose. So far Mr. Murakami’s men in his novels, usually a loner, are nearly variations of the same. The same somewhat jangled and unique characters seem to have been placed in each of his books. A really interesting way to write, and luckily Mr. Murakami is very good at deciphering these people with unique habits and ways. His loners, indeed every book of Murakami’s I’ve read has a sense of ‘not belonging’ to the plot, as if the world were somehow not in tune with the people in his novels. Which indeed gives his characters a certain mystery and charm.

Here in Sputnik Sweetheart, Murakami treads his usual path with really fine ease. Unlike say in A Wild Sheep Chase, where at times you are very unsure of the sanity of the characters, the people of Sputnik are for the most part glued to their society. They are terribly sophisticated and knowledgeable about the surroundings they live in however, these aren’t losers by any means. Murakami often tends to show an undercurrent of displeasure with seemingly successful people. The definition of successful has become very rote in the modern era. It’s almost as if Mr. Murakami is nudging us in ‘other’ directions to show us that there are other wisdoms besides our own. A novel concept in a world that is forever looking inward to what is familiar.

Sputnik Sweetheart is about Two friends, college students, K the male and his very best friend Sumire. K is desperately in love with Sumire, but she is a budding/hopeful writer and is not much interested in K sexually. Much of the book is essentially about their friendship and how it has developed into a very important one for each. As the story continues Sumire finds herself unexpectedly in love with another woman, the third character of the book, Miu, who is a much older woman than Sumire and very wealthy and experienced. Much of the book is seen through the perspectives of the characters as Sumire is trying to love Miu, who, you guessed it, isn’t all that attracted to Sumire sexually. It’s this interplay between the chances of friendship and relationships that facets the novel.

As the story grows Miu and Semire begin a world-wide travel excursion, that, at first was to be just business but then becomes something else. As the two woman continue travelling we begin to see much more of the interplay of the characters mostly through letters to K from Sumire and K’s thoughts about Sumire and Miu… it is a bit later when he himself is called to Greece because of an emergency. I won’t reveal more since you will surely want to read this book.

I especially found Miu’s story interesting… the events that keep her uninterested in sex and her progression through life are surely very unusual, and here Murakami is surely very adept! The book at only 210 pages isn’t going to probe more completely about Miu… but one wishes that it would. She is a personage that Murakami could certainly fashion a new book about! Still Sputnik Sweetheart is a beguiling read, with many unique and unusual occurrences. A success in my mind and well worth the effort and time in the reading.

Mr. Murakami

I really don’t understand all the fuss about the Harry Potter books. They’re bad. Hard to read, even. And while I’m happy that they and Oprah are responsible for creating millions of new readers, it kidna scares me that adults like them (I can forgive the children, though not the smart ones). I’m not anti young-adult lit or kid lit–I’ll read Lewis or Dahl any day. But Harry Potter hurts. Yes, as Harold Bloom noted, 35 million people (way more than that at this point) can be wrong. The two of us are right.

That said, I think J.K. Rowling is totally bad ass. I like her as much as I don’t like her books. She just gave the commencement speech at Harvard, and though it has the standard ‘go forth and conquer’ fare, it really illuminates her as a person managed to inspire me on this overcast friday. You can read and listen to her speech here.

 

The year 1968 is being remembered, memorialized and celebrated for many reasons in 2008. Valerie Solanas, failed assassin and crackpot writer, is not one of them.