I don't generally gravitate toward YA or Sci-Fi, so it's no surprise this one failed to enthrall.
I suppose the stakes are high- there are massacres, I don't generally gravitate toward YA or Sci-Fi, so it's no surprise this one failed to enthrall.
I suppose the stakes are high- there are massacres, corporate corruption, individual sacrifice, yadda yadda yadda- but we learn to care about the larger stakes through the rendering of individual experiences. Here, the characters are pretty flat. The dossier approach took a lot of shortcuts to the heart, which probably works just fine for a YA audience, but at my ripe, cynical old age was less compelling.
It's weird how a book with so little text can be so difficult to read. I'd pick it up and immediately want to look away. Anyway, I skimmed through the first 150 pages until the zombie virus emerged and the AI goes bad. Then I could start rooting for the AI to wipe everyone out. That was fun for a bit. Then I skipped over another 200 pages (mostly pictures) and read the last 25 or so at which point a laughably bad villain appears.
If this were a movie, I'd watch it for the special effects and the escapism. If they hired skilled actors, I might even care about the main characters- at least at an Alien level. They'd have a lot of fun with a poetry-spitting, sinister AI voice. They'd cut a lot of the crap because of production costs and time constraints.
Too bad Plan B bought the rights just to shelve it.
I'm glad the writers found another way to get their story to an audience. In this format, I just wasn't the audience. ...more
Enjoyable vacation read. The themes are dark- police corruption, drug addiction, sexism, infertility, unauthorized adoptions- but the cute kid and cutEnjoyable vacation read. The themes are dark- police corruption, drug addiction, sexism, infertility, unauthorized adoptions- but the cute kid and cute dog lighten things up. Tracy's also a great character. She thunders around, one of the blokes- but also not, gruff- but also kind. Her story seems lonely and dull but ultimately I found her to be the most dynamic character in the novel. ...more
I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. I assume Pacino dictated this memoir in the first place, and his reading of it is very conversational. II really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. I assume Pacino dictated this memoir in the first place, and his reading of it is very conversational. I wonder how closely it adheres to his original words.
The story of his early years were the most interesting. His family has an interesting history; he describes his youth vividly; there's a strong continuity between his roaming the streets of New York as a kid and his roaming the streets reciting Shakespeare as an adult. He's a throwback the itinerant actor of the Renaissance. He seems like he would have been content living in a bedsit, working odd jobs during the day and acting at night if fate hadn't intervened.
It's clear he's an intuitive performer, choosing characters based on whether he could immediately identify with them or not. Despite being in therapy for decades, he's often unable to explain events of his life. He has no business acumen and describes working his way out of near bankruptcy multiple times. He might not be able to provide much insight, but sit with this book for an hour and you know what he's about. ...more
I first read this as an undergrad as part of a Philosophy in Literature class that I don't remember that well (except that we read great books that moI first read this as an undergrad as part of a Philosophy in Literature class that I don't remember that well (except that we read great books that mostly went over my head). I wanted to revisit Levi's memoir after reading Debreczeni's Cold Crematorium. Both men were in Auschwitz for about the last year that it was in operation, and I wanted to see where their attention lined up and where it differed. Their overarching experiences in the camp, of course, were pretty similar.
Debreczeni, a journalist, is more interested in the systems and the power structures of the camp. He starts with the disorienting train journey and attempts to map out both the ground they cover as well as the sprawling network of sites that comprise Auschwitz. When he arrives at his bunk, he presents a veritable diagram of the cesspool he lives in; he charts the crawl of lice over bodies. He locates himself, one suffering individual among many. He turns his attention to the prison hierarchies, sorting the men who ensure his own misery in order to reduce their own. For whatever reason, he is assigned to bunk with career criminals who harass him until they discover he's a reporter. One offers Debreczeni protection in exchange for listening to the thief's stories. That relationship basically enables his survival until he makes his way to the camp hospital. Like Levi, Debreczeni is saved from the deadly evacuation march through a timely illness.
Levi's scope is much more intimate. He's focused on sticking with his friend Alberto and reflecting on the loss of emotional and cognitive experiences that define us as human. The squalid conditions are mentioned but not in great detail. He's focused on the communities the prisoners create (such as the black market held in one corner of the yard); connections he can make with the outside world (such as with Lorenzo Perrone, a bricklayer who provided Levi and Alberto extra food for six months- it's not clear to me how Perrone got to Poland to lay bricks for the Nazis, but there he was.); and friendships he can build with other prisoners where stronger men are willing to do a little extra. He's attuned to people's cultures; the numbers of their tattoos- which tell their own story; and as the Italians dwindle, he has the benefit of speaking French and some German which help him forge other relationships.
