Hopscotch

There are at least three different ways to read Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch; the first is to read the first fifty-six chapters in sequence (until one reaches a line of stars signifying "everything after this can be ignored" at the end of Chapter 56). Doing so will give the reader a frustrating, choppy, occasionally dense, tedious, and unengaging experience. Unfortunately, following the author's instructions (laid out conveniently in a "Table of Instructions" before the rest of the text begins) results in the same experience, only longer. While the additional chapters do help to fill out some events that may be unclear upon a "normal" reading, (such as making the narrative a little more linear, as with Pola), or flesh out a backstory (Morelli/the old man), or add color with excerpts from referenced works/relevant passages/letters, the novel still has the same problems as with a linear reading -- that the happenings seem pointless. Producing a boring novel about expatriate bohemians in Paris is one thing, but a boring novel that the back cover blurb pitches as "the dazzling, free-wheeling account of [protagonist's] astonishing adventures" seems to be a little more difficult. (Not that I am opposed to the selection of flattering back cover blurbs. Far from it.) It's not the flouting of conventional narrative structure that bothers me about this novel -- it's that all the flouting of conventional narrative structure feels so pointless. While the pace picks up a little when the action returns to Argentina, it's not nearly enough to save this.

City of Bohane

Even though Kevin Barry's City of Bohane is set in the 2050s, I wouldn't call this a science fiction novel. For one, it isn't clearly until at least the middle third of the book the time period that it's set in, and for two, even this is clearly post-apocalyptic, there's no tech here -- just nothing digital, and nostalgia for the "Lost Time", where something clearly Very Bad(tm) happened.

City of Bohane is at once cinematic and musical. Cinematic in scope, and musical in dialogue. Scenes are sketched out as though there was a camera panning through them, and we see cuts that are worthy of a screenwriter. Here's one character talking to another in a shady bar-cut-here's a third character plotting-cut-here's someone else stalking the streets. Bang bang bang. Not that there are any guns in Bohane -- technology has definitely reverted. The only photography is with "a medieval Leica", movies are on reels, and there are no motor vehicles.

A strength of Barry's is pacing -- at least at first. He's very good at ratcheting up the tension as a specific event approaches (gang war, festival), but not so much at resolving the situation, and a feeling of anticlimax pervades. There's a lot to like here, but this isn't totally successful.

Ordinarily, describing something as "post-apocalyptic" would send me screaming for the exits, but City of Bohane is interesting enough to keep me engaged. That said, I'm not sure there's a there here -- it's readable, but this almost reads like a prologue to something that never gets going.

In Watermelon Sugar

The second novel in this book is In Watermelon Sugar, which is a more interesting exercise than Trout Fishing in America, in my opinion. In Watermelon Sugar at least bears the pretense of being a novel, with characters and a plot, rather than random anecdotes from the author's past.

I'd read that Brautigan wasn't comfortable being characterized as a hippie writer, but this novel is set on a commune, for crying out loud (and that just shows how disconnected I am from the sixties, if I hear "commune" and immediately think "hippies", right?) Regardless, this really interesting and a little weird -- the commune has a strange name (iDeath) there are talking tigers (real tigers with the power of speech? People called "tigers"? Something else?), the Sun is a different color each day (and on one day, sound doesn't travel), the people make things with "watermelon sugar", and there's a junkyard-type place (ruins of a past civilization) called the Forgotten Works.

Narrated by an unnamed character, and contained all these fantastic happenings, this is an entertaining, poetically written novel that's a little heartbreaking and definitely unusual. Would recommend.

Trout Fishing in America

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America has one of the most hyperbolic blurbs I've ever seen:

"But there is nothing like Richard Brautigan anywhere. Perhaps, when we are very old, people will write 'Brautigans', just as we now write novels. Let us hope so. For this man has invented a genre, a whole new shot, a thing needed, delightful, and right . . ."

