Pym, Mat Johnson

Mat Johnson in his own little sub-genre with Victor LaVelle: just suspend your disbelief and hang on. Pym is a sharp and funny book, the characters and dialogue are great, but I’m pretty bogged down in the Thomas Kinkaide part. I feel like it stretches credibility even a little further than the bounds I had given it...for the purpose of making clever points. Which is a buzzkill.
Pym is hibernating on my Kindle right now, but I'll probably finish the book soon.

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, David Lipsky

A pretty quick read, though not a page-turner. Interesting conversations about writing, fame, Infinite Jest, entertainment, etc. Uninteresting conversations about movies, authors comparing themselves to other authors, etc. Pinpointed for me a kind of fiction I do not like: fiction purposely incorporating theoretical or self-referential postmoderny things into the "real world" of the novel, at the expense of elements like character or plot that make a body enjoy reading. (e.g. Raw Shark Texts, The End of Mr Y, Broom of the System.) These are not my favorites. On the other hand, I do enjoy the challenge and interest of these postmoderny incursions when they do not occur at the expense of my precious woobies of both character and plot (e.g. Pale Fire... surely there are others).

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, David MItchell

Compelling read. Historical novel, in the best sense, plus some kind of supernatural adventure section there in the middle too. Views of a few cultures, understated and fascinating. The characters shine--as I’m always surprised when they do in historical fiction--with insight, intelligence, loves and motives. Some of that wabi-sabi beauty-of-the-ephemeral (autumnal?) Japanese aesthetic infuses the whole book. Entirely satisfying, good on the brain. I understand Cloud Atlas by the same author is really something special; it's been on my to-read list for a while but after reading Thousand Autumns, it has shot to the top!

Stuck on You

Stuck on a book: ugh. Why do some books become such Sisyphean labors? I toil endlessly, apparently making no progress, yet unable to put the book down and call it quits. Why?? Well, between January 1 and now I've become stuck on SEVEN books--let's examine those to see what we can learn.


1. Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O'Connor.

Why I keep trying: Apparently she's important and good. People like her writing; a friend recently saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed "I'd rather be reading Flannery O'Connor." (Anything that inspires a stranger to put a bumper sticker on her car has GOT to be worthwhile... right?)

Sticking point(s): Feeling of obligation, that I Ought To Have Read Flannery O'Connor. Lack of enthusiasm for the much-touted violence and horror in her work. A belief anyway that short stories are like getting kicked in the head.



2. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace

Why I keep reading: The essays are funny and interesting.

Sticking point(s): The author is dead, so I won't get any more essays from him. I don't want to waste them. Plus, though... knowing that the author committed suicide makes the anxiety, isolation, and ferocious intelligence in his work less funny / validating, and more sad / alarming. There are many good and moving essays on this exact subject so that's all I'll say about it.



3. Enslaved by Ducks, Bob Tarte


Why I keep reading: I love it! It's laugh-out-loud funny. Also, I can find out exactly what crazy people are thinking without having to talk to them.

Sticking point(s): A before-bed reread. Progress is slow because I go to sleep after a few pages.








4. Good Dogs Doing Good

Why I keep trying: Essays and true stories about dogs--right up my alley. A friend wrote one of the essays, and I have read it several times, and it is wonderful. I feel that out of loyalty I should read the entire collection.

Sticking point(s): I'm afraid the other essays will read like short stories, and/or that they will be corny. I don't like short stories (see #1).



5. The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace

Why I keep reading: I like David Foster Wallace.

Sticking point(s): I don't really like this book. It's a little ridiculous and uninspiring, as if Pynchon and Updike had a book-baby. I'm embarrassed for it.






6. Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out.

Why I keep reading: The story in here by Nick Hornby is my favorite short story. Ever. I love it. It is my exception to #1.

Sticking point(s): I haven't read any of the other stories; I just keep re-reading my favorite.



7. The Elements of Style (Illustrated), Strunk and White.

Why I keep reading: It's interesting and clears up many matters. It's got pictures.

Sticking point(s): More of a reference book than a page-turner.




CONCLUSIONS: The following book would be tailor-made for me to get stuck on: A sad or alarming book of short stories that I feel obligated to read, which I attempt to read before bed and do not enjoy.

Actually, except for the read-before-bed part, that EXACTLY describes Everything that Rises Must Converge. It will be converging with other books from the area, back where I got it at The Bookstore Where Books Are A Dollar. Hope its next owner has a different Stuckage List than my own.

Cryptonomicon- Neal Stephenson

From The Bookstore Where Books Are a Dollar, Cryptonomicon is probably my life's greatest value for money WIN! At 900+ pages, this book is giant, and every page is either hilarious, or suspenseful, or both. (Oh--or gory. Sometimes gory.) Plus, I don't think I even got full value: I know nothing about WWII, or cryptology, so whatever historical, geographical, mathematical, and political accuracies the author took pains to incorporate were lost on me. It was just good, dammit! Put-down-everything-else-and-read-for-hours good. Hours and hours. The book is so long that it would be frustrating and time-consuming to read it in short little blurps, and I recommend against doing it like that, but luckily the book practically compels you to read it in giant chunks.

The only discordant note to me was due to the Christopher Moore / Carl Hiaasen / sometimes-Tom Robbins problem. This is the problem where you are reading along, and everything is fine and normal; your disbelief is suspended just like you want it to be, and then the novel's first female character comes along. Often she is wearing shorts, which is suspiciously lucky, in that it provides an opportunity to devote some text to her legs. This character does not make sense. She is like no one you have ever met, nor do you believe that she probably exists somewhere else, unmet. She works out to be pretty awesome for our hero, but she also functions as a razor-sharp machete, hacking constantly away at the suspension of your disbelief.

Everything else was good, though. Particularly delicious to me was the twenty-page memo starting on p. 510, to write which Stephenson apparently wondered, "What if this particular character's prose style was basically that of a very reader-friendly David Foster Wallace, without the footnotes? And he was writing a memo about a jungle adventure?" (Or maybe I just have DFW on the brain? Either way it's entirely, entirely enjoyable.)

Consider the Lobster

A before-bed re-read. I like to read things that are engaging but not too exciting before bed, so that I can be sure I will ultimately go to sleep. Essays I have read before fit the bill nicely. (Especially when they're about Kafka, or dictionaries--both very low on the excitement scale but high on engagingness.) Standout track in this collection: The extremely long essay about John McCain's 2000 (not 2008) presidential bid. Wallace does so much in this one essay--it gets better every time I read it.

Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog- Jerome K. Jerome

It may come as a surprise to some readers--it did to me--that people were hilarious in 1889. In pictures they look so serious! At least one guy was making free with the jokes and timeless wit, though: Jerome K. Jerome, the author so nice they named him twice.

This amply-named and humorous fellow has allowed so much time to pass since writing his book that it is now in the public domain. This is good news for cheapskates. It would also be good news for the book's original publisher, who once remarked to a friend, "I pay Jerome so much in royalties I cannot imagine what becomes of all the copies of that book I issue. I often think the public must eat them." Maybe so--the book has been in print continuously for a hundred and twenty years.

I read this book for free on my iPhone--though I now plan to buy a copy--and you can download it to your computer for free at Project Gutenberg. I HIGHLY recommend you do so.