Girl Detective

#39 in my 2007 book challenge was Raymond Chandler’s Long Goodbye. I’ve meant to read Chandler for a long time, and it’s the kind of book that slaps me upside the head as I read it for taking my time to get to it.

What is there to say about private detective Philip Marlowe that hasn’t been said before? He’s ethical, lonely, jaded, and yet a romantic. He doggedly pursues a friend’s case even after gangsters and a billionaire warn him to stop. He tries to help a Hemingway-esque writer (whose novels sound more like Michener’s) stay away from the bottle. In each case, he’s a man on a mission, and Chandler’s cutting prose paints him in shades of noir:

I drove back to Hollywood feeling like a short length of chewed string. It was too early to eat and too hot. I turned on the fan in my office. It didn’t make the air any cooler, just a little more lively. Outside on the boulevard the traffic brawled endlessly. Inside my head thought stuck together like flies on flypaper.

The “b” in “brawled” could be a typo; I found a few in my upscale Vintage Crime trade paperback. I find that irritating in a $13.95 edition. Nonetheless, this is a great story and one I’ve taken too long to get to. I look forward to re-watching the Altman film, and reading more of Chandler and Marlowe.

#38 in my 2007 book challenge is Hope Larson’s slim and lovely graphic novel Gray Horses.

Noemie is a French exchange student, on her own for the first time. In Onion City she befriends free-spirited Anna, a baker’s daugher who scultps in bread, and finds herself the target of a mysterious photographer–but it’s not until she falls asleep that things really get weird.

Larson’s art is beautiful and accessible, and the choice of two-tone color emphasizes it well. The story is both realistic and dreamy. All passages in French are translated, so this is a good book for beginning students of French. This book charmingly bucks the YA conventions of geeky boys and group acceptance. It’s evocative in both art and story. There is much for a reader to savor here. Recommended.

#37 in my 2007 book challenge was The Professor’s Daughter, story by Joann Sfar, illustrated by Emmanuel Guibert. It is a translation of a European graphic novel, and is published in the US by First Second. This is a beautiful and funny book, which I found surprisingly delightful after recently reading several disappointing graphic novels.

A mummy and a professor’s daughter forge an unlikely romance. There is murder, mystery, and general mayhem. The watercolor art is lovely; the characters and story are engaging. The slim book itself is a lovely edition with heavy paper and a gatefold cover. Highly recommended.

#36 in my 2007 book challenge was Clubbing, written by Andi Watson with wart by Josh Howard. It’s from the DC Comics Minx line of graphic novels. I’ve really enjoyed some of Andi Watson’s work, like Geisha and Slow News Day. Clubbing was a huge disappointment.

London goth girl Charlotte “Lottie” Brooks is exiled to the country with her grandparents after being caught with a fake ID. There is the standard geeky cute boy that the heroine comes to appreciate over the course of the book. The story, though, takes a bizarre twist once Lottie arrives in the country, and ends up as a supernatural mystery. Had it been well done, I might have appreciated the subversion of expectations. Instead, it read like a Season 7 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Not a good thing.)

While the story might appeal to bubble-headed eleven-year olds, any charm was lost on me. Lottie was as self-absorbed, irritating, and foolish as a girl can get. Not recommended.

#35 in my 2007 book challenge was The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Even if I don’t end up seeing the December film, I like to read books around when the movie comes out because of the increased coverage of the book in the press.

The Golden Compass is a sweeping adventure book, mixing fantasy, science, and religion. All humans have daemons, animal-like creatures that shift shape until their partner hits adolescence. A friend of young orphan Lyra Belacqua’s is kidnapped, and she decides to rescue him. Danger and adventure ensue.

GC has a great pace, and some very big ideas, but the characters don’t achieve three dimensions. Most of the adults are evil, all of the kids are good, and Lyra becomes increasingly unrealistic as a kid over the course of her adventures. She’s far too competent in a crisis, of which there are many. Some of her lack of complexity is explained away as a lack of imagination. This is another example for my catalog of fictional lunkheaded saviors, but it doesn’t make her more believable as a kid. Nonetheless, the story swept me along, the ideas intrigued me, and the story had closure and a compelling cliffhanger for the next book.

I am interested to see what the holistic experience of Pullman’s trilogy will be.

#34 in my 2007 book challenge was Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World, which I’ve written about previously here. The premise is that a woman’s life branches after a major decision, and the chapters alternate between the two lives, rather like the movie Sliding Doors, though that was about chance, and not nearly so literate.

