The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.
±õ³Ù’s oddly fun jumping from Salem’s Lot in 1975 to this book, published in 1999:
The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.
±õ³Ù’s oddly fun jumping from Salem’s Lot in 1975 to this book, published in 1999: a leap of twenty-four years, which is still just about half of King’s career(!), seeing so clearly how he’s grown better over time and polished his skill to something sharper. I actually really love his shorter books like this one, compared to the sprawling epics of The Stand etc; these ones are tighter, punchier, a quicker thrill ride, and so don’t wear out their welcome.
I’m internally categorising it more as “thriller� than “horror�, since despite some paranormal undertones, this is primarily a survivalism thriller about a nine-year-old girl lost in the woods. Which is sorta way up my alley tbh, as a kid of the 90s who grew up reading Hatchet and Julie of the Wolves.
King’s prose is so lovely at times, nailing the visceral and horrible and desperate experiences that Trisha goes through while she’s lost, in addition to his usual flair for dramatic irony and foreshadowing and stoking that tense knot of anxiety in your stomach. I would occasionally just find myself highlighting sentences because they were so beautifully-written and evocative: In that tender place between her chest and her stomach, the place where all the body’s wires seemed to come together in a clump, she felt the first minnowy flutter of disquiet.
And the whole way through, Trisha makes so many mistakes like a nine-year-old girl would, but she also shows so much grit and pluck and resolve that it’s riveting following her journey and rooting for her, hoping she’ll survive. The book is about the logistics of how she gets through each day and night, but also about the harrowing emotional/spiritual/psychological journey she goes through, too, in trying to keep her senses and her nerve about her, even as her sense of mind unravels.
In the end, it winds up being a nice little story about faith, belief, hope, and bravery. I teared up towards the end. Good stuff. ...more
The basis of all human fears, he thought. A closed door, slightly ajar.
±õ³Ù’s interesting going from Later, King’s most recent publication in 2021, then
The basis of all human fears, he thought. A closed door, slightly ajar.
±õ³Ù’s interesting going from Later, King’s most recent publication in 2021, then all the way back to Salem’s Lot, his second-oldest book published 46 years earlier (!). His style is far less refined here: it’s more self-indulgent and flowery, actually, showing him having less self-control re: his prose and not being quite as precise as he’ll be with it later. But his writing is still great as alway, with the occasional lovely turn of phrase, or some great unexpected similes and metaphors:
The people [of Salem’s Lot] are Scotch-English and French. There are others, of course—a smattering, like a fistful of pepper thrown in a pot of salt but not many. This melting pot never melted very much.
±õ³Ù’s also interesting seeing some recurrent themes cropping up throughout his work as ever: â€� like IT for the quiet sleepy small-town overrun by a supernatural threat picking people off; â€� Under the Dome, for the claustrophobic small-town brewing to a simmer that eventually explodes; â€� Bill’s tongue-twister from IT, recurring here as an almost protective chant against vampiric hypnotism: he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts; â€� the way the Marsten house reminds me of all the other houses gone rotten: the Dutch Hill Mansion, the house on Neibolt Street.
This book is also very much indebted to Dracula (which it acknowledges and is conscious of, which I appreciated, with the main character making multiple comparisons to the text). We have the master vampire arriving in a cargo shipment; his human familiar paving the way for him; a ragtag group of men being assembled to fight him back, with Matt as Van Helsing, and Susan as the Lucy Westenra type, with her suitor in the form of Ben (who also reminds me of IT’s Bill, yet another occasion of King using writers as his main characters).
Father Callahan appears in The Dark Tower series, too, although I was unfamiliar with him at the time and so I genuinely couldn’t remember anything of his fate or involvement there until I googled it.
As for the book itself, which is something of a horror classic: It was fun! 3.5 stars, very nearly rounded up as just a rollicking adventure as vampirism spreads throughout this small town, as Jerusalem’s Lot withers on the vine and slowly dies, as our gaggle of heroes assembles.
The characters aren’t drawn as richly as King usually does, though, which I think is all due to this being such an early work of his � and not as much of a short, lean, visceral gut-punch as Carrie, his debut before this. Compared to the larger cast of IT, the cast of Salem’s Lot is more bland and forgettable; like, I’ve genuinely already forgotten the name of the kid, and it’s only been a week since I finished it.
But there’s some neat narrative turns, like the importance of fire (and cleansing fire), and the way the plot is broken up with that prelude/prologue, and that unusual twist to the ending which doesn’t quite play into typical horror tropes. A decent book, but definitely not his best....more
Even a little kid knows certain basic things if he’s not soft in the attic. You said please, you said thank you, you didn’t flap your weenie around in
Even a little kid knows certain basic things if he’s not soft in the attic. You said please, you said thank you, you didn’t flap your weenie around in public or chew with your mouth open, and you didn’t talk to dead folks when they were standing next to living folks who were just starting to miss them.
Ooooh my gosh, this was so close to 5 stars for me; an incredibly solid 4.5 stars, almost rounded up. I really enjoyed King's first Hard Case Crime book, The Colorado Kid, and this one is his newest and it's still great: the story of Jamie Conklin, a young boy who can see and speak to ghosts, and who's being raised alone by his struggling single mother.
