Book Reviewed: Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life after Death, by Deborah Blum
I am hoping to read more nonfiction in 2013 to make up for the paltry amount I read last year. So far, I'm off to a good start because the first new book I read this year was nonfiction. I randomly came across an online piece Deborah Blum had written about the stupidity of most poisoners. The article was funny and informative, so I did a little research into Blum's other writing. Turns out she's a famous science writer with a handful of books about the practice of sciences through specific times in history. This particular book, Ghost Hunters, sounded especially interesting (partly because I became briefly obsessed with fake mediums in Mary Roach's Spook a couple years ago). I am glad I read it, as it turned out to be one of the most interesting things I've encountered in a long time.
The reason I loved Ghost Hunters was because I knew almost nothing about its subjects: a handful of 19th-century British and American scientists who became obsessed with proving the existence of an afterlife. I admit I don't know a lot about the history of science, but I'm finding that it's becoming something of a pet reading project for me. This could also be because I appreciate the simply elegant way really good science writers tell a story. Deborah Blum is hardly the type of writer who spins a real yarn or who has stylish flourishes, but she does an incredible job explaining alien concepts and giving just enough anecdotal background to keep a reader interested. The book hooked me from its very first chapter.
The book's subtitle claims it's about William James, one of the most important psychologists who practiced in the 19th century, and one of the most prestigious scientist-philosophers of his time. And while the book largely examines James's varied interests and sometimes-troubled personal life, it is much, much bigger than that. In fact, it seems almost as if Blum got a bit sidetracked in the even more fascinating lives of the British scientists she explores, particularly the doomed Edmund Gurney. James, along with a fairly large constituent of fellow American and British scientists, became obsessed with the possiblity of merging science and spirituality by attempting to prove the existence of an afterlife. These scientists were tired of the way science and its practitioners had become completely cold and unwilling to run experiments on the more mystical happenings in the world. James, Gurney, and their friends (and occasional enemies) believed that all questions were meant to be examined - including questions about God, death, and ghosts. These men were hardly the ghost hunters of today, willing to call anything a ghost if it seems just enough out of the reach of easy explanation. Rather, they were mostly skeptical, and as time wore on and they had less and less definite proof of an afterlife, the more dishearted they felt about the practice of the scientific method.
In the second half of the 19th-century, James and the other scientists interested in the bigger questions of existence formed the British and American Societies for Psychical Research. Some of the scientists in the society were among the most elite of thinkers, scientist and inventors who had discovered or created many of the things we use today (cathode tubes, wireless communication, modern concepts of psychology, et cetera). Genuine Renaissance men, the entire world fascinated them. They wanted explanations, and they believed science was the best way to get at those explanations. Questions about "crisis apparitions" (ghosts of people who show themselves to a loved one at the exact moment they're dying somewhere else in the world) and telepathy and mediums deserved as much attention as anything else in the world. Some of them were hardcore skeptics (in fact, the book's most interesting and loveable figure, Richard Hodgson, never fully believed any experimental results and constantly made other psychical scientists look foolish, despite being the Society for Psychical Research's most dedicated member). Some were lovelorn believers who might have secretly wanted their own source of comfort in proving the existence of life after death (particularly British scientist Fred Myers, who always mourned for a lost lover who killed herself decades earlier).
What is most interesting about this book has nothing to do with ghosts or telepathy, but rather with the men who dedicated their lives to study the strange and occasionally beautiful. They wanted to believe that spirituality and science did not have to be exclusive to one another. Rather, they yearned for a mystical world that could open its heart to the benefits of scientifc study. And at the same time, they wanted science to accept that all things were worth inquiry, including the supernatural. Blum presents these scientists, who never did get the kind of catharsis they were looking for, as incredibly intelligent, often mentally anguished, sometimes admirable, men as some of the rarest of human beings: the kind who literally believed there are no limits to what is worth knowing.
Showing posts with label nonfiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nonfiction. Show all posts
Friday, January 18, 2013
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
How to Be/Not to Be Funny
If there is one show I can accidentally end up watching all day long, it's VH1's I Love the... specials. I can literally sit in one spot and not get up for hours if I Love the 80s is on. Watching talking heads joke about the ridiculous aspects of a decade's pop culture is like gravy for me. After all, aren't I basically starring in my very own version of I Love the 2010s in my daily life? Hmm, it's possible I have admitted too much here...
Anyway, one of the best things about those shows was Michael Ian Black, who is also famous for being a part of the beloved comedy act, Stella. Also, he got to bang a young Bradley Cooper in Wet Hot American Summer, for which he will always be famous in my mind. Michael Ian Black is very funny. He's capable of a self-obsessed irony that is both distburbing and charming in equal measure. I especially love him in the podcast Mike and Tom Eat Snacks, which he does with Tom Cavanaugh, his co-star on Ed. When I heard that Black had a new book out, I was fairly interested and put a hold on it at my local library. But when I read the great reviews the book was getting, I knew I had to drop everything else I was reading so I could get to it right away.
You're Not Doing It Right is a surprising book, and I mean that in all the best ways. It's funny, obviously, but it's also quite dark. Black is incredibly honest here, telling stories that often show him in a bad light. And yet, the book never feels too bleak, even when Black is talking about his marriage problems or the way he sometimes resents his children. There's a perfect balance here of pathos and humor, making Black seem like the kind of person we might actually meet out in the real world, standing in line at the grocery store. He only casually mentions his career once or twice, and he never mentions any specific projects he's worked on, which only added to how realistic this book felt. This is not a book about a middle-aged comedian. This is a book about a middle-aged man with a life that never quite feels like his.
Along with being a brutally honest collection of essays, You're Not Doing It Right also happens to be a very breezy read. Black has a very light writing touch, one that I really appreciated it. I knocked this book out in a matter of days with very little effort. It's the sign of a good writer when he can make you care enough to stick with him despite the piles of homework laid out right in front of you. Not that I ignored any homework or anything to finish this book....Okay, I did. And it was worth it.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Mindy Kaling, Can We Be Friends?
Book Reviewed: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns, by Mindy Kaling
I've liked Mindy Kaling for some time now. Although I gave up on The Office (where Kaling was a head writer since the beginning) three seasons ago, it used to be one of my favorite shows. And the character of Kelly Kapoor, played by Kaling, is really funny. So when I heard that Kaling had written a book of short and humorous personal essays, I knew I'd have to read it.
This is a minor book. It's not going to end up on my year's-best list, and it's most definitely not the most well-written memoir I've ever read. I enjoyed it anyway. It's very funny, which is no surprise, but it's also quite candid. I especially appreciate the way Kaling writes about relationships and how she mocks marital and family conventions out loud but underneath really, really wants a conventional marriage and family. I rarely read memoirs by women who are willing to laugh at their anxieties over being the ideal "modern woman." Kaling does this like no one's business.
I read Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (a title, by the way, that all too accurately describes my own inconsequential identity crisis) while in the middle of writing a long research paper about how 18th-century obstetrical engravings affected the male medical gaze which in turn affected Romantic British poetry. Yeah, it was a doozy. So when I curled up after hours of writing about some unpleasant topics, it felt nice to curl up with Kaling's book. When I finished it, I just wanted to call her up and be like "Men, am I right?!" Because if you can read this book and not want to be BFFs with Mindy Kaling, then you are made of sturdier stuff than me.
I've liked Mindy Kaling for some time now. Although I gave up on The Office (where Kaling was a head writer since the beginning) three seasons ago, it used to be one of my favorite shows. And the character of Kelly Kapoor, played by Kaling, is really funny. So when I heard that Kaling had written a book of short and humorous personal essays, I knew I'd have to read it.
This is a minor book. It's not going to end up on my year's-best list, and it's most definitely not the most well-written memoir I've ever read. I enjoyed it anyway. It's very funny, which is no surprise, but it's also quite candid. I especially appreciate the way Kaling writes about relationships and how she mocks marital and family conventions out loud but underneath really, really wants a conventional marriage and family. I rarely read memoirs by women who are willing to laugh at their anxieties over being the ideal "modern woman." Kaling does this like no one's business.
I read Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (a title, by the way, that all too accurately describes my own inconsequential identity crisis) while in the middle of writing a long research paper about how 18th-century obstetrical engravings affected the male medical gaze which in turn affected Romantic British poetry. Yeah, it was a doozy. So when I curled up after hours of writing about some unpleasant topics, it felt nice to curl up with Kaling's book. When I finished it, I just wanted to call her up and be like "Men, am I right?!" Because if you can read this book and not want to be BFFs with Mindy Kaling, then you are made of sturdier stuff than me.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Horror!
Book Reviewed: Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror, by Jason Zinoman
Currently, my days as a graduate student consist of reading Romantic poetry (for my lit class) and somewhat unsatisfying contemporary poetry (for my workshop). Outside of class, I find I don't have much patience to read the things I actually want to read. I never thought I'd say this, but I might be spending too much time in the world of words.
For this reason, I decided it was time to read a book on some pop culture subject. I originally intended to read the usual Chuck Klosterman type of thing, but intentions never really work the way they're supposed to, do they? I heard theater critic Jason Zinoman give an interview on the AV Club's podcast, Reasonable Discussions, a couple weeks ago. Zinoman was talking about his new book, Shock Value, a brief history of the "new modern" horror film. I found him to be funny, intelligent, and well-spoken. I was sold. Then, last week, I found the book on display at my campus library. I grabbed it up. After all, it's October and I had an entire fall break ahead of me in which I could read whatever I wanted.
I have a soft spot for film histories. I was a film fanatic in high school, and though I've lost my former love for watching movies, I still love reading about them. In any given year, I probably read more film criticism than I do literary criticism, despite the fact that I physically watch very few movies per year now. So I was already predisposed to like Zinoman's book. He concentrates on the way the horror genre shifted from goofy monster movies into violent, more personal films completely dictated by the director's vision. He starts with 1968's Rosemary's Baby and ends with a chapter on 1979's Alien. During this eleven year span, Hollywood saw the rise in popularity of a grittier type of horror film. In Shock Value, Zinoman concentrates on the strange genius of people like George Romero, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, and screenwriter Dan O'Bannon. The way Zinoman describes the creation of the movies makes them sound like little miracles, flukes that happened to go big. He shows his bias sometimes, particularly in his affection for the put-upon O'Bannon. He also never goes far enough into the gender politics of these movies for my taste. A couple of times he pays lips service to the themes of exploitation in these dark movies, but he sort of waves away the arguments in order to get to other things. (Somewhere out there, there must be a book that gets further into the icky factor of gender in horror films. I intend to find said book.) But overall, it was a well-written, well-argued look into a genre I know nothing about.
Because here's the funny thing. I've never actually seen any of the movies Zinoman talks about here. He starts his book by talking about the influence of Hitchcock, mainly through the prism of Psycho, a movie I have seen and loved (full disclosure: Psycho is actually the movie that turned me into a teen film buff. I saw it in middle school, and from that point on I was obsessed with movies). But I haven't seen any of the others, not even The Exorcist. I've been easily terrified for most of my life, so I've always stayed away from horror movies. And now that I'm older and actually enjoy the feeling of being scared once in a while, I've lost my interest in movies themselves. So even though I found this book super-fascinating, I didn't actually have any point of reference. Luckily, Zinoman is a good enough critic to realize that he has to give some background to things, so I wasn't too lost. That being said, I've now made it my mission to go find some of these films.
