Unemployed Booklog
Aug. 12th, 2008 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneThanks, everyone, for the kind words and support regarding my job situation. I’m…dealing, I guess. The worst part (semi-ridiculously) is realizing all the things I had on my work computer that I lost. I knew that I had lost music—anybody got any Death Cab For Cutie, Goldfrapp, or Feist albums they wanna share with me (or Feist’s live version of “I Feel It All” from The Colbert Report)?—but I figured out for sure yesterday that I had lost quite a bit of writing. Both fanfic and original stuff—gone. I know it was stupid to keep it all on a computer that wasn’t really mine without backups, but I never thought—well, I never thought this would happen, did I?
Anyway, one of the things that I did have a backup of (*headesk*) was my booklog, so:
122. Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain — This was enjoyably dishy (haha, do you see what I did there?). Bourdain may be a major bullshit artist, but for the most part, it’s highly entertaining bullshit, so I don’t really care. I did think the book really lost focus at the end and goes on quite a bit too long, but overall I found this to be an interesting read about a fascinating industry.
123. Life Class, Pat Barker — I love the Regeneration trilogy so much, but I just can’t get into Barker’s other work. Her latest novel struck me as weirdly unfocused: the first half follows Paul through art school and various romantic assignations, including a quasi love triangle thing; I didn’t find it particularly compelling. Even after Paul goes to war as an ambulance driver and hospital worker, I couldn’t latch on—I was never at all invested or even particularly interested in Paul and Elinor as a couple, and I felt at times that I was reading the notes for the novel, instead of the finished thing. At one point, for example, Paul thinks about how much he’d come to love a fallen comrade, and all I could think was—what? When did that happen? We’re never shown, and I found it frustrating that so much of the action—the emotional action, even—was taking place off screen.
I don’t know. The Regeneration books are still really, incredibly good. This just…isn’t.
124. Fun Home, Allison Bechdel — Really fantastic graphic novel about Bechdel dealing with her father’s (possible) suicide, learning that he spent most of his life in the closet, and discovering and embracing her own sexuality. There’s a lot that’s great about this book, but I think my favorite thing was the way Bechdel used literature—her father was an English teacher and a big reader—to illustrate aspects of her story. She draws parallels between works such as Ulysses, The Remembrance of Things Past, and The Great Gatsby and her father’s life and death in ways that are really smart and illuminating; the ways literature helped Bechdel along her own, much more open (and hopefully happy) path are also explored—I, for one, will never be able to read James and the Giant Peach the same way again. This is definitely up there with Maus and Persepolis on my list of favorite graphic novels.
125. The Long Walk, Stephen King — Good pulpy fun. I wish the alternate history had been a little more developed and that the ending hadn’t been, in typical Stephen King fashion, a rushed lame letdown, but this was still suspenseful and psychologically fascinating from start to (almost) finish. I read it in one sitting, which makes me totally as hardcore as the characters in this book who all walk themselves to death, right?
126. Red Seas Under Red Skies, Scott Lynch — The second installment in the Gentleman Bastards sequence is another adventure that can only be described as “rollicking.” Like Siria, I can see that this book had some rather obvious flaws—namely, as she says, one character’s incredibly clichéd arc and the fact that the book kind of feels like two different novels stuck together with sticky tape. However, both of these novels—especially the second one (omg pirates yay!)—are just so much fun, and I love Locke and Jean. (I would also love some Locke/Jean—anyone? Bueller?) Lynch’s worldbuilding continues to be fantastic, and, well— I can’t wait for the next one.
127. The Man Who Folded Himself, David Gerrold — This is a hard book to review, because from what I’ve heard/read/absorbed through fannish osmosis, this book has been influential in inspiring/shaping a lot of time travel narratives since it was first published in 1973. Unfortunately, a lot of what was once innovative now seems old hat—I’m not sure anything featured in this book was new to me. So I guess I appreciate it, intellectually, but on its own it didn’t do much for me.
