A literary mystery, or Borges keeps on giving...

at first blush, i was excited to find this anthology because nothing would suit me better than to sit at Jorge Luis Borges' knee, and have him tell what his favourite stories were, or even have him read them to me. of course, this book was not just edited by Borges, but also Silvina Ocampo, and Adolfo Bioy Casares, who is quoted thusly by Ursula K. Le Guin in the intro, saying the book came out of a conversation "about fantastic literature... discussing the stories which seemed best to us. One of us suggested that if we put together the fragments of the same type we had listed in our notebooks, we would have a good book."

and so i began. i read the first story, and liked it. then i read the second. it is quite short, so i include it for your enjoyment here:

A Woman Alone With Her Soul
Thomas Bailey Aldrich

A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows she is alone in the whole world: every other living thing is dead. The door bell rings.

i stopped. i read it again. i thought, "who is this Thomas Bailey Aldrich? why haven't i heard of him?" i read the short biographical info provided by his name: Thomas Bailey Aldrich, North American poet and novelist, was born in New Hampshire in 1835 and died in Boston in 1907. He was the author of Cloth of Gold (1874), Wyndham Tower (1879), and An Old Town by the Sea (1893). i thought, "okay... maybe this story was never published in his lifetime. i didn't expect people were writing stories like this in the 19th century." and, "wow. doorbells have been around a long time. this story seems like it could have been written by Ben Loory when my back was turned except this anthology has been around since 1940, and the last revision was in 1976. okay. i'd better do a google search on Aldrich, a man writing stories that could have been written yesterday."

and so i researched. i found that Aldrich has been given a lot of credit: the first appearance of a detective in english literature (The Stillwater Tragedy - 1880), and that critics feel the semi-autobiographical novel he wrote in 1870 (The Story of a Bad Boy) anticipated Huck Finn. All this despite the fact he was primarily a poet (rhyming verse), editor, and writer of travel books. i began to suspect that Aldrich was eldritch.

i kept on, looking through materials at Project Gutenberg, hoping to find other stories by Aldrich like "A Woman Alone With Her Soul" but nothing read like it did. i kept looking for the collected volume cited in the sources and acknowledgements of my anthology, and found that all 322 pages of vol. 9 had been scanned by somebody at the University of Toronto library (for some reason i found this creepy) and posted online. there was a 'search text' function so i copied the title of the story in and there were no matches. i was confused. i flipped through pages of the book; again, nothing read like this story read, or was as short as it was... nothing matched up. i stopped, pondered, and did another web search, this time for the story's title, and found it in a listing of sci fi stories had the following note: "this is most likely by Jorge Luís Borges" with no further elaboration. i found this statement on a couple of other sites, and then i began to think that Borges was making me believe in books that didn't actually exist again (his own "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" appears in this anthology, with its tricksy encyclopedia). i wrote Ben, asked him if he had written the story, told him that Borges might have, apologized for bothering him, and searched on, and finally came upon a trail of emails by a Dennis Hien, from a mailing list called Project Wombat that gave me something. somebody had been searching for the shortest sci fi story ever written there, at Project Wombat, in 2004 and Hien did some research (though he couldn't find the initial conversation string... the text i read was from 2007. it turned out another one of my favourites, Dashiell Hammett, in an introduction to an anthology he had edited called "Creeps By Night" in 1931, said,

"One of my own favorites is that attributed, I believe, to Thomas Bailey Aldrich

A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows she is alone in the whole world: every other living thing is dead. The doorbell rings.

