The Black Letters

The Faery Reel, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (2004) E

Date read: 3.23.08
Read from: Public library
Reviewer: Emera

The Faery Reel is a collection of “tales from the twilight realm” by 25 notable authors of fantasy, including Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Holly Black, Tanith Lee, Gregory Maguire, and Patricia McKillip.

I picked this out not actually expecting to be all that impressed, since Datlow/Windling collections aren’t always uniformly strong, despite their typically high-powered author selection. But here, at least, my expectations were far surpassed; this is a remarkably beautiful, moving, and varied collection. I found only two or three stories less than strongly written, and they still had concepts that were fun or clever or fresh – which is saying a lot when you’re going for a topic as well-worn as fairy stories. (As a note, authors in the collection keep to the spelling convention of faerie = race, Faery = place, so I’ll follow that convention below.)

Continue reading The Faery Reel, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (2004) E

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1921) K

Date Read: 12.27.08
Book From: Personal Collection
Reviewer: Kakaner

Summary

A look at the life of Benjamin Button who was born old and died young.

Review

I have never been a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, my only experience having been The Great Gatsby. I feel horrible saying that I didn’t enjoy it in the least bit, although it certainly stands to argue that if I revisited it now with a slightly more mature eye, I would probably quite like it. Being the incredibly anal purist I am, after learning about the upcoming release of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in theaters, I headed over to my local BN to read the short story first. I wasn’t blown away by the story, but it was so quaint, indirectly emotional, and beautiful that I ended up spending $13 on the somewhat overpriced newest edition with full-color illustrations.

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Continue reading The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1921) K

Galápagos, by Kurt Vonnegut (1985) E

Date read: 4.29.08
Read from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

As the world economy crashes and the majority of the human race begins to plunge to its end, half a dozen oblivious individuals make their way aboard a luxury cruise liner. The ship will indeed reach its ultimate destination – the Galápagos Islands – but rather than enjoying the “Nature Cruise of the Century,” its passengers will instead become the progenitors of a new humanity.

I felt a little foolish reading Galápagos since it’s heavily interwoven with references to other works in Vonnegut’s canon, in particular referencing Slaughterhouse-5 stylistically, when the only other Vonnegut novel I’ve read to date is Cat’s Cradle. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, which, in typical Vonnegut style, is a loopy, frightening, and brilliant satire that manages to be utterly compelling sci-fi without necessarily hewing all that closely to little things like scientific reality.

The narrative is executed with almost dizzying meta-playfulness (the meta aspect actually being explained by events later in the book), jumping from character to character while variously concealing, foreshadowing, and fragmenting the events of the plot. And though I sometimes find it hard to actually care about the characters in satires, I found the brittle, desperate cast of Galápagos strangely lovable. Much of this is thanks to Vonnegut’s tone, which is sad, funny, bitter, and loving in a way that makes you suspect he half-regrets loving anyone in the first place, but he can’t help himself, either.

Both novels of Vonnegut’s that I’ve read have a unique perspective on the absurdity of human life – both times, I’ve gotten a sense of actions that are simultaneously tiny and monumental, meaningless and all-important, cascading across a vastly bleak landscape. Here, Vonnegut asks the question of whether humanity will survive once we’ve done our best (unintentionally or otherwise) to destroy it – and if so, in what shape. And would the planet be losing anything anyway, if humanity as we see it now were to disappear? Vonnegut doesn’t quite say yes or no, which is one of the aspects of Galápagos that most make it worth reading.

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Kurt Vonnegut

Introducing Paige M. Gutenborg

Recently, the Harvard Book Store unveiled a machine that has been many years in the making… Paige M. Gutenborg!

For those of you unfamiliar with this, Paige M. Gutenborg is a book-making machine. Although I wasn’t present at the unveiling, I made sure to pack my camera when I stopped by a few days later. Here are some details from the webpage:

Prints books from a growing catalog of 3.6 million books, including titles from Google digital files and public domain databases—along with previously inaccessible works.

Creates a library-quality, perfect bound, acid-free 300-page paperback book in roughly four minutes. These books are indistinguishable from paperbacks produced by major publishing houses.

Represents a revolution in the book world, allowing readers to get their books in a manner that is fast, local, green, and affordable.

Can print your book and we can deliver it locally—same- or next day! We also deliver domestically and internationally.

Provides authors with affordable, flexible printing options. There are no minimums, and you retain full rights and complete control of your work.

Looks forward to printing your novel, personal cookbook, family genealogy, memoir, dissertation, personalized gift, and more.

Continue reading Introducing Paige M. Gutenborg

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova (2005) E

Date read: 12.30.07
Read from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

In The Historian, the titular scholar reminisces about the quest that she, her father, and her father’s mentor pursued several decades ago. All three became determined to discover the origins, deeds, and whereabouts of the true Dracula, the now-immortal Romanian warlord Vlad Tepes.

