I’m a lifelong King reader. For this reader, he has been anywhere from excellent to marginally readable. Most have been very good or I wouldn’t have bI’m a lifelong King reader. For this reader, he has been anywhere from excellent to marginally readable. Most have been very good or I wouldn’t have been lifelong.
Billy Summers ranks in the top echelon. King’s premise is well-worn, and almost trite. An aging hitman takes on one more extremely well paid hit before retiring. We know this story. We know he will face a cluster of problems. Ho hum. King makes it interesting with a number of small twists, and interesting characters, and his fine writing.
Near the halfway point King springs his trap—one I guarantee no one will guess—and turns the story on its ear. From that point, Billy Summers becomes riveting and unique. King provides many surprises as his second story unwinds to a somewhat surprising conclusion.
And for those who won’t read King because they don’t like “horror,” Billy Summers might be one to try. 99.9% horror free....more
Twenty-two years ago my friend JK gave me a book to read, the first book of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. ILord of the Rings on Steroids:
Twenty-two years ago my friend JK gave me a book to read, the first book of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. In some small way, that day changed my life. As I began reading the first book, The Eye of the World, Jordan’s third book of a projected six, neared its date for release. I flew through the first two and like JK anxiously awaited The Dragon Reborn. What I was about to receive, in addition to a copy of that book were decades-long lessons in patience, humility and dealing with desires, longing, frustration and anger. Some pertinent information:
• I am not, per se, a fantasy book fan, although I enjoy a good one occasionally.
• This series has stretched well beyond good. Beginning with the fourth book every subsequent volume immediately hit number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list – every single one. The final volume, A Memory of Light, is number 1 now. So a lot of casual and non-fantasy readers have hopped on board.
• He did not finish the series in six books. It took 14.
• He did not finish the series at all. Jordan died of cancer in 2007 while completing book 11.
• For a while, we addicted readers could expect a new book every fall. But the gap between books grew longer, perhaps because he grew ill. Jordan kept his illness quiet.
• Because of those long waits, in the pre-web site days JK and I re-read the previous book prior to the release of the interminably long awaited next volume. Now there are dozens of fine Wheel of Time web sites that can refresh one’s memory. One even lists, with a small blurb for each, all of the 1331 named characters through book 11, so when someone pops up that you can’t quite recall, that you may not have seen for 2,700 pages, you can just open the site, “Oh yeah, I remember her!”
• Around book 8, and through book 11, the story dragged at times. Jordan seemed to be chasing rabbits – a writer’s term for running off on side stories that do not move the main story forward. Some of us, me included, thought that maybe he had discovered a “cash cow” in his epic and would never finish as long as the money poured in. Perhaps the rabbit chasing was due to his illness.
• Jordan left extensive notes for the conclusion of his series, and yes he had neared completion. The Wheel was not to be a never-ending cash cow. His wife, who was also his editor at Tor books, hired another fantasy writer, Brandon Sanderson, to finish (it took three books). Sanderson has been faithful to the story and Jordan’s style in telling it, and he is a joy to read just as was Jordan.
• By my count, in hard back The Wheel of Time series incudes 10,104 pages – a daunting number for one about to begin.
I have begun the final book and I’m filled with conflicting emotions. Everything flies breakneck towards the climax that I have waited 22 years for. I want to read slowly and savor. It is so difficult to put down.
More, and a final rating after I either complete savoring or fly through the 634 pages (891 total).
Knowing that the final 600 pages insures disappointment and a letdown in so many ways, I pushed on. Considering this portion would include the FINAL BATTLE between good and evil, one in which our protagonist was certain to die (the prophesy said so), and many other characters that we loved and invested thousands of pages following and rooting for were also likely to bite the dust, it just couldn't end well. And how could a replacement author end such a saga with the pinache of its creator?
I knew I would be disappointed. The only question to answer was how much?
Wonder of wonders, Brandon Sanderson did Jordan's notes proud. The ending satisfied on so many levels. When I closed the book I believe I felt like Jordan intended us to feel twenty-some years ago - warm and fuzzy, sad, happy, and satisfied.
