i've been a follower of gay's non-fiction web presence for probably about a year and a half now (her entries for HTMLgiant help air out some of the sii've been a follower of gay's non-fiction web presence for probably about a year and a half now (her entries for HTMLgiant help air out some of the sites more unsufferable MFA-dude-dom), so it was nice to finally read something more "literary" from her. this book capitalizes on things i like about her writing already (lists, plot-summaries that double as ways of starting dialogues), and it was exciting to see her write about issues (life in haiti, etc.) that i'm not already familiar with, via pop culture. the book feels a bit like a sketch for a larger project, but it's an interesting sketch. i'm pretty excited to see where she goes next....more
another fun elmore leonard novel, my second this year. it doesn't quite have the depth of the first one i read (killshot), but it's still an awful lotanother fun elmore leonard novel, my second this year. it doesn't quite have the depth of the first one i read (killshot), but it's still an awful lot of fun.
as is the case with the films he wrote back in the day (and as is expertly emulated in tv's justified), leonard writes with a clear affection for his characters. consider chino, the jail-breaking cuban with a minor vendetta against the main character. in a lesser writer's hands, he'd be a broadly sinister adversary - in leonard's, he gets a semi-sympathetic backstory, a boyfriend and a few snappy lines. there are also stratas of sympathy among the actual baddies - the untrustworthy, but not actively mean-spirited glenn, the pragmatic snoopy and the full-blown S.O.B. kenneth.
this also applies to karen sisco, who manages to be believable despite being a fairly unbridled old-guy fantasy figure. she's a badass, she loves boxing, she bets on the superbowl with her dad, she's 29, beautiful, into older men... at a certain point you almost expect her to show up in a bikini with her twin sister carrying buffalo wings for everyone!
seriously though, the bits between her and her dad are some of the most enjoyable things i've read all year. this book is a blast....more
you probably know all the reasons not to read dracula. yes, it's xenophobic - positing eastern europe as the foreboding, superstitious "other"... not you probably know all the reasons not to read dracula. yes, it's xenophobic - positing eastern europe as the foreboding, superstitious "other"... not unlike, say, half of today's horror movies as well (ho hum). there's also plenty of victorian sexual yuckiness - feminine purity and whatnot... the female characters are endlessly taking ill or being hypnotized or being nobly sheltered from the world of manly horrors. and you could probably cut about 100 pages of 19th century plotting-and-planning without losing much. real talk - a lot of this book is super boring.
but it's still kind of fun. the atmosphere works well, especially at the beginning. renfield turns out to be a fully realized, genuinely eccentric character. and there's this weird current of optimism that runs through it, which i found kind of endearing.
for example, there's a long digression involving three potential "suitors" for lucy (dracula's first potential prey). the who-will-she-choose dilemma ends quickly, and the three of them end up being good friends soon after. no jealousy. no duels. no backhanded scheming. instead, every character in this book that can't transform into a bat - old or young, male or female - seems to genuinely enjoy the company of every other character. and they can't stop expressing this to each other either. hardly a page goes by without someone complimenting mina harker for being an ideal bride, or quincey p. morris for being a great american, or van helsing for being a great doctor. hell, even renfield compliments van helsing for a few paragraphs. i can't remember the last time i read a book about people who like each other this much. and it's a horror novel!...more
i don't have a lot to say about this. i began it with *zero* knowledge of british history - most of my knowledge of henry the eighth comes from half-ni don't have a lot to say about this. i began it with *zero* knowledge of british history - most of my knowledge of henry the eighth comes from half-noticing tv commercials for "the tudors." accordingly, i probably missed a few of the references. schama assumes a rudimentary knowledge of the u.k., its geography and, at times, a familiarity with shakespeare (which i possess to about the degree of your average high school senior). if you're reading this, you will almost certainly start off with a better base knowledge than me. so you'll be alright.
