The Appointment is probably one of the most moving books I have read in the last 5 years, and I log a few books a week... Haunting in its themes of dictatorship, violence, and the fear of death inspired by both and in its well-crafted prose. Müller's anonymous feminine narrator lives in a totalitarian reality called Romania. Her voice calls attention to the beauty around her and her struggle to stay sane. What makes this novel even more powerful is the time-frame and its setting: a morning tram-ride to the dreaded appointment with an official-state bully named Albu. On the tram-ride, our nameless narrator's mind revisits her memories of Paul, friends, ex-lovers, and family members many of whom are dead. Some every-day objects become things of beauty in this world of fear, and other ojects make gestures of comfort and kindness possible.
If I had little patience for petty complaints and self-pity before reading this book, I think that patience has diminished. If humanity would read more, we might just exercise a little more lip-flapping restraint if we knew how hard some people really have it.
Really well-written--unlike those popular best-sellers by EL James and Stephenie Meyer--and stunningly translated.
Read it.
04 May 2012
16 March 2012
A Review of Colson Whitehead's novel Sag Harbor
Whitehead's coming-of-age novel was a light read through the eyes of Benji, an African American teen from a professionally successful family. His mother is a copyright lawyer for a hot cocoa company, and his father is a podiatrist. Rooted in the summer of 1985, Benji outlines his growing pains of separating himself from his brother Reggie whom he and others saw as a twin, despite their age difference. One of the only black boys in his Manhattan prep school, Benji belongs to his summertime friends. He describes the Sag Harbor vacation community as one rooted in generations and traditions (e.g., his father’s grilling prowess; the Cooper house as a pit stop for those returning from the beach; the annual Labor Day festivities, etc.). Oscillating between the naïve youth who does not yet know the importance this oft-cited “DuBois” and mutating Sagaponac for sacadilliac, Benji is also hip to certain life truths and metaphors. Whitehead colors Benji’s views with a self-conscious writerly prose at times to compare his crestfallen pals to Icarus: “It was sad to see Clive and Nick get into character and shuffle up to the velvet rope only to twist back to Earth with melted off feathers” (196). A self-proclaimed nerd, Benji endears himself to the reader because he is ashamed of what he likes. Dungeons and Dragons, the Smiths, easy listening radio, Mad Max, and his Bauhaus t-shirts are Benji’s guilty pleasures, but what teen—what human being for that matter—doesn’t isn’t afraid to assert his preferences at the risk of being judged unfairly? Instead of wallowing in nerd self-pity, Benji, the eternal optimist, picks himself up and dusts himself off. He cracks his reader up with his various commentaries, “On second thought, I take back my shrug. Mishearing song lyrics, making your specific travesty of the words, is the right of every human being” (216).
While Benji’s candor about his summer resort community reminds his readers that his characters are indeed African Americans when one friend is called “NP”(explained in the novel for you), or adults and kids alike call out “Whitey”, he also, more importantly, has the reader seeing his friends and their parents as flawed human beings. Alcoholism does not discriminate—adults abuse it and kids scheme for it. Benji, still a callow youth, rues summers past in his grandparents’ hand-built red house. He knows his place in the generational tides: “We were all there. It was where we mingled with who we had been and who we would be. Sharing space with our echoes out in the sun. The shy kid we used to be and were growing away from, the confident or hard-luck men we would become in our impending seasons, the elderly survivors we’d grow into if we were lucky, with gray stubble and green sun visors. Every summer this shifting-over took place in small degrees as you moved closer to the person who was waiting for you to catch up and some younger version of yourself elbowed you out of the way. […] Where was my replacement, then? […] And who was I replacing? According to this scheme, he had to be here on this street, chowing down on some of Mr. Baxter’s pork ribs” (262).
As summer comes to an end, as it always does, Benji believes in the possibilities of the new school year and ribs himself for his hopefulness when he concludes, “Isn’t it funny? The way the mind works?”
