A Naked Singularity

Sergio de la Pava's A Naked Singularity is the most impressive debut novel I've read since William T. Vollman's You Bright And Risen Angels. And though I suspect that book is unfamiliar to you, I request that you trust me when I say that this is high praise. Want more familiar touchstones? Well, that would take a less interesting novel.

A Naked Singularity revolves around a young defense attorney named Casi who has never lost a case that went to trial. He lives in Brooklyn, a place the author bio on the back assures us that de la Pava does not live. We begin with a series of interviews he performs with the night's arrested, followed almost immediately by their bail hearings, a section of the book that is openly hilarious as well as clearly questioning the justice system. From there the book proceeds to continue with both the humor and questions throughout its remainder, to great effect. Often a loner at the office, Casi befriends a fellow attorney named Dane who is interested in the pursuit of perfection, a cause which in the past has lead him to smoke crack. Dane draws Casi to plan a perfect crime using information from one of Casi's clients, a cause which seems in no way complicated by the fact that Dane never appears when anyone else is around. In opposition to their proposed crime is a larger-than-life character called Ballena, who may exist or may be symbolic (This is not to say he does not exist in the world of the book. He certainly does. However, I favor a slightly-less-literal interpretation). Does this have your attention yet? If not, I don't think I want to spend time with you anymore.

Sprinkled throughout are scenes with Casi's family, Colombian immigrants on both sides of the law. These never really tie into the book's main themes, but they have the courtesy to not drag. As things progress, Casi's views of justice shake and change, leading to one especially wonderful legal brief. He runs afoul of both the judges he defends clients in front of and his co-workers. He has lengthy discussions on the nature of God with his Landlord and said authority figure's roommates, one of whom is attempting to bring Ralph Kramden to life by watching The Honeymooners endlessly via DVR (Other letters are involved in the acronym). And once again, yes, this is a comedy.

Are there bum notes along the way? Absolutely. One philosophical discussion with his fellow buildingmates involves the exponential pace of human invention, a conversation which calls into question the reverence the book places on Television, a noun which is always capitalized. Some of the family set pieces are not at all necessary. And the book does drag a bit in the middle part. But with the scope of the issues the novel tackles, which come to a semi-climax in Casi's co-defense of a mentally-challenged man sentenced to death in Alabama, more than merit a misstep or two for the insight and impact the book places on many of the issues we as humans face nowadays, both those covered by Dostoyevsky and those which have come up since. If you are interested in contemporary fiction in almost any way, and especially fiction attempting to push for importance beyond the medium, you should have stopped reading this a while ago and found yourself a copy of this book. And as to how it ends up, as they say:

"We're going to be all right,"he said.
"No," I said. "But we're going to live."

Playing Literature Catch-Up

Here now, reviews of the books I've read since I last wrote a full review, in order, all in 25 words or less. Why not?

In case you're easily confused: Book - Author - Words

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami - Murakami is the man. Now if only someone would return Kafka on the Shore to the library. You should read this book.

Lost in the Funhouse - John Barth - Connected short stories, all about writing said stories. Witty, frustrating, and better than the premise sounds.

Great Days - Donald Barthelme - More of the same from the master of the modern short story. But before trying this book, read 'The School', the best short story ever.

You Bright and Risen Angels - A completely insane and madcap telling of the war between bugs and electricity. Insects or computer glitches? Who cares if it's this much fun?

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Murakami - I can't read when I run, so I don't. Run, that is.

And with that tossed-off bit above, we're up to date. Hooray and stuff!

The Great Gatsby

As is often the case with great works of literature, I was introduced to The Great Gatsby in high school, and promptly hated it, dismissing the classic as "A second-rate soap opera". But as time has passed, I have sometimes found myself wondering if perhaps the fault was not in the book itself, but rather somehow was something personal, if there was something I had missed in the slim volume. Impossible as this scenario sounds, I decided to re-read the book, just to make sure. And you know what? Most high schoolers are stupid. But man, not me. I was five kinds of brilliant.