I knew all the major things that were going to happen from the beginning, and I enjoyed some of them more than others (a lot of other reviewers seem skeeved by the protagonist having a lot of sex with himself, which frankly sort of puzzles/amuses me—but then I guess I am a big old perv, so perhaps I should envy them their innocence). The knotty logic of how the various time jumps affect everything eventually gave me a bit of a headache; I still don’t understand all the intricacies of it, really, nor can I be sure it actually works, although this is all so theoretical that I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’ve actually gotten much more pleasure out of time travel narratives that make much less sense—Terminator, Back to the Future, etc. This book is really more of an intellectual exercise than a fun story, and again, I see why that was important, but now that the groundwork’s been laid, I didn’t find it terribly exciting.
Also, the protagonist’s kind of an idiot. If I wanted someone to pen an article entitled, “How Not to Have Any Fun at All With Your Awesome Time Travel Belt,” I’d totally look to him to write it.
And speaking of idiocy…I really wish the copy of this that I got off BookMooch hadn’t been the 20th anniversary edition. Because “anniversary edition” turns out to mean “updated edition.” I hate this trend of “updating” books so that newer readers only have to be exposed to books that take place in their present, instead of in the time they were written. One of the things that I love about older books is that they’re artifacts of their times—I want all the crazy clothing trends! The pop culture references! The outdated political concerns! (I also feel, on some level, that it’s insanely stupid to do this to a time travel novel. Or is it just really meta?) I don’t need to read a book that I’ve tried to get into a ’70s mindset to enjoy, only to be confronted with a reference to 9/11.
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that this is a good book to read if you’re trying to learn about the history and development of science fiction, but if you’re just looking for a fun yarn, you should search elsewhere. And I suppose I could go back in time to say that much more succinctly, but we all know that WOULDN’T END WELL, would it?
128. Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik — Another fabulous addition to this series. This one didn’t quite blow me away as much as the last one (oh god, that ending! Still not over it), but it’s really excellent—and dark in a way I appreciate. My one wish is that after her fabulous introduction, Novik had managed to do even more with Perscitia; I’m worried that, considering the way this volume ends, she won’t be in the next one much. Moar Perscitia, plz!
129. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party, M.T. Anderson — This is a brilliant book. Truly, truly brilliant—full of important ideas and hard truths about slavery and freedom, and about the essential core of what America was built on, and for. Furthermore, it’s incredibly well-written, with not one but several unique narrative voices, and a wonderful flair for subtle, chilling symbolism.
It is also so fucking painful I could barely get through it.
The reality of Octavian’s situation—as slave, as experiment—is so brutal that I had to force myself to keep reading. I just wanted it to stop. I don’t think this makes this book any less of an achievement on Anderson’s part, but god does it scare me when I think about reading the sequel or recommending this book to other people.
I did, however, tell the Los Angeles Public Library that I thought its decision to shelve this book under fantasy was either idiotic or offensive. We may like to pretend these things aren’t part of our history—or at least don’t really like to think about them, as my shuddery reaction surely indicates—but it’s important, every once in a while, to be reminded. Anderson does that, not just intellectually, but emotionally. It’s commendable.
130. Personal Days, Ed Park — It would be hard at this point, I think, to talk about Personal Days without also talking about Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came to the End, as they’re both novels about office life in failing companies, are both written at least partially in the first person plural, and came out within a year of each other. Then We Came to the End was fortunate enough to have come out first. I feel really bad for Ed Park, getting scooped like that. Both novels are good, though—just in different ways. However, I do think Then We Came to the End is better.
Personal Days is possibly funnier. The first section—the first person plural one—is pretty hilarious. The tone gets darker as the book progresses—it in fact ends with an almost literal Jonah-in-the-belly-of-the-whale section (seriously. A character in named Jonah writes the last section while trapped in an elevator), a stream-of-consciousness Molly Bloom’s soliloquy kind of thing, which I always seem to enjoy even though pastiches of that kind are perhaps becoming overused. (Darn it. I still want the opportunity to do one myself.) However, I felt like we never really get to know the characters to the extent that’s necessary in order for this climax to have the impact it needs—a lot of the female characters, for example, seemed the same to me, to the point that I got confused several times regarding which ones were which, or even how many there were. Even Pru, clearly meant to be the most dynamic, didn’t really stand out to me; I got very little sense of her inner life at all. I think the comparative flatness of the characters is why Personal Days ultimately didn’t move me as much as Then We Came to the End.
