Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta

Is controllable fantasy ultimately more painful than hard reality?

This was an amazing book. When I was finished, I wanted to turn to page one and start all over because I sensed there were patterns and motifs I missed. The writing was beautiful and the ideas beneath the writing were thought-provoking. How do we live our life now? How do we comfort ourselves now?

The themes were dreams, aspirations, memories, and regrets, depicted using the technological tools of modern life: Youtube, cell phones, and twenty four hour news channels.

The book is about a brother and a sister. Nik Kranis, a failed musician, defined by our society as a loser, has in fact not abandoned his art, and in a way, not abandoned ambition either. For twenty five years he has continued recording albums in a garage, though albums only for himself. He’s created and documented a complete fantasy world (The Chronicles) of rock stardom. He’s nutty. The sister, Denise, is afraid she’s losing her memory because her mother has Alzheimer’s. Denise get overly emotionally involved with 24 hour news channels and far off people’s tragedies. Her empathy has gotten out of control (or has it?). Meanwhile, Denise’s daughter finds a perfect documentary subject in Uncle Nik.

The siblings grew up in the heart of Hollywood, each one with a Hollywood dream. Nik will be a rock star, Denise will be a movie star. Nik is handsome, Denise is pretty. What can stop them? Twenty five years later, Denise is a secretary with an upside down mortgaged house in Santa Clarita and Nik is a bartender in a run down one bedroom in Topanga Canyon. Both live in Southern Californian suburbia about as far away from Hollywood dreams as you can get.

Denise’s story feels more complete – in many ways, the novel is about her responding to Nik’s madness. At the end of the book, she travels to Stone Arabia. The title remains a mystery until the very end. Denise disconnects from the Internet and transforms her voyeurism of pity into a face to face connection. That scene is ambiguous. Does technology make us better off?

The stories sort of fall apart at the end, especially Nik’s story and it felt like a semi suitable ending was patched on. But overall, a very impressive book.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

A father finds a reason to live in a post apocalyptic landscape by protecting his young son

I thought I would hate this because I heard it was pretentious, but I was completely sucked in and ended up liking it quite a bit. The story was gripping and the prose style, for the most part, was unadorned. The story is presented simply – a father and son walk down a road, somewhere in the American South, through an ash covered landscape. Though sometimes it’s very difficult to walk down that road because civilization, laws and manners have vanished and packs of ruthless cannibals are everywhere. Yet the father persists. Because they “carry the light”. “We’re the good guys.”

This book reminded me of Emma Donaghue’s Room – basically the same plot, about the depth of parental love flowering in an intolerable situation. Saving the child becomes the organizing principle of the parent’s life, even though it is clear they are doomed.   Room had more of a sense of humor and The Road has absolutely no sense of humor. Although in Room, our plucky heroes get rescued. Here there apparently is no rescue (though there is a hiker ex machina).

In this novel, humans have already destroyed the world. I liked the presentation of the destroyed landscapes, the mountains, the oceans, the cities. This novel was also a reminder and a meditation on what would actually happen if civilization was destroyed. We would revert back to the cunning animal state and it would be very bad news for the weak.

There are a few logical problems – in this imagined world there are no bugs, no rabbits, but our two humans keep running into lots of other humans and a seemingly unlimited supply of canned peaches.

Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler

Who is Sarah Canary?

At first I was delighted by the lively and vivid prose and quirky characters bouncing off each other but at around the third chapter I realized each chapter was the same – every character is projecting their idea of untrammeled womanhood upon the blank slate of the ever moving madwoman Sarah Canary. Ok. Got it. The plot eventually geared up, ending with a big set piece at the San Francisco Zoo but I felt the story never quite came to a conclusion. Therefore I was left with the feeling that I didn’t get it. Especially not the prettily written end.

This is a historical novel about a group of society's outcasts running around the muddy Northwest. We never see inside of the head of the mute (mentally deficient?) Sarah Canary, but our two main narrative consciousness are Chin, the pigtailed immigrant, and BJ the madman recently escaped from the asylum. They are both in love with or in some sort of thrall to Sarah Canary. Later they are joined by proto feminist Miss Dixon. All of them will have their lives turned upside down by their pursuit of Sarah Canary. To protect her? To possess her?

Every chapter opens with an Emily Dickinson poem and also a rundown of current events happening at that time with an ironic emphasis on the subjugation of women.

I have mixed feelings about this one. The prose was lively and the characters were wonderful and I learned a lot about the historical period. Though I was disappointed at the end, I am definitely going to read more of Karen Joy Fowler.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

A deranged man risks all to chase a demonic whale, interspersed with a leisurely history of the whaling industry.

The architecture of this book is majestic, and as I read, I palpably felt the majestic blocks being shifted into place. The Pequod, its own little world. The four teams of smaller boats. Starbuck, Stubb and Flask -- The religious first mate, the irreverent second mate, the materialistic third mate. The four heathen harpooners, yet more Christian in many ways than the Christians. The dark Quaker leader, Ahab. The unthinking white whale that can never be defeated. And our narrator, the scholarly Ishmael.