Of course he was stealing, shirking, working angles- but, at least as he tells it- even though he SAYS he stopped being human, Levi's ability to continue to befriend others really speaks to the degree of humanity he was able to maintain. Ironically, it's only in the last chapter (Ten Days)- the point at which he said he felt his humanity returning- where I felt like his decisions were the least human/e. Levi and his roommates stick together- and it probably wasn't practical to extend generosity to the people in other rooms- but witnessing how that kind of tribalism played out is uncomfortable.
Philip Roth's interview that's included as an afterword is helpful to read, especially since I haven't read much Levi. They discuss how this book relates to his other work, and Levi provides further reflection on an experience that he can't-ultimately- really understand. ...more
The observations about Japanese culture and work life in the 1990s and early aughts were the most interesting aspects of this book. I don't understandThe observations about Japanese culture and work life in the 1990s and early aughts were the most interesting aspects of this book. I don't understand when people sleep- and if his memoir accurately reflects work life in Japan, it's no surprise that so many middle-aged men kill themselves. The rates are twice as high in Japan as they are in the United States. The Yakuza just might kind of speed things up a little.
It was also interesting to read about the degree to which the Yakuza have penetrated the ordinary Japanese economy. As with a lot of organized crime (I'm thinking about the mafia and trash collection in the States), they find ways to fill the gaps. If they could lay off the violence and get their loan rates down to a normal level of usury, they would probably be tolerated. For whatever reason, Japan is really tight with credit- and there's a real need to access it to help the economy grow (which it hasn't).
The Japanese certainly don't seem too bothered by the sex industry that the Yakuza supports- particularly if it involves foreign women. Adelstein attributes it to a very practical view around sex (they certainly don't have American culture's well-documented Puritanical neuroses)- but the more cultural artifacts I read and watch from Japan, the more I think there's just a real, deep-rooted cultural fear of establishing intimacy- which ends up making sexual transactions easier to manage than sexual relationships.
Ultimately, under the youthful bravado, it's clear Adelstein has his own issues around vulnerability and intimacy. I hope that writing this book helped him to see some other ways people might narrate his story- rather than just the one that made him look like the biggest badass. ...more
I picked this up because I wanted to learn more about Allerton after seeing the movie.
There wasn't a lot more to learn-although Burroughs DOES confirmI picked this up because I wanted to learn more about Allerton after seeing the movie.
There wasn't a lot more to learn-although Burroughs DOES confirm that Allerton doesn't consider himself as queer, which wasn't really clear from the film. Allerton remains an enigmatic point of desire, and the ayahuasca trip never happens- which leaves the two men even further estranged on the page than they are in Guadagnino's version.
What is illuminating is Burroughs' introduction to the 1985 edition which does a much better job of establishing what it was like to live in Mexico City at that time- and why all of those ex-pats had flocked there. It dispelled my notion that Allerton was really a CIA operative looking for mind control drugs in South America (although Burroughs does cover some of those schemes more explicitly in the novel).
As noted in the preface to this edition, Burroughs uses the shooting death of his wife to avoid talking about his own homosexuality. But Burroughs' brain sounds like a hard place to be. Without Jean's death, he said, he wouldn't have become a writer. He viewed his own writing as a sort of exorcism of the demonic possession he believes he experienced when he shot her....more
This is the Streatfeild I remember best from my childhood although it wasn’t my favorite- and it definitely does not hold together as well as Ballet SThis is the Streatfeild I remember best from my childhood although it wasn’t my favorite- and it definitely does not hold together as well as Ballet Shoes.
With the wealthy grandfather swooping in to provide club memberships, coaching, and equipment, the money management angle- always a crucial consideration in the Shoes books- felt forced.there are long digressions followed by big leaps in time. The choice of which life events are important enough to include and which aren’t seems arbitrary and occasionally feels disorienting.
But we still liked it. As fellow contrarians, we generally sided with Nicky. Jim and Susan are SO dull in their conformity. Although Nicky behaves impulsively and often has a poor temper, we felt the lessons meted out by her family to be draconian and occasionally ridiculous. No present for two years while they replace the umbrellas she stole? Did it REALLY take 6 months to save up for an umbrella? Weren’t they just getting wet in the meantime?