That has, particularly, the restraint that is almost invariably
the mark of the effective weird tale.",

There is no reference to the title of the story as it appears in my anthology, and I will need to seek out the Hammett anthology to see if it can provide any further clues. My gut tells me that Borges/Ocampo/Casares must have stumbled upon this story in Hammett's anthology, at some point in the nine years that elapsed between the publication of the two, and decided to use it. and yet, this story was not in the vol. 9 text. but Hien cast further light (i imagine through his own researches because no references were included) by revealing that the kernel of the story idea was Aldrich's, that it was published in his essays "Leaves from a Notebook" collected in a book called the Ponkapag Papers, which was in its turn collected in that self-same volume 9, that i had discovered on line. The text that Aldrich wrote is as follows:

"Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell!"

and so, this is not the story attributed to Aldrich i had read. it is a seed yes, but the differences are striking, and it is not the idea, but that micro short that resounds in my mind (and in others' minds: i found a lengthy blog entry from 2007 dissecting the tiny gem in the course of my research). it seems to me that this was as close as Borges felt he could get to finding the genesis of the story that Hammett shared, that originated with Aldrich, and so he referenced the works vol 9, and it seems likely that Borges invented the title, and finally, led me on this merry chase seventy years later. i wonder if Hammett actually read the story the way he quoted it or if i respond to it because this version is his version of what he had read in Aldrich. i still have many questions and am doubtful that i will find answers. i realize this is not really a review of the Book of Fantasy. i am after all, only on page 16, and there are many stories to read but this chase has reminded me of my passion for Borges, and how razor-sharp the line between truth and fiction is, that life is mystery, and reverberating in my mind is PKD quoting Dante in The Transmigration of Timothy Archer: God is the book of the universe".

i am tempted to give the book five stars right now though. i mean, how can i not?

********************************************************

i just realized i never came back and finished the review for this. i did end up changing my rating to four stars: i was really blown away by some of these stories:

- "the man who collected the first of september", 1973 by tor age bringsvaerd i've already re-read several times since first finding it in this book, and can't quite get over it.

- b. traven, another favourite of mine has a story "macario" included which i'd never read before that has really reverberated in my mind, and i can't recommend enough.

then there was a sleeper: months later, walking down the street, i found myself preoccupied by the recollection of the story called "the horses of abdera" by leopoldo lugones (i've subsequently realized borges had written a biography about him). i was also thrilled to find included stories i already adored by may sinclair, rudyard kipling, saki, and wilde, and of course, borges himself.

there was also the inclusion of a waugh story called "the man who liked dickens" which i recognized as the ending of his novel a handful of dust, which had seemed out of keeping with the rest of the novel when i first read it (my review of that is here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72967026) finding the publication history made me realize waugh had published that story on its own before marrying it to his novel which really explains a lot. another literary mystery solved!

i did not love the story contributions of borges' fellow editors, bioy casares, and ocampo as much. i found some of the minor authors they added to the collection perhaps could not stand up against the finesse and craft of the greats i've already mentioned, and others by our old pals tolstoy, poe, and de maupassant. i'm pretty sure borges only loved the ones i do, anyway. :) that said, i think this is an impressive collection that is a requisite for anyone who loves the bent, and the strange, the fable and the twilight.


*****************************************************
yet another update:

i just found out something exciting! as i said in the review, and my status updates as i read this collection, how thrilling it was to find that borges liked the same stories as i do, and i was convinced that he selected the ones i liked best. as i noted above, one selected was from a collection i had happened upon six months earlier, the haunting short story by may sinclair, "where their fire is not quenched" i was looking up obscure books today, and decided i needed to try to find may sinclair's novel, the dark night, and while i was searching, this came up on alibris:

Cuentos Memorables Segun Jorge Luis Borges
by Jorge Luis Borges

In a 1935 magazine article, celebrated author Jorge Luis Borges explained why he chose Mary Sinclair's short story "Donde su fuego nunca se apaga" as the most memorable story hed ever read, while he mentioned 11 other of his personal favorites. Inspired by Borges statements in the article, this anthology gathers an array of magnificent short stories by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, and O. Henry, among others.

