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--{ read01 }-----00--- 99--- 98--- 97--- i---

Note: In most years, I don't read nearly so much. But I spent most of the year in Memphis, and I don't drive. And it's true -- I do read awfully fast.

yes

253, Geoff Ryman

Two-hundred-and-fifty-three 253-word stories about people on seven London subway train cars. Seems gimmicky, and some of it is (in particular, the spoof advertisement inserts), but a lot of it is really well done. Captures the feel of peeking in on people's heads in the metro, which is something I'd really like to do. It's amazing how much Ryman was able to capture about a person in the few words he allotted himself.

Death and the Penguin, Andrey Kurkov

Everything starts when the protagonist, a lonely writer living in Kiev, gets a penguin from the zoo. (I picked up the book because Andy and I had once talked about stealing penguins for him from the aquarium, only Andy eventually decided he'd rather have a toucan.) The writer also gets an offer from a newspaper to write obituaries (before the deaths of the actual subjects), which he does until one of the subjects dies, mysteriously.

It's a gorgeous book, written in a very light, cold way. Kurkov's writing (or the translation of it, at least) sort of reminds me of a mix between Pelevin and Murakami. I especially liked how, though the reader gets the very definite sense of a plot surrounding the narrator, the actual plot is not so definite.

Interestingly enough, the New York Times compares the writing style to that of Donald Barthelme's, which I'd never liked. And the reviewer disliked the indefiniteness of the plot. Anyway, I disagree.

My Idea of Fun, Will Self

My idea of fun is a gory book, written in a darkly comedic manner. My Idea of Fun was my idea of fun. (You know it had to be said.) Ian Wharton says he's controlled by The Fat Controller, and thinks that the embryo growing inside his wife is The Fat Controller himself. An ambiguous narrative about a man who could either be growing insane, or influenced by some devilish figure, all with Self's clever (but not over the top) wordplay. And some really really really sickening images. (Those who know me know that I do not use "sickening" lightly.)

Complicity, Iain Banks

Er, more serial killer stuff, set in Edinburgh. This one was much more enjoyable than The Body Politic, probably because it was better written, and explored the character of the narrator (a Hunter Thompsonesque reporter figure who gets linked to a series of murders of powerful men around Scotland) in depth. Plus the narrator's expositions on drugs, women, and computer games were really amusing.

The Devil's Larder, Jim Crace

Beautiful. Like if you combined the elegance and denseness of Borges with the surreality of Ben Marcus and the foodiness of M.F.K. Fisher. It's a book I never thought I would find, given that the sensuality that I love in food writing so rarely goes well with the type of fiction I like to read. But this, this was great. Sixty-four teeny tiny short stories -- a game of strip fondue, a decadent "Curry No. 3", the devil and his way of taking the tastiest mushrooms, leaving the rest to disappoint those of us on earth -- all (dare I say it) exquisite. I was getting bored with fiction, and drifting back into nonfiction (legal analysis, even), and this has rejuvenated my love.

A note: even though I read this entirely while sitting in the Harvard Coop, I do plan on buying it once I move to DC. I'm trying to keep my travel load low, is the thing.

Three Trapped Tigers, Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Totally a book to be admired. Both by itself and in the translation (by Donald Gardner and Suzanne Jill Levine, in collaboration with the author). Not that I read the original, just that I can tell, even from only reading the translation.

It's huge. It's multi-styled. It's sprawling. I feel stupid before it, admiring it in the way that one admires Dennis Miller even when he makes jokes that go over one's head. It protrays a pre-revolutionary Cuba using a variety of viewpoints and narratives, with threads that I think are all interconnecting. There is clever wordplay like "lolittle girl." Joyceanisms like "enthusiasthmatic." Passages like this.

That being said, it's hard to read (in a Hopscotch- but- harder- than- Hopscotch kind of way), and required more concentration than I was able to give at the time I read it. (Packing and moving and all.) But I will try to read it again, because I think it'd be worth it.

The Hell Screens, Alvin Lu

MAN, talk about atmosphere. Just incredible. The plot is secondary to the ghostly descriptions and shifting streets. Don't let the title fool you. The book's particular type of evocativeness is difficult to categorize -- it's not your standard horror, or your "standard" Asian or Asian American fare. It's modern and surreal and abstact, and Chinese without being orientalist. The prose is like its subject matter -- threads go in and out of focus, and characters fade in and out like apparitions. Very well done, and absolutely lovely. Er, in the steph- likes- ambiguous- horror sense of the word lovely.

Marx, Deceased, Carl Djerassi

Okay, this was not the best literary work in the world. And Djerassi does not quite pull off the references (using a different fictional name) to himself. But it's still fun!

Because what the book is, is a daydream. It's Djerassi daydreaming about being a world-famous writer (rather than a world-famous chemist) and faking his own death in order to see what critics really have to say about him. Which is the big daydream of all of us, don't you think? Or it would be, if the book weren't already outmoded by the internet, which allows anyone, even big time famous writers, to see what good honest people have to say about them, by doing a little google-search on themselves and looking up fanny babbly pages like mine mine mine! (Slate just wrote about this, how the West Wing writers end up reading their fan bboards.) But it's still fun. Anonymous publication and fake deaths. Totally my daydream.

And it's good because you can tell that Djerassi is a reader and a big big fan, too. I mean, you know (or at least I know) that writing is not his Thing (assuming we all get one big Thing in our lives, if at all). I mean, chemistry is. And writing's just this side thing he does, but does amazingly well, for a side thing. And you can tell he loves reading. Like his references to other writers, they're not done in a name-droppy "oh look at me I am so aware" kind of way, but in a "god I love these authors, if there were anyone I would want to be compared to in a daydream, it would be them." Okay, I am reading too much into this, but you get the idea. Basically, I like this because I like Djerassi, and I like well-rounded people who not only do one thing amazingly well, but do a bunch of other things pretty well too. I like this because I would like to be like that.

His ruminations about sex (in any of his books) are rather jarring, though. Like they just don't seem to fit with the rest of the narrative, and I think his narratives be much better without them. But I think he needs to put them in there, just for himself, because he thinks about it a lot, sex and the meaning attached to sex. Because of the whole inventor- of- the- birth- control- pill thing. You know.