So if you'll excuse me, I need to go find some time to watch Night of the Living Dead. Because if there is one thing you dear readers of this blog know about me, it's that I loooove me some zombie-related thrills.
For this reason, I decided it was time to read a book on some pop culture subject. I originally intended to read the usual Chuck Klosterman type of thing, but intentions never really work the way they're supposed to, do they? I heard theater critic Jason Zinoman give an interview on the AV Club's podcast, Reasonable Discussions, a couple weeks ago. Zinoman was talking about his new book, Shock Value, a brief history of the "new modern" horror film. I found him to be funny, intelligent, and well-spoken. I was sold. Then, last week, I found the book on display at my campus library. I grabbed it up. After all, it's October and I had an entire fall break ahead of me in which I could read whatever I wanted.
I have a soft spot for film histories. I was a film fanatic in high school, and though I've lost my former love for watching movies, I still love reading about them. In any given year, I probably read more film criticism than I do literary criticism, despite the fact that I physically watch very few movies per year now. So I was already predisposed to like Zinoman's book. He concentrates on the way the horror genre shifted from goofy monster movies into violent, more personal films completely dictated by the director's vision. He starts with 1968's Rosemary's Baby and ends with a chapter on 1979's Alien. During this eleven year span, Hollywood saw the rise in popularity of a grittier type of horror film. In Shock Value, Zinoman concentrates on the strange genius of people like George Romero, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, and screenwriter Dan O'Bannon. The way Zinoman describes the creation of the movies makes them sound like little miracles, flukes that happened to go big. He shows his bias sometimes, particularly in his affection for the put-upon O'Bannon. He also never goes far enough into the gender politics of these movies for my taste. A couple of times he pays lips service to the themes of exploitation in these dark movies, but he sort of waves away the arguments in order to get to other things. (Somewhere out there, there must be a book that gets further into the icky factor of gender in horror films. I intend to find said book.) But overall, it was a well-written, well-argued look into a genre I know nothing about.
Because here's the funny thing. I've never actually seen any of the movies Zinoman talks about here. He starts his book by talking about the influence of Hitchcock, mainly through the prism of Psycho, a movie I have seen and loved (full disclosure: Psycho is actually the movie that turned me into a teen film buff. I saw it in middle school, and from that point on I was obsessed with movies). But I haven't seen any of the others, not even The Exorcist. I've been easily terrified for most of my life, so I've always stayed away from horror movies. And now that I'm older and actually enjoy the feeling of being scared once in a while, I've lost my interest in movies themselves. So even though I found this book super-fascinating, I didn't actually have any point of reference. Luckily, Zinoman is a good enough critic to realize that he has to give some background to things, so I wasn't too lost. That being said, I've now made it my mission to go find some of these films.
So if you'll excuse me, I need to go find some time to watch Night of the Living Dead. Because if there is one thing you dear readers of this blog know about me, it's that I loooove me some zombie-related thrills.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
You Know Who's Kind of Awesome? F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Book Reviewed: A Short Autobiography, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Edited by James L.W. West III
Back in February, when I first heard that Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III was putting together a chronological collection of Fitzgerald’s personal essays, I went crazy. When I found out I had to wait six more months before it finally came out, I went even crazier. How was I going to pass so much time without constantly thinking about this damn book? Well, somehow I made it. And trust me, it was worth it.
I have to admit that despite being one of America’s biggest Fitzgerald fans (I have to be up there, right?), I’m not all that familiar with his essays. His personality can be a little off-putting, and the handful of Fitzgerald essays I’ve read didn’t seem to display the same strength of prose as his fiction. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like A Short Autobiography (so titled because the chronological order of the essays shows the development of Fitzgerald as a thinker, writer, and person). And I didn’t like it. I LOVED it.
Fitzgerald’s early essays are full of the youthful arrogance he was famous for in his personal life. As can be expected, his later pieces are reflective and solemn. He starts off as a young snob going around giving (often annoying) advice. I wasn’t as big a fan of these early essays, but I was pleasantly surprised by how funny they were. I never think of Fitzgerald as a writer who makes me laugh, but I actually chuckled out loud several times while reading A Short Autobiography. I don’t agree with him every often, but as a young writer from the Midwest, I often find myself understanding the place he comes from.
I’m a much bigger fan of Fitzgerald’s later essays, even though they're quite sad. His confidence as a young man morphed into the voice of disillusionment. He’s a man who didn’t get what he wanted from life, and his few moments of hope seem all the more tragic to us modern readers who know how things turned out for him (alcoholic with a crazy wife, dead at 44). His unfinished essay, “The Death of My Father,” displays a Fitzgerald more honest than even I knew existed. Oh, how I wish he had finished it! It undoubtedly would have made me cry. Arguably, Fitzgerald’s most famous essays are “One Hundred False Starts” and the deeply melancholic “Afternoon of an Author,” and it’s easy to see why. They are written in the beautiful prose I so admire in Fitzgerald’s work, delicately heartbreaking. It’s hard to see the man who wrote the best American novel of all time deal with such unfortunate depression.
The essay that surprised and upset me the most, though, was “Author’s House.” This strange piece is written as a kind of fake interview in which a famous writer (obviously Fitzgerald) shows an imagined reporter around his house. It’s an unspeakably sad treatise on what it means to struggle between being a good writer and being a decent person. The essay’s ending works as a kind of summary on who Fitzgerald had become in middle age:
[The author] shivered slightly and closed the windows. As they went downstairs the visitor said, half apologetically: “It’s really just like all houses, isn’t it?”
The author nodded.
“I didn’t think it was when I built it, but in the end I suppose it’s just like other houses after all.”
That is ridiculously sad, isn’t it? I’m not sure what it says about me that this sentence upsets me so much, and yet makes me love Fitzgerald just all that much more. This book only helps cement my belief that Fitzgerald is one of the most interesting writers to come out of American literature.
Back in February, when I first heard that Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III was putting together a chronological collection of Fitzgerald’s personal essays, I went crazy. When I found out I had to wait six more months before it finally came out, I went even crazier. How was I going to pass so much time without constantly thinking about this damn book? Well, somehow I made it. And trust me, it was worth it.
I have to admit that despite being one of America’s biggest Fitzgerald fans (I have to be up there, right?), I’m not all that familiar with his essays. His personality can be a little off-putting, and the handful of Fitzgerald essays I’ve read didn’t seem to display the same strength of prose as his fiction. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like A Short Autobiography (so titled because the chronological order of the essays shows the development of Fitzgerald as a thinker, writer, and person). And I didn’t like it. I LOVED it.
Fitzgerald’s early essays are full of the youthful arrogance he was famous for in his personal life. As can be expected, his later pieces are reflective and solemn. He starts off as a young snob going around giving (often annoying) advice. I wasn’t as big a fan of these early essays, but I was pleasantly surprised by how funny they were. I never think of Fitzgerald as a writer who makes me laugh, but I actually chuckled out loud several times while reading A Short Autobiography. I don’t agree with him every often, but as a young writer from the Midwest, I often find myself understanding the place he comes from.
I’m a much bigger fan of Fitzgerald’s later essays, even though they're quite sad. His confidence as a young man morphed into the voice of disillusionment. He’s a man who didn’t get what he wanted from life, and his few moments of hope seem all the more tragic to us modern readers who know how things turned out for him (alcoholic with a crazy wife, dead at 44). His unfinished essay, “The Death of My Father,” displays a Fitzgerald more honest than even I knew existed. Oh, how I wish he had finished it! It undoubtedly would have made me cry. Arguably, Fitzgerald’s most famous essays are “One Hundred False Starts” and the deeply melancholic “Afternoon of an Author,” and it’s easy to see why. They are written in the beautiful prose I so admire in Fitzgerald’s work, delicately heartbreaking. It’s hard to see the man who wrote the best American novel of all time deal with such unfortunate depression.
The essay that surprised and upset me the most, though, was “Author’s House.” This strange piece is written as a kind of fake interview in which a famous writer (obviously Fitzgerald) shows an imagined reporter around his house. It’s an unspeakably sad treatise on what it means to struggle between being a good writer and being a decent person. The essay’s ending works as a kind of summary on who Fitzgerald had become in middle age:
[The author] shivered slightly and closed the windows. As they went downstairs the visitor said, half apologetically: “It’s really just like all houses, isn’t it?”
The author nodded.
“I didn’t think it was when I built it, but in the end I suppose it’s just like other houses after all.”
That is ridiculously sad, isn’t it? I’m not sure what it says about me that this sentence upsets me so much, and yet makes me love Fitzgerald just all that much more. This book only helps cement my belief that Fitzgerald is one of the most interesting writers to come out of American literature.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Memory, Loss, and the Classics
Book Reviewed: Nox, by Anne Carson
Nox (which means "night" in Latin) is a strange book. For starters, it comes in a box. The book itself folds out in accordion-style, but is printed on only one side so you can turn "pages" like you would in a regular book. It's a collage of photographs, excerpts from a Latin-to-English dictionary, and memoir-style writing by Carson. The book itself is actually a printed version of a scrapbook Carson made in order to remember her dead older brother. She calls it an "epitaph in the form of a book." It's not easy to read, but it sure is interesting.
Carson's older brother Michael was a very troubled soul, one who fled his home and family as a young man in order to escape a short prison sentence. He spent his last few decades wandering Europe, gaining love and suffering losses, and mostly ignoring his parents and sister back home. In 2000, Carson found out her brother had died of a heart attack a couple weeks earlier, and she went overseas to see his widow. This book is Carson's reaction to that experience.
Nox is by turns baffling and heartbreaking. Nearly every-other page carries an excerpt from a Latin-to-English dictionary, featuring repetitive entries that Carson clearly added her own writing to in spots. It's easy to want to skip these parts, but they often contain nuggets of ideas that are important to the piece as a whole. Carson is a classicist, so there's a lot of references to history and myth. The book is full of tiny, one-off sentences that are tells to Carson's inability to figure out her brother in life for death. Most importantly, the book features excerpts from letters Michael wrote to his mother, as well as snippets of phone conversations he had with his sister. These add an extra dimension to the entire thing.
This book is so strange that it can be a little off-putting at times. Occasionally, it feels like we're peeking into something too private for public consumption, which is initially what this scrapbook was. I'm glad Carson published it because it's really interesting and says a lot about the strangeness that is siblings, beings with the same genetic make-up who are nevertheless completely different creatures. I can't say I loved this book, but it was definitely worth reading.
Nox (which means "night" in Latin) is a strange book. For starters, it comes in a box. The book itself folds out in accordion-style, but is printed on only one side so you can turn "pages" like you would in a regular book. It's a collage of photographs, excerpts from a Latin-to-English dictionary, and memoir-style writing by Carson. The book itself is actually a printed version of a scrapbook Carson made in order to remember her dead older brother. She calls it an "epitaph in the form of a book." It's not easy to read, but it sure is interesting.