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=8405055&matches=15&cm_sp=works*listing*more&full=1

how exciting! will we love the same o. henry story? I'LL FIND OUT!!! :)


This work by Maureen de Sousa is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

like spinning plates

i really want to thank you for all you have given me. i was very confused for a long time but somehow, the one thing i seemed to always get right was finding wonderful people to know, and to love. some of you are nearby, others are hundreds, thousands of miles away, some even suggest that there are planets between us, but i treasure all of the words you have spoken, all the ideas you have shared, and all the wisdom you have imparted. i am really so honoured to have called you my friends: people who have understood me, and humoured me, and gentled me, and given me a rise, challenged me, and made me change my mind even as i made you think. you have hugged me, and smiled at me, and cuffed me, and enfolded me in punctuation. you have put things in perspective and i will always feel truly blessed for the time spent in your company.

mo
xo

*******************

we can't always talk to the people we want to, when we want to. there are a myriad of reasons for this, and if i think back on my life so far, there are a lot of people i have lost that i still miss, and wish i could talk to because sometimes that person is just the right person, the one who will make it all right. i'm not going to try to pretend that i'm good at losing people, or that it's easy to let go even when it's for the best, or that i'm never disappointed when the person i want can't be there. i am trying to accept that no matter hard i try, i will lose some things, some people: it's inevitable. it's difficult to keep people in your life, juggling needs, knowing how hard it all is to balance, but friendship is like spinning plates.

i can remember when my father died, riding the bus home from peterborough, stewing the whole while, needing to talk, standing on the subway platform, knowing i wouldn't make it if i didn't cry my pain right then. and calling my friend debbie, who was the person i wanted most to talk to, and the wash of sheer relief that she was there at the end of the line, and the words could tumble out, to somebody who would understand, and listen. i will never forget that joy in the midst of all that pain; she was simply there when i needed her, and i was safe, in that moment when i wasn't so sure i ever would be again.

yesterday i left a message in the ghost town called myspace, to somebody who almost seems an angel to me, a dream, an egret in flight. she swept in through a bunch of raucous voices, and brought serenity to us all. she was filled with pain herself, and no stranger to loss, yet somehow defied it, and beamed her heart down on us, and i feel so incredibly lucky and privileged to know her. she paved the way to accord because she made us feel loved, and we all loved her, and so learned to love each other. and so i wrote her: partly i just had to let her know it, how much she had given me in the heyday of our friendship, and partly i wanted more. i wanted to know that she was okay: that things had improved for her, that she was thriving and being, and doing. and i wanted to tell her i finally know after all this time that i'm going to be okay, and maybe even better than okay. and i don't know if she'll get the message. i really hope she does, and even if she can't talk to me, for whatever reason, that she knows i love her, and i'm so proud that she's my friend.

and after i left that message, i knew that there were so many people i wanted to tell the same thing, to say thank you to, and so i began writing this. i realized i wanted to let everybody know how grateful i am that i have known them, and have talked to them, laughed with them and learned from them. there's a list of people in my head (i'm not going to name them all out because i'm not accepting an award here), and even though the people who come by this blog because they love me are on it, there's plenty of people in my heart that may never see this. i like to imagine that they might think of me someday while they're sitting at a computer, and perhaps do a search for me, and find the message that i headed this post with, and that they smile because they know i mean them too.

i find myself, as ever, fascinated by people: reaching out to them, old and new, and wanting to hear their voices. an old friend came to visit at christmas, and we curled up on the couch, and had cookies and tea, and the time slipped away too quickly; i emailed another of our old classmates, and had one of the most satisfying conversations i've had in a long time, because his opinion has always mattered to me, has shaped me. time went by, and that was okay until, all of a sudden it wasn't, and i needed to tell him things, and he, me.

how really full in my heart i feel, and the world is a little brighter for me because i know now that some conversations that have lagged aren't necessarily over. there are other voices i really want to hear, and right now they're still, and i wonder if i'll ever hear them again. i hope i will. and if i don't hear them again, at least they know that they were cherished.

spirited

there's a place in my chest where excitement starts: rightly enough, just under my heart. and my heart was heavy for so long, and it smothered that place. and my frissons only amounted to fear, in that throbbing thud centred in the spot where excitement starts. it spread its fingers out my back, the prone area that tingles in response. i can feel its borders even now, so sensitive are they in reception; they know that i am speaking of them.

