One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn

Despite being the written by the man with the most impossible to spell last name, this book is actually quite cool. Its totally out of print according to amazon.ca and I had to get this picture from Wikipedia. This is a very short book (around 150 pages) that is literally the single day of a prisoner's term. It is based in a soviet work camp of the 1950's and demonstrates, with complete lack of context, how brutally they were treated. This is how prison was for a long time. Hard as hell. No one expected you to live through it and no one was responsible for legal concerns ie fair treatment etc. No TV either. It seems also to continue on with the theme of how we spend our lives. One of the ideas that is brought up is one of religion. The basic idea is that they should be glad that they are in prison since then they wont be tempted toward sin. Total bs in my opinion but its an interesting idea and one that many people probably believe. Very harsh and very real and quite scary but at the same time its a testament to human endurance yada yada yada. Well written and it seems to hit you on a fundamental level that many russian novels do. Seems like they have the secrets of the universe all pent up.

Thats it. 6 out of 7. Something to read but not life changing in my opinion.

Andrew

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

The remains of the day is a book about an aging butler. To me it has three themes.
The first theme is that of how we use our time. In a somewhat similar way to Paul Auster's mystery novels, this book goes into the idea that a butler is really giving away his best years simply in order to fulfill the lives of their employers. Their lives in themselves have little meaning. This also relates the idea of democracy
put forward in the book, which is in some ways said to be an outmoded tool since the populace doesn't follow politics. I wonder with this book if the author doesn't like the butler. That he is in fact setting him up as a negative stereotype as a warning to others. I am not sure because this may be my will being forced on that of the author. Some of his opinions I find myself hoping to be satirical in nature. This puts an interesting perspective on the value of a human being in either case.
The second theme ties in greatly to the first. This is the theme of romance and of putting on airs. The butler in question is of the opinion that he must always have the air of dignity about him or else he doesn't reach his aspirations of great butlerness. This is an exaggeration of the British concept of propriety that seems more and more silly to us nowadays. It is because he is unwilling to break down and be the human he is at heart, that he loses the love of his life and really a great amount of the potential he had. He may have had modest achievements as a gentleman's gentleman but he barely has a happy life.
The third theme I see is that of war. This is probably the most obvious but nevertheless important, you book snobs. Its an interesting look into how politics are rarely confined to the house of commons and are, in fact, often situated in the houses of the rich and influential. These somewhat despotic power plays are seen in the novel as limiting of the British political possibilities as it keeps the power in the hands of few and doesn't allow for a failsafe. In this case, certain events during the second world war are shown as preventable and unfortunate.
Quite an interesting novel, at least four notches above what the "British" are writing about themselves.
5 yes sirs out of 7

Andrew

The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster

There are a whole bunch of one liners I want to get out of the way. Paul Auster is a badass. This is the only type of post modern literature that I like. Toronto is scary.
Ok now we can get down to business. This is a trilogy of dectective like mysteryish novels that use the idea of a private eye or detective as a literary tool. Auster takes the idea of shadowing someone, really delving into their lives, and makes a really hard hitting commentary on modern life. A lot of other post modern fiction that I've read (Don DeLillo in particular) is brutally depressing and gives life a sense of pointlessness. This is said to be characteristic of post modernism, and something that I really don't like. Modernism was supposed to be the age of perfectibility. The idea that there is right and wrong, a god who knows all, a meaning to our lives. What I understand of post modernism is that there is more of an emphasis on how unoriginal and entirely original each of our lives can be. There is also often self reference within these novels, and a playful element (and Auster does this brilliantly) that makes the reader wonder if in fact the events that are occurring were actually real and happened to the author.
New York, and in my Canadian equivalent of Toronto, exemplify this sort of disconnected, disaffected view of life. In a place like Toronto, there are so many people that it's very hard to know many, let alone anywhere near, all of the inhabitants. If all of the inhabitants can't communicate, the modern ideals fall apart and you get more post modern, seemingly unimportant lives. Each person goes about their own business. Lonely in a lot of ways because if you aren't part of the initiate, its hard to get entrenched in all the happenings that you know are going on right outside your door in the metropolis.
What this trilogy highlights, is that each person's life is important only to themselves. That they are in a sense distinct and untouchable to the outside world. In the trilogy, the protagonists (all men) try desperately to form bonds with the women they love but find that their true passions lie in their individual pursuits and ambitions. They find that they are the only ones that they are ultimately answerable to.
The reason I say Paul Auster is a badass is because he really seems to empower his characters, and in some ways, his readers, into doing what they want with their lives. Reminds me a bit of Neal Stephenson in the way that his writing style answers to know one. In an interview once, Stephenson, when asked how he did the research for his historical novels, he responded "Oh I make most of it up." Pure Badass.
Extremely esoterical look into how we live our lives, and the idea of "spending" our time doing something "worthwhile."
Another example that convinces me that we get out of a book exactly what it is that we're looking for.