The Dalkey Archives, Flann O'Brien

Golly gee, that was good. Pseudoscholarly discussions about physics, Christianity, and time. And James Joyce is in here too, chattering away! As is St. Augustine! As is De Selby, from The Third Policeman! Yet the book doesn't veer into literary rollercoasterland; it maintains its deadpan style. I admire that.

John Henry Days, Colson Whitehead

I'm still trying to decide how this compares with The Intuitionist. I'm leaning towards dodging the answer and just saying it's different. Because it is, it's a very different book. Much more straightforward in its story (focusing on John Henry, and on a modern-day writer/"junketeer", J. Sutter), but much more diffuse in its storytelling (drifting from character to character in its focus). Certain concepts, like The List and the contest for the longest junket, were great.

Here's another thing I can't decide: how I feel about the book's inconsistency in tone. There were two distinct tones, the evocative historical tone, and the witty too-too tone. Both were well done. I just can't decide whether they clashed, or whether they were appropriate for their subject matter, or both. One particular chapter, the one describing the party for the postmodernist rocker, comes to mind. It was witty, definitely. But it just seemed to stand out, unnecessarily, from its previous chapter about exploring John Henry's tunnel.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Chris Ware

Wow, that was depressing. And I only skimmed it, too, at Dan's (he knows, he saw me go through it in about two hours, at most). Much more depressing than David Boring, in my opinion. Though with probably more depth. If I owned a copy, I would probably read all the little liner notes and things in great detail, Chris Ware seems to do a good job at that.

This Shape We're In, Jonathan Lethem

Very much the tone of Cosmicomics! Kind of cute, though I'm not sure I'd say it had tons of depth. But it was nice, in the realish fabulistic way that Cosmicomics was nice. And the rind thing and the telephone thing was amusing, as was the ending. The orgy bit was a little silly, though, and not in a good way (in my opinion).

Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright, Steven Millhauser

I usually don't read too many books about kids (Cruddy, and Lynda Barry's other books being exceptions), but Edwin Mullhouse had too amusing a conceit to pass up. Sort of about Edwin Mullhouse, a kid who died at the age of eleven and who wrote a book called Cartoons, but also about Jeffrey Cartwright, his biographer and best friend. In that way, it's really like Nabokov's Pale Fire, but less creepy, and more puffingly sweet (puffingly because "Jeffrey" writes in the all-too-elevated tones of adult biographers.)

The beauty of the book, as I see it, is its commentary on how we find meaning in, essentially, random things. Like the random events of Edwin Mullhouse's life. How the eye of the interpreter -- here, Jeffrey Cartwright, but, in our lives, ourselves -- makes some sort of order out of this chaos, creates some sort of meaning, weaves in some sort of theme. Millhauser expresses this through both the structure of the book, and through some interspersed interjections by Jeffrey and by Edwin. "'You know how you see the end, when you're writing,' he said, cogitating under the moon. 'Well, suppose life was like that. Then every day would be -- special.'" It helps that I've been thinking recently about this myself (uh, not about knowing when the end is, but about how we're the ones who add meaning to things, how meaning doesn't come externally.)

A quote: "For it is Edwin's achievement to have discovered Beauty not in the merely commonplace, not in the merely ugly, not in the merely malodorous and disgusting, but in the lowest of the low, in the vilest of the vile: in the trivial, in the trite, in the repellently cute." This, written in 1972, seems remarkably prescient of the 90s club kids.

A note after doing a little research: Egad, this was Millhauser's debut novel?! Wow.

Mr. Mee, Andrew Crumey

Fun enough to be in my yes category, but not amazing. Andrew Crumey's basic theme of misunderstandings and stuff, with different storylines set at different times that eventually intersect (Mr. Mee in the present, Ferrand and Minard in the past). But Mr. Mee, the title character, is annoyingly obtuse. And if you've read Crumey, it's really all too similar to his other books.

The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton

An enjoyable read, ostensibly about a policeman trying to stop a nefarious anarchist plan. It got a bit predictable, though. But the ending is fun and weird.

Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami

You ever read a book where you feel like your life is all over it, in bits and pieces, spread throughout the characters? This was it for me. I don't mean in that ambiguous adolescent speak- to- me sort of way, I mean real bits and pieces of me -- events, thoughts, relationships, whatever. Though maybe that's what adolescents mean as well. It's been awhile.

Some more particularly self-appealing quotes: "Start her talking, and she'd go on nonstop, but if she was with someone she didn't get along with--most people in the world, in other words--she barely opened her mouth." And "[o]nly by mixing fresh blood with the dried-out bones would the ancient souls of the dead magically revive . . . . Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living, breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side." Yes.

Anyway, my reading of the book was really personal, perhaps all too personal. Basically, I've conflated Miu and Sumire's experiences into one, and the conflation feels like me. It requires too much confession to explain. But the gist is, because of this conflation, I read the ending really positively, because in my all-too-personalized reading, I've shed the blood, and hopefully that means now I can write.

White Teeth, Zadie Smith

Even though this is the kind of book I often enjoy, it is not the kind of book I usually seek out. One of those family saga-ey type things, with intercultural insights and all that, in the great tradition of Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Isabel Allende, to name a few. Actually, the book it really reminded me of was Kureishi's The Black Album, only with a more female-oriented point of view. The stories of the Joneses and the Iqbals.(*)

I was worried before reading it, because I had heard so many mixed things. (Some examples, simplified: "Many variants on the usual older men, younger women story," Casey; "Really great! Witty observations!" Justin; "You know how first novels have really good beginnings so they can market them better, but sometimes they peter out? Yeah," Kevin C.)

But upon reading it, I really enjoyed it. Sure, the ending was a little too come-together-ey for me. But it did have some amusing observations on race/gender-relations, especially from the point of view of someone in My Generation (which is always important, My Generation being the one that I think about the most ;). Plus Zadie Smith is really cute.

(*) There's a strange coincidental anecdote involving the Iqbal name, but I suppose it doesn't belong on this page.

