Cannonball Capstone

Reading books takes more time and represents a more significant chunk of your life than a movie-viewing experience does. Movies will take three hours from your life, tops, and they’re solitary activities where generally you’re only watching that movie. But I carry books with me for weeks (even if I’m reading quickly, I tend to read a bunch of things simultaneously), and that book immediately assumes an instant association with the period in my life when I read it.

A movie can be re-watched with little effort, but to re-read a book is very much a commitment. Reviews are thus a much more integral step in the reading process, as I’ve learned during my epic failure of completing the Cannonball Read. A review helps to encapsulate how the book affected me and what I was thus feeling and experiencing during the period in which I read it. Before attempting the Cannonball (read 100 books in a year), I don’t think I’d ever written a book review. Now I have seven snapshots of my reading history since January 1, 2009.

I was simply too ambitious in this task, and I’ll own up to that. Though one of my books was nearly 900 pages in length (the amazing, awesome I Know This Much Is True), two of them were just barely over 200 pages. Though others seemed to glide past the finish line ahead of schedule, I struggled to average one book a month. All told, though, I’m glad I tried. I got to put together a list of books I want to read, which required research and a thirst for good literature, and I probably read more than if I hadn’t at least tried the ambitious task of 100 books in a year. And that alone is a triumph for me.

The Cannonball will be back starting November 1st, and I will be participating again. The challenge has been softened considerably: 52 books in a year. One book a week. Doable, right? Enh, probably not for me. But I will try. I think the caveat I’m going to put on myself is that all 52 books must be books I already own. I have way more books than I’ve actually read, but every book I own (for the most part) is a book that I’ve wanted to read.

All in all, though I failed miserably, I’m still glad I tried at the first round. And with the promise of a monetary donation to charity if you finish 52 books, maybe I’ll actually finish the damn thing this time around.

Or, y’know, fail miserably again.

Cannonball #7: Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

I really really really really want to like Wonder Boys the movie more than I actually do. It’s about writing (which I love), it has gay characters (why wouldn’t I love it?), one of said gay characters is played by Robert Downey, Jr. (who I really like), he’s in his underwear for some of the movie (RDJ is hot!), it takes place over a weekend where it’s super drizzly and cloudy out (LOVE this kind of weather), it’s super pretentious and literary (like me!), and it has a lot of actors I really like in it (like Frances McDormand, Michael Douglas, aforementioned RDJ, and Katie Holmes – back when we had NO idea she’d end up where she is today!).

But the movie kinda fell flat for me. Oh well, it happens: dust yourself off and move on. I tried my hand at the book because I’d heard nothing but great things about it (though that sort of recommendation didn’t work out with Chabon’s last that I read: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh), and because I was curious to see how things differed in the book from the movie. Like I said: a lot of the raw ingredients were there for me to really like this story, but the movie couldn’t coalesce these together in a way that resonated with me.

In fact, the book is quite like On Chesil Beach, a book I adore and am now required, it seems, to use as a comparison to every book I read from here on out. But it’s applicable here, I swear! Namely, in that both books seem to drag on for an inordinate amount of time but then blindside you with the catharsis and reasoning behind all that meandering. With On Chesil Beach, this was so effective because the book is essentially novella-length and this meandering doesn’t go on too terribly long, simply long enough for effect. In Wonder Boys, though, the biggest problem is that the book is clearly novel-length, and there comes a point where you just want Chabon to start putting the pieces together. Luckily, he eventually does, but he takes too long to get there.

Wonder Boys chronicles a weekend in the life of Grady Tripp, creative writing professor at some liberal arts college in Pittsburgh. He’s in the midst of a 2,700-page-plus follow-up to his mildly successful last novel and his editor Terry Crabtree is in town to read a first draft of it, as well as for Wordfest that the college is hosting for the weekend. Shenanigans of course ensue, involving the accidental shooting of a dog, stealing baseball memorabilia, the pregnancy of Tripp’s lover, the kidnapping of one of Tripp’s students, a transvestite, a tuba, copious amounts of pot, a brood of adopted Korean Jews, etc.

