Room – The Collector meets The Road

I hate when I finish a book in the middle of a long trip. But this time, it was rather fortuitous, because at the BWI Hudson News, I spied a copy of Room, which was on my “to read” list based on the write up in the New York Times.

And it did not disappoint.

Room is the story of an intense mother/son bond in one of the most horrific situations imaginable. The residents of the 11 X 11 room are Ma and a small boy named Jack, the book’s five-year old narrator. Ma has been living in the room for seven years, held prisoner as a sex slave by a sadistic monster known to Jack as “Old Nick.” Jack is the terrible byproduct of that imprisonment.

But somehow, mother and son have managed to make a living hell palatable. Even though he’s trapped and can never go outside, Jack’s days are highly structured, with times set aside for exercise, play, reading and crafts. And the two have actually created a unique world with just the basics in their environment. Jack grows attached to things like all children do, but his things aren’t Transformers or GI Joe action figures, they’re more basic items like a remote control, a snake made out of strung together egg shells and the living room rug.

As Jack reaches his fifth birthday, Ma decides that long-term, the room is not going to be a suitable environment for a growing child, and she hatches a plan for escape. This for me was the most intense part of the book, because the plan involves Jack getting rolled up in the rug and playing dead so that Old Nick will take the “corpse” outside for burial. The entire plan hinges on Jack being able to free himself, jump from a moving car and getting help to free his mother. And this is tough because Jack has never been outside and doesn’t know the environment, has never spoken to a single soul other than his mother and is very young and completely terrified.

Miraculously, he succeeds.

Now the challenge is adapting to life in the real world, outside of the room. Jack’s never been in the sun, doesn’t know what grass is, has never been to a shopping mall, doesn’t understand the concept of family and has no idea how to relate to people other than his mother. Meanwhile, Ma is traumatized and clinically depressed after her ordeal, and the family has trouble even accepting Jack considering who his father is.

Much like The Road, Room is a story about the strength of the parent/child bond, which grows stronger and more intense given the magnitude of their circumstances. In fact, in Room, there are points when the bond becomes inappropriate, as evidenced by Jack’s continued breast feeding. But that was basically their only luxury in the room – one another and their ability to express affection.

Game of Thrones – It’s Not Just on HBO

So, I don’t have HBO. But, my husband’s been raving about Game of Thrones for years, and I knew the series would generate a lot of hype, so I decided to check out the book for myself.

Game of Thrones isn’t just a single 800 page tome. It’s one of four, soon to be five, fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin. And from what I can tell based on clips and recaps of the show that I’ve seen, the TV series is limited to the first book of the same name, and has stuck faithfully to the plot – no surprise since the author was an advisor.

If you haven’t read the book, I will give a caveat. The first 80 pages or so are ponderous. Martin goes right into the tale from the perspective of the Stark family, a wealthy lordship that controls the area of Winterfell in the north of a fictional country named Westeros. It takes a while to get interested in them, because the Starks, as the name would suggest, are rather austere and, frankly, pretty boring. Mostly, you just get introduced to the father, Ned; the mother, Catelyn; and their children Robb, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Rickon and the illegitimate son, Jon. About the only interesting thing that happens in the opening of the book is that the children find a dead wolf and a litter of orphaned wolflings - one wolf for every child. So, there’s some heavy handed symbolism going on with the wolves. Which also happens to be the family crest of the Stark family.

Shortly after the wolves are adopted, we learn King Robert of Westeros is coming to Winterfell – his chief advisor, known as his Hand, has been killed and Robert is coming to offer the job to Ned.

Snooze, right? Symbolic wolves and a job offer? But soldier through those 80 pages, dear readers, because as soon as King Robert arrives in Winterfell, we learn in pretty short order that his wife, Queen Cersei, had a role in killing the previous Hand. Later, Bran Stark catches Queen Cersei getting it on with her brother (yes, that’s right, brother!), so the two push the child off a castle tower, crippling him, but failing to kill him. This leads to a separate attack on Bran by an assassin hell bent on cutting his throat, which is barely thwarted by his mother and his wolf.

So, with incest, child murder, conspiracies and intrigue, you get amazingly hooked on the story. In fact, it’s like crack cocaine from that point forward, with a different bombshell going off in every chapter. Who ordered the second attempt on Bran’s life? Is someone trying to kill King Robert? Are the King’s heirs really his? Who should succeed the throne once Robert is finally taken out? How can Queen Cersei get Ned out of the way so that her bratty son Joffrey can assume power unquestioned?