Carson's older brother Michael was a very troubled soul, one who fled his home and family as a young man in order to escape a short prison sentence. He spent his last few decades wandering Europe, gaining love and suffering losses, and mostly ignoring his parents and sister back home. In 2000, Carson found out her brother had died of a heart attack a couple weeks earlier, and she went overseas to see his widow. This book is Carson's reaction to that experience.
Nox is by turns baffling and heartbreaking. Nearly every-other page carries an excerpt from a Latin-to-English dictionary, featuring repetitive entries that Carson clearly added her own writing to in spots. It's easy to want to skip these parts, but they often contain nuggets of ideas that are important to the piece as a whole. Carson is a classicist, so there's a lot of references to history and myth. The book is full of tiny, one-off sentences that are tells to Carson's inability to figure out her brother in life for death. Most importantly, the book features excerpts from letters Michael wrote to his mother, as well as snippets of phone conversations he had with his sister. These add an extra dimension to the entire thing.
This book is so strange that it can be a little off-putting at times. Occasionally, it feels like we're peeking into something too private for public consumption, which is initially what this scrapbook was. I'm glad Carson published it because it's really interesting and says a lot about the strangeness that is siblings, beings with the same genetic make-up who are nevertheless completely different creatures. I can't say I loved this book, but it was definitely worth reading.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Not Exactly My Cup of Tea
Book Reviewed: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
The danger of book clubs is that they sometimes require you to read books you really would rather not. This is one of those times. I had no real interest in reading Three Cups of Tea. But our club decided to try some nonfiction, and it came between this and Eat, Pray, Love. Since I absolutely refuse to read Elizabeth Gilbert's super-famous, self-indulgent book, we went with the tale of Greg Mortenson. For those of you who haven't already been exposed to Mortenson's story, it's pretty simple. Greg Mortenson, an avid climber with an unsettled but interesting life, decides to start building schools in Pakistan in order to improve the lives of poor villagers through education. It's a noble goal, and you can't help but be inspired by it. But Three Cups of Tea - written by journalist David Oliver Relin - isn't interesting enough to make me care that much.
In the last year, there's been a lot of controversy surrounding Mortenson's charity work (just take a look at the guy's Wikipedia page), so it's a little hard to judge the contents of the book. But overall, I mostly felt bored by the whole thing. There is some interesting information here; I was glad I read the book if only to get a much fuller understanding of Pakistan and its people, a subject of which I'm largely ignorant. And Mortenson's work is definitely inspiring. Even if his Central Asia Institute charity has been mishandled over the years, you can't deny that his heart was in the right place at the beginning. Also, you can't argue that his belief that a proper, free education fights terrorism is wrong. In fact, it's probably one of the smartest arguments to come out of the how-to-stop-terrorism debates.
But Relin, while a very capable writer, isn't a particulary good storyteller. The book has some nice scenes, but since it's all secondhand stories, the moments never quite feel like parts of a whole. Also, while we do get a glimpse at some of Mortenson's faults, we mostly get a portrait of Mortenson as a saint. He has some deep flaws, but Relin only skims the surface of them. It's okay to portray a hero as someone riddled with problems. If anything, it makes the good they do seem that much more important. Mortenson's work is worth hearing about, and I think this book makes some good points about how to help the Middle East, but overall, I was mostly bored. Which is never a feeling you want to have after reading about inspiriting charity work.
The danger of book clubs is that they sometimes require you to read books you really would rather not. This is one of those times. I had no real interest in reading Three Cups of Tea. But our club decided to try some nonfiction, and it came between this and Eat, Pray, Love. Since I absolutely refuse to read Elizabeth Gilbert's super-famous, self-indulgent book, we went with the tale of Greg Mortenson. For those of you who haven't already been exposed to Mortenson's story, it's pretty simple. Greg Mortenson, an avid climber with an unsettled but interesting life, decides to start building schools in Pakistan in order to improve the lives of poor villagers through education. It's a noble goal, and you can't help but be inspired by it. But Three Cups of Tea - written by journalist David Oliver Relin - isn't interesting enough to make me care that much.
In the last year, there's been a lot of controversy surrounding Mortenson's charity work (just take a look at the guy's Wikipedia page), so it's a little hard to judge the contents of the book. But overall, I mostly felt bored by the whole thing. There is some interesting information here; I was glad I read the book if only to get a much fuller understanding of Pakistan and its people, a subject of which I'm largely ignorant. And Mortenson's work is definitely inspiring. Even if his Central Asia Institute charity has been mishandled over the years, you can't deny that his heart was in the right place at the beginning. Also, you can't argue that his belief that a proper, free education fights terrorism is wrong. In fact, it's probably one of the smartest arguments to come out of the how-to-stop-terrorism debates.
But Relin, while a very capable writer, isn't a particulary good storyteller. The book has some nice scenes, but since it's all secondhand stories, the moments never quite feel like parts of a whole. Also, while we do get a glimpse at some of Mortenson's faults, we mostly get a portrait of Mortenson as a saint. He has some deep flaws, but Relin only skims the surface of them. It's okay to portray a hero as someone riddled with problems. If anything, it makes the good they do seem that much more important. Mortenson's work is worth hearing about, and I think this book makes some good points about how to help the Middle East, but overall, I was mostly bored. Which is never a feeling you want to have after reading about inspiriting charity work.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Why Didn't Anyone Do Anything Sooner?
Book Reviewed: In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, by Erik Larson
I had a whole pile of books I intended to read last week, but they all fell to the wayside as soon as I heard In the Garden of Beasts was coming out. Erik Larson is famous for writing The Devil in the White City, a nonfiction thriller about a serial killer that used the 1983 World's Fair in Chicago as a way to find his victims. The book was on the bestseller list for years, and I read it a few years ago. Larson is a good writer, and he knows how to pace his nonfiction in a way that's informative but not boring. I haven't read any of his other books (also about real murderers), but I wanted to seek this one out because I'm really interested in German history, particularly the history of Berlin (which, I should note, happens to be my favorite place in the whole world).
In the Garden of Beasts is centered around the Dodd family. William Dodd was a history professor in Chicago who found himself stuck with the appointment of American Ambassador to Germany in 1933. Dodd, his wife, and their two adult children all moved to Berlin, hoping for the experience of a lifetime. Well, they certainly got it. They moved to the city only months after Hitler became chancellor. Stormtroopers already had control of the city, and secret prisons and labor camps had already sprung up around the country. Unfortunately, Dodd's advisers only cared about one thing: Germany paying its post-war debts back to the U.S.
While Dodd is trying to figure out how to talk reason with the Nazis and working to avoid stepping on toes, his twenty-four-year-old daughter, Martha, was having the time of her life. Intelligent, well-spoken, and attractive, Martha had affair after affair with all matter of men in America. This lifestyle only increased once she arrived in Berlin. For her first year in Berlin, she found the Nazi idea of revolution to be intriguing and even romantic. She had an affair with Rudolf Diels, a prominent Nazi and the first Gestapo leader. (Diels turns out to be one of the most interesting figures in this book, both a monster and martyr, as he always remained an outsider in the Nazi party and eventually testified against his former party comrades). She also had a long-lasting and intense love affair with Boris Winogradov, a Soviet spy who would change the rest of her life.
Larson balances the two stories of Dodd and his daughter in order to get a fuller picture of Berlin at this important moment of history. While I couldn't help but feel sorry for (and at times a little angry at) Dodd, I couldn't find much love for Martha. She's an absolutely fascinating figure, but she comes off as naive and unlikable a good deal of the time. A lot of the Americans in Berlin made note of her bad reputation, and I couldn't help but agree with them despite my more feminist insticts. Girl needed to learn to stop being so reckless.
I found In the Garden of the Beasts to be at its most fascinating when examining the American response to Nazi actions. This book's events take place before the "Final Solution" and the Nazis' most heinous crimes, but it's not hard to see how they grew more and more evil over time. If Americans had only looked a little harder at what was happening in Germany, who knows what would happened? George Messersmith, the U.S. Consulate to Germany at this time, wrote long, in-depth reports on Nazi crimes, including the surprisingly frequent attacks on visiting Americans - both Jews and Christians - who did not properly show respect to parades and salutes. But the foreign service officials in Washington D.C. refused to acknowledge how bad the problem was. Larson also writes about the startling antisemitism that ran so deep in America at the time. Even the most sympathetic characters in this book seem to hold some kind of grudge against Jewish people. Larson demonstrates how beliefs like antisemitism and isolationism led to American ignorance to Nazi terror. This book explores a time in history that doesn't make anyone look like a hero. It's an important lesson to learn.
I had a whole pile of books I intended to read last week, but they all fell to the wayside as soon as I heard In the Garden of Beasts was coming out. Erik Larson is famous for writing The Devil in the White City, a nonfiction thriller about a serial killer that used the 1983 World's Fair in Chicago as a way to find his victims. The book was on the bestseller list for years, and I read it a few years ago. Larson is a good writer, and he knows how to pace his nonfiction in a way that's informative but not boring. I haven't read any of his other books (also about real murderers), but I wanted to seek this one out because I'm really interested in German history, particularly the history of Berlin (which, I should note, happens to be my favorite place in the whole world).
In the Garden of Beasts is centered around the Dodd family. William Dodd was a history professor in Chicago who found himself stuck with the appointment of American Ambassador to Germany in 1933. Dodd, his wife, and their two adult children all moved to Berlin, hoping for the experience of a lifetime. Well, they certainly got it. They moved to the city only months after Hitler became chancellor. Stormtroopers already had control of the city, and secret prisons and labor camps had already sprung up around the country. Unfortunately, Dodd's advisers only cared about one thing: Germany paying its post-war debts back to the U.S.
While Dodd is trying to figure out how to talk reason with the Nazis and working to avoid stepping on toes, his twenty-four-year-old daughter, Martha, was having the time of her life. Intelligent, well-spoken, and attractive, Martha had affair after affair with all matter of men in America. This lifestyle only increased once she arrived in Berlin. For her first year in Berlin, she found the Nazi idea of revolution to be intriguing and even romantic. She had an affair with Rudolf Diels, a prominent Nazi and the first Gestapo leader. (Diels turns out to be one of the most interesting figures in this book, both a monster and martyr, as he always remained an outsider in the Nazi party and eventually testified against his former party comrades). She also had a long-lasting and intense love affair with Boris Winogradov, a Soviet spy who would change the rest of her life.
Larson balances the two stories of Dodd and his daughter in order to get a fuller picture of Berlin at this important moment of history. While I couldn't help but feel sorry for (and at times a little angry at) Dodd, I couldn't find much love for Martha. She's an absolutely fascinating figure, but she comes off as naive and unlikable a good deal of the time. A lot of the Americans in Berlin made note of her bad reputation, and I couldn't help but agree with them despite my more feminist insticts. Girl needed to learn to stop being so reckless.