What Jordan wrought will stand as a great literary achievement. Ten thousand pages, book after book a #1 bestseller, and an ending that satisfies we who long ago embarked on this epic journey. And I'm guessing it will satisfiy all of those brave souls who decide to begin in the future.
Well done, Brandon Sanderson. Rest in Peace, Robert Jordan. Your epic achievement lives on....more
Bestselling Young Adult Fiction. But in order to be both young adult and bestselling it has to be something more. Young adult fiction typically calls Bestselling Young Adult Fiction. But in order to be both young adult and bestselling it has to be something more. Young adult fiction typically calls for less verbosity, fewer necessities for the average young adult to crack a dictionary, compact, concise language and above all must tell a story that will get young adults to refrain from texting for a time, to close facebook and to surrender one's Call of Duty weapons. A quality young adult book must make its young readers feel some struggle and a sense of loss each time they put the book down to live the rest of their lives. And it must provide an eagerness to pick it up once again, and text one’s friends upon completion. But even all of that doesn’t make it “bestselling.”
To tack on bestselling it’s got to cross over into plain old adult fiction, and sell. Hunger Games has crossed over, and rightfully so. It’s a combination of George Orwell’s cautionary science fiction tale 1984 and Shirley Jackson’s dark short story “The Lottery.” It’s a convoluted love story worthy of the best chick-lit. It’s a science fiction tale of a dark future in which all residents of Panem (formerly the United States) are governed by a ruler with an iron fist, a Hitlerian President Snow – who presides over a society where the one percent live in luxury and the ninety-nine at the edge of starvation while they create the one-percenter’s quality of life. It’s the story of a hideous annual lottery that selects poor children, ages twelve through seventeen, to compete in a to-the-death, one survivor competition for the mandatory television viewing pleasure of the entire society - a kind of grisly "Survivor." Suzanne Collins delivers a list of likeable protagonists, all with flaws, narrated by sixteen year-old Katniss Everdeen from coal-mining District Twelve. This is dark. This is gory. This is good stuff. And even better news: it’s only the first book of a three book trilogy.
I dare any young adult or adult who loves good fiction to read the first fifty pages, set it down and never pick it up again. ...more
Having read – and loved – Daniel Woodrell’s "Winter’s Bone" and "Woe to Live On" (both among my reviews) I jumped at the chance to see him in person aHaving read – and loved – Daniel Woodrell’s "Winter’s Bone" and "Woe to Live On" (both among my reviews) I jumped at the chance to see him in person at the main Kansas City Library around Thanksgiving. An LA Times reviewer has referred to Woodrell as an Ozark Faulkner. Calling any author a Faulkner does a disservice to all involved, particularly the one doing the calling. But that’s where we are, I guess. We must compare rather than describe. But I shall now climb off my high horse and say, “not a bad comparision, dude.”
I learned during the introductions that President Obama took Woodrell’s "The Bayou Trilogy" with him on his vacation this summer. After being introduced Woodrell read some from his new short story collection, "The Outlaw Album," which was included in the Kansas City Star’s top 10 works of fiction for 2011.
Following the reading he chatted on stage in easy chairs with Whitney Terrell, author of "King of Kings County", another good read (wordplay intended). During the interview portion, Terrell mentioned that reviewers often refer to his work as dark or bleak. Woodrell replied, “I get called bleak all the time, even by my friends. I don’t see that. There’s some darkness there, but there’s rays of sunshine that poke through the clouds throughout my writing. Others don’t see that though, and my friends say ‘No, Daniel, you’re bleak.”
The Outlaw Album is bleak. Bleak and beautiful. His characters live in the Ozark hills. They mostly live in poverty, sorely tested by the lives they lead. "Ma’s house is a square two-story built plain long ago … It’s an invented shade of white about halfway around the house to where the paint ran out … the rest colored with the paler shades of paint left over in the shed, so it’s one color house seen driving by, several others standing in the yard, colors that don’t rhyme in the eye, but the wood is well coated."
The hills are a place of guns and Bibles and tourists and crystal meth. Life is hard and dangerous. An outsider buys a canoe outfitter and campground on the Twin Forks river complete with bullet-hole riddled tables “kids liked rubbing the holes, sticking their fingers inside while imagining exciting events that led to gunfire erupting on this very spot.” The outsider soon learns the thin line between coexisting with the locals and such an eruption.
