Jan 12 2016

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

 

I purchased The Art of Travel on the way out of town during a spring break beach trip. The options at the Baylor Bookstore (the prep school, not the university), were limited to the sorts of things high schoolers either should read (such as Night by Elie Wiesel) or must read (insert Shakespeare title you have already read twice here) neither of which seemed like suitable choices for beach reading. And while I can’t really see most high schoolers being all that intrigued with this book, for me it is a must read, and a book I will put back in my stack to be re-read soon.
De Botton applies a fairly simple but ingenious concept to the book. For each area of travel he explores (anticipation, the exotic, the sublime, etc.) he relates a place to a famous historical figure (usually an artist or writer), who either essentially made the place “necessary to visit” through their work, or whose general life experience applies to de Botton’s travels now.
Without spoiling too much of the premise, de Botton does a wonderful job of applying his experience of his visit to a region such as Provence to his knowledge and experience of Van Gogh’s work. Through the various chapters, one learns: 1) how de Botton feels about the place and the person with whom he associates it; 2) whether one should want to go there and why; and 3) most importantly, how to stop running through life and enjoy each place for what it has to offer.
Being unfamiliar with the author (I bought the book based on its title, given my pending trip), I’ve actually found a kindred spirit who writes the way I should write. The style is a first person exploration of the many emotions de Botton has as he travels, and it is like a travel journal writ large into a philosophy of how one should approach the next day off one has available. The language is so rich that I am certain there is more of it to taste the next time I read it, and this kind of “dessert” writing inspires me in different ways to enlarge my horizons both while traveling and while I sit at home.
That said, as with many such desserts, it should be savored in small amounts. Enjoy the whole book, but one chapter read slowly in a sitting will be plenty to consider for at least two days. Give it time to simmer in your mind. Don’t miss the various notes and flavors. After all, it’s not some Eurail Pass you bought during the summer holidays; it’s philosophy.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/12/the-art-of-travel-by-alain-de-botton/

Jan 08 2016

Shadows Of Self by Brandon Sanderson

This guy. Seriously, Brandon Sanderson is the kind of author all professional writers should aspire to be. You’d think that the quality of his output would suffer given the discipline he adheres to in producing it, but no: all his books are intelligent, creative, wildly entertaining and filled with his distinctive sense of humanity and kindness, in addition to mind-blowing world creation.

Anyway, this book in particular, the 5th in the Mistborn series, is difficult for me to review without getting heavily into spoilers, because the revelations of the identity of the villain and the motivation behind the A plot brought up some fascinating issues regarding… jeez, I can’t even venture close to it because I really want you guys to discover it for yourself (and I really, really hate when book critics think they’re being opaque re: spoilers but are really broadcasting them for anyone sensitive to nuance, as I am.) Let’s just say that the title of this book is exceptionally relevant (and now I’m worried that that was too much of a spoiler in itself.)

On safer topics, I did enjoy the continuing evolution of the relationships between the characters (I really love Steris,) even as I’m mortified by the fact that it took me till this book to realize that the two main guy characters are named Wax and Wayne. The callbacks to the first trilogy of the series were also exceptional, calling into question our own assumptions about historical righteousness. Marasi’s exploration of her Allomancy was also a lot of fun to follow, as well as her personal growth: it’s a relief to not see her moon over a crush, as she might have in the hands of a lesser writer. God, Brandon Sanderson, I want to be you when I grow up! I cannot wait for Bands Of Mourning to come out later this month!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/08/shadows-of-self-by-brandon-sanderson/

Jan 05 2016

Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

I completely abused the Highlight function on my Kindle when reading this book. A vital, sensitive exploration of her childhood and youth, heading into maturity and fame, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl is written by Carrie Brownstein (and ONLY Carrie Brownstein) with a wit and honesty unusual for the vast majority of celebrity memoirs. There were only two flaws, for me: 1. the ending seemed scattered and unfocused (a flaw common to most memoirs, tho,) and 2. the oddly judgmental tone she takes when discussing “slacker” rock stars like Beck and Rivers Cuomo, who don’t exude a wild exuberance when performing on-stage. She accuses them of performing from a place of entitlement, which is an odd interpretation for someone who also confesses to being painfully shy: in an otherwise empathetic book, the fact that she doesn’t immediately assume the same of them is jarring. Having said that, I’ve seen both Ms Brownstein and Mr Cuomo perform live, and while the former is definitely more kinetic and, thus, electric, I wouldn’t call the latter at all a lazy entertainer.