These are all incredibly compelling story lines that converge in interesting ways, keeping readers turning the pages voraciously. But these plot points take a back seat to the stories of two of the most interesting characters in fantasy fiction, a dwarf named Tyrion Lannister and Danerys Targaryen.

Tyrion is the unloved brother of Cersei, who shuns him due to his physical deformities. But Tyrion has managed to survive his family’s scorn and plenty of others in Westeros who would take advantage of his physical weaknesses, generally by outsmarting them. He’s accused of ordering the hit on Bran (although we never learn that’s the truth, as the information comes from an unreliable source), which prompts Catelyn Stark to kidnap him and put him on trial – a trial by combat that he miraculously wins (albeit by proxy). On his way home, Tyrion is ambushed by barbarians, whom he convinces not only to save him, but to join him in battle against the Starks under his own command. The interesting thing about Tyrion is that nothing is a given with him. He’s incredibly complicated, and at different turns is as likely to turn against his family as he is to fight for them. Tyrion understands that when you play the Game of Thrones, it’s best to look out for yourself, and worry about other people and settling scores later. And this goes double if you’re a dwarf.

Danerys Targaryen is one of the two surviving heirs of the previous kingship, which was overthrown by King Robert. Danerys left Westeros as a baby, and has since been living in exile with her sadistic brother Viserys, who sells her to a Mongol-type King named Kahl Drogo. But rather than bemoan her fate, Danerys embraces it, learning to love Drogo as well as the power that comes along with being a barbarian Queen – and does it without losing her humanity. She identifies with and helps save women from abuse, she is kind to her servants and ensures they are treated fairly and she abides by new cultural customs out of respect for her new found people, something her brother never got the hang of. Danerys goes from being a child in the beginning of the book to a fully forged woman Queen who inspires loyalty and earns her place as someone worthy of a proper throne – perhaps even the throne of Westeros.

Although you sound like a Dungeons and Dragons nerd or a LARPer if you speak about Game of Thrones in public, there really is something to these books. Frankly, I find Tolkein incredibly dull and could never get into Lord of the Rings, but Game of Thrones is truly addictive. In part, I think it’s because the themes that make the novels interesting aren’t really driven by fantasy. At the end of the day, the book is about power – who has it, how you conspire to get it, how you retain it – which in my mind makes it much closer to Shakespeare than Baggins.

The Caine Mutiny, or Who Moved My Strawberries?

All avid readers are also second-hand bookstore junkies. It’s the best way to support the habit of continually tearing through books. I regularly visit a few, stock up on months’ worth of reading material and gradually slog my way through each one. Up this month? My 50 cent copy of The Caine Mutiny.

Although I have seen the film version of Caine many times, this is my first reading of the novel. And it’s better. For one thing, you can imagine Keefer as a royal jackass when you’re not seeing Fred MacMurray of My Three Sons. Even though MacMurray appears in the film in full naval uniform, it’s hard to get past the benign, suburban cardigan image, which totally ruins the effect. And Captain Queeg is no Bogart wearing tuxes, running Rick’s Café and undermining Nazis. He’s a simpering, paranoid hot mess.

I won’t belabor the plot, because so many people know it. Queeg is the new commander of a minesweeper, and he’s incompetent. He doesn’t know how to sail, he’s afraid of combat and he sweats small stuff like the status of the crew’s shirt tails while not noticing major issues like the cutting of a tow line. And he really loses it over strawberries, launching a major investigation into a missing quart of them during a combat mission.

The aforementioned Keefer notices Queeg’s shortcomings first, and devotes nearly all his energy into poisoning the crew into disloyalty and rebellion. Which makes Queeg more paranoid and more incompetent. But when push comes to shove and the crew decides it’s time to give Queeg the heave ho, Keefer gets weak at the knees. He wants the captain gone, but he doesn’t want to assume the risk associated with taking a stand and undermining a commanding officer – that’s going to have to be the job of the ship’s second in command, Maryk.

The interesting aspects about Caine are its subtleties. Is Queeg that bad of a commander, or are the men making him weak through repeated acts of disloyalty? Could Queeg have gotten better over time if his officers guided him toward what was really important and helped him succeed? Would the men have rebelled had Keefer not stoked the flames? Is Keefer a victim of Queeg’s incompetence or a villain who sabotages him for sport?

It’s not cut and dry because all those questions could be answered in multiple ways. Queeg has a lot of problems and he’s a bit of a jerk, but with a little bit of effort from a few of the officers, his pain in the ass factor could have been minimized. Or maybe not…no one tries to help Queeg, so we’ll never know whether he was salvageable.

