Month: November 2009

“26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” by Kij Johnson (2008) E

Date read: 11.06.09
Read From: Asimov’s, July 2008
Reviewer: Emera

This post originally segued into an extremely long-winded discussion of what makes readers perceive fiction as “genre” versus “non-genre,” but two hours and >1100 words later, I got uncomfortable with some/all of what I had written. So, it’s been hacked back and all that’s left is a thematic discussion/analysis of Kij Johnson’s “26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” which, you might have noticed, Kakaner also just reviewed. (Later edit: But here’s the most expeditious compression of what I had been meaning to say about genre: if you like speculative fiction that makes a point of explicating mechanism – how the AI or the FTL drive or the summoning spell works – you’ll probably be disappointed by this story. It’s more of an absurdist fable.)

To make a mildly spoilery summary, the grief-embittered, formerly rootless heroine, Aimee, comes into possession of a strange miracle: a troupe of performing monkeys who, without any visible explanation, can disappear and reappear at will. She wonders endlessly at the miracle, and where it brings her to in life, but she never really does find out how it works.

The monkeys know, obviously, and one even agrees to show her the trick firsthand – but she still can’t see what the trick is. Despite the monkeys’ transparency (PUN) – here’s what we do, here’s us doing it, nothing hidden, just a bunch of monkeys in a bathtub – there’s a veil she can’t penetrate, something she can’t see beyond, can’t participate in. There’s just no way for her to “get it,” to seize the heart of the mystery, no matter how close she is to it and how clearly it’s laid out for her. It’s deliciously slippery and absurd, a mystery that’s all the more impenetrable for its almost banal apparent obviousness.

Continue reading “26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” by Kij Johnson (2008) E

“26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss,” by Kij Johnson (2008) K

Date Read: 11.03.09
Read From: Asimov’s July 2008
Reviewer: Kakaner

Well, after reading “Spar”, I was mighty curious to see what all the fuss with Kij Johnson was about so I searched up her most famous story. “26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss” won the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction and is currently nominated for the 2009 Hugo and Nebula Short Story awards.

The story is about a girl with little-to-no prospects who buys a traveling monkey act from the current owner. The act makes her rich and famous, but she is never quite satisfied mainly because she isn’t able to figure out how the monkeys perform their disappearing act. I was drawn in by so many aspects of this tale– the circus, monkeys with personalities, magic, and the very bizarre human-human and human-monkey relationships.The implied imagery is actually eerily haunting, from 26 brilliant monkeys pursuing pastimes in their cages to the scene in which they disappear one by one into a suspended bathtub. However, I was very disappointed by the ending. I felt like Johnson did a fantastic job keeping me guessing throughout the entire story but failed to deliver an ending of the same caliber, and I didn’t come away with much food for thought. Once again, one of those “What was the point?” moments for me.

Go To:
Kij Johnson
Asimov’s Science Fiction

The Man in the Ceiling, by Jules Feiffer (1995) K

Date Read: 10.12.09
Book From: Personal Collection
Reviewer: Kakaner

Summary

Jimmy Jibbett is a boy who dreams of becoming a comic book artist and spends his days in the basement making his stories come to life on paper. His mother is also an artist, but his father is a humorless businessman and his two sisters are brats; overall, his family doesn’t really support his aspirations. But Jimmy finds hope through his friends, certain members of his family, and ultimately his imagination.

Review

This is a pretty charming little story, complete with full illustrations  drawn by the author in the style of a 10 year old. I was lured to buy this book when my friend pointed it out to me on a shelf and said something along the lines of, “Dude! That’s one of my favorite children’s books! It’s about this kid that draws comics!”. I mean, who doesn’t love a kid who loves and draws comics? Case and point.

I had no trouble envisioning Jimmy as this scrawny kid with a constantly runny nose who simultaneously entertained wild dreams of inventing the world’s favorite superhero and nurtured a secret desire for that superhero to come to life and be his best friend. Jimmy is pretty much the quintessential dorky pre-pubescent boy, and subsequently, loser so if you were one of those, read this book.

