Dancing Around the Four Sides

I was so sorry to hear that Jonathan Demme has passed away. We saw his Talking Heads' concert film Stop Making Sense in the theater when it came out, and it was a revelation in movie-making. I own the DVDs for both that film and his Neil Young: Heart of Gold, which is (almost) equally terrific.

Finished reading Elif Batuman's The Idiot last night, and ... well. I really liked it. I liked it a lot. I thought Batuman did a pitch-perfect job capturing the voice and outlook of a 19-year-old college freshman and thrusting us into her life. What really disappointed me were the many stupid comments on the "pro" review sites (Slate, the AV Club, the Washington Post), left by people who had never read the book but thought they knew everything about it. I know, I know -- you're not supposed to read the comments. :-P

Weather is on a yo-yo string; ridiculously warm yesterday, almost chilly today. Have not seen any baby bunnies for a couple of days now (and I am glad; they are adorable but I want them to move on because Layla). Also noticed we have another tomato, this time from one of the Black Krims.

Watched Lincoln the other night and enjoyed it. Afterwards I fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole -- guys, meet the last person to have looked Abraham Lincoln in the face. (The Life magazine article cited at the bottom, #6, is a somewhat more detailed write-up, although you have to scroll a ways to see it. But then you get to see all the cool period ads.) :-)

Well, it appears we have gone straight from winter to summer. It was 92 here yesterday (33.3 Celsius) and today it is supposed to be around 88 (31.1). Everything is green and growing, but jeez this is too warm too early.

Anyway. Here are the last three books I've read ...

1) All Things Cease to Appear, by Elizabeth Brundage. I liked this a lot! Unfortunately I thought the ending was way too rushed and tied up much too neatly, but it was still a very good read. It's a ghost story/murder story (I'm calling it "murder story" instead of murder mystery because c'mon, there's really no mystery about who the killer is), with distinct echoes of Donna Tartt (a lead character is an art historian at a small upstate New York university) and Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley). The author does a great job of a place in time (the late '70s), and I'd be interested in picking up another book by her.

2) Hero of the Empire, by Candice Millard. (Actually it's a much longer title but I'm not going to type it all out kthx.) Omg I loved this. Millard has the wonderful ability to take a story we already know the answer to (Winston Churchill's capture and escape from the Boers during the Boer War) and make it nail-bitingly exciting. RISKS! CHILLS! THRILLS! WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Well, dead, but still. Somebody should make a movie of this. Two thumbs up! :D

3) Sweet Lamb of Heaven, by Lydia Millet. I wanted to like this. I really did. Woman hears voices in her mind, woman leaves creepy husband, woman finds refuge in run-down old motel on the Maine coast ... woman's story descends into New Age-y psychobabble about God, the language of trees and other plants, metaphysics, and an antagonist who is either God, the Devil, or a technological glitch in reality. I don't know. By the end, I didn't care. No stars, no thumbs up, wtf did I just read?

SO. Now I am reading David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter, which is about the Korean War. Figured I should learn about the first one before the next one starts. AMIRITE OR AMIRITE LOL :-P

There was a cottontail in our backyard last night. Layla, needless to say, was very excited and wanted to go chase it, but we wouldn't let her (we are very mean). The cottontail could tell it was being watched (by us and the dog), and so it just sat still for a while. Then it relaxed enough to look around, and then enough to forage around in the grass and dirt. Layla eventually got bored and decided to take a nap. :D

Finished a very good book -- Wake, by Anna Hope. The story follows three women -- Ada, Evelyn, and Hettie -- through one week in November, 1920. The Great War has only been over for two years, and its effects are still rippling through their lives. I really enjoyed this short novel and give it two thumbs up. Now reading Simon Sebag Montefiore's new history of the Romanov dynasty, and so far it is excellent.

The weather is still wildly unseasonable -- much too warm, and today we are waiting for rain.

The windows are open because it is 76 degrees here (24.4 Celsius). Just this afternoon I've seen chickadees, house finches, and bluebirds in our backyard. The bluebirds are especially pretty. I actually thought I might see Early Girl tomato plants for sale at Sprouts yesterday.

