You have to understand, I liked THE GODFATHER. Sure, it was a pulp novel, but it moved at a good pace and had a good feel for its characters. It was also fairly evocative of its time and place--though that is probably shaded by the fact that I saw the movie at least twenty times before reading the book, so there's going to be some crossover sentiment. I guess you could say that there was enough of the movie in the original book that I was impressed, and wanted to read some more of his work.
Well, FOURTH K isn't nearly as impressive. Maybe the reason they haven't made it into a movie is that it would be hard to pull off without looking a bit silly. This speculation on the presidency of a nephew of the three Kennedy brothers seems a bit fanciful, though I guess not all that far-fetched. Francis Xavier Kennedy still bears the childhood trauma of his uncles' assassinations, but tries to carry on the Kennedy spirit. Remember the "good" kind of liberal? Well, that upsets some Arab radicals enough to assassinate the Pope, as a distraction from the real Easter Day caper, the hijacking of the plane the First Daughter was travelling on (commercially, though first class, surrounded by Secret Service). When she gets killed execution-style, FXK decides to get radical and threaten to nuke the terrorists' host country. The emirate capitulates and surrenders the terrorists to US custody, but then a small nuke goes off in Times Square, and it becomes a question of Kennedyesque force of personality vs. "modern" terrorist realities.
The treatment is too facile, too workmanlike. Tom Clancy and THE WEST WING have brought an element of verite (or at least a strong sense of detail) to this kind of material, and Puzo can't match it. All of this may have been provocative back in 1990, but doesn't have much resonance now, given recent events. Absent that, it becomes a simple tale of Kennedy mystique and liberal politics, without contributing much to either. Not a bad book, but a fairly forgettable one, unfortunately.
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Tommyknockers Stephen King
Fast. That's how I remember Stephen King described in a movie once (THE WATERDANCE, Eric Stolz as a young writer paralyzed in a bike accident). I don't know why that's the first thing that comes to mind when I try to describe King's style and/or appeal, but it fits, as the best way to characterize his writing: fast. And yet, so very detailed and comprehensive. THE STAND is one of the best modern novels I've read, and I mean that all things considered. I've read almost all of his early work, right up to CUJO, and a good portion of what came after. I'd like to say that he doesn't disappoint, but the truth is, he often does, especially in his later stuff. I picked up TOMMYKNOCKERS at one of the used bookstores I frequent. It comes from the era just before he became a cliche bordering on self-parody. When did that happen, anyway? DOLORES CLAIBOURNE made for a good movie, at least. GREEN MILE and HEARTS IN ATLANTIS didn't really do it for me, but weren't bad.
And TOMMYKNOCKERS isn't bad either, though it doesn't stand as one of his best. Never slow, though. Bobbi Anderson makes a startling discovery while clearing the land around her farmhouse in rural Maine: a bit of metal sticking up out of the ground, which gives off a curious vibe--literally. After touching it, a combination of curiosity and compulsion makes her try to dig it out, but it's much larger than it first seems. Turns out to be the edge of an alien space ship that's been buried for millions of years. And while the ship isn't alive per se, it is channeling some kind of energy and intelligence, and the effect becomes more pronounced the more of it is unearthed. There's something in the air, and it spreads to absorb the local town. Soon everyone is behaving very strangely indeed, compulsively and possessed of a superhuman intelligence. All but Bobbi's friend, a suicidal alcoholic of a poet who drops by just as things start to get weird.
It's good to read Stephen King again, truly refreshing after some of the stuff I've waded through recently. His characters are distinct but familiar, since he so clearly communicates how they think. This can make even his most insipid plot developments bearable, such as the quasi-silly ending. Still, a good read, and I look forward to the next King book I pick up.