A teenage girl head-whacks her rapist uncle with a mattocks that leaves him a near vegetable, then she must care for him as her Ma works long hours. A man is haunted by his experiences in the Gulf war, another one by his in Vietnam. Revenge is common in Woodrell’s Ozark world. Grim, yes. Bleak, certainly. But the reading of it, the voice, yes, and its rays of sunshine; it’s almost poetry.
"Ma’n me stared silently ‘til the tree frogs went silent and the owls came out to fly. We left the cow at peace finally in the embers, started toward the house, walking slowly through the spreading weeds of our garden plot where nothing got planted this year." ...more
No book has moved me so much since Cormack McCarthy's "The Road." This book is so many things: a sociological study of racism, a riveting thriller, a No book has moved me so much since Cormack McCarthy's "The Road." This book is so many things: a sociological study of racism, a riveting thriller, a love story of sorts, a study in the class system of the South in the first half of the 20th century. It's hard to believe this is Stockett's first book. It may be presumptuous of me here, but I believe that someday "The Help" will be sitting in the same ballbark as Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," only maybe "Help" will be seated in the upper deck while "Mockingbird" sits in the dugout boxes. ...more
How does one complain about a book to which one gave 5 stars, a book that kept one up late, a book which during its reading one ignoredLanguage Aside
How does one complain about a book to which one gave 5 stars, a book that kept one up late, a book which during its reading one ignored ones chores, spouse, dogs and horses? How about making the complaint very brief? Steig Larsson wrote his “Girl” trilogy in Swedish. It was translating into United Kingdom English (the King’s English) by an American. I’m sure Reg Keeland (aka Steven T. Murray) did very well. But there exists bumps for Americans reading pieces written by an Englishman, let alone a Swedish piece translated for Englishmen by an American. Passive verbs camp out on page after page. There are enough “hads” to populate three past tense novels. And it appears that Englishmen don’t believe in any “s” that are not at the end of a word. In their defence (sic [for Americans anyway]) my English friends owned the language first. But why would an American translate Swedish into the King’s English? I suppose it dealt with whose name appeared on his paycheck. But I digress. Lisbeth Salander will be a literary character that transcends time – just a prediction here. She will become the dawn of the 21st Century’s Jane Eyre or Scarlet O’Hara. Larsson developed her in his first volume The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and he expands and refines her here. Lisbeth – I feel that I’m on a first name basis – is Goth and anti-social and a genius. But if you called her such things she might punch you in the face or kick you in the groin. Over these first two novels Larsson makes us love her and root for her. Mikael Blomkvist, the trilogy’s male hero, can’t figure out his feelings for this “girl” and to an extent we can’t either, but like Mikael we feel them nonetheless. His characters are exquisitely developed and nuanced. No “good guy” is without faults, although the evil ones are mostly without redemption. And Larsson peppers this book with characters, cops and bad guys who are eminently hateable. What begins as a triple-murder mystery – two journalists and Lisbeth’s evil state ordered guardian – becomes a Bourne-like 100 miles-per-hour suspense ride. Did Lisbeth kill them all? A word to the wise – when you read it plan on ignoring chores, job, spouse, personal hygiene, etc. for the final 350 pages. And don’t sweat the language, only nerds like me will notice. As good as this is, I’ll bet it was even better in Swedish. ...more
For those of you who have not read the first 12 volumes, you have 8414 pages to get yourselves up to snuf. And for the 8414er's: Now we're really cookFor those of you who have not read the first 12 volumes, you have 8414 pages to get yourselves up to snuf. And for the 8414er's: Now we're really cooking! The Last Battle at last approaches. Much closure in this semi-final volume. ...more
This is my first published book, a collection of short stories including several that have won awards and have been published elsewhere.
I'm attaching This is my first published book, a collection of short stories including several that have won awards and have been published elsewhere.
I'm attaching a review posted on Amazon where the book is available:
Wrap this warm, charming book around yourself and enjoy it February 12, 2010 By Miss Pris "prism" (Tucson AZ USA)
Do yourself a favor and read this book -- all of it.