I found In the Garden of the Beasts to be at its most fascinating when examining the American response to Nazi actions. This book's events take place before the "Final Solution" and the Nazis' most heinous crimes, but it's not hard to see how they grew more and more evil over time. If Americans had only looked a little harder at what was happening in Germany, who knows what would happened? George Messersmith, the U.S. Consulate to Germany at this time, wrote long, in-depth reports on Nazi crimes, including the surprisingly frequent attacks on visiting Americans - both Jews and Christians - who did not properly show respect to parades and salutes. But the foreign service officials in Washington D.C. refused to acknowledge how bad the problem was. Larson also writes about the startling antisemitism that ran so deep in America at the time. Even the most sympathetic characters in this book seem to hold some kind of grudge against Jewish people. Larson demonstrates how beliefs like antisemitism and isolationism led to American ignorance to Nazi terror. This book explores a time in history that doesn't make anyone look like a hero. It's an important lesson to learn.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Now I Have to Go Watch the Movie "Primer"
Book Reviewed: Eating the Dinosaur, by Chuck Klosterman
I have something of a complicated relationship with Chuck Klosterman. I like to read his books because they are full of interesting, clear-eyed essays on pop culture. But I have the feeling that if I ever met Klosterman, I wouldn't like him. I disagree with him quite often, but that doesn't take away from his work. If anything, it adds an extra layer to it. I feel like we're having an actual discussion; it's as participatory as reading nonfiction gets.
I finally got around to reading Klosterman's 2009 collection, Eating the Dinosaur. I liked the book, although I'd be hard-pressed to say that any of the essays stuck out to me quite as much as other Klosterman essays I've read and liked. That being said, I think Klosterman's grown into a better writer, and he's mellowed a bit with age. His work doesn't seem quite as defensive as it sometimes felt in the past. I enjoyed the mature, steady approach these essays took.
My favorite essays in this book include "Oh, the Guilt," which compares the production of Nirvana's In Utero album with the events leading up to the Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, Texas, and "Tomorrow Rarely Knows," which is a fun piece on the ethics of time travel. "Tomorrow Rarely Knows" made me go out and rent the acclaimed indie film Primer, which Klosterman says is his favorite pop culture depiction of time travel. I look forward to watching it this weekend. I think the most interesting essay in this whole collection, though, is the final piece, "FAIL." "FAIL" is about the theories Ted Kaczynski (aka "The Unabomber") had on modernization and technology, which Klosterman is disturbed to find out he agrees with in many ways. It's hard for me to read this essay and not agree with Klosterman's arguments about all the ways the internet is making real life more difficult. As much as I love being on the internet - streaming Netflix, tweeting, and reading TV recaps all at the same time - I can't help but see all the ways this is detrimental to my intellectual and social life. I thought this was the best essay of the group because it presented unpopular but interesting ideas with strong writing. It made it worth reading all of Eating the Dinosaur.
Note: I should mention that in the essay "Tis for True," Klosterman writes a paragraph that made my opinion of this book tip decidedly in its favor. Klosterman mentions that one of his favorite TV shows is Friday Night Lights, even though he knows it's emotionally manipulating. He writes, "...Even when the on-screen action is ridiculous, it always has a physical impact on me. Friday Night Lights can make my stomach hurt, even when my mind says, 'This is silly.'" For any of you FNL fans out there, this may be the most perfect description of this show ever written.
I have something of a complicated relationship with Chuck Klosterman. I like to read his books because they are full of interesting, clear-eyed essays on pop culture. But I have the feeling that if I ever met Klosterman, I wouldn't like him. I disagree with him quite often, but that doesn't take away from his work. If anything, it adds an extra layer to it. I feel like we're having an actual discussion; it's as participatory as reading nonfiction gets.
I finally got around to reading Klosterman's 2009 collection, Eating the Dinosaur. I liked the book, although I'd be hard-pressed to say that any of the essays stuck out to me quite as much as other Klosterman essays I've read and liked. That being said, I think Klosterman's grown into a better writer, and he's mellowed a bit with age. His work doesn't seem quite as defensive as it sometimes felt in the past. I enjoyed the mature, steady approach these essays took.
My favorite essays in this book include "Oh, the Guilt," which compares the production of Nirvana's In Utero album with the events leading up to the Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, Texas, and "Tomorrow Rarely Knows," which is a fun piece on the ethics of time travel. "Tomorrow Rarely Knows" made me go out and rent the acclaimed indie film Primer, which Klosterman says is his favorite pop culture depiction of time travel. I look forward to watching it this weekend. I think the most interesting essay in this whole collection, though, is the final piece, "FAIL." "FAIL" is about the theories Ted Kaczynski (aka "The Unabomber") had on modernization and technology, which Klosterman is disturbed to find out he agrees with in many ways. It's hard for me to read this essay and not agree with Klosterman's arguments about all the ways the internet is making real life more difficult. As much as I love being on the internet - streaming Netflix, tweeting, and reading TV recaps all at the same time - I can't help but see all the ways this is detrimental to my intellectual and social life. I thought this was the best essay of the group because it presented unpopular but interesting ideas with strong writing. It made it worth reading all of Eating the Dinosaur.
Note: I should mention that in the essay "Tis for True," Klosterman writes a paragraph that made my opinion of this book tip decidedly in its favor. Klosterman mentions that one of his favorite TV shows is Friday Night Lights, even though he knows it's emotionally manipulating. He writes, "...Even when the on-screen action is ridiculous, it always has a physical impact on me. Friday Night Lights can make my stomach hurt, even when my mind says, 'This is silly.'" For any of you FNL fans out there, this may be the most perfect description of this show ever written.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Awesome Flops
Book Reviewed: My Year of Flops: One Man's Journey Deep into the Heart of Cinematic Failure, by Nathan Rabin
I spent the first half of April doing some "serious" reading, so I figured I needed to start the back end of the month with something a little more fun. I returned to the well that so often brings me such joy: the AV Club. Specifically, I went to my favorite AV Club writer, Nathan Rabin (though Noel Murray is a close second). Rabin is hysterically funny, particularly in his regular "My Year of Flops" column, which started as a bi-weekly experiment four years ago and continues to this day. Last fall, Scribner released the book version of My Year of Flops, but I haven't gotten my hands on it until now. As usual, I am at least six months late to anything that's awesome.
Flops features some of the highlights from Rabin's column, which is about movies that notoriously failed at the box office. Rabin loves movies, and he rates these flops based on a judgment system that consists of "fiasco, failure, or secret success." I have never heard of some of these movies, and I've only seen a couple with my own eyes. But that doesn't matter. These essays are so funny and informative that you don't need to know anything about the subject to appreciate the book. Rabin has a real soft spot for these bombs, and he writes about them in a way that mixes awe with disdain, horror with joy. This book is a lot of fun.
Obviously, I loved My Year of Flops and laughed all the way through it. But then something happened at the end that I didn't expect. I got a little teared up. Rabin starts the book with his very first MYOF column about the movie Elizabethtown (which, I should add, is one of the few movies that I can honestly say I hate). He finds the sentimentality and cuteness of it to be toxic, and he rates the movie as a "fiasco." Then, at the end of the book, he writes about the movie again. Three years later and a hundred-and-some flops later, he decides to re-assess Elizabethtown. This time, he rates it a "secret success." Anyone who has read Rabin's great memoir, The Big Rewind, knows this guy has had some majorly crummy years. But by the time he sees Elizabethtown this second time, he has to admit he's a happy person, with a job he loves, a girlfriend who makes him ridiculously happy, and an interesting life he enjoys. Suddenly, seen through these more content eyes, he finds the movie charming.
I still think Elizabethtown is a shitty film, but it's hard not to be moved by Rabin's conclusion. Who hasn't readjusted their tastes after finding some sort of happiness or calm? It's happened to me a lot over the last two years, and you can see it happen if you go back in time on this blog. I spent many years being a sober book snob, and now that I have let go of a lot of my personal hang-ups, I now enjoy reading lots of stuff I never would have even looked at before. My Year of Flops isn't just a book for pop culture nerds or film buffs or Nathan Rabin fans. It's a book for anyone who loves what they love and is willing to change their minds.
I spent the first half of April doing some "serious" reading, so I figured I needed to start the back end of the month with something a little more fun. I returned to the well that so often brings me such joy: the AV Club. Specifically, I went to my favorite AV Club writer, Nathan Rabin (though Noel Murray is a close second). Rabin is hysterically funny, particularly in his regular "My Year of Flops" column, which started as a bi-weekly experiment four years ago and continues to this day. Last fall, Scribner released the book version of My Year of Flops, but I haven't gotten my hands on it until now. As usual, I am at least six months late to anything that's awesome.
Flops features some of the highlights from Rabin's column, which is about movies that notoriously failed at the box office. Rabin loves movies, and he rates these flops based on a judgment system that consists of "fiasco, failure, or secret success." I have never heard of some of these movies, and I've only seen a couple with my own eyes. But that doesn't matter. These essays are so funny and informative that you don't need to know anything about the subject to appreciate the book. Rabin has a real soft spot for these bombs, and he writes about them in a way that mixes awe with disdain, horror with joy. This book is a lot of fun.
Obviously, I loved My Year of Flops and laughed all the way through it. But then something happened at the end that I didn't expect. I got a little teared up. Rabin starts the book with his very first MYOF column about the movie Elizabethtown (which, I should add, is one of the few movies that I can honestly say I hate). He finds the sentimentality and cuteness of it to be toxic, and he rates the movie as a "fiasco." Then, at the end of the book, he writes about the movie again. Three years later and a hundred-and-some flops later, he decides to re-assess Elizabethtown. This time, he rates it a "secret success." Anyone who has read Rabin's great memoir, The Big Rewind, knows this guy has had some majorly crummy years. But by the time he sees Elizabethtown this second time, he has to admit he's a happy person, with a job he loves, a girlfriend who makes him ridiculously happy, and an interesting life he enjoys. Suddenly, seen through these more content eyes, he finds the movie charming.
I still think Elizabethtown is a shitty film, but it's hard not to be moved by Rabin's conclusion. Who hasn't readjusted their tastes after finding some sort of happiness or calm? It's happened to me a lot over the last two years, and you can see it happen if you go back in time on this blog. I spent many years being a sober book snob, and now that I have let go of a lot of my personal hang-ups, I now enjoy reading lots of stuff I never would have even looked at before. My Year of Flops isn't just a book for pop culture nerds or film buffs or Nathan Rabin fans. It's a book for anyone who loves what they love and is willing to change their minds.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
When You Like a Book Better than You Thought You Would...
Book Reviewed: Rocket Boys, by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.
Every spring, our county library puts on a program called One Book, One Michiana. For a whole month, local libraries, schools, and businesses hold events and promotions centered on one chosen book. Last year it was To Kill a Mockingbird. This year it was Homer Hickam's memoir, Rocket Boys (also known as October Sky). Originally, I wasn't very happy with this choice. I'm not interested in overly-earnest memoirs, and I couldn't care less about rockets. But when my book club decided to read the book so we could take part in the One Book discussions, I figured I better join them (being the nominal leader and all). Turns out, this book is about a lot more than rockets. And the earnestness didn't even bother me.
