Tag: book review

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo OR How to Get Laid and Solve Crimes In Scandinavia

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Just like the Nobel Prize, Dolph Lundgren and a certain variety of delicious red fish, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the latest Swedish phenomenon to capture the hearts of Americans. Flying off book shelves at a rapid pace and quickly surpassing the degenerates from “The Jersey Shore” as the primary topic of water cooler conversation, Stiegg Larsson’s debut novel is a captivating tale loaded with financial intrigue and family drama with a healthy dose of European sexuality peppered in for good measure.

Larsson’s story centers around the decades old disappearance of a member of the powerful but fading Vanger family. The patriarch of the Vanger clan, Henrik, enlists the help of disgraced financial journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, to solve the mystery of his missing niece, Harriet Vanger. Henrik uses the carrot on the stick approach to lure Mikael with the promise of clearing his sullied name.

As the plot thickens, Mikael realizes that he will not be able to solve the mystery by himself. He then enlists the help of the unusual albeit brilliant Lisbeth Salander. Together the pair dig deeper into the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger and unravel the deep dark secrets of the Vanger clan.

This book easily surpasses The Da Vinci Code as the best thriller of the 21st century with its fast pacing, sharp writing and interesting characters. Larsson does a great job here keeping the reader glued to the pages until the final act. While there are obvious suspects, the writer keeps you guessing up until the very end as far as who the culprits are and what is the ultimate outcome.

One of my gripes with the book is that the characters are a bit flat. This could be because the intent was to draw out the development over a string of ten books, but the characters remain pretty stoic throughout this volume. Mikael remains righteous, moral and extra resoursceful; Lisbeth is always strange, cold and jaded; and Henry is always rich and old. None of the characters really grow or change in any way.

Spoiler Alert

The only other problem I had with the book is the huge amount of sexual ambiguity in the story. While sex, sexuality and rape are a huge part of the plot, I feel like there was plenty of intercourse that was just plain unnecessary – particularly that of the two main characters. I sort of felt their sexual relationship was misplaced and illadvised, especially considering Mikael has an ex-wife, a best friend/lover AND a concubine on the grounds of the Vanger compound by the quarter point of the story. I expected the two to have more of a mentor/mentee, father/daughter type relationship rather than one that gets convoluted with intimacy.

Conclusion
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a great book for anyone looking for a fast entertaining read. Don’t expect James Joyce, but then again, don’t expect James Joyce.

Happy Reading!

The Revenant by Michael Punke

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revenant

[rev-uh-nuhnt] ˈrɛvənənt/
-noun
1. a person who returns.
2. a person who returns as a spirit after death; ghost.

In Revenant, Hugh Glass is attacked by a grizzly bear, then robbed and left to die by his fellow frontiersmen. He’s beaten, broken, and emaciated. He can’t walk and he can barely eat. Even so, he vows revenge on the men who deserted him. How great does this book sound?

Early on, Glass is mauled by the bear. Want to know how bad? Here’s a description of his scalp post-bear attack:

The skin was so loose that it was almost like replacing a fallen hat on a bald man. Harris pulled the scalp across Glass’s skull, pressing the loose skin against his forehead and tucking it behind his ear. (p. 27)

After that, in true Western spirit, things go from bad to worse for Glass. If being left for dead and robbed of anything that would help him survive wasn’t enough, he also has a hallucination about being bit by a rattlesnake, gets sprayed by a skunk, and has to fight wolves. All this and he still hasn’t regained the ability to walk (OK, so fighting the wolves was a voluntary decision, but that’s just goes to show it’s no coincidence that Hugh Glass rhymes with bad ass).

But regain the ability to walk he will and it is then that the proverbial shit gets real.

Picture credit: Hunting in Yosemite, 1890 by Thomas Hill; frontiersman by Jonathan Blair.

