Novels | The Black Letters

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (2006) K

Date Read: 11.11.10

Book From: Personal Collection

Reviewer: Kakaner

Ugh. Father and son try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world that is apparently strewn with limbs, covered with ash, and– just in case we didn’t catch it the first 50 times on the first page– one that is repeatedly described as “bleak” and “gray”. The Road was highly unimaginative, riddled with stilted dialogue, contained no real character development, and lacked true substantive merit. Having never read Cormac McCarthy before (my only exposure being a viewing of No Country for Old Men), I was expecting an epic survival story in the ranks of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead or something along the lines of Y: The Last Man. Nothing happens. The writing is wholly unspectacular, and the greatest annoyance was McCarthy’s inability to come up with new phrases to describe (in all fairness) a neverchanging landscape. Particular pet peeves were “smoothed his dirty/filthy hair”, “the landscape was dark/bleak/gray”, “there was ash everywhere”, and ending every. single. conversation with “Okay”. This next bit is mildly spoilerish, but for a novel all about the depravity of mankind once the restraints of society have been lifted, the ending is frustratingly inappropriate– almost a “deus ex machina” resolution. I will, however, grant that The Road was extremely cathartic in that I felt personally choked with raw suffering and despair after only 15 pages. But that alone was definitely not enough to save the book, and it was simply more of the same overbearing emotion for the next 150 pages. In conclusion, hype is a cruel thing and The Road was a waste of time.

Go To:

Cormac McCarthy: bio and works reviewed

Dealing With Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede (1990) E

Date read: 6.8.10; umpteenth re-read
Book from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

I feel like I shouldn’t need to introduce this book or this series. If you’ve never read the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, what have you been doing with your life? Before Catherine, Called Birdy, before Ella Enchanted, before Robin McKinley’s heroines, Cimorene rocked my life. A princess who really just wants to fence, learn Latin, and be a dragon’s librarian/cook/mystery-solver? Sign me up, please. Add in Morwen, an acerbic, ginger-haired, hypercompetent witch with spectacles, bottomless sleeves, and a house full of attitudinal cats, and you have two pinnacles of no-nonsense badassery. In this first installment (actually published second, as the fourth book, chronologically, was the first written), Cimorene runs away from home and, thanks to the advice of a talking frog, promptly becomes the princess of a dragon named Kazul. While occupying her days with cooking, cataloguing, and fending off meddling wizards and persistent knights bent on her rescue, Cimorene uncovers a plot that threatens the dragon kingdom, and sets out to unravel it with the help of her new friends.

For the past few years I’ve been hunting down, very much out of order, the original hardback editions of the series, with Trina Schart Hyman’s cover illustrations (see above). When I finally got Dealing With Dragons, I couldn’t resist an immediate re-read, and luckily, the humor, energy, and inguenuity of Wrede’s writing hold up just as well with later reads. Though it’s clear to me now how utilitarian much of her writing is (e.g. “here I will insert a scene of Cimorene giving Kazul a bath so I have an excuse to make them talk about dragon history for a chapter”), and how often the plot relies on convenient coincidences to move it along, the characters are still utterly winning, and the world full of marvelous, clever detail. The book can be summed up, really, as delightful.

I was also struck this time around by my realization of how extremely polite Cimorene is, at the same time that she’s entirely intolerant of fluff and indecision – I had remembered how sarcastic she is, but not how carefully and strategically sheathed she keeps that sarcasm. Tears of admiration were wiped!

Go to:
Patricia C. Wrede: bio and works reviewed
Talking to Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede (1985) E

Wringer, by Jerry Spinelli (1997) E

Date read: 10.11.10
Book from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

Adapted from the back cover:

“In Palmer LaRue’s hometown of Waymer, turning ten is the biggest event of a boy’s life. It marks the day when a boy is ready to take his place as a wringer – the boys who wring the necks of wounded pigeons at the annual Pigeon Day shoot. It’s an honor and a tradition. But for Palmer, his tenth birthday is not something to look forward to, but something to dread. Because – although he can’t admit this to anyone – Palmer does not want to be a wringer. But he can’t stop himself from getting older, any more than he can stop tradition. Then one day, a visitor appears on his windowsill, and Palmer knows that this, more than anything else, is a sign that his time is up. Somehow, he must learn how to stop being afraid and stand up for what he believes in.”