Actually, typing all that out, it sounds like the book should be a mess. And it totally isn’t. So kudos on Chabon for keeping it all cohesive. But the book drags, namely in the middle chunk of the book, wisely excised from the movie because it has absolutely no bearing on anything, where Tripp and his student James go to a Shabbat dinner with Tripp’s extended family. The whole time I couldn’t help but think “we get it Michael Chabon: you’re Jewish.” Chabon gives minor narrative justification for this chunk towards the conclusion of the novel (hint: it’s all very very meta), but that doesn’t fly for me.

Chabon does wrap things up, though, and he does so quite effectively. Tripp is essentially an adolescent doofus stuck in a middle-aged man’s body and to have him as first-person narrator for so damned long becomes frustrating. You want to shake this guy and tell him to grow the fuck up. He finally comes to this realization, and it’s to Chabon’s credit that this happens in the narrative at the exact moment when you’re ready to give up on the book. There’s certainly more method to Chabon’s madness than in Pittsburgh (which only festers in my memory the more distance I get from it); while it helps this time around to at least get what Chabon’s going for, it still doesn’t add up to a truly great novel. A good one, yes, but not a great one.

Cannonball #6: The Elephants of Style by Bill Walsh

I’m a dork. I admit it. Exhibit A: I just finished reading a book all about the nuances of grammar.

Yeah, dork.

So if you’re into that sort of stuff, this is a totally enjoyable light read. It covers all the gray areas of grammar (like gray vs. grey, etc.) and then explains what to do in these scenarios, as well as the reasoning behind the option writer Walsh puts forth. There’s not much more to the book than that. It’s not even about the basics of grammar, because Walsh assumes a base level of familiarity with basic grammar before picking up this book. Walsh’s style throughout admits regularly that these are nuances for the most part, and he’s key to point out the important points and the more nitpicky stuff he addresses, so there’s a kind of self-deprecating I-realize-everything-I’m-saying-will-only-appeal-to-a-select-group-of-people tone that makes it an enjoyable read. If grammar excites you, you could do worse than this little refresher on grammar.

My roommate, however, kept rolling her eyes at me the whole time I was reading it. You be the judge.

Cannonball #5: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

All I have to say is: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay better be a hell of a lot better. God DAMN is this a frustrating book. Author Michael Chabon’s first novel is a hodgepodge of various tropes we’ve seen before all muddled together into an unsatisfying mixture that doesn’t even resolve by the time it’s all through. It’s not particularly bad, but it certainly isn’t satisfying. Like a meal of powdered mashed potatoes when there was access to a gourmet Thanksgiving feast.

I’ll start with the good, as I usually do: Chabon is clearly a gifted writer. Every ten pages or so, there seemed to be a phrase that popped out at me that I wanted to write down (as well as an entire passage that I think is perfectly written). Lines like “I was a fool for a girl with a dainty lexicon” or “Solace is in the fabric of sweatshirts” had a nice ring for me, and Chabon consistently impresses with his writing. The book tells the story of an Eventful Summer After College where Art Bechstein works a nothing job at a chain bookstore and dates Phlox (ugh, what a literary name) and befriends her co-worker Arthur. Art’s dad is a mobster in Pittsburg (Pittsburg has organized crime?), and Arthur’s friend Cleveland starts working for him. Oh, and Art may or may not be in love with Arthur, who’s gay.

It’s all a weird mixture to handle. The Phlox/Art/Arthur triangle is enough for one novel, but Chabon has this weird tacked-on mob thing going on that never quite gels with the love story. Cleveland, in particular, feels like he’s from a completely different novel and I found his chunks of the narrative to be a chore to read. Chabon is much more successful with the central love triangle, though I never particularly bought Art’s conflict about his bisexuality. Maybe Chabon is trying to make a statement about the fluidity of sexuality, but Art instead comes off as frustratingly indecisive. Simply having Art acknowledge that he’s conflicted doesn’t provide a satisfying conclusion to this element of his character for me – throughout the novel he wavers between the two, never deciding if he likes guys, girls, or even if he definitively likes both.