It should probably be evident to anyone following this blog for a certain length of time that I have a huge vampire problem, which very often leads me to read things that, well, aren’t really worth the time. This includes The Historian. I discovered only after the fact of attempting to read it that it has been sarcastically and very appropriately dubbed “The Dracula Code.” (Although to Kostova’s credit [?], she began writing it 10 years before Dan Brown began work on his ticket to fame.) The formula is indeed the same: flimsy historical detective work pursued among various scenic European locations, wedded to page after page of cheap cliffhangers achieved by conveniently dicing the narrative into chunks digestible enough for the attention-span-impaired.

Likewise, the “startling” or “creative” revelations she makes about the Dracula myth are only startling or creative if you don’t know all of them already, which I inevitably did. However, I do have to assume that people who pursue more useful hobbies than endlessly reading vampire mythology might still find the book an amusingly presented tour through various bits of folklore and theory. Overall, though, Kostova’s writing is pretty limp and insubstantial, if not quite on the level of a Dan Brown novel. I ended up ploughing through a total of 70ish pages out of a sense of obligation (having unfortunately purchased the novel), glanced at the ~600 left, and said “screw it.” Add Kostova to the list of presumably smart people (she’s a Yale graduate) who can’t actually write novels.

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Elizabeth Kostova

Isaac Marion Stash and a Story

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen Emera’s and my numerous reviews of Isaac Marion‘s works, namely The Inside, Warm Bodies, and Anna. These works are pretty much all highly recommended, and are self-published by Marion (links provided at the bottom of this post). Marion is noted for his strange genre niche that is, for the most part, a mix of horror, weird fiction, and romanticism.

Continue reading Isaac Marion Stash and a Story

The Music of Razors, by Cameron Rogers (2007) E

Date read: 10.29.08
Read from: Personal collection
Reviewer: Emera

In 19th-century Boston, a brilliant medical student falls in with a group of young spiritualists, only to see his hopes and plans go terribly awry as a result of their experimentations. A century and a half later, he walks the earth weary and immortal, wielding instruments made from the bones of a murdered angel, and seeking to discharge the task that he took upon himself at the height of his despair. Finally seeing a candidate worthy of becoming his successor, he enters the dreams of a boy named Walter. The young and frightened Walter learns that all he needs to do to banish his bad dreams is tell the monster in his closet to go away – only to learn too late that it was the monster who stood between him and a force banished from the universe at the beginning of time.

If the above summary sounds complicated, it doesn’t even begin to represent the full breadth of the mythology of The Music of Razors. This is a universe big enough for fallen angels, closet monsters, and a clockwork ballerina to coexist over several centuries and in the same 300 pages. The novel’s pace and complexity are undeniably demanding, especially in the beginning chapters, but the reward is that every time the page is turned, you uncover a new secret of this strange mythology, and your mind constantly stretches to keep up with the narrative’s wicked twists and hinted truths. All of these elements are convincingly and for the most part satisfyingly intertwined, and the ending of the novel delivers a volley of heavy emotional punches before leaving the reader with that perfect combination of feeling fulfilled, yet still wanting more.

I do think that the pacing could have used some stretching and breathing space to improve coherence, allow the reader more time with the characters’ emotions, and reduce the ending’s frenzied, overexplosive feel. However, from what I understand of the novel’s publishing history, there were constraints placed on its length. The first, Australian publication, released in 2001, was even shorter. Significantly more material was added to the American release, but from the sounds of it, Rogers would have liked even more.

Rogers’ writing is briskly dark, his brief sentences filled with a subtle, glancing menace, capable of both brutality and a wistful, fairy-tale loveliness. He seems to write with a grim kind of exhilaration, as aware of the emotional and spiritual weight of the story and its characters as he is of the breathtaking leaps of imagination employed in fully animating it.

This is a novel that offers immediate, visceral pleasure and sorrow, as well as food for later thought – in particular, Rogers has fascinating things to say about the role of our fears in shaping our selves. The panoply of fantastical elements also means that there is something here for all tastes, from historical fantasy to horror. All in all, I highly recommend The Music of Razors. Even if flawed, this is one of the most memorable fantasy novels I have read in recent years, and I know that many of its denizens will be staying with me for the rest of my life. Fans of Neil Gaiman and Caitlín R. Kiernan will likely enjoy this book.

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Cameron Rogers
Cameron Rogers interview with Tabula Rasa

“Where Laughter Came From”

As this is still in copyright, I am figuratively glancing about surreptitiously and wondering if I’m allowed to post this – but I can’t resist.

