February 10, 2014 · 7:50 pm

Divergent and Insurgent: Reading for Pleasure and Diminishing Returns

Seldom have I been so excited about a book while reading it and then so utterly disappointed by its conclusion. So it was with Vernoica Roth’s *Divergent* and then *Insurgent*. I have no comment on the final book in the trilogy because I won’t be reading it. Why did I bother with the second, you ask? Well, I was so captivated by the first half of *Divergent* that I went and bought the second book and lest I be one to squander my (tiny) book buying budget, I had to read the second out of deference to Not Wasting Book Money. The gap between my enthusiasm and my eventual feeling about the book is hard to retrospectively bridge. That is to say, it’s hard to find something good to say about the series when I now have so many complaints, but I *must* have found something worthy and exciting if I was willing to pay for it (note: I am not library-monogamous, just library-preferential).

So what did I enjoy? The world-building aspects of this series are terrific. Like The Night Circus, the physical space imagined by the novel is captivating. So, too, the initial characterization of Tris (a characterization that takes a decided turn for the wooden and flat as she reacts and acts without any consequence to character development) and her confusion of what and who she is. The mystery elements: where are we in time and space? What kinds of cultural, social, political forces are at work? What’s the allegory here? compel the reader to keep reading with an urgency and a pleasure often misplaced in Literature that wants to slow you down enough to savour each word or sentence.

Reading *Divergent* was certainly an exercise in reading for pleasure. In much of my graduate and undergraduate discussions of literature outside the classroom my peers expressed discomfort or disbelief that “reading for pleasure” might even be possible. Having such extensive training in being critics,  how, they wondered, might it be possible to turn this critical eye “off” long enough to enjoy a book? Trained to say “no” and “but,” (how) could we allow for appreciation and commendation? I suppose I could argue that the two aren’t mutually exclusive: it is possible to find pleasure and retain critical faculties. I think I could also argue that books get read – or we read – with different intents and purposes. That the same book can be read by the same reader with different foci and attention. Putting aside the precision and attention of close reading and allowing – or abdicating? – attention to the pleasures of plot and character might well be possible (I think they are). It’s tempting to be self-depricating and say I was just a poor critic, unable to notice that worth being critical. But I’m not: I’m a good reader. So I suppose it’s an argument for the dialectic: that a reader can take pleasure from a text and simultaneously be aware of its problematic bits. *Divergent* has troublesome politics, Tris and Four have an imbalanced sexual relationship and her gender gets worked out and worked over in disturbing ways, choice and freedom get bizarrely dichotomized against violence and power.

So if it’s true that I could enjoy *Divergent* and still be aware of its problematic politics, when did I stop enjoying it altogether? I’m tempted to say it was when Four’s named turned to Tobias and I stopped being able to remember him as a sexy and mysterious instructor and could only think of him as a predatory creep, but I think it’s more basic: I stopped enjoying *Divergent* and I disliked all of *Insurgent* because the writing was bad. Really, really bad. Written for a movie and without the subtlety to pretend otherwise kind of bad. Written without the attention of an editor bad. Written as if the reader might not have ever read anything else before bad. BAD. Which is not to say that *Insurgent* doesn’t have its share of ideological issues, just that before the reader can start to think about those she has to get past the terrible writing, lack of character development and uninteresting plot. It will make a terrific movie, I’m sure, because it was written to one.

I almost wrote “Avoid both,” but I don’t think I should. *Divergent* is pure pleasure. Read it and enjoy. Just don’t – for the love of God (and boy does Veronica Roth love God – capital G) bother with the second or third.

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February 3, 2014 · 2:23 pm

The Fault in Our Stars: Crying in Public

Almost any list you read of “the best” Young Adult Fiction will list John Green’s *The Fault in Our Stars*. It’s an incredibly popular book, in no small part, I think, because the tragedy promises (and delivers) the cathartic release. For me that meant loud, wet crying in the pub where I read at lunch.

It reminded me a lot of Looking for Alaska in its exploration of questions of what makes for a meaningful life, what happens after death and how do we – the living – make sense of both.