otherwise, schama writes with a punchy, occasionally sarcastic edge that keeps the endless array of kings and queens from becoming dull. it also avoids goofy patriotism for the most part. the writing style is very BBC-friendly, and there's even a youtube-able documentary series that these books work alongside of, which i plan on checking out. i could have done with a bit less focus on royalty and maybe a bit more social/political history (remarkably little about the crusades, for example). but i came out of this with a far greater basic knowledge of britain than i had going in, which is what i was after....more
though heartfelt, inspiring and disturbing, i can't say i wholeheartedly loved this book. it deals with some HEAVY topics - genocide, rape, xenophobiathough heartfelt, inspiring and disturbing, i can't say i wholeheartedly loved this book. it deals with some HEAVY topics - genocide, rape, xenophobia - and it's written with an intimate awareness of how such atrocities arise, escalate, disappear and return. many of the observations remind me of george orwell, whose fantastic essay "politics and the english language" seems to have (at least partially) influenced hedges' thoughts on language. actually, these are the most informative sections of the book - when he discusses, for example, the ways that language was manipulated in the former yugoslavian territories to mirror the aspirations of separate nation-states... and the xenophobia that minor decisions about proper speech and official languages helped escalate.
when hedges sticks to specific examples, as well as his own personal experiences, this is top-notch stuff. however, he has a tendency to universalize that occasionally bothered me. the book seems intended to provide a template for warfare in general, and falls back on essentialist language too often. "women and children" are evoked a bit too easily, and classical literature (shakespeare, the illiad) is called upon too regularly to add canonical weight to otherwise-intimate observations. there's something old-school about hedges in spite of his radical politics. he seems to have a clearer sense of proper behavior than i do - the word "perversion" appears a bit too often for my tastes (though many of the issues discussed might merit it) - and he sees the world as something constructed according to a clearer morality than i do, i guess. as a philosophical tome, war is a force that gives us meaning didn't resonate 100% with me. as an act of investigative reporting, it's disturbing, challenging and engrossing....more
i like to think i'm old enough to no longer require brooding, existential "grittiness" from every object on my bookshelf. that said, i have real troubi like to think i'm old enough to no longer require brooding, existential "grittiness" from every object on my bookshelf. that said, i have real trouble believing anyone's childhood was idyllic as the world described in annie dillard's an american childhood.
i loved the author's earlier pilgrim at tinker creek, which provided an acute, worm's-eye view of the natural world around us. pilgrim seemed to recognize the small-scale "otherness" of our physical surroundings - the way that leaves, insects and foliage create an alternate universe alongside the world of normativity and convention. sadly, childhood deals with the latter world for the most part. and despite a few spirited moments from time to time, the book is motivated more by nostalgia than curiosity.
if you grew up rich and white in the 1950's, you might find the nostalgia quite charming. dillard maintains an old school, post-new-deal optimism about innovation, social change and america itself that can be quite endearing. but her optimism is also an obstacle. consider, for example, her handling of race. throughout the memoir, we are introduced to a variety of african-americans that work around the dillards' bourgeois home. when they appear, it is almost always to draw attention to her mother's noble open-mindedness, or the author's fearless forays into a library "on the bad side of town," or whatever. there's a sanctimoniousness to all of this that is really tough to dismiss. and though dillard adds the occasional quip about the ignorance of her conservative relatives, the tone is self-congratulatory and her optimism seems more indicative of ignorance and self-absorption than the wonder of the world itself.
i'm not the most optimistic person in the world, so there's certainly a chance that a resonant dimension of this book escaped me because i'm such a stick in the mud. certain passages are very well-written, though the chipper tone prevented me from enjoying most of them. this is certainly not the sort of book i would ever fault anyone for enjoying, but i found none of the wonder i had anticipated after reading pilgrim at tinker creek. instead, i spent most of the book rolling my eyes at the corniness....more
i wanted to like this. i've read several interviews with zambreno, and i'm sad to say that i like the way she talks about her writing more than i likei wanted to like this. i've read several interviews with zambreno, and i'm sad to say that i like the way she talks about her writing more than i liked this book itself. she's clearly influenced by certain "new narrative" writers that i already admire (chris kraus and dodie bellamy come to mind), and she's attempting to stretch the boundaries of the bildungsroman to include more room for women's desires/emotions, as well as a larger intellectual scope and greater sense of formal adventure. all of which sounds great, but it doesn't quite come together for me.