Where Laughter Came From

Laughter was the shape the darkness took around the first appearance of the light. That was its name then: The Shape The Darkness Took Around The First Appearance Of The Light.
The light still keeps trying to touch its lips. The lips of darkness.
The light’s hand rises but the darkness is not there. Only laughter.

– W. S. Merwin

From his 2007 collection of prose poems, The Book of Fables.

I like it when poems are resistant to easy interpretation in a playful, secretive, mythological way, rather than being abstruse or strenuously allusive. (Although the latter kind are fun in their own way, especially when generously footnoted for the uninitiated.) I’m having a lot of fun putting my brain into origami pleats trying to grasp all of this one at once.

Two reviews of reviews (sort of)

Ursula LeGuin wrote a very useful review of Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood that I just finished reading, in which she touches on one of my favorite conundrums: what does it mean to call oneself “genre” versus “literary”? Atwood apparently likes rejecting the sci-fi designation, based on an arbitrary definition that I frankly find bewildering. (The dynamics of of genre/literary “tribes” are discussed in greater and amusing detail on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog here. This, of course, is all following the enormous brouhaha made by Lev Grossman’s bizarre less than carefully argued* editorial in the Wall Street Journal about the so-called Victory of Plot in contemporary fiction. Sorry to link-fling if you haven’t been following this from the beginning, but I find it all pretty engrossing.)

Anyway, LeGuin provides a great review of the book, as well as very delicately, very incisively nailing Atwood for her fallacy in evading the designation of sci-fi. Being considered as a work of science fiction, LeGuin tells us, is not a limitation, but something that enriches the experience of reading a novel, gives us another dimension from which to analyze and celebrate a book’s creativity, fullness, and success.

Damn straight.

—

Separately, The Mumpsimus has become my favorite blog for reviews and discussion of speculative fiction. That its author, Matthew Cheney, is an English professor (as well as a writer of assorted fiction and nonfiction, and editor of Best American Fantasy) is not surprising: his reviews are lucid, accessible, and literary, filled with useful allusions and fun, thoughtful analyses. Every time I read a review of his of a book or story that I’ve already read, I want to go back and read the work again.

The excitement in his reviews is tangible – reading them is like sitting with a good friend and discussing the story at hand, tossing ideas back and forth and unraveling knotty plot points together. I also think that he tends to appreciate a lot of underappreciated and misread works. Case in point: his ecstatic, playful review of Kelly Link’s “Stone Animals” (which I loved and briefly reviewed here). Judging from the comments following, said story was not so well-received by many readers; I think it’s a shame that none of them seemed to get anything further from Cheney’s review. Note that his review is somewhat spoiler-y.

Unfortunately, his blog is also rather unwieldy to navigate, but the material is all so good that I don’t mind trawling.

*correction made following the reading of Grossman’s comments in response to all the heated criticism.

Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom (1997)

Date Read: 9.24.09
Book From: Neha
Reviewer: Kakaner

Summary

Morris Schwartz, a professor of sociology at Brandeis, discovers he has ALS and begins his journey to death. Mitch Albom, the author, learns of his professor’s condition and begins to visit him regularly on Tuesdays for his “one last class”. Tuesdays with Morrie chronicles Morrie’s last days through the eyes of Albom and relates Morrie’s philosophies outlooks on life, love, and death.

Review

Morrie’s tale is touching and admirable; his philosophies are noteworthy and brave.Morrie taught the importance of relationships and love above all else in this world, and used his struggle with death to examine how one should approach and embrace the end. The edition I read claims that Tuesdays with Morrie has changed millions of lives and, well, I can certainly believe that many people have been impacted by this book. I feel like Morrie and I would get along because I share the same views as him and can only hope that when I reach his age, I will be able to be an example of my beliefs.

However, I found Tuesdays with Morrie very hard to enjoy. The writing was incredibly spare and simple to a fault, and all in all, incredibly dramatic. The prose (if you could call it that) reads like Dan Brown’s and the italicized entries are reminiscent of Lifetime programming. Morrie’s story is already beautiful and it does not need added dramatism or overstatements. I do not doubt that Albom is a great journalist because I can tell his writing style is great for that field, and especially for sports. It just felt like a cop out because each chapter was so clearly a simple transcription of audio tapes, and edited so as to push the reader’s emotional buttons. I wish Albom had added more literary meat and interpretation. Reading this novel devolved into a plodding journey and my enthusiasm was gradually buried by mediocrity.

I honestly tried really hard to read past the writing and into the content, but everytime I hit yet another cheesy and dramatic chapter-ender I would cringe a little and put the book down. I’m sure picky readers will encounter the same experience, in which case I would definitely not recommend reading Tuesdays with Morrie. But I suspect for the most part, people will enjoy this and people should read this, if not only to increase ALS awareness and for a mature prospective on life.

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Mitch Albom