but somehow everything is new, and training my horse, my body as i have, makes me even more aware of my insides, and now i see that my heart is not so heavy as it was then, or perhaps i have become adept at lifting the profundity of its weight. and now, under my heart, is a spark, that leaps at the prospect of new things, new places, new words, and a new way. i want very much to be, to do, to live. i've never wanted it so much before. i don't have the life i want yet: there is still so much to be decided, and to try, and to face. and people still confuse me, and daunt me, and i wish i understood everything, all that it takes to be a good person and then some; that's the person i want to be.

but the thing is, i've decided i'm here for the duration. that i've got to get myself together, and i can feel myself fighting for it; i can feel hope leaping in my chest. i can do no more than be who i always am, and try. i have seen what comes from not trying.

i'm going to be spirited.

goodreads book review: the obscene bird of night, jose donoso

The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
themes of identity, humanity, reality, and belonging cycle through and circle the obscene bird of night. it's not really pleasant to read, though there are moments where a smile is not out of order. but most often it's really bizarre, and misleading, horrific even as its compelling. before philip k. dick died he was trying to write a book called the owl in daylight. i suspect he would have written his own version of the obscene bird of night. i think he would have understood this book. i cannot say i do. i am certainly in awe of it, in all its monstrosity, its virtuosity, despite the fact that it left me depleted and brain sore, overwhelmed by images of the grotesque, yes, obscene scenes that came alive, that are still burning in my mind. i will likely read it again half a dozen times, if not more, in trying to comprehend it. most of the action takes place in a rest home for old servants, owned by an old and respected family, and later, in the summer house of that same family, where a grand experiment is made, both buildings edifices that are bigger inside than out, and labyrinthine in nature, much like the book itself.

the main narrative voice is often one "i" but not always, a male servant. the fluidity of this "i" means it shifts and tricks you, so that it is no longer he but yet someone else, and just when you think you are beginning to understand, the "i" slaps your hand, and shows you something else. there's not really a central figure in this novel for me, unless it is the imbunche, the mythological creature story that has at its heart a witch that steals children, and seals up their nine orifices. the shards of the narratives are dark, stark, and nasty, yet somehow donoso (who is the ultimate "i" though not the only writer in this book) is matter of fact, makes you want to keep looking into all the different mirrors that he holds up, makes you want to keep reading even though your mind is reeling. the effect of his facility with these characters softens the blow somewhat; he makes horror palatable, as nabokov did when he made me empathize with humbert humbert. to me, it makes perfect sense (and i wondered if it was a tip of the cap to lolita) that the most-of-time-narrator is most-of-the-time called humberto. when he is not mudito. or an old lady. or a child. or a lover. or a papier-mache head. and iris is also gina. and ines can do everybody's voices, she's a natural mimic, so you can imagine where that might go. there are no villains really, there are no saints, though these capering fools will try to invent some, as the story unfolds.

since pkd never wrote the owl in daylight, i'll say this book is like a south american nightmare mutation of the sound and the fury. i didn't immediately understand all the threads in that book either but that's what keeps me coming back to it, and it's why i will read the obscene bird of night again -- that slap is a challenge that still stings.



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goodreads book review: the magnificent ambersons, booth tarkington

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
the magnificent ambersons makes you think about how humans value things, and other people, and reputation, for what reason, and in what proportion. it is a book that i want to talk to other people about because i keep rolling it over in my mind, the choices and observations tarkington made in some cases baffle me, and i'm still not sure what to think, of it, the world, or myself.

had i not read penrod just prior to reading the magnificent ambersons i'm not sure i would have liked it as much as i did. tarkington had already softened me when it came to whims and importunate desires of boys so i was somewhat prepared for the dark and evil epitome of boys who never grow up: the monster at the heart of this book, george amberson minafer. part of me still chafes at the injustices of the world revealed in this novel, reminding me that somebody who is only beautiful on his outside can wreak such harm and destruction on the people that love him. the relationship between georgie and his mother isabel amberson is the most destructive in the book, and the pattern continues when he takes up with lucy morgan, the daughter of eugene, isabel's true love whom she spurned when he lost sight, for a brief moment, of propriety. i revolted against these relationships until finally i came to this passage:

