Dark & Twisty

I cannot read ever book that I come across.  I just don't have the time. I do, however, have a lot of time in my car.  This gives me the chance to listen to those books I can't get to on CD.  I usually try and deal with classics or whatever the bookstore has cheap.  Thus, I got my hands on Candide by Voltaire.

I read Gulliver's Travels a few years ago.  It is the oldest novel I have read, and some of the oldest work I read except for Shakespeare and the Bible.  Candide reminded me alot of this tale.  It was pure satire.  The whole book deals with Candide, a naive German, wandering around the world and ending up in a variety of misfortunes and fortunes.  He meets lots of people and learns many life lessons just to make the same mistakes again. 

The story becomes very typical after the first few chapters.  You realize that Candide is going to befall tragedy and then success.  He then chalks everything up to the better good like what his teacher Dr. Pangloss says to do. 

In the end, the moral is to just not think too much.  What a brillant idea.  I think I thought too much of Voltaire before this book.  I suggest Gulliver's Travels.  It was more enjoyable and a whole lot sexier, plus the ridiculous names for the characters makes more since because Gulliver travels to fictional locations, whereas Candide stays in real places, except for El Dorado, which is a paradise he leaves because of his naivite.

Gulliver over Candide 21-0

Posted by Jared at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've never wanted to read this book, but I found it cheap on audiobook, so I picked it up.  I'm glad I listened to this book instead of trying to read it, because I would have set it down much like I did One Flew Over's the Cuckoo's Nest.  Books about mental illness usually get put aside because I get too angry at the characters or it feels like I'm at work. When I listen to a book, I'm forced to keep going because I need something to distract me on long drives.

The story captures the ideations of a manic very well.  It should though, because it's a thinly veiled autobiography with some mixature of fiction thrown in for good effort.  The fact is that I did greatly disliked Esther, the main character.  I guess in the ultimate tradition of writing when you have a strong emotional feeling for a character either good or bad, the writer has accomplished something.

Posted by Jared at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every now and then you come across a work of fiction that is both humorous and thought provoking.  Recently, I listened to The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.  For those unfamiliar with his volume, it is an anthology of poetry.  Each poem is about a person buried in the graveyard at Spoon River, IL.  Masters tells a little bit of that person’s story through their own voice.  The overall connection of the poems, however, tells the story of the town.

Not all the people Masters wrote about had died, but he lampooned (maybe harpooned in a better word) them in this work.  It caused much controversy in the time it was published. Some of the Spoon Riverians didn’t care for it at all because he actually used the names and stories of real people.

For the most part, this work drags on a little too long.  It is nice to get a story from multiple angles, but there are only so many times that you can hear about the bank getting broken by the greedy owners, and about the various sins of different community leaders before things start to feel redundant.  The anthology does this.  The idea was novel for its time and still remains so.  To give voices to the dead of a cemetery is a great way to get ideas for stories, but moderation is in order.

The overall connection in the poems tell the story of little town of Spoon Rive with all its warts and herpes sores showing. The town seems idyllic like many small towns, but just the same looks and the truth aren’t the same.  Greed, politics, liquor, and sex permeate the small town.  Most all the poems deal with one of these, even the reverends and priest are guilty as much as the crooks and drunkards.

The town of Spoon River is a disease.  It infects all the narrators and brings all of them low.  Masters did his job well.  The town is a horrible creature and monster in its own right. However, the anthology takes too long to get through, and too many of the ghosts have the same story to tell. 

Posted by Jared at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just finished listening to the vampire story Carmilla.  This story is legendary in the canon of vampyric literature.  The story has been much up held as the first lesbian vampire story.  It is true that much of the story has a homoerotic mood.  The main villian, the vampire Carmilla, seems to only feast on women, and young women at that. The story was written during Victorian times, so any direct reference to such is not made.

The interesting take on this story is that it is set in Germany and Austria, although the protagonist's father is of British descent and keeps some of the traditions of England.

The story for the most part does a good job of establishing some well known tropes of the Vampire literature.  The vampire still comes out at night.  She sleeps in the grave, and staking her kills her.  There is still a heavy connection between sin and becoming a vampire.  This story seems to bring in the idea that suicide caused one to be a vampire. 

