Category: BookLust I

Reservations Recommended

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Kraft, Eric. Reservations Recommended. New York: Crown Publishers, 1990.

Meet Matthew Barber (also known as B.W. Beath). Toy designer by day (as Matthew), restaurant critic by night (as B.W.). He’s 14 months out of marriage and living in a building where the elevator barely works. His apartment has a mysterious smell and no matter how many holes they punch in the wall or carpets they pull up, maintenance cannot pinpoint its origin. Maybe it’s all in Matthew’s head, as are so many other things. Despite being a funny and intelligent reviewer, Matthew himself is fussy, slightly paranoid, embarrassed easily. He can be rude, naive and more than a little foolish. He’s always imagining himself to be someone he’s not (especially around the ladies) and relies more and more on his restaurant reviewer persona to cope with social situations. But, what happens when those personalities become indistinguishable? What happens when you not only talk to yourself, but answer back?

Confessional: I was a little taken aback when I read the inside flap of Reservations Recommended. Words like sardonic, dark, wicked, nasty, chilling, violence, and squalor were not expected; especially not after reading Herb ‘n’ Lorna.

Reason read: to continue the “series” started with Herb ‘n’ Lorna begun in February in honor of Kraft’s birth month and Valentine’s Day. To be fair, this isn’t a series in the traditional sense. Each book in the Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy “series” can be read separately. In fact, when I read the description for Reservations Recommended I was confused. I will admit I did a little digging to figure out where was the connection between this book and Peter. Turns out, the protagonist in Reservations is a school mate of Peter Leroy’s. Ah. So, in fairness this isn’t about Peter Leroy’s adventures, or his experiences or his observations. We never meet Peter at all.

Author fact: Kraft is a former chairman of PEN New England.

Book trivia: While Herb ‘n’ Lorna was “sweet” this can only be described as “dark” because Matthew is a little sinister.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Eric Kraft: Too Good To Miss” (p ). But, you knew that already.

Underworld

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DeLillo, Don. Underworld. Read by Richard Poe. New York: Recorded Books, 2003.

Even though this is a long book I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. From the prologue I was hooked. By the way, everyone loves the prologue best. But the book as a whole, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a stand-alone novella in itself. I guess I could equate Underworld to a bumble bee ride. At times the plot flies over time and space, flitting from one character to another without really touching down long enough to establish foundation. But, there there are other times this bee lands, spends an inordinate amount of time digging around one particular scene and rooting among the details; rolling through the dialogue and repeating itself a lot. Diverse yet nitty gritty. If you get to the part when Nick is trying to talk to his wife while she watched a movie you’ll see what I mean. Excruciating! I found their dialogue painful.
As a whole, Underworld is a biography of 20th century American culture, flayed and dissected and analyzed. Guts and all. It’s 50 years of society spanning the country, from Arizona to New York and points in between. It’s 1951 and fifty years beyond. There is no real plot. There is no real point other than to show the complexities of the times we live in.

Reason read: February is National History Month and Underworld is chock full of history, real and imagined.

Author fact: Although Don DeLillo is mentioned five times in Book Lust I am only reading three of his books, Libra, White Noise and of course, Underworld.

Book trivia: Underworld is a huge book – over 800 some odd pages long. I had to borrow an audio recording and a print version just to finish it within the month!
Audio trivia: I just had to mention this since it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a library do this: the Westborough Public Library warned me, “the cost to replace this item is $109.75 Please handle carefully!” Why not make it an even $110? Just saying.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “American History: Fiction” (p 22).

Herb ‘n’ Lorna

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Kraft, Eric. Herb ‘n’ Lorna. New York: Amazon Encore, 2010.