The corporate sabotage plot also struck me as convoluted and rather unrealistic in what’s otherwise trying to be a realistic novel; of course the same could—and should—be said about the fake shooting in Then We Came to the End. I guess both authors caved to the pressure a little when it came to trying to maintain a lifelike narrative and still keep things interesting.
I’m glad I read both books, though. If I had to pick just one to recommend to someone who really felt they only had room in their life for one comic office novel, yes, I would pick Ferris’ version. But I’m happy to clear space on my shelf for both, just as there’s room in my DVD cabinet for both the British and the American The Office.
ETA: I wrote this review right after I read the book, and posting it now, the irony of the fact that I read this book just a few days before being laid off myself isn’t lost on me. I even cited it to my coworker (who was also laid off) as an excuse for my nervousness when I received the email calling us into the meeting where they fired us. I guess it’s not paranoia if…blah blah blah.
131. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart — From a bare-bones plot summary—a young sophomore infiltrates a secret society at her elite private school, blah blah—this book could easily be mistaken for generic YA fiction. This is unfortunate, because what Lockhart has actually written is a wonderful, vivid, funny, feminist antidote to miserable tripe like Twilight. This book is about Frankie, newly pretty after a summer’s growth spurt, returning to school to find that the popular boys are suddenly interested in her—and that none of them even remember the geeky ghost she was the year before. Frankie hooks up with Golden Boy Matthew—who Lockhart does a great job making realistically appealing as well as realistically flawed—but soon realizes that she could all-too-easily let herself be consumed by the force of her boyfriend’s personality and his powerful friends. Frankie refuses to be controlled, refuses to just be someone’s arm candy, and I absolutely adore her for it. She’s smart and knows it, but now that she’s becoming aware that she can be pretty and sexually confident, too, she’s not willing to sacrifice her smarts and just be either of those things, or slot herself neatly into the roles her school allots for women. She’s like the anti-Bella. I’d love to read about her snubbing vampires and fighting crime. She absolutely rocks.
Anyone who thought Twilight offered a good role model or an important narrative for women needs to read this book. Or else be smacked over the head with it.
132. The Nick Adams Stories, Ernest Hemingway — Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories were originally published scattered through several collections, and never in anything approaching chronological order; this collection attempts to gather them all together, along with some unpublished stories and snippets, and arrange them so that the narrative moves through Nick’s life—from when he’s a very young boy to when he’s a father of a young son himself. The result was…disappointing. At least to me. I feel the need to qualify these negative statements more than I perhaps usually would, because I am (over)aware of these stories’ status as classics. But in general they just didn’t do much for me.
I know Nick is meant to be an everyman—a clear stand-in for Hemingway himself—but I think Hemingway’s definition of an everyman and mine—and the modern definition, in fact—are very far apart. Thus, I felt I really couldn’t get a handle on him. Hemingway’s writing is very understated; he likes to expose flashes of hidden depths while staying on the surface of things. It didn’t work for me as well in these stories, however, as it does in, say, The Sun Also Rises. Maybe, as a novel, that book allows more time to understand all the things that aren’t being said—to really plumb the subtext. Maybe if I had worked harder, I would have found that here. But Nick stayed pretty obtuse to me. The fact that, despite its claims, this collection’s chronology seemed really iffy to me probably didn’t help.
My favorite parts were the stories where Nick is simply out in the wilderness, being wonderfully competent, and any time Hemingway writes about food. His descriptions of cooking and eating are really some of the best. I’m still drooling at just the thought of a fresh-fried trout.
But then Hemingway’s racism/sexism/whatever would kick back in, and I’d have to grit my teeth to keep reading. Hemingway’s casual use of the N-word in the narration—not even from a character’s mouth, but in the 3rd person narration—really shocked me. I’m not really sure why—I know he was a racist dick—but I was still taken aback.