Shriver ruthlessly questions the all-too-common assumption we make when we take a fork in the road and things don’t go as planned. The other fork looks great in retrospect. She carefully crafts her narrative to show that there’s good and bad in all choices. In the end, I thought she favored one choice over the other, but I didn’t think this was a bad thing.

Embarrassingly, this book caused me to develop an accidental crush on Anthony Bourdain, an author and TV food personality I previously didn’t care for. Bourdain’s look so matches the physical description of Ramsey in TPBW, though, that my literary crush on the character of Ramsey (for all his faults) segued into a crush on Bourdain. Oops.

#33 in my 2007 book challenge was After Dark, by Haruki Murakami, the first book I’ve read by this author.

any single human being, no matter what kind of a person he or she may be, is all caught up in the tentacles of this animal like a giant octopus, and is getting sucked into the darkness. You can put any kind of spin on it you like, but you end up with the same unbearable spectacle.

The book is the giant octopus, and the reader is sucked in.

We know. But we are not qualified to become involved., …We look down…from above….Gradually, as point of view, we begin to draw back. We break through the ceiling, moving steadily up and away….The higher we climb, the smaller grows our image….until it is just a single point, and then it is gone. We increase our speed, moving backward through the stratosphere. The earth shrinks until it, too, finally disappears. Our point of view draws back through the vacuum of nothingness. The movement is beyond our control.

Murakami toys with point of view and perspective in brave and exhilarating ways.

No one answers our questions. Our question marks are sucked, unresisting, into the final darkness and uncompromising silence of the night.

The author honors his readers by not explaining every little thing. The images, characters and ideas in this book linger; my brain continues to puzzle over them.

#32 in my 2007 book challenge was Faith Sullivan’s Cape Ann. I’ve taken a few seminars with Sullivan through the Loft. She is both a kind and constructive reader, so I wanted to check out her books. The Cape Ann is narrated by young Lark Ann Erhardt, and set in a depression-era small town in Minnesota. The details are carefully crafted, and the narrative unfolds precisely but not predictably. Lark and her mother are engaging characters, easy to love and empathize with, though there are some heartbreaking things that transpire. Lark’s voice is at times too knowing for a six-year old, but the overall effect is winning.

#31 in my 2007 book challenge was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I wrote about here, here, here, here, and here.

In short, I really enjoyed it. It digressed and dragged in the middle, but I found both the ending and the epilogue satisfying. I also enjoyed reading many of the interviews with J. K. Rowling, to learn the answers to questions I had, and ones that hadn’t occurred to me.

#30 in my 2007 book challenge was Chicken with Plums, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. It details the final days of Nasser Ali, a famous instrumentalist in 1985 Iran. After his beloved tar (a type of lute) is broken, he takes to bed and resolves to die. Each chapter is a day in his march toward death.

I loved Satrapi’s three previous novels, Persepolis (soon to be released as an animated film), Persepolis II, and Embroideries. Chicken with Plums shares many strengths with these works. It includes history of Persia and Iran, meditation on religion, a simplistic art style, and creative use of panels and pages to graphically narrate the story. I found this book much less engaging, though. Nasser Ali is a complex character, at turns deserving of pity and scorn. His wife is similarly pitiable and unlikeable. I didn’t sympathize with either, though. Satrapi’s previous novels were about the lives of girls and women. She made a departure in this to write about the life of one of her male relatives. While an interesting personal project, I didn’t find it as universal as the other books. Recommended, with reservations.

#29 in my 2007 book challenge was the graphic novel My Dead Girlfriend, Volume 1 by Eric Wight. Wight was the ghost artist for Seth Cohen’s character on The O.C.

(I’m having trouble making that last sentence make sense. Adam Brody played Seth Cohen on the show. His character drew comic characters, including Little Miss Vixen. So Wight was the real-life artist who drew the comics for Brody’s fictional character Seth. Got that? Yeah.)

Finney Bleak lives in a goth world. His family is cursed to have interesting deaths. When he falls in love and the girl later stands him up, he seems like a typical geeky high-school boy. As the title suggests, though, there are some interesting surprises for him.

The book is published by Tokyopop, though it feels in story and art more manga-influenced than manga, though I know that’s a debate that can rage forever. I also saw a lot of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury in the expressions around the characters’ eyes.

Wight’s art style is distinctive and likeable. I found it much more engaging than the story, which was merely good, though it is an interesting riff on teen alienation. Funny and slightly bittersweet, the book will appeal to fans of both young-adult novels, dark fantasy, goth and manga.

For a lighter, younger walk on the goth side, check out Andi Watson’s latest effort, Glister, from Image Comics. Glister Butterworth is a sassy girl, around whom strange things happen. In issue one, she’s called on to type up the unfinished novel of a ghost. Along the way, she uncovers the truth about a curious teapot. Glister is all ages, fun, and funny. My 4yo son Drake loves both the book as an object, and for paging through to look at the art.

