finally finished it last week - it's fantastic - as all McSweeney's are. for anyone interested in short fiction - you just have to be reading McSweeney's. and everyone should do themselves a favor and read the Believer too. just fucking do it already. learn something for once already.
McSweeney's #21 - 4 stars
Saturday, March 03, 2007
two more books...
i must be in a reading zone right now.
it may also be called "avoidance" but you know, let's just call it a reading zone.
i finished this week reading An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories editited by Ivan Brunetti. 4 Stars. this was a great collection. i had already read even more of these pieces than in the Best American Comics 2006 collection, and some of my favorites (Jeffrey Brown!) were happily collected here. i can't put my finger exactly on why this collection speaks to me a little more than the Best American collection, maybe because of the way in which it was organized...there was a fluidity to it in Anthology that i didn't feel in Best. Best just seemed to be a collection of great pieces, whereas Anthology feels more like a history of work - which makes sense i suppose since Best of has to be work from 2006 and Anthology can collect anything. i guess it is unfair to punish Best of for having limitations put on it, but i couldn't help enjoying the Anthology a little more. that said, they are both great books and i am happy to have read (and own) them both. again, i felt incredibly inspired to pick Shiksa back up again. however, that too could just be considered avoidance :)
i also read over the last two days Judy Fong Bates Midnight at the Dragon Cafe. it was quite good. i'm going to say 4 stars. i read her short story collection China Dog last year and enjoyed it even more than i had suspected and the same was also true here. she has a very easy way of writing that kind of sends you through the pages without even realizing it. and she also has a very fluid way of sneaking plot twists in on you. i was a third of the way through the book, finding it enjoyable but fairly predictable, when she threw a twist in there that really changed my whole perception of the novel. and not a cheesy out of nowhere twist, it just arrived very naturally, as life does. i really enjoyed it.
it may also be called "avoidance" but you know, let's just call it a reading zone.
i finished this week reading An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories editited by Ivan Brunetti. 4 Stars. this was a great collection. i had already read even more of these pieces than in the Best American Comics 2006 collection, and some of my favorites (Jeffrey Brown!) were happily collected here. i can't put my finger exactly on why this collection speaks to me a little more than the Best American collection, maybe because of the way in which it was organized...there was a fluidity to it in Anthology that i didn't feel in Best. Best just seemed to be a collection of great pieces, whereas Anthology feels more like a history of work - which makes sense i suppose since Best of has to be work from 2006 and Anthology can collect anything. i guess it is unfair to punish Best of for having limitations put on it, but i couldn't help enjoying the Anthology a little more. that said, they are both great books and i am happy to have read (and own) them both. again, i felt incredibly inspired to pick Shiksa back up again. however, that too could just be considered avoidance :)
i also read over the last two days Judy Fong Bates Midnight at the Dragon Cafe. it was quite good. i'm going to say 4 stars. i read her short story collection China Dog last year and enjoyed it even more than i had suspected and the same was also true here. she has a very easy way of writing that kind of sends you through the pages without even realizing it. and she also has a very fluid way of sneaking plot twists in on you. i was a third of the way through the book, finding it enjoyable but fairly predictable, when she threw a twist in there that really changed my whole perception of the novel. and not a cheesy out of nowhere twist, it just arrived very naturally, as life does. i really enjoyed it.
the road. jesus man, the fucking road.
so here's a story about me trying to go to sleep around 11:30 on monday evening and picking up my new copy of The Road by Cormac McCarthy and reading a few pages, cut to 2:30 am and me finishing The Road with a 'holy shit what a ride' look on my face. and then cut to me watching cartoons for half an hour to get the imagery and intense horror out of my head so that i had a better shot at non-apocalyptic dream (which i am prone to - both to dreaming in general and ofen enough the apocalyptic kind - even without a brilliant book forcing me into it). suffice to say the cartoons only partially worked and i ended up having an apocalyptic horror meets superhero dream. not a great combo.
so 4.5 stars.
this book is incredibly well written, and perhaps more importantly it is just brilliantly executed. no chapter breaks at first may make you think, "that's strange" but after reading a few pages you realize how innane chapters in this book would be (maybe all books? - whoa i just blew my own mind a little bit there). anyway, the only reason this book does not get a perfect score is because i didn't really enjoy the prose that made up "the man's" dreams/hallucinations. my boyfriend (who read it first and also loved it) thought these beautiful passages offered a great comparison to the horror of the dystopian life these characters were living...and he has a great point...but overall i didn't find the actual prose that moving, and i was so intensely invested in what was actually happening to these characters that i became annoyed by these forays into fantasy and often found myself skipping ahead to see if they were going to be able to avoid whatever next horror awaited them. oy. what a book. it's been a very long time since i curled up with a book good enough to make me not regret only getting a few hours sleep before work.
of course i'm going to have to watch cartoons for two weeks straight to purge these dreams, but its still worth it i think.
so 4.5 stars.
this book is incredibly well written, and perhaps more importantly it is just brilliantly executed. no chapter breaks at first may make you think, "that's strange" but after reading a few pages you realize how innane chapters in this book would be (maybe all books? - whoa i just blew my own mind a little bit there). anyway, the only reason this book does not get a perfect score is because i didn't really enjoy the prose that made up "the man's" dreams/hallucinations. my boyfriend (who read it first and also loved it) thought these beautiful passages offered a great comparison to the horror of the dystopian life these characters were living...and he has a great point...but overall i didn't find the actual prose that moving, and i was so intensely invested in what was actually happening to these characters that i became annoyed by these forays into fantasy and often found myself skipping ahead to see if they were going to be able to avoid whatever next horror awaited them. oy. what a book. it's been a very long time since i curled up with a book good enough to make me not regret only getting a few hours sleep before work.
of course i'm going to have to watch cartoons for two weeks straight to purge these dreams, but its still worth it i think.
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