In a way, parts of this book reminded me of the car magazines where I work: homophobic, and yet at the same time, so hilariously homosocial, it’s ridiculous. My coworkers will turn in copy full of references to shafts, trannies, and lube; Hemingway has one story in here in which Nick callously dumps his girlfriend, then casually greets his friend Bill, who’s been waiting and whose attitude is like, “Oh, good, you got rid of her. Let’s screw—I mean, fish. Our manly bonding activity of fishing is in no way a substitute for boffing like crazy.” Haha, sure. Whatever, dude.
I guess what I’m really saying is, I wish Hemingway had just manned up and written a cookbook.
133. American Nerd, Benjamin Nugent — This book should really be titled Male American Nerd. Female nerds (or geeks or dorks or what have you—but let’s stick with Nugent’s terminology) are glossed over when they’re mentioned at all. Aside from a little bit about Saturday Night Live’s Lisa Loopner and four paragraphs—count ’em, four!—about yaoi, nerdy women are only really referenced in the context of “there were a couple of women there, but it was mostly all men.” The far more present female figures are some of Nugent’s childhood friends’ horrible, abusive mothers.
I simply don’t believe that there are as few examples of female nerdiness as Nugent depicts. He focuses a lot on gaming—Halo and D&D—which may be a limiting factor; it’s possible that most female nerds gravitate to things like TV and movie and book fandoms (although I do know plenty of female gamers). More likely, I think, he just isn’t that interested in female nerds—no one seems to be. We’re invisible. Like ninjas.
Anyway, even aside from this complaint, I just wasn’t particularly enchanted by this book. There were some interesting, well-researched sections—the chapter on how perceptions of race relate to perceptions of nerdiness was thought-provoking—but I was never sure what Nugent’s thesis actually was. Furthermore, the scope seemed needlessly narrow (Star Wars and Star Trek are barely mentioned—instead we’re treated to the umpteenth chapter on D&D; the internet’s barely a factor, either, aside from an acknowledgement that Halo can be played via it) and the tone throughout was dour. “I will take a serious approach to a subject usually treated lightly, which is a nerdy thing to do,” Nugent says early on—and that’s actually one of the funniest lines in the book. But I don’t think a book about nerdiness can really be complete without some discussion of or reference to nerdy joy—we’re not all in this just for the social ostracism and atomic wedgies, after all. Nugent, however, seems for the most part only interested in nerdy sorrow, coupled with a heaping helping of ex-nerdy guilt.
I’m still waiting for a well-rounded book on this subject. This wasn’t it.
Total Books: 133
Anyway, one of the things that I did have a backup of (*headesk*) was my booklog, so:
122. Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain — This was enjoyably dishy (haha, do you see what I did there?). Bourdain may be a major bullshit artist, but for the most part, it’s highly entertaining bullshit, so I don’t really care. I did think the book really lost focus at the end and goes on quite a bit too long, but overall I found this to be an interesting read about a fascinating industry.
123. Life Class, Pat Barker — I love the Regeneration trilogy so much, but I just can’t get into Barker’s other work. Her latest novel struck me as weirdly unfocused: the first half follows Paul through art school and various romantic assignations, including a quasi love triangle thing; I didn’t find it particularly compelling. Even after Paul goes to war as an ambulance driver and hospital worker, I couldn’t latch on—I was never at all invested or even particularly interested in Paul and Elinor as a couple, and I felt at times that I was reading the notes for the novel, instead of the finished thing. At one point, for example, Paul thinks about how much he’d come to love a fallen comrade, and all I could think was—what? When did that happen? We’re never shown, and I found it frustrating that so much of the action—the emotional action, even—was taking place off screen.
I don’t know. The Regeneration books are still really, incredibly good. This just…isn’t.
124. Fun Home, Allison Bechdel — Really fantastic graphic novel about Bechdel dealing with her father’s (possible) suicide, learning that he spent most of his life in the closet, and discovering and embracing her own sexuality. There’s a lot that’s great about this book, but I think my favorite thing was the way Bechdel used literature—her father was an English teacher and a big reader—to illustrate aspects of her story. She draws parallels between works such as Ulysses, The Remembrance of Things Past, and The Great Gatsby and her father’s life and death in ways that are really smart and illuminating; the ways literature helped Bechdel along her own, much more open (and hopefully happy) path are also explored—I, for one, will never be able to read James and the Giant Peach the same way again. This is definitely up there with Maus and Persepolis on my list of favorite graphic novels.