The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead

Very very good. A strange world where people care about elevator inspection, its philosophy, and the racial dynamics thereof. Lila Mae is a great protagonist, stubborn but calm. The description of the world is done exactly right, it's that amazing.

Minor, very minor prob. The description of the reporter as the Screaming Man, while interesting, seemed out of place with the tone of the rest of the book.

This, by the way, is the closest thing I have read to the thing I want to write. In fact, I am glad I didn't read this book till now, after I have already started writing, because even though it is fairly different, it is along the same lines enough that my urge to see my Thing exist would have been adequately satisfied by this book. Now I have to read some books in between, so as to dilute its potential influence.

Oh, and Colson Whitehead is cute cute cute! He looks a little like Fonda's friend Kevin, only without the big ears.

Louse, David Grand

I liked this one, even if Dan wasn't so impressed. About an amnesiac guy in a bureacracy, set in a strange, isolated world in the desert, created by a mogul. That part was okay.

What I really liked was how it dealt with (formatwise) the various written elements in the book-- memoranda, internal letters, narrative-- because I've been trying to figure out how I want to do that with my own thing. And I think the way Louse deals with it is great. It's subtle-- not too many font changes, like I've seen in other books. No italics (like in Love, in a Dead Language), which I think is (are?) hard to read. And no Courier (can't remember where I saw that done), which I think is ugly and besides I've seen too much of in legal briefs.

Instead, it uses just teeny things to delineate the various elements. Like the headers for memos are set in a bold, but narrow sans-serif font. And the shorter letters that appear within the narrative are in bold, but with adequate character spacing so that it isn't hard to read. Good job, whoever did the layout!

After Man: A Zoology of the Future, Dougal Dixon

So cool. Something I would've been gaga over in junior high. Dixon takes generic evolutionary / geological principles, and posits what earth's zoology would be like 50 million years from now if humans went extinct. Awesome pictures, fun intro to evolution, all that.

The Floating Opera and The End of the World, John Barth

Two novellas by John Barth, who, wow, I love. I would pay tribute to this catalyst of my taste for meta-narrative, only David Foster Wallace has already done so. These novellas, however, do not contain much meta-narrative, but they do contain some incredible observations about how awful, overly self-conscious, hyper-intellectual types like me can really fuck up relationships. Not sure I would've appreciated these pointed observations nearly as much a few years ago, but there you go. Good, very good. But a bit depressing, in a self- critique- worthy kind of way.

On with the Story, John Barth

A bunch of stories within stories, told by a retired couple on vacation. Barth plays the usual narrative games that I like. The melancholia about the stories, about the fictional storytellers' lives, and even about Barth's contemplation of the narrative form itself that makes textured a good word to use for describing this book.

Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer, and The Beauty Supply District, Ben Katchor

Katchor's just great conceptually. Like random odd museums and collectors that appear throughout his works. Familiar but strange ideas, like purveyors of inspirational tweaks. Sort of like seeing a metropolis through a distortion lens.

Temple of Iconoclasts, Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

A bunch of short biographies, like encyclopedia entries. Most of them are fictional, a few are real. All are of fascinating, quirky people and their esoteric ideas, philosophies, or inventions. Some of them are very creepy, like the guy who theorized about certain races not having any souls (real), and the priest who "baptized" people by knocking them over the head and preserving them in salt (fictional). Entertaining book, with some subtle political points even.

The Third Policeman, Flann O'Brien

Dare I say that this book was amazing? I do dare. It was an amazingly fun read. The style is funny in a dry way, which I like. Lewis Carroll mixed with Ben Marcus. Actually, I bet Ben Marcus was inspired by this book. It has policemen making life-gowns for people out of birth-winds. It has a soul named Joe. It has a philosopher developing theories for tent-suits. It has long faux-academic footnotes, just the right length to be interesting. It has a weird, supernatural adventure. And to think I was so-so about At Swim, Two Birds.

Note to self: experiment with different writing styles, particularly those that do not sound like either a pseudoscholarly lawyer or a scruffy, over-excited late-twentysomething.

A quick warning for all of you who might be thinking about reading the First Dalkey Archive edition of this book, with an introduction by Denis Donoghue. DO NOT READ THE INTRODUCTION. IT'S WICKED, EVIL, BAD. IT SPELLS OUT THE TWIST IN THE BOOK, a twist that I really would've liked to have been surprised by, but now it's RUINED BY THIS EVIL EVIL INTRODUCTION WRITER. It was, however, still amazingly enjoyable. See above.

The Jew of New York, Ben Katchor

Great, just great. Surreal characters, crafted like tiny ceramic collectables. With some disturbing elements (like the anti-semitic playwright) that make this graphic novel not as light as you would expect.

Catch-22, Joseph Heller

Every once in awhile you read a book where you just think, wow, how did someone have the brilliance to write such a thing. This is one of them. Witty, darkly funny, and even in some places poignant. And intricately interwoven, filling in the details of things such as Orr being hit on the head by a whore, and the forging of Washington Irving. Wow. I wish there were a word bigger than wow, because I'd use that instead. But wow. I wish I'd read this earlier, but the military theme had put me off, but now I realize the errors of my ways. Wow wow wow.

Copenhagen, Michael Freyn

Heisenburg and Bohr debate about which one is more to blame for their acts during the war. The first act of the play is a bit handwringey, but the second act more than makes up for it by addressing how key decisions are often made by subconscious acts of overlooking things. Freyn is also reasonably successful at capturing the uncertainty principle in dialogue. I would recommend it to anyone, but I think Prof. Illinger, my old thesis advisor, would like it especially. Now I really want to see the play, in Tony-award-winning form. I'm also now thinking Headlong might be worth reading.

p.s. It's always nice when a recommended and borrowed book turns out to be enjoyable. Makes me feel like the recommender/ borrower is a good friend. Alas, the converse is also true.

The Public Burning, Robert Coover

I'm sure this was a lot more controversial when it first came out in the 1970s. An over-the-top send up of Richard Nixon, vice-presiding over the execution of the Rosenburgs. Occasionally too cheesy (cheesy from the perspective of a post-cold war reader, that is) for me to call this book amazing, but it was definitely fun. Nixon making out with Ethel Rosenburg! Weird appearances by Uncle Sam.

maybe

Exploits & Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician: A Neo-Scientific Novel, Alfred Jarry

I had thought I would like this much more than I did. I mean, it really did seem like a cross between Dalkey Archives and some wandery story like Candide or Gulliver's Travels. But it was a little disconnected, and a little bit pompous, which is fine if it were spoofingly so, but it wasn't, not quite. Oh well.

