Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I have tried to work in more BIPOC and female authors on this list, but I also have a pretty big backlog of “old white dudes” sitting on bookshelves around my apartment that I need to read to round out the list. To that end I decided to go with a book I have wanted to read for ages: David Abrams’s 2012 Iraq War classic Fobbit.
A tale about the boredom and folly of war, Fobbit follows a rag tag group of Iraq War Army fighters at various stages in their careers. Staff Sergeant Chase Gooding seems to be the main character, the titular “fobbit” who stays at Forward Operating Base Trinity and works in the Public Affairs Office under Lieutenant Colonel Eustace Harkleroad. Death tolls come in every day and it’s up to Gooding and others in his office to write the press releases that will sanitize the fallen and show the war to be going great. But we don’t just hang out in the FOB all novel, we also meet several other characters including Lieutenant Colonel Vic Duret and Sargeant Brock Lumley who are actually out in the streets of Iraq fighting the “enemy,” and we meet Captain Abe Shrinkle who manages to make a mess of every “situation” he finds himself in, first shrinking away from killing a terrorist who had rammed an Abrams tank and then killing a mentally ill Iraqi and then another “Local National” when he tries to torch a Coalition truck without realizing there is a man underneath. Shrinkle then gets relieved of his command by Duret and is forced to work in the fitness center gathering towels. He eventually goes rogue and winds up hanging out in the Australian pool where a very tragic event happens that I won’t give away for those who want to read this fabulous book. Of course Gooding’s PAO department is called in to massage the horror and make it palatable for the media, which in this case is damn near impossible. This book was a great read for many reasons, not least of which is that Abrams absolutely nails the stupidity and yet incredible morale of warfare. Each of these characters is fully realized and that makes their observations of the war that much more realistic. As is probably known, Abrams himself fought in this conflict and so his recollections are spot on and deserve commendation. He also started a blog called The Quivering Pen which unfortunately shut down in 2020 but in which I was fortunate enough to write a blog post about my first time writing a novel. Abrams knows about the banality of warfare and how it grates on those who made the decision to go into the armed forces and it totally shows in this work. Even the title is a play on words, calling upon older writers such as Tolkein as Abrams mentions in the beginning of the book. I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a rollicking tale about the disastrous invasion of Iraq from 2003-2011 (and beyond, as we still have troops there) and looking for characters that illustrate that conflict in the most imaginative and entertaining way possible. Thanks for joining me on this reading adventure.
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Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I have tried to work in more BIPOC and female authors on this list, but I also have a pretty big backlog of “old white dudes” sitting on bookshelves around my apartment that I need to read to round out the list. To that end I decided to go with a novel and an author that I had heard about for years was absolutely phenomenal, Michael Chabon and his 2007 work The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
This was a fantastic read for many reasons, not least of which would be Chabon’s exacting use of language, but also his captivating use of the smallest bit of world building to give us an expansive universe that makes sense. Meyer Landsman is one of the all time great characters I have encountered in the books I have read, and his continual interactions with his ex-wife and cousin made for a most entertaining read. For those who don’t want the novel spoiled too much I won’t give away too many plot details, but it probably does help to mention that this book is set in an alternate timeline from our own in which the persecuted Jews of the Holocaust were re-settled not in Israel in 1948 but in Sitka, Alaska, on a small island near the south of the state. However when we meet the main characters this is threatened with “reversion” as the time limit has expired for the area to become once again part of Alaska. On the face of it this novel reads like a classic detective story, with Meyer being introduced and the discovery of the body happening immediately. Investigating the local chess scene (a board was found near the body with an unfinished game), Meyer determines that this was Mendel Shpilman, a person of much importance within the world of the mafia in Sitka. Meyer conducts his investigation through several hilarious set pieces, including getting into the mother of Shpilman’s car at the funeral and going out to a strange place that is controlled by the Verbovers (the mafia) and getting caught by the local police. Behind this place is a diabolical plot that Meyer discovers a bit too late to prevent, but he does end up solving the murder. As stated this was one of the most unusual and unique novels I have ever encountered, and with each page I was blown away by Chabon’s use of language. He even included a Glossary of terms, both made-up and real, of Yiddish in the back of the book to help readers such as myself. Also included in my edition of the novel was Chabon’s 1997 Harper’s essay “Guidebook to a Land of Ghosts” where some of these ideas were beginning to be fleshed out. If I did have one criticism of the novel, it would be I wish we had more discovery of the other things changed in this world. We get a brief mention that Berlin was destroyed by a nuclear weapon in 1946 and a few other tantalizing details of other nations but we don’t get a full picture of how different this world is from our own. But that’s a minor quibble with what is overall an excellent story and one I would highly recommend to anyone wanting an excellent detective yarn that also dabbles in what-if type scenarios. Thanks for joining me on this reading adventure. Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I have tried to work in more BIPOC and female authors on this list, but I also have a pretty big backlog of “old white dudes” sitting on bookshelves around my apartment that I need to read to round out the list. To that end I decided to go with a book and author I have wanted to read for ages and never got around to: Vladimir Nobokov’s 1957 tale Pnin.