I like beginnings that come out of nowhere and give the reader a resounding slap. Picture this: it’s the preface and our hero, Peter Leroy, gets a boner at his grandmother’s funeral. It’s worse than that because he’s not hunkered down in a pew. While up in front of fellow mourners, delivering the eulogy, he has to find a way to shift his painfully positioned penis without anyone noticing. Talk about uncomfortable! Sounds like one of those dreams when you are standing in front of the class naked, trying to recite the Gettysburg address. If I were a boy I would be cringing to read all this in such detail; instead I’m a giggling girl.
Kraft is well…crafty when it comes to Herb ‘n’ Lorna. It’s the cleverly told biography of the title’s namesakes told from the point of view of their grandson, Peter. He fills in the gaps with an “interview” with an old friend of his grandmother’s. Herb and Lorna were not your average grandparents and their life together was far from ordinary despite outward appearances to the contrary. Herb was a salesman with a passion for tinkering. He liked gadgets and he liked inventing. Lorna was an artist, skilled at carving. Independent of the other they both became involved in the creation of “course works”, little trinkets depicting erotic sex acts disguised as charms or jewelry or buttons or pocket watches. For example, Lorna carved buttons which subsequently were secreted into Red Cross care packages; sent to “cheer” the troops during the war. Herb upon receiving one such button, took these course goods a step further and gave them movement through mechanical engineering. They both picked up the trade from an uncle. They both used this secret work as a means to make extra money. How they got away with living parallel lives without the other finding out seemed a little unbelievable at times.
What makes Herb ‘n’ Lorna such a joy to read is the characters themselves. They are complicated and endearing and their relationship sticks with you long after the last page is read. And I agree with the author, read the preface!

Reason read: I guess there are two reasons for reading Herb ‘n’ Lorna. Eric Kraft was born in the month of February, so that’s reason #1. Reason #2: Herb ‘n’ Lorna is cataloged as a romance at the Monson Free Library. Valentine’s Day = romance = Herb ‘n’ Lorna. I would go a step further and almost call it erotica. It certainly is naughty! 😉

Lines I liked: Oddly enough, even though I loved the book I never thought to quote anything from it.

Book trivia: There was a lot of inner debate about in what order I should be reading Kraft’s “voluminous fiction.” There is the way Pearl recommends: in the order the stories were written and published first (beginning with Little Follies. Then there is the order I chose: in order of the saga. The entire saga (according to Kraft) is first introduced in Herb ‘n’ Lorna. According to Kraft’s website, there is no wrong order and in fact you can start with any book you want.

Author fact: Eric Kraft’s website is as interesting as his writing. You can visit it here. There is a whole section dedicated to Peter Leroy.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called ” Eric Kraft: Too Good to Miss” (p 141).

Polish Officer

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Furst, Alan. The Polish Officer. Read by George Guidall. New York: Recorded Books, 2005.

Alexander de Milja has been offered a miraculous choice. With Poland on the brink of surrender to the Germans, he has a decision to make: stay in the Polish army as Captain and serve on the battlefield (a guaranteed suicide) or join an underground Polish resistance group Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej. No brainer. His first mission is to secure a successful route for Poland’s Gold Reserve to the safety of England via a refugee train headed for Bucharest. Later, in Paris de Milja poses as a Russia poet. Still later he is a Slovakian coal merchant. This is at a time when the war was filled with uneasy partnerships and extremely unstable alliances. How anybody trusted anyone else is a mystery. Even though it was everyman for himself, de Milja infiltrated a variety of groups and formed key relationships which helped him keep his disguises believable. The women embedded in the resistance were the most interesting to me.

As an aside, reading this now is perfect timing. It fits in with Maus, Maus II, and The Wild Blue – all books about World War II I’ve read in the last two months.

Reason read: Furst’s birthday is in February.

Author fact: I have read in numerous places that Alan Furst is the “next” Graham Greene. I would agree they are similar.

Book trivia: As far as I know this hasn’t been made into a movie. If it isn’t, it should.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 253).

Man Who Was Thursday

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Chesterton, G.K. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. [Auckland]: The Floating Press, 2009. ebook collection (EBSCOhost). Web. February 3rd, 2015.

