Reading Addict

 Much to my doom-and-gloom-loving husband’s chagrin, I am generally a happy person. You know what I mean: I have to be dragged to many Oscar-buzz movies, most of which seem to be set in concentration camps or their equivalent. (I prefer the crazy antics of Will Ferrell and anything with the words “hilarity ensues” in the plot description.) You can often find me whistling while I work. I think those “I Haz Cheezburger” cats are cute. Et cetera. 

But recently I’ve been looking on the dark side of life… and it’s all Jamaica Kincaid’s fault. 

You see, a few weeks ago I decided to get serious about finishing my graduate degree in literature. Which means finishing the thesis I’ve been supposedly working on since early 2007. Which means re-reading Jamaica Kincaid’s brilliant, exquisitely crafted, and MOST RELENTLESSLY DEPRESSING NOVEL EVER WRITTEN, The Autobiography of My Mother.  

All you really need to know about it is that the narrator, Xuela Claudette Richardson, is a Carib-Scots-African woman on the island of Antigua, and she is bummed out, to say the least. Her mother is dead, a fact she reminds you of every two or three pages. Her father is a selfish prison guard who farms her out to his laundress (he regards the difference between the “two bundles” – one his child, one his soiled clothes – as minimal). Her stepmother tries to kill her. She engages in a series of sexual but not love affairs with different men, most married. And, oh yeah, she longs for death. Constantly. 

Like I said: depressing.

And yet, Kincaid’s prose is so flawlessly beautiful, so ridiculously poetic, it’s hard not to be influenced by the constant drumbeat of “death, despair, no love, no light”. She makes it seem so… well, lovely.  

Here is the opening:“My mother died at the moment I was born, and so for my whole life there was nothing standing between myself and eternity; at my back was always a bleak, black wind.” 

(If I were in the same position? I’d probably write something like, “Man, my life stinks.” But Kincaid gives us “a bleak, black wind” – lovely, lovely, lovely.) 

And the ending:
“I long to meet the thing greater than I am, the thing to which I can submit. It is not in a book of history, it is not the work of anyone whose name can pass my own lips. Death is the only reality, for it is the only certainty, inevitable to all things.” 

Needless to say, there’s not a lot of happiness, joy, or laughter between the two. 

What’s funny is that my initial reaction to Kincaid – me, moping around in black, a one-woman Brigade of Sorrow – has evolved into something else entirely: the desire for mindless entertainment. More than mindless: Benny Hill. Or People magazine. Or that live web-link of the puppies that’s everywhere. 

And isn’t there a Will Ferrell movie out now? You know, the one where he plays the guy who is just a little bit outside the mainstream, and he hooks up with other guys, and hilarity ensues? I’m there. My thesis can wait just a little longer, can’t it?   

In which we discussed those tricky unreliable narrators, Galchen’s Atmospheric Disturbances, and masculinity as a flaw in my favorite movies.       

 Fight Club.  The Usual Suspects.  American Psycho.  Aside from being pillars of great American cinema (what? A stretch?), they are also some of my all-time favorite movies.  Now, you may say ‘Sure, you’re a guy, and these are very male-centric films’ and if you said that you wouldn’t be too terribly mistaken.   Fight Club writer Palahniuk has said in numerous interviews that the book is about masculinity.  Masculinity, being the prima facie of the book, but also a kind of de facto masculinity that replaces a sense of accomplishment, a sense of honor.  American Psycho too, in large part, comments on a crises of masculinity in a postmodern context.  

But, there is something else all these films have in common as well. That being the trope of the unreliable narrator. The first person narrator who cannot be altogether trusted, whose credibility, whether compromised somehow, is questionable.  The problem with this literary device is that the reader/viewer usually does not know the narrator cannot be trusted until the end of the work in which some grand ‘Eureka’ moment is revealed.  So how does one know that a narrator is unreliable if it isn’t explicitly made clear? 

Rachel Galchen’s debut novel Atmospheric Disturbances resolves this problem in the opening pages.  The reader has some sort of an idea that the narrator is flawed in some way, his perception not entirely accurate.  He thinks his wife has been replaced by a doppelganger.  The narrator is immediately suspect.  For a debut, this novel has its wonderful moments.  For one thing, it’s laugh-out-loud funny.  I found myself getting strange looks in restaurants and on the bus, and even heard some annoyed sighs while in a public restroom.  (True?  A lie?  I’ll never tell…) Galchen’s prose is often remarkable; the writing clever and humorous. 