 The above is from the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle (what?) but still, wow. I can understand enjoying this novel more than I did. I can understand loving this novel. I can't understand the above reaction. Trout Fishing in America is a perfectly acceptable, engaging collection of anecdotes, featuring a nice sense of humor and easily digested prose, but I wouldn't say it's anything transcendent. Whether that says something about me, I wouldn't know.

Trout Fishing in America kinda reminds me of some of the works of Kurt Vonnegut, although Brautigan doesn't bother to create any characters to advance the plot -- the novel consists solely of stories of fishing, stories of the author's trip through the West with his wife and child, and reminisces from the past. It's an easy enough read that I'd definitely recommend it, although I wouldn't say it's particularly profound.

HHhH

Per Laurent Binet (in the text of the novel, no less!), HHhH was not his preferred title. ". . .I never thought of giving it any other title than Operation Anthropoid (and if that's not the title you see on the cover you will know that I gave in to the demands of my publisher, who didn't like it: too SF, too Robert Ludlum, apparently)." Ostensibly, it's the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech and Slovak resistance fighters. More accurately, it's the story of Binet researching, contemplating, and writing that story.

In this part of the review, I will explain who Reinhard Heydrich was, and why the Czechs wanted to kill him (well, they wanted to kill him because he was a Nazi, but there were many Nazis in the country at the time). I was dimly aware of Heydrich prior to reading this novel; this of course speaks not to Heydrich's obscurity, but to my appalling ignorance of the players in the Nazi regime. Anyway, Reinhard Heydrich, was at the time of his assassination Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (effectively military dictator, as the man he had replaced was sent on leave, due to what Hitler felt was a soft approach). Obviously, the Czechs and the Slovaks were less than thrilled about this. As if this wasn't bad enough, Heydrich was also in chief of an intelligence/counterintelligence organization (the SD), as well as the Gestapo. He had a significant hand in the Holocaust, as well. Overall, Heydrich just wasn't a nice guy.

HHhH (which takes its name from a contemporary German witticism meaning "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich") begins with Binet apologizing for fictionalizing a true story, and continues in that vein. Binet intersperses facts with speculation with commentary on Heydrich's place in the Nazi hierarchy, the background of Operation Anthropoid, the situation in Prague, and general World War II-era history. It's a quick, easy, and interesting read, one that I would recommend.

A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess seemed to think that his seminal novel A Clockwork Orange wouldn't be as remembered if it weren't for Stanley Kubrick's acclaimed film version. According to Burgess, his best-known work is a simple morality tale, and he was less than thrilled that a) the American publisher omitted his final chapter, and b) that his work was the basis for a film that appears to glorify sex and violence. Although Burgess would prefer his work to have been presented unbowdlerized, he's not enamored with it: "I should myself be glad to disown it for various reasons" and that the work is "too didactic to be artistic", he says in the introduction.

I don't think that Burgess' American publisher was wrong in thinking the twenty-first chapter was a sellout. Burgess himself admits that there was no hint of change in the previous chapter, nor in the rest of the proceeding book. So while the author may contend that the twenty-first chapter is necessary symbolically, morally, and from a storytelling perspective, it certainly feels tacked on as it's a massive change in direction from the remainder of the novel, particularly a novel that is broken into three sections. So on the one hand, I'm not particularly satisfied with the final chapter, due to its stark difference from the rest of the novel. However, as Burgess points out, omitting it leaves something that's less a novel and more a fable.

Overall, I'm glad to finally tick this off my list, but I can't say that this is something I much enjoyed.

Madeleine

Published after her death, this is Andre Gide's account of his marriage, as well as entries concerning his wife that had been excised from his published journals. Gide was relatively silent on his wife and his relationship with her while she was alive (indeed, it was only after her death that the general public became aware of her name, as she was always "Emmanuelle" in his writings) as she was relatively withdrawn and self-effacing. So this is the first look at an important part of the writer's life (which he termed "the central drama of my existence"). However, it's extraordinarily self-indulgent.