as far as i can tell, green girl moves in three directions. at first, it seems like a fairly straightforward coming of age story. we meet ruth, an american in london who is unsure of what she wants from the world or what it wants from her. zambreno sketches a familiar millenial hipster type - obsessed with the fashions of the french new wave, bohemian but apolitical, entitled but broke, an oil and water mixture of drama and apathy. the boring, narrative-friendly part of me thinks this is the strongest aspect of the novel. at the least, it feels the most effortless. secondly, ruth is posited and contextualized in relation to some vaguely outsider-ish place in literature. green girl has been compared to clarice lispector's hour of the star (hell, that's part of the reason i read it), and there's an effort to align the character's inner state with lispector's uncanny knack for emptiness. but the parameters of the story are too familiar, and the devices of zambreno's prose are too obviously manipulative. finally, there's a kind of inter-textual "god's-eye-view" to the narrative - a writerly voice drops in from time to time, making ruth seem like an actress in a movie or a doll in a doll house. zambreno has the beginnings of some interesting ideas about how women's psyches and bodies are manipulated by this - both from the writer and reader's perspective - but they never quite elongate into something of real inquiry.
to make matters worse, the novel features a series of quotes from literature and theoretical sources that seem calculated to elevate the novel's more conventional observations. an example: ruth finishes a shift at the "horrids" department store (yes, this is a book with bad puns in it), and we're subsequently treated to an excerpt from walter benjamin's arcades project. the citations come from interesting sources (camera lucida, lispector, jean-luc godard), but they also read like an MFA program checklist and add little insight to the narrative itself.
that said, i'll probably still check out her next project, which sounds a bit more academic and theoretical. i want to read more books like this, i guess... i like the premise of zambreno's project thus far, i'm just not convinced by the follow-through at this point.
p.s. having read some of the negative reviews of this book on goodreads, can i add that my hesitations have *zero* to do with the focus on confused twentysomethings? i feel like there's a tendency among people my age (i'm 36) to dismiss things that happened to us a decade back as frivolous drama-queen stuff that we went through prior to buying homes or raising families or whatever. i think this is bullshit. real emotions happen all throughout life - i had them at age 8, and i'm sure i'll have them at age 78 if i make it that far. there's something disingenuous about the way we dismiss them in hindsight, especially when we hide behind the boring veneer of adulthood. for all my reservations about green girl, this is NOT a problem that this book has. in that regard, i wish there were more like it....more
james baldwin is one of my very favorite essayists, and there are several excellent examples of his insights included in this volume. the essay "princjames baldwin is one of my very favorite essayists, and there are several excellent examples of his insights included in this volume. the essay "princes and powers," for example, characterizes the hope, anxiety and ambition that characterized the early days of post-colonialism with incredible clarity. baldwin wrote it in response to a "conference of negro-african writers and artists" held in france in 1956. the essay serves as a series of extended notes about the conference, and they work as an honest, warts-and-all account of the political landscape that was generating momentum at the time. while reading it, i couldn't help thinking how unfortunate it is that we can't bring baldwin back to life - i'd love to hear his point-of-view regarding any number of contemporary subjects. he'd be a welcome alternative to the idiotic soapboxing that scars so much of out current socio-political discourse, but i digress...
another highlight is baldwin's eulogy for richard wright, which extends and perhaps even corrects some of his own criticisms from his previous essay collection, notes of a native son. baldwin's criticisms of native son in that book struck me as more or less on target, but also slightly bitter and mean-spirited. surprisingly, he seems to feel the same way by the time of nobody knows my name - wishing he could have reconciled some of his differences with the author/mentor, and lamenting the often-needlessly competitive spirit that attends youth. there's a sincerity and vulnerability on display int he essay that is rare and remarkable.