Another thing I found odd, if understandable, is the title, and its possible relation to Ms Brownstein’s mother’s anorexia. I’m fairly certain Ms Brownstein sees the irony of the connection, as she herself admits to having a remarkable constitution despite her undiscerning diet, but nowhere is it noted explicitly in the book.

Anyway, there were so many great and relatable moments otherwise, including this observation regarding looking back on our pasts:

[N]ostalgia asks so little of us, just to be noticed and revisited; it doesn’t require the difficult task of negotiation, the heartache and uncertainty that the present does.

On parents, she reminds us of deeply held, if unfairly assumed, notions of their roles in our lives:

Parents are supposed to be our storage facilities: insert a memory, let them hold on to it for you.

and

We want our parents to be the norm from which we deviate.

Possibly my favorite words of hers had to do with the (primarily, but not necessarily adolescent) search for identity:

It’s hard to express how profound it is to have your experience broadcast back to you for the first time, how shocking it feels to be acknowledged, as if your own sense of realness had only existed before as a concept.

and this one, that hit me hard, as I too had quested fitfully through my adolescence and college years for purpose:

I needed other people’s outward manifestations of self to help me realize who I could be.

Here, she echoes what I’ve always felt about performing:

[J]ust being up there, engaged in a momentary artifice, a heightening of self, is sometimes enough to get by, to feel less worn down by, less withered by life.

After a less than stellar audition for a band she admired, she wrote the bandleader a confessional letter that had me cringing in both empathy and embarrassment at having done something very similar in my own youth:

People think that the digital age and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter nurture over-sharing, but in 1992 there was nothing stopping me from treating any piece of paper like a personal diary. I wanted so badly to be taken to some special place, to be asked into a secret club that would transform my life. I felt like music was that club. And to see inside for a moment and then be asked to leave was devastating.

And finally, an excellent passage that I could have written myself, were I smarter and more self-exploratory:

Underneath that nervousness, however, I had a cunningness and intentionality, or at least a cluelessness that was intrepid enough to get the job done. I cared too much about what people thought but also not enough.

That isn’t even all of the bits I highlighted, but man, am I looking forward to owning my own physical copy eventually and abusing it just as much. The book also got me to listen to my old Sleater-Kinney CDs, that are just as good as I remember. I got to see them perform live several times, and still remember standing in line to get into the 9:30 Club when I saw Janet Weiss lug some band equipment out of the trunk of a car. She had a wry expression on her face as she gazed at the chattering crowd oblivious to her presence, and I instinctively leaned forward to ask if I could help, but she turned away and I was too shy to call out to offer. After reading this book, with its tales of what touring life was really like for them, I know that I should have.

Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl is one of the best celebrity memoirs I’ve ever read. Carrie Brownstein is an incredibly talented and intelligent writer, with a capacity for self-reflection and empathy that is refreshing to read in this kind of work. The book adds depth to my existing admiration of Sleater-Kinney, and to the minor girl crush I’ve had on her since seeing her perform one of her signature kicks dressed in the business casual garb that, on her, always gave off a louche Desire of the Endless vibe to me. Love love love.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/05/hunger-makes-me-a-modern-girl-by-carrie-brownstein/

Jan 05 2016

Taking Stock of 2015

In 2015, I decided to read in three major science fiction and fantasy series that I had somehow missed over the previous twenty years or more. While I had been happily reading other things, they had grown into monuments of the field, and I only knew second-hand what they were all about. So I decided to at least have a look. I was inspired in part by the serendipity of finding a trove of Discworld books in Basel, where I had been traveling for work, and in part by Jo Walton’s enthusiasm for Vlad Taltos and Mike Vorkosigan, as explicated in What Makes This Book So Great. As it turns out, I did not quite get to any of the Vorkosigan books last year, and I only read two Taltos books (though I liked them both), so I still have those to look forward to. Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels are also on my radar for similar reasons. Discworld, on the other hand, has me hooked. I read a good dozen of the books in 2015, and I am finding them everything they were promised to be: hilarious, humane, heartening.