You see, The Great Gatsby essentially is a brief soap opera, dealing with high-society shenanigans in the early 20th century; full of lavish parties, lengthy car rides and characters who are not what they initially seem to be (NOTE TO CINDI: HE DIES AT THE END). Based on the headlines I am assaulted by every time I attempt to buy groceries at a supermarket, there remains a thriving market for this sort of thing, though a basic level of literacy is no longer a prerequisite for those wishing to partake of it. Unfortunately, it completely fails to grab me. I feel much like I do when reading Jane Austen, recognizing the quality of what is before me, but simply uncaring. It's great that Jane recorded massive manuals of upper-class British dance etiquette, and when I find myself in a situation calling for a knowledge of that protocol (Should be any day now), she'll be the first source I turn to. But until then, she can sit on the shelf (The shelf in question belongs to someone else), unread by me. Same thing here. If I need to know the proper way to conduct an affair while living in 1920s NYC, Fitzgerald it is. Until then, I will pass.

Or I would if not for one thing: The prose. Regardless of how little I care about the events on each page, The Great Gatsby is far beyond wonderfully written. Every image in the book is fully formed, each far more clear than it could possibly be in any picture, moving or static. Opening to any page at random will yield a line so well-formed that it will not inspire, but rather make you wish to never write anything ever again, for it will pale in comparison to Fitzgerald. Just by way of example, I let the book fall open, and it chose pages 34 and 35. Upon page 34 resides a sentence stating of a character that

She came in with such a proprietary haste and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here.

Instantly, you know exactly what that looks like. This happens on every single page. It is borderline-amazing, and makes the book so much better than the sum of its plot that it really must be read to be believed. So go forth from this place and do so. And then return, gawking at my suboptimal sentence structure, mocking me in the comments for them. Actually, don't. That would be mean. Instead, forget about the Great Gatsby. Click on the ads and mail me blank checks. Ideally while chanting my name. That is a much better use of your time than spending two and a half hours bombing through a canonical work of Western Literature. Because these B and N keys don't seem like they're going to fix themselves, and all this copying and pasting isn't a ton of fun.

Anna Karenina

Is it possible for a book that has been roundly canonized to possibly live up to the hype? Of course it is, but it's not an easy task. When one opens a book expecting sheer brilliance, any missteps will doom the book, even if it remains excellent, solely because it makes the expected perfection unattainable. Fair? No, absolutely not. But this is just how it goes, living under the crushing weight of expectations. Perhaps this is why Tolstoy made all his novels 1,000,000 pages long. Some things are harder to crush than others.

So let's get this out of the way at the beginning: I have now read both War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and at this point I feel safe concluding that I am a Dostoevsky man. Each of his novels seems to be sculpted to address a single topic, an extended musing on philosophical and cosmological minutiae told through half-crazed Russians who seem to passionately exclaim about 2/3 of everything they think. Tolstoy, on the other hand, moves at a glacial pace, seemingly attempting to show life in his novels, without any overt statements on the, or possibly even a, subject (The exceptions seem to be any time a character has a religious epiphany, at which times Tolstoy can be overly preachy). This novel took me a long time to wade through (And there were multiple detours into other books in the middle), as what Tolstoy does seems to be specifically designed to not grab one's attention. The cast is an ensemble, some of whom will likely appeal to everyone out there, while likely everyone will also be left cold by a character or two. Unfortunately for me, one of these doubles as the title.

I have nothing against Anna especially, but just have no sympathy for her. See, when she makes the decision to leave her husband (By the way, she leaves her husband for her lover) she knows exactly what this means for her. She knows how society will view her actions, and what their response will be. She knows she will not be allowed to keep her child. Yet she does it. The fact that later she struggles with the consequences does not excuse her from guilt, as she knew what would happen when she made her choice. The events that lead to her death (She dies too) are caused solely by herself flipping out completely. She essentially loses her mind with jealousy (Despite the fact that there is no evidence he is cheating on her. In one memorable scene she yells at him because he smiled at a delivery girl bringing him a package from a relative. She is nuts), and does everything she can to drive away the man most dear to her. When she kills herself, it's a relief. While I'm sure it's supposed to be a sad moment, I'm just left glad I don't have to deal with the crazy woman anymore. She chose everything that happens to her. Just because she couldn't take it doesn't make her sympathetic.

