Fans of The Virgin Suicides should try Of A Boy, by Australian author Sonya Hartnett. It has the same combination of dreamy prose, suburban angst and high tragedy. This novella has won numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the 2003 Miles Franklin Award. For me it was all over a little too soon, and some of the narratives and themes left a little too "dangly" as they say. Well, as I say, anyway. Speaking of which, I didn't mention in yesterday's post, but The Skin I Live In has a similarly lackluster, "modern" ending. So too does IQ84 for that matter. It must be a thing.
This is not the best book to read at the start of The Year of the Apocalypse. Shteyngart paints America's end of days with cutting satire. The revolution will be televised, by permanently "on" video bloggers no less. This is a world where people go to bars to compare stats ("likability" being one measurement) rather than chat; where immigrants with poor credit ratings are deported and the bumbling American president kowtows to the Bank of China.
It's also not the best thing to read while detoxing all those New Years Eve bevvies. Youth is everything in Super Sad True Love Story, or at least it is to the book's protagonist, Lenny Abramov. He works shilling immortality to the rich.All of it rings very true, especially the constant updates about worker moods (although how these are decided is never explained), not to mention people's disgust at the the unhealthy. It's a vision more realistic than, say, Jennifer Egan's toddler ruled America in A Visit From the Goon Squad.
Also, with it's combination of pornography and news - one gay blogger delivers news of mass protests while getting "reamed" on a luxury yacht - is reminiscent of Southland Tales, the 2006 mega-bomb by Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly. FYI it features Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn-star/commentator.
Having thrown Ian McEwan into my "Crotchety Old Man" writer basket, I made a point of avoiding his books. Even after watching the film version of Atonement, with the gorgeous Kiera Knightly having a darb in that absurdly sexy green dress, I was wary. But I was wrong.
Atonement grabs you from the start. Or at least it did me, but then again I have a soft spot for child villains. Even the sort-of unwitting ones. Although in my opinion. Briony knew exactly what she was doing. But even if that's not your thing, and I hear some people found the start a tad slow (not all of us have a soft-spot for English toffs swanning about, stewing in their own psyches) there's a brilliant war section later on. I've never read the war described in such tawdry horror.
The further I get into this book, the more it's irritating me.
For those who haven't read it, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the second novel by American writer Jonathan Safran Foer. Before this he wrote Everything is Illuminated, the much loved book/movie starring Elijah Wood, unread and unseen by me. Why not? Because stories which use the Holocaust as a theme annoy/bore me. Sozzy.
You know those books where you think "Oh jeez, it's a big literary thing, I guess I better read it." ? For me, this was one of those.Plus it was a freebie from work. And while - like in "Classic" novels- I can see the importance and beauty of the work, ultimately I didn't enjoy it, and wouldn't reccommend it to you. I
The Grapes of Wrath follows the beleagured Joad family as they travel from their repossed farm in Oklahoma to what the Promised Land of California. Being set in 1930's, the Joads have no way of knowing what lay there, just the promise of work printed on a yellow flyer. This is the Depression, and they're the corn-mush eating kind of folk. But as they travel (which consumes much of the book) they come to realise that California isn't the place they envisioned.
I jumped into this one after a fiction-heavy few weeks, following the David Foster Wallace with some short stories by John Updike. It was nice to get back into some non-fic. Especially non-fiction as sharp, funny and out-and-out bitchy as this is.
Ostensibly about Australian architecture, The Australian Ugliness is about so much more. Despite being published in 1960, this book is still cutting in it's observations of Australian attitudes in regards to taste. Above everything else it is fantastic writing, such as in this description of why we don't like native plants;
"The wattle and other native trees are almost indolent in their habits, lounging at drunken angles on the shabby,crackly,threadbare ochre carpet. "
How he manages to be critical while at the same time warm and understanding is impressive. Plus there's really cute drawings too!
......So I didn't get the job I was going for. Yes, yes disappointment and etc. I guess I'll have to go back to the drawing board. And the mooching line.
Elsewhere I've finally started reading Oblivion:Stories by David Foster Wallace. Its descriptions of mind-numbing corporate life soothe my jobless soul.Atleast until the weekend......
I can’t get over Katsuhiro Otomo. Akira is one of my all-time favourite novels. Graphic yes, but who cares— it’s over a thousand pages worth!
But before Akira there was Domu. Domu- or to be precise Domu; A Child’s Dream, can be seen a kind of forerunner to Akira, a short-story to its epic novel. All the themes are there; alienation amidst rapid urbanisation, the inherent evil of children, and explosive psychic powers.
The story is set almost entirely in a Tokyo apartment block. Not a little brown-brick seventies number like over here; this is an entire community stuffed into a non-descript concrete slab. It has its own infirmary, playground, you name it. So when people start dying, everyone’s involved. Detectives are called in, but it’s the battle between two psychic superpowers; a child and an old man that takes centre stage.
There is so much to like. Otomo’s drawings are staggering and his depiction of urban spaces is brilliant. So too his rendering of humans, all of them with decidedly human features. There are no moist-eyed, pointy chinned waifs here. It could almost be called realism, if there only there weren’t so much paranormal activity. If you cringe at the OTT style of manga, I suggest you try this.
But perhaps what impresses me most about this work is how ahead of its time it was, and still is. The recent craze for ‘urban fantasy’ – magical occurrences in every day places— is all here. So too is the recent craze for kick-ass (ahem) young heroines.
Just had to take a mo' and re-iterate via the interwebs how much I love this writer. A friend and I discovered her last year, and spent a good twenty-minutes gushing about her. As in, twenty minutes every time we saw one another. Which was daily. It was a right ol gush fest. Messy.
Dumped? Dateless? Ditched on Friday night? Clutching onto a tray of friands for dear sanity?-Try this author. The characters are just like you, except much funnier. And messed up. But funny. And bitter, so bitter. My favourite story is Real Estate , which opens with two pages of sarcastic HA HA HA's. I've never read an author who makes disillusionment, cynicism and pyjama-clad despair seem so appealing.
