Review: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (Knopf, 2014, 192 pages)

I read this brief-but-intense book before bed one night and the following morning. I hadn't read a book that fast in a long time, and considering when I was reading it, I had the nagging feeling that I had just dreamed it. 

However. This is not the kind of novel you'll forget quickly. Offill gives us an unnamed female narrator sorting through a life filled with the difficulties of child-rearing, marriage-maintenance, and writer's block.

From the TBR Shelf #9: The October Country by Ray Bradbury

The October Country (1955) by Ray Bradbury

There's bizarre, and then there's BIZARRE.

This collection of Bradbury's dark-fantasy stories includes 15 originally published in Dark Carnival (1947) and 4 other previously-published tales. Despite the wide variety of characters and scenarios, these stories nonetheless cohere because of Bradbury's unique voice and love of the macabre.

Now, of Bradbury's works I've only read Fahrenheit 451 (many years ago) and a short story called "Mars is Heaven!" I remember feeling underwhelmed by the former but enjoying the latter. The October Country, however, is fascinating because Bradbury manages to write about skulls, vampires, skeleton-stealers, and weird amoeba-like squishy things in jars (among other weirdnesses)- all in what I can only call a positively buoyant voice. Seriously! Dude is clearly enjoying himself here, and it's contagious.

The First Book I Ever Bought Online

*** Cue lights and newsreel ***

This is a story about an age long since passed: the ’90s.

It was the year 1999. My dad had dragged the family kicking and screaming into the digital age a year or so before by opening an AOL account and teaching us how to use the Internet.

Let me just say here- I wasn’t impressed.

The Internet confused me. I had used computers for years, but only to type up papers (rarely) or play Carmen Sandiego (my god how I loved that game…). This “search” thing and “link” stuff made my eyes swim and my head hurt. Also, at this time, I was going through my I-was-born-in-the-wrong-century-and-country-send-me-back-to-19th-century-France phase.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #19: Ng

Bone (1993) by Fae Myenne Ng

I was first introduced to Ng's work several years ago when I was a teaching assistant for a course on Modern American Literature. Not knowing what to expect, I dove into it without any pesky previous associations or expectations.

Bone is a beautiful elegy in novel-form, where the narrator (Leila) continuously circles around the main event--her half-sister Ona's suicide--without ever actually bringing it into the narrative itself. Ng compounds our remove from the suicide by having her narrator tell her family's story "backwards," beginning with the most recent events and then moving back into the past (although she often jumps between the two). I was reminded of the film Memento, another work that tells a story in this way. Reverse-chronological order is disorienting, of course, but also fascinating in the ways in which it bends time and memory, inviting us to view a life or history not as something strictly linear, but as a kaleidoscope of shifting events and images.

And yet, you could also say that it's not so much a story unfolding backwards as it is a story being dug up from the ground, like bones or fossils. The further into the novel we read, the further back into Leila's family's past we go, and the deeper the insight we get into why the Leong family is the way it is and why Ona committed suicide.

From the TBR Shelf #8: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell

Well, ten years after Cloud Atlas was published, I have finally read this magical matryoshka-doll masterpiece and BOY am I glad I did (I have my Book Riot colleagues to thank for finally nudging me toward Mitchell!).

For those of you who still haven't read it, I urge you to rectify that situation, like, now. Because what other novel out there is structured like a mirror, with each narrative/chapter connected to the one before through a mixture of coincidence and fate (reincarnation)? (Yes, I know that sounds paradoxical but...you know...).

Books to Look For: Crime Fiction for 2014

January sure does have a LOT of Wednesdays, so I thought I'd add a fourth "Books to Look For" post this month about something completely different...

I'm planning on breaking into the crime fiction genre (and yes, that pun was very much intended) in the next couple of months, during which time I'll read the "classic" crime novels (such as those by Hammett, Chandler, Christie, etc.) and more contemporary ones. I have already read a few Christie novels, but she was so darn prolific, and I just have to read more of her stuff (rest assured, though, I have already read Murder on the Orient Express. Whew!)

For this post, though, I poked around the upcoming-releases listing for some shiny-sparkling-new crime novels to check out. So without further ado, I give you:


Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco, 496 pages, January 21)

Yes, you read that right: Joyce. Carol. Oates. Rockin' it, as usual. Carthage, like many novels these days, considers what it means to be an Iraq War veteran trying to assimilate back into his/her community after witnessing so much violence and bloodshed. But that's only part of it. At the heart of the story is a missing (and disaffected) girl, and the veteran is a suspect in her disappearance. Sounds like a must-read to me.