And TOMMYKNOCKERS isn't bad either, though it doesn't stand as one of his best. Never slow, though. Bobbi Anderson makes a startling discovery while clearing the land around her farmhouse in rural Maine: a bit of metal sticking up out of the ground, which gives off a curious vibe--literally. After touching it, a combination of curiosity and compulsion makes her try to dig it out, but it's much larger than it first seems. Turns out to be the edge of an alien space ship that's been buried for millions of years. And while the ship isn't alive per se, it is channeling some kind of energy and intelligence, and the effect becomes more pronounced the more of it is unearthed. There's something in the air, and it spreads to absorb the local town. Soon everyone is behaving very strangely indeed, compulsively and possessed of a superhuman intelligence. All but Bobbi's friend, a suicidal alcoholic of a poet who drops by just as things start to get weird.
It's good to read Stephen King again, truly refreshing after some of the stuff I've waded through recently. His characters are distinct but familiar, since he so clearly communicates how they think. This can make even his most insipid plot developments bearable, such as the quasi-silly ending. Still, a good read, and I look forward to the next King book I pick up.
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern Lilian Jackson Braun
How could I not? A series of books about a mystery-solving cat? It's a wonder that I've waited so long to actually pick up one of these. The owner of Twice Sold in Capitol Hill said she thought this was the first in the series; unfortunately, it's second, to THE CAT WHO COULD READ BACKWARDS, but this served as a reasonable introduction. It's an enjoyable enough read: Jim Qwilleran is a reporter for a newspaper in an unnamed Midwest city, whose new assignment is to start up a Saturday supplement on interior decorating. Things go wrong with the first publication: the day after the first edition hits the stands, the house profiled as the feature article gets burglarized, with half a million dollars worth of jade stolen. Something about it doesn't seem right to Qwilleran, who was a crime reporter once upon a time. He's fairly milktoast, with a cat named Koko that seems to either be psychic or just coincidentally leads him to clues that further the case.
All in all, not great mystery, not a very interesting crime. Makes for a Gregory MacDonald-type tour of interior design, without the wonderful dialogue. But the interplay between cat and owner is nice. Did I mention I like cats?
All in all, not great mystery, not a very interesting crime. Makes for a Gregory MacDonald-type tour of interior design, without the wonderful dialogue. But the interplay between cat and owner is nice. Did I mention I like cats?
The Plague Albert Camus
I heard from someone that THE PLAGUE is actually not very good Camus. For his sake, I hope so, since this book was long, dull, and near as I can tell, pointless. I'm an existentialist, but this story has me running back to Sartre, who at least is entertaining (I mean his fiction, not that BEING AND NOTHINGNESS tome: I managed two chapters or so before giving up, but if I ever want an exhaustive and confusing treatment of ontology, I'll snap it right up).
The coastal town of Oran in Algeria is beset by an outbreak of bubonic plague, and before long the government has the place under general quarantine indefinitely. The residents can't leave, and are faced daily with the possibility that they may get the plague and die. So it's the old existential chestnut: you can die at any time, so what difference does it make what you do? Never have I seen it rendered so dull and uninteresting. The characters are forgettable, the prose is detached and flat, and the story is just about non-existent. And as epidemiology goes, this is mediocre at best. Defoe did better in JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. I'll try THE STRANGER, maybe, but I have no enthusiasm.
The coastal town of Oran in Algeria is beset by an outbreak of bubonic plague, and before long the government has the place under general quarantine indefinitely. The residents can't leave, and are faced daily with the possibility that they may get the plague and die. So it's the old existential chestnut: you can die at any time, so what difference does it make what you do? Never have I seen it rendered so dull and uninteresting. The characters are forgettable, the prose is detached and flat, and the story is just about non-existent. And as epidemiology goes, this is mediocre at best. Defoe did better in JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. I'll try THE STRANGER, maybe, but I have no enthusiasm.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey
I'd heard a lot about Ken Kesey's book: that it's a counterculture classic, that Kesey had based the book on his experiences working as an orderly in an Oregon mental hospital in the early '60s, that the money he made from the book funded the Merry Pranksters. And I'd seen the movie, though I didn't particularly like it. I don't know why, since I've always loved the whole the-one-everyone-calls-crazy-is-actually-the-most-reasonable bit. CATCH-22 is my favorite book, after all. But as movies go, I thought COOL HAND LUKE was the same story, and more engaging. I'll have to read that book some time.