so why only four stars? well, a few of the inclusions are less inspired. the least interesting example is probably his analysis of andre gide, which (oddly enough) borders on a kind of mild homophobia. baldwin was himself gay, but i'm not sure if he was open about it at the time of publication (feel free to school me here - a quick google didn't get me anywhere), and there's a vague sense of disapproval in the essay. there's also a rather meandering interview with ingmar bergman that does a nice job of assessing the director's personality, but offers little insight into the power of his films. or maybe baldwin simply set the bar for film criticism too high with his criminally under-read the devil finds work, which i think is an absolute masterpiece....more
well, let's just say it right at the outset - this is my favorite by far of these books so far. the story-lines begin coming together, there's plenty well, let's just say it right at the outset - this is my favorite by far of these books so far. the story-lines begin coming together, there's plenty of action, character allegiances change in interesting ways and there are a few shockers along the way that i'll try to avoid spoiling.
barring the still-uninteresting tales of davos seaworth, the individual story-lines are far more lively here than in a clash of kings. a lot of this has to do with inspired pairings, like jaime lannister and brienne of tarth... or arya and the hound. characters that i expected to basically serve as window dressing come to the foreground, and characters i thought i'd be dealing with until the end of the season retreat to the background.
for my money, there are two things that martin does particularly well in this series - and both are on full display. the first is to assemble a coherent plot that draws from disparate elements in his amazingly realized fantasy world. because he's had two epic volumes of prep work at this point, the movements-of-the-chess-pieces in storm have real vibrancy. there's a sword fight toward the end of the book, for example, that works simultaneously as an inspired bit of ass-kicking, a signal of an escalating war between two houses and a metaphor for the final disillusionment of a major character. the second thing martin excels at is his manipulation of empathy. the POV device works particularly well in this volume. suffice to say you won't feel the same way about jaime lannister by the end of it. the bits about him and brienne are some of my favorite sequences in general, slowly building to an affectionate fan-service that never feels forced or pandering.
on the other hand, martin still occasionally overplays his hand in his depictions of human misery. the big complaint about the series - that he relishes punishing his characters, often for the sheer sake of it - is still a valid one, even if it does add incredible tension to otherwise conventional battle sequences. i wasn't actually bothered by the particularly notorious "tragic sequence" you will undoubtedly find hidden behind spoiler warnings all over goodreads (and yes, storm of swords has a real doosy waiting for you) - that sequence fit the stakes of the universe in a way that made sense to me. but there is a twist toward the end involving a particularly ugly and needless act of revenge that struck me as implausibly mean-spirited, threatening to ruin one of my favorite characters without really adding anything new to the story as a whole. if i say anymore, i'll spoil something - and this is one of those books where spoilers really DO matter....more
an excellent, understated little dose of surrealism; a quasi-supernatural alternative to clarise lispector's hour of the star. this is one of those ecan excellent, understated little dose of surrealism; a quasi-supernatural alternative to clarise lispector's hour of the star. this is one of those eccentric books that feels odd without trying, as if there's something essential-but-invisible missing from the narrative's architecture. accordingly, what appears to be the interior life of the central character (alice) somehow always seems as if it occurs on the exterior. as a reader, my point of view ends up mirroring the supporting characters by default - i approach alice with a mixture of vague support and bewilderment not unlike the suspicious house servant who proves to be her only real friend.
i have friends who say they can't read books unless they include characters they can relate to. at times, i feel almost the opposite. if, like me, you deliberately seek out characters and narratives that fall outside your grasp of "human understanding," you'll probably get a kick out of this one....more
i read this as part of my research for a series of paintings i just completed, and i can't stress enough how fascinating the history of the cruise shii read this as part of my research for a series of paintings i just completed, and i can't stress enough how fascinating the history of the cruise ship is - or how diabolically it mirrors the circulation of capital in our neoliberal universe more generally. equal parts mike davis-style muckraking and corporate-intrigue tell-all, devils effectively exemplifies contemporary inequality at its worst and weirdest. the details of the endless buyouts, labor disputes and corporate mergers can make for tedious reading, but the financial, ecological and social schematics it explores are depressing and fascinating.