Guilty Pleasures: The Twilight Series

Yes, I read all four of the Twilight books. And, no, I’m not sorry - I actually liked the series. Not to the point of being obsessed like the Twilight dad on the recent episode of Parks and Recreation who handcuffs himself in Leslie’s office to get the books placed in the Pawnee time capsule, but certainly to the point of being entertained.

There’s been a lot of flack about the Twilight books, not all of it undeserved. The main character, Bella, is total milquetoast. Have you ever met a teenager that never drinks, parties or does anything more interesting than (occasionally) go to a movie (all of which were completely age appropriate…no R ratings here!)? Even if you live in the most remote spot in America, no one is that boring – except maybe the Mormons who had a heavy hand in the morality behind the book.

True she’s got the inherent drama of dating a vampire and being best friends with a werewolf, but still. A teenage girl would have girl friends that help her smuggle makeup and tarty clothes into school so she can change into skankwear without her parents knowing. She would have a sleepover every now and again where the ladies sneak out at 10 pm to meet up with boys with cars, booze and cigarettes. Something! If you never push the limits of parental authority, how can you even really be a teenager?

And some of the books were better than others. Twilight, the original, really did get you hooked, and had a taut plot line. Boy meets girl, boy is strange and mysterious, girl is intrigued, boy turns out to be vampire. Cool! Plus, there was the thriller element, with a stray vampire coming to town, taking a shine to Bella as a meal and stalking her. Good stuff. And that vampire employed some pretty good tricks that were suspenseful and fun to read.

New Moon, however, blew taco chunks. The overwhelming majority of the book features Bella brooding and flirting with teen angst suicide because her vampire broke up with her. Bad message – you don’t flirt with death because your boyfriend is gone, and it’s not OK to romanticize depression, Stephanie Meyer. I don’t care if he is her “spirit husband,” or whatever the Mormons call it.

And the last book was just downright creepy. The werewolf “imprints,” aka finds his marriage partner and spiritual soul mate, on Bell’s baby. Yes, a baby. Stephanie Meyer wants us to believe it is true love. I’d call it a lengthy prison sentence. Eeew. And the overall series ending was incredibly weak. The Volturi are supposed to be hell bent on destroying the vampire clan, resorting to any cheap trick possible to justify murder. But in the end, we’re supposed to believe that vampire case before the Volturi was strong enough to convince the corrupt leaders that they were wrong? What?

But still, the books are worth reading. They only take a nanosecond to plow through, so it’s not a hefty time investment. Each book does have its moments, and it’s worth it to have a working Twilight knowledge, if for no other reason than to be in on the joke the next time there’s a reference on 30 Rock.

When Keepin’ It Real Goes Wrong

Sometimes, I venture into the canon of literature to keep it real. Gots to get my learn on so I can make informed judgments in my reviews, after all. But sometimes keepin’ it real goes wrong.

As some may know, I’ve been desperately slogging through the Modern Library’s top 100 20th century novels list since it was published in 1999, and I only have nine left. Now granted, it’s taken 12 years and I haven’t finished yet, but in my defense, to call the list a top 100 is somewhat deceptive, dear readers, since quite a few of the novels on the list are trilogies or quartets (Studs Lonigan, USA, the Alexandria Quartet, Dance to the Music of Time, Parades End, to name a few). And one of the remaining tomes is Ulysses, which would take anyone the better part of a decade to complete.

That said, I continue to soldier on, albeit slowly, with my latest foray into the list, The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy. The basic premise is an ex-pat American named Sebastian Dangerfield is living in Dublin and “studying” at Trinity College. Studying is in quotes because Sebastian spends the bulk of his time boozing and avoiding work, which has led to mountains of debt and constant capers to hustle cash, usually from women he’s bedding or trying to bed. And there you have it. That’s about all that goes down.

Allegedly, Dorothy Parker thought the book was hilarious and a groundbreaking example of comic writing. I thought it was the book version of The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” just far more forgettable. (Note, there’s good reason to link the book to the Pogues, since another of Donleavy’s books is called the Fairy Tale of New York and is the basis for the song. Which also leads me to believe that Donleavy is a one trick pony with a consistent theme of Irish drunkenness running throughout all his works.)