125. The Long Walk, Stephen King — Good pulpy fun. I wish the alternate history had been a little more developed and that the ending hadn’t been, in typical Stephen King fashion, a rushed lame letdown, but this was still suspenseful and psychologically fascinating from start to (almost) finish. I read it in one sitting, which makes me totally as hardcore as the characters in this book who all walk themselves to death, right?
126. Red Seas Under Red Skies, Scott Lynch — The second installment in the Gentleman Bastards sequence is another adventure that can only be described as “rollicking.” Like Siria, I can see that this book had some rather obvious flaws—namely, as she says, one character’s incredibly clichéd arc and the fact that the book kind of feels like two different novels stuck together with sticky tape. However, both of these novels—especially the second one (omg pirates yay!)—are just so much fun, and I love Locke and Jean. (I would also love some Locke/Jean—anyone? Bueller?) Lynch’s worldbuilding continues to be fantastic, and, well— I can’t wait for the next one.
127. The Man Who Folded Himself, David Gerrold — This is a hard book to review, because from what I’ve heard/read/absorbed through fannish osmosis, this book has been influential in inspiring/shaping a lot of time travel narratives since it was first published in 1973. Unfortunately, a lot of what was once innovative now seems old hat—I’m not sure anything featured in this book was new to me. So I guess I appreciate it, intellectually, but on its own it didn’t do much for me.
I knew all the major things that were going to happen from the beginning, and I enjoyed some of them more than others (a lot of other reviewers seem skeeved by the protagonist having a lot of sex with himself, which frankly sort of puzzles/amuses me—but then I guess I am a big old perv, so perhaps I should envy them their innocence). The knotty logic of how the various time jumps affect everything eventually gave me a bit of a headache; I still don’t understand all the intricacies of it, really, nor can I be sure it actually works, although this is all so theoretical that I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’ve actually gotten much more pleasure out of time travel narratives that make much less sense—Terminator, Back to the Future, etc. This book is really more of an intellectual exercise than a fun story, and again, I see why that was important, but now that the groundwork’s been laid, I didn’t find it terribly exciting.
Also, the protagonist’s kind of an idiot. If I wanted someone to pen an article entitled, “How Not to Have Any Fun at All With Your Awesome Time Travel Belt,” I’d totally look to him to write it.
And speaking of idiocy…I really wish the copy of this that I got off BookMooch hadn’t been the 20th anniversary edition. Because “anniversary edition” turns out to mean “updated edition.” I hate this trend of “updating” books so that newer readers only have to be exposed to books that take place in their present, instead of in the time they were written. One of the things that I love about older books is that they’re artifacts of their times—I want all the crazy clothing trends! The pop culture references! The outdated political concerns! (I also feel, on some level, that it’s insanely stupid to do this to a time travel novel. Or is it just really meta?) I don’t need to read a book that I’ve tried to get into a ’70s mindset to enjoy, only to be confronted with a reference to 9/11.
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that this is a good book to read if you’re trying to learn about the history and development of science fiction, but if you’re just looking for a fun yarn, you should search elsewhere. And I suppose I could go back in time to say that much more succinctly, but we all know that WOULDN’T END WELL, would it?
128. Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik — Another fabulous addition to this series. This one didn’t quite blow me away as much as the last one (oh god, that ending! Still not over it), but it’s really excellent—and dark in a way I appreciate. My one wish is that after her fabulous introduction, Novik had managed to do even more with Perscitia; I’m worried that, considering the way this volume ends, she won’t be in the next one much. Moar Perscitia, plz!
129. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party, M.T. Anderson — This is a brilliant book. Truly, truly brilliant—full of important ideas and hard truths about slavery and freedom, and about the essential core of what America was built on, and for. Furthermore, it’s incredibly well-written, with not one but several unique narrative voices, and a wonderful flair for subtle, chilling symbolism.
It is also so fucking painful I could barely get through it.
