I started the year off strong, but didn't even pick up a book for the last three months of the year. I also started and gave up on two books, which wasted about three or four weeks.
Here's everything I read in 2010 in the order I read them:
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Even though it was a fictional account of the Vietnam war, much was taken from personal experiences. More people should read about that war and not forget about it. The book is broken into many short stories. So many terrible things happened over there. Quite depressing and disturbing. 4 stars
Chronic City - Jonathan Lethem
The first book of his that I've read and all I can say is that Lethem is certainly talented, but this story was the most inane bunch of crap I've ever had to suffer through and the only reason I did was because the book was a gift. I've never been so dumbfounded at such an intricate story that went absolutely nowhere with so many worthless characters. I don't doubt that he was trying to use the story as some kind of hugely complex metaphor, but I wasted enough time reading it and not about to try an decipher some "inner meaning." Ridiculous. 2 stars (the only reason this gets 2 stars is because Lethem's prose is so good)
A Storm of Swords & A Feast for Crows - George R.R. Martin
The last two books in the Song of Fire and Ice series. A Storm of Swords was incredible. So many huge twists and turns. A Feast for Crows was slower and left out several major characters, but it was necessary as he brought in new characters and gave more background on existing ones. I can't wait for the HBO series!! 5 stars
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Read this for the Book of the Month and thought it was fairly unremarkable and amateurish. I stated my complaints here:
http://www.bookandreader.com/forums/f22/february-2010-alice-sebold-the-lovely-bones-19668.html 2 stars
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
Another Book of the Month read. Complete waste of time.
http://www.bookandreader.com/forums/f22/march-2010-sara-gruen-water-for-elephants-19760.html 1 star
Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr
Fantastic and as gritty and unforgiving as anything you'll read. So incredibly intense. 5 stars
Falconer - John Cheever
I posted my review of it on my facebook:
A book about a prisoner named Zeke Farragut, Falconer is one of those antiquated "classics" in which the story is more centered around meandering thoughts and loose memories than any real description of the people and places that Farragut interacts with. The prose is exceptional however, but Cheever's style is much too poetic and rambling to connect with most people these days. Even though I called it antiquated, it was only written in 1977 which doesn't make it ancient or anything, but someone under 50 reading it these days will feel very disconnected.
Falconer is a fictional state prison named after a very small town in extreme western New York state. You never find out exactly where the prison is located in the book, but it's certainly somewhere in the northeast. Farragut is drug addict convicted of killing his brother. As you can expect with a story of prison life, there are multiple seedy characters that Farragut has to live amongst as well as the guards. But even so and considering all of the prison movies and tv shows we've been inundated with over the past 25 years, the story is extremely benign and reserved. It lacks intensity and drama. Characters are paper thin and faceless as Cheever rarely describes much about them. Much is left up to the imagination. Sure, we all have an image of horror of what kinds of things take place in prisons and I have to think that it wasn't any prettier and more than likely was a ton more brutal in the seventies. So to have a story about doing hard time be so uneventful and tiresomely poetic seemed intentionally unrealistic.
All in all though, it wasn't a chore to read. I finished it in about 5 days and didn't feel cheated or anything. Just indifferent. Just makes you wonder what it really means to win the Pulitzer Prize, or meant, at the very least.
3 stars
The Music of Chance - Paul Auster
My review: (could be a spoiler in there, but I tried not to)
Paul Auster is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. His books nearly always revolve around very strange happenstance and coincidence that puts characters in some of the oddest situations that you could imagine. He develops personalities so fluidly and without effort that when they're thrust into these weird circumstances, you, just as much as the character, are thinking, how did I end up in this position? Look at me... a minute ago, a month ago, six months ago I was doing *this* or my life was going *this way* and here I am faced with this predicament? How did this happen? The Music of Chance might be the most far-fetched of these coincidental stories, but Auster's style is so grounded in reality and so identifiable that he can make it seem perfectly believable. Because, what's more unpredictable than life? Crazy things like this can happen at any time and I've always said that if you can't think it, then it's probably happened.
The difficult part of trying to explain a Paul Auster novel is that in order to do so, you end up telling the whole story because it's never anything you can stick into one particular genre. Without giving up too much, The Music of Chance is about a guy in his mid-30s who inherits a few hundred thousand dollars from his estranged father and like some people who have never known money, loses his mind with the prospect of temporary freedom. He quits his job, pays off all debts, buys a new car and drives all over the country for no other reason than to just do it. He's recently divorced and his daughter has been living with his sister in Minnesota and his cross-country touring always brings him back there to see her for a week or so at a time before he's off again. This continues for almost a year before his money is nearly dried up. By chance (this is a theme as you'd expect), he's driving down a mostly deserted country road and sees a young man staggering along the side of the road and notices that he's been severely beaten and offers him a ride. Skip forward a bunch and you understand that this kid is a hot-shot poker player that got roughed up by some people at a game. He mentions in passing that he knows of a high-stakes game that he's been invited to play in whenever he's ready if he can come up with the money to buy in, about ten grand.(remember that this was written in 1990, way before the World Series of Poker became such a pop-culture phenomenon on tv) The main character has about 14k left to his name and sees this as an opportunity to use him to win back a lot of the money he blew. Fast-forward again and it's down to a pressure-packed game of poker with two highly eccentric and massively wealthy old guys who the kid had just recently beaten the pants off of in Atlantic City about a month ago. This time he's not so lucky. In a desperate move, they agree to go into debt to keep the game going and again lose it all. With no way to pay, the rich guys keep them captive and force them to hard physical labor on their property. The physical labor is constructing a wall made of stones they bought from a dilapidated castle in Ireland. They're forced to live in a trailer in the woods together and build the wall for as long as it takes to pay back the money owed. Following all this?