stranger still, garin seems to have gained front-seat access to many of the industry's major players. people like carnival CEO mickey arison appear to have given him ample interview time, in spite of the negative light in which he casts most of their actions. this makes the book even more troubling. for people like arison, it appears that being remembered as a shark in the water is more important than being remembered as a businessman or a philanthropist. he doesn't sound like someone who wants to win your heart - he sounds like someone who simply wants to win.
garin paints a harsh picture of our unregulated seas - the chapter exploring "flags of convenience" is particularly diabolical. even worse is the apathy surrounding the industry on the part of the consumer. as aristocratic flourishes become marketable to middle-class americans, a profound indifference to basic ethics follows in suit. for years, i've thought that corporate power has been years ahead of nation-state regulatory systems; in devils you see this put into practice literally, and geographically. ...more
sort of fun, sort of silly and not quite the revelation i expected.
i'm not sure i'm 100% suited to the pace of comic books. there's not often enough ssort of fun, sort of silly and not quite the revelation i expected.
i'm not sure i'm 100% suited to the pace of comic books. there's not often enough space to flesh things out. there are a few interesting ideas at work here - especially considering things like job training and technical skills in a world still defined by patriarchy - but before we can get to them the characters are fighting and dying and falling in love. y: the last man kind of reminded me of the walking dead comic series, only way less douchebaggy.
there are far worse ways to spend your time, but in a world that includes people like octavia butler and margaret atwood, y: the last man is kind of the weak sauce....more
volume #2 isn't necessarily a downgrade in quality from the first book in the series, but it still came as a slight disappointment. the scope actuallyvolume #2 isn't necessarily a downgrade in quality from the first book in the series, but it still came as a slight disappointment. the scope actually manages to become even larger, the story remains engaging and complex and martin's talents for complex character interactions are as strong as ever. but there's a sense that he's spinning his wheels in this volume. jon snow's journey beyond the wall isn't nearly as exciting as i'd imagined it, and the daenerys storyline feels peripheral and occasionally irrelevant to the universe as a whole. some of this is a matter of high expectations - game of thrones has such a wallop of an ending that i expected the pace to continue as steadily moving forward.
a clash of kings also suffers from disappointing POV additions. davos seaworth is endearing enough i guess, but he's also a dull introduction to the dullest aspect of this universe (team stannis). and it's through davos that we come to know the series' worst character thus far (i'm almost through a storm of swords as i write this) - melisandre. there's plenty to unravel in the gender dynamics of westeros - some good stuff, some not-so-good - but melisandre is certainly martin's weakest link. in addition to being a cheesy witchy-woman who adds half-assed mysticism to an otherwise engaging universe, she's also a run of the mill "lady macbeth" stereotype. through this character, martin wallows in the kind of adolescent misogyny that he is usually careful to temper, if not outright avoid, in spite of all the series' raping and pillaging. theon greyjoy's story is somewhat better - introducing a far more engaging, possibly even empowering female character in asha, for example - but his POV ups the ante on martin's often miserable outlook. this is a grim universe, and when seen through the eyes of a totally irredeemable character, it becomes almost too awful to stomach. martin's grit is typically an asset - i'm far more engaged by the ambivalent lannisters of westeros than the one-dimensional hobbits of middle earth - but he's not above wallowing in the misery at times.
on the other hand, the politics of the several competing kings are handled effectively. and tyrion's emergence as the pseudo-main-character is a pleasant turn of events. martin's politicking works best through tyrion's eyes, and his chapters counterbalance a lot of the lagging going on in qarth and beyond the wall....more
it's been all game of thrones all the time around my house lately. i'm now 3/4ths of the way through the third audiobook in the series, and martin's git's been all game of thrones all the time around my house lately. i'm now 3/4ths of the way through the third audiobook in the series, and martin's grim world of maidens and dragons is beginning to feel woven into the very fabric of my life. the audiobooks, by the way, are read in an over-the-top renaissance fair voice that not only makes for hilarious sex scene interpretations (seriously, listening to this dude describe the "seed" of khal drogo is COMEDY GOLD, people), but also ups the nerd factor about 1000%. the more my girlfriend endures news of the "imp's return from casterly rock" as she makes herself lunch upstairs in the kitchen, the less attractive i become to her. consider yourselves warned, goodreads-dork-horde...