The reality of Octavian’s situation—as slave, as experiment—is so brutal that I had to force myself to keep reading. I just wanted it to stop. I don’t think this makes this book any less of an achievement on Anderson’s part, but god does it scare me when I think about reading the sequel or recommending this book to other people.
I did, however, tell the Los Angeles Public Library that I thought its decision to shelve this book under fantasy was either idiotic or offensive. We may like to pretend these things aren’t part of our history—or at least don’t really like to think about them, as my shuddery reaction surely indicates—but it’s important, every once in a while, to be reminded. Anderson does that, not just intellectually, but emotionally. It’s commendable.
130. Personal Days, Ed Park — It would be hard at this point, I think, to talk about Personal Days without also talking about Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came to the End, as they’re both novels about office life in failing companies, are both written at least partially in the first person plural, and came out within a year of each other. Then We Came to the End was fortunate enough to have come out first. I feel really bad for Ed Park, getting scooped like that. Both novels are good, though—just in different ways. However, I do think Then We Came to the End is better.
Personal Days is possibly funnier. The first section—the first person plural one—is pretty hilarious. The tone gets darker as the book progresses—it in fact ends with an almost literal Jonah-in-the-belly-of-the-whale section (seriously. A character in named Jonah writes the last section while trapped in an elevator), a stream-of-consciousness Molly Bloom’s soliloquy kind of thing, which I always seem to enjoy even though pastiches of that kind are perhaps becoming overused. (Darn it. I still want the opportunity to do one myself.) However, I felt like we never really get to know the characters to the extent that’s necessary in order for this climax to have the impact it needs—a lot of the female characters, for example, seemed the same to me, to the point that I got confused several times regarding which ones were which, or even how many there were. Even Pru, clearly meant to be the most dynamic, didn’t really stand out to me; I got very little sense of her inner life at all. I think the comparative flatness of the characters is why Personal Days ultimately didn’t move me as much as Then We Came to the End.
The corporate sabotage plot also struck me as convoluted and rather unrealistic in what’s otherwise trying to be a realistic novel; of course the same could—and should—be said about the fake shooting in Then We Came to the End. I guess both authors caved to the pressure a little when it came to trying to maintain a lifelike narrative and still keep things interesting.
I’m glad I read both books, though. If I had to pick just one to recommend to someone who really felt they only had room in their life for one comic office novel, yes, I would pick Ferris’ version. But I’m happy to clear space on my shelf for both, just as there’s room in my DVD cabinet for both the British and the American The Office.
ETA: I wrote this review right after I read the book, and posting it now, the irony of the fact that I read this book just a few days before being laid off myself isn’t lost on me. I even cited it to my coworker (who was also laid off) as an excuse for my nervousness when I received the email calling us into the meeting where they fired us. I guess it’s not paranoia if…blah blah blah.
131. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart — From a bare-bones plot summary—a young sophomore infiltrates a secret society at her elite private school, blah blah—this book could easily be mistaken for generic YA fiction. This is unfortunate, because what Lockhart has actually written is a wonderful, vivid, funny, feminist antidote to miserable tripe like Twilight. This book is about Frankie, newly pretty after a summer’s growth spurt, returning to school to find that the popular boys are suddenly interested in her—and that none of them even remember the geeky ghost she was the year before. Frankie hooks up with Golden Boy Matthew—who Lockhart does a great job making realistically appealing as well as realistically flawed—but soon realizes that she could all-too-easily let herself be consumed by the force of her boyfriend’s personality and his powerful friends. Frankie refuses to be controlled, refuses to just be someone’s arm candy, and I absolutely adore her for it. She’s smart and knows it, but now that she’s becoming aware that she can be pretty and sexually confident, too, she’s not willing to sacrifice her smarts and just be either of those things, or slot herself neatly into the roles her school allots for women. She’s like the anti-Bella. I’d love to read about her snubbing vampires and fighting crime. She absolutely rocks.
Anyone who thought Twilight offered a good role model or an important narrative for women needs to read this book. Or else be smacked over the head with it.