"But though she was a mistress of her own ways and no slave to any lamp save that of her own conscience, she had a weakness: she had fallen in love with George Amberson Minafer at first sight, and no matter how she disciplined herself, she had never been able to climb out. The thing had happened to her; that was all. [..:] But what was fatal to Lucy was that this having happened to her, she could not change it. No matter what she discovered in George's nature she was unable to take away what she had given him; and though she could think differently about him, she could not feel differently about him, for she was one of those too faithful victims of glamour. When she managed to keep the picture of George away from her mind's eye, she did well enough; but when she let him become visible, she could not choose but love what she disdained."

and for all that i still hate georgie, these words helped me understand, and identify with lucy, and at least took me down from my moral highground for a moment to remind me that our rational minds are not always in control of our hearts, and sometimes we love people who aren't good to us, or for us, but it is nigh impossible to revoke our love once we give it.

all of these entanglements play out in turn-of-the-century american society where the established ways of business were changing, and people began calling horseless carriages automobiles, and one way of life began to die out, while another began. this backdrop is almost another character in the novel, and tarkington's interest in the culture that was and his horror at what it was becoming is vivid, and real, and easily identifiable for contemporary readers, in this, our own moment of change. i am now interested in reading the rest of the growth trilogy, and alice adams.

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goodreads book review: penrod, booth tarkington

Penrod by Booth Tarkington


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
penrod is an amusing book. it's not laugh-out-loud funny but the misadventures of this inscrutable and bad boy are captivating, and knowing, and made me smile. tarkington lets us into the hallowed halls of an adolescent male mind which is itching for experiences, and wily in its meeting of any consequence that these experiences might bring. penrod, as the epitome of boys, an untroubled huck, breathes life into the archetypal boyhood. he is good at getting into scrapes whether they are of his own devising or not (usually they are), and things often spiral wildly out of his control despite his efforts at containment. he is popularized as the "worst boy in town" by the girl he likes best, and he's hotly defensive of his honour. he is curious, vindictive, but also sometimes kind. if you have spent any time with an unruly young man, with some brains, and too much energy, you have met penrod. the other characters too, are well drawn and quite familiar: his family, frustrated, amused, and perplexed by him; the other kids who are his friends and enemies all-at-once live in awe or fear, or collude with him; the other townsfolk cluck, or cause calumnies for him. the characterizations in this book feel real even if they also sometimes smack of caricature, as real people sometimes do.

some of the caricature in this book i had trouble with: specifically the endemic racism. i realize that it is a by-product of the society in which tarkington was raised, and understood, but it's distracting and painful to read some of these sentences that are tossed off, and in some cases, weaken the narrative. here's an example, with square brackets mine:

He sat staring at the an open page of a textbook, but not studying; not even reading; not even thinking. Nor was he lost in a reverie: his mind's eye was shut, as his physical eye might well have been, for the optic nerve, flaccid with ennui, conveyed nothing whatever of the printed page upon which the orb of vision was partially focused. Penrod was doing something very unusual and rare, something almost never accomplished except by [coloured people or by] a boy in school on a spring day: he was doing really nothing at all. He was merely a state of being.

cut those four words out, and it is marvellous writing, and cements the portrayal of a boy's mind which is the novel's central theme. and i can't even say that this is the worst of it. penrod has two black playmates named herman and verman, who have a raccoon they eventually name sherman after their dead brother, and they are wonderful characters, and is often the case, in some ways much more attractive than penrod himself. yet, we are forced to endure narrative that characterizes them as in the "lower stages of evolution" and the like. at least these racial slurs are relatively few in number, and the brothers are treated with respect by penrod and their other colleagues in the arts of chicanery.

i'm really glad i read this book despite the racism. each time i come across this issue, i face the quandary of to read or not to read. it is troubling, that a book that brings so much pleasure can also knock it out of you with a careless, and often useless remark. it is also a relic of the way the world was, and i can curse the editor of penrod for not seeing that the strength of the above paragraph was dimmed by the stupid addition of a folksy slur, and be glad that times have changed. boys and their spirits however, have not altered in essentials since the publication of penrod, and i cannot say that that is a blessing or a curse, so much as shake my head wryly at the epitome of boys so embodied in this book.