The narrative voice is so fantastic: it's narrated by Jamie himself in his 20s, looking back on his childhood like a bildungsroman, the way the 2008 financial crash trainwrecked their lives, his mother's long-term lesbian relationship with her girlfriend Liz, and how those dominoes eventually tumble, too. It's a constant mystery and a thriller and a horror story, all in one.
It's so short that it makes for such a taut, tight-knit tale about how Jamie's power entwines with his childhood, with various formative (and traumatising) incidents that explore different facets of his abilities, the perfectly-paced way these paranormal events escalate and escalate. Some of the hauntings are so deliciously unnerving. I was riveted and absolutely glued to the page for all of them, for all the various ways his power could be used, the things he unearths. Unlike The Talisman, my last King read � ironically also featuring a precocious young boy with special powers raised by a single mom � Jamie's personality always felt like a real kid, in all his sulkiness and pettiness and trusting nature.
I also just loved the way King/Jamie unfolds the story, the dramatic foreshadowing of him telling the story from the future, with the things he knows now, the casual way he drops chilling references to what's to come. The relationship between him and his mom is also so touching and real, as is the complicated relationship between him and Liz. The characters are painted with such rich, sympathetic details, and Jamie's development over the years feels so authentic.
There are some slight tie-ins to IT, which were an unexpected delight. The whole concept of the haunting and the way it unfurls, even after Jamie ostensibly 'wins', is still chilling; because if you hand a man a rope, he'll hang himself with it. The thing with the whistling is almost, idk, urban legend-ish or Greek myth-ish, a circular kind of way to doom yourself. Just brilliant stuff.
But it is, singlehandedly, the very last chapter which makes the book stumble a little for me. There's a particular endgame reveal which literally made me gasp out loud and go "WHAT??", but it also felt� too shocking, perhaps too manufactured for mere shock value. And yet it does fit, narratively speaking: there has always been the recurring theme in this story that everybody has their secrets, and secrets which you may not want to find out, and some questions which are better off unanswered. It was a bit like Chekov's gun sitting on the shelf for the whole book, and so I suppose it was all inevitably leading there... but I don't know, it still wigged me out. I can't quite sort out how I feel about it. But I still loved this book, and tore right through it.
Addendum: To share our book club's gigabrain realisation: So there's a lot of commonalities between the demon-thing haunting Jamie and IT, considering Jamie's specific description of the "deadlights" radiating from it, and constantly calling it "the deadlight thing". The twenty-seven-year cycle of the creature in IT went from 1957 to 1984, and so if you extrapolate one more cycle... that lands its appearance in 2011, which is squarely around the time this book is set, a few years after the financial crisis. AHHHHHH....more
“[Cabin fever] is a slang term for the claustrophobic reaction that can occur when people are shut in together over long periods of time. The feeling
“[Cabin fever] is a slang term for the claustrophobic reaction that can occur when people are shut in together over long periods of time. The feeling of claustrophobia is externalized as dislike for the people you happen to be shut in with. In extreme cases it can result in hallucinations and violence—murder has been done over such minor things as a burned meal or an argument about whose turn it is to do the dishes.�
(Hoo boy is that quote so very appropriate after a year now spent in claustrophobic lockdown...)
This was slow-going due to pacing it alongside book club, but man, this book is wicked good. ±õ³Ù’s all the stuff I love about King’s writing: his rich characterisation work (you get such a clear view of Wendy and Danny and Jack all alike); his deftness for complicated family relationships; the strangling tension slowly ratcheting higher and higher (like a boiler set to blowâ€�); and the way he can write a toxic, awful main character that is still entirely understandable. ±õ³Ù’s Jack Torrance’s human frailties and weaknesses that the Overlook digs its claws into and manipulates, and so in the end, fittingly, he’s the more frightening bogeyman at hand rather than any of the hauntings.
I’m even marking this under ‘unreliable narratorâ€� for the way that Jack obscures particular details from the reader and from himself, rewriting his own narrative to paint himself as the perpetual victim, and it’s fascinating and horrible seeing those layers peel back along the way. His devolution is really well-paced and patiently done; even at the very start, when he’s stone-cold sober and not under the Overlook’s influence yet, you can still see the ugly hints planted of his bitter mentality, his quiet simmering resentment for his wife and son and his life, the violence and misogyny and abuse that he inherited from his father and has passed on. Toxic masculinity and cycles of abuse at its height, folks! ±õ³Ù’s almost worrying how well King writes it, what a keen eye he has for both what creates an abuser, and for the POV of an entirely sympathetic â€� but not overdone â€� victim in the form of Wendy.
±õ³Ù’s a little disconcerting to realise that his son Joe Hill was five years old when The Shining came out, the same age as Danny, and that this was a few years after his own drinking problem began. As ever, King is definitely working through his own personal demons in the form of his writing â€� which I think is what always makes his writing so good, and such a raw visceral live-wire. I’m so, so intrigued to eventually read Doctor Sleep and see what becomes of Danny.
Dick Hallorann is also excellent and I love him. King does have an annoying trend of dipping into the Magical Negro trope (sigh), but considering this book came out in the 70s, he could have done a lot worse wrt this depiction, I think; it is still great that Hallorann gets to be a hero here, and a source of solace and safety.