In the late 1950s, Hickam was a teenager in Coalwood, West Virginia, a coal-mining company town. His dad was a foreman, loved and hated in equal measure by the other miners in town. After the Russians sent Sputnik into orbit, Hickam became obsessed with space. He gathered a group of friends with the goal of finding a way to emulate Hickam's hero, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. They began to build rockets. At first, they blew up fences and failed more than they succeeded. But as they began to test different models and fuel types, they found success. Eventually, their experiments took them to the National Science Fair.
This story has a lot of other things going on, too. It's a coming of age story more than anything. There are the usual problems you might expect in a mining town - accidents, labor strikes, etc. There's Hickam's very strained relationship with his father, as well as the very tense situation between his parents. People around Hickam battle major illnesses and tragedies, and eventually, he realizes his town is dying around him. There's something here for everyone.
I liked this book much more than I thought I would. It probably won't make my Top Ten list at the end of the year, but I definitely enjoyed it while it lasted. Hickam gives you a real feel for the town and its inhabitants, and he makes you care about them. I love reading about small rural towns; this book could have just focused on that and I would have been happy. So you can imagine my surprise at discovering I actually liked reading about all the rocket stuff. It amazes me that people can be this clever, willing to work so hard to find the right fuel mixtures, the right mathematic equations. Reading this book, I couldn't help but marvel and envy the ingenuity of these kids. I sure don't have that kind of go-get-'em that they have.
So if you live in Michiana and want to participate in One Book, you can't go wrong with giving this one a shot.
Every spring, our county library puts on a program called One Book, One Michiana. For a whole month, local libraries, schools, and businesses hold events and promotions centered on one chosen book. Last year it was To Kill a Mockingbird. This year it was Homer Hickam's memoir, Rocket Boys (also known as October Sky). Originally, I wasn't very happy with this choice. I'm not interested in overly-earnest memoirs, and I couldn't care less about rockets. But when my book club decided to read the book so we could take part in the One Book discussions, I figured I better join them (being the nominal leader and all). Turns out, this book is about a lot more than rockets. And the earnestness didn't even bother me.
In the late 1950s, Hickam was a teenager in Coalwood, West Virginia, a coal-mining company town. His dad was a foreman, loved and hated in equal measure by the other miners in town. After the Russians sent Sputnik into orbit, Hickam became obsessed with space. He gathered a group of friends with the goal of finding a way to emulate Hickam's hero, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. They began to build rockets. At first, they blew up fences and failed more than they succeeded. But as they began to test different models and fuel types, they found success. Eventually, their experiments took them to the National Science Fair.
This story has a lot of other things going on, too. It's a coming of age story more than anything. There are the usual problems you might expect in a mining town - accidents, labor strikes, etc. There's Hickam's very strained relationship with his father, as well as the very tense situation between his parents. People around Hickam battle major illnesses and tragedies, and eventually, he realizes his town is dying around him. There's something here for everyone.
I liked this book much more than I thought I would. It probably won't make my Top Ten list at the end of the year, but I definitely enjoyed it while it lasted. Hickam gives you a real feel for the town and its inhabitants, and he makes you care about them. I love reading about small rural towns; this book could have just focused on that and I would have been happy. So you can imagine my surprise at discovering I actually liked reading about all the rocket stuff. It amazes me that people can be this clever, willing to work so hard to find the right fuel mixtures, the right mathematic equations. Reading this book, I couldn't help but marvel and envy the ingenuity of these kids. I sure don't have that kind of go-get-'em that they have.
So if you live in Michiana and want to participate in One Book, you can't go wrong with giving this one a shot.
Monday, March 28, 2011
A New Sarah Vowell Book Is an Event...For Me, Anyway
Book Reviewed: Unfamiliar Fishes, by Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell is one of the only writers I actively follow, meaning I jump on every new book by her the day it comes out. Last Tuesday, when Unfamiliar Fishes was officially released, I occupied the very first hold position at my library. I waited two months after placing that hold, so as soon as the book came in on Tuesday, I pushed aside everything else I was reading. I finished it in two days. Such is the power of the Vowell.
Since I first read Asssassination Vacation as a teenager, then went back to read her books of essays, I've been obsessed with her funny, intelligent writing style. She takes history subjects I think I have no interest in - Puritans, President Garfield - and makes me care about them. I still think Assassination Vacation, about the first three presidential assassinations in America, is her best book. Every page presents some new, bizarre fact that grabs me. I was a little disappointed that her last book, The Wordy Shipmates, didn't interest me in quite the same way. Same goes with her new book, Unfamiliar Fishes.
Unfamiliar Fishes is a look at the history of Hawaii and its relationship to the United States. Missionaries arrived in Hawaii in the early 19th-century with the hope of converting its inhabitants to Christianity. They were mostly successful in this goal, but the changes they wrought had some unsavory impacts on the island nation. In an interview Vowell did with the AV Club, she mentions that she saw Fishes as a kind of sequel to The Wordy Shipmates. After all, these missionaries are descendants of those original Puritans who wanted to carve out a new world and ended up pushing out the natives. Vowell clearly comes to her research with an agenda, but because these books are simply little looks into important and strange events, this hardly matters. What matters is how interestingly she presents the information. Frankly, I found Unfamiliar Fishes to lack a little in the interest department. I did not have the same kind of emotional or intellectual fascination with this book that I had with Assassination Vacation.
That being said, a so-so Sarah Vowell book is still better than most things out there. I had absolutely no knowledge of Hawaiian history before starting this book, but I felt pretty well-versed in the island's last 200 years by the time I finished. It's a fascinating subject. And reading about Hawaii during a yucky late-March cold snap definitely had its perks. It wasn't my favorite Vowell book in the world, but it was still a pretty great way to spend two days.
Note: Sarah Vowell is one of the few writers I recommend without limit. She certainly won't be for everyone, but when I pass her essays or books on to family members and friends, they usually find at least something to like there. If you are a Vowell newbie, I suggest starting with her excellent essay collection, Take the Cannoli, which is nerdy and hilarious. I also think Assassination Vacation is a good place to start. That book is all kinds of awesome and informative. She's also one of the only writers whose audio books I can stand. She reads her own work, and she does a fantastic job. If you put on one of her audio books while cleaning the house or doing your hair, you are bound to have more fun than originally planned.
Sarah Vowell is one of the only writers I actively follow, meaning I jump on every new book by her the day it comes out. Last Tuesday, when Unfamiliar Fishes was officially released, I occupied the very first hold position at my library. I waited two months after placing that hold, so as soon as the book came in on Tuesday, I pushed aside everything else I was reading. I finished it in two days. Such is the power of the Vowell.
Since I first read Asssassination Vacation as a teenager, then went back to read her books of essays, I've been obsessed with her funny, intelligent writing style. She takes history subjects I think I have no interest in - Puritans, President Garfield - and makes me care about them. I still think Assassination Vacation, about the first three presidential assassinations in America, is her best book. Every page presents some new, bizarre fact that grabs me. I was a little disappointed that her last book, The Wordy Shipmates, didn't interest me in quite the same way. Same goes with her new book, Unfamiliar Fishes.
Unfamiliar Fishes is a look at the history of Hawaii and its relationship to the United States. Missionaries arrived in Hawaii in the early 19th-century with the hope of converting its inhabitants to Christianity. They were mostly successful in this goal, but the changes they wrought had some unsavory impacts on the island nation. In an interview Vowell did with the AV Club, she mentions that she saw Fishes as a kind of sequel to The Wordy Shipmates. After all, these missionaries are descendants of those original Puritans who wanted to carve out a new world and ended up pushing out the natives. Vowell clearly comes to her research with an agenda, but because these books are simply little looks into important and strange events, this hardly matters. What matters is how interestingly she presents the information. Frankly, I found Unfamiliar Fishes to lack a little in the interest department. I did not have the same kind of emotional or intellectual fascination with this book that I had with Assassination Vacation.
That being said, a so-so Sarah Vowell book is still better than most things out there. I had absolutely no knowledge of Hawaiian history before starting this book, but I felt pretty well-versed in the island's last 200 years by the time I finished. It's a fascinating subject. And reading about Hawaii during a yucky late-March cold snap definitely had its perks. It wasn't my favorite Vowell book in the world, but it was still a pretty great way to spend two days.
Note: Sarah Vowell is one of the few writers I recommend without limit. She certainly won't be for everyone, but when I pass her essays or books on to family members and friends, they usually find at least something to like there. If you are a Vowell newbie, I suggest starting with her excellent essay collection, Take the Cannoli, which is nerdy and hilarious. I also think Assassination Vacation is a good place to start. That book is all kinds of awesome and informative. She's also one of the only writers whose audio books I can stand. She reads her own work, and she does a fantastic job. If you put on one of her audio books while cleaning the house or doing your hair, you are bound to have more fun than originally planned.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
I Can't Believe I Haven't Read This Book Before
Book Reviewed: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King
I've only read a small handful of Stephen King books, but I've always been a fan of the man himself. He writes a lot of reviews and essays, and I enjoy getting a glimpse into his mind. He's a successful writer without pretensions or snobbery. Somehow, he's managed to earn lots of money and fans without changing his basic personality as a blue-collar nerd. He's proof that sometimes people who work hard at their craft are rewarded in great ways. So why haven't I read his memoir/writing guide before now?
For years, I was a huge book snob. I wouldn't read genre fiction at all, and I had no time for anything that smacked of the fantastical. It's only in the last couple years that I've discovered how much fun Stephen King can be. I've also come to the conclusion that he's not as one-note as I thought. He gets how people work, and his work is surprisingly well-rooted in basic human patterns. A couple years back, I read Salem's Lot and enjoyed it immensely. Since then, I've discovered a deep love for genre fiction. It's safe to say that now I understand why Stephen King is so universally loved. It was finally time to read On Writing.
On Writing is a really good book, which shouldn't have surprised me. King loves the act of writing so much that it's hard not to get excited about it, too. The first half of the book lets King explore some of the most important or memorable moments of his life as they relate to his development as a writer. The second half works as a writing guide, in which King explains his own writing habits and hands out some advice. I tend to hate writing guides, as they are often a lot of bluster and little action. This is not one of those guides. King is funny and opinionated, and he clearly just wants readers to go out and write what makes them happy. There's some genuinely great advice in here, including some tips I might steal for my own purposes.
The book's final pages center on the horrible accident that nearly killed King a decade ago. He was in the middle of writing this book when a car hit him as he was out on a walk. The accident almost turned fatal, and King spent months afterwards having to relearn how to walk and sit for long periods of time. Writing was hard, but he kept himself going at it. He credits it with helping him heal. Much like the alcoholism and drug problems that nearly derailed him in his younger years, the accident eventually taught him a lesson about the two things that made his life worth living: his loving family and writing. The book is as much a love letter to writing as it is a memoir.