There are so many reviews which comment on the religious allegory of this book so I will refrain from doing that, except to say I enjoyed the “dueling with the devil” scene the most. There are also many reviews that mention how weird the story gets. Agreed. Completely. This is one of those situations in a story where purpose overshadows plot because the whole thing is really quite ridiculous. In a nutshell, Gabriel Symes is an undercover detective who infiltrates an anarchist group (Council of the Seven Days) only to find that the entire membership, with the exception of its leader, is made up of undercover New Detective Corps members. Each member goes by a day of the week for an alias, hence the Council of the Seven Days. Symes has just been nominated as “Thursday”. As a collective week they are all trying to get at the elusive leader, “Sunday”. Except, they are all in the dark as to each others true identities. What I find curious is that when Sunday sniffs out a spy his fears are confirmed when the undercover policeman reveals he is carrying his membership card to the anti-anarchist constabulary. Wouldn’t you remove that piece of evidence, especially if you bother to go through the trouble of wearing an elaborate disguise? Gogol posed as a hairy Pole, accent and all. The Professor posed as an invalid old man with a huge nose. Turns out, all six policemen are carrying the tell-tale blue identification card. Not one of them thought to leave it at home. But, I digress. For most of the story it is a cat and mouse game with the good guys chasing the bad guys (until one by one, they find out they are all good guys). The theme of “who can you trust” is ongoing.

I found a who bunch of lines and phrases I wanted to quote. Here are a few of them: “Many suitcases look a like” (p 2), “Boisterous rush of the narrative” (p 5), “The poet delights in disorder only” (p 15), “It is new for a nightmare to lead to a lobster” (p 29), and one more, “If you want to know what you are, you are a set of highly well-intentioned young jackasses” (p 263).

Reason read: Anarchy plays a huge part in Man Who Was Thursday and the Russian Revolution happened in February. You make the connection.

Author fact: Chesterton also wrote The Best of Father Brown which is also on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: The Man Who Was Thursday was first published in 1908. I cannot tell you how cool it is to be reading this an e-book 107 years later. As an aside, this is my first Challenge book from Ebsco. Another small piece of trivia: Chesterton had a thing for the sea. He mentions it no less than a dozen times throughout The Man Who Was Thursday.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade” (p 175).

Her Name Was Lola

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Hoban, Russell. Her Name Was Lola. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003.

The first thing one needs to know about Her Name Was Lola is that it’s a short book with even shorter chapters. It’s a quick read – maybe even a lazy Sunday-in-one-sitting kind of read.

November, 2001. Max has writer’s block. As described in the first chapter, “Max writes novels that don’t sell, children’s picture books that do.” Only, the picture books aren’t getting written either. Instead, he is wandering around London, talking to himself and dealing with a dwarf demon called Apasmara on his back. Apasmara out of Hindu mythology and symbolizes Forgetfulness, Heedlessness, Selfishness, Ignorance, and Materialism. He was sent to make Max forget about Lola Bessington.
Flashback to December 1996. Max meets Lola and falls in love. She falls back. A few months later Max meets Lula and falls in love. She too falls back. Two women with similar names. One man with “blighter’s rock.” One big problem. Hoban always announces the date at the beginning of each chapter. To orientate the reader or mark the passage of time, I don’t know. It’s not a spoiler to say Max loses both women, but I think it is a spoiler when I say his fictional character is the one who gets it right. Leave to Max to create a character who is more virtuous than himself.

Reason read: Hoban’s birth month is February. Read Her Name Was Lola in his honor.

the line I liked the best, “People are composed of memories, losses, longings and regrets” (p 28).

Confessional: reading the lyrics to Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana (At the Copa)” took me right back to the late 70s when I was all of 9-10 years old. A girlfriend and I we loved the song to much we wanted to act out the lyrics – especially the “who shot who?” and the “yellow feathers in her hair” parts.

Author fact: Many people think Her Name Was Lola is autobiographical. If Hoban knows an imaginary dwarf named Apasmara then okay. That is awesome.

Book trivia: This is so short it can be read in one day.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Russell Hoban: Too Good To Miss” (p). This is the penultimate Hoban book on my list. One more and I will be done with the chapter.

Wild Blue

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Ambrose, Stephen E. The Wild Blue: the Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany.New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Soap box: As a 21st century society we are so far removed from the horrors of war. For several different reasons the word ‘war’ does not strike fear into our hearts. Our soil hasn’t had World War magnitude bloodshed for generations. Even overseas, our method of battle with the enemy is by and large impersonal; remote control, if you will. Gone are the days of brutal look-you-in-the-eye hand to hand combat. Gone are the days when killing was typically up close and personal. Now it’s distant missile and drone strikes. We wince along with millions with what we witness on television but it can be as benign as watching a movie; as if it is complete with actors and ketchup. It is easy to forgot the contributions of soldiers who fought in World War II. Thankfully, there are authors like Ambrose who are here to remind us; to make our heroes flesh and blood again.