Anyway, great stuff, 4.5 stars very nearly rounded up. Might update this review with additional thoughts after book club discussion....more
I don’t want to belabor the point, but before I leave you, I ask you to consider the fact that we live in a web of mystery, and have simply gotten so
I don’t want to belabor the point, but before I leave you, I ask you to consider the fact that we live in a web of mystery, and have simply gotten so used to the fact that we may have crossed out the word and replaced it with one we like better, that one being reality. Where do we come from? Where were we before we were here? Don’t know. Where are we going? Don’t know. A lot of churches have what they assure us are the answers, but most of us have a sneaking suspicion all that might be a con-job laid down to fill the collection plates.
[...] ±õ³Ù’s crazy to be able to live with that and stay sane, but it’s also beautiful. I write to find out what I think, and what I found out writing The Colorado Kid was that maybe â€� I just say maybe â€� it’s the beauty of the mystery that allows us to live sane as we pilot our fragile bodies through this demolition-derby world.
The above is from King’s afterword to this short novel (it’s practically a novella), and I just really loved his notes at the end: the importance of mysteries and the blank spots in the map, and the impossibility of having everything in life be wrapped up in a neat, tidy bow. He’s also v self-aware when he points out, right off the bat, that people will either love or hate this story, and he suspects there’ll be little in-between; King seems to know and acknowledge his problems with endings to his stories, and instead stress that what matters is the journey along the wayâ€� which is a mentality that I actually agree with entirely, because I’m almost always on board for his journeys. I fell into the narration of this piece and I love the meandering storytelling at play here, Stephanie sitting with two old newspapermen retelling a mystery to her. ±õ³Ù’s sleepy, sedate, just easing into the comfortable banter and patter between these three characters â€� it makes you feel like you’re right there with them, and you can feel their (and King’s) love for Maine shining through, which just makes me want to visit even more.
For how short this book was, we still managed to discuss it quite a bit during book club: mostly about how well-constructed the frame narrative is, and how the Colorado Kid mystery itself doesn’t actually matter that much. The story is all about Stephanie instead: the important question in the narrative is her passing this journalistic test, and deciding to stay in this small island community. The arc at hand is her personal arc, not the solving of this decades-long cold case.
±õ³Ù’s also about the importance of having good, supportive mentors who can take a young person under their wing and help them flourish, rather than squash their passion for their work. It was great discussing the parallels and contrasts between Stephanie and the forensics intern, and the the importance of having someone like Vince and Dave as Stephanie’s teachers, and also their lovely bantery friendship with each other.
The inconclusiveness of this story also reminds me a lot of In the Woods in terms of whether or not you’re able to look past a lack of resolution, and I’m happy to say that in both these cases, I was. It helps, too, that the story throughout is always warning you in advance, every step of the way, that there is no satisfying wrap-up. Our CSI- and murder-trained brains expect a conclusion � even Stephanie keeps thinking of Agatha Christie and Murder She Wrote � but the narrative keeps reminding you that there won’t be one.
±õ³Ù’s also short enough that it doesn’t outlast or overstay its welcome, and that makes it easier to just enjoy the journey along the way for what it is. The Colorado Kid’s approach to endings also ties into his afterword from the last Dark Tower book, imo:
I hope you came to hear the tale, and not just munch your way through the pages to the ending. For an ending, you only have to turn to the last page and see what is there writ upon. But endings are heartless. An ending is a closed door no man (or Manni) can open. I've written many, but most only for the same reason that I pull on my pants in the morning before leaving the bedroom � because it is the custom of the country.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this little story, particularly for its character work and for how quickly you can just breeze right through it. And now I can watch Haven and wonder how the heck it ties in!...more
Oooof, I hate giving this only 2 stars, considering I’ve heard some people singing the praises of this book, and so many people seem to love it. I wasOooof, I hate giving this only 2 stars, considering I’ve heard some people singing the praises of this book, and so many people seem to love it. I was really intrigued to get into this because of the concept of twinners, and all the different levels of the tower/multiverse, and flipping back and forth in a way that might harken back to the doors in The Dark Tower, or the painting in Rose Madder. Plus: the structure of the young child protagonist growing up in the sequel, a la Danny in The Shining vs Doctor Sleep. And the initial setup seems so promising, with the alternate-universe differences between our world and the Territories, and a boy having to journey west to rescue his dying mother.
But it just did not ever pay off! I really liked the beginning, which also probably corresponds to the beginning of the book that King/Straub wrote together in-person, alternating the typewriter back and forth. I liked the slow atmospheric buildup, setting up the worldbuilding, Jack’s first thrilling visit into the Territories and meeting Captain Farren, the stakes being established. His initial time with Wolf is good, and Wolf is probably the most endearing character here.
But the rest of it is� a slog. I did some research and found out King/Straub’s format was mailing ~100-150 complete pages back and forth at a time, which I think probably robbed the text of its immediacy and their being able to bounce things off each other and improve each others� ideas in realtime. Most of the book is peopled with such horrifically unpleasant characters and, most importantly, no real relationships to imprint on. Jack really could’ve done with a ka-tet, imo: a group of friends, peers, equals, to tackle the quest together. But because he’s alone for most of the time, there’s so few relationships to get invested in, and we don’t get much insight into Jack as a person, either, because he doesn’t have peers to talk to. It only happens once he meets Wolf, but even then, Jack mistreats Wolf and doesn’t appreciate him until it’s too late � and they’re not peers, either, considering Wolf’s infantilisation.