One thing I will give Tolstoy is that he does wonderful death scenes. Normally I don't care for these all that much in the mediums I feel traditionally revere them (Film and theater). I generally find myself wishing someone would hit the dying individual over the head with whichever blunt object is nearest so that they will finally die and we can move on. But Tolstoy does these well. Anna's death is wonderfully written, and the only chapter in the book with a title ('Death,' occurring much earlier) is also well done, if not quite as brief or powerful. This gibes with War and Peace, in which the death of Prince Andrey is one of the most memorable images I have ever read (It involves a dream and a door). It is in moments such as the spiritual revelation of Levin that Tolstoy struggles to express himself without getting on a soapbox (See: "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"), and that moment mars the end of Anna Karenina significantly. It is as bad as all this may make it seem? Absolutely not. But Tolstoy's love of a glacially-plotted affair leaves me a bit cold, wishing I could hear a little less about the formal rules of Russian societal interactions and a little more about, well, pretty much anything else (Except English societal affairs, thank you very much Jane Austen). Tolstoy's novels are almost ridiculously ambitious and overstuffed, yet nothing really happens. He lays out a great mass of humanity, but never answers the question of why. In the end, I find myself left with some questions and the feeling that I spent my time well solely due to tackling a classic, even if I didn't enjoy all of it, but I would be hard-pressed to tell another that the book is worth the time it takes to read it. In my memories, it is similar to Thomas Pynchon (Oddly enough), in that I don't have much of an image of a whole picture, but rather some minor scenes that have stuck with me. Which is enough for me to make it an enjoyable read, but not what I had hoped for before I began, or what the general acclaim would lead one to expect.

Prisoner's Dilemma

The year is 1951 and Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Inferior Cheese State*) is leading a witchhunt for Communists via the media, who, for though I feel they are failing us almost completely these days, evidently weren't much better back then. He brings two Senators into his office and sits them down in front of his desk. He then informs them that he knows they're both Reds and has enough evidence to indict each of them, but not enough to get the sentence he believes they deserve. Therefore, he proposes that he will generously let whoever comes forth with the goods on the other first go free. If both squeal, they both get longer sentences than they would if they both stay quiet, but less than if they stay silent and the other volunteers information. He then puts them in separate rooms to interrogate each individually. What do they do?

*Okay, I've been taking cheap shots at Wisconsin's cheese pretty much whenever the internet in these parts works for over 3 consecutive minutes, which was not much until Friday when we got our own and stopped having to steal from our neighbors (Or neighbours, if you prefer. Blogger's spell-check does not). But in fairness to Wisconsin, while I was generally unimpressed with their cheeses, I did have what is possibly the best cinnamon roll I've ever eaten there, at Denny's (Not the Chain) Diner in the Wisconsin Dells. Awesome. Also, this footnote format is blatantly thieved from Posnanski. Since the internet is now legal, I wanted to at least steal something. It's a rush.

That is the question posed over breakfast by Eddie Hobson Sr. to his brood of youngsters, 75% of whom have already moved out and are back visiting at the same time solely because their father's undiagnosed illness has worsened. The lack of a diagnosis has nothing to do with the failings of modern medical science, but rather Eddie Sr.'s avoidance of such, a situation that is likely to change only when the trained coroner is required by the authorities to confirm he is deceased. Such a morning puzzle is a Hobson tradition, as Eddie continually keeps everyone on their toes, so to speak, refusing to let their minds rest, even when it sets the family's collective nerves on edge. But he does not rest either. In his free time, he constructs Hobstown, the world as it should be, and one that will cure the planet we live on, despite the fact that he doesn't even allow his family to view any results of the project. In it World War II, himself and Walt Disney intertwine, in a captivating subplot so well-done that I actually researched the (non-fictional) subjects to see if any of it was true. Alas, it is not. At the beginning of this novel, the two seperate parts of it lie far apart. But as the book goes on, they begin to merge more, until the two almost bleed into one another. This is a captivating novel that picks up speed from one of the best living novelists, and a great bit of fun with the traditional screwed-up family. And what of our prisoners, who we briefly visited back at the beginning of this post? Well, that depends. What do you consider to be a prison?

Edit - Wow, I forgot to write the author's name. His name is Richard Powers. And I feel very smart right now, though evidently I have no clue how to proofread.