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goodreads book review: the sundial, shirley jackson

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
this is among my favourite novels. every time i read it i am just as struck by its harmonious discord as i was the first time: this story is to me, a perversely uneven amalgam of a drawing room comedy, and creepy gothic haunted house tale. i think i only like the book more for the fact that the pieces don't quite fit together, and the scene that scares me the most isn't the one i'd expect, though there are several claustrophobic and uncomfortable moments in the sundial, and i always smile at this book at the dialogue which i think is some of jackson's wittiest writing. it almost feels like oscar wilde briefly inhabited the mind of jackson when she wrote this book because the characters are so pert, and alive, that even when they are cruel, or shallow, or stupid, i am fond of them. the drunk villagers are a joy each time, and i am as foolishly in love with essex as i ever was, though i know he is a cad.

people i have loaned it to never seem to like this book as much as i do: perhaps it is because i am as crooked and misbegotten as it is. several found fault with the ending which makes me perfectly content -- the ending they want i think would have to be a whole other book. i find everything i want in a book here: poetry, and confusion, loneliness, and fear, and the waiting for something bigger than yourself, so that you don't have to think about yourself, or what the point is, anymore.

thank you shirley for leaving me stories that understand me so well.

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goodreads book review: perdido street station, china miéville

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
some interesting ideas in a book that seemed bloated with words to me. i knew it wasn't going to be favourite even into the first four pages that introduce us to the reek of the rivers of the city new crobuzon. i thought it was london at first, a gross yet achingly familiar dickensian london, but as the book unfolded i realized that the author had created a different world, steampunk in flavour, with a weird populace that includes humanoids like the scientist isaac who is in love with lin, a khepri sculptress with a human body and the head of a bug. there are also what i think are toad people, the voldanoi (frustratingly i felt not enough time was spent introducing these people and other parts of the universe, and he wasted exposition on wyrman, i could have figured those out because they are akin to gargoyles). there's also cactus people, and bird people called the garuda, and the first two hundred pages tell the story of the two lovers, with lin accepting a sculpting commission with a crime boss, and isaac being engaged by a garuda that wants his wings back. abruptly all hell breaks loose, and then the book becomes about an adventure quest/chase through the city following isaac and a motley crew of cronies.

the most intriguing thing in this universe was the idea of the "remade", people who had bodies that were altered, either out of their own choice, or more usually, as punishments for crimes, usually with a pointed and horrific flair. people have dog parts and metal parts, and sealed mouths, and more eyes, and arms than usual, or less. metamorphosis, transition, body, and self-image are ideas that underpin the novel, with big questions asked, and left unanswered.

there are too many sub-plots, and too many words on things that didn't seem important. all through i felt impatient because everything was taking too long, and that's the reason why i can't give this book a better review. it's inventive, and creepy, but it was hard work for me to get through all of it. there's too much of it, and too many pieces. it's too florid. it's just too too. i would have edited this book right down, and structurally some of it frustrates the hell out of me.. this is a common complaint of mine. so if you like books that meander in the telling, don't mind my two stars.