And then Richard arrives, and lol he’s the absolute worst, to the extent that I wound up rooting for this kid to die. Which is a bummer, because “son of the villain� is ground for such rich thematic ground (case in point, Davy Prentiss in the Chaos Walking series, whomst I love!!), but instead he’s an absolute simpering unlikeable burden who never actually plays a crucial role in the narrative, despite the story claiming that he had a role to play � so why was he even here? He’s just deeply unpleasant to spend time with (and not even in a compelling way, just a pathetic one), and bogs down the pacing with his presence.
The entire book takes the structure of a road narrative, incident happening after incident after incident, as Jack makes his lonely way west â€� but it’s all too surface-level, just a series of unfortunate events (ha) with no real depth to any of them. ±õ³Ù’s a structure more suited to action-fantasy YA (which ·É´Ç³Ü±ô»å’v±ð fit well with the young age of the protagonist, too), but the sheer chonky length means that it’s too slow and ponderous to be streamlined YA, either.
And since it’s all so surface-level, it doesn’t have any King’s usual tangents and characterisation deep dives and meandering style, either, which is actually so important to get attached to characters. I’ve never read any Peter Straub, but this whole thing feels so very different from King’s other books. I’ve seen Straub fans say that this book doesn’t even read like Straub’s regular work either, so I feel like this might’ve suffered from being watered-down and both of them trying to mimic each others� style, only to result in neither of their strengths at play.
Characterisation-wise, Jack seems too old to be twelve years old, too. King writes great child characters � IT, The Shining � but Jack’s growing-up-too-fast never really felt organic. There’s also things like Speedy being way, way, way too reminiscent of Dick Halloran in The Shining, to the extent that they’re pretty much identical, and King leans on the Magical Negro trope a bit too often for my comfort.
±õ³Ù’s as a TV show, produced by the Duffer Bros (who were behind Stranger Things), which is a fitting combination, and I’m hoping that the episodic ‘random series of eventsâ€� format will actually work way better in television and some acting performances will make me actually like these characters.
This book really could have benefited from being ruthlessly edited down, imo, because the flimsy narrative doesn’t justify its long length. I have so many questions about the writing of it; it feels like its slow pace and lack of urgency might have been a product of the technological limitations and the slow pace of mailing instalments back and forth, and I wonder if they were reluctant to edit it down because it would mean cutting their co-writer’s work. Anyway, I hear that the sequel, Black House, is better; I’ll get around to it someday, but it might take me a couple years, considering how meh I was on this one....more
It was all very well for Rhoda Simons to preach caution; Rhoda wasn't living in a single room three blocks from an area of town where you didn't park
It was all very well for Rhoda Simons to preach caution; Rhoda wasn't living in a single room three blocks from an area of town where you didn't park your car at the curb if you wanted to keep your radio and your hubcaps; Rhoda had an accountant husband, a house in the suburbs, and a 1994 silver Nissan. Rhoda had a VISA and an American Express card. Better yet, Rhoda had a Blue Cross card, and savings she could draw on if she got sick and couldn't work. For people who had those things, Rosie imagined, advising caution in business affairs was probably as natural as breathing.
Welp, how many warnings can I put on one book??? I almost considered creating some new shelf warnings for this, because the first chapter opens right off the bat with a very, very graphic depiction of domestic abuse and assault and a miscarriage. A lot of this book will not be people's cup of tea, I think: it's gruesome, almost unrelentingly so, in its depiction of a wife escaping an abusive marriage.
It's hard-going and hard-reading, and I was just glad that none of these are my own personal triggers, because Rose's husband, Norman Daniels, is an absolute nightmare. He reminds me a bit of Jim Rennie in Under the Dome; psychopathic and plagued by migraines and a terrible father and lashing out accordingly. Norman is a racist misogynist homophobic psychopath who experienced sexual abuse by his own father, so like, warnings for that too! This might be the most unpleasant book I've ever read by Stephen King, honestly. As ever, the greatest horror is man, and men especially, and in the form of Norman, a corrupt cop particularly.
But, despite all that: I really, really liked Rose, and this sympathetically-drawn depiction of an abuse survivor, her trauma and subsequent recovery from it, with the warm support of other women. As ever, it's surprising to me that King can write this so well, but then again, his depiction of Bev in IT hit on similar notes. You really feel for her, you're rooting for her the whole way through. Because her escape happens so early, the book also doesn't unnecessarily torture Rose, either; mostly you're seeing her get back on her feet, which was lovely to see.
The first half of the book, with her escape and rebuilding her life in a different city, is technically so banal and yet deeply absorbing: I was actually never more riveted than just seeing her try to navigate a bus station, or trying to find her way through an unfamiliar city. I loved all the details of her piecing herself back together and slowly healing. Once Norman becomes a more active participant in the plot, his chapters are just-- unpleasant. Being stuck in his POV for so, so long is an ugly experience. It's compelling in a kind of repulsive way, seeing the way his mind ticks and the way he uses his detective procedural experience against his wife, but I had to kind of grit my teeth through every one of his POV sections.
And then, towards the end, things get increasingly weird. Doors to other universes like in The Drawing of the Three, and ka, starts to tie this narrative into The Dark Tower (my love!), along with fairytales and myth and minotaurs in labyrinths -- except it's Greek myth seen slightly askew, the details ever-so-slightly off and therefore falling into something of an uncanny valley. All of which I ordinarily would have been totally into, but I'd become really invested in the more everyday plot of the rest of the book, so I wasn't as interested in this surreal, fantastical turn. Still, the ending is satisfying.