Unconquered Countries, Geoff Ryman

The book is a collection of four early science fiction stories by Ryman. I can't tell whether the reason why I wasn't into them was because of their science fictioniness (because it's been awhile since I've read that stuff, at least the more hard core of that stuff) or if it's because the writing wasn't that good. But the saving grace is Ryman's afterword:

"It has been very strange rereading them [the stories], as if I had run across my younger self. There is the embarassment of reliving youthful inadequacy; grief for departed energy; a kind of sympathy for the awkwardness and sincerity and pomposity of youth."

"There is also the embarassment of old friends. Here they come, like certain kinds of fan. Here comes Teenage Megadeath, envisaging the slaughter of millions and imagining that this is an effective protest. Here comes the Expository Lump, covered in spots and determined to back you into a corner to detail at length his brilliant ideas. Here is Unperceived Sources, all agog with Star Trek and unaware of it. Here comes Style, all done up in German Expressionism, or Brechtianism, or whatever mainly visual or musical trend has caught his attention, his hypersensitivity to fashion. These are among the usual embarassments of writing Science Fiction, a genre that is at its most flaming, its most colorful, the less you know, the ruder the taste."

[...]

"It is a shaggy unreliable activity writing. There is no greater pleasure, as long as you have faith that someone, somewhere will see what you mean and forgive the things you don't."

Too Loud a Solitude, Bohumil Hrabal

Recommended by Andrew, the guy at the Glasgow Waterstone's. About a man in a police state who compacts books for a living. Most of the book explores the man's relationships with his books, which he loves. Too Loud started out quite lovely. "If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself." But then it turned into grey Sebaldian dreariness, which I'm pretty eh about.

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

Never read this in high school or junior high. I probably should've -- would've liked it more then, too. But now I just can't identify with this type of self-absorbedness. It's weird, though, because I would say that a lot of the stuff I read is self-absorbed, just a different type of self-absorbed. Strange that even stuff like that has its variations. I probably would've liked it more in high school, identifying with the hatred of phonies and such. And it does have a great quote that's going on all my change of address cards, once I have an address.

The New Sins, David Byrne

Amusing, but only mildly so. Too bad, too, because it had a lot of promise. David Byrne seemed like he was just trying too hard to be weird or something. Alas.

Letters to Wendy's, Joe Wenderoth

Pros: fun, surreal prose poems, vaguely centering around the Wendy's fast food restaurants. Cons: the scatological stuff (and there is oh so very much of it) feels forced. But some good observations, though: "Some guy pushing a petition, a meeting. 'You don't know me,' I said. 'I'm an avowed spectator.' 'Well, just come down and watch,' he said. 'That's just it,' I said. 'You people aren't satisfied watching--you want to be the show, and to make this happen you're willing to give up the only thing in the world of any value: free time.' In his mind, I could sense the word 'evil' forming."

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

I read this because I kept seeing it everywhere, at bookstores, on my amazon recommendations list. Eh, it was okay. Mildly funny at times, but mostly annoying. About a bunch of infuriating (though well characterized, I have to say, in a manner that is somewhat similar to Gaddis, but done much more stereotypically) New Orleans characters having misunderstandings. Ignatius -- *man* he needed to be slapped.

I've read that the author committed suicide, which is kind of sad. This fact is supposed to add an additional dimension to Ignatius, who apparently embodies Toole's bipolarity. I dunno. Ignatius was still annoying. But, yes, bipolarity and depression can be annoying as well, and the annoyingness of these mental disorders doesn't mean we all shouldn't be sympathetic to its sufferers, etc etc etc. Man, my commentary has really drifted from what should be in my book log. The point is: Ignatius = annoying, but there may be extra-novel reasons for his character being the way he is.

Nymphomation, Jeff Noon

Ugh. Seems like I'm not a big fan of cyberpunk anymore (okay, my brief period of fandom lasted about two years, in the very early nineties). Stupid story about a lottery involving dominoes, and about some math students/raver punks who get involved. Felt like it tried too hard, and became all loosey goosey as a result. The only thing that keeps this out of my "no" category was that it had good descriptions of Indian fast food, and because the character of Jazir sounded pretty cute. Sadly, this is usually the only thing that cyberpunk has going for it, for me at least. The cool descriptions. The problem is that green hair and piercings just isn't so, well, rare to see anymore. So.

Arcadia, Jim Crace

I really wanted to like this book. I wanted it to be lots of stuff, but it wasn't. It wasn't compelling. I didn't like the characters. It didn't make me want to read more.

What it did have, however, was a pretty amazing world, by covering a market that evolved from a weird Dickensonian time to a time kind of like now. It is hard to describe exactly how the world portrayed by Crace was different, but it was. Something about the evolution of the open-air market into a shopping mall just seemed quite surreal. It was definitely fun reading the very mild offness of the world. Is there a genre of fiction called micro-fantasy, or fiction involving minor, but very systematic, deviations from our reality? There should be. And Arcadia should be in there, along with The Intuitionist.

All She Was Worth, Miyuke Miyabe

So. The discussion of Japan's credit industry (and how it has led people to commit crimes) was interesting. But other than that, the book didn't give me either of things I want out of detective novels: detailed descriptions of settings, and some sort of rising climax. Everything just unfolded. Oh well.

A Trip to the Stars, Nicholas Christopher

Not particularly stunning, though for some reason this book gave me more plot inspirations for the thing I'm working on than many of the other books I'd read. The book didn't annoy me or anything, but the characters just didn't catch. Film-noiry atmosphere (probably because Nicholas Christopher is obsessed with film noir), with two story threads (a kidnapped kid and his adoptive aunt) that diverge at the beginning and intersect again at the end. The coincidences were just a little too too and the star references were overdone.