While Benji’s candor about his summer resort community reminds his readers that his characters are indeed African Americans when one friend is called “NP”(explained in the novel for you), or adults and kids alike call out “Whitey”, he also, more importantly, has the reader seeing his friends and their parents as flawed human beings. Alcoholism does not discriminate—adults abuse it and kids scheme for it. Benji, still a callow youth, rues summers past in his grandparents’ hand-built red house. He knows his place in the generational tides: “We were all there. It was where we mingled with who we had been and who we would be. Sharing space with our echoes out in the sun. The shy kid we used to be and were growing away from, the confident or hard-luck men we would become in our impending seasons, the elderly survivors we’d grow into if we were lucky, with gray stubble and green sun visors. Every summer this shifting-over took place in small degrees as you moved closer to the person who was waiting for you to catch up and some younger version of yourself elbowed you out of the way. […] Where was my replacement, then? […] And who was I replacing? According to this scheme, he had to be here on this street, chowing down on some of Mr. Baxter’s pork ribs” (262).
As summer comes to an end, as it always does, Benji believes in the possibilities of the new school year and ribs himself for his hopefulness when he concludes, “Isn’t it funny? The way the mind works?”
A Review of William Gay's novel The Long Home
When my friend Holly noted William Gay's recent passing (2/23/2012), I thought Gay's writing deserved a bit of my time. Upon her recommendation, I picked up this novel, instead of a collection of short stories for some reason, and found it slowly growing on me. It opens with a murder scene and a strange disposal of the body. The sole witness keeps his secret from the murderer before acting. Although the plot creeps and crawls to breathe life into its setting and cast of gritty characters, it follows a dramatic crescendo with a desirable denouement. Populated by bootleggers, high school drop outs, and self-sufficient men and women who scramble and claw to survive, Gay’s narrative pulsates with a realism of a bygone era. Clapboard shacks may be void of the conveniences of electricity and plumbing, but the itinerant Packard foreshadows the roads of the WPA and a rapidly modernizing future.
Of course, the novel is reminiscent of William Faulkner's and Cormac McCarthy's quiet prose and southern milieu with its morally grey areas. Gay delights in the minutiae of his characters’ world who, without the attention to the sun and seasons, would become victims of the dark and the cold. Where the novel really sings is in the language and its patience for life. Gay's prose is like a soft twilight blanket: it cloaks and insulates you in a world that gets gradually colder and darker. But you are ready for the dawn too when it comes.
Of course, the novel is reminiscent of William Faulkner's and Cormac McCarthy's quiet prose and southern milieu with its morally grey areas. Gay delights in the minutiae of his characters’ world who, without the attention to the sun and seasons, would become victims of the dark and the cold. Where the novel really sings is in the language and its patience for life. Gay's prose is like a soft twilight blanket: it cloaks and insulates you in a world that gets gradually colder and darker. But you are ready for the dawn too when it comes.
07 March 2012
Review of Ondaatje's The Cat's Table
Ondaatje's 11 year old narrator Mynah wins readers over from the start. Mynah, or Michael, leaves his home in Sri Lanka on a transatlantic crossing to London where he joins his mother after four or five years of separation. It's a three week journey, but more than a voyage it becomes a micro-universe of strangers who in Mynah's words "alter" him forever. Banding with two other boys his age, Mynah weaves his memories of their times together and the other vivid characters who populate their shared "cat's table" with his present--or at least his adult--life. Michael's voice never errs towards the sentimental sappiness, but endears us to him by keeping his cards close to his vest with his callow, yet wise honesty. The novel hits on the truth of how when a short time span is amplified it takes on greater meaning in the future and how we are indeed forever altered by those strangers.
22 February 2012
A review of Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
A great disappointment. Russell's prose seduces, but keeps the reader trapped in the stagnant-waters called plot. Consider the book a character study of three siblings who deal with their mother's death and father's absence (he leaves the kids to fend for themselves as he works on the mainland). Although it is not a particularly uplifting book, Russell resorts to the unsatisfying convention of deus ex machina: everyone is reunited on the mainland. (Reunited , to paraphrase a corny 70s song, and it feels so good.) But the reader closes the book feeling bedraggled and cheated--not so good.
(November 2011)
(November 2011)
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1/6/2012)
A quiet book because Ruthie, the character through which this story is told, is reserved and amorphous. Loss and the lake's role in that loss are at the center of the story; the lake has claimed the life of Ruth and her sister Lucille's grandfather and then their mother. A bit unconvincing that the truant narrator would make such descriptive and articulate observations about the nature of loneliness.
19 February 2012
A Review of Sleep No More
“An event” and “an experience.” I would have to agree with these two succinct descriptions of Punchdrunk’s extended production of Sleep No More at the McKittrick Hotel (which reminded me in a way of the final lines of the Eagles’ eponymous song, “Hotel California,” “You can check out any time you like/but you can never leave” more than the oft-referenced Manderley of Rebecca.)