It was good, and a great group discussion definitely elevated my appreciation of it even more, but I'm not sure I would ever actively recommend it over some of his other stuff. 3.5 stars.
(Sidebar: One of the King wikis states that Rosie McClendon and Rose Madder are 'twinners' of each other - which I gather is a concept that comes up in The Talisman and its sequel especially? "Twinners are people who bear a striking resemblance to each other because they live in alternate universes/different levels of the Dark Tower." But I disagree with this; I think the physical resemblance was more a temporary mask that Madder wore, considering that we also see it slip.)...more
A popular account rather than super in-depth scientific writing, but it's so bingeable and readable (along the lines of Mary Roach’s nonfiction writinA popular account rather than super in-depth scientific writing, but it's so bingeable and readable (along the lines of Mary Roach’s nonfiction writing). I didn’t know anything whatsoever about this topic beforehand -- like, I knew that sextants are navigation tools used on ships but what are they?? -- and yet I wound up totally riveted to this story of obsessive perfectionist John Harrison in the 1700s and his attempts to invent a chronometer (a marine timekeeping device), and his battles with astronomers royal (!), including the ~villainous~ Nevil Maskelyne. Some of the conflict is likely exaggerated a bit to make the tale more dramatic, more cinematic, but I was still utterly drawn in, particularly in how this strange chapter in history touches on human ingenuity, invention, seafaring, the stars, scientific pursuits, and competition between countries.
It made me interested all over again in watchmaking, too, and I still want to take a beginner's watchmaking class from the -- I was planning on doing it before, yanno, pandemic.
My main complaint is that this book could have been a bit longer; I'd have gladly read more on this subject, particularly since Sobel's writing was so enjoyable. Some photographs and diagrams would have helped, too, particularly when she was closely describing a painted portrait of Harrison, or the chronometers themselves (the most important thing!!). Especially because the chronometers are SO COOL. See this review or for some photos.
Cool stuff, and fun book club discussion too. I just love the sea, y'all. Devoured this whole book in about two sittings....more
I went in a little unsure about this book at first � its experimental style and lack of dialogue punctuation and constantly-shifting perspectives takeI went in a little unsure about this book at first � its experimental style and lack of dialogue punctuation and constantly-shifting perspectives takes a bit of getting used to, but once I did, then it got its hook in me and I sped through the rest of it.
±õ³Ù’s an oddly lovely story about Dead Papa Toothwort, a local spirit haunting a quaint English country town, with all its isolated gossip and rural sleepiness and small petty nuisances. ±õ³Ù’s all visceral nature and accidental worship and Toothwort living off the power of people, and the localsâ€� belief in him (which made me think of American Gods a fair bit: the strength of worship keeping a kind-of-god alive).
And most important of all his believers is a creative, imaginative little boy named Lanny. He and his city family have moved out to the countryside, and the first half-ish of the novel is just a really sweet journey of growing attached to Lanny, his mother, and his growing friendship with the old artist Pete. The importance and terror of parenthood, struggling to know what to do with a gifted, strange, quirky child
And then the thing happens, and the shifting of perspectives gets even more pronounced: almost a dizzying rotation between voices and personalities in this little town, seeing how a single event can ripple out and ripple out, as so many people make it their business. This part was dizzying but lovely, the voice reinforcing the frenetic emotions beneath it all, and I was absolutely sucked in.
The very last part of the book gets even more dream-like and strange towards the end � the ending itself is a bit abrupt, perhaps, but it also means that this short novel doesn’t overstay its welcome.
The whole thing keeps vaguely reminding me of things that I can’t quite put my finger on. ±õ³Ù’s kind of a mix of the aforementioned American Gods; but Lanny is also perhaps a less-gruesome cousin to His Bloody Project and The Wasp Factory in terms of strange children wandering the British countryside and crafting their ineffable totems; but also a bit of Bridge to Terabithia in terms of children roaming wild and free in the wild before being interrupted by tragedy; or a bit of In the Woods, in terms of gorg prose and where, once again, you’ve got kids running loose in the woods where something odd and sinister may or may not lurk. (None of these comps are quite right, but I did keep thinking of Tana French to the extent that I went and bought a couple more of her books right after this.)
Anyway, the ambience is lovely, all small and sleepy and quaint town with ugly undercurrents, and unreliable narrators and local ineffable spirits. I just really liked it a lot! It didn’t blow me away, but it goes so quickly that it’s just a nice little detour. ...more
Started March 15, 2020 for book club, and now abandoned -- sadly, because the premise/concept sounded like it would be my jam (to the extent that I voStarted March 15, 2020 for book club, and now abandoned -- sadly, because the premise/concept sounded like it would be my jam (to the extent that I voted for it as a pick!). I was somewhat expecting it to feel like a Korean version of Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox -- in terms of violence, in terms of authorship, in terms of a writer character grappling with what they've written. I'm also super fond of HHhH, a nonfiction take where the real-life author upfront struggles with his subject matter. While listening to book club discussion, I also wound up thinking a bit about The Pillowman, one of my favourite plays -- because of that blurriness between reality & fiction, and the violence of children, and things being written and coming into being.