Punke does the reader a great service in this book – he paces it perfectly and he focuses on the character that needs focus at each particular point in the story. For example, Glass is attacked and abandoned very early in the story, but instead of following the two men that abandoned him, or even updating the reader on them, the story stays with Glass. This is just what it should do. The attack, abandonment, and recovery are so intense, that I couldn’t care less about what was going on with the other characters. Fortunately, the focus of the story didn’t let me down.

If you like Western movies, you’ll really enjoy The Revenant. If the story gets too wrapped up in the physical nature of Glass’s quest, his confrontation with the weaker of his abandoners offers a satisfying psychological aspect of Glass’s desire for revenge (a brief foreshadowing of this psychological aspect is what piqued my desire for it). As a bonus, the book leaves sixty pages to catch the more evil of the two men that robbed Glass and left him for dead.

As a second bonus, The Revenant is based on a true story. Nails.

Up Next: Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States vs. Allen and Schweikhart’s A Patriot’s History of the United States. I’m going to look at these books one chapter at a time and compare the differences in their subject matter, presentation, writing, and the overall strength of their arguments (since both make a claim to telling it the right way, so to speak). You can expect an introduction next week and I’ll probably add a page at the top to organize each post.

City of Thieves by David Benioff

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At the risk of sounding trite, City of Thieves is a tale of two young Russian men with opposing personalities that are thrown together during World War II. Their city lay in ruins and they must count on each other for survival, which is a pipe dream at best. On top of all this, City is written as a memory of one of the men, who now lives in New York.

You may think you have heard this story before, but so what? City has at least two things going for it that make the reading worthwhile, great even.

First, for some reason, the horrible, horrible things – World War II in St. Petersburg type things – that happen in this story don’t seem bad at all. They’re awful, depressing, humanity-doubting things, but they serve only their purpose – to ground the story in wartime Russia. Sometimes these types of scenes are meant to evoke disgust or some such emotion, but if they’re meant to do that here, they don’t and the book is better off for it. Take them out, and the story will be just as good.

For example, “The rails veered away from the road, past stands of birch saplings too slender for firewood. Five white bodies lay facedown in the white snow. A family of winter dead, the dead father still clutching his wife’s hand, their dead children sprawled a short distance away. Two battered leather suitcases lay open beside the corpses, emptied of everything but a few cracked picture frames.”

Cover Design: Greg Mollica / Cover Art: Shout

OK, out of context, that’s kind of fucked up. But trust me, the deeper story in City is so good that you’ll breeze right through passages like those.

That leads me to the second great part about this novel – the novel part. City very much passes the page-turner test, which is really what novels have to do. Novels are meant to keep the reader enthralled and City does just that. The pace is perfect, with each chapter offering small story arcs that are both interesting on their own and that serve to advance the larger plot.

That’s the long and short of it. I highly recommend Benioff’s City of Thieves. It was so nice to read that I would certainly read more from Benioff.

Up Next: The Revenant by Michael Punke

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna

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The main character gives up his life completely to travel Finland with an injured hare in his pocket. And somehow he’s the sanest character in the book.

I have to hand it to Paasilinna. He has taken the old picaresque story and made it interesting with this book. You don’t often see that done anymore.
But here it is. Vatanen, our main character, decides to leave his life behind after his coworker hits a hare with their car. This may sound crazy, but Vatanen isn’t exactly leaving much behind – a loveless marriage, a job he has come to despise, and no friends.
A story like this in the hands of another writer would seem ludicrous at best and amateur at worst. But Paasilinna’s wit is here to save the day. When Vatanen’s wife calls him crying because he ruined her life (not because he was leaving, mind you), he tells her, “Cry quicker, or the call’ll get too expensive.”
Yes, if you’re going to read a Huck Finn-like story, you might as well read one by a writer with a dark wit. Paasilinna’s humor takes a bit to kick in, but when it does, it hits right in the teeth. The chapter where Vatanen and his hare meet the priest is brilliant.