The prologue to Wild Blue illustrates the constraints to flying a B-24. The very first sentence sets the stage, “The B-24 was built like a 1930s Mack Truck, except that it had an aluminum skin that could be cut with a knife” (p 21). Ambrose goes on to describe the lack of windshield wipers, heat, bathrooms, pressurization, kitchen facilities, or even room to move. Sometimes the airmen are too large for their assigned compartments and had to remove their parachutes in order to fit. Immediately upon reading this you sense the difficulties these airmen faced just flying these planes – never mind the additional dangers of flak, combat, even the weather. Chapter One introduces you to the men (in some most cases, mere boys) responsible for flying these dangerous machines. While Ambrose lists many different individuals, his main focus is on the pilots, bombardiers, navigators, radio operators and gunners. With the help of interviews with veterans like George McGovern, Ambrose takes you into the cockpit of every “Dakota Queen” McGovern flew. Subsequent chapters of Wild Blue take us through training, combat missions, D-Day, and the final mission of April 1945. There is a semi-Cinderella happy ending to Wild Blue that was almost too good to be true, but I believed it.

Reason read: Stephen Ambrose was born in the month of January.

Author fact: Wild Blue is one of six books I have on my Challenge list. I made the mistake of poking around websites and learned that there is controversy surrounding the authenticity of Ambrose writing Wild Blue. Not wanting to contaminate my enjoyment of reading the book, I stopped poking around websites.

Book trivia: Wild Blue has a total of 15 black and white photographs clustered in the center of the book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 252).

Assault

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Mulisch, Harry. The Assault. Translated by Claire Nicolas White. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Right away, I am struck by the imagery of The Assault. The detail with which Mulisch describes people and places is extraordinary. The year is 1945 in occupied Holland. Twelve year old Anton Steenwijk’s whole world changes the night a Nazi collaborator is murdered and the body moved to the Steenwijk’s front yard. Despite the war being nearly over, just months away really, Holland is still very much under the thumb of the Germans. Retaliation is inevitable and Anton’s life is forever changed. The Assault follows Anton through adulthood and the cold reality that no matter how he lives his life he can never escape his past. The Why haunts him. Each chapter is an episode, relating back to the assault. In the second episode, as a 19 year old medical student he attends a party in his hometown. He hasn’t been back since that fateful night. In episode three the year is 1956 and Anton is 23 years old and married. He runs into a man from his past with tragic stories to tell of his own. By the fourth episode he has passed his final exams to become an anesthesiologist. He attends a funeral and meets yet another man from his past. Each year he becomes more successful and grounded in his present life, but the past continues to circle him until the final episode. By 1981 Anton is 48 years old and has remarried. His second wife gives him a son. The Why of his past becomes an ever widening circle of reason. Explanations expose the answers to all his questions but do they soothe his agonized memory?

Lines that struck me, “Not until people are called Adolph again will the Second World War be really behind us” (p 13), “A man who has never been hungry may possess a more refined palate, but he has no idea what it means to eat” (p 43), and “Everything is forgotten in the end” (p 185).

Reason read: there is a day in January (the 24th) when people are supposed to thank their mentors. The Assault is in the Book Lust chapter about coming of age, so I imagine there is a boy who has mentor he needs to thank.

Author fact: Mulisch lost his mother to the concentration camps and his father was jailed after the war for collaborating with the Nazis. Think about that for a second.

Book trivia: The cover photograph is that of Dutch policeman Fake Krist lying dead in the street, October 25th, 1944.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Boys Coming of Age” (p 45).

Alma Mater

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Kluge, P.F. Alma Mater: a College Homecoming.Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1993.