My one gripe is that it seemed like the entire story was covered by a slight sheen of awkwardness. Although the story is touching and relatable, the writing doesn’t achieve that level of lighthearted elegance usually found in Newbery winners and Jimmy as a character doesn’t really stay with you after you finish reading. The plot was a little bit too simple and straightforward, and the few plot devices seem like they were devised and then inserted into the story. However, I do have to say The Main in the Ceiling has one of the absolutely cutest endings ever.

Go to:
Jules Feiffer

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (2006) E

Date read: 11.1.09
Read from: Borrowed from my brother
Reviewer: Emera

In the midst of the Great Depression, Jacob Jankowski receives news that an automobile accident has killed both of his parents. On top of that, he’s now penniless, as his parents secretly mortgaged their house and his father’s veterinary practice in order to pay for his Ivy-League education. After fleeing his final exams at Cornell in despair, he impulsively jumps a passing train, and discovers that it’s the circus train of The Benzini Brothers’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth. With no better prospects, he becomes the show’s veterinarian, and quickly learns that the circus’ glittering exterior is fueled by squalid, back-breaking labor and a brutal social hierarchy. Jacob finds his only kindred spirit in Marlena, the show’s beautiful horse trainer – who is, unfortunately, married to August, the show’s charming, amoral, and increasingly violent animal manager.

If you couldn’t tell from the description, this is a damn entertaining novel. Though Gruen’s writing lacks elegance and subtlety – I found myself rolling my eyes several times at particularly clunky descriptions, and was uncomfortable with her simplistic treatment of mental illness – it ably delivers drama and action. And ultimately, the most winning aspect is the historical immersion. In spite of the predictable plot and characters, I continued reading just to soak in more of the fascinating details of circus life. Many of the novel’s most memorable elements – from wayward, garden-raiding elephants to pickled hippopotamuses – are in fact based on historical anecdotes, as revealed in Gruen’s afterword. The framing device of a 93-year-old Jacob reliving his past while in an assisted living facility is also surprisingly moving and thoughtful.

Overall, Water for Elephants is enjoyable, if not excellent. If you like old-fashioned showbiz and sordid glitz, you’ll likely have a good time with it.

Go to:
Sara Gruen

“The perverse allure of a damaged woman”

How Ayn Rand became an American woman (via Slate)

Ayn Rand is one of America’s great mysteries. She was an amphetamine-addicted author of sub-Dan Brown potboilers, who in her spare time wrote lavish torrents of praise for serial killers and the Bernie Madoff-style embezzlers of her day. She opposed democracy on the grounds that “the masses”—her readers—were “lice” and “parasites” who scarcely deserved to live. Yet she remains one of the most popular writers in the United States, still selling 800,000 books a year from beyond the grave. […] So how did this little Russian bomb of pure immorality in a black wig become an American icon?

A few days ago I suggested The Fountain (century-crossing meta-romance painted in black and gold, yay!) to one of my friends for our weekly movie night, and was mightily confused when she made a disgusted expression and said, “Isn’t that by Ayn Rand?”  She had apparently misheard my suggestion as The Fountainhead.

I’ve never read Ayn Rand and am only familiar with Objectivism in the vaguest way (much of that knowledge coming, pathetically, from Bioshock), so this article in today’s Slate, which examines how Rand’s traumatic, warped life mapped onto her cultishly successful writing, went a long way towards explaining my roommate’s reaction. The ending of the article gets a little frantically polemical, but as usual, I’m not savvy enough to examine its claims with a critical eye.

Everything’s Eventual, by Stephen King (2002) E

Date read: 4.27.08
Read from: Public library
Reviewer: Emera

A horror review for belated Halloween wishes, maybe? I have a weird love-hate relationship with King’s fiction, characterized of late by a growing tolerance and respect for his work. About half of the time I find his work screechy, self-important, and overburdened with stylistic tics, but I do think that his particular understanding of life deepens a lot of his writing. (A little more on that below.) Also, I think The Shining is pretty good as a novel, and amazing as a movie. (I just re-watched it with my roommate a few days ago. Excellent.)

Given all that, I decided to cherry-pick only the stories that seemed most interesting to me out of this collection, which ended in me reading about half of it. Blurblets below.

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