The Thought Gang, Tibor Fischer

An absurd, but not- as- fun- as- it- could- be, plot (robbers with a philosophical theme) that still could've been saved had the book done something more with the philosophy than just to use it as a pretentious backdrop. And the climax was mediocre. Unsympathetic characters. Clever writing, but waaaay too clever. I mean, the cleverness was admirable, with the puns and wordplay and stuff. It even inspired me to up my own wordplay a bit. But there was just too much of it to make the book a fun read. (Stuff like "My parents, and grandparents were all keen livers with good livers" and "my anxiety was always being one of those despicable teachers who didn't discharge in their charges". EVERY OTHER PAGE.) Fischer even topped Will Self, who is already bordering on my edge of Too Much, though he has a nose to make up for it. And gosh those Zs were annoying. And Jocelyne, who seemed as of she were intended to be alluring, wasn't.

Girls and Boys, Lynda Barry

Barry's earliest book, I think, with all the rough edges typical of an early work. Still, kind of amusing.

Signals of Distress, Jim Crace

A passage in the life of Aymer Smith, a well-intentioned but incredibly annoying guy. (He is supposed to be annoying.) As usual, Crace has the details down just right. The clash of American seamen and Brit villagers. The soap industry's phase-out of the kelpers. The description is great. But god, it was hard to get past the annoyance factor.

JR, William Gaddis

Well written (reads like a deposition transcript -- it's that well written.) And funny, too, in parts. But mixed in its enjoyableness. I was amused about how JR led into Frolic. I also liked the Bast and JR dialogue, and the overall plot, but the other conversations were often annoying or boring (albeit realistic). I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more had I read it in one (or two or three) sittings, rather than spread out through the fall, because I kept losing track of things. My bad. I enjoyed Frolic, which I did read in three sittings.

no

The Body Politic, Paul Johnston.

Because while I'm in Edinburgh, I figured I might as well read fiction set here. It was fun crime fiction, set in a fictional future Edinburgh that's somewhere betwee satire, 1984, and Brave New World. Amuzingly stuff to bring along with me to dinner, when I'm eating alone. Engrossing, but only because it's a serial killer thriller and I happen to be addicted to the stuff. But writingwise, it's ultimately too fluffy and overdramatic, like too much candy.

The Republic of Wine, Mo Yan

Another eh. And here's the thing, I even feel as if I got it, at least in the sense that I understood what it was trying to evoke (the horrific delirium of, er, eating roasted baby boys), if only because I've read enough Chinese food history and listened to enough of my parents' tales to understand (as much as an American born Chinese girl can) how exotic foods are viewed, culture-wise. Plus, yeah, I've read Satyricon. And yeah, I understood the whole fascination with the baby boy thing. Not that I empathize with either approach, but I could see where Mo Yan was coming from, I think.

Yet it was still kind of eh. Rambly florid language that always annoys me when my dad manages to work it into one of his business letters. Plus, I have to say, the book gave me a headache. First, the descriptions are too delirious for this toned-down girl to handle. Second, everyone's drinking! Everyone's drinking rice wine! Rice wine gives me a big big headache! Plus Li Yidou was really annoying.

Glass Bees, Ernst Junger

A definite eh. The prose style reminds me of W.G. Sebald, of which I wasn't psyched, mixed with J.G. Ballard (what's with the initials?). The storyline was kind of like Louse, only more disconnected. Yeah, eh.

The Hours, Michael Cunningham

I did not like this book! Maybe I would've had I read Mrs. Dalloway, which this book apparently plays off of a lot, but I hadn't. Nevertheless, I found the characters whiny and annoying, and the book full of too many so-called illicit moments (usually kisses between women, which should not be that big a deal) and too many flower cuttings and internal pain that I just couldn't deal. I mean, I can objectively appreciate how deftly Cunningham ties the three storylines together, but man I found the characters intolerable. Thank god I just borrowed the book from Justin, though I know now why he found it so surprising that I would want to borrow it. Not my type of book at all. (This, btw, is one of the few books over which Dan and I totally disagree. I suspect it's because he's read Mrs. Dalloway, and I haven't.)

A later note: I have gotten so much scolding, from Dan and others, about not liking this book, that I now feel mildly guilty for not liking it. Maybe if I read Mrs. Dalloway. Yeah.

Mist, Miguel de Unamuno

This was recommended to me years ago by one of my students, Greg. He described it so well that I looked for it in used bookstores ever since, as the translation was out of print. Well, a new translation is now out, under Mist, rather than The Fog (as Greg had read it -- the original is Niebla). I have to say, I was disappointed. I think the reason why Greg recommended it, and why I was intrigued, was that it was one of those novels where the author is also a character, and I generally like that, but not here. Unamuno was only a minor character in this book (it played out much like one of Calvino's, I think, short stories where the character keeps suffering). Instead, the focus was on annoying annoying Augusto's alternating love for two women, Eugenia and Rosaria. Some of the archaic (but understandably so) notions of femininity in this book are also distracting. Yeah. Eh.

poetry

Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs, edited by Amy Hempel and Jim Shepard

I know this seems uncharacteristically cutesy compared to the other books on this list, but (1) I love dogs, and (2) Wayne got this for me as a birthday present. I have not read the whole thing, but Wayne and I did read Lynda Barry's (er, I guess that would be her dog Bob Barker's) "I love my master I love my master" out loud and we were rolling in laughter. No, it's just amazing. Get the book just for this poem. Er, if you like dogs and think that reading about a dog on an LSD brownie trip would be funny. Which apparently we did.

essays and memoirs and rants

Junk Mail, Will Self

A bunch of essays and interviews and articles by Will Self, out of print in the United States. Pretty cool to read, if only because it gives some insight into how *smart* Will Self is. He seems to have a few pet topics -- drug policy, and psychiatry and psychosis.

