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Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I am trying to work in more BIPOC and (some contemporary) female authors onto this list. To that end I decided to go with a novel that was a hit when it was released in 2010 and only went on to receive recognition (and a movie) from there, Emma Donoghue’s claustrophobic Room.
Unfortunately this was a rather lackluster read in many respects, but I will get to my criticism towards the end of this brief essay. This novel was a very interesting read in many ways, but as I hope to show, the use of narrative voice just brought the entire work down for me in the end. This novel is about two main characters, “Ma” and “Jack” who as the novel opens are captured by a mysterious figure only known as “Old Nick.” As the novel progresses we realize that “Ma” was kidnapped by “Old Nick” when she was just in college and had been held hostage in a shed behind his house for years. However (spoiler alert) they do hatch a plan to escape that works and the second half of the novel is spent on them attempting to readjust to society after their ordeal. This involves plenty of scenes in hospitals and a decent closure involving Jack living with his grandparents. There is a bit of tragedy that I won’t spoil because it felt a little unearned, but it does add to the tension toward the end of the book. However well written this book was (and Donoghue is no slouch in the prose department, referencing all kinds of works like The Catcher in the Rye among others), the entire novel fell flat for me because of the simple choice of narration. This book could have been so much better, in my honest opinion, if it had been written from the perspective of the mother. Having to see the world (and language) from a five year old kid’s perspective was just flat out annoying at times, and took me out of the intense world the novel paints very well. My edition of the book contained an interview with the author and even there she flat out states that this decision “might turn some readers off” and I would count myself among those people. Also some of the narrative beats felt entirely contrived (the initial kidnapping, the escape) and could have used a little more work between author and editor. So would I recommend this novel to those out there attempting to learn from others’ use of the written word to tell stories? As much as it pains me I don’t really feel I can recommend this book unless the target reader enjoys thriller type stories and can stand to read the voice of a five-year-old protagonist for its entire length. If you can, this book might be for you. If not, I would say skip it and check out some of Donoghue’s other (good) work. I am sorry to produce such a downer of a review this time around but I feel I must be honest with my feelings about this work so that others can know whether or not they want to sit down with it. And of course it is well known that this book also spawned an Oscar-nominated and winning film in 2015, which as par for my Reading List course I avoided. But I would not condemn anyone for checking out the movie first to see if they might have interest in the book. Thanks again for joining me on this reading adventure and a (late) Happy Halloween for those who celebrate!
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Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I am trying to work in more BIPOC and female authors onto this list. To that end I decided to go with one of the best known female-penned pieces of literature on the planet, Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre.
This was a stunning, stellar read for many reasons but not least of which is it’s just a great story. From Jane’s lowly upbringing with the Reeds to Lowood School to Thornfield Hall and beyond, Jane’s journey is nothing short of monumental and very interesting. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away for those that want to read this masterful novel, but suffice it to say Ms. Eyre is single for most of it until she meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester at Thornfield. There he lives with Mrs. Fairfax and the young Adele (Jane’s charge as governess) and some servants. We think he is engaged to another young woman but after some big events in some powerful scenes of dialogue he announces his love for Jane. Here I won’t give away a major plot twist that has been building for many pages, but the wedding does not go as planned and Jane escapes Thornfield in the dead of morning. Then she is lucky enough to be taken in by the residents of Moor House, where she unexpectedly comes into some pounds (another plot twist I won’t ruin). She finds out that Mr. Rochester has been mutilated in a fire due to that other plot beat and returns to him, finally marrying him in the final portion of the novel. This was a landmark book for many extraordinary reasons, not least of which is its perspective allowed for a sort of intense female interiority that just was not available at that time. Bronte also alludes to a number of other works and artists throughout its wonderful sentences, including Paradise Lost, her sister’s Wuthering Heights, Sir Walter Scott, and the Bible. A close read definitely helped here, but also I must admit so did the copious endnotes in my Penguin Classics edition of this beloved book. Also well known by this point is the use of direct address to the “reader” (“Reader, I married him” being the most famous example). I found the examinations of Jane’s motives and expectations to be highlights of the story, and overall found it to be a most excellent read. I would highly recommend this novel for any lovers of literature who have not yet encountered its amazing prose. And I have to say again, this proves that women own the lands of novel writing just as much as men, proved all the way almost two centuries ago by Bronte. Thanks for joining me on this longer reading adventure as several things came into play: I got another new job, which leaves even less time for reading now, and the necessity to read this novel very closely to get at the meaning of each sentence. Thanks again and I’m sorry this one took a few months. I’ll be back soon with another update in the Reading List. Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I am trying to work in more BIPOC and female authors onto this list. To that end I decided to go with one of the most famous works in literature that I had ashamedly never read, Mary Shelley’s 1818 work Frankenstein, also known as the first science fiction novel.