First, if you’ve read the reviews, and scanned the internet for its textual buzz, then you know it’s not your traditional theatre-going experience. Confined (a choice word!) to 5 or 6 floors of an old building, the spectators roam and prowl with their plague doctor-esque masks, choosing to investigate the rooms on any of the floors, follow “actors”, and remain silent all the while. (We got busted in the stairwell by one of the shadow-enforcers when failed to understand my companion’s finger-spelling.) When I say the hallways and rooms are dimly lit, it is an understatement. Hallways’ corners are only noted with a candle in a corner to show the contours of your path, which was not as disorienting as it could have been (i.e., a twenty-year old on some kind of chemically altering substance might beg to differ). The graveyard and other spaces gave the impression of fog with the music industry’s chalky-scented smoke. In the crafted room-sets, sometimes the only light one has are those flameless tea lights, which make snooping in drawers, poking in boxes, or reading book spines more of a tactile experience than visual. Event-go-ers are encouraged to engage the senses, particularly touch, even when certain senses are imposed upon as with the meager lighting and compulsory soundtracks of electronic and swing. As for taste? Behind a reception desk/bar, I confess to opening a decanter and pouring a glass of its contents. Secretly hoping for whiskey, I tasted discolored, tainted water. (No, I did not follow through with downing that first swig.) Moments later, performers and voyeurs came on the scene of my crime.
For me, the theatrics of setting and design appealed to my intrigue with art installations and the use of space. I liked the collages and wall art that involved book pages and egg-imagery. There was an interesting “witch’s” herb-drying room whose contents emitted their earthy and musty odors. An odd mobile of dozens of headless dolls loomed over an empty crib. A hotel reception area was replete with the front desk, room keys (bolted!) on their hooks, the telephone booths, a lobby, and a valise storage area. Predictably, this space became the site for more wordless drama between the “actors” whose main genre of action revolved around the bodily-magnetics of attraction and repulsion.
I keep putting “actors” in quotes because I likened them to a modern dance troupe with their athleticism and interpretive movements. There was a meant-to-be intriguing dance between two actors and a door. We commiserated later on (adhering to the rules of silence) that we were more worried about the door. An actor feigned sleep in a large bed, while another one would gyrate and roll around her bed for the masked peeping masses. There was scene that mirrors what I call the “rape shower” of film: a nude male performer huddled in the corner of a shower stall with one lone male onlooker. One of the best scenes was at the ballroom banquet table, where the diners moved in slow, fluid motion as if in some 1940s tableau vivant rendition of the iconic Last Supper. Were there more scenes like that? We could not know. Otherwise, these “actors” did quite a bit of running and stomping to entice the herd of masked sheep to follow them. As tempting as it was to “baaaaa” when they passed, I kept silent. I may sound jaded when I write that nothing shocks me in the realm of art, fiction, or theatre anymore when the goal is explicitly to shock us.
So it is an event for those who participate in what they might perceive to be the elite-hipster circle of voyeurism. If interaction is what you seek, you can be one of those spectators who hover around an “actor,” waiting to be pulled in to some kind of drama. As herds stampeded by, we watched a few masked peers do just that. Watching other masked go-ers interact was part of the experience. The spectacle of looking down from a balcony into the ballroom of masked visitors proved more interesting than watching the “actors.”
Conceptually, the success of the phenomenon that is Sleep No More is a result of its manipulation of space and time. Without knowing the precise square footage of the production, I would say the troupe’s business and social acumen acknowledges the antsy, attention deficient nature of its pleasure-seeking-mobile audience and offers an illusion that there is just “not enough time” to see everything. There is no narrative, but instead a collage of scenes (human and inanimate) to experience. Experience is the key here because it celebrates the self and its affective navel-gazing tendencies. The repeating taxidermy, the repetition of beds and tubs, the variations on altars, the abandoned offices, the maze of thin branches, and other elements of design create a dream-scape where each room presents itself as new landscape for exploration. Design combined with the “actors” anguished interactions serve the mood, engage the senses, and trick the naïve mind into thinking it all must mean something. That’s the gimmick of Sleep No More: reviewers and goers want to believe there are “real” parallels to Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hitchcock’s Rebecca, so they return to the McKittrick and (their wallets!) to figure it all out. But these days, things don’t have to mean anything.
