Category Archives: Fiction

June 22, 2011 · 6:13 pm

Un Lun Dun: Mostly Good

           After a little meltdown last night about my rate of reading in the last month and a half, M. reminded me that 10-10-12 is not a race or competition, but is an exercise in me loving to read. And someone how that pep talk (that wasn’t, I don’t think, intended as a pep talk) gave me the zip I needed to finish off Un Lun Dun, a mostly terrific young adult fiction book with illustrations (which category will it fall into?).

China Mieville might be better known for his adult fantasy novels (or so my friends who read fantasy tell me), but Un Lun Dun (pronounced UnLondon) is deserving of its own credit and following. The book follows our un-hero, Deeba, as she finds herself in the world of UnLondon – a shadow city separated from London, but not necessarily different from the ‘real’ city in terms of xenophobia, class conflict, and most prominently, environmental concerns.

After several – unecessary – chapters about Deeba’s friend the “Shazzy” (I say unnecessary because they do not add to Deeba’s characterization and rather than advancing the plot, these chapters stall its development. What these chapters do offer is a space to sketch the setting of UnLondon in some detail, a “setting up” that might easily take place on Deeba’s second visit) Deeba finds herself tasked with battling “The Smog,” a malicious force bent on destroying both UnLondon and London by consuming it with fire. This (somewhat?) allegorical menace allows readers of any age to connect the consumption patterns of the modern city with environmental toxins and pollutants and makes a vigorous case for “nothing” as the solution to this problem. The solution of “nothing,” is to me a poignant conclusion for the novel as it advocates at one at the same time that “nothing” can be done to solve the problem/character of the Smog, and yet simultaneously suggests that it is by doing less, or by doing “nothing,” that we might combat it.

In any case, the climatic battle between Deeba and the Smog is by far the most engaging section of the book. The rest of the novel is something of a trudging affair, a journey that is not all about the journey and rather all about the expected climatic-awesomeness of the destination. That the climax did meet my expectations of awesomeness was pleasant, but I’m not convinced the slog to get there was worth it.

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May 23, 2011 · 6:53 pm

The Thief: As great as NWMD is terrible

      The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner and the Newberry Honour Winner for 1997, is just so great. Our anti-hero, Gem, captivates the reader from the opening scene in his jail cell to the closing scene in his bedroom. I wanted him to succeed, yet I worried about his decisions, though I somehow came to believe his justifications for his actions. Knowing as you do how much I love good character, it should be little surprise that I loved (really really loved) The Thief.

The narrative does a masterful job letting the reader believe they have deduced secret ‘facts’ of Gem’s life – and this reader did deduce certain elements – but nevertheless codes some plot details with such subtlety that the climax remains suspenseful and surprising: we are taken in, not taken advantage of; we are rewarded for close reading, but still given the pleasure of a surprise twist.

More praise for plot: the adventure manages to contain itself. Where other YAF adventure stories (or adult adventure stories for that matter) fall prey to endless delays, meandering side-journeys, and excruciating details of campfires, trail food, and horses, The Thief delivers enough detail to convince and captivate, but arrives at the destination by such a direct route as to leave no question that it really is the destination that holds the magic and adventure, and not the journey.

The interweaving of Greek-cum-novel-civilization mythology and the struggle of our (darling) Gem to make sense of the apparent power of the Gods in everyday life is careful, measured and thought-provoking: what, the novel asks, do we owe to destiny and what do we owe to our own wits?

It’s really just so good. And something like 120 pages. I. tells me that there are two other books in the series, but this one ends with a decisive conclusion, something I admire and appreciate, as this is a complete work in its own right, and not simply a set-up for later books and other purchases. I’ll likely read the other two books because I loved this one so much, but I may save them, as they really are “Gems.”

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April 25, 2011 · 9:51 pm

Animal: Sad Aborted Puppies

     I think Alexandra Leggat’s Animal is about more than abortions and puppies. In fact, I know it’s also about uneven expectations in relationships, compromises, and the lies that appearances belie, but when I think of my overall impression what comes to mind are abortions and dogs. I don’t even think the short story collection has a single story with an abortion in it (miscarriages, yes) but somehow many of them contain the same kind of sadness: aborted love, aborted futures, aborted choices. As for dogs, characters routinely long for particular dogs. Not in the way a teenage girl longs for a prom date, but in the way older women long to return to their younger bodies so as to live in them with pride and confidence: that is, a frustrated, anxious and sad kind of longing. I’m not sure why it’s dogs they long for, and not, say, other people. Perhaps because the collection as a whole suggests other people ought not to be trusted, ought not to be relied upon, because they will inevitably be selfish.

I preferred stories in the middle section of the collection – no good reason why. On the whole I felt too many of the stories ended with a “This is a very symbolic ending!” kind of wrap-up, and that characters received uneven development. All the same, the rich thematic scope and some brilliant descriptions of suffering women makes the collection a worthwhile read if you’re into depressing scenes in bathtubs.

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April 9, 2011 · 3:27 am

The Satanic Verses: A Better Book than I am Reader

     Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is the first book to fall victim to the time pressures of reading 100 books in a year. In my rush to read the book, and cross it off the list, and move on, I didn’t (at all) do justice to the richness of the text and found myself trying to skim sections that demanded close reading. I realize now that I will not (again) risk missing out on a brilliant book for the sake of a self-imposed list-making exercise. So be warned, there may be other two week hiatuses while I make my way through long and/or dense works.

So with the caveat that my sometimes confusion with plot sequencing probably had more to do with my inattention than with the book itself, I liked the book (I probably ought to love it, but again, my failure as a reader this go around). I enjoyed the interwoven narrative voices, temporal scopes and thematic questions: what does it mean to be a coherent and contiguous self? are relationships principally of convenience or of care? how much, or can we, take advantage of those we love and have them still love us? what does God have to do with any of these questions? That said, I didn’t necessarily enjoy the uneven introduction of metafictional techniques (it is only in the last, say, 100 pages that the ‘author’ begins to comment on these thematic questions and interrogate the action of his characters). Okay, so it’s a very small complaint.

The magic realism of Allie’s climb of Everest and the butterfly pilgrimage that then reverberate in the realist scenes are striking not for the “magic” (ooo aaa…. magical things integrated into reality) but for the reminder that magic isn’t someone surviving a fall from 30 000 feet, or the parting of an ocean, the real magic – the stuff that really ought to blow our minds – is the idea that a father can love a son after thirty years of not speaking; or that forgiveness is possible; or that a single person can hold within themselves competing feelings of love and hate and not be destroyed by those competing impulses. The magic, in other words, is reality.

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