There was slightly less Poland in my reading than last year, but a large chunk of it was Czeslaw Milosz’s History of Polish Literature. I haven’t quite finished blogging about the book, but as I said in my first post about it, every literature should be so fortunate as to have a Nobel laureate to write its history.

2015 was also the year I started reading books on my phone’s screen. The experiment got off to a shaky start, and I am still not a huge fan of this form of reading. I suspect that if I were commuting, I would read more that way. When I had long commutes in Moscow, I read a lot on my Kindle, so I know I’m not averse to e-readers per se.

Non-fiction books that stand out in my recollection, beyond the Milosz, include Midnight at the Pera Palace by Charles King, Jo Walton’s collection of enthusiasms What Makes This Book So Great, Shirley Jackson’s perfect memoir Raising Demons, and Ryszard Kapuscinski’s three meditations on power: The Emperor, Shah of Shahs and Another Day of Life.

I re-read two books in 2015. Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds is a delight that I have read many times and have to be careful about picking up because I know I won’t be able to put it down again. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner is a major work in the history of science fiction, and it stands up well.

The Wolfhound Century trilogy by Peter Higgins is an amazing achievement. I’m still trying to figure out what to say about the third book beyond “breathtaking” and “audacious.” Granted, not everyone will want to read a series that starts out as a police procedural in an alternative history Russia suffused with elements of fantasy and science fiction, but people who don’t are missing out. I suspect that publishing the books at widely spaced intervals meant that they did not get as much attention as they should (the first has a cliffhanger ending, and while that doesn’t matter now that they are all out, it annoyed some reviewers at the time). I see that Dave Hutchinson’s Europe in Autumn may be growing into a series, and I am looking forward to reading the next book. I can still hear how many inflections the characters in The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison put on the word “Serenity,” even with hardly an adverb in sight. That one may get re-read. After reading The Merchant and The Alchemist’s Gate, I am looking forward to more by Ted Chiang.

I finished two books in German in 2015, Viva Polonia by Stefan Möller and Simple Storys by Ingo Schulze. I would like my reading in German to be a slightly larger share of what I read, but I am also lazy about it.

Full list, roughly in order read, is under the fold with links to my reviews here at Frumious.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/05/taking-stock-of-2015/

Dec 31 2015

The Story Of A New Name by Elena Ferrante

I want to get it, guys, I really do. All the acclaim, all the rhapsodic reverence: I want to feel that, too. I just don’t, and tho I feel like I maybe came close here (and much closer than in the first book,) I still just don’t understand why this has been such a sensation, or even how universal its appeal could possibly be when, to me, it’s an above average but certainly not great novel.

My main problem with it was Lena. I’m the kind of reader who, especially if I’m reading a first-person narrative, trusts myself to the narrator in the expectation that even if I’m (hopefully pleasantly) betrayed, at least I will understand why the narrator makes her choices because I’m inside her head (see: Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Agatha Christie’s Endless Night.) But Jesus Christ, Lena. The closest I can get to why she’s so fucking awful is that she’s a pessimist whose sense of self-worth is so minuscule that I’m fairly certain she has borderline personality disorder, to the point that nothing in her life, none of her own achievements or accomplishments, matter as much as or in contrast with her “best friend” Lila’s. When people talk about how “realistic” this depiction of a “complicated” friendship is, I thank God that my many female friendships through the years were not with a creature as absurdly self-abnegating and negative as Lena.