But unfortunately, this novel’s strong points are often its biggest weaknesses.  Sometimes the writing seemed almost self-aware of its own wit.  An example being the word ‘ersatz’ used in abundance.  Maybe too abundantly.  The antagonist/narrator is a psychiatrist, and while the language definitely lends itself to a believability regarding his profession, he also comes across as unemotional.  I’ve had friends say they just didn’t care about the protagonist, didn’t care much about his plight.  He is pragmatic, calculating, scientific.  These attributes are fine when it’s necessary to show the reader the narrator’s profession, but not so much when he believes his wife, the love of his life, has been replaced by an imposter.

All in all, this is an interesting exercise in the postmodern novel:  the two motifs of the doppelganger and the unreliable narrator.  Even the end is a staple of postmodernism.  Galchen has a promising career ahead of her.  And hey, the things I found irksome some may actually enjoy.  It’s definitely worth checking out and it’s a quick read, taboot. 

I have this one quirky uncle, a Trivial Pursuit kind of guy. When I was a kid he’d make me nervous by endlessly quizzing me on state capitals, our presidents, the order of the planets, or whatever he felt like I should know. He keeps up to date with current events, watches all of the movies up for Best Picture before the Oscars air, and by the end of April has already read the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. He’s got them all neatly lined up in perfect chronological order in a beautiful glass bookcase. And no, he’s not a librarian. At any rate, I was surprised when he complained about the 2008 winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, as he’s usually a sucker for any book that makes it on those end-of-year best-of lists. "Too much Spanish, too much pop culture and way too many footnotes." "Hmm", I thought. "I’ll give it a try."  

Like my uncle, this book certainly has its quirks. The things that he hated, though, are the very things that made me love it. They add color and spice, a little fun and funkiness to a sort of tragic story. Because, really, this story is about love and loss; the way we carry on, even through misery and misfortune.     

Oscar is fat and clueless, dripping with awkward geekiness. ‘’Dude wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his light saber," so says the narrator. It’s an apt comparison, as Oscar is obsessed with all things science fiction. He dreams and toils and sweats over becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien (in between falling in love with every girl he sees). This is not just a book about a sad sap from New Jersey, though. Díaz has constructed a loud and powerful history of a single cursed family and their homeland, the Dominican Republic. The footnotes fill us in on the island’s history, especially under the ruthless tyranny of Rafael Trujillo. They aren’t intrusive to the story, not like Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, where you have to flip back and forth so many times you develop carpal-tunnel syndrome.  

And, yes, like some of my favorite Beck songs (Mano Blancos roll with crowbars / singing rancheras on cheap guitars / ¿Qué onda guero?), Spanish and Spanish slang is sprinkled throughout the book.  This was especially fun for me, because my Peruvian mom is constantly mixing her English and Spanish (‘Don’t you dare open the door to your friends, I’m only wearing mi bata’).  I thought my little insider knowledge more than made up for the glut of dorky references that went right over my head (Lord of the Rings, DC Comics, Dune, World of Warcraft).  I mean that in the most respectful way. I am an über dork, just not one that’s into fantasy or superheroes. I am, however, on the waiting list for the library’s copy of The Watchmen by Alan Moore cause Díaz made it sound kind of awesome.  

So, don’t listen to my uncle! If you like comic books, or are just looking for something engaging to read, give this a try.    

 In which we discuss; the decidedly American invention of Rock ‘n Roll, the Piano Man vs. the Rocket Man,  the curious phenomena of great Japanese writers named ‘Murakami’, and your new favorite ice cream flavor. 