Kline's stories are full of warmth and heart. He writes with an unguarded honesty that disarms and often reminded this reader of her own youthful and early adult days. My personal favorite, "Naming Christmas," may not be Kline's most polished story, but Marvin is the kind of well-intentioned, flawed character most of us know very well. Who can resist a man imperiled by the Stupid Greed Christmas? Marvin could easily be a friend, a spouse, or our self. And if we're fortunate we have a family something like his.
In this collection you'll find some charming nostalgia, some social commentary, humor, and an occasional touch of creeping dread. You'll come to care quickly about the diverse souls populating his stories. But not to worry, Kline takes equally good care of these characters and of his readers by delivering satisfying resolutions to their troubles. ...more
I have wanted to read this book from the moment I saw Ang Lee’s film version, Ride with the Devil. And last winter I read Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, thI have wanted to read this book from the moment I saw Ang Lee’s film version, Ride with the Devil. And last winter I read Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, the first Woodrell book that I have read, and it had me hot, once again to read Woe. I finally checked it out of the library as it is now ‘out of print, and I read it over Thanksgiving. Loved it.
Ang Lee and his screenwriter very carefully followed Woe, and much of the movie’s dialoge comes directly from its pages.
My review:
Thousands of authors have written the American Civil War from nearly every conceivable point of view. Daniel Woodrell, in his novel Woe to Live on, rides into one of the war’s most obscure, but particularly significant fronts. More than five years before Southern guns fired upon Fort Sumter, terror reigned on the Kansas-Missouri border. It lasted for almost ten years.
Woodrell’s story, particularly apropos in our post 9-11 world, follows 16 year old Jake Roedel and the group of “irregulars” he rides with. Jake’s “bushwacker” band of Missouri southerners fight against the Jayhawkers. Both of these groups of American terrorists commit atrocities with routine regularity. In Woe’s opening chapter, Jake shoots a young ‘Union’ boy in the back, “I gave no warning but the cocking of my Navy Colt and booked the boy passage with his father.” Jake shoots him with an air of everyday nonchalance, “Pups make hounds." Thus Woodrell presents his narrating protagonist, details this despicable act, and then proceeds to gradually build Jake into a person worth caring about.
Hatred festered not just with these loosely organized, pseudo-military bands, but also became endemic within the border’s citizenry as well. Bands roamed, clashing with each other and burning-out or murdering each’s citizen sympathizers. “These boys wore death like a garnish; it had no terror for them,” Jake explains of the bushwackers he rides with. “The Federals had crossed over the last line of restraint. And believe you me, we were the wrong tribe to treat in that fashion." Unbridled revenge upon revenge made morality an unaffordable luxury.
From this atmosphere of evil and hate, Woodrell fashions a number of sympathetic characters, ones with humanity and a set of war-tattered ethics. Jake befriends Holt, an African American, who, due to a bizarre set of allegiances, fights for the South.
“’Holt, do you reckon this war will ever end?’
‘No’
‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘Not unless we are killed.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and patted his pistols. ‘That would do it. I left that out.’
‘You reckon we’ll be killed?’
‘Mmmmm,’ he went, and I really liked him, for a nigger. ‘Old men is not a way I ever figure us to be.’”
Woodrell allows Jake’s opinion of blacks and slavery to transform through his growing relationship with Holt. He feathers the change gradually, rendering plausibility.
Woodrell provides Jake with a convoluted love interest in Sue Lee Shelly, whose Confederate soldier husband was killed after three weeks of marriage. “I was not used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different." Jake’s experience with women leaves much to be desired: “’Are you a virgin?’
‘I’ve sinned plenty,’ I told her.
‘But have you ever bedded a woman before?’
‘Girl, I’ve killed fifteen men.’”
Like Jake’s friendship with Holt, Woodrell makes this love more cogent through a step-by-step evolution.
Jake’s band rides with William Quantrill on the infamous raid on Lawrence, Kansas. “It figured to be a bitter killing spree … a vigorous form of mass suicide,” but when they arrived, they discovered “no legions of soldiers and damn few Jayhawkers.” There were “only bad-luck citizens finding out just how bad luck can be."
