Review: "The Little Friend" by Donna Tartt

This is a pretty big let down for me. I really enjoyed The Secret History last year. I found it compelling without too much melodrama, and in the end, its messaged resonated beyond the elite school setting it fictionalized, and made me connect with it. It elevated the campus novel into an allegory on the dangers of elitism and intellectual arrogance. This book, The Little Friend, is very different, which comes with its own merits and flaws. To be fair, it would be too easy for Tartt go back to the same territory for her follow up tom her almost universal best seller, especially when there is a decade gap between one book and the next. It is truly admirable of Tartt, and showcases not only her inventiveness and willingness to try new things; it shows she is writer who will not be tied down by her bestseller status, and will go where her mind and heart takes her, and not what genre is popular. I have said some nice things, but it only makes me feel even more disappointed than I am in this plain, overlong book. The story concerns one Harriet Dufresnes, a ten-year-old girl, wise beyond her years, searching for her brothers killer twelve years after he was murdered in the small, racially tense town of Alexandria, Mississippi. As she treks across this town with her submissive friend Hely, she encounters dangers she couldn’t imagine as her family is still reeling from the murders. While there is some suspense, and Harriet isn’t too Juno-like annoying, the book is just boring overall, with it being 600 pages, that basically killed it for me. I never thought meth labs and traps made of live snakes could put me to sleep so quickly. It passes in my book, but definitely not by much.

Rating: 3/5

Review: "The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach was a real pleasant surprise for me, not being a fan of baseball. It is the reading equivalent of a brisk walk in the perfect kind of weather, it is simple, but is something to be savored. There may be a few spots where things get slow, but I never once felt I would rather being doing something else more useful. It has that kind of magic great longer books have that shorter ones don’t, such as The Secret History by donna Tartt and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. The page length allows the reader to not only see the world in full color, but also live inside it, at least for a brief little while. It is written without a sense of irony or arrogance, and simply tells a story that has many layers about seemingly real people facing problems that all adults have to face. The world in question is the fictional Westish College, a prep school not really known for athletics or anything for that matter, except a brief visit from Herman Melville in the 1800’s. Into this fold come five people: the main character, Henry, is an amazingly good baseball shortstop with a perfect record, who goes to Westish with nothing resembling a life goal, just an overwhelming need to play baseball. There he meets his roommate Owen, who becomes his bookish gay teammate. He also meets the man who will become his mentor Mike, whose selfless acts hide subconscious jealousy. Finally, there is President Affenlight, who was the one who discovered Melville’s visit and became president of Westish after the birth of his daughter Pella, who has come back to Westish to start a new life after a disastrous marriage. All became connected when an accident caused by Henry injures someone. The repercussions of which reverberate in the lives of these five damaged people. Henry loses is confidence, Mike sinks deep into depression, and Owen begins a dangerous affair with Affenlight. All linked together by the game we call our national past time, but all alone in their misery, despite being close to one another. But this is not a depressing read, but quite the life affirming one. It doesn’t really introduce anything new into the baseball or campus literary genre (think a Separate Peace and The Natural, minus the pessimism, and this book would look a lot like that), but it does it so well, you can’t help but feel you are watching a master craftsman rework something we have seen before into a great and incredible work of storytelling that taps into every good emotion you can think of. It is not perfect, but the feelings I had while finishing it and reading it were definitely completely something I could not ignore. I hope Harbach has more up his sleeve in terms of pure, straight forward storytelling without tricks or pyro, cause, to use a horrible cliché, this book really is a homerun.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "The Children's Hospital" by Chris Adrian

The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian may be one of the most surreal books I have read, and rivals 2666 as one of the hardest books I have read. It proves again that Adrian is someone to watch. He doesn’t really follow any trends, and creates these weird tales with a since of child-like imagination one would not expect from someone whose a pediatrician/ divinity student and a world class writer (not too mention that he seems like a humble guy from the few interviews I have seen of him). This mammoth novel will challenge your notions of story and maybe your patience as well. The plot is kind of like a more sophisticated and thoughtful version of Stephen King’s Under the Dome. A hospital is kept afloat when the whole of the earth is flooded underneath seven miles of water. But not to fret, there are four different angels aboard this large vessel, all with different powers, like creating replicators that can turn shoes into anything, and feces into shoes. The main character, Jemma, is a medical student with a tragic past that keeps her from loving anyone, is put in a place of leadership, and onto a dark destiny that may or may not save the world (still not sure). I love some of the weird things but not all. Toward the end two things happen that really grabbed me, one involving another ship they find, and another involving a disease that turns those affected into ash. These two parts are welcomed after about 400 pages of intriguing yet demanding and exhausting prose that loses some of its narrative power. I do recommend this book, despite how difficult and long-winded it is over all of its 600 pages. There are rewards in it, not the least of which is Adrian’s talents as one of the most original writers working today.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison

I have seen countless interviews with Harlan Ellison, and am convinced he is putting on an act, like all the crazed writers we knowingly worship, or still worship. Like James Ellroy, the act puts kind of a distance between the fans of the writer, and the writer’s emotional fragility, and it comes out looking like they are real overbearing assholes who are so mean to their everyday fan, you can’t help but feel that they see them as lesser beings. It is behavior that is supposed to enhance the quality of their books, or how people view them, which is a shame, because these stories in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, when they are good, don’t need any of Ellison’s bullshit antics. They work on many different levels, and even the stories that somewhat go over my head with the science fiction jargon, still have a kernel of reality to them, as well as tons and tons of heart. The title story really is good enough to warrant an RPG game. The story of a super computer wiping out all of existence with the exception of five people, which it proceeds to torture mercilessly for hundreds of years, packs quite a wallop, with an ending both noble in its view of self-sacrifice and horrifying in its implications. The middle stories don’t have as much power, but that is coming from a non-Sci-Fi fan (and for someone so adamant about copyright and the stealing of others work, “World of Myth is eerily similar to an old Twilight Zone episode). The last story “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” is a cool yarn about a haunted slot machine, which, again, is pretty creepy towards the end. If you can find the collection cheap, get it. It is worth it to read these tales from a master storyteller, despite the asshole writing them.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Angels" by Denis Johnson

My experience with Denis Johnson is a lot like my experience with Michael Chabon, except that I have yet to read anything by him that is anywhere close to amazing. I found Jesus’ Son to be too drug obsessed, and I am not the audience for that anymore, and Tree of Smoke was too long and it had too many historical elements that confused the hell out of me plot wise. Johnson is a master at these horribly damaged people living in a world they have no idea about the inner workings of, despite years of travel, work, and love. But he gets too obsessed with that aspect and his plots seem kind of weak, even from the distance of only having read the synopsis on the back cover (although Already Dead seems really cool, although the length scares me from my experience with Tree of Smoke). I decided to go back instead of forward for my next venture into the wounded worlds of Denis Johnson, and was lucky to find a cheap old Vintage Contemporaries copy (which have some of my favorite cover art) in Half-Priced Books. Again, like The Yiddish Policeman’s union, it is the best thing I have read by Johnson, but is in no way great. It is a simple story of two lost people meeting on a Greyhound bus, whose mutual pain and loneliness leads them down a road of shocking violence that ends tragically. I like both characters, and Johnson doesn’t resort to pretentious hipness in describing their wandering lives, like many the talentless beat writers), and grounds the book in a sense of morality, even when something like a rape is being committed. It gets to dreamy toward the end, making the ending too confusing, but I do recommend this book quite well. It is a good road novel that doesn’t rely on the characters coolness and I really want to read Already Dead sometime soon.

Rating: 4/5