First, if you’ve read the reviews, and scanned the internet for its textual buzz, then you know it’s not your traditional theatre-going experience. Confined (a choice word!) to 5 or 6 floors of an old building, the spectators roam and prowl with their plague doctor-esque masks, choosing to investigate the rooms on any of the floors, follow “actors”, and remain silent all the while. (We got busted in the stairwell by one of the shadow-enforcers when failed to understand my companion’s finger-spelling.) When I say the hallways and rooms are dimly lit, it is an understatement. Hallways’ corners are only noted with a candle in a corner to show the contours of your path, which was not as disorienting as it could have been (i.e., a twenty-year old on some kind of chemically altering substance might beg to differ). The graveyard and other spaces gave the impression of fog with the music industry’s chalky-scented smoke. In the crafted room-sets, sometimes the only light one has are those flameless tea lights, which make snooping in drawers, poking in boxes, or reading book spines more of a tactile experience than visual. Event-go-ers are encouraged to engage the senses, particularly touch, even when certain senses are imposed upon as with the meager lighting and compulsory soundtracks of electronic and swing. As for taste? Behind a reception desk/bar, I confess to opening a decanter and pouring a glass of its contents. Secretly hoping for whiskey, I tasted discolored, tainted water. (No, I did not follow through with downing that first swig.) Moments later, performers and voyeurs came on the scene of my crime.
For me, the theatrics of setting and design appealed to my intrigue with art installations and the use of space. I liked the collages and wall art that involved book pages and egg-imagery. There was an interesting “witch’s” herb-drying room whose contents emitted their earthy and musty odors. An odd mobile of dozens of headless dolls loomed over an empty crib. A hotel reception area was replete with the front desk, room keys (bolted!) on their hooks, the telephone booths, a lobby, and a valise storage area. Predictably, this space became the site for more wordless drama between the “actors” whose main genre of action revolved around the bodily-magnetics of attraction and repulsion.
I keep putting “actors” in quotes because I likened them to a modern dance troupe with their athleticism and interpretive movements. There was a meant-to-be intriguing dance between two actors and a door. We commiserated later on (adhering to the rules of silence) that we were more worried about the door. An actor feigned sleep in a large bed, while another one would gyrate and roll around her bed for the masked peeping masses. There was scene that mirrors what I call the “rape shower” of film: a nude male performer huddled in the corner of a shower stall with one lone male onlooker. One of the best scenes was at the ballroom banquet table, where the diners moved in slow, fluid motion as if in some 1940s tableau vivant rendition of the iconic Last Supper. Were there more scenes like that? We could not know. Otherwise, these “actors” did quite a bit of running and stomping to entice the herd of masked sheep to follow them. As tempting as it was to “baaaaa” when they passed, I kept silent. I may sound jaded when I write that nothing shocks me in the realm of art, fiction, or theatre anymore when the goal is explicitly to shock us.
So it is an event for those who participate in what they might perceive to be the elite-hipster circle of voyeurism. If interaction is what you seek, you can be one of those spectators who hover around an “actor,” waiting to be pulled in to some kind of drama. As herds stampeded by, we watched a few masked peers do just that. Watching other masked go-ers interact was part of the experience. The spectacle of looking down from a balcony into the ballroom of masked visitors proved more interesting than watching the “actors.”
Conceptually, the success of the phenomenon that is Sleep No More is a result of its manipulation of space and time. Without knowing the precise square footage of the production, I would say the troupe’s business and social acumen acknowledges the antsy, attention deficient nature of its pleasure-seeking-mobile audience and offers an illusion that there is just “not enough time” to see everything. There is no narrative, but instead a collage of scenes (human and inanimate) to experience. Experience is the key here because it celebrates the self and its affective navel-gazing tendencies. The repeating taxidermy, the repetition of beds and tubs, the variations on altars, the abandoned offices, the maze of thin branches, and other elements of design create a dream-scape where each room presents itself as new landscape for exploration. Design combined with the “actors” anguished interactions serve the mood, engage the senses, and trick the naïve mind into thinking it all must mean something. That’s the gimmick of Sleep No More: reviewers and goers want to believe there are “real” parallels to Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hitchcock’s Rebecca, so they return to the McKittrick and (their wallets!) to figure it all out. But these days, things don’t have to mean anything.
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