132. The Nick Adams Stories, Ernest Hemingway — Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories were originally published scattered through several collections, and never in anything approaching chronological order; this collection attempts to gather them all together, along with some unpublished stories and snippets, and arrange them so that the narrative moves through Nick’s life—from when he’s a very young boy to when he’s a father of a young son himself. The result was…disappointing. At least to me. I feel the need to qualify these negative statements more than I perhaps usually would, because I am (over)aware of these stories’ status as classics. But in general they just didn’t do much for me.
I know Nick is meant to be an everyman—a clear stand-in for Hemingway himself—but I think Hemingway’s definition of an everyman and mine—and the modern definition, in fact—are very far apart. Thus, I felt I really couldn’t get a handle on him. Hemingway’s writing is very understated; he likes to expose flashes of hidden depths while staying on the surface of things. It didn’t work for me as well in these stories, however, as it does in, say, The Sun Also Rises. Maybe, as a novel, that book allows more time to understand all the things that aren’t being said—to really plumb the subtext. Maybe if I had worked harder, I would have found that here. But Nick stayed pretty obtuse to me. The fact that, despite its claims, this collection’s chronology seemed really iffy to me probably didn’t help.
My favorite parts were the stories where Nick is simply out in the wilderness, being wonderfully competent, and any time Hemingway writes about food. His descriptions of cooking and eating are really some of the best. I’m still drooling at just the thought of a fresh-fried trout.
But then Hemingway’s racism/sexism/whatever would kick back in, and I’d have to grit my teeth to keep reading. Hemingway’s casual use of the N-word in the narration—not even from a character’s mouth, but in the 3rd person narration—really shocked me. I’m not really sure why—I know he was a racist dick—but I was still taken aback.
In a way, parts of this book reminded me of the car magazines where I work: homophobic, and yet at the same time, so hilariously homosocial, it’s ridiculous. My coworkers will turn in copy full of references to shafts, trannies, and lube; Hemingway has one story in here in which Nick callously dumps his girlfriend, then casually greets his friend Bill, who’s been waiting and whose attitude is like, “Oh, good, you got rid of her. Let’s screw—I mean, fish. Our manly bonding activity of fishing is in no way a substitute for boffing like crazy.” Haha, sure. Whatever, dude.
I guess what I’m really saying is, I wish Hemingway had just manned up and written a cookbook.
133. American Nerd, Benjamin Nugent — This book should really be titled Male American Nerd. Female nerds (or geeks or dorks or what have you—but let’s stick with Nugent’s terminology) are glossed over when they’re mentioned at all. Aside from a little bit about Saturday Night Live’s Lisa Loopner and four paragraphs—count ’em, four!—about yaoi, nerdy women are only really referenced in the context of “there were a couple of women there, but it was mostly all men.” The far more present female figures are some of Nugent’s childhood friends’ horrible, abusive mothers.
I simply don’t believe that there are as few examples of female nerdiness as Nugent depicts. He focuses a lot on gaming—Halo and D&D—which may be a limiting factor; it’s possible that most female nerds gravitate to things like TV and movie and book fandoms (although I do know plenty of female gamers). More likely, I think, he just isn’t that interested in female nerds—no one seems to be. We’re invisible. Like ninjas.
Anyway, even aside from this complaint, I just wasn’t particularly enchanted by this book. There were some interesting, well-researched sections—the chapter on how perceptions of race relate to perceptions of nerdiness was thought-provoking—but I was never sure what Nugent’s thesis actually was. Furthermore, the scope seemed needlessly narrow (Star Wars and Star Trek are barely mentioned—instead we’re treated to the umpteenth chapter on D&D; the internet’s barely a factor, either, aside from an acknowledgement that Halo can be played via it) and the tone throughout was dour. “I will take a serious approach to a subject usually treated lightly, which is a nerdy thing to do,” Nugent says early on—and that’s actually one of the funniest lines in the book. But I don’t think a book about nerdiness can really be complete without some discussion of or reference to nerdy joy—we’re not all in this just for the social ostracism and atomic wedgies, after all. Nugent, however, seems for the most part only interested in nerdy sorrow, coupled with a heaping helping of ex-nerdy guilt.
I’m still waiting for a well-rounded book on this subject. This wasn’t it.
Total Books: 133