The main reason I enjoyed this novel and will continue to keep reading the series is, by contrast, Lila. I might not agree with all her decisions (tho in so many I felt a kinship) and I might think her occasionally mean and awful, but man, I really want things to go well for her. I read a memoir a while back where the author, in an effort to make her husband look like a good guy, painted herself as the villain in a weird act of self-justification as to why she put up with things instead of maybe saying something and not being passive-aggressive for a change, and this book felt a lot like that: a love letter to Lila, who is awesome despite Lena, who maybe makes herself sound shittier than she needs to because she wants us to love Lila like she does. But then again, Lena went and tossed the box into the river in an act of wild selfishness and ill-discipline (not to mention ill will,) so fuck her.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/31/the-story-of-a-new-name-by-elena-ferrante/

Dec 29 2015

The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated) by Ainslie Hogarth

I can’t remember where I came across mention of this book, but it was obviously enough to get me to buy it and read it. Of course, that happens a lot, which is why my to-be-read collection on my Kindle just broke 300 books.

Tangents, aside, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. Massacres are generally interesting to me, same with horror books. Boy meets girl, eh, done a lot, but in the end this was a very nice short-ish read that actually gave me the heebies at points. At a lot of points, actually. I love paranormal stuff and this books was full of it in spades, and done well, too. The author came at it all from a bit of a slant, so while it felt similar to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, it was actually very different, and very intriguing. Subtle is a word that comes to mind. Not a lot of words are used but the picture that emerges is very detailed.

I’m not an official book reviewer with a list of particular things to critique. I just like what I like, and I liked this book. I’m glad I came across it, I’m glad I read it, and I fully intend to read it again in the future.

I think you should, too.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/29/the-boy-meets-girl-massacre-annotated-by-ainslie-hogarth/

Dec 27 2015

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

In which I read a book simply because it has won the 2015 Man Booker prize, and am somewhat disappointed.

I read just about everything on the 2015 Man Booker short list because I wanted to. This was one of the ones I didn’t read, and now I’m regretting a bit that it won, because I won’t ever get that week of my life back.

Don’t misunderstand me, this book was literary to the Nth degree. It used Jamaican patois throughout (where appropriate), and figuring out what words meant from context was an enjoyable exercise for me. It spoke of important things, too – Jamaica and its culture, its politics, its relationship with the First World, and many others. So I can’t say that it was the topic that annoyed me, because it didn’t. This is usually the sort of thing I eat right up and ask for seconds.

In the end, though, I was left feeling unsatisfied. The seven killings were never very clear to me because people were biting the dust right and left and the number came to far more than seven. I appreciate thinking outside the box (*shudders* horrid term), and writing about a topic coming in from a different angle. So, truly, I should have loved this book. I didn’t, though, and it’s been making me a little crazy trying to figure out why.

I think maybe it was a couple of things. First, it was just too long. Period.

Second, I understand making a point and bringing in the local color, and staying true to the story, but there were so many characters, each writing in their own dialect (whatever that dialect might be), and not a lot of clues to help the reader keep track of what was going on. If I had read a book on Jamaican politics BEFORE picking up this book, I think I would have been in love. However, I was missing that foundation and so I had trouble latching onto the things that mattered and following the story as a whole. This could be my failure, or the book’s failure, or perhaps a joint effort in failing. I don’t know.

It’s not a bad book, just one I’d strongly suggest you read AFTER beefing up on Jamaican politics and Bob Marley and the drug trade.

You can read Doreen’s review from last month here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/27/a-brief-history-of-seven-killings-by-marlon-james-2/

Dec 27 2015

A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

There are so many, many great and splendid things about this book. First, as with all good hard sf, it is a novel of ideas, not merely translating our human experiences into distant settings, but also imagining alternate forms of personhood, whether in the structure of alien races — beyond the tired insectoid/robotic hive minds prevalent in popular sci-fi, tho forms of these are indeed as present in it as are our own familiar human lives — or in the very stratification of the universe into levels of consciousness and technology, and how entities bridge these levels. It sounds crazy and hard to fathom, but Vernor Vinge makes it all not only accessible but plausible.

In addition, his characterizations are excellent (and refreshingly not white-male-centric.) As well as being a novel of Ideas, this book is also a deeply moving study of love in its many forms, of greed and sadism and fear and, most importantly, of the will to self-determination. Towards that last, this book is also a rollicking adventure story with a body count that made me, at one point, scream with frustration at its sheer realism (and send my bff a garbled message heavy on emoji. Think of a sci-fi Game Of Thrones. Yep, like that.)

