August 2018 Reads, Part 2

(continued from Part 1)

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
From: Local Library
"We hadn't been ready for that. It had never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, being seen like that, being the spiders."

It's a little hard to share even quick thoughts about this book without spoilers, but I'll give it a shot. Never Let Me Go is unexpected - the writing style and content is both calming and shocking. At its heart, it's a thought experiment that should feel more dystopian than it does.

I still feel like Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day is the strongest of the three of his that I've read so far (The Buried Giant being the third), but this novel is entrancing, thought provoking, melancholy, and uncomfortably relevant.

Related Reads:
The Giver (Lowry)
Kafka on the Shore (Murakami)

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (2000)
From: Local Library bookstore
"I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?"

This collection of autobiographical essays is full of the author's irreverent and self-deprecating sense of humor. The title refers to an overarching theme, drawing from the author's struggles of growing up gay in the '60s (when he was forced into ineffective speech therapy for his lisp) and his adulthood move to France (where he struggled with the language).

On the whole, the collection was a bit hit-and-miss for me; some essays I found genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, while others just kind of missed the mark for me. I recall liking the author's one other book that I've read (his 2013 Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls) somewhat better, although since it's been a few years since I've read that one, I couldn't parse out exactly why (I think it perhaps came across as a bit more mature).

Related Reads:
Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls (Sedaris)
Shockaholic (Fisher)

Stone Mattress [Short Stories] - Margaret Atwood (2014)
From: Local Library
"But how can you have a sense of wonder if you’re prepared for everything? Prepared for the sunset. Prepared for the moonrise. Prepared for the ice storm. What a flat existence that would be."

This collection of stories is - contrary to my half-formed expectations - very light on the fantasy and science fiction, and almost exclusively (save for one notable exception) centered on stories involving old people, with a heavy dose on thought-experiment. So I appreciated the different perspective, and I think it's well-written, but I didn't necessarily click with it as a whole. But I think Atwood fans will find it worth checking out.

Related Reads:
The Robber Bride (Atwood)

Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain (2000)
From: Local Library (Hold list)
"I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once."

Anthony Bourdain's biography is mixed together here with his general thoughts and experiences on life in the culinary world. It feels kind of slapdash, but that's Bourdain's style, and it's certainly interesting. He gets into the good, the bad, and the ugly of working in a kitchen and the restaurant industry - it follows that there's a fair amount of vulgar language (a chapter is practically dedicated to the art of cursing/insults in a kitchen) and crude references.

Overall, this gives some good insight into Bourdain's life, personality, and drive. Read it if you work in a kitchen, or have any interest in the lives of people who do.

Related Reads:
The Apprentice (Pepin)
Down and Out in Paris and London (Orwell)
Fresh Off the Boat (Huang)

August 2018 Reads, Part 1

I read mostly books from the library over this past month. I'm thinking I may need to ban myself from the library for a while again as I still have a decent little to-read pile of books at home that I want to get through. It's hard when there's so much that the library has to offer!

This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)
From: Christmas gift in 2017
"Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmoniously above the willows. May came too soon, and suddenly unable to bear walls, he wandered campus at all hours through starlight and rain."

This semi-autobiographical work is a portrait of its time as much as it is of the author. Despite its tendency towards unevenness in tone and style, I liked it better than I remember liking The Great Gatsby. I found the characters generally somewhat irritating (partially by design), but the overall book is both enlightening as to its time and unexpectedly modern.

The edition I read (Barnes & Noble) has a lengthy critical essay as the introduction, which is helpful for deconstructing the novel.

Related Reads
On the Road (Kerouac)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

The Overneath [Short Stories]- Peter S. Beagle (2017)
From: Local Library
"The power itself was never in question; but there comes a moment when a responsible wizard has to consider the danger of having such wild, uncontrollable power loose in the world in the hands of a young man with family problems."

This short-story collection is mostly fantasy-tinged, though setting varies a lot. Within the baker's dozen of stories are several (of varying tones) featuring unicorns, and there are a couple that are The Last Unicorn-related. A few stories that veer a bit into the horror category - not generally something I prefer, but oddly, one of my favorites was the Poe-esque "Great-Grandmother in the Cellar". And to round it out, a couple of stories (including the titular one) dip into science fiction territory.