moving right along, book #1 has the advantage of being more or less organized around a central figure (ned stark), and the narratives make logical sense as a whole to a degree that begins to unravel in the sequels. there's something classical about its structure - and it gives the various narrative branches plenty of room to develop without sacrificing cohesion. martin is great with characters, and it's exciting to see him lay them all out in this volume. i've watched the TV show as well, so the plot points came as no surprise, but there's some character detail that works far better in the books. sansa, of all people, is one of my favorite characters now, for example.
there are some weak spots as well. the dothraki aren't necessarily any less orientalist on the page then they are on the screen, and the everyone-is-equally-fucked-up-in-this-world attempts to shrug it off strike me as misguided. i'd love to see a dothraki POV at some point in the series, but i'm not holding my breath. martin is great at laying out the advantages and disadvantages of circumstance, but he seems most comfortable writing characters who come from a place of privilege. this is one of the few shortcomings to his otherwise astounding world-building abilities. why are the dothraki always written from the outside? why aren't we privy as readers to their language? who are the littlefingers and varyses of the dothraki world? we don't find out, and must make due with "savage" stereotypes instead.
but let's get back to sansa. she's not necessarily the most likeable character (that would be, in this volume anyway, the one-and-only tyrion lannister), but martin's writing really comes alive in her storyline. game of thrones works best as an exploration of survival - how impenetrable social structures limit one's options, and how the clever find ways to manipulate them in order to survive. sansa's predicament is perhaps the most dire, and her response to them isn't particularly heroic, but the stakes of the world he's created come into sharpest focus (for me, anyway) in his handling of the character. better still, sansa's disturbing, fascinating relationship to the hound exemplifies martin's approach to horror and empathy simultaneously.
the other great thing about this first volume is that the plot moves along at a steady pace, and none of the characters feel extraneous. the book concludes in an exciting place, with story-lines moving in dramatic directions throughout the magical world of westeros (and beyond!), leaving me with a satisfying sense of a world-well-rendered.
it's tempting to dismiss indulgent genre fare at times, especially in a world as frank-frazetta-ish as martin's, but there's real skill at work here. as highbrow writers like cormac mccarthy or justin cronin begin to dip their toes in similar waters, they could learn a thing or two about world-building from nerds like this guy. the lines between "fantasy" and "magic realism," for example, aren't as clear cut as we might imagine....more
i don't read biographies all that often, but when i do, i tend to gravitate to ones that double as portraits of culture - using the central human figui don't read biographies all that often, but when i do, i tend to gravitate to ones that double as portraits of culture - using the central human figure as an emblem of a specific time, place and environment. marable's extraordinary tome does this almost perfectly. it's not just the story of malcolm x - it's also the story of the anti-assimilationist civil rights movement, the ideological legacy of marcus garvey and the foundation for the left wing radicals who would follow many of his ideas into the 70's (the black panthers, for example). my understanding of 20th century social history in the u.s. is greatly deepened by this book. and i finished it with a much broader sense of what lead to malcolm x's belief systems - the admirable ones as well as the not-so-admirable....more
this is a big ambitious book with lots of ideas and an ever-expanding scale. it's pretty hard not to admire, even when the details don't work out as pthis is a big ambitious book with lots of ideas and an ever-expanding scale. it's pretty hard not to admire, even when the details don't work out as planned.