And then there’s the open-ended finale. In a word: frustrating. It seriously leaves so many questions open that it almost reads like Chabon had his deadline for the publisher and hadn’t finished writing so he wrapped things up as best he could in time to send it off at Kinko’s. If this were a Lit class, I could pull some analysis out of my ass about the open-ended nature of the novel mirroring Art’s open-ended feelings, but this isn’t a Lit class: I literally finished the book and scowled with dissatisfaction. Not because the book was particularly terrible (like I said: Chabon is clearly gifted and I look forward to reading something else of his), but because I felt like Chabon had let me down as a reader. For me, stories need endings. They need catharsis. Having Art close the book by essentially saying that he looks back on That Summer and thinks “boy golly gosh, what a wacky summer!” is not satisfactory for me. There’s some interesting stuff going on in The Mysteries of Pittsburg, but it’s buried in a wholly infuriating package.

Cannonball #4: Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg

Silent to the Bone is E.L. Konigsburg’s follow-up to The View from Saturday. If pressed to choose a favorite book, I would pick The View from Saturday for several reasons. Though it’s a children’s book, I think Konigsburg doesn’t write as if she’s writing for children – there are poignant moments throughout the book that I think would be lost on a younger audience, and at a svelte 160ish pages, the novel packs a lot of story and characterization into a small space. If the Cannonball Read allowed for <200 page books, I’d be all over rereading that and singing its praises in a heartbeat.

Alas, we’re left with Silent to the Bone, which doesn’t reach nearly the same heights as Konigsburg’s previous novel. This is the story of Connor, a 13-year-old who pairs with his older half-sister Margaret to uncover the truth behind Connor’s best friend Branwell’s turning mute after being blamed for an accident that has left Branwell’s baby sister Nikki in a coma.

There’s a lot that Konigsburg does fairly well here, most notably through the use of Connor as first person narrator. She does a nice job exploring the idiosyncrasies of Connor and Branwell’s friendship and the nuances that are involved at that age when you’re friends with the weird kid at school. The family dynamics at play with Connor, his mother, Margaret, and their dad are also handled effectively and with subtlety.

The book’s primary problem is a big one, though: the central mystery and ultimate resolution to Branwell’s slip into being mute is essentially linked to shame that Branwell feels about an incident that Connor uncovers over the course of the book. And I’m sorry, but when your infant sister is in a coma and you’re shouldering the blame and you hold the key to the ultimate truth behind what happened, I take a lot of issue with that silence. On top of that, Konigsburg establishes an effective system that Connor devises to communicate with Branwell, so it’s never quite clear why he can’t spell out what happened (for those who have read the book: no pun intended).

Ultimately, though the central mystery is largely unsatisfying, Konigsburg brings her usual deft hand with characterization and a few poignant moments to the table, and that’s always a pleasure to read. The View from Saturday, though, soars with its narrative while Silent to the Bone ultimately trips over itself.

On a wholly superficial note: look at how ugly that cover is. Now look at how lovely the cover from The View from Saturday is:

A quick Cannonball note…

Man, how behind schedule am I??!!! Shit, man. Three books in four months? That is shit pace, y’all. I never said I was gonna be great at this. I’m reading a 250 page children’s book next. It has REALLY big type. And I powered through a 900-page book. I’ll count that as an accomplishment as someone who until finishing that book would have to answer Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix if asked what the longest book they’d ever read was.

Cannonball #3: I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb

There’s a rote, rampant, and ongoing debate that I first became a part of in my high school freshman English class. For summer work, we were given various lists of books with cute headings (10 Books About Love, 10 Books About Brothers, etc.) and we had to pick something like two, read them, then do some writing exercise where we talk about why we thought they were included on the list. One of the lists was 10 Candidates for the Great American Novel. The only one I can remember being on there is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but every bit as worthy for inclusion on that list is I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb.

The book is, simply, an astounding achievement. Every minute detail seems to be thought through, conceived brilliantly, and executed brilliantly. A few pages shy of 900, it’s a hefty book to carry around, but it is never a chore to read, and the pages fly by so smoothly that once you’re around page 700, you look around and think hunh, where’d all those pages go?

The simplified plot description concerns Dominick Birdsey and his struggles involved with caring for his schizophrenic identical twin brother Thomas. In the first dozen pages of the novel, Thomas is released on a day pass from his current mental hospital and swiftly goes to the public library and chops his right hand off as a protest against the impending Gulf War. From there, Lamb gives a thorough look at the brothers’ lives growing up with a submissive mom and abusive stepfather, as well as a cast of supporting characters who shape these brothers’ lives.