The story is rather boring however.  It reads like Jane Austin wrote a vampire novella.  It was much to romantic for my particular taste.  I think that some of the ideas surrounding the vampire character were good.  The discription of being bitten compared to being stuck by needles is very good and descriptive.  Bram Stoker never really gave such a good take on the story. I think the best thing about the story was that the vampire was female instead of male.  She is still of noble blood which seems to be a huge part of being a vampire in early literature.  This of course is probably a class thing.  Also, Carmilla could be based on the story of Elisabeth Bathory, the countess who did drink and bath in girl's blood. 

The best part of Carmilla is that it seems designed for such wonderful production companies as Hammer Films and Roger Corman.  That makes things wonderful when you can see Peter Cushing staking a large breasted vampire.

Posted by Jared at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I just finished another classic, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  This is another of those audio book things all the young folks are so crazy about.  I have for many years tried to read the actual "dead tree media" version of this tale. (I hope my friends and enemies appreciate the quoted section.) I was never able to get past, It was Wang Lung's wedding day.  I am glad I listened to this story, however.

I really picked very little in the way of writing techinque from this book.  I used a POV style that I don't use very often and did a lot of telling and very little showing.  The characters never received proper names, and to be frank, it was a pot boiler.  I did learn that even stories about things I have no connection with whatsoever can be engrossing. 

The way I knew that this story affected me was I was sad in the end.  I know that since my father's death I have become far more emotional about things.  I can't watch telephone commercials because I cry, which is convient because I don't have an antanea or satelite so I don't get televsion except for DVD's and Bluray.  This book touched me though. 

I believe that country people are the same the world over. We have a connection to our community and to our land.  This is case in this text.  The whole story revolves around Wang Lung's desire to do better, but when he is at the end of his wits, he always returned to his land.  It provided him the ulitmate solace for whatever he needed. 

The story goes for Wang Lung's adulthood with all the trails and tribulations.  The saddest thing is that in the end, his land, that touchstone he has relied upon, is going to be sold once he is dead. His family connections will be lost and his mind his family will fall.

If you've never read it, pick up this book or audiobook.  I recommend the audiobook it's easier to get into than the text.  I'm a horror writer and have to stay emeshed in the genre, but I still love classics, and love to frolic in them.  This story is itself a bit of horror, but one that maybe only those who are truly country can understand. 

Posted by Jared at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I've never read anything by Mr. Palhnuik, and I still haven't (technically).  I listened to Choke on CD, as the author reads it.  The text was unabridge so it's like reading the book, and to be frank, I don't have the time for idle reading. 

The major thing that struck me about this book is the writing.  I'm not sure I would be able to read it.  Listening to it at times became taxing.  The repeative, "I say 'Dude,' I say."  I felt like Foghorn Leghorn had written this story.  I was not at all impressed with the writing style of this book.  The juxtapostion of some of the prose with the other parts was distracting to no end "see also being pulled out of the story, see also the horrible quotations, see also see also references."

Now to the story.  This was listed according to some sites as satire and black comedy.  I found it more absurdist, which I like.  The characters are over the top, and unrealistic in that way, but that's good absurdist writing.  The narrator was very unreliable.  I don't like this so well in writing.  This is just my particular preference.  But the main issue with this story, is that I was not satisfied at the end.  The character has a change.  His hole sick little world fell apart as anal beads descended from his colon, but I'm not sure he learned anything, and It had been a stretch for me to care about the characters from the start.  (This is a problem with absurdist fiction at times.)

The one thing I have to say about Palahnuik is that this is a man's book.  There is no frilliness to it.  It lacks any foofoo.  It's hardcore as a book about sex addicts should be. 

The unfortunate thing is I'll probably never pick up another Palahnuik book again.  This one ruined me on him.  But I will credit that I don't hold him in the contempt I hold Scott Smith and his The Ruins in.  I actually pick up copies of that book and openly make fun of it in a book store.  I won't do that with Palahnuik because I think he has some positive qualities in his writing, but it's just not for me. See also Earnest Hemmingway, see also Stephanie Meyer, see also H.P Lovecraft.

Posted by Jared at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)