But The Year of the Hare is not all fun and games. Some of the most poignant scenes in the book come when Paasilinna doesn’t give the reader what they want, like when Vatanen goes up against the vacationing drunks in the cabin next door. At first the outcome was disappointing, but the more I thought about it, the more it showed Paasilinna’s guts as a writer. It was this scene that turned The Year of the Hare from a good read into a great read.
As a side note, the translation I had could have been better. It didn’t ruin the book, but it was noticeably lacking in some parts. I mean, who knows or uses words like “nous” and “baborborygmi”?
Next up: The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker

Photo courtesy of Alexander Parsonage.

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Reading the OED by Ammon Shea

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The Oxford English Dictionary spans twenty volumes. It weighs 150 pounds. It is the be all and end all of English dictionaries. But it is more than that to Ammon Shea. It is the greatest version of Shea’s favorite book.
Continue reading “Reading the OED by Ammon Shea” →

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

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I have a tough time reviewing short story books. The stories are rarely connected to one another and the best you usually get is a theme shared by all. Such is the case with Fragile Things, a collection of Gaiman’s gothic tales (yes, there are other kinds). Unlike most short story collections, however, Fragile Things has two strikes against it before readers even pick it up.

Most people know of Neil Gaiman through The Sandman, his graphic novel series. The Sandman was one of the first popular graphic novels, mainly because the story was so good. But so was the artwork, and there’s the rub. Fragile Things comes with no artwork. For someone used to having the visuals provided with a Gaiman story, this could be problem.

It is not.

Although I feel that all short stories should come with illustrations, Fragile Things, is simply great stories written by a great writer. Add to that the gothic theme and you have something very special because Gaiman is especially good at writing dark fiction. He proved this with The Sandman.

What makes or breaks it for me, though, is how I knew that each story was well written. I didn’t like every story, but no one will enjoy every story in a collection. I knew, however, that the stories I didn’t would appeal to others. Basically, Gaiman’s writing abilities are on full display.

And speaking of the stories, here’s a list of the ones I enjoyed and why I enjoyed them.
The Mapmaker – A nice little story hidden away in the introduction.

The Flints of Memory Lane – This is the perfect ghost story because it doesn’t cost the reader anything. They don’t have to believe in the supernatural forces or objects. All they have to know is that something very unusual happened and it scared someone very much. These are the best ghost stories because they are the most likely to happen to you. Bonus: This one is true.

Bitter Grounds – I hate to call this a zombie story because most zombie stories suck. So I won’t. This story is more like a dream – it picks up in the middle of nowhere with just enough background given and then somehow manages to have a definite ending that leaves much hanging.

Good Boys Deserve Favours – This is a great story for musicians, especially bass players.

Harlequin Valentine – Another great story, now available in graphic novel form.

Feeders and Eaters – This story is just creepy and cool. I’m not going to ruin it for you at all, but if you read one story in this book, and you want it to be a great and creepy story, make it this one. This was a dream Gaiman had. It was first a comic, which would probably also be pretty cool.

Diseasemaker’s Croup – This is a very interesting, very short story.

Goliath – One of the better stories in this book. Very Matrix-like. According to Gaiman, he wrote it to go on the Matrix’s website. Imagine that.

Sunbird – This was an exciting story. It works a lot like stories about the devil, although the payoff and revenge are a bit introverted. Gaiman says R. A. Lafferty was at one point “the best short-story writer in the world” and Sunbird is his attempt to write a Lafferty short story.

Up next: Reading the OED by Ammon Shea.

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

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Here’s the inner cover blurb in my copy of The Loved One:

The Loved One is a nightmare induced by the unfamiliar diet of Southern California. That region, where all men are displaced persons, is unique in the splendid elaboration of its graveyards, and to these Evelyn Waugh turned for solace and inspiration during a brief visit. Against the background of embalming-rooms and incinerators he has contrived a neat tragedy of Anglo-American manners which we hope will amuse and instruct curious readers of both nations.

How fucking awesome does that sound? Nightmares? Graveyards? Fucking incinerators? And some SoCal hating? Holyshityes.