This is an interesting Kluge book. It’s basically a memoir about how Kluge went back to his alma mater for an academic year to teach a writing/literature course. Each chapter is subsequent month in the semester, starting with (obviously) orientation in September and ending with graduation in May. What makes this book so interesting is the honest look Kluge takes of academia in general. As someone who has experienced both sides of the desk (student and faculty), he is free to examine the day to day as well as the behind-closed-doors politics of campus life. Every topic is fair game: tenure, scholarship, Greek life, dormitory living, the hiring process, alumni relations, the formation of committees to name a few. But it was the admissions process; specifically the process of accepting prospective students I found really interesting. Others in academia have said Kluge could have been writing about their institution. Admittedly, Kluge takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to Alma Mater but what was really surprising was how negative a picture Kluge paints of Kenyon. The disparaging comments were so frequent I was tempted to reread the book just to take note of every dissatisfaction. As an aside, most of the negativity didn’t come from Kluge directly. It came from faculty, the occasional student, alumni, and even the president of the college, just to name a few.

Other observations: It almost felt contractual for Kluge to mention past famous faculty and students (Ransom, Jarrell, Doctorow & Wright) several different times throughout Alma Mater. Also, I made the mistake of reading Kluge reviews on a “Rate My Professor” site. I’m sorry I did because it altered how I now feel about Alma Mater. I find this troubling because I had finished Alma before reading the reviews yet I was still influenced.

Lines I liked, “As sure as shit and feathers on a chicken coop floor, there’s always something” (p 14), “Was it the fullness of their lives or the emptiness that propelled them?” (p 144), “You need to learn the rules before you break them, master the traditions that you add to, or subvert” (p 145) and last one – “It’s like taking out my eyeballs and rolling them in a plate of breadcrumbs” (p 198). Funny!

Reason read: January is Kluge’s birth month. Read in honor of that birth.

Author fact: Because I have read another Kluge book I had to refer back to that review to see what I said for an “author fact” – simply because I didn’t want to say the same thing twice. Truth be told, I wasn’t writing author facts back than. So, this will be my first “fact” about Kluge and it’s an obvious one: Kluge wrote a book everyone has heard about, at least in major motion picture form – Eddie and the Cruisers.

Book trivia: Even though Alma Mater is a memoir of sorts, Kluge does not include any photographs. Bummer. At the very least I would have liked a picture of his dog especially since he meant so much to Kluge. 🙂

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “P.F. Kluge: Too Good To Miss” (p 140).

Maus II

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Spiegelman, Art. Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began. New York: Pantheon, 1992.

I think by the time I read Maus II I was conditioned to lose the conundrum I previously faced with Maus I. When I first read Maus I I struggled with the dilemma of an extremely serious storyline wrapped in a cartoon; the holocaust in pictures. With the reading of Maus II my mind could reconcile the conflict. The heavy topics return as Spiegelman’s father continues his story of survival. At this point he is a prisoner in the concentration camp at Auschwitz and surviving because of his ability to appeared skilled at whatever the gestapo or Nazis need, whether it be working with tin or fixing shoes. The most poignant element of Vladek’s story is that he never gave up on his wife. Being that she was so thin and frail, he feared the worst but he never lost some small hope that he would see her again. The struggle between father and son held the most emotional tension, despite Vladek’s ordeals. Evidence of Alzheimer’s disease complicates their relationship, as does the leaving of Vladek’s second wife, Mala.

Stunning quotes, “If you want to live it is good to be friendly” (p 62) and “I wish he and Mala could patch things up and make each other miserable again” (p 120).

Reason read: to finish the Maus series I started well over a month ago.

Author fact: Thanks to Wikipedia I learned that Spiegelman came up with the Garbage Pail Kids after the Cabbage Patch Kid craze. Interesting.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Graphic Novels” (p 103). Funny how I didn’t mention this earlier, but Spiegelman, Maus I and Maus II are not in the index of Book Lust. Somehow they were left out.

Nero Wolfe Cookbook

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Stout, Rex. The Nero Wolfe Cookbook. New York: Viking Press, 1973.