I have to say that while I had a strong emotional reaction to *The Fault in Our Stars* I didn’t find it the most compelling YAF I’ve ever read, nor did I find its response to these questions – what’s the point of living/dying? – particularly insightful or moving. Whereas *Looking for Alaska* presented a fresh (and momentarily comforting) proposition of why we might live and what happens when we die, in *The Fault in Our Stars* the response is something akin to “tragedy” – like “It’s tragic when people die because they don’t get to keep living and making meaning.” I think one way TFIOS gestures towards the complexity (to put it lightly) of life and death is in thinking about how big or small the impact of one life can be and the resonance of that solitary soul on those that encounter it. One line by Hazel’s father drove this home for me – he’s explaining to her why her life/death matters to him by observing that it’s “an extraordinary privilege to love you.” I think this is the closest the book gets to a unique exploration of the thematic questions. By gesturing to the impact of the single (lost) life on those who continue living, to the privilege and responsibility of loving, mourning and remembering one another, *The Fault in Our Stars* sees the potential of relationships – connections with other people – for being the reason for living and the solace for dying. But it’s a grabbing, reaching kind of answer. The novel gets overly caught up in the emotional manipulation of the graveside scene at the expense of a deeper exploration of these questions.

Which is not to say there isn’t good work being done in the novel. I was struck by its exploration of the guilt felt by those who live particularly in the character of Hazel’s mother (rather than van Houten who seems too obvious a caricature of the grieved parent) who embodies the balance or the dialectic between grief/loss and a will to keep making meaning. I appreciated the tension in the relationship between Hazel and Gus between humour and suffering, the calm humanity each expresses to the other in moments of humiliation and suffering. The love of the two for one another is believable, if perhaps in the Romeo and Juliette (and often compared couple to these two) believability of those swept up in circumstances and passion (rather than a love that you might believe endures through mortgages and menopause).

All this to say I was certainly moved by the story – if my gross crying is to be believed – but I didn’t (after all) like it all that much. I especially don’t think it belongs at the top of the YAF must read lists – many other books look at these questions in fresher, truer ways. But sure, it’s still wildly popular. In fact, I bumped into a twelve year old girl in line at my local bookshop  and recommended not reading the ending in public and she told me “she’d be careful.” I hope as readers we’re all careful. Careful not to let our emotional reaction be mistaken for brilliant writing.

 

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January 20, 2014 · 3:18 pm

Conspiracy of Paper: Cheque that

The trouble with me is that I’m an arrogant reader. Particularly when I’m reading a mystery. I think that because I’m paying attention I’ll sort out the mystery and so this post might otherwise be titled “chagrin.” Chagrin because I thought I’d solved the mystery in David Liss’s brilliantly enjoyable *A Conspiracy of Paper* : a mystery set in London in the 1710s as the stock market is developing and the first (ever!) stock market crash takes place. Around page 300 (of a rough 450) I’d decided that I had it all worked out and so I resolved to make it through to the end to have my conclusion validated by the book. ONLY TO BE WRONG. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, realizing I’d misread the signs. Though our protagonist Benjamin Weaver – a former boxer, turned private detective/thug – isn’t entirely sure by the end of the book that the murderer/conspirator/mastermind really is who he thinks he is. So! Maybe I’m right after all?

And this is the delight of the well wrought mystery. The unravelling of threads reveals not a single person behind the curtain, but rather a set of societal conditions that allowed such crimes to take place that anyone (perhaps) could have been the perpetrator given the right opportunity. That is to say, one person pulled the trigger, but a hundred could have. Moreover Liss’s novel is brilliant for showing how easy it might be for anyone of the characters to have slipped into pulling the trigger, that we are all but a hairs breath – or an opportunity – away from being thieves and killers. That with proper motivation and opportunity we’d all easily fill the role. That the line between virtue and crime is as easily crossed as it is misapprehended.

