F U, Booklog
Jan. 7th, 2010 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneWow, was this ever not a highly intellectual stretch of reading. I think this particular log covers the last week of August into the beginning of September; I wonder what other thing I could possibly have been so focused on? ;-)
141. Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser — The first short story in this book set the tone for the entire collection: it had an interesting concept, it was well-written, and it went on way, way too long. For the first few stories, the process repeated: Millhauser hooked me, then lost me. By the time I reached the end of the book, I just wanted it to be over: all the stories had begun to seem the same. So much white boy angst, so many poorly (or barely) written female characters, and the good stuff—Millhauser’s sparks of ideas that are at times quite brilliant—buried under repetitive scenarios that you wish, like an overlong movie scene, had terminated just a few crucial pages/minutes/cycles earlier. This book needed a strong editor’s hand and clearly did not get it.
142. Priest: Vol. 1, Min-Woo Hyung — Potentially fun zombie supernatural steampunk western, ruined by the world’s longest slowest fight scene. With pacing like this to look forward to, I suspect I’ll be just as pokey when it comes to picking up the next volume.
143. Bitten, Ed. by Susie Bright — Why do I find published erotica so boring, and dirty fanfic so endlessly entertaining? Well, I suppose one theory could be that few erotic authors seem to do much to make me care about their characters, and I am a big girl who needs her porn to pack some emotional wallop. Possibly true! But also, most of these stories—as with most of the erotica I've read—are just not hot. I guess my kinks just do not line up very well with the rest of the erotica-reading world? This collection was better than the last one I read. I am intrigued by the blending of horror and sex, and a few of the stories in this book pulled off something interesting with the combo. This book is also beautifully designed, which is one of the main reasons I picked it up. (I think you're allowed to be shallow when reading about sex.)
The other reason I picked it up is that it has a story by Supernatural writer Sera Gamble in it. I don't think I'm letting any sort of bias/developing girlcrush affect me when I say that it's the standout tale. Actual characters and plot and thinky thoughts! Plus sex. That's how it should be done, guys.
144. F U, Penguin, Matthew Gasteier — One of the funnier blog-related books I’ve read/flipped through, I think because Gasteier finds sufficient different ways to approach his subject—those goddamn manipulative cute animals—and thus keeps the humor from becoming one note. Plus I just find his angry/exasperated tone to be amusing. Is there something Mishaish about it? POSSIBLY.
145. Amulet: The Stonekeeper’s Curse, Kazu Kibuishi — The second volume of Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet series is even better than the first. Everything that got set up in the original book—robots! tentacle monsters! an epic quest in a cool, steampunky realm threatened by evil elves!—starts to pay off here as Emily, the young heroine, struggles with the power granted her by the titular amulet. Kibuishi's colorful, manga-inspired art is simple but expressive, and as the plot kicks into gear, he continues to surprise. This is a great example of an author taking familiar fantasy tropes and making them his own—and a joy to read besides.
146. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Bryan Lee O’Malley — Funny and cute Canadian slacker/hipster manga. Not as jaw-droppingly awesome as reviews had led me to believe, but that’s hype for you. And now of course they’re making a movie, with (of course) Michael Cera as the star.
Is it worth it for me to try to track down the other volumes? I liked this, but they’re like $12 a pop and take me an hour to read. Please justify my spending habits for me, kthx.
147. Juliet, Naked, Nick Hornby — You can really tell that it's been 15 years since Nick Hornby wrote High Fidelity, and I mean that in the best possible way. Though I've always liked Hornby's writing—he's funny, he creates rich characters and never caricatures, and he's one of the few writers I can think of who tackles the topics of fannishness and obsession—High Fidelity, his first novel—and, according to many of my male friends, his best—has always bugged me a bit. The attitudes, especially toward women, of Rob and his friends are so condescending and creepy to me, and while the book doesn't actively endorse them, it (by which I mean, its author) still seems to let them slide with a shrug and a "what can you do?" I still remember a scene toward the end of the book where one of Rob's friends is introducing his new girlfriend around, with the line [from memory, heavily paraphrased], "She used to like Simple Minds, but she understands now why that's wrong." I find this to be an entirely accurate depiction of a lot of geeky guys' attitudes toward women, yet I can't stumble across it without Hulking out a little bit.
But 15 years later, you've got Juliet, Naked, which explores the darker side of that kind of dude—and doesn't let him get away with it. The dude in question this time is Duncan, who's obsessed with the reclusive and verging-on-forgotten musician Tucker Crowe. Duncan expounds at length on Tucker Crowe internet message boards about his favorite artist, in an "everyone's entitled to their own opinion and yours is wrong" kind of way. Wrong especially, in his mind, is his girlfriend Annie, who disagrees with him about the new bare-bones release of Crowe's last recording—a disagreement that's enough to make both Annie and Duncan realize they maybe aren't in love with each other anymore.
And then Tucker Crowe starts emailing Annie.
