October 16, 2011 · 9:12 pm

Empire State: A Love Story (or not): Annoyingly charming?

                         So it took me the first half of Jason Shiga’s Empire State: A Love Story (or not) to work out the split chronology. Had I been more sensitive to the (in retrospect) obvious division of time (divided not just by plot events but by colour) I might have enjoyed the book the whole way through. As it is, I found the first half to be closer to pretensious and annoying than endearing or charming. But by the time our protagonist arrives in New York I cared about him and wanted his love plot to resolve in making out and babies. It doesn’t. Not a spoiler, folks, the parenthetical title gives it away.

The parenthetical title also gives away that this is a book by and for hipsters who like to read McSweeny’s and drink lattes that are appropriately foamed. Perhaps the best panels in the book (okay, a stretch and a lie) are those that depict a conversation about how annoying hipsters are when they’re talking about how annoying other hipsters are, not realizing they are the annoying hipsters about whom they complain. That Shiga is conscious of his hipster-ness and doesn’t (with the exception of those ironic panels) apologize (as he should!) being hip, is okay with me.

I loved the panels of Jimmy arriving in New York. Some might find the panels annoying because they are not oblique (and so hip), but far from annoying the scope entirely matches the experience of feeling small on arriving in a new city. In short I appreciated that form and content aligned, especially when I could see evidence elsewhere in the text of wanting to be jarring so as to jar. Annoyingly jarring.

I also loved the unapologetic consideration of what it means to be grown-up. A bit of a cliche at this point to describe a 20-something realizing that they’ll never feel properly grown-up (or at least a cliche for me because I think about it all. the. time) and not trying to resolve these feelings with any kind of revelation or grandiose decision to Act Differently, but just allowing that some people feel disoriented by their age and the expectations the world attaches to that age. Like having a bank account. Or knowing about espresso.

I also loved that it took me 1.5 hours to read. Something of a gift at this point in the reading challenge. Less than 20 remaining, folks!

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October 15, 2011 · 3:27 pm

Night: Uncomfortable

     Elie Wiesel’s Night is my cousin’s favourite book. My cousin who has read, I’d guess, somewhere in the neighbourhood of five novels in his lifetime. But he read Night because it’s one of the book we’re all meant to read. And so I read it, too, anticipating it as depressing and unsettling. What I couldn’t have anticipated – and this causes me great discomfort to admit to myself, let alone on a public forum like this – was that I also found it boring. 

My familiarity with the events and tropes of Wiesel’s book arise, no doubt, both from the years I spent absorbed by Holocaust fiction (13-18?) after reading The Diary of Anne Frank and from a culture saturated with the story that, with minor variation, we are all meant to know. But simple familiarity should not so fully dull my emotional reactions, right? And so the way I’ve been able to understand my reaction in a way that doesn’t cause self-loathing or deep concern about my continuing existence as an empathetic and affective individual is through philosophies on boredom (principally Heidegger) that suggest it is when confronted with the profoundly meaningless that individuals resort to a passive indifference: when set against an existential void a (reasonable?) response is boredom.

I’ll also understand my reaction as one to literary form. The narrative tone is, appropriate to the subject matter, flat. The same diction, pace and tone is employed in describing rations of food as is the death of Wiesel’s father. Perhaps it is the case that as all events are treated and narrated as equally affect-less the reader might find the form of the text, if not the content, dull.

This ambivalence, then, is how I’m prepared to understand the book and my reaction. And I’ll entertain conversations with those of you who might have read the book, too, or who might want to comment on my apparent lack-of-feeling. Perhaps I just want to be reassured that I am not callous and am not maliciously, only defensively, indifferent.

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October 13, 2011 · 8:58 pm

Still Life: Charming

      Set in a quaint Quebecois village, Louise Penny’s Still Life narrates the murder and murder investigation of the beloved town resident, Jane Neal. Of the books I’ve read so far in “Spies and Detectives,” Still Life most closely aligns with what I’ve always imagined as a classic “whodunnit”: the gradual introduction of a cast of characters and their possible motives, the inclusion of red herrings, and a measured and generous chief investigator.  To the mix Still Life adds the sub-plots of negotiating queer identity in a small town, young people struggling to find self-acceptance and self-worth, and the assurance offered by a good cup of tea. Okay, not really a good cup of tea, but rather, the tensions of French-English loyalties in (rural) Quebec.

I enjoyed the book a great deal for its mystery – trying to work out the killer, putting the book down so I could puzzle out new clues and then reading oh-so-rapidly so that I might find out who really did it, the surprise and delight of an ending I hadn’t expected, but still believed – but I also enjoyed it for its unabashed Canadian setting. The chief inspector drinks Tim Hortons coffee, the townspeople debate Quebecois language laws, the second in command argues against the displacement of indigenous people from the Montreal area, even Margaret Atwood has a (dubious) cameo! I like these things not simply because I’m a Canadianphile, but because they contributed to a convincing setting both in time and place, that allowed the crime, the townspeople, and the investigators to read not as characters easily cut-out of yet another mystery novel, but as products and contributors of a singular set of circumstances. No surprise then that Penny’s novels – Still Life is the first in what is now the “Inspector Gamache” series – are as wildly popular as any Canadian mystery series can be said to be wildly popular. If it’s any confirmation of worth, I’m planning to read another in the series come January.

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October 11, 2011 · 10:18 pm

Fanny Hill: *blush* *blush* *yawn*

      Gosh but Fanny Hill has A LOT of sex in it. Sex between men and women, women and women, men and men, partners of varying ages, mental and physical abilities, in different positions and in different environmental conditions. It is in short, a novel without a plot, but instead a collection of events that allow for the graphic narration of sex. So many mentions of exploits, things gorged and red, thrusts, sighs and wetness. In fact, I’ve included a word cloud so you can see just how much of the text (all of it!) is given over to narrating sex.

Yep, it’s not one to read/listen to out in public. Such blushes.

But despite the titillation and *cough* excitement of the first few chapters of Fanny Hill, I admit I quickly became bored of yet another sex scene with yet another virgin or yet another “mistaken” attempt at anal sex. Which isn’t to say that I’m a virtuous or prudish reader, rather, that 250 pages of the same plot events would be boring no matter what was being narrated! Yawn.

As for the limited character development… well, I was disappointed. Fanny is principally awesome because she isn’t at all embarrassed or ashamed of her wanton behaviour, rather she relishes pleasure and seeks it out for herself. But the conclusion of the text sees her marrying her one true love and renouncing the wanton life in favour of riches and monogamy. Yawn. Given just how scandalous the rest of the book is, I can see little reason to end it with such convention. I had rather hoped she’d die of venereal disease… Perhaps one of my 18th century scholar-friends can provide me an answer to why such a conventional and annoying ending?

So while I’ll recommend Fanny Hill if you’re looking to diversify your personal pleasure reading, I can’t recommend it well if you’re at all interested in anything approximating plot, character or thematic development.

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