This was a phenomenal read for many reasons, not the least of which are the use of a rip roaring story to get us into the action and horror that awaits. I suppose it’s well known now that this story was the result of a bet that took place in Geneva, Switzerland among several writers and Mary Shelley’s is the one we commonly remember today. Also probably well known is the plot, although if you haven’t read it you may be surprised at some instances. For example, one of the most moving parts of the novel for me is when the “monster” is telling his tale to his creator Victor Frankenstein. I had no idea that it would be so eloquent and understanding, while it is the world that is not compatible with his hideous nature and overbearing stature. And of course, like Heart of Darkness after it, the entire story is told from the perspective of another character, a shipping captain attempting to make it to the North Pole who stumbles upon the near-dead Frankenstein in pursuit of his mad creation. There were all sorts of twists and turns I wasn’t expecting, such as the “monster” requesting his creator to make a female companion that I thought was the stuff of later films and adaptations. But no, Victor almost goes through with it before destroying the second corpse created body to ensure nothing like this can walk the earth ever again (however thus unfortunately sealing his own fate). As stated above, this was a great, rollicking tale as I have discovered many works written in the 19th century to be. Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the major themes, which would be: the destructive power of science if in the wrong hands, as well as the comfort of friends and family on said soul. Victor is constantly worried about the “monster” attacking his friends and family for his refusal to see it as an equal, and in the end after various violent events he is left with almost no one. It is quite a reversal and told with some of the greatest Romantic era flourishes of emotion that could be seen in a novel of this magnitude. And once again this book proves that women own at least as much of the science fiction realm as men, if one really goes back and sees its beginnings. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has just seen film adaptations or other types of works based on this essential novel, as when one gets into the actual meat of the story it is vastly compelling and overly mesmerizing. I would hold this one up there with Dracula (another favorite of mine) as to the creation of the modern SciFi / Horror cannon. Thanks as always for joining me on this reading adventure. Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I am trying to work in more BIPOC and female authors onto this list. To that end I decided to go with a contemporary female author and one who is pretty well known by now: Marilynne Robinson and her 2004 Pulitzer winner Gilead.
This book was an outstanding read for many reasons (and was a delectable palate cleanser from The Bourne Identity), not least of which would be Robinson’s incredible and deft use of language and imagery to tell a quiet story about generations of a family. On the face of it this novel is epistolary, or told in the form of a long letter from a father to a son. The father John Ames has been a preacher in the town of Gilead for many years; however his own father decamped for warmer climates. John’s grandfather was an activist during the Civil War and moved out to Kansas to fight for abolition. He eventually came back after the war but left for Kansas again at the end of his life, leading to a moving passage in which John and his own father travel there to find his gravesite. I enjoyed this part of the novel especially. Later we see more scenes contemporary to the book’s time period (1956) and we learn about John’s friendship with a man and preacher named Boughton. Here John's faith is tested when Boughton's son returns to Gilead, and we learn the long backstory in which Boughton’s son (also named John, or Jack in the novel) has fathered a child out of wedlock early in his life and since abandoned it. We later learn the child dies. Some of the most riveting parts of the novel are the preacher John’s wrestling in his own faith and anger over this. He then learns that young Jack has a new family of his own in Tennessee and decides to give him his blessing as Jack decides to head back out to be with them. As stated, this was a remarkable book for many reasons and I can definitely see why it won one of the most prestigious awards in the world of letters. The imagery is quite compelling and astounding, whether that’s of a memory of a boy taking a charred biscuit from his father during a church demolition or a small town in Iowa and its trees and flowers. And I feel I must touch on this: while I consider myself a nonbeliever the prose, despite wrapping around Christian and Calvinist doctrine for most of the book, was so well written that I didn’t mind and actually enjoyed it. So there’s that. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone looking for a master class in how to tell a phenomenal story, made even more interesting for me knowing now some of the characters are based on real people. There are no chapter breaks but it is broken down by scene so there are plenty of places to take a break when you need it. 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 read an author I grabbed out of the mystery paperback section of the bookstore I used to work at that I thought (back then) would be a great genre read: Robert Ludlum and his 1980 spy thriller The Bourne Identity.