The Loved One may be a short novel, but it is full with jabs.
At Southern California:

“Sir Ambrose, in accordance with local custom, refrained from listening.”

At female habits of the time:

“In Aimeé’s bathroom cupboard, among the instruments and chemicals which are the staples of feminine well-being, lay the brown tube of barbiturates which is the staple of feminine repose.”

At the English, in which the main character’s love interest describes his Un-Americaness:

“I do not mean just his accent and the way he eats but he is cynical at things which should be sacred.”

And at Southern California again:

“No one in Southern California, as you know, ever inquires what goes on beyond the mountains.”

But The Loved One is more than just a series of barbs. They are merely amusing (and sometimes honest) reflections in a well-told story. The plot does indeed center around graveyards, as that is where all of the main characters work. And it is a tragedy, but the most amazing aspect of Waugh’s book is the way he makes the gruesome images of death and corpses seem so plain. By doing so, the reader’s attention does not stay focused on the darkness of the setting, but on those ever present themes of love and loss and how people deal with them. A funeral home setting is perfect for this parallel and I’m surprised it is not done more often.

Waugh does an excellent job with making a short story not seem scant. The main characters are well rounded, there are supporting roles to help their motives along, and he doesn’t revel too much in unimportant scenery. On top pf that, his story of two men fighting over one woman, a story which has been told a thousand times, does not sound trite. His brutal honesty in describing everything was a refreshment of sorts and made what could of otherwise been a simple love story into an enjoyable frolic through the graveyard.

Up next: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Check it here.

This article first appeared on Better Than Sliced Bread.

Consider Phlebus by Iain M. Banks

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I should have known. The term “consider Phlebus” comes from our old friend T. S. Eliot. And on the very first page of Iain M. Banks’s Consider Phlebus, there is a quote from The Waste Land. It was stupid of me to pick this book up, right? Well, yes and no.

As the lead to this article says, Consider Phlebus was a strong influence on the Xbox game Halo, specifically the design of some of the Halo worlds. Fans of either this book or the video game would immediately notice the similarities, but that’s about as much as they need to be mentioned.

Instead, there are two amazing things about Consider Phlebus. One is how unbelievably boring the first two-thirds of it is and the other, conversely, is how enjoyable the last third of it is. Considering what the main character goes through, the monotony while reading it is striking. In the first 150 pages alone, our hero experiences:
– Being executed by drowning in a septic tank
– An explosion in the wall of said septic tank
– An attack on his spaceship
– Getting hit by a ray blast or something (whatever it was, it was supposed to be lethal, according to the other characters)
– A fist fight to the death
– A raid on a temple with some heavily-armed monks, in which no fewer than four other characters bit the dust
– A giant spaceship hitting an even gianter iceberg while he is walking on it (imagine the first scene from Spaceballs, except not funny)
– His spaceship crashing into the ocean, in which another character dies
– A three kilometer swim to shore
– And another execution, this time by being eaten alive (he actually ends up losing a finger so… that counts, right?)

His is Bora Horza Gobuchul, but his name should be James John Bruce Bond McClane Wayne, the Highlander. And although that list sounds like a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie marathon on TNT, it was really difficult to read. I mean really bad. It wasn’t so much about where the plot was going, but that it seemed to be taking forever to get there. I marked out one paragraph to illustrate the leaden flow of Phlebus, but after reading it again, I think I’ll spare you.

And then, somehow in the final third of the novel, Banks manages to turn the style completely around. I read the last 150 pages of Phlebus within a day. I could have read it straight through in a couple of hours, it was that interesting. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. And I don’t know how my feelings about reading Consider Phlebus went from thinking it would never end to hoping it would never end.

Phlebus is Banks’s first sci-fi novel, and the first one of a series. It is also credited with reviving the space opera sub-genre of science fiction literature. But even his fans will admit that it is only interesting to those who have read his later works, especially those later in the series it kicks off because reading Phlebus feels like going from an opera to a ZZ Top concert.