I recommend both My Dead Girlfriend and Glister.

#28 in my 2007 book challenge was And Then One Day, the collected autobiographical comic strips by Ryan Claytor. Truthfully, I bought this because he was on tour at my comic store for a signing; no one was there; he seemed nice; the art looked good; and I felt sorry for him.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book. Claytor’s book has an “aw-shucks” nice-guy normalcy that stands out among the often aggressively dark, and alienated indie-comic crowd. He does a strip a day, much like James Kochalka’s Sketchbook Diaries. He lacks Kochalka’s sometimes off-putting weirdness, though he’s not quite as kookily charming, either. Claytor’s art style is strongly drawn, distinctive, and accessible. I think it will appeal to those who like Alex Robinson, as well as daily comic-strip fans.

At $10, I thought the small book was expensive, but the colored, textured gatefold cover and the upscale offset printing of the heavy, cream-colored inner pages make for a high-quality, attractive, easy-to-read book. Recommended.

#27 in my 2007 book challenge was Michael Chabon’s novella The Final Solution. The title is a play on Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Final Problem“, and the Nazi’ euphemistic response to what they called “the problem of the Jews.”

An old man becomes involved in a case of a murdered man and a missing parrot. He is a former detective, now retired, and he keeps bees. By these details, and others, the reader infers this is Sherlock Holmes, who somehow survived the Reichenbach Falls incident of “The Final Problem.” The parrot belonged to a mute, Jewish boy who had escaped from Germany. It recited strings of German numbers, and thus was valuable to various villains depending on what they thought the numbers meant. There are hints throughout, but their meaning is confirmed very near the end in a risky chapter told from the point of view of the parrot. The old man never solves the meaning of the numbers, but he does solve the mystery of the parrot’s disappearance, as well as the murder.

Both in story and writing style, I found this a tense, clever homage to the Holmes stories, and appreciated how Chabon gave it a dark, Holocaust influence that has become a hallmark of his last few novels. Recommended.

Added later, from G. Grod, who is more familiar with the Holmes story than me:

“The Adventure of the Final Problem” is the story with Holmes and Moriarty and the Reichenbach falls. But most of the stories come after that. Doyle tried to quit Holmes, but had to bring him back by popular demand - the story of his return is in “The Adventure of the Empty House”. It’s where he explains that he had to go into hiding to operate secretly against the crime networks still extant after the death of Moriarty.

In your review of Chabon, you make it seem like Chabon brought Holmes back, when in fact Doyle did it. Holmes never actually dies in the stories. In “His Last Bow” he is preparing for WWI. Stories published later occur chronologically earlier within the canon.

#26 in my 2007 book challenge was the first graphic novel is The Plain Janes, from DC Comics new imprint Minx. I liked Plain Janes, as I liked Breaking Up and the Hopeless Savages books. But they’re awfully similar to one another, and to the plot of Mean Girls. They all are told from the viewpoint of a cute but not beautiful artistic girl. She develops a crush on a cute, geeky guy, and in the end mean people get their comeuppance. It’s an enjoyable formula, made more interesting by individual art styles, but it _is_ a formula.

Jane moves to the ‘burbs after getting injured in a 9/11-esque attack. She has to make new friends and negotiate a new school. To rebel, she creates a guerilla public-art group. While I’m fine with people speaking out against strip malls and for more art, I disagree with bubbles in a fountain. Art? Maybe. Environmentally damaging? Yes–most soaps are corrosive. Expensive vandalism? Also, yes (see what happened in Philly last year).

This was a decent story with good art. Recommended, with reservations.

whatever else she was going to say was interrupted because she accidentally stuck a nappy pin into one of Clifford’s rare moments of peace and he went very red and started to scream and scream until poor Nell shook him before bursting into tears herself and exclaiming to Frank, ‘I didn’t know it was going to be like this.’

Behind the Scenes at the Museum has been sitting out for months now on my Book Stack of Reproach, as I’ve wanted to quote and quote again from it. I was shocked at the recognition of feeling when I read the above passage. I’ve felt that way so many times. It’s ugly, but it’s also sometimes true.

A French author, Corinne Maier, is getting a lot of press for having the audacity to write a book called No Kid: Forty Reasons Not to Have a Child, and to say that she sometimes regrets having kids. (Links via Bookslut Blog.) I try to write parenting anecdotes I don’t think my kids will mind reading in ten years, but I’m tempted to be honest here in a way that could easily be misunderstood.