Buy, Borrow, Bypass

I’ve been all over the map, lately, in terms of what I’ve been reading and that’s A-Ok with me. I find that the more diverse my reading, the more interesting connections I make between seemingly disparate figures and events. For instance, as you’ll see below, I recently read a novel about WWI and am in the middle of reading a Coco Chanel biography. At first you might think “what do they have to do with each other?” Well- a whole lot, actually. Chanel was becoming très chic in Paris at the height of the war and…you get the idea. So without further ado, I give you four books to consider for your TBR pile:

San Miguel by T. C. Boyle

I had never read T. C. Boyle before, and I happened to pick up this book at my local B&N just by chance. And what a nice surprise it was! San Miguel is a novel of historical fiction based on the lives of three women brought by their husbands or fathers to San Miguel Island, off the coast of California, around the turn of the 20th century (my time-period of choice!). Both the Waters family in the 1880s and the Lester family in the 1930s confront the desolation, loneliness, and isolation of the island and their own emotional and physical struggles. And yet, despite the island’s physical isolation, the outside world, with its wars, depressions, and technological progress, always lingers just over the horizon. The slow pace of the novel draws you in until you feel like the rhythm of San Miguel Island is the rhythm of your own life. Time seems to slow down, and that is ok, because we all need a break from this crazy, fast-paced modern life of ours, right? RIGHT.

Verdict: Buy, because you’ll probably want to re-read it. It’s that kind of book.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #18: Cahan

The Rise of David Levinsky (1917) by Abraham Cahan

You may not have heard of Abraham Cahan, but his novel about a Russian-Jewish immigrant's rise through America's class system at the turn of the 20th century is still relevant today.

I included David Levinsky in my Intro to American Literature syllabus several years ago because, each time I read it, this book forced me to think about a range of issues like religious vs. national identity, political ideology vs. practical experience, and integration/assimilation into a wholly new kind of society.

The Lives of Literary Ladies

Sylvia Plath being awesome

This post started out as something else. I first put fingers to keyboard to tell you about some of the best literary biographies I had read in recent years, and you were going to hear ALL ABOUT books like Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art by Hermann Kurzke, Theodore Dreiser: An American Journey by Richard Lingeman, and The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by John Dickson Carr. I would have also included thoughts on the most recent literary biography I’ve read, namely Tennyson: To Strive, to Seek, to Find by John Batchelor.

BUT. Something was bothering me. Something was missing.

Review: On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee (Riverhead Books, 2014, 368 pages)

Alright, book-people, gather 'round and listen up: On Such a Full Sea is everything you could wish for in a tale about a near-future dystopian America told by a communal narrator. It's brilliant, beautiful, mythic, and haunting. And I mean each and every one of those adjectives.

Lee's story about one girl's quest to find her vanished boyfriend ultimately becomes one about the implications of living in a rigidly-stratified society, where the people living in the labor settlements (a kind of "middle class") begin to question the meaning and purpose of their lives. B-mor (what was once Baltimore), is the settlement at the heart of the book, a place totally upended when Fan leaves on her likely-fruitless journey. For there is nowhere else to go, really: the "open counties" are violent and poverty-stricken; the "Charters" are walled fortifications within which the wealthy scrutinize every aspect of their lives in order to live as long as they can. Terrified of the counties and desperate to ascend into a Charter, the people of B-mor produce fish and vegetables that sustain the wealthy and pray that nothing will ever disrupt this arrangement.

From the TBR Shelf #7: White Teeth by Zadie Smith

White Teeth (2000) by Zadie Smith

It is scandalous that it took me this long to get around to reading White Teeth. I didn't know anything about it, except that it was brilliant and beloved. And rightly so.

For those who haven't read it, Smith's novel explores what it means to be an immigrant- the feelings of dislocation and isolation that stem from holding on to your culture and traditions while simultaneously trying to fit in with the people of your adopted country. But White Teeth is also about relationships: how they change over time and are influenced by every other relationship that we have.

Books to Look For (January): Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Humor

Science Fiction

The Echo by James Smythe (Harper Voyager, 320 pages, January 28)

Oooooooo [anticipatory shivers] this looks good. In this follow-up to his sci-fi thriller The Explorer, Smythe tells the story of twin brothers who bring back the global space program from near collapse as part of their effort to find out what happened to the spaceship Ishiguro, which disappeared decades before. Of course, careful planning doesn't prepare them for what they find on the mission. Like I said...ooooooo.

From the TBR Shelf #6: Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney

Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life (2011) by Lisa Chaney

Let's see: France, fashion, turn-of-the-20th-century history. Yeah, I was ALL OVER this book. Bien sûr!