In Jake, Woodrell proffers an uneducated, but bright and observant storyteller with wit and heart. “I guess a woman wants a man in wartime. While there still are any. People in hell want springwater." He describes a thunderstorm: “It was a dark, majestic eruption, and it made one feel tiny and squashable." On Holt: he “looked the same in a hot spot as he did sleeping. Anything he thought hardly ever made it to where it showed.” And also, “Laughs were the only sounds Holt made in two days. He kept his tongue well rested."
Jake’s child-like wit keeps popping to the surface in the midst of grim surroundings: He observes “the great smiley head of the sun drool light into the country,” and Jake offers other colorful descriptions, such as “Old Evans cranked his feet up to the pace of a scared turtle." With simple eloquence, Daniel Woodrell evokes from our nation’s history, an example of rampant terrorism. Through Jake Roedel, he illustrates how good people, when tormented and victimized, may resort to evil deeds while still maintaining a sense of morality. Woodrell leaves us wanting more. ...more
Stephen King has been riding out a slump: not one that might get him sent down to Triple A to work on his batting eye, but a slump nonetheless. "From Stephen King has been riding out a slump: not one that might get him sent down to Triple A to work on his batting eye, but a slump nonetheless. "From A Buick 8" was pedestrian, and "Cell" may be the worst thing he's ever written, and "Lisey's Story" showed promise but fizzled out in the end. I'm saying this not as one of the eletist snobs who dismiss King as a "horror" writer (one of the many criticisms from those who won't read him) but rather as a fan - one of his constant readers.
With "Duma Key," King has broken out of the slump, hit for the cycle. He offers a touching story born of his own near death experience some years back. King delivers characters that we believe in and care about. He gives us Edgar Freemantle, whose life has been torn asunder in a near-death accident that costs him memory, his wife, his whole life in many ways, and leaves him an angry shell of a man in constant pain. We walk with him as he rebuilds his life with the help of Wireman who is on "the wrinkle-neck side of fifty" and Jake, and a strange incredible new found talent for painting.
King gives us our fair dose of horror and supernatural goings on, but this story, like all of his best work, is about people and life. King expresses what we know to be true in our lives but lack the ability to put into words, and as we read his words expressing our truths, a kinship develops. "As Wireman says, we fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living," and King shows us our foolishness disguised as that of others.
"Pain is the biggest power of love" Edgar advises, and King gives us a tale of pain and love and loss all wrapped up in a story that keeps us on the edge of our seats. ...more
Cormac McCarty’s post apocalyptic tale of a man and his son struggling to survive in a dead world is bleak, harrowing and strangely uplifting. In a woCormac McCarty’s post apocalyptic tale of a man and his son struggling to survive in a dead world is bleak, harrowing and strangely uplifting. In a world devoid of hope, one “largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes,” McCarthy creates a father-son story of love and humanity.
The boy, born just after the apocalypse and, of course, sometime before his despondent mother commits suicide, never knew the world that haunts his father. And the father “could not construct for the child’s pleasure the world he’d lost without constructing the loss as well.” Their existence is one of cold and starvation and danger and of grisly death, a world where “the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.” In the face of unspeakable horrors, a hundred times the nameless father tells his nameless son, “It’s okay.” But nothing is okay here except the love of each for the other.
McCarthy’s skill in portraying this heartrending love saves “The Road” from becoming unbearable. Instead, he presents an eloquent, poetic masterpiece of horror and grief and hope and above all, love. ----------------------------------
This is a book I'll never forget, and one I will re-read. I was totally spent when I finished, barely having the strength to wipe the tears from my eyes. ...more
When J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter phenomenon began, my kids were ten and fifteen years old. Both my son, Conor (ten) and my daughter were already precoWhen J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter phenomenon began, my kids were ten and fifteen years old. Both my son, Conor (ten) and my daughter were already precocious readers, so the fervor over Mr. Potter wasn’t hooking them on reading, but merely piquing their curiosity. After reading the first book, my daughter Rebecca told us that these weren’t just kid books and challenged my wife and I to try it. We did. Rowling hooked us both.
Each subsequent Potter became a family tradition. My kids grew up with Harry, and Nancy and I tagged along. Rowling grew more sophisticated as a writer with each book, and her characters matured and grew with her. As she approached her Potter finale, “The Deathly Hallows,” I prepared to be disappointed: no way she could wrap up all the loose ends in one book satisfactorily, and the rumors of the different character’s deaths and all of the other hype just cried out "disenchantment."