The Pickwick Papers

Ah, 876 pages of Victorian English, the language so dense that only royalty could love it. And yet somehow, far from being the imposing linguistic nightmare that the tome's sheer bulk suggests, The Pickwick Papers is a lighthearted romp through Dickens' England. Who knew that the man who wrote Bleak House (If you are not a fan of completely uncalled-for jabs at that atrocious novel, you probably shouldn't read anything I write) had it in him?

Anyway, The Pickwick Papers chronicles the adventures of the Pickwick Club as it's members traipse around England (Though almost always by carriage (And, in one memorable incident, wheelbarrow), as they are well-to-do), generally making complete fools of themselves. The group's head is the illustrious Samuel Pickwick, a man who can be described in no other way than to say that he is (To use the Pickwickian sense of the word) a bit of an ass. This man has no idea of how he appears to others, or what he is actually doing, quite frequently (Though he does always seem to know when he is within reach of rum punch). With him are three members of his club, Misters Snodgrass, Tupman and Winkle (Dickens here, as always, never fails to give his characters names that are anything short of spectacular), to be joined partway through by the absolutely scene-stealing character Samuel Weller, Mr. Pickwick's servant, who is always happiest when antagonizing a real or imagined foe of his master using either words or his fists. The novel encapsulates a variety of settings, from the pleasant retreat of Dingley Dell (What, you thought he was only good at naming characters?) to the horrific debtors prison, an institution that Dickens was intent on attacking any chance he got throughout his literary career. The supporting cast is just as large, with five pages before the start of the novel set aside just to list the participatory parties. And a varied cast it is, giving Dickens room to satirize nearly every part of English society, from the outright conmen Jingle and Trotter to the lawyers Dodson and Fogg (Okay, these are kind of the same thing). Even the more poetic elements of society are sent up through Mrs. Leo Hunter, authoress of the noted 'Ode to an Expiring Frog'. All of this is set forth in the name of good clean fun, and is a ball to read, something I never expected to say about Dickens. This was his first work, so perhaps he didn't make the move towards inaccessibility until a bit later (Though the fact that the miserable Oliver Twist was the novel to follow this may blow that theory straight out of the water. Oh well. Too bad my delete key is broken. What?).

And what of it all? Well, there is a bit more than just the capers of four buffoons at work here, as Dickens subtly tweaks the characters throughout the course of the novel, showing that while eveyone certainly has their bad points, there is good to be found in everyone outside the legal profession as well. The reader gets closer to the titular character as the book goes on and finds that, while he's still a bit of a buffoon with a fondness for punch, he's at the least a well-intentioned punch-loving buffoon, and that's certainly better than many people are (Insert joke about royal family here). I've tried not to give away the adventures partaken in by the fictional multitudes, but instead recommend that you personally pick up a copy at your local independent bookseller and join in the merriment. Just make sure you have a free month or so for the undertaking.

The Broom of the System

There's been a lot of reading going on in these parts lately, so there's a decent chance this turns into Mike's Literature and Baseball Emporium for a bit. You've been warned. Anyway, let's move onto some thoughts about the titular book, which are not intended to be a review of any kind. The best review I can give this book is that I am (re-)reading it at the moment because I recently went to The Most Dangerous Store In The World (The Strand used book store) to buy a copy of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (This one will probably get its own post sometime soon), and wound up leaving with four books in a bag. The reason why I included The Broom of the System in this pile is that both copies I have owned previously have not returned from being 'borrowed'. If that's not a ringing endorsement, then I want the two miscreants responsible to give me my book(s) back. You know who you are.