I generally liked this mix, although I can't say I loved it. At the very least, I appreciated that the stories presented are such a mixed bag. And I was somewhat pleasantly surprised that Beagle is still writing (given that The Last Unicorn was published in the 1960s).

For a slightly spoilerish review that goes more in-depth into many (though not all) of the stories included, see this post from Barnes & Noble.

Related Reads:
Fragile Things (Gaiman)
The Line Between [Short Stories] (Beagle)

Gorilla and the Bird - Zack McDermott (2017)
From: Local Library
"People say that excessive drinking is often used as an escape from reality. In my case, I felt erased, so why not erase myself? It was easier to chip away at what was left of me than to try to recover the self I'd lost."

This book grabs you and pulls you into the author's world almost before you can catch a breath. In very readable language, McDermott describes everything in his life - including his psychotic breakdowns - with candor and humor. Interlaced throughout his story of Bipolar disorder and struggle with addiction is his mother's unwavering support, his family background (in poor/rural Kentucky), his sometimes soul-crushing work as a court-appointed public defender, and his hobby of stand-up comedy.

Although I quickly got caught up in the story, at times I struggled with McDermott's storytelling and comedic style - the line between exploiting/making fun of others, himself included, and portraying a humorously-realistic picture seems a little thin at times. There's also a fair amount of language and crude sexual references as part of the mix.

Oftentimes, books like this are written by a family member who had a front-row observation seat. I really applaud McDermott's willingness and ability to tell his story and talk about his struggles in his own words.

Related Reads
Ben Behind His Voices (Kaye)
Everything is Horrible and Wonderful (Wachs)

Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik (2018)
From: Local Library
"The only thing that had ever done me any good in my father's house was thinking: no one had cared what I wanted, or whether I was happy. I'd had to find my own way to anything I wanted. I'd never been grateful for that before now, when what I wanted was my life."

This hit a lot of sweet spots for me as a fantasy book. It's long enough to be sufficiently world- and character-building, but not too long. It switches first-person viewpoints between several characters; this isn't always my favorite, but I felt it really worked here. There are strong Russian and Jewish influences in the story's world, which I thought that made the book more interesting and realistic (tempering the overall fantasy element with reality). And it manages to have serious and dark elements without feeling overly heavy.

There are caveats, to be sure. Yes, it shares more than a few similarities with some other recent popular fantasy books. Yes, a few plot points are a bit weak upon closer inspection. But as an overall opinion, I enjoyed Novik's other fairy-tale-esque fantasy book, Uprooted, and I'd say that this one was even better.

Related Reads
The Bear and the Nightingale (Arden)
A Court of Thorns and Roses (Maas)
Ella Enchanted (Levine)
Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice - Christoper Hitchens (1995)
From: Local Library
"Saints, it seems, are immune to audit."

So, first off, I should establish that I think that it's important to look critically at revered figures. I don't think it's inherently "mean" to dig into issues related to religion. And I knew that I was going to come into this short book with a background quite different than the author's.

My main issue with this book, then, wasn't that Mother Teresa was being critiqued, or that the author is an avowed atheist. My main issue was that I found it disappointingly detrimental that the author was coming at the subject from an angle that seemed so biased due to his use of leading and deliberately provocative language. I don't disagree that Mother Teresa and her order had some issues that should be brought to light and further explored, and I think the book does provide some interesting food for thought. But I do think the overall explorations here would've been much better served though a style that seemed less like a personal attack and more like detached reporting.

As a side note, some of the examples given seemed to be more due to the author's misunderstanding of Christianity/Catholicism rather than an actual crime or failing of Mother Teresa's. For instance, Hitchens uses the example of Mother Teresa talking about her personal relationship with Jesus as being a sign of grandiosity and lack of humility. However, most Christians would take this the opposite way - that someone expressing that Jesus was working through them would be a sign of humility that the person was not taking credit for their actions.

(Continued in Part 2)