Jerry Spinelli, like many otherwise excellent children’s book authors, most often falters when he leans too heavily towards explicit didacticism. Wringer, with its themes of resisting bullying and peer pressure, could easily fall into this category, but I was extremely pleased to find it instead an organic and moving story. Occasionally a character’s behavior might be a little too conveniently suited to the needs of the plot and message to be credible, but overall – I couldn’t put it down, cried twice, and found much of the writing startlingly beautiful. One reviewer observed that Wringer benefits from being less “antic” than Maniac Magee (my longtime favorite Spinelli novel), and as much as I love Maniac’s picaresqueties, I agree that Wringer makes for a quieter, more intimate emotional experience.

Above all, the main characters are written with great psychological acuity. Spinelli evokes Palmer’s half-articulated fears both vividly and believably, and his relationships with his mother and his friend Dorothy are deeply charming and hilarious and true-to-life. In general I appreciated that Palmer’s parents are so gentle and empathetic, especially now that I’m actually old enough to sympathize with the adults in children’s books, and not just regard them opaque and rather less interesting than the protagonists.

Another favorite element: the deep wonder and precision with which Spinelli describes Nipper, Palmer’s pigeon friend, as well as Palmer’s own eagerness to learn about pigeons:

Continue reading Wringer, by Jerry Spinelli (1997) E

Night Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko (1998) E

Date read: (incomplete) 10.17.10
Book from: Borrowed from Kakaner
Reviewer: Emera

Adapted from the back cover:

“Set in contemporary Moscow, where shapeshifters, vampires, and streets-sorcerers linger in the shadows, Night Watch is the first book in an epic saga chronicling the eternal war of the ‘Others,’ an ancient race of humans with supernatural powers who must swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. The agents of Light – the Night Watch – oversee nocturnal activity, while the agents of Dark keep watch over the day. For a thousand years both sides have maintained a precarious balance of power, but an ancient prophecy has decreed that a supreme Other will one day emerge, threatening to tip the scales. Now, that day has arrived. When a mid-level Night Watch agent named Anton stumbles upon a cursed young woman – an uninitiated Other with magnificent potential – both sides prepare for a battle that could lay waste to the entire city, possibly the world.”

I grabbed this off of Kakaner’s shelf at some point, having heard that the movie adaptations of the series were good, and being a bit of a sucker for urban-fantasy romps (as evidenced by my shameless obsession with the Dresden Files). I sampled two chapters before deciding to give the rest a miss. What I read seemed a bit silly and mostly predictable; I didn’t feel particularly intrigued by the characters or the world-building, especially given the obvious moral binary. Andrew Bromfield’s translation reads fluently, so I’m going to assume that any faults lie with the original text: namely, abuse of ellipses and exclamation points (“This was real power! With real perseverance!” “Damn!” “Faster!” “A female voice!”) and a general atmosphere of cheesy, humorless melodrama. Characters growl in anger, angst about unquenchable blood thirst, and so on.

Also, not the fault of the book itself, but still hilarious – a further excerpt from the back-cover summary: “With language that throbs like darkly humorous hard-rock lyrics about blood and power, freedom and responsibility…” – That is some quite specific throbbing.

Go to:
Sergei Lukyanenko: bio and works reviewed

World War Z, by Max Brooks (2006) E

Date read: 8.24.10
Book from: Borrowed from my cousin
Reviewer: Emera

In brief: ZOMBIE OUTBREAK etc. Global pandemonium ensues.

So I assumed at first that this was in novel form, and was mildly intrigued since I’d never read a novel-length zombie survival story. (ETA: Oh wait, I have: Warm Bodies.) Turns out it’s actually in the format of interviews with various survivors of “World War Z:” soldiers, community leaders, doctors, lone survivalists, a feral child, etc., brought to you by the author of The Zombie Survival Guide. Most of it is schlock, especially any part of it that aspires to any emotional or philosophical depth and the so-called “satire,” which amounts to making very obvious fun of Corrupt Politicians, Shallow American Suburban Housewives, and so on. (Also, I must salute Brooks for his incredibly creative choices in making two of the three or four total Asian characters, respectively, a blind samurai zombie-whacker and a former otaku turned “warrior monk” (barf).)