Most of us probably know Chanel because of her perfume (the world-famous Chanel N. 5) and certain suit/dress designs. But in her heyday, in the early decades of the 20th century, Chanel was the last word in fashion and haute couture. What she created, the women of Europe and America (and beyond) wore, and yet Chanel believed that it wasn't the clothing that makes the person, but the other way around.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #17: Bester

The Stars My Destination (alt. title Tiger! Tiger! 1955) by Alfred Bester

Ok, it's been a long time since I read this novel, but it certainly made an impression. Oh yes.

I was having one of my "oh my god I haven't read [insert novel title] I am a terrible person must go read it now now now" moments several years ago when I read a claim that Stars was one of the best science fiction novels of all time. That's right- ALL TIME. (Sorry, don't remember where I read that).

She Shall Remain Nameless: On Unnamed Female Narrators

I recently read two very different novels that had one fascinating thing in common: both were narrated by unnamed women.

But really, Dept of Speculation (Jan 28) and Annihilation (Feb 4) couldn’t be more different, at first glance. The former is an extended meditation on the the difficulties of child-rearing, marriage-maintenance, and writer’s block; the latter concerns a dangerous scientific expedition into hostile territory. One is “literary fiction,” while the other is “science fiction.” One was written by a woman, the other by a man.

From the TBR Shelf #5: The Apartment by Greg Baxter

The Apartment (2012) by Greg Baxter

In my quest to read more contemporary books, I recently came across this slim and lovely novel about a day in the life of an Iraq war veteran trying to make a new home in an unnamed old European city. We never learn the narrator's name, only that he was born and raised in the southwest, joined the Navy, fought in Iraq, returned to that country as a contractor, and then lonely and sick of the violence that he had witnessed, escapes to another world.

Like Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill (Jan 28), The Apartment will suck you in and make you read it in one gulp without ever realizing that the hours are passing and you have things to do. BUT WHO CARES about those "things"? This book doesn't release you until the last page, and even then you're left thinking about all of the issues it raises about war, violence, identity, loneliness, and the reinvention of the self.

Books to Look For (January): History, Comics/Graphic Novels, & Travel

History

The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger (Knopf, 608 pages, January 7)

You might have heard about this book on the news (like I did), or maybe you're totally tuned-in to any and all FBI- or J. Edgar Hoover-related books. Either way, this looks...dare I say it...JUICY. Medsger reveals the truth behind the 1971 break-in of the FBI offices in Media, PA, by unlikely activists intent on exposing the bureau's abuses and expanding power. Yet another story, therefore, about Americans' deepening cynicism towards the government in the Vietnam War era.

From the TBR Shelf #4: The Human Stain by Philip Roth

The Human Stain (2000) by Philip Roth

I seem to come back to Roth every few years. I've read and taught Goodbye, Columbus, and I've read The Plot Against America, but that was a while ago. And it's always the same- I start a Roth book thinking "hmmm...meh? Eh?" and by the end I'm raving about Roth's awesomeness.

Well, The Human Stain was no different. Here Roth explores what it means to "create" your own identity, choosing the persona that you present to the world, in order to live the life you want. Weaving together the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and impeachment and the scandal that brings down the novel's protagonist, Coleman Silk, Roth invites us to think about history, race, identity, and America's penchant for witch-hunts and denunciations on a grand scale.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #16: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Death in Venice (1912) by Thomas Mann

Of course you know of my obsession with everything Thomas Mann. I mean, man was a genius. His books are beautiful, brilliant, and they make you use your brain until it hurts but IN A GOOD WAY.

And while The Magic Mountain is my favorite novel (of all time. Ever. End of Story), I'm recommending Mann's Death in Venice here because it is one of those stories that you'll read and then think about long after you've put it down. You'll think about it when reading other books, sitting on the beach, acknowledging an attraction. You'll think about it when you travel and when you dream about traveling. It will stay with you.

From the TBR Shelf #3: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy

I did it. I finally FINALLY read Blood Meridian and whooo boy was it a trip.

Like any masterpiece, it conjured up in my mind images and references from a number of other literary works: its picaresque narrative structure made me think of Tom Jones and Don Quixote; the language itself was reminiscent of Faulkner; the descriptions of the bleak desert waste evoked the ending of McTeague.

Books to Look For (January): Biography, Literary Fiction, & Mystery

Biography

Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell (Sarah Crichton Books, 512 pages, January 14)

They were daring, they were stylish, and they had really cool hair. Mackrell dives into the flapper myth in this biographical exploration of six iconic flapper ladies struttin' their stuff pre-WWI through the crash of 1929. Looks like fun.