Anyway, the book CUCKOO'S NEST is an interesting read, since it's told from the perspective of Chief Bromden, a paranoid delusional: he describes the machinery that he thinks runs the mental ward, with the staff as robots. And that sometimes they use a fog machine to cloud up the place, so that all the patients stay lost in a haze. But while that makes for some wonderfully detailed observations, it makes for too much distance from the two main characters, Randle Patrick McMurphy and Big Nurse Ratched, so that they only function as elements of the plot, free spirit vs rigorous authority. No insights into why rebels are rebellious, or why authority has to be so rigorous. I guess that's not this story; as it is, it's rightfully a classic depiction of taking on The System, with a set of memorable
Anyway, the book CUCKOO'S NEST is an interesting read, since it's told from the perspective of Chief Bromden, a paranoid delusional: he describes the machinery that he thinks runs the mental ward, with the staff as robots. And that sometimes they use a fog machine to cloud up the place, so that all the patients stay lost in a haze. But while that makes for some wonderfully detailed observations, it makes for too much distance from the two main characters, Randle Patrick McMurphy and Big Nurse Ratched, so that they only function as elements of the plot, free spirit vs rigorous authority. No insights into why rebels are rebellious, or why authority has to be so rigorous. I guess that's not this story; as it is, it's rightfully a classic depiction of taking on The System, with a set of memorable
Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau
Perhaps this one suffers from anticipation: I haven't read Walden, and only know that Thoreau has a reputation for rugged individualism. And I'm all for that. But I guess I was hoping for something a little less political: Emerson on self-reliance didn't raise the issue of whether a local tax is worth avoiding--this seeming to be the substance of Thoreau's titular disobedience. He spends a single night in jail, after which his neighbors bail him out. After Eugene Debs, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, you'll have to pardon me not being impressed.
He makes some allusion to the fact that the nation at large condones slavery, which he obviously finds reprehensible. But it seems to me that since the tax he is evading is a local one, his protest as a political statement thereupon is indirect at best. Seems to me he's just indignant about having to pay a tax.
And I can kind of see his point, since he's writing from an America that has one hell of a lot less in the way of infrastructure, the primary justification for why our current tax system is necessary. But all this talk of the outdoorsy individual having no need of an overbearing government rings a little hollow, seeing as Thoreau didn't get much further into the wilderness than a few miles from Boston. He was a few decades younger than Daniel Boone: now there's someone who meant it.
He makes some allusion to the fact that the nation at large condones slavery, which he obviously finds reprehensible. But it seems to me that since the tax he is evading is a local one, his protest as a political statement thereupon is indirect at best. Seems to me he's just indignant about having to pay a tax.
And I can kind of see his point, since he's writing from an America that has one hell of a lot less in the way of infrastructure, the primary justification for why our current tax system is necessary. But all this talk of the outdoorsy individual having no need of an overbearing government rings a little hollow, seeing as Thoreau didn't get much further into the wilderness than a few miles from Boston. He was a few decades younger than Daniel Boone: now there's someone who meant it.
The Rolling Stones Robert Heinlein
With a title like that, how could I resist? Started reading it the week before the concert, October 19th. Suffice it to say, this one isn't rock and roll. A modest effort by Heinlein, about a family of eccentrics living in the lunar colony, who decide to take an extended family vacation aboard a fixer-upper spaceship they christen The Rolling Stone (Stone is their last name--cute, huh?).
Not bad, for the teen crowd of its day (published 1952), and has an amusing bit that predates Huple's cat's infamous sleeping habit in Catch-22, but overall this one won't fire your imagination.
Not bad, for the teen crowd of its day (published 1952), and has an amusing bit that predates Huple's cat's infamous sleeping habit in Catch-22, but overall this one won't fire your imagination.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)