This is one of those cookbooks I would call “unique” just because it isn’t just a bunch of recipes with a common theme. This cookbook is for the diehard Nero Wolfe fans who really want to submerge themselves in his world. It’s a great concept. I don’t know how many readers actually tried to cook these meals, but they are real, honest-to-goodness recipes, albeit with weird ingredients like kummel, kirschwasser, sauterne, and pig livers. There is a whole chapter on just corn (note to self: try the roasting of corn in their husks instead of the traditional steaming). Throughout the recipes are little snippets of Wolfe’s unique relationship with food. I found it interesting that he can’t stand to have hungry visitors, even if those same visitors are thought to be suspects. Of course, it isn’t Nero doing all the cooking. He has his trusted cook, Fritz Brenner for that.

Reason read: Rex Stout was born in December. This was a quick “read” for the end of the month.

Author fact: According to the author info in The Nero Wolfe Cookbook, Stout had a passion for hotdogs. Okay.

Book trivia: I will admit 100% that I have read this at the wrong time. Having only read one Nero Wolfe mystery thus far (Fer-de-Lance) these recipes meant nothing to me. What saved me from quitting saving this for later were the quotations from the books in reference to each recipe.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Drinking: a Love Story

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Knapp, Caroline. Drinking: a Love Story.New York: the Dial Press, 1996.

Reason read: Prohibition was repealed in December

It is difficult to ready any story about a fall from grace, especially one written as honestly and bluntly as Caroline Knapp’s. The story winds its way around different out-of-control drinking; when Knapp drank, why she thought she drank so much, the people she affected with her drinking, the denials along the way. At times her stories seemed repetitive and meandering but that perception comes from the why of it all. Knapp was clearly in pain and had trouble rationalizing her rage. She brought two points home: you don’t need to have suffered a trauma to become addicted to anything and once you recognize your problem, your addiction is never again a normalized behavior. In the world of alcohol, most people think nothing of having a cocktail with friends, a beer after work. All of that became off limits to Knapp once she accepted her addiction. IAnd speaking of addiction, it is clear Knapp had an addictive personality. She was drawn to obsessions and performed rituals while drinking, rituals about food consumption to the point of anorexia, rituals in how she fought with her boyfriends. Even after sobriety, Knapp was drawn to obsessions concerning cleanliness and being constantly aware of how large a role alcohol plays in our society. Even the words “champagne bunch” grated on her abstinence. This latter point I often refer to as the “pregnant woman” syndrome. Fearing pregnancy or craving pregnancy causes one to see pregnant women everywhere. It’s all in the level of need want. In the end, Knapp was resolved to take one day at a time. She couldn’t set large goals for herself while her drinking was larger than her resolve. She was smart to know that every day was a major victory. Her story ends unresolved but hopeful.

As an aside, someone went through my copy of Drinking and marked a bunch of interesting passages. Here are a few, “Perception versus reality. Outside versus inside” (p 15), “”It is not so much that people like me hide the truth about our drinking from others (which most of us do, and quite effectively); it’s that we hide from others (and often ourselves) the truth about our real selves, about who we really are when we sit in our offices dashing off memos and producing papers and preparing presentations, about what is really churning beneath the surface” (p 16-17), and “…tension would hang over the room like a fog, a preoccupied silence that always made me feel wary, as though something bad was about to happen” (p 36).
My favorite line was “Add venom and stir, my own personal recipe for rage” (p 168).

Author fact: As I was checking out other reviews for Drinking I kept noticing reviewers would refer to Knapp in the past tense, “she was a writer.” Turns out, she died of lung cancer when she was just 42 years old. Strange how her smoking wasn’t really part of the story, and yet it was another addiction.

Book trivia: no photographs.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Lost Weekends” (p 147).

Maus: a Survivor’s Tale

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Spiegelman, Art: Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale. My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.

Maus I is such a curious conundrum. On the one hand, you are mostly looking at pictures. The very idea of a “comic book” is something out of childhood and inherently considered “light reading.” Definitely not something to be taken seriously. On the other hand, you have Spiegelman’s story itself: a son interviewing his father to get the perspective of a Polish Jew who survived the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. Fear, starvation, distrust, torture, suicide, execution, genocide. All pretty heavy subject matter and without a doubt, difficult to read in any context. Even in his characterization Spiegelman plays with our perceptions. He uses enemies in the natural world to drive home the story; using cats for the Germans and mice for the Jews; pigs for the police.
Here’s the underlying truth, the war never leaves Spiegelman’s father. Even though he survived the war, survived the concentration camps, survived to tell his tale, he lives in the shadow of memory. He worries constantly about money; is distrustful of his own family’s intentions (trying to steal from him). Betrayals of the past run deep and dictate how he trusts others.