There's a passage from On Writing that I think I'm going to adopt as a slogan. King tells a story about a giant desk he bought in 1981 and placed right in the middle of his study. During that time, he was usually wasted and incapable of dealing with real life. After getting sober, he moved the desk to a corner and turned the room into more of a den where his kids could come hang out with him somtimes. King ends this story with a wonderful piece of advice: "It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around." I love that quote because it's so honest and against the instinctive thought process of so many writers. Writing adds to the joy of life, but it should never replace the actual living. That's some damn good advice. Maybe if more writers listened to King, they wouldn't be such pretentious bastards all the time. Myself included.
I've only read a small handful of Stephen King books, but I've always been a fan of the man himself. He writes a lot of reviews and essays, and I enjoy getting a glimpse into his mind. He's a successful writer without pretensions or snobbery. Somehow, he's managed to earn lots of money and fans without changing his basic personality as a blue-collar nerd. He's proof that sometimes people who work hard at their craft are rewarded in great ways. So why haven't I read his memoir/writing guide before now?
For years, I was a huge book snob. I wouldn't read genre fiction at all, and I had no time for anything that smacked of the fantastical. It's only in the last couple years that I've discovered how much fun Stephen King can be. I've also come to the conclusion that he's not as one-note as I thought. He gets how people work, and his work is surprisingly well-rooted in basic human patterns. A couple years back, I read Salem's Lot and enjoyed it immensely. Since then, I've discovered a deep love for genre fiction. It's safe to say that now I understand why Stephen King is so universally loved. It was finally time to read On Writing.
On Writing is a really good book, which shouldn't have surprised me. King loves the act of writing so much that it's hard not to get excited about it, too. The first half of the book lets King explore some of the most important or memorable moments of his life as they relate to his development as a writer. The second half works as a writing guide, in which King explains his own writing habits and hands out some advice. I tend to hate writing guides, as they are often a lot of bluster and little action. This is not one of those guides. King is funny and opinionated, and he clearly just wants readers to go out and write what makes them happy. There's some genuinely great advice in here, including some tips I might steal for my own purposes.
The book's final pages center on the horrible accident that nearly killed King a decade ago. He was in the middle of writing this book when a car hit him as he was out on a walk. The accident almost turned fatal, and King spent months afterwards having to relearn how to walk and sit for long periods of time. Writing was hard, but he kept himself going at it. He credits it with helping him heal. Much like the alcoholism and drug problems that nearly derailed him in his younger years, the accident eventually taught him a lesson about the two things that made his life worth living: his loving family and writing. The book is as much a love letter to writing as it is a memoir.
There's a passage from On Writing that I think I'm going to adopt as a slogan. King tells a story about a giant desk he bought in 1981 and placed right in the middle of his study. During that time, he was usually wasted and incapable of dealing with real life. After getting sober, he moved the desk to a corner and turned the room into more of a den where his kids could come hang out with him somtimes. King ends this story with a wonderful piece of advice: "It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around." I love that quote because it's so honest and against the instinctive thought process of so many writers. Writing adds to the joy of life, but it should never replace the actual living. That's some damn good advice. Maybe if more writers listened to King, they wouldn't be such pretentious bastards all the time. Myself included.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Making Near-Death Experiences Funny
Book Reviewed: Sleepwalk with Me: And Other Painfully True Stories, by Mike Birbiglia
Mike Birbiglia has been one of my favorite comedians since high school. At heart, he's an awkward nerd whose best jokes have an equal amount of sweet whimsey and weirdness. He's not a comic who works for everyone, but he's always been right up my alley. So when my friend Amy reviewed his new book over at her blog, I knew I had to follow suit.
As Amy mentioned in her review, much of the material in these personal essays has been explored before in Birbiglia's CDs and TV specials. If you think these stories were funny the first time, though, then they're still funny here. Birbiglia isn't the strongest writer in the world, and the structure of most of the essays seems a little messy and underdeveloped. But that didn't keep me from enjoying the book.
The book builds up to its last two essays, "Sleepwalk with Me" and "One More Thing," which have the distinction of being the best pieces in the whole book. They tell the tale of Birbiglia's struggles with a sleep problem called REM behavior disorder, which causes sufferers to have extremely vivid dreams that they then act out while unconscious. Before being officially diagnosed, Birbiglia spent years trying to ignore the problem. After crashing through a second-story hotel window during a dream and ending up in the hospital, he finally sought help. These two essays deal with this whole story in a funny, informed, and poignant way. The final scene of the book, where Birbiglia confesses to his crotchety father that he's had problems dealing with the disorder, manages to be honest, sweet, and hilarious all at once. This book was worth reading just to get to that well-done ending.
Mike Birbiglia has been one of my favorite comedians since high school. At heart, he's an awkward nerd whose best jokes have an equal amount of sweet whimsey and weirdness. He's not a comic who works for everyone, but he's always been right up my alley. So when my friend Amy reviewed his new book over at her blog, I knew I had to follow suit.
As Amy mentioned in her review, much of the material in these personal essays has been explored before in Birbiglia's CDs and TV specials. If you think these stories were funny the first time, though, then they're still funny here. Birbiglia isn't the strongest writer in the world, and the structure of most of the essays seems a little messy and underdeveloped. But that didn't keep me from enjoying the book.
The book builds up to its last two essays, "Sleepwalk with Me" and "One More Thing," which have the distinction of being the best pieces in the whole book. They tell the tale of Birbiglia's struggles with a sleep problem called REM behavior disorder, which causes sufferers to have extremely vivid dreams that they then act out while unconscious. Before being officially diagnosed, Birbiglia spent years trying to ignore the problem. After crashing through a second-story hotel window during a dream and ending up in the hospital, he finally sought help. These two essays deal with this whole story in a funny, informed, and poignant way. The final scene of the book, where Birbiglia confesses to his crotchety father that he's had problems dealing with the disorder, manages to be honest, sweet, and hilarious all at once. This book was worth reading just to get to that well-done ending.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Who Doesn't Love Judy Blume?
Book Reviewed: Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, edited by Jennifer O'Connell
This last weekend at a family get-together, my older cousin asked what I was reading. When I mentioned the title above, she smiled and said, "I lived that book." An avid Judy Blume reader when she was younger, this same cousin gave me my first Judy Blume book when I was seven. I then went on to become a Judy Blume fanatic. That's the amazing thing about Judy Blume: she's one of those authors that people love to pass onto the next generation. It's amazing that books she wrote thirty, forty years ago still have the resonance they do today.
When people ask who my most influential writers are, I name off the usuals - Fitzgerald, Roethke, etc. But they're always surprised when I say that Judy Blume is the most important writer of my life. When I was seven and that cousin gave me Superfudge for Christmas, it changed my life. I read that book and couldn't believe that someone could make me say, "Me too!" in that way. Suddenly, I knew that I had to start writing; I had to start forming connections through words and stories. People laugh at this anecdote, but it's completely true and not particularly funny to me. Judy Blume's characters reflected my own experience so completely that they carved out the rest of my life, turning me into a lifelong reader and writer.
That's why I was so excited to see that this book existed. Judy Blume is one of those writers that binds people together. I can meet someone I find annoying or don't particularly like, but if she mentions an affinity for Judy Blume, I suddenly treat her like she's my best friend. None of my other favorite writers are quite like that. I assume it's because people become hooked to her during their most impressionable years, at a time when it's not always easy to feel understood or to find books that speak to your experience.
So anyway, I finally checked Everything I Needed to Know out from the library and read it. It was an overall enjoyable experience, even though some of the essays rang much more true for me than others. A lot of people love Judy Blume for books like Deenie or Forever..., which explored off-limit topics like sex or masturbation. Most of these essays were about those two books, and since those are two of the only Judy Blume books I've never read, I couldn't totally connect to them. I was more into Judy Blume for her looks into how families and friendships work. For this reason, my favorite essays in the book were Megan Crane's "A Long Time Ago, We Used to Be Friends," about a close friendship that eventually ends and a reflection on Judy Blume's Just as Long as We're Together (one of my favorite Blume books, I must add); an exploration on family upheaval and moving away by Melissa Senate called "Then Again, Maybe I..."; and Kristin Harmel's essay on divorce and It's Not the End of the World, "It Wasn't the End of the World."
My favorite essay, for obvious reasons, was Cara Lockwood's "Superfudged," about the trials of being an older sibling. This essay hit the closest to home for me. When I was little, I hated being the older sibling. I thought my little brother, a tiny charmer if there ever was one, got more attention than I did. It seemed like no one else realized how annoying he could be. At the same time, though, I loved him and looked out for him. No one else was allowed to hurt him expect me, dammit. That's why Superfudge, the story of Peter Hatcher and his annoying little brother, made such a huge impact on me as a first-grader. Peter Hatcher had the exact same problems I did! In her contribution to the book ("The Importance of ABC's," which I wasn't particularly fond of overall), Kayla Perrin hits the nail on the head of what it means to read Judy Blume: "Her stories touched me right in the center of my emotional core. I read her books knowing that someone understood the trials and tribulations of grade school kids, and even more importantly, someone cared....And that's huge when you're young and often feel alone."
I often found the writing in this book to be a little weak or overly naval-gazing. I also wished it hadn't focused on the "being a girl" aspect and featured some essays by male writers as well. (Also, no one here even mentioned one of my all-time favorite Judy Blume books, the fantastic Here's to You, Rachel Robinson). But overall, it was fun to spend time with people who love Judy Blume as much as I do, people who found in her the understanding and care that will continue to make her a perrenial favorite among children. I know that if I or my friends or my close family members have kids, they'll all be receiving copies of Superfudge as soon as they hit grade school.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
List Lovers Rejoice!
Book Reviewed: Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists, by the writers and editors of the AV Club.
Over New Years weekend, I ended up with a nasty sinus infection. With a high fever and no desire to move, I couldn't concentrate on books with plots or involved writing. Luckily, a friend had just given me the AV Club's Inventory as a Christmas gift just a few days earlier. I could not have read this book at a better time. Lists of bizarre and hilarious pop-culture topics were the perfect thing for my fevered, list-loving mind.
It's no great secret here that I love the AV Club and will read anything they publish. This book actually came out at the end of 2009, but my library didn't have a copy and the big book seemed a little too inconsequential to buy with my hard-earned money. That's why it was a perfect gift: something I'd like but wouldn't buy myself. Inventory is a book for people who know a lot about insignificant things. It's a compilation of lists about specific pop-culture subjects, a collection of the Iventory feature that the website runs every Monday. Lists about things like songs that hate on specific cities, movies too brutal to watch more than once, and books with strange plots make this book a blast to read. Seriously, I had as much fun reading this book as I might have had actually seeing any of the movies listed in this book.
Some of these lists went a bit over my head, talking about bands or foreign films that I have very little knowledge about. But some were just pitch-perfect, making me laugh or think in equal measure. A few of my favorites include "Tell Me a Tune: 26 songs That Work as Short Stories," "Peter Parker Had It Easy: 18-plus Truly Tough Superhero Adolescences," "Superdrunk!: 10 Film Alcoholics Who Sober Up to Save the Day," "Noises Off: 15 Movies with Great Dialogue-Free Scenes," "Night of the Killer Lamp: 22 Ridiculous Horror-Movie Adversaries," and many more. But without a doubt, my favorite list is one that also doubles as the AV Club's memorial to Kurt Vonnegut, "So It Goes: 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has or Ever Will." It's a surprisingly moving and wonderful list, one that makes me miss Vonnegut's writing and personality very much. Great job, AV Club! I doubt I've ever read a list that brought tears to my eyes like this one did.