stylistically, it reminded me a bit of william faulkner. the first-person narratives change between each of the four sisters at the story's center (with their mother providing a first-person account at the beginning of each section). some voices work better than others. leah, the "daddy's girl" who becomes the heart and soul of the story, is expertly crafted and her transformations feel organic and multidimensional. ditto her mother, whose genuine grief and sense of reflection anchor each of the story's developments. on the other hand, the oldest sister rachel is stereotypically shallow, and her misplaced-southern-belle schtick becomes more and more redundant as the story progresses. leah's twin sister adah is interesting in a "literary" sort of way - mysterious, precocious, suffering from a physical affliction that ends up identifying her as a brilliant outsider archetype. sometimes this characterization works, sometimes it's a bit overwrought. finally, there's ruth may, who's too little to offer any real insights, which is fair enough. for the majority of the story, these women are all between the ages of about 5 and 16 - and their interior monologues are almost never believable as, say, adolescent diary entries. the sophisticated prose can be a pleasure to read, but it never feels like it comes from the minds of its characters.
this becomes less of a problem as the years go by. poisonwood is the story of a missionary family in congo during the rise, fall and aftermath of patrice lumumba, and its real-life political history adds considerable weight to the family narrative. nathan price, the girls' fanatical, evangelical father, is presented entirely through the point of view of his wife and daughters. this distance works extremely well. kingsolver renders the character exclusively through the fear and resentment he engenders. the political dangers that begin to engulf him are made potent by his stubborn unwillingness to even acknowledge them. it's a familiar descent into madness, but by decentralizing its importance and authority, kingsolver renders it unfamiliar and adds depth to the novel's refreshingly un-manly perspective.
the author spent several years of her own childhood in congo, and though she claims that her parents were nothing like the prices in the acknowledgements, i got the sense that a decent amount of autobiography went into the story. i should probably address the fact that this is one of those white-people-witnessing-tragedy-in-africa stories - literally set in the same country as the subgenre's stereotypical gold standard, conrad's heart of darkness. i'm always a bit suspicious of this stuff, because it's easy to resort to shallow savior narratives, or to aestheticize poverty, or to sentimentalize an unfamiliar culture. kingsolver is pretty good at avoiding these trappings, though there are a few melodramatic excesses.
the poisonwood bible is at its best when characterizing the extent to which the prices are and are not made a part of the local community. kingsolver is keenly aware of the limitations of assimilation - as the prices adapt to life in africa, and also as they try to convert people to christianity. her pessimism about american foreign policy and christian outreach is sober and potent. this isn't a history that warrants happy endings. poisonwood never quite achieves the intimacy of a novel like chimamanda ngozi adichie's half of a yellow sun, with which it shares structural similarities. but i wonder if some of this distance is circumstantial? as a white woman, kingsolver must occupy the voice of the outsider, even as her characters lose the basics of their american identities throughout the years. there's a speculative quality to poisonwood that hits the occasional sour note, but these speculations are almost certainly better than declarations....more
i went looking for a big, epic twentieth century survey and this delivered the goods. despite its scope and intimidating length, it's pretty engaging i went looking for a big, epic twentieth century survey and this delivered the goods. despite its scope and intimidating length, it's pretty engaging throughout. i listened to the audio version (30 plus hours!) which was great - kind of like tuning in to BBC radio, only hearing news about WWI or something.
this is totally one of those books that attempts to present history as something linear, conventional and "neutral." the linearity is actually its great strength (much as the embattled avant-gardeist within me may hate to admit it). by starting at the beginning and ending at the end, gilbert forced me to make connections across a variety of different ideologies and cultures, especially during the 1930's. like all attempts at neutrality, it fails completely. instead, it presents a mainstream western view of world history, with an unusual emphasis on britain and the states. accordingly, the post-WWII atrocities of western europe and the u.s. are mostly minimized as tragedies that good people failed to prevent - while similar crises from the communist and muslim world are usually more intentionally malevolent in gilbert's estimation. for example, there's a sentence about the iranian revolution where the shah is described as "fighting the forces of islamic fundamentalism" which struck me as a particularly misleading morsel of information.