This time, however, (hooked on the hype?) we bought two copies so the four of us could read twice as fast, and the funniest thing happened: “The Deathly Hallows” met all our hopes and exceeded my expectations. For those who have read the first six, this one answers all of the questions, and the answers satisfy. There are poignant moments that will “choke up” the faithful, and these moments are not contrived or hokey.
J.K. Rowling deserves the millions she has made for dragging a generation away from TV and video games, and for writing a saga that will stand the test of time. ...more
I love Stephen King, not carnally, but spirtually and as a writer. He gets a short shrift from the snooty literary crowd because much of what he writeI love Stephen King, not carnally, but spirtually and as a writer. He gets a short shrift from the snooty literary crowd because much of what he writes is considered horror. Many - not all - of his stories include an aspect of horror, but he writes about people and about the world we inhabit. When he uses horror, it's to show people under extreme conditions, how they rise and fall and persevere.
"Hearts in Atlantis" relates five short and long-short stories tied together tightly in some cases, loosely in others. They take Bobby Garfield from 1960 (boyhood) to 1999. Using this quintet, King tells a story of the sixties, of a childhood love that colors the rest of Bobby's life, of Vietnam and how it affected the young people of the sixties, of a whole dorm floor flunking out of college and risking the draft - obsessed with a marathon card game.
Some of King's constructs in "Hearts" are at minimum, wierd, and might by some standards cross over into horror. But "Hearts" is not, however, a horror story, but a story of life and love and death and a generation struggling to change destiny.
A WORD TO THOSE WHO WON'T OR HAVEN'T READ KING BECAUSE HE'S A "HORROR" WRITER: King also wrote "Shawshank Redemption," "Stand By Me" (The Body)," and "The Green Mile," all great stories made into great movies...in my opinion anyway. If you liked the movies ("Hearts in Atlantis" with Anthony Hopkins included) you'll love the books. ...more
Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” infuriated me. In my youth, I tried his “Light in August” and gave up after about fifty pages – just too difficul Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” infuriated me. In my youth, I tried his “Light in August” and gave up after about fifty pages – just too difficult. “The Sound” makes “Light” seem like a first grade reader. Some maturity in hand, I took the Faulkner challenge once more.
In what many consider a classic and a masterpiece, Faulkner blazes away with, not just stream of consciousness, but with multiple first-person narrations by multiple characters, all with some serious problems including their ability to narrate.
Faulkner starts off with Benji, the emotional, mentally retarded youngest child of the Compson family, who can't seem to stop crying except when his sister Caddy is near. For those who love jigsaw puzzles with about 55% of the pieces missing, Benji’s narration is for you. Next up in Faulkner’s narration chain is the oldest brother, Quentin. Quentin, while intelligent, has fallen off the deep end, obsessed with time and his younger sister Caddy (note a trend developing?). Quentin's narration rises only a step above Benji's in intelligibility quotent. Faulkner wraps up with Jason, the middle brother and one of the most detestable characters in modern fiction – but at least his narration makes sense, and replaces (warped though they are) many of the missing puzzle pieces left out by the previous narrations.
This book defies description, and for those hardy enough to finish it, most of the story’s infuriating twists and turns will puzzle out in the end. Faulkner holds no modern peer as a wordsmith. So strap on your consternation and give "The Sound and the Fury" a try if you dare. Maybe you will be among the 43% (my estimate)who actually finish it. If so, you'll never forget it, one way or another. ...more
Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors and this may be his best book. High schools are using it today to lure kids into the thrill of reading an Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors and this may be his best book. High schools are using it today to lure kids into the thrill of reading and into the enjoyment of discussing something important about what they have read. What a dirty trick to play on these poor kids. If the kids are not careful, they may get hooked on Vonnegut and reading while the video games gather dust.
Billy Pilgrim, the novel's protagonist, has come unstuck in time. Billy bounces backwards and forwards from World War II and the horror of the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, (where he was a POW), to the suburban life of the fifties and sixties, to the zoo on the planet Trafalmador (where he and a Playboy Playmate are the zoo's specimens from earth). Sounds silly? You bet. But beneath the silliness beats a forceful anti-war story with a thought provoking outlook on life.