Selected Non-Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges

Borges is just fucking brilliant. Awe-inspiringly, amazing, gaspingly brilliant. Some incredible essays in here, like "The Superstitious Ethics of the Reader," "The Postulation of Reality," "The Labyrinths of the Detective Story," "A History of Eternity," "A New Refutation of Time," "On the Cult of Books," and "A History of the Echoes of a Name." Sure, there were also parts that I skimmed, like book reviews and prologues of books that I was completely unfamiliar with. But in general, wow. Such amazing ideas. Like his thoughts on Xanadu and on Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," both of which were inspired by dreams: "After writing this, I glimpsed or thought I glimpsed another explanation. Perhaps an archetype not yet revealed to mankind, an eternal object (to use Whitehead's term), is gradually entering the world; its first manifestation was the palace; its second, the poem. Whoever compares them will see that they are essentially the same." Id. at 372.

The Baffler #14, Thomas C. Frank (ed.)

Theme: The God That Sucked. Rants against market philosophies. I love this stuff. Oh, and donate because of that fire thing.

The Periodic Table, Primo Levi

Glad Casey recommended this! Various episodes in the life of a chemist who lived through Auschwitz, told through the elements of the periodic table. It's been awhile, actually, since I'd read any memoirs, but the style reminded me a little of M.F.K. Fischer's.

Not that all the entries in this book were autobiographical. Some were short stories (like "Lead" and "Mercury"). Others were family histories, like "Argon." The autobiographical entries that covered his school days ("Zinc" and "Potassium") reminded me of my days at MIT and Tufts. And the chapter called "Vanadium," about running into a German chemist from Auschwitz a long time after the war, was just amazing.

nonfiction

Author Unknown: Tales of a Literary Detective, Don Foster

Don Foster is Ellen of my story, I think. At least kinda. And I made her up without even reading this book. Wow, this was fun. Foster tracks down the author of Primary Colors, and discusses his analysis of the Unibomber, and of Wanda Tinasky, a name under which some claim that Thomas Pynchon once wrote. I can't begin to say how fun this book was. Wow.

The Partial Constitution, Cass R. Sunstein

My favorite Sunstein book so far. A big and comprehensive look at how the U.S. Constitution has been interpreted, especially in terms of what "neutrality" and "freedom" mean. The whole first half goes over a lot of different approaches to legal jurisprudence. In this half, he explains that what laymen often perceive as "neutral," isn't, because there is no objective reason for the status quo state of affairs to be, well, the "neutral" state of affairs, since oftentimes it was the prevailing legal regime that created that state of affairs in the first place. Moreover, even the status quo state of affairs involves the law "taking a side."

A good quote (p. 168-69): "It is tempting to respond that government might indeed refuse to act--for example, by failing to create liability at all. Railroads might be freely permitted to emit air pollutants; employers might be allowed to discharge people at their discretion, or to engage in race and sex discrimination. Are these not cases of inaction? Might not a system of this sort turn out to be neutral, in the sense that it refuses to take a position and simply allows people to do what they want in light of their (prelegal) preferences?

The answer is that such a system would not be neutral, that it would not involve inaction, that it would indeed take a position, and that it would not simply allow people 'to do what they want.' A decision to permit railroads to emit pollutants is a grant, by law, of a legal entitlement; it allocates the relevant right to the railroads. A decision to allow discharge at the employers' discretion on the basis of race and sex discrimination is a similar allocation. It will not do to point to what would happen in anarchy or in the state of nature. In anarchy or nature, the state does not enforce entitlements at all. In anarchy or nature, the state does not prohibit people from taking corrective action (of whatever sort) when they are victimized. In our wolrd, however, a right to pollute or to discriminate is indeed backed by the force of law. It is accompanied by state-enforced prohibitions on certain sorts of corrective action by victims, including physical violence, or the attempted taking, by victims, of relevant property interests. It is in this sense that the state, so long as it exists, inevitably allocates entitlements."

Another quote (p. 172): "If, then, legal rules have inevitable effects on preferences, it is hard to see how a government might even attempt to take preferences as 'given' in any global sense. And when preferences are a function of legal rules, the rules cannot be justified by reference to the preferences. Social rules and practices cannot be justified by practices that they have produced. Often there is no such thing as a prelegal or prepolitical 'preference' that can be used as a basis for decision. And the endowment effect [for instance, people demanding 5 times as much to allow the destruction of trees in a park as they would pay to prevent the destruction of such trees, an effect observed by psychologists and described in The Partial Constitution] might also be used to create a range of predictions about the nature and consequences of different legal regimes, and about the processes of preference formation in various areas of law.

I will briefly note an important related point. Sometimes people who defend respect for preferences act as if these are internal psychological drives, actual 'things' inside people's heads. On this view, the task for law and government is to identify, in some neutral way, these 'things,' and then to respect them. But this is a crude and inaccurate picture. People have preferences, values, fears, cares, and commitments; sometimes these conflict. People have preferences, but also preferences about their preferences, and perhaps preferences about these as well. As Jean Hampton has shown, it is therefore wrong to think that we can identify and work with some 'thing' called a preference. And if this is true, it is much too simple to object to seemingly paternalistic laws on the ground that they are disrespectful of preferences."

Egad, another quote (p. 187, quoting Mill, actually): "The point has echoes as well n Mill, who understood education to include not merely 'whatever we do not ourselves and whatever is done for us by others for the express purpose of bringing us somewhat nearer to the perfection of our nature; it does more; in its largest acceptation it comprehends even the indirect effects produced on character and on the human faculties by things of which the direct purposes are quite different; by laws, by forms of government. . . . Whatever helps to shape the human being, to make the individual what he is or hinder him from being what he is not, is part of his education."

The whole second half of the book, though, starting on page 194, is mostly a Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (written later), although he does address non-speech stuff like abortion. He even has some interesting discussion about laws regarding the libel of nongovernmental figures that he seems to omit in his later book.

Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech, Cass R. Sunstein

Oh, I do so love this. Sunstein examines free speech from a Madisonian perspective -- one in which public deliberation is enhanced. He looks at various problems, like broadcasting, political funding, and hate speech, and examines how the Supreme Court has taken and could take a Madisonian approach. Lotsa good stuff in the "hard cases" section, like about funding for the arts and stuff.

The thing I like about Sunstein is how idealistic he is. How he believes that even though the current state of things isn't perfect, it could be made perfect, or at least better, by tweaking the system, by making a workable republic that encourages deliberation and reasoning. I'm not sure I believe that that's possible, but I know I would like to believe that it is.