eight haphazard detectives out of nine. an author to look into.

Andrew

Geek Love - Katherine Dunn

"Geeking" a popular carnival attraction in the mid 1900's in America in which a "Geek" would bite off the head of a live chicken. This book is about freaks and norms. Norms in the sense of mores and as a pseudonym for normal people. A young man inherits a family carnival from his father and decides after some hard times that he should start to build or breed his own freaks. He and his wife start experiments in which the mother is subjected to a number of severe drugs, such as cocaine, methadone, heroin, uppers, downers and everything in between while she is pregnant with her children. The children all come out "hideously" deformed and are then trained to become acts in the carnival. The narrative is from the point of view of one of these children.
Every child, since they are growing up in a suitable environment, considers themselves as masterpieces depending on their magnitude of deformation. The narrator is only a dwarfed albino with a hump so she considers herself practically worthless and does chores for the other children who are much more gifted than she. The premise of the story is trying to look at what might hold us back or prevent us from fully enjoying enjoying life. There are two sources of forced deformation presented in the novel. Both are performed surgically. One is performed on people who are deemed too sexual and are wasting their lives fawning over the other sex. They are deformed so that they wont be bothered by their hormones anymore. The other source of deformation is from one the carnival children who encourages people to "become more like him." He is essentially a torso with fins where his arms and legs would be on a "norm." He encourages people to amputate their limbs to be freed from the burden of being able to do things. It really doesn't make all that much sense but it is definitely a plausible cult scenario. It kind of reminds me of part of some eastern religions who preach that our physical bodies are filthy and hold us back and if only we could cultivate only our mind and soul we would reach enlightenment. This sort of just takes what billions of people worldwide believe and exacerbates it. The power struggles in this novel are just fascinating. The character representing the leader of the cult is close to the most interesting. One would suppose that the narrator would be the most intricate, and as I think about it, she certainly has many layers but I think I'm discounting them because many of her layers are so foreign to me. But at the same time her blatant disregard and really ignorance of societal norms may be the most successful aspect of this novel.
Very interesting analysis of human beauty in a way that is a lot less condemning that other, less complete books.
Overall, kind of hard to read, not necessarily a very nice writing style in my opinion, but very inventive and provocative.
6 lizard-children out of 10

Andrew

I feel so cynical when I'm reading dystopias. Animal Farm was no exception. This short novel provides a heady dose of reality's perversions. It is the story of a revolution that begins, succeeds, and quickly decends back into the evils that spurred it on the in the first place. As a reader I found myself in the frustratingly real position of watching the pigs, the farms ingenious leaders, use rhetoric to make the animals more submissive, more trusting, and more productive, while considering themselves free. I like to think the parallels between the conditions on the farm and our own world as self-evident, at least for whoever is reading this site. Which I seem to think is just Andrew and I. And so I really don't have much more to say on it. It's one of those books you put into the "classics to read" pile and read for its quick and dirty account of how terribly selfish power can make people. Thankfully, I find myself preferring the comradery of the "lower" animals. But beyond that, it wasn't one of my favourites. I found 1984 more enjoyable, and I wouldn't read Animal Farm again, and yet I'd recommend it to anyone with an hour to spare to read it. 7 of 10.