Billy can't seem to figure out why he no longer has a linear life, why he zips forwards and backwards - old age to childhood in a single night, a single moment. As the Trafalmadorians say: "Everything that ever has been, always will be. And everything that ever will be, always has been." Vonnegut is a fatalist. Yet, remarkably, he celebrates humanity, and our striving to better our condition in spite of all the cards stacked against us. This peculiar combination reads as peculiarly uplifting.
Vonnegut once asked, "Does anyone out of high school still read me?" The answer is an emphatic "Yes." Because the reasons English teachers use Vonnegut to lure their students into the love of reading are the same reasons those of us who are already there read him. Try him...You'll like him. ...more
Jodi Picoult's prolific and somewhat erratic catalogue of novels may be topped by the excellent "Keeping Faith." Picoult's story, as usual offers a m Jodi Picoult's prolific and somewhat erratic catalogue of novels may be topped by the excellent "Keeping Faith." Picoult's story, as usual offers a major dilemma for her all-too-human characters. This time Mariah and Colin have just dissolved their marriage because Colin can't seem to keep his anatomy to himself when he gets around members of the opposite sex. Mariah, with Colin's blessing, will receive custody of their seven-year-old daughter Faith.
Problems arise when Faith, who has never been in a church or been exposed to the bible, starts reciting biblical passages and speaking in tongues. Things get stranger when she seemingly performs a couple of miraculous cures. Word gets out and cultish religious fanatics start camping out around Mariah's house and Faith's miracles gain the attention of an infamous Tele-Atheist, determined to prove the whole thing a hoax.
Picoult twists and turns the screws of this story of religion, fanaticism, parenting under the most extreme conditions, divorce and love. Like many of her her books, Picoult offers no pat answers, and for many the ending will be unsatisfying. I found the ending delicious.
Sixteen-year-old Ree Dolly, lives in the Ozark hill country with her father (a meth-cooker), her mother (with Alzheimer's-like symptoms), and her two Sixteen-year-old Ree Dolly, lives in the Ozark hill country with her father (a meth-cooker), her mother (with Alzheimer's-like symptoms), and her two fairly normal younger brothers. Ree is the family care giver, as her father is frequently gone. Her father has disappeared again as the story opens, which is not unusual. A problem arises when she finds out he has a felony court date in two weeks and he has put their house and timberland up as bond. They will lose everything if he doesn't make the court date.
The saga of her search for her father through the in-bred Ozark valleys both terrorizes and uplifts. Her resourcefulness and improbable maturity endear her to some of the book's baddest and crustiest characters, as well as to "Winter's Bones" readers.
"Bone's" Ozarkified omniscient narrator at first seems contrived and corn-ballish: "houses were perched on the steep hillside like crumbs on a beard." But soon the power of Woodrell's writing and the flow of the story makes this wierd narration fit perfectly: "The Twin Forks River rushed along cold and black but streaked yellow, danced upon brightly by the headlights" and "a fabled man, his face a monument of Ozark stone, with juts and angles and cold shaded parts the sun never touched...His voice held raised hammers and long shadows."
Ree, heroic and persevering, makes one long for a hinted-at additional Ree Dolly book. ...more
Wow! What can I say. This book made me cry, which doesn't happen very often. There are no good guys or bad guys here. Every character presented is botWow! What can I say. This book made me cry, which doesn't happen very often. There are no good guys or bad guys here. Every character presented is both deeply flawed and powerfully redeemed. This lady can spin a yarn. ...more
Joesph Heller sneaks up on the reader with Catch-22. He offers a hilarious book about war, complete with dozens of absurd stereotypical characters. AnJoesph Heller sneaks up on the reader with Catch-22. He offers a hilarious book about war, complete with dozens of absurd stereotypical characters. And just when the reader, sides splitting, thinks war might be kind-of-cool, the other shoe falls. These funny, stereotyped people become people we care about. The humor turns dark, and we feel almost guilty as we laugh. This is absolutely one of the funniest, most poginant anti-war novels ever written....more
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