Madeleine is divided into three parts -- Et Nunc Manet in Te (from what may be Virgil. ". . .and now lives in you. . ." or something similar), the aforementioned journal entries (1916-1939), and a letter to an unidentified correspondent (who had apparently written Gide for advice on getting married. Alternatively, it's Gide writing to his younger self, which is may be too meta to be the case.)

Et Nunc Manet in Te is Gide's account of his marriage, in which he attempts to explain why he wanted to marry his cousin, and why he behaved the way he did. On the one hand, it's a revealing look into the Gide and his reasons. On the other, it's an autoapologetic that must omit much, as it never mentions his illegitimate daughter (!) with another woman. Even if one buys Gide's crocodile tears, it's cringe inducing. The following journal entries aren't all that illuminating (perhaps they're better if one has read Gide's journals), and the letter is short and quite relevant, if covered earlier. The prose is lovely, but I wish I'd never been aware of this.

Ilustrado

It begins with a body -- that of seminal Philippine writer Crispin Salvador floating in the Hudson. Ilustrado follows Salvador's protege (seemingly sharing a name with our author) in his investigation into Salvador's death (surely, his mentor couldn't have killed himself, our protagonist thinks). Syjuco interweaves that plotline with our protagonist's reminisces from childhood, interviews and essays by Salvador, Salvador's various fictions, daydreams of our narrator, and running Filipino jokes on an everyman from a particular background.

It's tough for me to square how I feel about this one -- it's an enjoyable, engaging novel, but at any point did I feel "I'm glad I read this" or "I can't wait to recommend this to someone", and I'm not quite sure that I did. Why did I feel that way? Was it that the mystery didn't quite grab me, but I didn't feel pulled into madness or confusion the way I often am with similar works? Was it that all the Filipino cultural references went over my head? Was it that the protagonist progressed to someone I had difficulty relating to? There's only so many characters with a bit of a drug habit I can stomach before I get bored.

So, yes, this is something I consider worth reading, but I don't know if it's something I'll ever come back to, or say "Hey, you should really check out Ilustrado!" I will give Syjuco points for a few gratuitous Borges references, particularly a book one character finds towards the denouement.

On the Road

Jack Kerouac's On the Road is one of those novels that I'd assumed would be assigned to me at some point in English class. It wasn't, and I've managed to put it off until now. I'd expected this to be a tedious read; this impression was due to being aware that Kerouac had originally typed the novel on one continuous scroll. Knowing this, I (erroneously) concluded that On the Road was a drug-induced frenzy of a novel, with exclamations galore, vague transitions, and endless hallucinatory passages. On this note, I was very mistaken; the novel is a pleasure to read, and Kerouac's occasional exuberance and general tone is, if not conversational, easy to digest.

Another way On the Road threw me was the fumbling towards adulthood of the characters, the growth shown by the Kerouac figure, in contrast with Dean Moriarty, who Kerouac begins obsessed with, before finally abandoning. Again, I'd thought the novel was about indulgence in hedonism and restlessness, rather than growing towards responsibility as one aged.

Overall, On the Road was like nothing I had expected, given what I'd thought of it, and was an enjoyable and worthwhile read, a worthy slice of Americana, &c &c

A Long Way Down

Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down is a (comic? attempted comic?) novel about suicide -- four strangers meet at the top of a high rise, on New Year's Eve, each planning to jump, each for different reasons.

Each chapter presents a separate character's viewpoint, so we get to get inside everyone's head. Unfortunately, none of the characters are all that distinct -- there's a mid-fifties ex-TV star, a mid-fifties mother of a disabled son, an early thirties American wannabe rock star, and a teenager. So in theory, four quite distinct personalities, both due to different generations and different circumstances. Of course, much of the insight comes from "you'd think people in my situation would feel this, but instead, I feel this," from each character, which is interesting the first dozen times, but drags a bit as it continues. And it certainly continues.