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

An epic read. This novel tracks a mutant gene through three generations of the Stephanides family, until it finds itself expressed in Calliope, our narrator. As the book opens we find Callie is in fact a pseudohermaphrodite, equally male and female, who has been raised as a girl, and at the age of 14 finds herself identifying as a man. It is the middle-aged Cal, now a diplomat working in Berlin, who takes us back to the mountain village in Greece where his grandparents were born, through their incredible escape to America, to a world war, the births of Cal's parents, the Detroit race riots, the tempering of his grandparents' love and the budding of his parents', through the LSD haze of the 60's, the creation of the Intersex Society of North America, all the way up to 2005, where Cal is still finding himself adjusting to the reality of his rogue gene.
What is wonderful about this book is that the family history and Cal's story of coming to recognize her rare condition could each stand alone; that they are interconnected is a thrilling bonus. Eugenides has an amazing ability to write characters so real that I found myself wondering if the Stephanides family is simply his own, and he himself is Cal. Perhaps for this reason, the children's hospital in Halifax referred to the novel as a source when deciding how to treat an intersexual infant. This is one of the only novels written about intersexuality, and I think Eugenides did a wonderful job picking apart the overwhelming intricacies of one small instance of it.
A solid nine paternalistic doctors out of ten

Steph

The World According to Garp - John Irving

The World According to Garp has been hailed as the best book about women written by a man. That was the same thing they would later say about "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. I guess for the late 70's when this was written it must have been extremely hard hitting. I think Lamb's book was more enthralling about women's issues, but this book has many other qualities to it as well.

The literary devices that Irving uses greatly enhance how his message is put across. Instead of doing an in character narrative of the continuous plot line, Irving uses the fact that many of the characters are writers to use their future writing to comment on the current situation. This does two things, one it gives a sense of destiny and drive to the novel which appears in many of Irving's novels, but more importantly it takes the reader back from the action. It puts the reader in the position of someone analysing the events instead of participating in them. Through this, and through the direct wiritings of the characters, he can make huge controversial statements that are associated with the character and then respected or depised in their own right, instead of making Irving the one to hold all the blame. The way he does it gives a great amount of thought to the reader.

I was looking at a wikipedia article about this and I came across four quotes that they used that I think exemplefy the "themes' of the book.

The first was Garp's first line; "Mom." I thought it was interesting that they would be so interested in just the first line but i'm going to extrapolate the thought much farther to say that this book can be seen as a coming of age novel. It follow's garps life from his mother's conception, all the way through his death. At first you get many glimpses that are similar to "the dead poet's society" of a small private boys school, but then it does something beyond the capacity of most novels (which may be why this one was 600 pages) and it actually grows up all the way. Usually a novel will end when the young man has finally grown to become a mature person and leaves the reader to imaging what they might go on to do. This novel goes until you experience Garp's anxiety over his children as they grow up and his very mature relationships with other characters.

The second of these quotes is "beware of the undertoad". The "undertoad" is a mispronounciation of the undertow experienced at the beach that Garp's family often frequents and a symbol for the anxiety of Garp and his wife Helen. Garp is about the most paranoid parent there can be and thats coming from me who thinks he has the most paranoid parents in the world. They stunt and eventually very badly hurt their children despite and sometimes because of their worry which to me is very alarming and very plausible. It seems that many partents these days don't really let their kids do what they want which can be good and bad I suppose. Its good because it keeps the kids a bit more safe while they can't make proper decisions, but bad because it can maim them. I wonder how I will feel about this in 20 years.