I won’t delve much into the plot of the novel as many of you have probably seen the 2002 epic film based on this novel. However suffice it to say it does begin with a man dumped overboard from a fishing boat who washes up on an island in the Mediterranean Sea with no memory of who he is or how he got there. The single clue to all of this resides in a strip of film that has been surgically implanted in him and leads to a bank in Zurich, Switzerland. It’s there when he tries to withdraw the money that people start trying to kill him. At this point in the book Bourne runs into the Canadian economist Marie St Jacques, who Bourne takes hostage but eventually treats as an equal in his escape plans (they of course become lovers during the tale). Then clues lead him to divert the money to Paris and to investigate that city as the home base of another killer, “Carlos” whom Bourne discovers is his rival. We also discover throughout the events that Bourne was a trained killer during the Vietnam War and was a man made to disappear. There is more uncovering of plot and motive that leads to a mass killing at the clandestine headquarters that was in control of Bourne up until the events of the novel, and then Bourne travels to New York for a final confrontation with Carlos. While all of that might seem like a thrilling caper and indeed the novel is full of action beats the entire thing fell flat for me as the writing was about as staid as could be in its description. While I wouldn’t say Ludlum’s writing is as bad as say, The Firm, I still found it to be middling and plodding at best even during the most gripping passages. While I was initially excited to pick up this work at the bookstore, that excitement turned to dread as I had to slog through this book’s over five hundred pages to get to the end. While I don't doubt Ludlum did his research and wanted to portray a major mystery taking place over broad swathes of the European continent leading back to the US, the final result is less than stellar and I’d be hard pressed to recommend this novel to anyone other than adventure seekers who are looking for their next whodunnit to solve. Thanks for joining me on this reading adventure these last months as we pored over (most of) the remaining old white dudes on the bookshelves of my apartment. From here on out I plan on getting back into reading more contemporary female and BIPOC authors, especially important given all the machinations happening at the federal level right now. Thanks for your patience as this one took me a while to read, and I’ll be back soon with another exciting update of the Reading List! 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 read an author I have not encountered since I attempted to read his master work over a decade ago, James Joyce and his 1916 first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
A novel about the beauty of the creation of art and the struggle to escape Catholic teachings, this book touches on many themes that would be important to Joyce over his career. This was also a challenging and difficult read, mainly due to Joyce’s dense use of language and thematic elements, including liberal use of the Latin language that Joyce’s protagonist Stephen Dedalus is forced to learn at his Catholic school. In the first chapter we witness Stephen watching his father entertain an argument about Irish politics. Then we see in another early scene that Stephen gets his glasses broken by another student and is walloped for it by a professor. He then goes to the rector of the school to ask if the punishment can be rescinded. The family then moves to Dublin for financial reasons. Later we see Stephen struggle with temptations of the flesh and his wondering if he should confess such sins. Then we get a long chapter of what was familiar to me, a sermon cataloging hell and its discontents that leads Stephen to decide to confess to a priest. But this is the last bit of the church to stick to his soul as he is born to be an artist. When he is at university he has a long conversation with a colleague / friend about beauty and the nature of art (one of the best parts of the book, in my opinion) which helps Stephen lean into the creative life instead of the religious one. We see at the end in diary entries Stephen’s commitment to this life. This was a very interesting book for several reasons, not least of which its themes dramatically spoke to me when it comes to living an artistic life. As someone who has also struggled to leave a church and break out on my own artistically, that theme definitely resonated with me. But this was also an attempt by me to read one of the great masters of the form since abandoning the maddening Ulysses (1922) about a quarter of the way through years ago. Joyce is a master when it comes to the use of language and allusion, and this early story (first published serially by Ezra Pound) really shows it. These are realms he would of course go to extremes within Ulysses, and I hope to someday return to and understand that work. I would recommend A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to anyone who is looking for an interesting take on the artistic life and what it takes to commit to it, but be aware that the language is often times impermeable and the themes tend to override (which is not necessarily a bad thing but one of modernism, the tradition in which Joyce was writing). Thanks as always 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 read an author I have known about for years but never read: Philip Roth and his ridiculous 1969 work Portnoy’s Complaint.