There are some things that are uniquely American.  Sure, for great art or architecture it would be silly not to look to Europe.  I’m thinking the Italian Renaissance; I’m thinking gothic Cathedrals, ancient weathered castles that dot the landscape from Orebro, Sweden to Venice, Italy.  But come on, there are a few things we’ve added to the cultural landscape.  We invented Rock ‘n Roll.  (Elvis did it first and better than The Beatles, and Billy Joel does it better than Elton John.)  I’m thinking Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly…heck, an oddball from Minneapolis named Bob Dylan did folk music better than any of those British folkies.  The Blues is ours as well.  And in my opinion, mostly to the credit of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, America can claim crime noir fiction as her own, too.  (Sure, Chandler attended University in London, but he was born in Chicago and put Los Angeles on the map as the private eye/ crime noir capital.)   And I would make the case too that classic film noir (which admittedly is informed by German Expressionism) was cultivated here in America. 

But sometimes…sometimes you just have to look to the East.  The Far East.  The Japanese have done wonderful and interesting things for Gangster films, for the Revenge film (not to mention inventing Manga and Anime).  I’m thinking of the movies Audition and Old Boy.  And there just happens to be a wealth of great literature by a couple of gentleman with the last name ‘Murakami’.  There’s not much that hasn’t been said about the brilliance and vision of Haruki Murakami, so I’m going to give the other guy, Ryu Murakami, his dues.   

Ryu Murakami’s In the Miso Soup is a modern take on the classic crime noir mixed with healthy portions of suspense.  You won’t find the Chandlerian perfected private eye protagonist, nor Hammett’s ambivalence towards morality.  In the Miso Soup takes the reader through the seedy underbelly of Tokyo, where vice is bought and sold like ice cream.  Like a sexually deviant, narcotic infused ice cream.  (I’ll save you some time, Braum’s doesn’t sell it.) Unlike the forbearers of suspenseful crime fiction, In The Miso Soup is also a study in aspects of the Japanese psyche. Much of the book centers on the discomfort the Tokyo sex industry has with foreigners.  While not integral to the plot, it does shed light on an interesting cultural nuance.   

This book is visceral.  Murakami likes his violence and he likes to give you a front row seat.  If you like your gangster films soaked in blood, splattering the camera lens; you won’t be let down here.  If you got queasy during Reservoir Dogs, perhaps a more traditional suspense novel would do the trick.     

“Mom, I need something new to read”.  My heart leapt…could this be it?  Could this be the day I’ve waited and hoped for since the day she was born?             

Okay, it really wasn’t quite that dramatic.  There is a special thrill, though, to realizing that your child is finally old enough to read your favorite books…and actually understand the nuances, appreciate the writing, and fall in love with the main character, just as you have.  It takes a special approach, though…too eager and you frighten them, not enough enthusiasm and they forget it.  The soft pitch is best.  “Here, honey, I think you might like this one. It’s kind of fun”.            

And then you wait….hoping for that first sign that she likes it….and trying very hard not to ask.             

One daughter reported over the course of a week how much she was enjoying the one I recommended to her (which I won’t name, since I give away the end). We talked about the funny parts, the characters, the incredibly inventive plot. And then, the phone call—at midnight.  “Mom, how could you!!! He dies!! That’s horrible!! How could you do this to me?” Pause. “Does he have more books?”  LOL.             

I tried the soft pitch to my younger daughter with Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkisigan series.  In my humble opinion, it is clearly the best sociological/political/military/technological science fiction series ever written.  Starting with Shards of Honor, it follows first the adventure and courtship (they are nearly the same) of Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkisigan, who are from disparate cultures to say the least.  The rest follow the life of their son Miles, a physically deformed but brilliant military strategist, who at 15 takes over and runs a mercenary fleet.  One of the best things about the series is that Miles grows and changes through the course of the books.  A dinner scene in A Civil Campaign, which follows his courtship of Ekaterin, may be the funniest thing I’ve ever read.  I’ve read the series through several times just to set the mood for that one scene!           

The characters are fascinating and memorable, and the plotlines deal with politics, cultural differences, adventure, mystery, romance, all in an easily visualized future.  Tradition vs. technology, galactic ideas vs. hometown values, duty to family and crown over duty to one’s self.            

Did I mention it’s my favorite series ever?           

I worried that the worn and yellowed paperback would turn her off or that the unfamiliar terms would lessen her enjoyment. That maybe she wasn’t quite ready for the challenging moral dilemmas or more adult cultural references. Instead, she devoured it, the whole series.  We had conversations about morals, relationships, gender identity, and cloning.  Turns out, it was the day I’d been waiting for!