It's not that that this is a bad novel, as in ineptly executed -- I'm just not sure the way it treats suicides is . . .sensitive enough? Realistic enough? Compelling enough? The forced interaction between the characters can get painful at times. I'll give Hornby credit for not wrapping everything up with a neat little bow at the end (everything is fixed and it's like nothing ever happened!), but that's about it.

A Mencken Chrestomathy

Sweet merciful crap did it take me too long to finish this. H.L. Mencken is an American icon, but if this is him at his best, I'm not going to be inclined to seek out much more of his work. Mencken has a reputation as a gadfly, which is certainly fulfilled here, but there's also lots of conjecture, speculation without supporting evidence, and general orneriness. Mencken can certainly turn a phrase (a nice line to end another vignette I wasn’t enamored with: "if women, continuing their present tendency to its logical goal, end by going stark naked, there will be no more poets and painters, but only dermatologists."), but many of his sections (such as on the relations between men and women, quoted above) are embarrassingly outdated.

This isn't a difficult read in that it's dense, hard to follow, or challenging, but Mencken's style hasn't aged particularly well; he reads like an ancient hackle-raising columnist, which is exactly what he is at this point. One can certainly see why he was censured and denounced -- there's loads of inventive invective in here, but the actual ideas are usually pretty half-baked. Unfortunately, I like the idea of Mencken more than I like the reality -- taking potshots at America, American customs and peculiarities, and particular Americans sounds a lot more interesting in theory than what Henry Louis does in practice. I'd love to be proven wrong at some point, but after slogging through this lackluster anthology, I'd put that as unlikely.

To Die in Italbar

Roger Zelazny ranked To Die in Italbar as his worst novel, but I strongly disagree; I would give that title to the uninteresting Damnation Alley, which features little of what characterizes his better work -- that is, snappy dialog, an interesting protagonist, exotic locales, and fleshing out of setting and motive. All of that is present here, although this isn't nearly Lord of Light.

Zelazny begins the novel by dropping several different characters in unrelated settings on us, before finally tying them all together. It's a bit of an information dump (and several of the characters, notably our female protagonist) aren't very well fleshed out. Still, he shoves the story along quickly enough that it's hard to get too bogged down in that.

Probably the weakest area of the story is the motivation of the man who's the objective of the main characters; his reasoning is a little too capricious. Of course, it's demanded by the plot, and can be handwaved away with a little deus ex machina, so maybe not. (I do like Zelazny's concept there, although it's hurried, as he notes, and weakly fleshed out). The final conflict occurs offscreen, observed secondhand by the reader, which can work well as a device, and works tolerably here.

A fun, easy read, but not one of Zelazny's better works.

The Lost City of Z

David Grann's The Lost City of Z was widely praised, and I can certainly see why -- Grann keeps the narrative moving, while skipping between his experiences, and those of Colonel Percy Fawcett, one of the final figures of the Age of Exploration, who disappeared somewhere in the Amazonian jungle looking for the remnants of an ancient civilization. (Or not so ancient, a contemporary of the Maya, the Inca, and the Aztecs.)

Probably the best point of the book was how interweaving Fawcett's and Grann's story allowed Fawcett to slowly come into the foreground; in the beginning, he looks like a quietly competent man, the last of the Victorian era explorers. By the end, he seems like a madman on a spiritual, rather than a scientific, quest. The weakest point was that the long winding up was unable to produce a satisfying conclusion -- Grann spends the entire book working up to his Amazon trip, and then nearly immediately comes to a conclusion. While he's able to tie this in with the end of Fawcett's story, it feels rushed, pat, and not fleshed out. (Of course, given that Fawcett disappeared ~80 years before Grann began the project, in a jungle, Grann was unlikely to find anything other than he did, which is old Indian legends).

Overall, this is a fun pop-archaeology/anthropology/history book, with an interesting hook.