some of these biases are inevitable - in fact, a history book without any bias would probably also lack any personality. one deeper problem with gilbert's history is its almost total ignorance of latin america and the caribbean. for instance, gilbert feels the need to devote a few paragraphs to the election of john major in the u.k. (surely one of the 20th century's most riveting moments), but fails to include any mention of either of haiti's duvalier's. latin america is almost completely absent from his account until the post-colonial era. and even there, its role is mostly limited to the cold war posturing of the time - cuban missile crisis, reagan vs. the sandanistas and so forth.
on the other hand, gilbert is surprisingly informative when it comes to eastern europe and possibly even the middle east, though his pro-israel sympathies occasionally cloud the picture he paints. there's also lots of good information about antisemitism in the soviet union, something that often gets brushed to the periphery in discussions of it. he also has a particular fascination with traffic accidents, which prove to be a far greater danger to human life than i ever considered them to be!
here's the bottom line - gilbert's politics are almost certainly to the right of my own. at one point he brags about george h.w. bush reading one of his books and getting the idea to compare saddam hussein to hitler in a speech - why would anyone want to take credit for that? but setting my own biases, this is a rock-solid history that really helped me fill in several of the gaps in my understanding of what lead up to the world i inhabit....more
a likeable, detailed time-traveling yarn with a fun premise: it's the near-ish future, time travel is now possible, and academic historians appear to a likeable, detailed time-traveling yarn with a fun premise: it's the near-ish future, time travel is now possible, and academic historians appear to be the people most excited by the technology. a precocious graduate student named kivrin is determined to travel back in time to 14th century england, but her mentor, mr. dunsworthy, is skeptical about the voyage. she ends up going anyway, and as the rupture opens in the space/time continuum, a mysterious virus afflicts kivrin and the inhabitants of the future simultaneously.
the first half of this book is an expertly paced scramble for damage control in the late 21st and 14th century. the book pivots between the two times from chapter to chapter, creating great tension along the way. eventually, the reason for all the illness is revealed, but that moment comes a bit too late. the book drags a bit in the middle, often because willis is better with plot and historical details than with character development. some of the more villain-ish characters are too cliche for comfort (the university bureaucrat, the hysterical doting mother) and kivrin's 14th century acquaintances are little more than vessels through which to share the customs and prejudices of long ago.
things pick up again during the last 150 or so pages, when the shit begins to hit the fan. at that point, the narrative takes a darker, more uncompromising tone and dealing very directly with the "nasty, brutish and short" aspects of life in medieval europe. ...more
a tidy, unique and extremely focused crime novel. higgins' small time crooks feel like the kind of guys you walk past cautiously in a bar. he capturesa tidy, unique and extremely focused crime novel. higgins' small time crooks feel like the kind of guys you walk past cautiously in a bar. he captures their language perfectly without over-stylizing it, and locates his characters in a plausible middle ground between cleverness and pig-headed-ness. eddie coyle feels like a story about real people with real problems. it's the kind of crime story you might overhear on the subway, told with a good eye for the person who might tell it. higgins hints at some larger issues as well - betrayal, exhaustion, meaninglessness - and strikes a few chords from time to time on their accounts. but mostly i just loved the dialogue and the earthy realism....more
i listened to the audiobook version of this, which was a bad idea. i'm a little ashamed to admit that i ignored a lot of the more technical parts (mati listened to the audiobook version of this, which was a bad idea. i'm a little ashamed to admit that i ignored a lot of the more technical parts (mathematical examples, etc.), because i wasn't paying careful enough attention. i use audiobooks as a way to remain stimulated while making paintings in my studio, and this was a poor choice on my part, since it deserved more undivided attention.
that said, it's a pretty useful introduction, i guess. its central metaphor compares the lives of two little girls (one in the u.s. and one in ethiopia), contrasting the different ways their societies organize themselves economically. as that example suggests, the focus is on global development and its discontents (climate change, political transparency, etc.) so the focus veers away from classical economic matters from time to time. since this is the aspect of economics i'm most interested in (globalization, inequality, distribution of resources, etc.), it worked for me. but i should have sat down with it and read it in print format....more
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