But what fun schlock it is! The interview format gives Brooks an excuse to play out as many obsessively detailed scenarios as his zombie-nerd brain can churn out, from panics fueled by the failure of a fraudulent zombie-virus vaccine, to reappropriated medieval castles under siege, to all the intricacies of anti-zombie warfare and weapon design. (Possibly my favorite section: a long interview regarding the training of military dogs to track, and sometimes lure, zombies. It tickles the part of me that insisted on using attack dogs when playing Red Alert against my brother.) There are also numerous satisfyingly suspenseful episodes and creepy moments: the narrative of an American soldier who is ejected from a damaged plane and lost, alone, in a zombie-infested forest; the realization of a submarine crew that that odd sound is the clawing of dozens of submerged zombies that have surrounded their vessel. (Brooks’ zombies survive drowning, and can re-reanimate if thawed after being frozen, which leads to the fabulously grisly image of a world with its polar regions abandoned to hordes of half-frozen zombies.)

All in all, World War Z made for some great summer reading. I suppose it’s a little late to be reporting that, but there’s always room for a little brainless (pun?) entertainment. If you’ve ever discussed zombie outbreak contingency plans with friends, you’ll likely enjoy this.

Go to:
Max Brooks: bio and works reviewed

The Unicorn Sonata, by Peter S. Beagle (1996) E

Date read: 8.1.10
Book from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

(Photos originally featured in New books for August last year.)

After being left with distinctly mixed feelings for China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun (review), I experienced a bout of paranoia that maybe I was just getting too old for YA books. Cue further wibbling and visions of nostalgically longing but tragically unconsummatable glances at the YA section of the library. Luckily, The Unicorn Sonata came up shortly after on my reading pile. While The Unicorn Sonata is not a great book, it is a quite good one, and – most importantly to me at the time of reading – it encapsulates the joy and sweetness that I associate with so many of the books that were childhood favorites, at the same time that there are flickers of darkness and more adult ambiguity very close to the surface.

Joey Rivera is an unhappy 13-year-old who’s most at peace when visiting her roguish abuelita in her nursing home, or cleaning and singing in the local music shop whose proprietor she’s befriended. One day, a mysterious boy named Indigo enters the shop, offering for sale a spiraled horn that plays haunting music that only he and Joey can hear. Soon after, Joey finds herself walking out of the streets of Los Angeles and into a world called Shei’rah, where she encounters a host of mythological creatures, some friendly and some dangerous – perytons, fauns, unicorns. The unicorns, Joey learns, the land’s Old Ones, are threatened by a mysterious plague of blindness. As her time in Shei’rah nears an end, she begins seeking out answers to the disease’s origins, and to the other mysteries she’s encountered in the land.

Again, none of this may be strikingly original, but all of it is written with easy grace, good humor, and exuberant imagery. The characters are well-developed for the length of the book, and their dialogue sharply written. I found Joey’s relationship with her abuelita sweet, if a little cliché, and also enjoyed the portrayal of her friendship with a lonely brook-jallah, a kind of predatory nymph. All in all, Joey’s time in Shei’rah often reminded me of the uncomplicated joy and peacefulness of scenes from the earlier Narnia books. In fact, I’m not unconvinced that there’s some deliberate referencing going on, since Joey first enters Shei’rah while walking past a streetlamp, and thereafter encounters – what else but a faun. (Though Shei’rah’s fauns are of an earthier, hairier, riper-smelling variety than Mr. Tumnus.)

I was also intrigued that the central crisis is eventually revealed to be metaphysical, rather than external, in origin, relating to the tensions running through Shei’rah’s more discontented inhabitants, but found the reveal a little too abruptly and patly delivered (“oh, and here’s the moral, by the way”) to be entirely convincing. Nonetheless, it adds another layer of complication to an already surprisingly nuanced fantasy.

Art – Robert Rodgriguez’s full-color illustrations were occasionally a little too… baroque for me (the unicorns look a little gnarly), but they certainly contribute to the book’s rich atmosphere and luxurious look, and I enjoyed his referencing of tapestry patterns in the fields and foliage.

Finally, thank you again to Vega of the Athenaeum for picking up a signed copy for me from Comic-Con!