Side Note: Apparently being sick makes me crazy for lists. The other thing that kept me occupied while I was stuck on the couch was VH1's five-part series on the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s. This list kicked some major synth-laden ass. I've been listening to selections from it on Grooveshark ever since.
Over New Years weekend, I ended up with a nasty sinus infection. With a high fever and no desire to move, I couldn't concentrate on books with plots or involved writing. Luckily, a friend had just given me the AV Club's Inventory as a Christmas gift just a few days earlier. I could not have read this book at a better time. Lists of bizarre and hilarious pop-culture topics were the perfect thing for my fevered, list-loving mind.
It's no great secret here that I love the AV Club and will read anything they publish. This book actually came out at the end of 2009, but my library didn't have a copy and the big book seemed a little too inconsequential to buy with my hard-earned money. That's why it was a perfect gift: something I'd like but wouldn't buy myself. Inventory is a book for people who know a lot about insignificant things. It's a compilation of lists about specific pop-culture subjects, a collection of the Iventory feature that the website runs every Monday. Lists about things like songs that hate on specific cities, movies too brutal to watch more than once, and books with strange plots make this book a blast to read. Seriously, I had as much fun reading this book as I might have had actually seeing any of the movies listed in this book.
Some of these lists went a bit over my head, talking about bands or foreign films that I have very little knowledge about. But some were just pitch-perfect, making me laugh or think in equal measure. A few of my favorites include "Tell Me a Tune: 26 songs That Work as Short Stories," "Peter Parker Had It Easy: 18-plus Truly Tough Superhero Adolescences," "Superdrunk!: 10 Film Alcoholics Who Sober Up to Save the Day," "Noises Off: 15 Movies with Great Dialogue-Free Scenes," "Night of the Killer Lamp: 22 Ridiculous Horror-Movie Adversaries," and many more. But without a doubt, my favorite list is one that also doubles as the AV Club's memorial to Kurt Vonnegut, "So It Goes: 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has or Ever Will." It's a surprisingly moving and wonderful list, one that makes me miss Vonnegut's writing and personality very much. Great job, AV Club! I doubt I've ever read a list that brought tears to my eyes like this one did.
Side Note: Apparently being sick makes me crazy for lists. The other thing that kept me occupied while I was stuck on the couch was VH1's five-part series on the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s. This list kicked some major synth-laden ass. I've been listening to selections from it on Grooveshark ever since.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Alex Ross Gets Me to Listen to Beethoven
Book Reviewed: Listen to This, by Alex Ross
Last year, Alex Ross's history of 20th-century classical music, The Rest is Noise, was one of my favorite books of 2009. Ross is good writer, and his passion for his subject came out at every moment. I geeked out pretty hard-core over that book, chatting it up with my music-inclined friends and just generally bothering everyone I knew with stories about Shostakovich and Alban Berg. Obviously, I had to get a copy of his new book that came out this fall.
Listen to This is a collection of both original essays and pieces Ross previously wrote for The New Yorker. This time, it's about more than just atonal classical music. There's essays here on everything from Brahms to Radiohead. Overall, the book wasn't as strong as The Rest is Noise. It read a lot slower, and it wasn't quite as interesting. That's not to say that Ross has lost his touch for writing about music with the obsession of a true nerd. All that's still going on here.
As with most essay collections, some pieces are a lot better than others. Some essays I just didn't like because of the subject matter, such as the pieces on Brahms (who bores the hell out of me) and Mozart (which just rehashed a lot of info I already knew). Some pieces are just a lot of fun, like the essays about Radiohead and Bjork and the St. Lawrence Quartet. Finally, there are the "think" pieces which actually taught me a lot, particularly an essay entitled "Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music History," which is exactly what it sounds like.
There's a lot to love about Alex Ross and his love for music. He's a champion of classical music who hates the term "classical" as much as I do. He's a big supporter of music education and exposing different musical genres to people who wouldn't normally have the chance to hear them. He wants people to clap between movements the way they did a couple centuries ago, and he wants concertgoers and musical directors to lighten up. In other words, Ross is proposing that we change the way we experience a musical artform that most people describe as "dying." I can definitely get behind that.
As usual, the best thing about Ross's writing is the way he persuades me to listen to music I've written off too easily. This time around, he got me to listen to Beethoven's third symphony, "Eroica." I've never been a Beethoven person, but that might change. I checked out a recording of "Eroica" from the library, and I really liked it. Up next: an experiment in listening to Schubert.
Last year, Alex Ross's history of 20th-century classical music, The Rest is Noise, was one of my favorite books of 2009. Ross is good writer, and his passion for his subject came out at every moment. I geeked out pretty hard-core over that book, chatting it up with my music-inclined friends and just generally bothering everyone I knew with stories about Shostakovich and Alban Berg. Obviously, I had to get a copy of his new book that came out this fall.
Listen to This is a collection of both original essays and pieces Ross previously wrote for The New Yorker. This time, it's about more than just atonal classical music. There's essays here on everything from Brahms to Radiohead. Overall, the book wasn't as strong as The Rest is Noise. It read a lot slower, and it wasn't quite as interesting. That's not to say that Ross has lost his touch for writing about music with the obsession of a true nerd. All that's still going on here.
As with most essay collections, some pieces are a lot better than others. Some essays I just didn't like because of the subject matter, such as the pieces on Brahms (who bores the hell out of me) and Mozart (which just rehashed a lot of info I already knew). Some pieces are just a lot of fun, like the essays about Radiohead and Bjork and the St. Lawrence Quartet. Finally, there are the "think" pieces which actually taught me a lot, particularly an essay entitled "Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music History," which is exactly what it sounds like.
There's a lot to love about Alex Ross and his love for music. He's a champion of classical music who hates the term "classical" as much as I do. He's a big supporter of music education and exposing different musical genres to people who wouldn't normally have the chance to hear them. He wants people to clap between movements the way they did a couple centuries ago, and he wants concertgoers and musical directors to lighten up. In other words, Ross is proposing that we change the way we experience a musical artform that most people describe as "dying." I can definitely get behind that.
As usual, the best thing about Ross's writing is the way he persuades me to listen to music I've written off too easily. This time around, he got me to listen to Beethoven's third symphony, "Eroica." I've never been a Beethoven person, but that might change. I checked out a recording of "Eroica" from the library, and I really liked it. Up next: an experiment in listening to Schubert.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Well, This Certainly Didn't Make Me Like Christopher Hitchens Any Better
Book Reviewed: The Best American Essays 2010, edited by Christopher Hitchens (Robert Atwan, series editor)
If I lived in a world of my own choosing, I'd be an essayist. I am always jealous of people who can write really great essays, people like Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris and David Foster Wallace. Instead, essays are quite possibly the literary genre in which I am the most terrible. I have a hard time writing from a distinctive point of view on something I didn't invent or re-imagine. Even worse, I cannot write about myself at all without sounding slightly stupid and extremely passive. But I love reading essays, and great essayists are absolute heroes to me. So I checked out the latest volume of the Best American Essays series.
Man, was I disappointed. I should have stayed away as soon as I saw that Christopher Hitchens was the editor. I think Hitchens is a good writer and very smart, but he often makes me see red. I mean, this is the guy famous for stating that women aren't funny. But I decided to take a chance and read this book anyway.
It wasn't all bad. In fact, some of these essays are quite good. An essay I'd already read and loved earlier this year, Elif Batuman's "The Murder of Leo Tolstoy," started things off nicely. James Wood, one of my favorite serious literary critics, wrote a great essay about George Orwell, entitled "A Fine Rage," which actually made me like Orwell for the first time in my life. Same goes for Ian McEwan's rememberance of John Updike. Steven L. Isenberg's "Lunching on Olympus," talked a bit about Philip Larkin, so you know I enjoyed that one. And of course, as usual, David Sedaris delivers the goods with "Guy Walks into a Bar Car," which has a sweet ending seemingly hand-made for anyone familiar with Sedaris's essays of the last few years.
But the majority of the essays here just seemed really dull. Only five of the twenty-one essays were by women, which didn't help break up the old white man drudge that seemed to drag this book down so much. I particularly disliked Garry Wills's rememberance of the infamous William F. Buckley, in which Wills tried to make Buckley likeable. Good luck. It's hard to like a guy who thought whites were a superior race and who lived to sail. Yuck.
The above-mentioned essays of note, the ones that were genuinely good, made this book worth about half of my reading time. But I probably should have just read the writers and essay topics I knew I'd like and skipped the rest.
If I lived in a world of my own choosing, I'd be an essayist. I am always jealous of people who can write really great essays, people like Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris and David Foster Wallace. Instead, essays are quite possibly the literary genre in which I am the most terrible. I have a hard time writing from a distinctive point of view on something I didn't invent or re-imagine. Even worse, I cannot write about myself at all without sounding slightly stupid and extremely passive. But I love reading essays, and great essayists are absolute heroes to me. So I checked out the latest volume of the Best American Essays series.
Man, was I disappointed. I should have stayed away as soon as I saw that Christopher Hitchens was the editor. I think Hitchens is a good writer and very smart, but he often makes me see red. I mean, this is the guy famous for stating that women aren't funny. But I decided to take a chance and read this book anyway.
It wasn't all bad. In fact, some of these essays are quite good. An essay I'd already read and loved earlier this year, Elif Batuman's "The Murder of Leo Tolstoy," started things off nicely. James Wood, one of my favorite serious literary critics, wrote a great essay about George Orwell, entitled "A Fine Rage," which actually made me like Orwell for the first time in my life. Same goes for Ian McEwan's rememberance of John Updike. Steven L. Isenberg's "Lunching on Olympus," talked a bit about Philip Larkin, so you know I enjoyed that one. And of course, as usual, David Sedaris delivers the goods with "Guy Walks into a Bar Car," which has a sweet ending seemingly hand-made for anyone familiar with Sedaris's essays of the last few years.
But the majority of the essays here just seemed really dull. Only five of the twenty-one essays were by women, which didn't help break up the old white man drudge that seemed to drag this book down so much. I particularly disliked Garry Wills's rememberance of the infamous William F. Buckley, in which Wills tried to make Buckley likeable. Good luck. It's hard to like a guy who thought whites were a superior race and who lived to sail. Yuck.
The above-mentioned essays of note, the ones that were genuinely good, made this book worth about half of my reading time. But I probably should have just read the writers and essay topics I knew I'd like and skipped the rest.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Pop Culture Saves Lives
Book Reviewed: The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture, by Nathan Rabin
If the AV Club is my favorite website (and it really, really is), then Nathan Rabin is my favorite writer there. I've had a crush on Rabin's often-hilarious writing since I was a measley college freshman who sneaked peeks at the AV Club when I should have been working on papers. Along with current editor-in-chief, Keith Phipps, Rabin has been with the AV Club since its infancy, and he's currently the site's Head Writer. He's not the Club's best writer (I'd give that honor to Noel Murray, probably), but he's the funniest and his love for all things pop culture is ridiculously contagious.