Unfortunately, I can't actually say how much The Impossible Fairytale compares against any of these, because I petered out at the 28% point. Julie vs Literary Fiction is a common problem, and in this instance, I just could never get past the flowery, experimental, disjointed prose -- I ran into a sheer brick wall with it.
If we hadn't been mired in a pandemic and stay-at-home lockdowns, I might have been able to muscle through and see if I ever clicked with the text, particularly since the first half & second half apparently differs a lot focus-wise -- but as things stand, I just don't have the attention span for any sort of reading these days, let alone something I'm not jiving with, so I couldn't hack it....more
Read for book club! I was initially pretty excited for this one, because it sounded quirky and funny. I think it compares really well to Pnin, in termRead for book club! I was initially pretty excited for this one, because it sounded quirky and funny. I think it compares really well to Pnin, in terms of this drolly tongue-in-cheek voice and academic humour, starring an aimless professor just kind of sauntering contemplatively through life, and without much happening in the book.
However: Even my status updates from Pnin said that I was glad that book was so short, because I couldn’t put up with that sort of meandering vibe for too long � and it was only 200 pages to this one’s 400. And Pnin himself had more drama of consequence in his past than Prof Devereaux did here. I think I’ve realised that I just don’t have much patience for the existential ennui and midlife crises of middle-aged white men, particularly ones lusting after every young woman who crosses their path.
All of the women in this novel, besides, were more interesting to me than Hank himself: his wife, his daughter, his secretary, literally anyone!!
In fairness, the writing is actually quite clever and funny, and I found myself chuckling a few times. But the reading experience was still oddly slow-going � in ways that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, until I talked it out with Zoe and realised it was probably just that I didn’t care much about Hank as a person.
That said: the book did finally speed up for me towards the end, once things of consequence started happening.
There are two segments in the novel where you get to read the autobiographical essays/anecdotes that Hank writes for the local paper, and I actually found myself far more drawn into those little vignettes. His relationship with his father seems like the cornerstone of the whole novel � walking in Henry Devereaux Sr’s shoes, rebelling against him, trying to live up to his professional legacy, carrying a grudge against him for abandoning his wife and son, always living in his father’s shadow � and those were the bits that got to my heart most, but I also feel like they’re underdeveloped and there could’ve been more resolution on this front.
Anyway! 2.5 stars, rounded up because I did like the writing, and because it felt like it got stronger in the later parts of the book (once things start happening with Julie, and Hank’s father shows up), which left me feeling warmer towards it. ...more
Gosh, this book was a struggle. The first ~20 pages are especially excruciating; it gets better and easier after that point, but it takes some effort Gosh, this book was a struggle. The first ~20 pages are especially excruciating; it gets better and easier after that point, but it takes some effort to get into the swing of things. Apparently it's very different from all of Carter's other novels though, and it was written really early in her career, so I'm not going to hold it against her.
Her prose is nice as always, with some great turns of phrase, but the protagonist Joseph is just so relentlessly unlikeable that it kept me out of the book pretty much the whole way through. I'm just not much interested in reading about young male depression and ennui, nor his going around wanting to bone practically every woman he sees. He's pretty much misogynistic and mildly racist and anti-Semitic! It ain't great!
Book club discussion did increase my appreciation for the book -- some nice commentary on 1960s existential anxiety, the PTSD from the parents' generation having lived through the Blitz, the younger characters' struggle for meaning and purpose -- but it was never my cuppa. By the end, not much has happened and there doesn't seem to have been much point to things.
Wise Children was similar, prose/style-wise, but was anchored by strong female characters throughout and a far stronger narrative arc driving towards a culminating event at the end. I'd initially thought that book felt meandering, but I'm now revising my opinion having read Several Perceptions: this one is meandering and purposeless....more
Read for office book club! I’m always happy to have more Atwood in my life, even if her stories are brutal. Alias Grace is a long, slow read; more thaRead for office book club! I’m always happy to have more Atwood in my life, even if her stories are brutal. Alias Grace is a long, slow read; more than anything else, it actually reminded me of a Dickensian yarn, in how it marinates in the accurate historical details, the dry class comedy, the struggling working-class protagonist. There were long stretches where the book made me want to move to a cozy farm in the Canadian countryside and collect eggs from my own chickens (just, y’know, minus the misogyny and abuse and exploitation). Men are monsters! Even the kindly ones! Perhaps even especially the kind ones, which reminds me of this Charles Perrault quote:
“I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition � neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!�
There’s a touch of Scheherazade to this story, as the condemned Grace Marks unfurls (or stitches together) the story of her life, and what led to the murder of her employer and his housekeeper. She draws it out and draws it out, agonisingly, until both her avid listeners (the doctor Simon Jordan and the reader both) are practically pulling their hair out, yelling JUST TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED ALREADY!!
±õ³Ù’s about exploitation, and ambiguity, and unreliable narrators. The turns that it sort-of-takes are pretty obvious, and for people who want conclusive stories it’s probably maddening, but I really enjoyed being along for the ride as it takes you there: particularly in how the layers get stripped away, and Grace reveals an almost-sociopathic streak by the end, arranging herself just so.
(And yet, it’s all about double standards, too � Dr. Jordan does the exact same thing, in wearing the gentlemanly face where he’s expected to, making sympathetic noises when women want him to, etc. His fate is particularly darkly funny and appropriate.)