I shouldn’t, however, say that it was just the deaths that affected me. A Fire Upon The Deep deals with a concept even greater than the loss of life: it spends a great deal of time considering the loss of self. What does it mean to be someone entirely different than you’ve always believed? Is it possible for us to escape our programming, one could even say, our destinies? How much of our personalities are immalleable? It’s a breath-taking exploration of not only the outer reaches of space but also the interior space of the mind and soul.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/27/a-fire-upon-the-deep-by-vernor-vinge/

Dec 23 2015

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty

I usually find Liane Moriarty novels superlative, but this one fell short for me. Here’s my main problem with The Last Anniversary: it’s fairly clear from the outset that Grace has post-natal depression, yet at no time in the proceedings does she acknowledge this as true. It’s absolutely maddening. I also haaaaated Laura. I suppose her unhappiness was supposed to be punishment enough, but I thought the way she raised Grace was completely fucked up. I was also irritated by Margie’s problems all being solved as soon as she lost weight, and also by her “not exactly” affair. No, Margie, it wasn’t an affair at all; people are allowed to have friends of the opposite sex, you know. It was also very hard to figure out what Audrey (who was yay, Malaysian!) saw in Veronika, tho I suppose one could just chalk that down to the vagaries of love.

Anyway, there were too many headscratching moments in an otherwise terrific novel (that ending! So sneaky and satisfying!) for me to rate it as highly as the rest of her oeuvre, but the mystery was really well done and I did stay up far too late reading it, the hallmark of a very good book.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/23/the-last-anniversary-by-liane-moriarty/

Dec 20 2015

From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe

For those of us in love with the history of Architecture, there are a myriad of scholarly works, photo essays, and the like, many of which are unexceptional reading.  But, if there was a book that introduced “out of the box” thinking to 20th century architectural concepts, this is probably it. A classic from 1981, I imagine most Americans, and many Britons as well, hardly noticed that their skylines “suffered” from Bauhausian design, which advanced in the wake of war-torn Germany. Yet, Tom Wolfe envisions an architectural nightmare/wasteland of glass boxes consuming historic city downtowns across the western world from which it has only recently escaped, little better than the destruction it replaced.
“Suffered” is in quotes for a reason, though. I grew up in Houston, where at least one of Wolfe’s seminal examples are built, and as a child, I found the building to be fascinating, not mundane. As an adult, I think many of these same buildings have aged gracefully into the downtowns of many cities and in fact, co-exist with much of the traditional architecture which is now being revitalized in the “post-Bauhausian” age.
While I can engage the premise that the book poses, Wolfe freely admits he is no more a part of the architectural establishment than I am. So, I find it overreaching that he speaks in great detail about people like Philip Johnson, whom he does not purport to know well, as though he uniquely understood their intentions. But like any other style, if one encounters it constantly, one will tire of it. I find much of Baroque architecture overly fussy and ornate, but that does not mean that my opinion of it should hold sway. Nor does it mean I will not enjoy the experience of it once in a while.
If you are considering this book, know that it moves quickly and can easily be read in one or two sittings. Wolfe’s writing style often flows like the Colorado River eroding the Grand Canyon, with words like semiology that are not in everyone’s lexicon. I bought a copy from the used bookstore, so I had to pull out the iPhone for a semi-definition. Incidentally, the iPhone fits the Bauhausian design concepts to some degree if you have not noticed this before.
Of course, since the book is an opinion piece written by someone who has a clear gift for writing, it is most persuasive. But I did not care for the way the final chapter stopped like a tube coming slightly too fast into the station. For me, the argument was ultimately unconvincing. As a result, while it may have been “out of the box” in 1981, in 2015, it seems out of date. Read it to discover how Bauhausian design concepts have evolved around the world, but avoid taking it too seriously. After all, the author chose to be photographed in a solid white suit complete with matching handkerchief; he gets the joke.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/20/from-bauhaus-to-our-house-by-tom-wolfe/