Both of which, however, are better than reading T. S. Eliot.

Up next: The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh. Check it here.

This article first appeared on Better Than Sliced Bread.

Eye Scream by Henry Rollins

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Watch a few videos of Henry Rollins on YouTube and you’ll notice something – the man has some pent-up aggression. Whether he has reasons for it is not for me to say (although it usually seems like he does). But I will say this: Henry Rollins is intense. And his aggression comes out in many ways, sometimes insultingly, sometimes humorously , and sometimes sublimely tragically.

The thing about Henry Rollins is that he certainly has a way with words, which is good because I don’t think I could accurately describe Eye Scream. So I’ll let Henry do it himself. On his website, he says:

Work on Eye Scream started in 1986. I was crossing America constantly and experiencing the morality shifts, attitudes, and rituals in different parts of the country – the difference in the way people were in the Bible Belt as opposed to New York City, the way blacks and whites interfaced, the intolerance of homosexuality, the morality plays. I started to become aware of how brutal the country is and how much ferocity, cruelty, and oppression are inherent in the culture and how much of it was in me. I wanted to document it and create a book that brought the whole thing to a boil and see w here it left me off. In the summer of 1995, I finished the book and started to edit. Re-reading the manuscript over and over, I realized all the things I had picked up over a decade of playing Devil’s advocate and it was inspiring because it clearly defined who my enemies are. As an American, I feel it impossible not to be infuriated by the way things are and have been. I refuse to be happy about the day-to-day and go along with it. There’s too much spitting in my face and too much spitting in the faces of people who don’t know any other way of life. This book is brutal, and at times, funny. I know that I will probably get a ton of shit for Eye Scream. Enjoy, or better yet… don’t. — Henry Rollins

But that is one of the interesting things about Eye Scream. Rollins’ blurb seems at odds with the book. The style of his explanation is focused, while the book is all over the place. In his spoken word stints, Rollins has a talent for being poignant, but funny and edgy at the same time. In Scream, on the other hand, Rollins is ranting and rambling, shocking but without context. And worse of all, it is repetitive. Or so I thought.

The amazing thing about Eye Scream is how my opinion changed while reading it. At first, I felt it was shocking just to be shocking. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason and certainly no structure. After about sixty pages, I went online to see if the story was going to get anywhere. That’s how desperate its insanity had made me; how much I felt like I was falling down a pointless rabbit hole.

Fortunately, except for Rollins’ review (which certainly helped), I didn’t find anything else online because after plugging away at Eye Scream, I began to realize a few things. The repetitiveness of the rants, which seemed to be the book’s major fault when I started reading it, is actually the most powerful aspect of the work.
 

I believe repetition can sometimes breed complacency, or numbness when it comes to repetitive accounts of shocking stories. This then makes you wonder how such shocking things can have no effect on you. Think about how much thought or emotion you devoted to the earthquake in Haiti compared to the earthquake in South America (donate here).

But the repetitive articles in Eye Scream, which make you feel almost nothing, stand in stark contrast to the ones that are really powerful. You wind up plodding through the mud when BAM! you’re hit by an article that fires on levels. And I mean that. There are some very amazing, concise, and revelatory parts of Eye Scream.

The only bad part about the book is that most of the rants are so raw that they verge on being simplistic, which in my experience is not typical of Henry Rollins. And yet while the insight that is encouraged here is raw and emotional, rather than intellectual and calculated, it causes the after shock to be profoundly self-reflective, as if the extrovert of the narrator brings out the introvert of the reader.

The shocking nature of some of the rants makes reading Eye Scream akin to watching Requiem for a Dream. In a way, I’m glad I experienced it, but I would not want to experience it again. In Eye Scream, Henry Rollins yet again caused me to think, only this time it was in a totally different way. Instead of mixing facts with his own opinions to lead me to a conclusion, as is common in his spoken words, his book made me open my own eyes.

Up next: Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. Check it here.

This article first appeared on Better Than Sliced Bread.