In parts, it could be amusing, particularly scenes of Sebastian ducking and hiding from a former landlord who’s been stiffed on months of rent. And I also rather enjoyed parts where Sebastian knicks furniture and other odds and ends from the furnished apartments he rents to sell them at the pawn broker for enough scratch to get wasted. That was sort of punk rock. There’s also a scene where Sebastian’s plumbing fails and tears through the flooring, causing his morning deuce to fall on his wife’s head one level down – if you’re into the more ribald potty humor thing.

As with every book list, the Modern Library has hits and misses. There are some works that I have absolutely loved, but would never have sought out were they not on this list – Portnoy’s Complaint, An American Tragedy, Zuleika Dobson, Ragtime, Scoop and the Prime of Miss Jean Brody are all shining examples. At the end of the day, The Ginger Man falls squarely into the category of mildly interesting, but totally unmemorable. But it has some good company on the list. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you a single plot point from The Heart of the Matter, Pale Fire, The Death of the Heart or Sons and Lovers, even though I know I read them. But at least it wasn’t as painful as I, Claudius, The Wapshot Chronicles or A Bend in the River, all of which were sheer torture to slog through. And there’s still Ulysses to get through.

Pop Culture Porn for Hipsters

Most people know Chuck Klosterman for his essays. And if you don’t know the essays, you should. Because they are awesome. How can you not love someone who can perfectly explain the modern definition of a hipster on the fly, at a book reading, as “You used to be able to tell the difference between hipsters and homeless people. Now, it's between hipsters and retards. I mean, either that guy in the corner in orange safety pants holding a protest sign and wearing a top hat is mentally disabled or he is the coolest fucking guy you will ever know." Yesssss.

So, I was very excited to learn that Klosterman has a novel (his first), called Downtown Owl. The premise is pretty basic. It follows three characters in their daily lives in the small, rural town of Owl, North Dakota – or the very epitome of flyover country – over the course of seven months in 1983. There’s Julia, a teacher from Minneapolis who is so bored that she spends every night getting drunk in order to forget that she’s a teacher living in Owl, North Dakota. There’s Mitch, a teenage boy who thinks the best thing going in his life is sleep and imagining a hypothetical fight between the high school’s resident giant vs. the high school’s resident psychopath. And, there’s Horace, a retired widower who lives for his daily trek to the coffee shop where he and a crew of crotchety old men have the same three conversations.

Downtown Owl is very decent and very readable. Klosterman is hilarious and he’s at his fiction writing best when he provides dialogue along with the characters’ internal monologues, creating a script of what he/she said versus what he/she meant. And there are some moving passages featuring Horace and the story of how he lost his wife and the bulk of his retirement savings.

But it’s also apparent this is a first novel, and Klosterman’s penchant for commentary and pop culture references appear throughout the book, with varying degrees of success. Some of the side characters are chiefly described in relation to their musical tastes, including Julia’s love interest, who only listens to the Rolling Stones. In fact, his and Julia’s first conversation is basically an opportunity for Klosterman to reminisce about ‘80s bands, with Julia suggesting a litany of popular records and songs that should be listened to by someone who likes the Rolling Stones. At that point, we lose the fiction and go back to Klosterman’s touch stone of music commentary. This is not to say the exchange isn't entertaining to read - it is. But it doesn't really have any meaningful place in the fictional narrative, doesn't advance the plot and doesn't provide any real insights into the characters.

All things considered, there are enough bright lights in this book to justify the read and show off the author’s talent for fiction writing. Downtown Owl doesn’t quite surpass Klosterman’s insights on why women in their 30s love John Cuscak (note, it’s because they still see him as Lloyd Dobler. Totes true.), but it shows potential.

The New Phonebooks Are Here! The New Phonebooks Are HERE!

OK. It isn’t the new phonebook. But Steve Martin’s excitement in The Jerk mirrors my own with the recent publication of the NYT list of the 10 best books of 2010.

Now, admittedly, the NYT Book Review and I don’t always agree, as anyone who read my assault on The Savage Detectives can see (Hee. That rhymed. I told you I’m giddy over this list!!). But, the Times is right more often than wrong, and the reviewers generally provide good direction. You really just have to read the plot description. If it sounds like a snoozer, it probably is.

Below are the books that made the list, none of which I’ve read because I refuse to purchase hardcovers. (Note to publishers: If you want to send me hardcovers to review on this blog, I’ll gladly accept them. I just don’t want to pay for it.) So, I have reviewed all 10 precog style, and made 10 snap judgments about what I will be checking out in the future.

1. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen – From the NYT: “A vividly realized narrative set during the Bush years, when the creedal legacy of ‘personal liberties’ assumed new and sometimes ominous proportions. Franzen captures this through the tribulations of a Midwestern family, the ¬Berglunds, whose successes, failures and appetite for self-invention reflect the larger story of millennial America."

This is so on my list. Not only does the description sound amazing, but The Corrections is one of my favorite novels of all time. I’ve been missing Franzen for years, and I can’t wait to tear into this. In paperback, of course.

2. The New Yorker Stories by Anne Beattie – From the NYT: “As these 48 stories published in The New Yorker from 1974 through 2006 demonstrate, Beattie, even as she chronicled and satirized her post-1960s generation, also became its defining voice.”

This is a skip for me. Personally, I don’t care for The New Yorker and its glib smugness. Seinfeld nailed it in the episode featuring the cartoon that made no sense. I’m just not interested in reading a collection of stories with a similar attitude.

3. Room by Emma Donoghue – From the NYT: “Donoghue has created one of the pure triumphs of recent fiction: an ebullient child narrator, held captive with his mother in an 11-by-11-foot room, through whom we encounter the blurry, often complicated space between closeness and autonomy.”

Hmm. Interesting, no? I’m intrigued, and will probably look into this one.

4. Selected Stories by William Trevor – From the NYT: “Gathering work from Trevor’s previous four collections, this volume shows why his deceptively spare fiction has haunted and moved readers for generations. Set mainly in Ireland and England, Trevor’s tales are eloquent even in their silences, documenting the way the present is consumed by the past, the way ancient patterns shape the future.”

Blech. Definitely a pass. A book that earns praise for “silences,” aka, for what it doesn’t say? That is definitely a clue that what’s actually on the page is boring.

5. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan – From the NYT: “Time is the ‘goon squad’ in this virtuosic rock ’n’ roll novel about a cynical record producer and the people who intersect his world. Ranging across some 40 years and inhabiting 13 different characters, each with his own story and perspective, Egan makes these disparate parts cohere into an artful whole, irradiated by a Proustian feel for loss, regret and the ravages of love.”

Despite the fact that I suspect this is another non-linear narrative, I’m intrigued, mostly because of the description of the characters. I also read another awesome review about Goon Squad in The New Republic, which predisposed me to be interested. And now I can look forward to calling a novel “Proustian.”

6. Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans– From the NYT: “Here is the only truly definitive history of classical ballet. Spanning more than four centuries, from the French Renaissance to American and Soviet stages during the cold war, Homans shows how the art has been central to the social and cultural identity of nations.”

Meh. Most likely a pass for me. Seeing ballet performed is one thing, but reading about it? And considering that no one really goes to the ballet anymore (well, not in America anyway), can we really say it’s “central” to the identity of nations?

7. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff – From the NYT: “With her signature blend of wit, intelligence and superb prose, Schiff strips away 2,000 years of prejudices and propaganda in her elegant reimagining of the Egyptian queen who, even in her own day, was mythologized and misrepresented.”

Hell yes! Great subject, and if the writing is even half as good as the Times suggests, this book could be totally amazing.

8. The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukjerjee – From the NYT: “Mukherjee’s magisterial ‘biography’ of the most dreaded of modern afflictions. He excavates the deep history of the ‘war’ on cancer, weaving haunting tales of his own clinical experience with sharp sketches of the sometimes heroic, sometimes misguided scientists who have preceded him in the fight.”

An awful lot of “quotes” peppered in this write up, which gives me pause… is it a "biography" or not? Are we or are we not at “war” with cancer? I’ll wait on this one. At first blush, I’m inclined to pass, but then again, I adored Atul Gawande’s Complications, so more research may be needed.

9. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim – From the NYT: “The theater’s pre-eminent living songwriter offers a master class in how to write a musical, covering some of the greatest shows, from ‘West Side Story’  to ‘Sweeney Todd.’ Sondheim’s analysis of his and others’ lyrics is insightful and candid, and his anecdotes are telling and often very funny."

No thank you, despite the clever title. This sounds like 300 pages of liner notes. Self indulgent at best, snoozefest at worst. I can tell you now that this book would just piss me off.

10. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson – From the NYT: "Wilkerson, a former national correspondent for The Times, has written a masterly and engrossing account of the Great Migration, in which six million African-Americans abandoned the South between 1915 and 1970. The book centers on the journeys of three black migrants, each representing a different decade and a different destination."

This sounds pretty decent. I’m not as excited about it as the Cleopatra book, but this could have some very interesting components to it. I’ll probably read, but not immediately.