Finished reading Michael Chabon's Moonglow, and yes, I liked it a lot. But (is there always a but?) Chabon's narrative device kept me from being fully immersed in the story. What we have is something along the lines of Big Fish, where a father tells the story of his life to his son, except in Moonglow it's a grandfather telling the stories. And ... that, for all intents and purposes, is the character's name. He's my grandfather, and the other characters are my grandmother and my mother. Some of the secondary characters have names, but the main triad is nameless for 99% of the book (I think we learn the grandmother's name very late, but to me it wasn't clear if that was her or not). Anyway, this kept tripping me up. I mean, I guess I shouldn't have had a problem, but I did. Also there were a couple of points in the narration that seemed to be either bad editing or plot holes or Chabon indicating an unreliable narrator -- one of them was explained near the end, the other wasn't (a character who had two eyes, about 10 pages later, only had one). ANYWAY. It's a good read (some of the writing is just exquisite), but I think I liked Kavalier & Clay better.

Now I am reading Iron Towns, by Anthony Cartwright, and it is short and pretty good.

And because I am a Tom Hardy fan, I watched Taboo last night on FX. I like dark, gritty, and silly, so I thought it was great. :D

Books read in 2012
Books read in 2013
Books read in 2014
Books read in 2015
Books read in 2016


2017

The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World, David Jaher
Moonglow, Michael Chabon
Iron Towns, Anthony Cartwright
Hitler: Ascent, 1889 - 1939, Volker Ullrich
Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch
Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
Wake, Anna Hope
The Romanovs: 1613 - 1918, Simon Sebag Montefiore
The Visible Filth, Nathan Ballingrud
All Things Cease to Appear, Elizabeth Brundage
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill, Candice Millard
Sweet Lamb of Heaven, Lydia Millet
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, David Halberstam
The Blizzard Voices: Poems, Ted Kooser
Swing Time, Zadie Smith
A Distant Heartbeat: A War, a Disappearance, and a Family's Secrets, Eunice Lipton
The Idiot, Elif Batuman
The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, Kij Johnson
All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders
My War Gone By, I Miss It So, Anthony Loyd
White Tears, Hari Kunzru
Brightness Falls, Jay McInerney
Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity, Neal Gabler
The Sunlight Pilgrims, Jenni Fagan
Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived, Penelope Lively
The Astaires: Fred & Adele, Kathleen Riley
The Night Ocean, Paul La Farge
Disappearance at Devil's Rock, Paul Tremblay
Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, an Autobiography, J.G. Ballard
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
Deaths of the Poets, Paul Farley & Michael Symmons Roberts
See You in the Cosmos, Jack Cheng
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Erik Larson
Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977 - 2002, David Sedaris
News of the World, Paulette Jiles
Alligator Candy: A Memoir, David Kushner
Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, editors Sam Weller and Mort Castle
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
The Good Life, Jay McInerney
The Magician King, Lev Grossman
The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories, Etgar Keret
The Magician's Land, Lev Grossman
David Crockett: The Lion of the West, Michael Wallis
It, Stephen King
Petty: The Biography, Warren Zanes
Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan
The Twilight Pariah, Jeffrey Ford
Outline, by Rachel Cusk
American Elsewhere, Robert Jackson Bennett
The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy, Michael McCarthy
Strange Weather: Four Short Novels, Joe Hill
Fosse, Sam Wasson
Autumn, Ali Smith
The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age, Juliet Nicolson
Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, Charlotte Higgins
Recipe for Life: The Autobiography, Mary Berry
Copenhagen, Michael Frayn

Grouchy and growly all through the holiday. Generalized anxiety and free-floating testiness FTW!

I did read Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, which just won the National Book Award, and I thought it was ... good. Not great. Did it deserve the National Book Award? I don't know; I haven't read the other nominees, although Paulette Jiles' News of the World is on my to-read list, and Lydia Millet's Sweet Lamb of Heaven (which was on the award long list) is in my to-read stack. (The complete list of awards is here.)

So anyway, now I am reading Raghu Karnad's Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War, and so far it is interesting.

I think I have stopped watching Westworld. The last episode I saw was "Trompe l'Oeil." After the supporting-character death in that episode, I thought about it a lot, and I finally came to the realization that, while I liked some of the show's characters (Dolores and Maeve, in particular), I really didn't care about any of them. Add to that the sheer unrelenting bleakness of the show, and, as technically beautiful as I think it is, I was like "Why keep watching?" So far I'm not missing it. Still watching Lucifer and Timeless, both of which are very silly.