Throughout the years, Rabin has made passing references to a rough childhood. It wasn't until he released his memoir, The Big Rewind, last year that I realized just how rough it really was. His mother abandoned him when he was a toddler, and although his father was basically a saint, Rabin couldn't live with him for many years for a number of reasons (his father had MS, was unemployed and poor, and could barely look out for himself). He spent a month in a mental institution for no real fault of his own, then spent all of his teenage years in a Jewish group home. Eventually, he made it through college and into the national spotlight as a well-loved film critic, but it didn't keep him from being haunted by a past he was too ashamed to speak about. Pop culture was the thing that saved him from a life of misery and regret, and eventually it made him feel comfortable enough that he could start talking about his old life.
Rabin's story is a sad one indeed, but he never gets bogged down in the depressing details. Despite battling with depression all his life, he found a purpose in pop culture that lifted him above his problems. It helps that he has a great sense of humor that works very well in this book.
It took me a while to get my hands on a copy of this book, but I'm glad I finally did. I really enjoyed reading The Big Rewind. It's a little uneven at times, though. Rabin has always struck me as someone who occasionally tries too hard for a joke, and sometimes the book has a little too much forced jocularity in it. Luckily, it's offset by some lovely moments of humanity. Rabin always seems to think he's a jerk, but that's clearly not true. The book's best chapters involve his love for his father, his relationships with group home compatriots, and even his failed love affairs with women as troubled as him. My favorite chapter is "You Know Mom's Crazy, Right," in which he meets with the biological mother who abandoned him when he was two years old. It's a bitter meeting, and we get to see Rabin be equally indignant and unsurprised as he talks about his feelings toward this woman. There's nothing neat or cathartic about this chapter, and yet it's a testament to both Rabin's strength and his father's caring hand.
Overall, The Big Rewind isn't the best memoir I've ever read. But it was often funny, insightful, and even sweet. There's a reason I'm so attached to Rabin and the AV Club institution that he proudly claims to be his only stable home.
If the AV Club is my favorite website (and it really, really is), then Nathan Rabin is my favorite writer there. I've had a crush on Rabin's often-hilarious writing since I was a measley college freshman who sneaked peeks at the AV Club when I should have been working on papers. Along with current editor-in-chief, Keith Phipps, Rabin has been with the AV Club since its infancy, and he's currently the site's Head Writer. He's not the Club's best writer (I'd give that honor to Noel Murray, probably), but he's the funniest and his love for all things pop culture is ridiculously contagious.
Throughout the years, Rabin has made passing references to a rough childhood. It wasn't until he released his memoir, The Big Rewind, last year that I realized just how rough it really was. His mother abandoned him when he was a toddler, and although his father was basically a saint, Rabin couldn't live with him for many years for a number of reasons (his father had MS, was unemployed and poor, and could barely look out for himself). He spent a month in a mental institution for no real fault of his own, then spent all of his teenage years in a Jewish group home. Eventually, he made it through college and into the national spotlight as a well-loved film critic, but it didn't keep him from being haunted by a past he was too ashamed to speak about. Pop culture was the thing that saved him from a life of misery and regret, and eventually it made him feel comfortable enough that he could start talking about his old life.
Rabin's story is a sad one indeed, but he never gets bogged down in the depressing details. Despite battling with depression all his life, he found a purpose in pop culture that lifted him above his problems. It helps that he has a great sense of humor that works very well in this book.
It took me a while to get my hands on a copy of this book, but I'm glad I finally did. I really enjoyed reading The Big Rewind. It's a little uneven at times, though. Rabin has always struck me as someone who occasionally tries too hard for a joke, and sometimes the book has a little too much forced jocularity in it. Luckily, it's offset by some lovely moments of humanity. Rabin always seems to think he's a jerk, but that's clearly not true. The book's best chapters involve his love for his father, his relationships with group home compatriots, and even his failed love affairs with women as troubled as him. My favorite chapter is "You Know Mom's Crazy, Right," in which he meets with the biological mother who abandoned him when he was two years old. It's a bitter meeting, and we get to see Rabin be equally indignant and unsurprised as he talks about his feelings toward this woman. There's nothing neat or cathartic about this chapter, and yet it's a testament to both Rabin's strength and his father's caring hand.
Overall, The Big Rewind isn't the best memoir I've ever read. But it was often funny, insightful, and even sweet. There's a reason I'm so attached to Rabin and the AV Club institution that he proudly claims to be his only stable home.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Continuing My Nonfiction Roll...
Book Reviewed: Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edward P. Kohn
Lately, I can't get enough of the TV show, The West Wing. Back in middle school, this was my favorite show. I was in love with half the characters, and I wanted to be friends with the other half. In my youth, I was a politics junkie, so this show fit right into my lifestyle. As I've gotten older and busier, I find myself spending less time thinking and reading about politics (I still follow the news; I just don't follow politics much, even though I'm still pretty damn opinionated about my own views). Becoming reacquainted with The West Wing has also turned me towards politics once again. The best part of the show is seeing how people who want to do good deal within a world that doesn't always allow them to do so. Sometimes, compromises have to be made and others have to suffer for them. It's a very realistic look at the way government functions.
About the same time I started rewatching this awesome show about a fake president and his fake White House staff, I saw an interview with history professor Edward P. Kohn about his new book, Hot Time in the Old Town. Right away, I knew I needed to go out and find a copy. The book combines some of my favorite history topics - Teddy Roosevelt, labor issues at the turn of the century, the shifting values of the old Democratic and Republican parties - and some of my favorite political topics - urban vs. rural attitudes, issues of poverty and class warfare, etc. The book centers on a ten-day heat wave in New York City in August 1896. During that time, the heat index was as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and poor people living in dirty, unventilated tenements suffered the worst of the spell. Overall, around 1,300 people died as a result of the heat. Babies and overworked laborers collapsed and expired in waves around the Lower East Side. Meanwhile, Teddy Roosevelt, who was at that point fairly unlucky in politics and serving as Police Commissioner, helped to combat the worst of the heat by overseeing free handouts of ice to the poorest citizens. Roosevelt was one of the only city leaders to take any kind of action during the heat wave, a fact that Kohn made a lot out of in his interviews.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure it was the strongest argument in the book. I've been a Teddy Roosevelt fan for a few years now, probably due to some of Sarah Vowell's essays about the complicated man he was. I don't agree with a good chunk of his political views, but I think he's a fascinating figure who really did try to change his country for the better and who helped the lower classes as well as he could. Plus, you know, teddy bears! And while Kohn certainly lets us see the complex figure that was Roosevelt, I didn't quite see him as the star of this book.
Rather, the main man of interest here seems to be William Jennings Bryan, a whiz-kid Democratic presidential nominee (you might know him better as the prosecutor from the Scopes "monkey" trial) who had the extreme misfortune of giving an important political speech right in the middle of the heat wave. Due to a series of blunders and an inability to see beyond his rural morality, Bryan failed spectacularly in New York City and eventually lost the election to McKinley (whose eventual assassination, I should add, is one of my favorite history topics. I'm weird like that). Kohn spends a lot of time on Bryan, and I found this story fascinating. I'm just not sure why the book wasn't subtitled "The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Fall of William Jennings Bryan" instead. To make matters worse, Roosevelt was enjoying a breezier beach climate during the worst days of the heat. Which I would have done, too. But it wasn't what I expected from the interviews.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It felt a little repetetive at times, but Kohn's obviously a talented historian. His argument at the end of the book that heat waves are a tragically overlooked natural devastation to people and places made a lot of sense to me after reading his examination of this particular case. It's a nice little piece of history that I certainly had never heard of before, and I enjoyed learning about it.
Lately, I can't get enough of the TV show, The West Wing. Back in middle school, this was my favorite show. I was in love with half the characters, and I wanted to be friends with the other half. In my youth, I was a politics junkie, so this show fit right into my lifestyle. As I've gotten older and busier, I find myself spending less time thinking and reading about politics (I still follow the news; I just don't follow politics much, even though I'm still pretty damn opinionated about my own views). Becoming reacquainted with The West Wing has also turned me towards politics once again. The best part of the show is seeing how people who want to do good deal within a world that doesn't always allow them to do so. Sometimes, compromises have to be made and others have to suffer for them. It's a very realistic look at the way government functions.
About the same time I started rewatching this awesome show about a fake president and his fake White House staff, I saw an interview with history professor Edward P. Kohn about his new book, Hot Time in the Old Town. Right away, I knew I needed to go out and find a copy. The book combines some of my favorite history topics - Teddy Roosevelt, labor issues at the turn of the century, the shifting values of the old Democratic and Republican parties - and some of my favorite political topics - urban vs. rural attitudes, issues of poverty and class warfare, etc. The book centers on a ten-day heat wave in New York City in August 1896. During that time, the heat index was as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and poor people living in dirty, unventilated tenements suffered the worst of the spell. Overall, around 1,300 people died as a result of the heat. Babies and overworked laborers collapsed and expired in waves around the Lower East Side. Meanwhile, Teddy Roosevelt, who was at that point fairly unlucky in politics and serving as Police Commissioner, helped to combat the worst of the heat by overseeing free handouts of ice to the poorest citizens. Roosevelt was one of the only city leaders to take any kind of action during the heat wave, a fact that Kohn made a lot out of in his interviews.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure it was the strongest argument in the book. I've been a Teddy Roosevelt fan for a few years now, probably due to some of Sarah Vowell's essays about the complicated man he was. I don't agree with a good chunk of his political views, but I think he's a fascinating figure who really did try to change his country for the better and who helped the lower classes as well as he could. Plus, you know, teddy bears! And while Kohn certainly lets us see the complex figure that was Roosevelt, I didn't quite see him as the star of this book.
Rather, the main man of interest here seems to be William Jennings Bryan, a whiz-kid Democratic presidential nominee (you might know him better as the prosecutor from the Scopes "monkey" trial) who had the extreme misfortune of giving an important political speech right in the middle of the heat wave. Due to a series of blunders and an inability to see beyond his rural morality, Bryan failed spectacularly in New York City and eventually lost the election to McKinley (whose eventual assassination, I should add, is one of my favorite history topics. I'm weird like that). Kohn spends a lot of time on Bryan, and I found this story fascinating. I'm just not sure why the book wasn't subtitled "The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Fall of William Jennings Bryan" instead. To make matters worse, Roosevelt was enjoying a breezier beach climate during the worst days of the heat. Which I would have done, too. But it wasn't what I expected from the interviews.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It felt a little repetetive at times, but Kohn's obviously a talented historian. His argument at the end of the book that heat waves are a tragically overlooked natural devastation to people and places made a lot of sense to me after reading his examination of this particular case. It's a nice little piece of history that I certainly had never heard of before, and I enjoyed learning about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)