He even has this little part contrasting an economist's "the perfect is the enemy of the good" with John Dewey's "the better is the enemy of the still better." I like Sunstein because he's so hopeful.

Ecology of Fear, Mike Davis

A definite eh. I don't even think I would've enjoyed it had I read it before the WTC attack. Anyway, the book basically gives a run through of a bunch of random catastrophes (even fictional ones) associated with Los Angeles. My problem with it is that it just seems like a great big list -- the theme (the problems associated with man's interferences with nature) is implied, but not argued -- not enough, that is. And no solutions are presented, not really. It's the lawyer in me, I know. Oh well. It made the book less than enjoyable, because I was just frustrated by its lack of true discussion.

One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court, Cass Sunstein

Okay, I love Sunstein and his idealistic defense of the democratic process. That being said, sometimes his chain of reasoning is a bit attenuated. This is one of those situations.

So the thesis of One Case at a Time is that in some situations, judicial minimalism is the way the Supreme Court should go. Now minimalism is different from saying activist or nonactivist. Sunstein's minimalism is a sort of narrow, case-specific, non-rulebased decisionmaking. He argues that minimalism is good in cases where minimalism is needed to foster and allow for further deliberative democracy, like where society hasn't reached enough consensus to establish an actual rule of law, with clearly defined situations and stuff. (In doing so, Sunstein covers various controversial topics, like affirmative action, gay rights, and the right to die.) His argument is interesting in that a lot of Court-watchers tend to think that the Court should establish all these long-reaching rules that other courts can apply in future cases. Sunstein argues that in some (indeed, many) cases, that might not be the best thing.

So where is the attenuation? Well, basically his argument depends entirely upon whether you accept that having a deliberative democracy is a good we should strive for. I personally do. But I can totally see how if you didn't, you'd totally think this minimalism thing is silly. I can even see how if you hadn't read all Sunstein's stuff on deliberative democracies, then you'd be confused as to what his argument was founded upon.

Andy's critique, not having read the book but only hearing my summary of it: "I'd like to see how Sunstein deals with Bush v. Gore." (The case, *arguably* a minimalist one, though one that Sunstein would probably disagree with, was decided after the publication of this book.)

All that being said, I had a great time reading the book. Even if you disagree with Sunstein's thesis, it's satisfying, in a postmodern kinda way, reading overarching meta-theories on why "incomplete theorization" is occasionally good.

The Language of Names, Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays

Eh. Names and why they matter. Stuff on immigrants changing their names, the sociology of women changing their names, all in a kinda disorganized, survey-ish manner. I can see why Amy didn't get into this.

The Elements of Legal Style, Bryan A. Garner

Borrowed this from new law clerk Mike. The last few sentences illustrate everything I appreciated in the book's approach: "Law, like literature, is a way of life. If we know and appreciate law, we understand our society more keenly than before. If we know and appreciate literature, we understand life more keenly than before. Successfully combining the two passions is one of the highest ideals to which a lawyer can aspire." Id. at 212.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I **love** Brian Garner. This book is great, summing up many key points in good legal writing. But not in an awful you- must- do- this- or- lose kind of way, but in a gentle, persuasive, here- are- your- various- options kind of way. Plus samples of some absolutely beautiful legal prose, as well as some not-so-beautiful prose. Plus with all those grammar terms I've forgotten. Plus a citation to an article in the law journal I edited, though from long before my time. I love this man.

Now that I've said, I hafta say, I've lost my crush on him. Elements has a picture of him inside the back cover, and he looks so much like a younger Professor Echeverria, you would not believe. I know how terrible this sounds, because Echeverria was one of my favorite professors and all, but I just didn't think he was all that cute.

Deadly Persuasion -- Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising, Jean Kilbourne

Ugh. Preachy. Geez, I even side with her, substantively (in believing that commercials and commercialism and commercialization is bad bad bad), and I find it preachy. And not well backed up. I kept coming up with retorts to everything she says about how people supposedly react to certain ads, retorts that I don't even believe in but knew people would say! Argh. The thing that infuriates me is that I don't think she's going to change anyone. The people who agree with her will agree with her, and the people who won't, won't. And me, I'd rather have convincing people on my side rather than, well, people who can't. Call me a pragmatist.

And here's the other problem I see with this book. Kilbourne comes at using a sort of personal-experience style narrative, and I've seen all sorts of discussion talking about how this is a useful perspective and all (Carol Gilligan comes to mind, but I could probably come up with others if I spent some time thinking about it). But the problem is that while it might be a great perspective for others with similar personal experiences, it can be actually rather off-putting to, well, those with drastically different personal experiences. I know, Kilbourne keeps caveating what she says with "I'm coming from a white middle class female perspective and this is how ads affected me," so it's not like she doesn't realize her limits, but still, it kept drawing my attention to how ads didn't affect me, how my experience was totally not captured in this book that, on its surface (in purporting to speak to "women and girls"), supposedly addressed my experience. My point is that the first-person perspective might actually end up marginalizing more people than it persuades through empathy. Ugh.

Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser

Okay, so I knew most of the stuff in there already, but it's always fun to read things to work yourself up into an anti- large- scale- food- industry fervor. Almost makes me want to become an antitrust lawyer and go around breaking up trusts, or to do food safety enforcement work. It's a fun read, and hopefully will make people more aware of the structure behind the fast food industry. Or maybe it'll just come across as too polemical. I can't tell, being in general agreement with it myself. Cynically, I suspect the latter.

One big problem, endemic to most "oh no, look at this" books of its sort: lack of proposed solutions. On the issue of recommendations for the reader, there's just a teeny section, less than ten pages long, that can be summarized into "Stop buying fast food and lobby your government." Yeah. Not so helpful.

Oh hey, the book reminds me, if I ever write any dramatic, historical-type book, I want to cover the 1947 federal antitrust cases against GM, Mack Truck, Firestone, and Standard Oil, in which they were found guilty of, well, basically destroying America's trolley systems, but were only fined $5,000 each. Notes to me: some investigative journalist, Jonathan Kwitny, is cited. Oh, and the judge on the case was William J. Campbell.