Like Maier, I sometimes feel regret about having kids, rather in the manner of “Calgon, take me away!” While it feels perilous to admit this, I don’t think it’s either/or. It happens about once a morning when I am not able to meet some basic need of my own, like having breakfast or getting dressed, and the boys are screaming and fighting. The moment and the feeling both pass, and develop context.

Lately, I’m trying something new. Since these incidents occur almost every morning, I flirted with the idea of embracing the chaos. That was too much to contemplate. Instead, I’m trying not to mind the scream fests, meaning let them bother me, or attend to them (unless I suspect grievous bodily harm, which does often occur.) This new “trying not to mind” strategy is working pretty well. I find myself appreciating parenting more often, and wishing it away less often.

(thanks to Pages Turned)

What are you reading right now? About to start Phillip Pullman’s Golden Compass

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that? The Long Goodbye

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now? Entertainment Weekly and The Atlantic

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read? Paper by a racist student in a writing class I taught.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone? Lately? Eat, Pray, Love.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they? They know my kids by first name, since they often hear me calling after them. They know my last name, since that’s what my holds are under.

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all? Gilead. Neither of my book groups liked it.

Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer? While you’re having sex? While you’re driving? While I’m eating, if I’m eating alone, which is rare.

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits? Yes, I sat against a wall at recess with my book, and always finished my schoolwork quickly so I could pull out my book.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down? HP and the Deathly Hallows. For me, half the night was after 11pm.

The copy of Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World that I’m reading is an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) I picked up for $2.98 at my used bookstore. I have a few other ARCs on my shelves, that I’ve either bought used, or was given by kind bookstore friends. But since my to-read pile is usually so large that the book is not only released in HC, but available in TPB or even MMPB by the time I get to reading it, I want to eschew ARCs. They’re full of typos, so they offend my copyeditor sensibilities. They can contain narrative mistakes. They’re usually larger, cheaper quality, and uglier than the for-sale editions. I’m not saying I need to buy any more books. But I can use my library and get an actual copy in about the time it would take me to get around to a distractingly imperfect and homely ARC.

I rarely comment on a book until I’ve finished it; I’m still a little bitter about the ending of Smilla’s Sense of Snow. But I’m very much enjoying Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World. Irina faces down a momentous decision on a friend’s birthday: to begin an affair, or go back to her long-time partner. After that scene, the book is told in alternating “what if” chapters.

One of those many interstitial sequences that didn’t tell well: Lawrence left for work in a jacket that wasn’t waterproof, and I ran after him in the rain with his overcoat and lunch. Little wonder that Irina began dinner with friends like Betsy at a loss for stories. But these moments were the stuff of life and they were the stuff of a good life.

I smiled at the above passage when I read it, because it’s something that the author at Mental Multivitamin often reminds readers: life isn’t the exclamation points, it’s the stuff in between. So cherish it.

I also had a wry smile for this passage, since it encapsulates the defensive-mommy zeigeist:

Tatyana had embraced domesticity with the same extremity as she had ballet. She was eternally quilting, canning, baking, upholstering, and knitting sweaters nobody needed. Her officious conduct of motherhood gave off that whiff of defensive self-righteousness characteristic of contemporary stay-at-home moms. She was stifling, fussy and overprotective, for if children were to redeem her existence, they would redeem it with a vengeance.

What I’m most enjoying about the book is Shriver’s uncanny ability to delve into the muck of secret thoughts and emotions. It feels rather as if she rummaged around in the dark corners of my mind. The alternating chapters could come across as precious, but I don’t find them so. Instead, they display (thus far; I’m about 3/5 the way through) an admirable complexity, with intriguing comparisons and contrasts. When I’m away from the book I am eager to get back to it. I wonder about the characters, and what they’re doing between the covers of my book. In addition to mesmerizing me, the book has also made me very eager to finally read Anna Karenina.

I had questions and quibbles even after reading the previous set of links I posted, but thanks to these exhaustive (and exhausting) HP and the Deathly Hallows links (chock full o’ spoilers), I think I’ve had enough:

transcript of JKR web chat

A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago:

1st thread (120 comments)
2nd thread (49 comments and counting)

Cheryl Klein’s comments on HP7 (copyeditor for the American edition)

Thanks to my friend, Blogenheimer, for a few more informative HP7 links, both of which contain lots of spoilers if you haven’t yet read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Finished ‘Potter’? Rowling tells what happens next

Stop your sobbing! More Potter to come, in which Rowling says she might do a Harry Potter encyclopedia. I think that idea would be a lot of fun if she serialized it somewhere and collected it later. Further, I bet that would make it available sooner.