A bizarre, hyper-sexualized tale of trysts and romps all theoretically poured out to a psychiatrist / psychologist in an office, the novel is the tale of one Alexander Portnoy and his weird life of involving himself with women and being obsequious to his Jewish parents. We never technically leave the session as it takes place within the entire book, with only the doctor commenting at the very end of the novel. We come to see how Alexander became the sexual deviant he is in his thirties through extended monologues focused on his childhood living under the thumb of a domineering mother and constipated, insurance-selling father. But the novel jumps around in time a lot more than that and consists of Portnoy’s current lust interest, a woman who is named as Mary Jane but whome Portnoy constantly refers to as “the Monkey.” We also travel with Portnoy to the land of Israel where he is confronted with aspects of his Jewishness that he has never gotten in touch with before the trip. And we see all the times in between where Portnoy wrestles with his budding sexuality and urges as a young child leading up to his first formative relationships, one of which he refuses to continue unless the woman converts to Judaism. This book was an interesting yet off-putting look at what it was like to grow up in a Jewish family during World War II and afterward and how family dynamics played a key role in how the younger Alexander (and his sister, who gets mentioned in the beginning but later gets married off and we don’t see her very much) grows up in New Jersey during these crucial, important years of our nation’s history. We also see the struggles of Portony to unleash his sexual comportments versus his real ambition to do good in the world, from being on a Congressional committee to leading a high up position within the New York City government. But all of this is bogged down by the sexual tension that permeates the novel and while it may read as quiescent today, definitely shocked and appalled readers the world over when it was released at the end of the Sixties. I don’t know that I would recommend this book to everyone as it is full of explicit material and ravages the psyche that is tormented by it. While apparently Roth wanted to use the psychologist’s session as a way to expose life as it really was during the sexual revolution it comes off as just bizarre (not to keep using that adjective) and something that I think a female audience would cringe through reading. I had read for years and years that this was Roth’s master work and while I don’t see that I am still considering reading more of his body of literature as I progress through my own writing career. Roth was indeed a towering force in American letters and influenced a whole generation of Jewish (and non-Jewish) writers to show their lives on the page in this country of ours. 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 revisit an author I haven’t read for seven years, Neil Gaiman and his astonishing 2001 work American Gods.
A novel about gods and their devotees, this was an amazing story that kept me hooked throughout all of its over 500 pages. We first meet one of the two main characters, Shadow, as he is just getting out of prison for the crimes of robbing his former partners and beating them up. Shadow is a big guy, you see, and after he gets out of prison and thinks he is going home he meets the second main character Wednesday, who offers Shadow a job as a driver and bodyguard. While at first Shadow rebuffs him, after he learns the life he led before prison is no longer feasible (his wife and best friend died in a car accident) he takes the job. After a choice encounter with the first god Shadow receives a coin (Shadow’s into coin tricks too) that inadvertently brings his wife back to a sort of life and she ends up following him around the story until the very end. The story becomes a rollicking traveling tale, with Shadow and Wednesday visiting gods in Chicago and Cario, Illinois where Shadow briefly works as an undertaker’s apprentice. Wednesday later has Shadow deposited at the town of Lakeside, Wisconsin where he is supposed to lay low but where he meets some of the more interesting (almost all of them non-god) characters in the novel. Later a major character is killed (I won’t give it away) and that leads to an all consuming confrontation that haunts the rest of the book. Shadow volunteers to be there at the wake for this character which involves lashing himself to an ancient tree for days, where he ultimately dies and comes back to life reborn. Shadow also learns a major revelation while “dead.” And while the rest of the novel ends in what could be considered an anti-climactic way, I really enjoyed it. There are some wrap up (and to my mind, Stephen King-esque) bits in Lakeside to finish up the novel and then Shadow continues on his travels around the world. This book was an incredible read for many reasons, not least of which are Gaiman’s incredible knowledge of mythology and the gods which populate not just the main story but several asides as well. This is also a great “on the road” novel where we see the main characters Shadow and Wednesday (who turns out to be Odin in disguise, not to spoil too much) recruiting the old gods to fight against the new gods (represented by things like the internet and media). There are tons of characters and each one is interesting and memorable. I also happened to read the 2011 published edition of this novel which is considered “the author’s preferred text” and includes an additional twelve thousand words of content as well as some extras. And I was so into this book that I went back to the original inspiration for wanting to read it, an “American Gods novella” that was included in Fragile Things that I re-read to see what Shadow was up to in the years following the events of American Gods. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a masterful, fantastical read full of magic and mystery and good old fashioned traveling around the United States. While in my review of Fragile Things I noted not all of the stories were for me, American Gods definitely was and I would easily recommend it to anyone looking for a great tale full of great characters. Thanks as always for joining along with 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 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. 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. |
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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