Reason read: Pearl Harbor anniversary is Dec 7th (Remembrance Day). Confessional: I started this in November in honor of Veterans’ Day.

Stop and think line, “He survived me my life that time” (p 80). Even though we would normally say, “he saved my life” I think this phrasing, saying the word “survived” carries more weight.

Author fact: Check out the author info in Maus I. There is a lot going on in the illustration.

Book trivia: My favorite part was the comic within the graphic novel. The styles were so vastly different. The importance of the comic was clearly illustrated.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Graphic Novels” (p 103).

Recognitions

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Gaddis, William. The Recognitions. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.

Confessional! What do you get when you combine these factors: a reading list still over 4,000 titles long, Book Challenge rules which address when to not read a book, and a book 956 pages long with a plot no one can explain? Me, quitting this book! I read plenty of other reviews urging me to “stick with it” and to “keep reading despite the nonsense.” Can’t do it. Not one of the reviews really told me what the book was about except in some obscure and round-about way involving art, religion and the postmodern condition, all the (many) characters are seemingly adrift with endless and pointless dialogues, and there never seemed to be an end to the literacy allusions and absurdity. There. I said it. Hated it with two thumbs down. Maybe, when I’m feeling a bit more scholarly and have all the time in the world, I’ll pick it up again. Or not.

Reason read: Gaddis was born in December…tried to read in his honor.

Author fact: As I mentioned before, Gaddis was born in December. He also died in December.

Book trivia: The Recognitions is a whopping 956 pages long. No wonder I didn’t finish it.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Postmodern Condition” (p 190). Interestingly enough, Gaddis won TWO National Book Awards for subsequent works. Neither title, Carpenter’s Gothic or A Frolic of His Own, is on my list. Instead, I’m supposed to read the book critics called a failure.

Edited to add: This cracked me up. I posted this review elsewhere and got the following comment, “Your recent excoriating review of my first novel really hurt my feelings. Do you think you could at least finish my novel before rendering such a harsh and summary judgment upon it? Please, I suffered long and hard for that book, I implore you to give it another chance, to finish it.

Best wishes,
Bill”
I’ve never had anyone implore me to do anything, except maybe an ex to take him back. This, from a ghost. Too funny.

All the King’s Men

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Warren, Robert Penn. All the King’s Men. Orlando: Harvest Book, 1946.

I have to admit, parts of All the King’s Men were difficult to read. Flashbacks within flashbacks sometimes had me a little lost. There was a lot of jumping between 1922, 1936 and 1939, all seemingly on a whim. Willie Stark is backwoods man trying to move past increasing corruption on his way up the political ladder. His story, loosely based on Louisiana governor, Huey Long, is told from the point of view of his aide, Jack Burden. Being a former journalist, Jack knows his way around incriminating information and he knows how to use it. Most of the story is about Jack struggling with the different relationships in his life. Morality plays a huge part in his development as a character. One of the biggest take-aways of the book is Warren’s descriptive language. I have never been to the deep south but I felt as if I had experienced Louisiana first hand.

Quotes I caught, “How life is strange and changeful, and the crystal is in the steel at the point of fracture, and the toad bears a jewel in its forehead, and the meaning of moments passes like the breeze that scarcely ruffles the leaf of the willow (p 27). What? Here’s another, “If the human race didn’t remember anything it would be perfectly happy” (p 60).

Reason read: everyone knows the U.S. holds its elections in November. Read in honor of Tuesday, November 4th as Election Day.

Author fact: Warren won three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, a National Medal for Literature and the Presidential Medal for Freedom. If that wasn’t enough, he was also the nation’s first poet laureate.

Book trivia: All the King’s Men was made into a movie starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, among others. More importantly, AtKM is on the American Library Association’s list of top banned and/or challenged books of the 20th century.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Politics of Fiction” (p 189) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Texas Two-Step (After a Bob Wills Song)” (p 225).