Essentially, the book tells what seems to be a wholly American story, which is why I think it’s such a great contender for The Great American Novel. At its core, the book is about Dominick and his struggle to reconcile his responsibility to his brother with his responsibility to himself. But by using this central story about brothers, Lamb is able to branch off and address basically anything and everything: family, marriage, fatherhood, the AIDS crisis, immigration, domestic violence, child abuse, war, politics. Another success of the book is the economy of characters that Lamb employs here. Just when you think that we’re getting a little too much backstory for an inconsequential character, Lamb blindsides you with the real importance for the character in the first place.

That’s the thing about Lamb’s pacing here: the book is an epic 900 pages, but the pace never slows down, and after two powerfully moving opening chapters that hook you into the saga of these characters, Lamb never ceases to amaze with the twists and WTF-inducing moments he weaves into the story. There are entire chapters towards the end devoted to recounting Dominick’s grandfather’s autobiography that I could’ve done without, and that’s probably my only complaint with the novel. Aside from this one qualm, I Know This Much Is True is worth every second it takes to read. It’s a magnificent achievement and a great American novel – maybe even The Great American Novel.

I’m so bad at this whole blogging thing

I know I know I know, I’m a horrible person. But to those who actually read this: sorry. I’ve been terrible about updating. For some reason, I find it easier to find time to update this when I’m working and bored at work. ::shrugs:: Whoops.

But yes, I have indeed been unemployed for a month now. My post-production gig ended (and the show’s almost done airing, too), and the waters have been stagnant ever since. I’ve been fine financially-speaking for the time-being, so it’s actually been kind of nice having all this free time. Though it’s taken up until now for me to kick it into high gear and actually apply for stuff and try to write and try to power through some reading.

Basically, we always want the opposite of what we have – when I was employed, I would have KILLED for this much free time and now that I have it, I find myself longing for full-time employment just because it adds structure to my day. During these in-between bouts of unemployment, it becomes startlingly clear how bad I can be at time management.

So I’ve been admittedly slacking off for a while with intermittent bursts of productivity, but I’m trying to turn it around. Hopefully I’ll be putting this time to good use.

Onwards! Things I’ve been loving:

This music video:

LOVE LOVE LOVE this song, and the accompanying video is awesome, gorgeous, and all-around tops. I never thought I’d love Lily Allen so much, but this bodes well.

This book:

I’m only a couple dozen pages in, but so much shit goes down in this book! It’s so tense, well-written, and engrossing. And it’s 900 pages long! I have no idea how Wally Lamb can keep up the pace, but I’m excited to see him rise to the challenge.

The act of trying to get through this book:

Man, what a tome of a book this is. Snow Crash is a justifiable modern-day classic, but Anathem is an ungodly beast of a project to read. But I like the challenge. It’s one of those alternate-worlds books with a huge glossary in the back that you have to keep flipping to, but the alternate world that Stephenson creates is one where mathematicians (I think) sequester themselves from the outside world in convents. They’re like monks, but monks who do math and have philosophical discussions. Long philosophical discussions. But it’s kind of a fun project (for me, at least) to try and get through the novel. It’s another big book: over 900 pages, but there’s something oddly engrossing about the whole thing. It’s like just by writing it, Stephenson has challenged the reader to actually finish it, and I kind of want to play his game and finish the book. At least so I can say that the longest book I’ve read isn’t Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

So yeah, Cannonball hasn’t been forgotten, but um, it’s been… not a top priority, though I have absolutely no excuse with all this free time. My style of reading is to have like, ten books in progress at a time, which is how it is right now, so I’ve probably read the equivalent of a couple more books, but it’s spread out over 50-70 pages each in ten books. Whoops.

And hopefully I’ll be better about updating in here, for those who have been paying attention. :-)

Cannonball #2: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

The book’s short, so this review will be short, too.  In fact, at 199 pages, including Acknowledgements and Notes, it just barely misses the mark here for the cannonball rules, but I read the introduction, too, so I’m counting it.