Calmly to Poise the Scales of Justice: A History of the Courts of the District of Columbia Circuit, Jeffrey Brandon Morris

Good good good! Okay, I'm no historian, so I really can't vouch for its accuracy or anything, but it *seemed* swell enough. Comprehensive, gives neat details about all the judges, and about the evolution of the court system. And it gives the context behind a lot of important cases I didn't know the background for (like, say, the Nixon litigation, or the Pentagon papers). And the history of all judges like Skelly Wright and David Bazelon, who seemed just like names to me before. Oh, and yes, it was a bit inspirational, even.

Republic.com, Cass Sunstein

Once upon a time, back in 1991, my friend Erik Kay (with whom I've since lost touch) mentioned something he was working on at the MIT Media Lab. It was a news filtering program, which would allow its users to customize the news articles that were delivered to them. At the time, I simultaneously thought "Cool!" and "Uh oh."

Cass's book addresses the "uh oh," all the while recognizing the "cool!" Okay, so I don't always agree with Cass. But you know, there's no other legal writer I find quite as inspirational and thought-provoking in that goofy, up-with-deliberative-democracy kind of way. Cass warns against the dangers of filtering -- namely, that if allowed to develop in certain ways, they could lead to the decline of public fora for the exchange of alternative views. He expresses concerns with individuals choosing only to read things that are reflective of their pre-existing views, leading to a sort of free consumer utopia, but not a free citizen utopia.

I enjoyed the book, and thought it made its points in a very clear fashion, although I wasn't sure if that was because I had already read the free speech cases to which he referred, and had already known about some of the studies to which he referred. The grand irony of this all, though, is that I specifically bought republic.com because I knew it would reflect my pre-existing views (expressed, already, back in 1991 in response to Erik's announcement), which is, of course, exactly what Cass warns about. (You'll note, for instance, that I basically read the same types of nonfiction, hell even fiction, books.)

There's really a lot more to the book than just that. He has some proposals for creating public fora (not all of which seem realistic to me, but some of which sound good). He also spends a bit of time explaining that the line regarding what's regulation and what's not is often somewhat arbitrary, or at least based on personal preference rather than absolute principles -- a way of looking at things that's not new to most lawyers, but perhaps new to some nonlawyers. He also spends other bits of time talking not only about the internet's role in the commodification of preferences,but also about it's role in expanding the ability of those with minority viewpoints to express themselves (for better or for worse). All in very readable language.

The layout of the book is quite nice, by the way. Sleek looking, in that white-spacey web page way. Century font for the text, some sans-serif thing for the headers, with the chapter numbers embedded in circles.

Maybe I should put him on my stalk list. Oh Cass. Is he in a relationship with Martha Nussbaum? The book is dedicated to an MN. Questions questions questions.

Butterfly Economics, Paul Omerod

Every now and then I feel compelled to read a pop economics book. Usually, I get terribly disappointed. Fortunately, this was not one of those times. Fun, clearly written (although with a bunch of irrelevant digressions to demonstrate how well-versed the author is with various literary references and with the personal histories of various economics professors), with great illustrations of critiques to traditional economic analyses.

All the usual critiques--like the error of assuming that preferences are fixed, the error of assuming that economic actors actually behave rationally, the error of assuming they can behave rationally, in the sense that economists usually mean, etc. Omerod makes a really nice point in the beginning (or at least I think he does, he's very oblique about it. If he didn't, he certainly should have made it), that these assumptions are like the qwerty keyboards of economics: they started using them to make up for lack of computational power, and the assumptions unfortunately stuck.

The problem with reading economics books, for me, is that they often lead me into the trap of discipline rivalry, the bane of multi/cross- disciplinarians. "Hell, I worked with ab initio quantum mechanical models in grad school," I tell myself. "This silly economics stuff should be a piece of cake." And then I go into daydreams of getting an economics doctorate, just to show them. These daydreams are very embarassing for someone raised to believe humility is a primary virtue.

Oh, and one other problem. Am I wrong, or were the captions for Figures 4.2 and 4.3 reversed? It just makes so much more sense the other way around. Just look at Figure 4.4, which is supposed to be the combination of 4.2 and 4.3.

Anyway, this is all food for thought for the day I write "A Former Computational Chemist Looks At Economics."

reference

The Chambers Paperback Thesaurus, Martin H. Manser (ed.)

Totally awesome. Better than the hardback Roget's II I've got at work. See, this one's got great stuff like lists of printers terms and lists of plants grown from bulbs and corms, and all sorts of goodies like that. It's currently my favorite thesaurus around, and the only major purchase ($5 in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble!) I've made for my book-writing project.

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht

Anna got this for me for my birthday. It's cute, and has very important things like "How to Jump from a Building into a Dumpster" and "How to Perform a Tracheotomy." It is amusing, but for some reason seems more fitting a present for my friend Ed than for me. This is totally his style, as are conspiracy books, if any of you out there want to get him a birthday present for some reason.

A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, Bryan A. Garner

Ooh, great. But I'm not going to summarize it here, because I already made some notes to present at a work meeting. It's a Word Perfect file converted into HTML. Which is why there's all this weird spacing and stuff. I'm too lazy to prettify it too much, or even to edit it for the readers of this page, sorry.

that i won't be finishing, for various reasons

The Bone Yard, Paul Johnston

Second in the series of Johnston's books about the detective Quintilian, set in a futuristic Edinburgh. It was okay, and made me appreciate the constraints in which serial mystery novelists need to work (constraints that force them to explain -- but not too much in case the reader is reading the books out of order -- previous novels). But not good enough for me to buy the book again after I lost my copy on the train.

Omensetter's Luck, William Gass

Maybe someday, but not now. I just don't have the patience for its country-seeming (in my mind, read: boring) prose. I'm not gripped. More compelling writings are out there, currently, for me. Sorry Mr. Gass.

A Night at the Movies, Robert Coover

Alas, this book did turn out to be completely unintelligible. And not unintelligible in a way that seems like it would be intelligible with a different, alien logic system. No, unintelligible in an intellect- isn't- even- part- of- the- equation way. More image-oriented than anything else. It actually reminded me of a textual version of Fingerprints, by They Might Be Giants.