±õ³Ù’s about women who wrap themselves in the guise you expect to see (whore or angel), and being whatever men want them to be. Even Simon’s mother, Mrs. Constance Jordan, contains unexpected depths: I loved her simpering passive-aggressive letters to her son (they were so funny, and reminded me far too much of actual family emails); but then she suddenly reveals herself as far more sharp and canny than any of us probably gave her credit for.
Simon’s social travails were sorrrrt of like an Austenesque manners comedy at first, but even he reveals his true stripes slowly, as time goes on. I think the only genuine, good relationship between a man and a woman was Jeremiah and Grace, which was [chefskiss] � and I think it only worked because Jeremiah, as a wandering Romani or Jewish man, was also in a vulnerable minority position and lacking privilege, so they really were birds of a feather.
Unreliable narrators are one of my very favourite things, too, and our book club discussed at ggreat length how pretty much everything in this book is uncertain. ±õ³Ù’s all cleverly walking this line so that it’s utterly up to the reader’s interpretation, and their favoured version of effects. So as a reader, you have to be game for that ambiguity, too. Because the truth doesn’t matter; what matters is what people say about you, and what they think happened. Even the light touches of the paranormal here are up to interpretation
And anyway, Grace herself is great. ±õ³Ù’s so interesting to me that Atwood chose to adapt this real-life historical event, because it really means it’s impossible to know what really happened, and so the extra ambiguousness of the story makes sense.
Read for office book club! I really enjoyed this: particularly the wry, arch voice poking gentle fun at the characters, so it becomes something of a sRead for office book club! I really enjoyed this: particularly the wry, arch voice poking gentle fun at the characters, so it becomes something of a society comedy even in the shadow of such darkness, as Mrs. Appleyard’s College for Young Ladies falls apart after a few of its girls disappear on a picnic at Hanging Rock. There’s touches of dramatic foreshadowing, too, as the narrative voice hints at the future and looks backwards on these events.
Lindsay’s writing style is quite lovely, particularly in terms of evocative atmosphere: all lazy hot redolent summer air and dust. The ambience is hard to pin down, too: it’s got touches of haunting and the Gothic (all these vulnerable winsome white-clad schoolgirls in hysterics), but it’s also something of a thriller/mystery as the police try to solve the disappearance of these girls, but it’s also light enough that it’s not entirely those things, either. There’s ominous sexuality versus the impossibly prim and buttoned-up Victorian mores of Appleyard’s school, which just don’t fit at all in the wild outback � plus there’s lurking queerness in Sara’s fixation with Miranda, and Mike’s with Albert. There’s the sense of things spinning out of control from happenstantial unpredictable accident, despite society’s attempts to maintain rigid control over everything.
The book is skimpy on plot, so you’re mainly going through it for the atmosphere, voice, and if you’re just enjoying being with these characters and watching them wrestle with this wrench in the gears. In the end, I’d say it’s about domino effects and butterfly effects and ripples, the unexpected ways that this one event touches the lives of everyone around it.
The more I think about it, really, the more I like it. I need to watch the TV show now, even if I am utterly thrown by the casting of Natalie Dormer as Mrs Appleyard (who is actually like, a formidable old grey-haired beldame and widow. what).
PS: The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore focuses on entirely different things � the girls� lives in the years after the event, and the women they grew up into � but there’s an odd similarity between these books, plot-wise, so I enjoy mentally sticking them in the same box. ...more
The Intuitionist is a glimpse into a strange, spec fic alternate-universe where elevator inspectors are hot-shot badged officials with power and influThe Intuitionist is a glimpse into a strange, spec fic alternate-universe where elevator inspectors are hot-shot badged officials with power and influence to spare, acting more like the police. ±õ³Ù’s a twisty-turny conspiracy thriller involving a clash between two schools of thoughts: the Empiricists, who inspect elevators per strictly-coded rules & regulations; and the Intuitionists, who use a semi-mystical ability to sense and intuit the status of the contraption.
I’d read and enjoyed Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, but I should have noticed beforehand that this was actually his debut novel: which means it obv still has his characteristic flowery meandering prose style and blending of speculative elements, but it’s messier, more like a bunch of ideas (about race & history & society & sexism) thrown into a blender but which unfortunately peters out by the end. It has a nice noirish vibe (the two thugs Jim and John were my faves), and an intriguing mystery, but it falls apart towards the end and doesn’t really go anywhere.
I enjoyed parts of Lila Mae Watson as a protagonist � her perfectly-pressed suit as armour against the world, the first black woman on the force and dealing with the sexism/racism thereof � but I also had very little sense of her characterisation or growth by the end of it? She’s more of a blank cipher moving her way through the world and from one conflict to another, so it was oddly hard to care for her by the end.
I don’t regret reading it but I probably wouldn’t recommend it. It does mean I’ll read The Underground Railroad eventually, though, since I already know that Whitehead has improved with experience; this was more of a messy debut.
Gosh but his prose is still lovely, though....more
I really liked this; I went in blind, not knowing much except that it’s about two widowers who go fishing together, and that there was an edge of horrI really liked this; I went in blind, not knowing much except that it’s about two widowers who go fishing together, and that there was an edge of horror to it. It turns out that it’s a frame narrative within a frame narrative within a frame narrative, mostly telling a tale of unsettling events unfolding in historical upstate New York amongst its immigrant population.