Anyway, as preposterous as it sounds from a summary like that, it comes together perfectly believable. Of course, unexpected things happen and it builds to an intense climax. I read this book faster than any other book. In two days. Everything that kept happening was like a drug making me keep reading to see what would happen next. At several points in the book, you no doubt keep thinking, "how did they get to this point? a few hundred pages ago, they were *here* and now look at them.. crazy."
Paul Auster has written about a dozen books and this is the fourth of his I have read. Of those four, I'd put this one as the fourth best. It's definitely good, but nowhere near as good as The Book of Illusions or The Brooklyn Follies. Compared to those, it almost seemed like he was just messing around with this story, but it just shows how talented of a writer he is.
3.5 stars
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Didn't like this as much as the movie. My review: (again, could be a few mild spoilers, but not really)
This is my first Cormac McCarthy novel and has made me a fan. However, from what little I explained to someone who has read several of his books, it's very different in terms of his style. The Road is written in a very unconventional format with the pages being fragmented into multi-spaced paragraphs and no definable chapters. Like a few other authors I've read, he used virtually no punctuation and no quotation marks around the dialog. The description is very dry and segmented at times in the form of very short sentences. It's different and mildly refreshing but after already having read books by Kent Haruf and Hubert Selby Jr, it's not new or innovative. If anything, it shows that you don't have to follow the strict rules of literature to write a compelling novel.
Before I saying anything else, know that I saw the movie first which I think is absolutely fantastic and heartbreakingly depressing. The book probably could have evoked similar feelings had I not already known what was going to happen, but not at the same magnitude. The book is too curt and devoid of personality for you to really have any feelings for anyone. It reads like someone calling play-by-play of a sports game; calling it as they see it with sparse moments of lucid descriptions.
The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where brute force is a way of life. A father and son barely stave off starvation as they make their way along the road heading south all the while struggling to fend off and avoid the ruthless barbarity of the other starving and ultra-desperate survivors. With no animals and no crops, cannibalism is the norm and people will resort to even the most unthinkable ends to survive. There is a certain scene that was left out of the movie and probably rightfully so.
Because of the nature of the style of the book, there were several scenes brought to life in the movie that were infinitely more powerful than they were in the book. Be it the original score or the acting in general, the movie actually shows you what you couldn't see in the book because of the sometimes bland or even non-existent description. The book is hard and rigid and lifeless as no one has a face or a name. In fact, it's almost like it was written as a perfect screenplay for a director to bring to life. Take the scene with the old man on the side of the road and compare it to the adaptation in the movie and there just is no comparison.
I liked this book a lot, but it suffered from a lack of descriptive dialog. The dialog always moved too fast leaving too much to the imagination when it comes to facial expressions or tone of voice. I need to see the horror on the father's face when they go into that basement; I need to hear the desperation in the thieve's voice who stole their cart and see the pain on his face when they leave him on the side of the road. I saw and heard all of that in the movie and none of it in the book.
Good book and very good author, but I need not be more impressed by the movie.
3 stars
The Demon - Hubert Selby Jr
My review:
Hubert Selby Jr, most recently known for being the writer of Requiem for a Dream, is becoming one of my favorite authors. Selby was clearly disgusted with humanity and his seething bitterness was brought to life in his novels. Last Exit to Brooklyn was the first book of his I read which hooked me as a fan immediately. Banned in several countries, Last Exit is a brutal and unforgiving take on the realities of a big city and failed attempts at normalcy in a family atmosphere.
The Demon is a perfect example of the old adage, "he has demons," for someone who struggles with inner turmoil and can't be helped. Many authors have attempted the "sane person loses his mind" story, but nothing will compete with The Demon in that regard. I've never been more convinced of a character in a book who just completely loses his mind and Selby's erratic and unconventional writing style builds an atmosphere of panic that will affect the reader. Harry White is an immensely successful businessman in New York City with an amazing wife and family who struggles to control his temptations and the only way to satisfy his demons is to slowly up the ante. Selby never tries to make him a sympathetic or tragic character; to try and make his actions seem reasonable or identifiable. He simply shows you the essence of a complete mental and emotional breakdown that erupts to pure insanity.
You can be sure that Hubert Selby Jr's stories will not end on a positive note. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with him. I am in awe at the intensity of his writing.
5 stars
Moon Palace - Paul Auster
Another Auster story that is like five stories in one and again, trying to explain what it's about would mean almost describing the entire thing. Moon Palace rivals The Book of Illusions for my favorite of his books at this point. Paul Auster's imagination is astounding. 5 stars
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
Very good, but I didn't expect it to be so short. The dialog is dated but the prose is still fantastic. I watched the movie right afterwards having never seen it... good god. What a joke. :lol:
Deadwood - Pete Dexter
I know virtually nothing about westerns, but either my idea of them is completely off base or this is the black sheep of westerns. Basically a drama set in the "wild west" with no shoot outs or Indian rampages. Very impressive nonetheless. Pete Dexter is a very underrated author. 4 stars