The third quote is "Three quarters isn't enough" which refers to the amount of penis which was bitten off by one of the characters. This is the theme of "lust" and in many ways feminism that show up in the book. Lust is a constant topic of Jenny Fields who at first simply doesn't understand it and is marginally annoyed by it and then begins a crusade against it with her other feminists. Lust causes a huge amount of problems for the characters in this novel, from rapes to affairs it screws royally with people, but I don't know if I agree with the simplification of lust being a deeply unavoidable problem, mainly centred around these despicable men. Though Irving shows women in the grips of lust as well, it seems he is scolding men for much of it who force women to deal with their lust. I think it's ok though because though it seems he is saying all men are pigs, he is only showing a portion of the population, and is also showing that this lust isn't the end of the world. Very difficult topic for sure and I really don't fully grasp it.

The fourth quote it "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases". As we watch Garp growing up, we enjoy his successes and ambitions in a way that motivates us to accomplish more with our lives. As the novel comes to a close and people drop like flies, energy and production become increasingly important. Garp spends much of his life furiously trying to write more and more and more and yet life gets in the way and he doesn't write much at all, then he dies young. His children feel that they have to live up to the "energy" of their father who was always running, always going. THe running seems interesting to me, as does the idea that comes up late in the book that Garp "is just fucking around in the garden". These are seemingly pointless and repetitive endeavours that never really change much of anything. There is nothing really gained by these activities, at least nothing produced. The emphasis is put on creative processes like writing or painting and when someone isn't doing their purpose in life, they are wasting time. One of those eternal questions it seems, like what is worth while to do? Should we just try to have as much fun and happiness as possible or should we get going on our life's work? I keep a list of all the books I've read and I wonder if its worthwhile to read these books that so many other people have read as well, that are seemingly pointless at times.

I was listening to CBC radio when I heard an interview with a concert pianist who said that his teacher had forced him out into the world because he was too technical. His playing was "right" but there was not personality behind his music. He had to develop as a person to be able to play the piano as well as he wanted. I like that a lot.

Book was great.

Five out of six encyclopedia britannicas.

Andrew

The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides

I read the book after having seen the movie years ago. It was the perfect situation: I could only remember fragments of the movie, and only vague glimpses of the characters, so I can say the book is better than the movie, but the movie's interpretation didn't infringe on mine. I still had room to imagine.
The novel is Eugenides' first, and I'm reading it at the same time as Middlesex, another of his. The narrative styles are similar, and there is crossover in details, like his use of Detroit and Greek mythology and history. It's really interesting to read them at the same time. Give it a try.
A group of boys follow the lives of the Lisbon family, the father, mother and five teenage daughters, aged a year apart from thirteen to seventeen. Under the strict surveillance of Mrs. Lisbon, the girls go from school to home, school to church, and very few places in between. When Cecilia, the youngest kills herself at her own party, the girls withdraw from the few activities they're involved in. And after a brief window of freedom to go to the only school dance they'll attend, their house is kept on lockdown. The remaining girls fill their time silently watching the boys who are watching them. Finally the girls make contact with short notes and coded light flashings, convincing the boys their love is returned, only to take it away, just as silently.
And despite all this, the book isn't stiflingly depressing. The back of the book sums it up well: "a tender, wickedly funny tale of love and terror, sex and suicide, memory and imagination". Somehow Eugenides makes the suicides survivable through the boys whose obsession with the five girls leads them to collect every memory of the girls' life they can.
I'm giving it 8 70's records out of 10.
Steph