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goodreads book review: that summer in paris, morley callaghan

That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
that summer in paris was like old home week for me: i got to visit with hemingway, fitzgerald, and joyce back in the heyday of paris in the 20s which i haven't done in some time. callaghan writes cleanly and well, but sometimes his ego is exhausting. despite the fact i'm canadian as he is, and from toronto, none of his books were on my school syllabus growing up, whereas mordecai richler, robertson davies, and margaret atwood are staples, and i'm sure that would have burned him up because he had such a high estimation of his own talent. nonetheless, it is an easy read, filled with interesting little observations and memories of some of the greatest writers we have yet seen. it warmed the cockles of my heart to walk with callaghan and hemingway on the streets i know so well, in the centre of my city. the book was written in the year after hemingway's death, and begins at the beginning with callaghan's luck in joining the newspaper staff at the toronto [daily:] star when hemingway worked there.

lesser figures like robert mcalmon are also old friends to me, and even buffy and graeme make an appearance. buffy was john glassco's nickname, and he wrote another account of these days, from the perspective of a very minor writer entitled memoirs of montparnasse which i read and enjoyed many years ago. glassco never palled around with hemingway, but i recall a very fascinating and poignant portrait of lord alfred douglas, (affectionately known as bosie to his friends, lover wilde, and to posterity) in his later years.

perhaps the most interesting thing to me about this book was the stand against florid writing that hemingway and callaghan and others made during this era. the journalistic school that they embraced changed the face of literature for a time, and while i see strengths in all styles of writing, i am coming to a crossroads for myself about what i need the writing i read to be, and his observations shed some light on that.

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goodreads book review: sharp objects, gillian flynn

Sharp Objects: A Novel by Gillian Flynn


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
i'm not sure what to say about this book because while i think it reads like a bestseller should, i didn't enjoy it. the prose is compelling in that i felt compelled to finish it, and i did. i couldn't put it down but i wanted to get it over with. i think the writing is engaging but nothing special. i will remember no turns of phrase, or kernels of wisdom but then again, this is not shirley jackson, or daphne du maurier.

i can say it seemed pretty obvious to me who would turn out to be guilty of the crimes in the end, and i was right. all of the characters in this book except for the guilty and the protagonist seemed clear types to me: the out-of-towner cop, the sheriff, the older brother of one of the girls killed, his girlfriend, all of the women of the reporter protagonists generation, of her mother's, of her sister's.. i have seen all these characters on sicker episodes of law and order or some other crime procedural, which for the record, i usually have no trouble anticipating the conclusions of either. i won't say i was surprised when i read that author, flynn, was a former television critic for entertainment weekly, in addition to a film degree. she has a very firm hold on characterization, and tropes, and she knows just when to serve up something that seems contrary to what you expect, to turn it on its head, and sufficiently creep her reader out. certainly, i exclaimed "this is disgusting" in a crowded subway because i couldn't help myself.

if you are looking for a dark and shocking read that includes shades of southern gothic, perversion, and self-mutilation, this may be the book for you. having finished this book, i don't think i ever want to see it again because it didn't really give me anything. it grossed me out, yes, but it never really scared me, or enlightened me, or surprised me. i respect the writing crafted here, but i don't admire it. i'm glad that it's finished and i don't have to read it anymore.

sharp objects had nuances of an elizabeth george book called missing joseph i once read that i liked better, probably because it was more difficult to figure out and a lot lot less grotesque.

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goodreads book review: ali smith, girl meets boy

Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis by Ali Smith


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
a book that plays out at a break-neck pace, except for the moments where the language is allowed to meander into scenes of poetry and gives one pause in the midst of beauty it captures. there is much to love in ali smith's finesse with language. this novel contains re-tellings but i don't think this novel is so much a re-telling of the myth of iphis, even though that's how it was positioned as part of "the myths series" published by canongate books, but rather it uses that story as the fulcrum on which it turns. there are very interesting characters here, and notions about people, and love, and sexuality, and the myths that we tell and re-tell to ourselves, to each other.

there's not really much in the way of plot but that doesn't much matter because the writing is so engaging, and the book is so short that you don't miss it. i had trouble with some of the pop culture references at the beginning of the novel which made it harder for me to find my bearings: it seemed that if i was british, i would understand some of it better. i didn't know what the generation game was and it wasn't really explained, and the description of blind date confused me because i'd only seen american blind date, and it didn't seem to be anything like british blind date.

ultimately i did find myself wishing that the book wasn't so short, and that the writer had given me a bit more time with some of her characters, especially the grandparents we meet at the beginning of the novel. the book has potentials oozing through its pages, and when it was over, it did feel like there was book wasn't finished, that it was a sketch of a book, that it could say much more.

interestingly, girl meets boy was a lot more like what i had expected middlesex to be than middlesex actually was. i will definitely read this again, perhaps when more in the mood for a love story, and i'm interested in reading more of ali smith's work.