What Atwood has here is a re-imagining of The Odyssey and, being the feminist writer she is, she’s told it first person from Penelope’s perspective (Odysseus’s wife), as well as working some explanation about the hanging of twelve maids that I assume happened in The Odyssey.  It’s been about seven years since I read it, so I’m fuzzy on my epic poem specifics – apologies all around.

There’s a lot to appreciate here, but not too terribly much to like.  It’s a quick quick read: I finished it in a day using only down time at work.  Taking that into consideration, this is a lot like another svelte book I love – On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan – in that Atwood crams a lot of really interesting ideas into a small space, so it’s to be commended on that front.  Where it’s dissimilar from McEwan’s novella is that it’s not that poignant, nor does it have a sense of necessity.  It reads a little bit like a creative writing exercise where Atwood was asked in some fictional grad class to reinterpret a classic piece of literature and she ran with it and sketched some things out… and then got it published.

Ultimately, I’m far from disappointed with it, as there are a lot of interesting devices at play, such as a chapter with an imagined modern-day courtroom scene where Odysseus is put on trial for the murders of the twelve maids or the intercalary sections that recontextualize the Greek chorus as the twelve maids, but the biggest plus of this book was that it was short.  Not very high praise.  I’m a huge fan of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and while The Robber Bride was distractingly male-bashing, it was still highly entertaining and well-written.  This was an interesting experiment, but offers little beyond that, so I’m looking forward to reading another of Atwood’s novels over her shorter work.

Cannonball #1: Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

My excuse for this book?  My roommate made me do it.

Nah, it’s not all her fault.  But she did start it, hyping the books and letting me borrow them.  I’ll admit that Twilight had its moments, though it was pretty terribly-written, and the film is a modern-day camp classic in the best way possible.  New Moon, though, was probably one of the hardest books I’ve ever had to read because it was so unbelievably boring.

With Eclipse, the third of four in the Twilight saga, Meyer has crafted the best book of the series so far.  The problem is that even as the best book, it’s still a chore to get through and there was an equal amount of satisfaction and dread as I finished the damned thing.  Satisfaction because it was finally over, but dread because the longest book in the series still awaits me and I don’t know how much more poorly-written teen angst I can take.

Eclipse once again finds protagonist and narrator Bella Swan in mopey mode.  In the first book, she was angsty because she was falling in love with vampire Edward Cullen and in the second book, through idiotic machinations of the plot, Edward dumped her for her own safety and then moved away (don’t get me started) so she was pretty much insufferable, but she then found the time to develop a close friendship with werewolf Jacob Black.  Now, with Edward back in the picture, we have a love triangle.  There’s also some hoo-hah about an approaching army of vampire children under the control of the evil Victoria who are coming to kill Bella.  Because she can’t do anything without attracting evil vampires.

What makes the book bearable for some stretches is the fact that we FINALLY HAVE SOME DRAMATIC CONFLICT.  Sweet Jesus were the first books devoid of any real narrative drive.  With the conflict between Edward and Jacob, there’s finally some tension.  Of course, Meyer doesn’t really know what to do with this, so most of the book consists of Bella with Edward when he bitches about Jacob or Bella with Jacob when he bitches about Edward.  It’s vaguely diverting, but it’s also vaguely annoying.  What a pleasant way to spend 600+ pages!

Meyer also has a tendency to place Bella outside the main action.  During the final showdown, Bella is stationed somewhere else with Edward who then uses his vampire powers to read the minds of the people at the actual battle and then NARRATES WHAT’S HAPPENING.  This is a classic case of telling over showing and it’s simply inexcusable storytelling.  Meyer’s writing style also leaves a lot to be desired: Mariah Carey songs have more complex vocabulary and sentence structure, and though I’ll grant her some leeway given her target audience and age group, there’s just no panache in Meyer’s style.  J.K. Rowling managed to make the Harry Potter books interesting for a broad audience while still gearing them towards children.

Yet there’s something about Meyer’s central story here that, even in spite of my numerous issues with the books so far, makes me want to read the final book.  Most of it is morbid curiosity – I’m kind of fascinated by the prospect of what crazy shit Meyer might pull in concluding the series.  But some of it is genuine interest in the central characters.  They’re written poorly and they’re thinly-drawn, but for some reason you can’t help but root for Bella and Edward.  I have no idea why, and that fascinates me.