A bizarre college story wrapped around an enigmatic main character, Pnin revolves around the titular hero (first name “Timofey”) as he navigates the collegiate world of Waindell (based on places the real Nabokov taught) and attempts to continue his Russian language studies and teaching. When we first meet Pnin he is on the wrong train to give a lecture. Fortunately he gets that straightened out and we see him giving the lecture to a throng of what he perceives to be dead people from his life. We then see him reconciled with his ex-wife Liza and we learn that she tricked Pnin into coming to America to marry, only to leave him for a psychologist, Dr. Eric Wind. Pnin finds a place to stay with the Clements but is kicked out when their daughter returns. Later Pnin meets Liza’s son for a visit but is flummoxed by his inability to relate to the boy, Victor, with books and a soccer ball. We then see Pnin entertaining people at a lodge by his Russian aptitude and that of his croquet playing, and the novel wraps up with an epic faculty party hosted by our main character. We are finally led to understand how the narrator knows Pnin as the narrator describes his run-ins with Pnin over the years and how the narrator is now the leader of the Russian department at Waindell college and wants Pnin to stay teaching, but sadly our main character has already left the grounds in his car. This was without a doubt one of the weirdest and yet funniest books I have encountered in years, and made more so knowing now that it was based on much of Nabokov’s life as a college professor. The descriptions alone of the various characters are worth the price of admission (which comes in the form of many dense Russian phrases Pnin uses over the course of the book), and the story itself weaves its way from that part of the world to America. The other characters are all unique creations but by far the most work went into Pnin and his wanderings and thoughts. I don’t think I have come across a “college faculty” book that entertained me this much since Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who has yet to read Nabokov as I did, as it is a hilarious take on the collegiate world and the great writer was at the top of his game when he composed this ridiculous tale. Thank you for joining me along on this reading adventure. Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I have tried to work in more BIPOC and female authors on this list, but I also have a pretty big backlog of “old white dudes” sitting on bookshelves around my apartment that I need to read to round out the list. To that end I decided to go with a book I managed to pick up at my former job working at a bookstore that I have always wanted to read: Colum McCann’s 2009 National Book Award winning Let the Great World Spin.
This novel was a great read for many reasons, not least of which would be McCann’s ineffable ability to tell a stunning yarn narrated by so many different people. The story revolves around New York in the 1970’s and an event that really happened: a man named Philippe did spread a wire between the twin towers and tightrope-walked across it in 1974. The entire novel circulates around this event and we are introduced to two of the main characters, Corrigan and Ciaran, in the second chapter. Corrigan is very devoted to the Order, a religious organization that demands his entire life. Ciaran is visiting him from Ireland after having grown up with his brother there. There is a burst of tragedy involving two other main characters and a freeway after Corrigan is driving some prostitutes home from court after being arrested, and we lose one of the main characters just like that. The rest of the novel delves into various themes: personal familial loss during the Vietnam War, artists trying to find inspiration in the dirty seventies New York and instead locating parties and drugs, the life of a prostitute on those same mean streets and how she survives, as well as other themes like graffiti and whether or not it should be considered art. We meet Claire and Solomon, parents of a young boy who goes to Southeast Asia on a mission to count the war dead, and we meet Lara and Blaine, the artists who have swore off the bad life and moved to a remote cabin in upstate New York, and we delve into the life of Adelita, the young nurse who falls into Corrigan’s life and turns it upside down. As stated this was one of the best books I have encountered in a long while, mostly due to the masterful way in which McCann weaves the rich tapestries of each individual live into something that is more than its parts, but also somewhat due to the narrative framing device of the tightrope walker. Most characters have something to gain and to profoundly lose, and are hoping for a better future for their children, but are not always granted it. In a very moving section towards the end we see one of Claire’s friends in loss, Gloria, adopt the very children of the prostitute that died in the before-mentioned car crash, and one of those children gets to narrate her own part of the work in returning to New York to see the dying Claire. It’s an amazing ending to a quite remarkable collection of stories and helps wrap them all up. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a great New York narrative (one before I read it I thought pertained to 9/11 and the WTC, but that horrible event looms silently in the future of most of these tales) from the seventies that also ties together many different characters and settings into one fantastic novel. Thanks for joining me along this reading adventure. |
AuthorJohn Abraham is a published author and freelance journalist who lives in the Twin Cities with his wife Mary and their cat. He is writing a speculative dystopian novel and is seeking representation and a publisher. Archives
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