So the book gives you a host of suspicious characters – lovers, family, friends and supposed enemies – and has each of them vacillate between trustworthy and unreliability. Our protagonist himself, towards the end of the novel, falls under the reader’s suspicion in a masterful play of the unreliable narrator. The story is, after all a first person memoir recounted at many years distance, and this reader couldn’t help but wonder if the usual shades of self-aggrandizing truth that ought to be suspected in a first person narrative weren’t being underdrawn in suspicious ways.

The one way I wasn’t arrogant in this reading is that I am entirely ignorant of all things stock market, and moreover intimidated by economics, investments, stocks, etc.  In another brilliant move Liss anticipates this (potential) discomfort with the stock market among his readers and so positions his protagonist as similarly ignorant and so a suitable surrogate to ask the obvious and naive questions. Through Weaver we explore the history of the stock market without the burden of overly technical or alienating facts or details, instead we get repeated explanations of the significance of such and such an event or practice through his Uncle or best friend. This gentle introduction to the history makes it both enjoyable and accessible, to the extent that I think I have a decent grasp of not only the emergence of the stock market, but a confidence enough to translate the historical circumstances to the present to ask questions about the abstraction of currency: talk to me about Bitcoin! I have thoughts now. Maybe.

Oh and I should say, too, that the narrative is written – as you’d expect – in the (supposed) diction and phrasing of eighteenth century London. So I learned some new words and had to catch myself as I started inserting ‘countenance’ into everyday conversation: always a joy.

All this to say an entirely enjoyable read – captivating mystery, thoughtful pacing and introduction of historical details and compelling (enough) characters.

 

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January 10, 2014 · 2:53 pm

Pardon Our Monsters: Lonely Children

I started reading Alice Munro’s *Best Stories* last night. Actually I started reading Margaret Atwood’s forward to the collection. Whatever. Atwood told me that ‘short stories’ are better called ‘short fiction.’ I suppose there’s something dismissive in calling something a ‘story’? Not as meaty as ‘fiction’? Fair enough. Henceforward I will register my complaints with “short fiction” rather than the stories.

That said, I have few complaints with Andrew Hood’s *Pardon Our Monsters*. Here are the things I enjoyed: I was impressed with the endings of the stories as they did well to provide a punch that registered with the theme of the story and those of the collection. In a few cases the endings similar work to that of *The Family Fang* in that the plot and characters were full enough that I could readily imagine what might happen next (or should happen next). There were some brilliant similes/metaphors in this collection –  utterly surprising ways of describing a sunset – that were delightful and didn’t (quite) fall into the Tom Robbins trap of being so unexpected as to be jarring. I loved many of the characters who were at home in their corporeal bodies (there is a disproportionate number of fat children and redheads in this collection, perhaps a commentary on the additional ostracization these genetic ‘monsters’ encounter in daily life?) with all the grotesque attendants of being bodily: tumours, gasses, smells, lusts and urges, itches and sweats. The everyman quality of these characters meant this reader could easily identify with aspects (that all but one protagonist is a  young(ish) man – if I remember correctly – speaks to the identify-ability of the characters beyond their gendered or aged bodies). Did I mention some gorgeous writing? Yes, there’s that, too.

The few complaints I do have: Some moments in the stories read like “this is the moment I’m going to tell you – by being oblique and Literary – what the theme or question of this story is.” It’s an odd complaint, and let me try to explain again. The stories *have* compelling questions (how do we connect with other people? can we get past our own insecurities? how can we support and care for those we love while being simultaneously selfish souls?). The stories *have* wonderful ways of revealing these questions through character thoughts and actions. The plot and let these questions surface. The stories resist telling you what they’re about, but then somehow they do: in one story there’s a moment where the reader reads something to the effect of ‘the moments/scenes you’re least expecting or the most unusual are the moments that tell you what it all means.’  The reveal happens a character’s thought process, or a paragraph break that says ‘this is important stuff.’ I suppose it’s a complaint that comes from a place of love for the stories: I love the story and I’m a good reader – trust me to figure out the question/importance on my own.

Given that it’s hardly a complaint to wish the stories gave me *less* – I’ll leave off by saying it’s a collection well worth seeking out. Oh! And it offers a terrific sense of place, too, so if you’re looking to get a sense of where I’m living these days…

 

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