So let's begin. The book in question was written by The Man (David Foster Wallace (Sidenote: Apparently this is a new printing of the book. Before the book itself begins, there is a page of gratuitous praise from noted publications such as the New York Times Book Review and the Cleveland Plains Dealer (I just lost the lucrative Cleveland market, didn't I?). This is followed by a paragraph about the author, which in this case is complete with an end date for him. Sad)) when he was 24. Which is fairly impressive in and of itself (Fun game: Think about the meaning of the words in and of that expression). But even moreso if you look at the content of the book (Which I am thinking of doing any time now. And yes, I wrote that terrible sentence just so I could put this parenthetical here. I'm not proud). The book is set in (Primarily) East Corinth, Ohio, a city shaped like a profile of Jayne Mansfield when viewed from the air. It borders the Great Ohio Desert (Whose acronym is so blatantly obvious that even I feel it is beneath me to mention it in the main text), and centers around Lenore Beadsman, a young woman who fears that she is just a character in a story, brought to life solely by someone else's words. She works at a publishing company answering the phone lines and is dating the firm's editor. One of the main ways they relate is via him telling her stories he has received, which I believe to be made up by him. Occasional excerpts from things he is writing are found in the book. The style of the novel often changes inside the individual chapters, as certain characters have various specific forms taken by the words used to create them. These shifts are easy to accomplish, as each chapter is splt up into multiple subdivisions, fracturing the book more and more. What it is in the end is an attempt to split the atom, miming the day job of one of the book's characters, Norman Bombardini ("No one had ever been able to give butter life either, but..." "What was that?" "Nothing. To be ignored. A slip of the tongue."). Oh yes, and did I mention it's a comedy? And a very funny one at that. This combination of ambition and achievement at such a young age is just another reason that one of our pre-eminent literary talents will be missed. Pick it up and give it a go. Read it with an open mind. But most importantly, think.

A Tale of Two Cities

The problem with writing about a work that has been canonized by every single person to ever pick up a pencil (8th graders being forced to read the book in question by their cruel taskmaster/teacher excepted) is, of course, the obvious one: What can I possibly say about this book that Vladimir Nabokov has not? In the case of the novel in question, probably nothing. Therefore, if you are overly familiar with Nabokov's feelings on Dickens, you should probably skip to a post about the weather or the optimal length of dreadlocks w/r/t acceleration at each position in baseball, and the corresponding amounts players should tip their barber (or whatever). Unless you desire to read the same thing multiple times, only more poorly articulated the second time around (Though I wish to note that I am far ahead of Nabokov in the ever-important field of Bleak House analysis, as I am willing to state that which he never dared: Don't bother reading Bleak House. Seriously. It's an overstuffed, underformed mess). If this is the case, feel free to read along with the other functionally illiterate person or two who is still going here. Anway, with whatever I wrote as the first sentence (finally) being back in mind, my current intention is to keep this brief. That probably will not happen. Let's have a paragraph break.

A Tale of Two Cities has been covered everywhere from Princeton University to the fine television program Wishbone™, all of which seem to have the idea that it is one of the finest piece of writing ever produced in the English language. And they are correct. Dicken's prose and storytelling are at their absolute apex here, and the book is poignant and fully-formed, packed with interesting characters and a plot that moves along as quickly as the ever-present footsteps signalling the beginning of the French Revolution. The only caveat worth mentioning is that this is a work of Victorian english, meaning it is overly wordy and descriptive by default (Though still less digressive than this blog post. Also Tom Jones). However, none of the novel is extraneous. As opposed to some of his other works (God I hated Bleak House (Though nothing is worse than the titular character in Oliver Twist)), in ATOTC he ties every one of these seemingly unnecessary sidenotes back around into a plot that picks up just as much steam as the historical element it revolves around as the pages turn. It begins with one of the absolute iconic opening sentences in literature, and closes with one also matched by few works (Hello A Farewell To Arms!). If anyone knows of another work that achieves both these things, I would love to read it.

Despite this praise, the novel is not flawless. Dickens is often a moralist to a fault, and his continual slamming of the Revolutionary methods and aims draws thin as the book moves on. This, as most of his works, was written as a serial novel, and it is possible to pick out the various cliffhangers he ended various sections on as you read it (Perhaps this does not bother you personally, but I am a reader who comes off feeling slightly used if a writer feels it is necessary to resort to cliffhangers to keep me reading). These are small faults compared to the last seven paragraphs. In these, Dickens the Moralist runs amock, to the point of nearly destroying what should be the climactic finish of a masterpiece. The damage is contained by the thoroughly wonderful closing line, but it is still an unfortunate black mark against a virtually flawless novel, which gets marked down from perfect to brilliant as a result. If you haven't read it yet, stop reading this and go track down a copy. Or at least a DVD of Wishbone™.