This novel is a compendium – a great plot, an encyclopedia, metaphysical musings, a la Hamlet, a play, songs, low comedy. It’s a catchall. Although the narrative wasn’t all that gripping, except in parts (and those parts were extremely gripping). I would describe the book as edifying, but edifying doesn’t make for eager easy reading. My goal was 100 pages a day and the daily last 40 were hard going. The final fifty pages of the book are magnificent. The thing is, I don’t really care to know about whales. But I do want to know about life and how it is experienced.  

Three things are going on in this book – an incredibly gripping chase story with cool imagery like harpoons forged in the blood of heathens, an academic exploration of all the things associated with the whaling industry, and a philosophical dialogue about what is the purpose of a man’s life, if any.

This was the fourth book in my project of Re-reading the Classics. The first three books were excellent, as well as a delight and a pleasure to read and I could not put them down. Moby Dick was different. I had to pay close attention as Moby Dick is about many things. However, all four books have in common GREAT characters, larger than life – characters who seem to exist outside the book. All of them have powerful motivations.

 I’m learning a lot.

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender

Whimsical things happen but the whimsical things draw blood

What a good writer, I kept thinking, as I read through Aimee Bender’s book of short stories.  What a great prose stylist.  The sentences were amazing. Scary glimpses, transgressions, were treated matter of factly, although, like a lot of short story collections, after a while, it grew monotonous in its obsessions. It was like Cherries Jubilee for breakfast and Cherries Jubilee for lunch and Cherries Jubilee for dinner. A few too many of the stories felt glib and not deeply moving.

However, this book was completely original. My favorite story was “Call My Name,” about a rich girl on the SF Muni who propositions men and then meets a man who doesn’t seem interested in her, although he seems interested enough to give her what she wants. I also like “Fell This Girl” about a girl who is having trouble making impressions on those closest to her.

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

A man compulsively walks himself to death.

I enjoyed Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris's first novel, for, even though the second person plural narration was an outright gimmick, I felt that the gimmick eventually split wide to reveal true emotions, as well as truly comic insights into modern office life. The Unnamed, his second novel, has a gimmick as well. A man can’t stop walking. Instaplot. Set those legs in motion and let’s see what happens.

In general, I felt the book was beautiful and touching but went on a little too long. The scenes got repetitive. It’s about Tim Farnsworth, who seems to have a wonderful life, with Jane, his perfect wife and Becka, his unfortunately chubby daughter. The only strange note is his workaholic nature – it sounds like he spends fourteen to sixteen hours a day at the office. Until he can’t, despite all his will. He is stricken with a malady – without warning, he starts walking for miles and miles until his body is exhausted. This is a problem in the dead of winter when he’s not wearing a coat. The engine of the plot are those legs - those legs take away everything from Tim Farnsworth that makes Tim Farnsworth.

He walks all over America, losing his toes, his fingers and eventually his mind. It’s really a story about a husband and wife’s devotion. I’m not sure if this novel could be described as realism. What is the Unnamed? The rejection of identity. Thank goodness, he’s a little like Batman with ready access to an ATM.

There are two subplots sort of half heartedly inserted, unsuccessfully – Jane’s drunkeneness and some murder mystery with a cleaver and a Fugitive like "real killer". I didn’t need them and was completely gripped by the legs walking and the sleeping in the dumpsters and the landscapes.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Sivilization ain’t so great.

Huckleberry Finn is the third book in my Re-reading the Classics series and I keep asking myself why didn't I start rereading the classics years ago? All three books so far have been incredibly absorbing and thought provoking. Social issues are engaged, never directly, but sideways, although the society is the skeleton of each novel, provoking the character’s ultimate quests. Finally, each of these novels has been great page turners, helped along by great larger than life charismatic characters. Jane Austen and Mark Twain are masters of dialogue. Charlotte Bronte is a master at setting.

So,anyway, I loved Huck Finn. Like all great books, it succeeds on many levels. First of all, it’s an angry indictment of American culture; its elevated respect for righteous ignorance; its hypocrisy, its quick recourse to violence. The  things wrong with America in 2011 are the same things wrong with America in the 1840’s.

Secondly, this book is a celebration of nature. The man and the boy escape down a broad river through a primeval wilderness, a lost time. The descriptions of the river are extremely beautiful, told in Huck’s unique first person narration. One thing I didn’t realize on earlier readings – Huck and Jim are lazing around naked on that raft. Not politically correct for our time, for sure. But emblematic of their innocent state. Civilization is a threat. They are truly outlaws.

Finally, it’s great story, a boy’s adventure story, with storms and capsizing boats and vigilantes and feuds and bags of gold hidden in coffins. I swallowed completely the miraculous plot twist at the end that Jim is imprisoned at Aunt Sally’s house, because it fit right into the crazy mechanics of Tom Sawyer’s swashbuckling books.

The most wonderful things are Huck and his observations. He’s smart and he’s good. Early on the reader starts to root for him. Much of the interactions between Huck and the women he meets along the way are sweetly observed.

The story really is about the institution of slavery and the forced inferiority of the black man to the white man. All the highly dramatic highly emotional parts of the story have to do with the absurdity and the cruelty of slavery, the separation of families. I cried when Jim told the story of discovering his daughter was deaf. In this story are two log cabin prisons – one with Huck, one with Jim. They both escape.

The black people are presented as terrified and superstitious and are the basis for much of the comedy. The white men are presented as ignorant and violent and are the basis for much of the comedy. Jim is superstitious, kind, loyal and subservient. He is as elemental as the river.