And that sense of injustice- as well as things not developing quite as expected- is what embedded in my brain as an 8 or 9 year-old and, based on her outbursts, will likely stick with Lucy too....more
A propulsive read although a few days after finishing it, I'm still bothered by some character moves and plot points that didn't add up for me.
If youA propulsive read although a few days after finishing it, I'm still bothered by some character moves and plot points that didn't add up for me.
If you're a subscriber to the NYT, you can hear an interview Liz Moore did with Gilbert Cruz this summer. She talks about choosing to leave some of her characters as one-dimensional bad guys. She talks about her struggle to find sympathy for Alice. And those struggles are pretty evident on the page. The marriage between Peter and Alice doesn't really work I mean, it doesn't work because they're incompatible people- but it also doesn't really work as a plot catalyst because Alice is SO vapid and disengaged with the world around her while Peter is SO controlling that the decisions Peter makes vis-Ã -vis Alice are not really believable. Neither is Delphine's trajectory and I'd argue that Barbara's fate is ultimately not that believable either. It doesn't fit her age, what we know of her, how she's displayed her anger so far etc.
I enjoyed reading the book. She did a great job with the setting, writing the kids, writing the joys and fears of summer camp, and the two central mysteries are interesting- but Moore's decision to write a few flat characters in service of a larger narrative about wealth, resource management and its impact on a community created a loose thread that unraveled the whole ending. ...more
A fun, fanciful tale that was enjoyable to read aloud with my 10-year-old. Pony is very endearing and incredibly resourceful. We enjoyed trying to preA fun, fanciful tale that was enjoyable to read aloud with my 10-year-old. Pony is very endearing and incredibly resourceful. We enjoyed trying to predict where he was going to go next and how he would get there- and, of course, how he and Penny would reunite. Lynch occasionally gets carried away with the wending journey- not all of the detours served the plot of her themes, some of which are rather dark. There's discussion of animal abuse, challenging family relationships, and a dysfunctional legal system, but ultimately, it's less depressing than Black Beauty, and we got some great conversations out of it. If things were feeling too heavy, we could always bring in Pony's antics to lighten up the mood. ...more
Montgomery returns to the world of children for this title. Anne's children largely take a back seat to the minister's children, who-in today's terms-Montgomery returns to the world of children for this title. Anne's children largely take a back seat to the minister's children, who-in today's terms- are neglected. John Meredith's character arc was so frustrating to me that I stopped reading more than once in order to lecture about community support; social responsibility, the advent of mandatory reporting, etc. And then Lucy started getting frustrated with me.
Anne, meanwhile, appears to be the least productive person in the Glen, a major shift from her industrious early books- and surprising, given she has six children. In every scene she's in, someone else is working while she gossips with the neighbors or dreams about...something. It's kind of funny. ...more
This was a book that I enjoyed without understanding. I could get into a kind of flow state with its voice without being able to put the plot togetherThis was a book that I enjoyed without understanding. I could get into a kind of flow state with its voice without being able to put the plot together at all (and admittedly, there were significant chunks toward the last 1/3 where I lost that flow state and really wasn't paying much attention)- and, anyway, the plot wasn't really the point. If Infinite Jest had been a painting, it would have been Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights.
Paradise has been fouled pretty much beyond recovery, and humans are deploying all sorts of deranged coping mechanisms to survive it. The humor is inky black glossed in irony (a way of looking at the world- more prevalent in the 90s- that I often miss now).
How do we survive the world we are born into? Does a repetitive, ritualistic way of living (tennis drills; 12-step meetings) offer solutions? Do we take lots of drugs? Should we revolt? Should we create art that is too dangerous to watch- and bury it? (Some of the movies made by Himself I WOULD want to watch. Wonder if anyone's bought the rights...)
The stories of the tennis academy and the sober living program (and attendant 12-step programs) were way more compelling to me than the spy plot. Foster Wallace had the most insight when he was observing interpersonal (and intrapersonal) dynamics in these really artificial environments. It's interesting to see how the main characters, who have deep emotional scars from extremely flawed parents, end up relating to the world and to each other.
Not surprisingly, at the end, Foster Wallace does the writer's version of shaking a sand mandala into a river, sending it on its way downstream. It's a reminder of creative impermanence, I suppose. Even a 1000-page tome can find its way into the stream of life- no clear beginning, no clear end. ...more
Sigrid Nunez presents another meditation on aging, death, and the life of the mind. She's such a present observer. I always love looking at the world Sigrid Nunez presents another meditation on aging, death, and the life of the mind. She's such a present observer. I always love looking at the world through her eyes. ...more
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