Go to:
Peter S. Beagle: bio and review index
The Last Unicorn comic #1, by Peter S. Beagle, art by Renae de Liz and Ray Dillon (2010) E
The Last Unicorn comic #2, by Peter S. Beagle, art by Renae de Liz and Ray Dillon (2010) E
The Innkeeper’s Song, by Peter S. Beagle (1993) E

Beautiful Children, by Charles Bock (2008) K

Date Read: 9.07.10
Book From: Personal Collection
Reviewer: Kakaner

Summary

Beautiful Children brings together several perspectives of Las Vegas life– a lower middle class suburban family, a couple involved in the sex industry, a barely-capable artist, and a pack teenage runaways — unified by the themes of depravity, exploitation, and failure. One day, 12-year-old Newell, a comic-obsessed loser of a kid, disappears after going out with a friend. What ensues is an exploration of the grief of those affected by Newell’s disappearance, and a string of other interactions leading up to (but not necessarily connected to) the event.

Review

Uggggh. Where do I begin?

Beautiful Children was an impulse buy, something I almost never let myself get into. But once in a while, say, at a Harvard Independent Bookstore Warehouse Sale, I’ll pick up random remainders, convinced by the price and New York Times Bestseller stamps, and then never read them. This is because reading them has worked for me Very Few Times, and unfortunately, Beautiful Children was yet another reminder of why I should never let myself waste money like this.

You know a novel is going to be bad when it’s a bestseller you haven’t heard of it in any personal literary circles, and by page 150, there is more talk of sex than there is storytelling. At one point, there were literally 10 straight pages detailing the minutia of a father’s obsession with porn and all its accompanying activities, and while it was clearly there to illustrate the state of a broken marriage, it was entirely ungraceful and unwarranted. I think what frustrated me the most was how utterly uninspired the whole novel seemed– it was wholly inorganic and Bock simply didn’t bring anything new or fresh to a hackneyed setting. The characters were bland, predictable, and stagnant, which served to augment the faults of an awkwardly moving plot. And then there was the uncomfortable feeling that Bock had pulled out all the stops with this debut novel, pouring forth all that he had been waiting to tell the world about everything, whether it be rock music or TV commercials or pornographic preferences, and had pretty much drained his next novel’s potential to zero– a pity because Bock clearly demonstrated a great command of the English vocabulary, but not language. With some more polishing and a real story, he could probably produce something decent. A couple more descriptors: disjointed, clumsy, pretentious, contrived, and distasteful.

Although I have much more I could and want to say… it’s simply not worth the effort. I’m definitely going to play it safe and keep to pre-researched books for a while so I can save myself some brain cells and support better authors. Off to scrub my brain out and retreat into a corner to rejuvenate with a comforting childhood favorite. I’m thinking… A Wrinkle In Time.

Go to:

Charles Bock: bio and works reviewed

Deerskin, Robin McKinley (1993) K

Date Read: 09.01.2010
Book From: Dearest Emera
Reviewer: Kakaner

Summary

(Shamelessly stolen from Emera’s review— if it ain’t broke, why rewrite it?)
Princess Lissla Lissar lives quietly and invisibly in the shadows of her father and mother, who are worshiped by the people, and whose love for each other is all-consuming. When Lissar’s mother mysteriously wastes away, she forces her husband to swear that he will not remarry unless he finds a woman as beautiful as she was. This promise comes back to haunt the kingdom when Lissar, becoming a woman herself, attracts her father’s attention for the first time. Driven from the kingdom by an unendurable ordeal, Lissar escapes with her only friend, her dog Ash, and struggles to survive and reclaim her sense of self.

Review

The beginning of Deerskin was eye opening. As I started reading McKinley, who I haven’t picked up since Sunshine several years ago, I realized there was so much to her writing and storybuilding that I had not been able to fully appreciate before. Deerskin began with a delicate yet urgent account of Lissar’s childhood leading up to her escape from the kingdom. In my opinion, the gem of the novel was here– the elegant and insightful conveyance of the uncrossable distance that can form between a child and her parents, and the stunningly eerie account of the relationship between Lissar and her father. It has certainly been done before– stories in which royal children are neglected emotionally by the majesties– but none have devoted the same care as McKinley did here. The brilliance was the realization that something so little as lack of acknowledgment combined with an initial reverence for one’s parents can slowly ferment for years until it is replaced by fear. Here, I thought the execution was splendid and something that served to set this retelling apart from others.