What impresses me so much about Hornby is that he understands the internet, and fannishness, and obsession, and regret—and not only that, he captures all of them really well. He understands people, and his warm, funny prose easily carries the narrative past some of the more Dickensian plot points. (I know from reading Hornby's Believer columns that he's a big fan of Chuck D., so I'm sure he'd be happy to hear that.) This book is a much more mature answer to High Fidelity, and I think it's easily my favorite of his novels to date. I really, really liked it—not enough to write thousands of words dissecting its every nuance on the internet, but I think we can all agree that that is ultimately a good thing.
148. The Bible Salesman, Clyde Edgerton — I think David Sedaris is hilarious, but I should try to remember that whenever he blurbs a book as being the funniest thing he's ever read or whatever, I will at best find it quietly amusing. That was all right in the case of Jincy Willett's Jenny and the Jaws of Life—which, despite not being uproarious as Sedaris claims (it's actually kind of depressing), has other redeeming qualities, such as being really, really interesting. This book...not so much. It's an ambling Southern tale, set in the 1950s, and at times it is, indeed, sort of quietly amusing. There are also occasionally interesting ruminations on religion, but none of that really goes anywhere, nor do the periodic flashbacks build to much of anything. The whole thing had a sort of "huh" effect on me--I wasn't offended or anything, but I don't think I feel any different having read this book than I would have if I'd left it on the shelf.
149. The Guinea Pig Diaries, A.J. Jacobs — I suppose you either like A.J. Jacobs’ approach to journalism or you don’t: he comes up with a somewhat outlandish concept and then experiments on himself, reading the Encyclopedia Britannica in a year (The Know-It-All) or following the Bible, um, religiously (The Year of Living Biblically). I think he’s really funny, and often interesting, and occasionally even insightful, so I enjoyed this collection of short pieces. If you like his sort of thing, you’ll like this; if you don’t, you won’t.
If you don’t know yet, I recommend trying The Know-It-All, as it’s still my favorite.
150. Shoplifting From American Apparel, Tao Lin — What’s the line between simply depicting meaningless hipster ennui and skewering it? If you just throw emptiness out there on the page, however skillfully, can it possibly rise above emptiness? Lin dances around those questions in this novella. His characters are wholly believable, but I sort of hated them; this is a tale, told about idiots, signifying nothing. There’s not even any sound and fury. I don’t care if it is ultimately reduced to the same thing: I still want that sound and fury.
Lin’s last line is brilliant, however. I would go so far as to say it elevates the whole thing. But I still think it may have worked better as a short story. So perhaps I should read some of Lin’s short stories.
Total Reviews: 150/210
141. Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser — The first short story in this book set the tone for the entire collection: it had an interesting concept, it was well-written, and it went on way, way too long. For the first few stories, the process repeated: Millhauser hooked me, then lost me. By the time I reached the end of the book, I just wanted it to be over: all the stories had begun to seem the same. So much white boy angst, so many poorly (or barely) written female characters, and the good stuff—Millhauser’s sparks of ideas that are at times quite brilliant—buried under repetitive scenarios that you wish, like an overlong movie scene, had terminated just a few crucial pages/minutes/cycles earlier. This book needed a strong editor’s hand and clearly did not get it.
142. Priest: Vol. 1, Min-Woo Hyung — Potentially fun zombie supernatural steampunk western, ruined by the world’s longest slowest fight scene. With pacing like this to look forward to, I suspect I’ll be just as pokey when it comes to picking up the next volume.
143. Bitten, Ed. by Susie Bright — Why do I find published erotica so boring, and dirty fanfic so endlessly entertaining? Well, I suppose one theory could be that few erotic authors seem to do much to make me care about their characters, and I am a big girl who needs her porn to pack some emotional wallop. Possibly true! But also, most of these stories—as with most of the erotica I've read—are just not hot. I guess my kinks just do not line up very well with the rest of the erotica-reading world? This collection was better than the last one I read. I am intrigued by the blending of horror and sex, and a few of the stories in this book pulled off something interesting with the combo. This book is also beautifully designed, which is one of the main reasons I picked it up. (I think you're allowed to be shallow when reading about sex.)
The other reason I picked it up is that it has a story by Supernatural writer Sera Gamble in it. I don't think I'm letting any sort of bias/developing girlcrush affect me when I say that it's the standout tale. Actual characters and plot and thinky thoughts! Plus sex. That's how it should be done, guys.
144. F U, Penguin, Matthew Gasteier — One of the funnier blog-related books I’ve read/flipped through, I think because Gasteier finds sufficient different ways to approach his subject—those goddamn manipulative cute animals—and thus keeps the humor from becoming one note. Plus I just find his angry/exasperated tone to be amusing. Is there something Mishaish about it? POSSIBLY.
145. Amulet: The Stonekeeper’s Curse, Kazu Kibuishi — The second volume of Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet series is even better than the first. Everything that got set up in the original book—robots! tentacle monsters! an epic quest in a cool, steampunky realm threatened by evil elves!—starts to pay off here as Emily, the young heroine, struggles with the power granted her by the titular amulet. Kibuishi's colorful, manga-inspired art is simple but expressive, and as the plot kicks into gear, he continues to surprise. This is a great example of an author taking familiar fantasy tropes and making them his own—and a joy to read besides.
146. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Bryan Lee O’Malley — Funny and cute Canadian slacker/hipster manga. Not as jaw-droppingly awesome as reviews had led me to believe, but that’s hype for you. And now of course they’re making a movie, with (of course) Michael Cera as the star.
Is it worth it for me to try to track down the other volumes? I liked this, but they’re like $12 a pop and take me an hour to read. Please justify my spending habits for me, kthx.
147. Juliet, Naked, Nick Hornby — You can really tell that it's been 15 years since Nick Hornby wrote High Fidelity, and I mean that in the best possible way. Though I've always liked Hornby's writing—he's funny, he creates rich characters and never caricatures, and he's one of the few writers I can think of who tackles the topics of fannishness and obsession—High Fidelity, his first novel—and, according to many of my male friends, his best—has always bugged me a bit. The attitudes, especially toward women, of Rob and his friends are so condescending and creepy to me, and while the book doesn't actively endorse them, it (by which I mean, its author) still seems to let them slide with a shrug and a "what can you do?" I still remember a scene toward the end of the book where one of Rob's friends is introducing his new girlfriend around, with the line [from memory, heavily paraphrased], "She used to like Simple Minds, but she understands now why that's wrong." I find this to be an entirely accurate depiction of a lot of geeky guys' attitudes toward women, yet I can't stumble across it without Hulking out a little bit.
But 15 years later, you've got Juliet, Naked, which explores the darker side of that kind of dude—and doesn't let him get away with it. The dude in question this time is Duncan, who's obsessed with the reclusive and verging-on-forgotten musician Tucker Crowe. Duncan expounds at length on Tucker Crowe internet message boards about his favorite artist, in an "everyone's entitled to their own opinion and yours is wrong" kind of way. Wrong especially, in his mind, is his girlfriend Annie, who disagrees with him about the new bare-bones release of Crowe's last recording—a disagreement that's enough to make both Annie and Duncan realize they maybe aren't in love with each other anymore.
And then Tucker Crowe starts emailing Annie.
What impresses me so much about Hornby is that he understands the internet, and fannishness, and obsession, and regret—and not only that, he captures all of them really well. He understands people, and his warm, funny prose easily carries the narrative past some of the more Dickensian plot points. (I know from reading Hornby's Believer columns that he's a big fan of Chuck D., so I'm sure he'd be happy to hear that.) This book is a much more mature answer to High Fidelity, and I think it's easily my favorite of his novels to date. I really, really liked it—not enough to write thousands of words dissecting its every nuance on the internet, but I think we can all agree that that is ultimately a good thing.
148. The Bible Salesman, Clyde Edgerton — I think David Sedaris is hilarious, but I should try to remember that whenever he blurbs a book as being the funniest thing he's ever read or whatever, I will at best find it quietly amusing. That was all right in the case of Jincy Willett's Jenny and the Jaws of Life—which, despite not being uproarious as Sedaris claims (it's actually kind of depressing), has other redeeming qualities, such as being really, really interesting. This book...not so much. It's an ambling Southern tale, set in the 1950s, and at times it is, indeed, sort of quietly amusing. There are also occasionally interesting ruminations on religion, but none of that really goes anywhere, nor do the periodic flashbacks build to much of anything. The whole thing had a sort of "huh" effect on me--I wasn't offended or anything, but I don't think I feel any different having read this book than I would have if I'd left it on the shelf.
149. The Guinea Pig Diaries, A.J. Jacobs — I suppose you either like A.J. Jacobs’ approach to journalism or you don’t: he comes up with a somewhat outlandish concept and then experiments on himself, reading the Encyclopedia Britannica in a year (The Know-It-All) or following the Bible, um, religiously (The Year of Living Biblically). I think he’s really funny, and often interesting, and occasionally even insightful, so I enjoyed this collection of short pieces. If you like his sort of thing, you’ll like this; if you don’t, you won’t.
If you don’t know yet, I recommend trying The Know-It-All, as it’s still my favorite.
150. Shoplifting From American Apparel, Tao Lin — What’s the line between simply depicting meaningless hipster ennui and skewering it? If you just throw emptiness out there on the page, however skillfully, can it possibly rise above emptiness? Lin dances around those questions in this novella. His characters are wholly believable, but I sort of hated them; this is a tale, told about idiots, signifying nothing. There’s not even any sound and fury. I don’t care if it is ultimately reduced to the same thing: I still want that sound and fury.
Lin’s last line is brilliant, however. I would go so far as to say it elevates the whole thing. But I still think it may have worked better as a short story. So perhaps I should read some of Lin’s short stories.
Total Reviews: 150/210
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-08 02:27 am (UTC)They're really so nicely dark. Her world building is so rich, too! So many details, I feel like I know the world she writes about, and it's going to kill me when I finish the third book and have to leave it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-08 04:35 am (UTC)I never did get around to reading the others, but I still mean to someday.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-08 05:06 pm (UTC)By the way, the second one is out of print, so you might want to get a copy now and hold it for future reading. I had to get mine through a used book seller, but luckily it was still new and unread (just with bookstore markings on it).