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how like people

The worms had risen again in the rain. They were strewn across the pavement. To the unsuspecting eye they might look like long, slightly swollen pine needles, or some other tree relics; mostly inert, merging with the twilight, they showed only in faint relief, except for that one that undulated purposefully across my path and tipped me off to their coming.

I stepped gingerly through them, hoping to avoid contact, wondering how there could be this many, and how it was that they performed this trick, this act of levitation, rising through the earth and then somehow through the concrete, to make the world a worm mine field.

I didn’t want worm guts all over my shoes. I just wanted to get by and not be hemmed in by all these beings who couldn’t shout a “look out!” to me, who aside from that lone go-getter, seemed resigned to stay in the place where they miraculously appeared and trust to fate that they would not end up a smudge in my rubber tread.

How modern of you, I thought. How like people. I was glad that it was dark, that i did not have to take responsibility for their deaths, and I wiped my feet vigorously on the mat when I came back to this place while everyone else slept.

goodreads book review: a handful of dust, evelyn waugh

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
i found this to be much, much better than the two other waugh books i read: vile bodies, and the loved one. i would have liked it immensely had it ended about three quarters in, as stopping there would have satisfied my need for comeuppance for jerks but that comeuppance never came. the last quarter of the book is almost a sequel to the first part, and left a darkness in its wake.

and yet, from what i have come to understand in reading waugh, he never would have let me have what i craved, and i have to come to believe he is much like the other e.w., edith wharton, after all. the tarnished polished people they describe wallow, and they wallow deep. there is no rising above here. there is only a hard, empty entitlement or failure, or death. his books always have shocking deaths in them -- i have actually gasped aloud. i felt waugh had a much better handle on his characters here: they are more believable to me than the caricatures of the previous novels, and breathe, if pathetically, or malignantly.

that last quarter ending i have since found has also been published previously and separately as a short story called "the man who liked dickens". it was in fact a prequel rather than a sequel. it is intensely creepy: never before has the reference to the works of charles dickens left with me such dread. and yet, i do think the casual reader might feel a slight disconnect when they embark upon this as a section of the novel. they feel like two different works, i think.

(when the lovely mariel left me a comment, i did a bit more research and found a link to a paris review interview with waugh. he mentions this novel and the separate story and their genesis there, so i thought i'd post it here:
paris review art of fiction no. 30.)



This work by Maureen de Sousa is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

cross-posted at booklikes and
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goodreads book review: all fires the fire, julio cortazar

All Fires the Fire by Julio Cortázar


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
i like cortazar's facility with language, and inevitably, as with any latin literature, it resonates with my own understanding of how families operate and cultural proclivities. and yet, for the most part these stories did not move me. there are a few that i admired very much, most of all, the island at noon, the most simply told of the stories, of a male flight attendant who happens to glance out with the window, and espy a small island which he comes to see as the focus of his life. he calls it the golden turtle island and he plans and thinks and daydreams for the day he will be there: swimming in its coves and sheltering under its trees. it ends in an ingenious, and satisfying, yet disturbing way. simple and visceral: just the way i like it.

the southern thruway, instructions for john howell, and the other heaven are quite good, and fascinating, in their ways. the rest of the stories are stylistically innovative and yet leave me cold. i think well worth reading as a first cortazar to give an appreciation of his style, and interests as a writer, and am interested in reading another sample. for some reason he reminds of the richard ford stuff i read, but some of his ideas aspire to borges and dick.

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