The Fisherman is both a quiet domestic haunting that has shades of Pet Sematary, but also large-scale cosmic horror very much in the vein of Lovecraft. The author’s acknowledgments mention that he struggled getting it published, because the literary publishers rejected it for being too genre, and the genre publishers rejected it for being too literary � but that’s the sort of mix/balance that I really enjoy.
The middle bit, the historical retelling, could probably have stood on its own as a really strong novella; but I wouldn’t want to lose the sleepy frame narrative either, because I liked its careful exploration of the grief of these two widowers. A lot of dead wives do abound, but I forgive the narrative for it because it’s so consciously hyper-focused on widowers, on grief, on the stupid decisions men can make, and Faustian tales.
Book club mostly thought it was too slow, but I actually found myself engaged the whole time, mostly due to the prose style (it’s lovely), plus the diner cook narrator’s affable voice, the way the first-person storyteller narration just kind of washes over you. My main reason for docking a star was actually because of how the pace suddenly skyrockets at the very end, accelerating and ramping up like crazy in a way that doesn’t really tonally match the rest of the book.
Either way, a solid 4 stars for me because it hit on the notes that I like, of sad old men and New England hauntings and the horrors of the sea and dark magic.
A couple (non-spoilery) favourite quotes:
Rainer halts the group outside the front door to the dead woman's house, where the silver knife he flung into the dirt has continued to vibrate ever-so-slightly, throughout the day. The men can feel whatever it is causing the knife to shiver, a wrongness in the air that floods their mouths with the taste of metal, twists their stomachs like spoiled milk.
***
There's something about his posture, a certain formality, that calls to mind the professor in front of a lecture hall, the lawyer in front a witness, the priest in front of the altar.
***
His story done, Howard seemed relieved, as if that burden I'd sensed behind his words at the beginning of his tale had passed from him. I felt oddly disoriented, disconnected from the diner's chrome and glass, the way you do after you've finished a book or movie in which you've been absorbed and which hasn't loosened its hold on you.
I’m bummed that I missed book club’s discussion about this (I’d finished the book in the nick of time and everything!). In the end: 4 stars for the thI’m bummed that I missed book club’s discussion about this (I’d finished the book in the nick of time and everything!). In the end: 4 stars for the themes, 2 stars for the prose. Which is a shame, because I lovedAristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which was a straightforward, touching, heartfelt LGBTQ YA where� things actually happened.
In comparison, I suppose this one is best described as ~*~Literary Fiction~*~ (heavy, heavy emphasis on the literary). Alire Sáenz’s prose is nice sometimes, but it’s frankly too full of itself here. He keeps oscillating between first-, second-, and third-person narration, erratically. That sort of POV switch needs to be for a specific purpose, and have some rules (The Fifth Season is a perfect example of this, where the choice of POV instantly anchors you and tells you which timeline/character you’re following, and there are narrative reasons justifying it as well). But here, instead, there’s no rhyme nor reason nor consistency to which voice is being used. And even when it was in first-person, I couldn’t tell you the difference between the voices of Lourdes, Gustavo, Xochil, or Charlie � they all blended together in exactly the same kind of intellectual, dreamy, thoughtful vibe.
Thematically, the book is an extension of some themes touched on in Aristotle & Dante and which are really far up my alley: father/son relationships, masculinity, and war, all of which is #juliebait galore. I loved the dynamic of the Espejo family, the close-knit twins, the too-soft younger brother, the watchful mother keeping them all together.
However! Practically nothing happens! I could summarise the entirety of the plot in two sentences. And with that in mind, there’s also the extreme problem that the blurb literally SPOILS THE ENDING OF THE BOOK. What little there is was already spoiled for me, because the blurb implies that there’s more to come, but there ain’t.
You could perhaps argue that the ending doesn’t matter, and what’s important is the Journey� instead� but the prose grated on my nerves enough that the journey wasn’t super-enjoyable either.
All of which sounds super harsh. There were things I very much liked about it, certain stray moments; the daughter Xochil and her mother Lourdes are the strongest, most sensible characters in the book and I adored them. But compared to the other novel I’ve read by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (which I gave 5 stars!), this was largely a disappointment.
A couple favourite quotes, though � which are actually not representative at all because they’re all from the soldier POVs set in Vietnam:
They will tear us down, minute by minute, hour by hour, pull up by pull up, push-up by push-up, squat thrust by squat thrust. Our minds and bodies will be transformed. I won’t be me anymore. I’ll be part of a team. The team will be what matters.
The team will be the only country you love. You will fight for them. If they live, you live.
I understood all this. From the start, I understood everything. I fucking knew I was going to learn to fight. And I was going to live. This was my war. Mine.
It all made perfect sense.
***
I missed my family on Sundays. Missed them like hell. And at basic training, you know I got into this thing of doing busy work, while about half the guys went to do their church thing. You know, Sunday mornings, we’d clean our guns one more fucking time, shine our shoes another fucking time, do all that fucking busy work they had us doing. Your boots could never be too shiny. Your gun could never be too clean. In the Marines, when you train, if you’re awake, then you’re doing something. No such thing as doing nothing.
You know what a vacation was? It was having the time to smoke a fucking cigarette. It was having the time to listen to some jackass tell a joke you’d already heard.
***
You know, when I was in Nam, all my dreams were of home.
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