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is an excellent story teller. Given any subject, literally any at all, and he weaves a hilarious tale that is just so damn fun. He also wrote 'A Short History About Nearly Everything' which is a science novel, but his main area of expertise if he can be said to have one is travel books. I've never read any of them but I could see how he could make any locations seem somewhere I would like to go. His language is very commiserate and makes even the world of science personal and understandable.
Thunderbolt Kid is his autobiography and general memoir about the 50's when he was growing up. I really think that it would have been helpful to read this book when I was younger so that I might have been able to grow up in my parents' house with a little bit more understanding. That's not to say that my family is anything like Bill Bryson's but I think the book serves as a time capsule to really let others know what it was like to grow up during that time. His somewhat depressed views of the downward trends he has seen in American society are balanced by the lighthearted optimism of a superhero. He sees the loss of the downtown to a car driven society a huge loss but at the same time offers great possibilities of fun and foolishness that give heart to youngsters such as myself who seek to be as playful as possible in a world of serious business. His commentary strikes frankly and simply at the centre of what I think is a developing problem in our society; that there is way to much homogenizations and all together far to little fun being had. As a whole it seems we may have lost a whole lot of innocence and giddy playfulness that really should be desired. I still haven't seen a happy business man out there who wouldn't rather be doing something else with their lives. I just don't see how we can let ourselves be pushed around by the need for money but I think this is maybe to big of a problem for me to deal with in anyone's life but my own. Bryson, however, at least eloquently states the case.
Though Bryson's writing talent is a rare one that is simply enjoyable in its essence, I have to say that I am somewhat glad that he only writes non-fiction. Not glad so much as understanding. Though the art of a novel can be highly debated obviously, I think it can be agreed that his novels lack a solid substance or literary message beyond that one plainly told. Nothing wrong with that, and he doesn't claim to be a literary novelist, but it must be known that it is just a simply, straight forward story that one might not learn more from than a good TV show. There is no essence to the story, no central driving theme. He jumps around from topic to topic just telling stories about this or that.
Worth reading just for his great wit and hilarious writing, but there is little substance beyond that.
Four jade plants out of five; almost the level of Calvin and Hobbes but just not quite.
See you space cowboy.

Andrew

Surfacing, Margaret Atwood

Surfacing is a short read, only 208 pages. Don't be deceived by this cover with its depiction of the clean, controlled body of the woman. My copy was printed in the 70's and is much more indicative of the nature of the book. Mine depicts a woman in her late 20's, paddling a canoe with a bright pink evening sun behind her, her face covered by her paddling arm. In the novel, the heroin stays strangely hidden. We never know her name. The writing is choppy, not always finished, so that we experience the heroin's thoughts with her.
The woman leaves the city, presumably Toronto, with her lover, Joe, his friend David, and David's wife, Anna. Set in the late 60's, early 70's, we quickly get a feel for the anti-American, anti-capitalist sentiment popular of the time. They drive then boat to the woman's childhood home in rural Quebec, where her father has recently gone missing. The woman's intent is to find her father, whom she hasn't spoken to in years, and who she secretly feels is still alive. Her mother died a few years ago, and her older brother is surveying in the Australian Outback. To the group, parents are embarrassments. "They all disowned their parents long ago, the way you are supposed to", she says. "Joe never mentions his mother and father, Anna says hers were nothing people and David calls his The Pigs". The cabin is extremely secluded, impossible to reach safely without knowledge of the area. When the boat delivers the group onto the dock, the woman looks for signs of her father. After a thorough search of the house, she comes across a map and drawings, nonsensical shapes, like fish, but with antlers, like human, but with too many appendages. She discovers these are studies of cave drawings in the area. Obsessed with finding her parents, we get the first impression she could be mad. While exploring a site marked on the map, she has a vision of first her father, then drowned brother, then her aborted child. She becomes more and more drawn to the land, to the plants and animals, believing herself to literally be one of them, and less and less attached to her friends. As a full week plays out, the relationships become unfixibly soiled, and the woman, convinced the friends are plotting to trap her like an animal and take her back to the city, runs to the woods. There, her madness cannot be mitigated by the rationality of human contact, and the woman gives into it.
It is a difficult book to get into, because unlike many novels, the narrator does not take time to explain to the reader all of her thoughts. They happen and we have to keep up. But despite its abrasive nature, I found myself drawn into her head, feeling her fear and madness incredibly palpably. It is very expressive of political, social, ecological and moral values, and hauntingly written. Not my favourite Atwood, but I'd give it 7/10.