Had to turn the a/c on AGAIN because ffs it is almost 90 outside. >:-[

Finished the new biography of Shirley Jackson (by Ruth Franklin) and really enjoyed it. Was sad to realize that she died at such a young age (48) in 1965 -- she could've lived well into the 1970s and '80s and even the 1990s, and written so much more. Am now reading Entry Island by Peter May, which I am liking although I think the narrator/protagonist is a bit of a Gary Stu. :D

Also have been watching Westworld on HBO and Timeless on NBC. The former has exactly the kind of gritty, dark story that pulls me in; the latter is ... not that. *g* Timeless is a goofy series about three time travelers in pursuit of the bad guy, trying to keep him from changing the past. There are so many plot holes you could drive multiple trucks through them, but it is an endearingly silly show and the actors are giving it all they've got, so I keep tuning in.

That's it, ( but here's a poem by Philip Larkin ...  )

1) It rained some earlier today and we are supposed to have more, but right now it is sunny and warm (and humid).

2) I was reading Black Deutschland and it was pretty good, but I have to admit it was also somewhat ... boring. So I thought, "Oh, I'll put this aside for a moment and read Rabih Alameddine's An Unnecessary Woman, which I've been looking forward to!" So okay, I pick up Unnecessary Woman, which is about the life of a Lebanese woman in Beirut, and I'm reading it, and then I come to page 43. The narrator, Aaliya, is bartering sex for a gun, because her apartment has been broken into. Her partner is Ahmad, who used to work in her bookshop but has since moved up in the world (so to speak) to become a feared militia torturer. ( Cut because squick ...  )

SO. I get it, I know that I'm intended to read this as darkly absurd and ridiculous, a comedy of the human condition. But all I can think is, DUDE, WTF? Dear Reader, I have not been able to continue with this book, and I am not sure I will finish it. I'm probably overreacting, but to me, that is just such a weird choice as a writer to make. :-P

3) I am now reading John Scalzi's Old Man's War, which is at least some decent brain candy.

4) Is anyone going to watch the first Presidential debate on Monday night? The NY Times is predicting "Super Bowl type numbers" in viewership, and I think they're full of shit just don't see that.

5) On our walk last night we saw a tiny baby toad that was about the size of my thumbnail. :D

Five things make a post.

The weather is slowly changing -- a front came through early this morning and it RAINED. These last two weeks Layla and I have seen a skunk and a couple of opossums while walking.

Finished reading Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts a few days ago, and HOLY SHIT. Chiclets, this book was fucking TERRIFYING. I finished it late at night, and I was sorry I didn't wait until daytime. The story is about a 14-year-old girl who may or may not be possessed by a demon (or she may be schizophrenic, or she may be completely faking it). The father in the story is desperate for help (and money) so he gets his family involved with a priest AND a reality-TV show for the Discovery Channel. And it's all narrated by the 14-year-old's little sister, who may know a whole lot more than she's letting on. I thought it was dark and brilliant and amazing and horrifying, and did I mention dark? Oh my god it gets REALLY DARK at the end, and it for real left me shaken and questioning what was real in the book. I thought Tremblay played all his cards perfectly, and I am not going to forget this one for a long, LONG time. Wow. Two thumbs way, way up, but believe me when I say this book is not for everyone.

OKAY, SO. Now I am reading Uprooted by Naomi Novik and I am enjoying it thoroughly! Have any of you guys read her Temeraire series? Is it worth reading? I mean, Uprooted is great so I'm assuming her other books are too ...

I'm not sorry to see you go. :-P

Reading Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn because I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. It's been a while since I've read one of these "slice of life" novels, and I'd forgotten how ... quiet they can be. Maybe too quiet? We shall see.

Watched most of The Danish Girl last night and was once again swept away by Alicia Vikander's stunning beauty. Was also amused to see Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts in it, all cleaned up and looking very fine, as I totally associate him with the psycho wannabe thief and all-around lowlife Eric Deeds in The Drop, where he assumes a completely acceptable American accent (as do Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace). :D

Also, in somewhat local news -- it's one of the oldest tricks in the book.

And last but definitely not least, ( a bonus pic of Layla ...  )