Next, I apprehensively followed Lissar as she fled her kingdom and sought a bitter refuge in the wilderness, waiting to be impressed by Lissar’s independence, resourcefulness, and elegance in the face of hardships (as is to be expected of fairy-tale-retelling-heroines). This was the case, more or less, but as the story progressed, I was assaulted with pages of visions, repetitive daily monotony, more suffering than one reader can handle, ellipsis abuse e10, and a blind race to the resolution.

And may I interject here, did the climax really happen? [not-really-spoiler-alert] Did she really honestly just pour forth a fountain of blood from her vagina, leaving a stain in the wood that was to be studied and used as an oracle for generations thereafter? I entirely understand what McKinley was striving for, and yes even though Deerskin is regarded as the Moonwoman, there are other ways to tie together “moon” and “woman” and “dark” and “fantasy”. I would expect a male author to commit such a transgression.

To be fair, I could chalk up my dissatisfaction with the second half to the fact that I simply have much more in common with a shy, black-haired, independent, voracious reader of a child than a lady who traipses through winterlands with a large dog in tow. Despite everything, Deerskin was still one of the most exciting fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time, and it is a dark fantasy novel that places great care in maintaining and exploring the different forms of love in all relationships.

Go to:

Robin McKinley: bio and works reviewed
Deerskin (1993) [E]

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne (1870) K

Date Read: 8.13.10 (reread)
Book From: Personal Collection
Reviewer: Kakaner

Review

I recently made the perilous trek through Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: The Black Dossier, which was a constant reminder that I should reread some Jules Verne. There have also just been a smattering of references here and there so I thought I’d pick up my middle school favorite, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

My experience reading it the second time around was so appallingly different from my middle school read that I couldn’t believe it was the same book. Right before I cracked the cover, I excitedly recalled the dashing, dark, mysterious, yet loveable Captain Nemo, a brave man-gang shaking their fists (harpoons and electric wands too) at giant sea squid, the hulking science-defying metal warmachine of the Nautilus, a whirlwind of action, climax and resolution under the sea, and what I found were… dry characters and lots and lots of taxonomy. So much that I’m pretty sure there was more science in that one itsy book than in my high school biology textbook. On the one hand, I greatly appreciated the, um, education, but on the other, it was frustrating to move along in the story only to screech to a halt and have to plod through terribly strained dialogue for setting up long monologues of classification. I felt like my brain was being taxed to its limit having to conjure up all these detailed mental images of fish.

This is not to say that I think 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea lacks imagination. I still fully understand why I loved it so much, proceeded to read all of Verne‘s books I could find, and cited him as a favorite author whenever prompted. The concept, story, and scarily accurate scientific predictions were still impressive the second time around, but it would have taken a miracle for the book to have held up to the expectations I built for it.

But no, Monsieur Arronax was not quite the adventurous and fresh man of science I had always envisioned him to be, Conseil was basically a non-character, and Ned was indeed a rather infuriating spoil sport. I’m afraid I must admit that I defeatedly returned my little used copy back to its place on the shelf and called Jules Verne up to end our little affair. However, The Mysterious Island remains on my reread list because I still vividly remember it being a league above the rest of the books and I owe it to Captain Nemo to give him a second chance.

Go To:

Jules Verne

Aronnax

The Arcanum, by Thomas Wheeler (2004) E

Date read: 7.26.10
Book from: Borrowed from a cousin
Reviewer: Emera

Incomplete read – one of those books that you start to get a bad feeling about as soon as you notice the back-cover blurbs are all by third-rate authors and obscure newspapers. The Arcanum is a supernatural thriller that attempts to gather together Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, renowned voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau (who died 38 years before the book is set, but oh well), and H. P. Lovecraft on the trail of some mystery involving the Cthulhu mythos. Blah blah blah, all been done before.

I skimmed about three chapters, and it reads like mediocre fanfiction or The Da Vinci Code, full of dun dun DUN chapter breaks and phrases like “carnal treasures” and “In a swirl of a black topcoat he was gone.” It does make a lot of sense if you consider that Wheeler is primarily a screenwriter, not a novelist.

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Thomas Wheeler