The Confessions Of Max Tivoli

Having long been an enormous Indiana Jones fan, I was surprised that it took me so long to see the new movie. But, I was even more surprised by one of the trailers that preceded it.

The trailer I saw did not give the movie a title, but it is certainly based on the book The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer (which I first wrote about here). I am totally trilled that this book is being made in to a movie (with Brad Pitt!). Greer is an amazing creative genius. If the script is faithful to the book, I am certain the movie will be terrific.

Next up, I will have to read The Story of a Marriage (also by Greer).

A Fictional Companion?

Since I believe that napping should be taken as seriously as an Olympic sport, when I saw The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer on display at Magers & Quinn I immediately picked it up. I mean, Ten Years! Yikes. That would take commitment.

The book isn't about napping (which, arguably, would not make compelling fiction), but I think it might be a fictional companion to The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennets (which I wrote about here and here). Maybe not in terms of a straight line connection, but a circular dotted one (I have not read it yet, so I might be reading too much in to the book jacket).

I ended up buying Wolitzer's book, because it is described as a comedy with excellent timing. Though, I do have a disproportionate affinity for low brow humor (Ant Farm by Simon Rich, for example, that I wrote about here) so I am not sure this is going to work.

Anyway, funny is good. I hope this book is too.

Of Course The Main Character Is 29

I have always thought that being 29 made people a little crazy and, even, a little bit distasteful. The nicest 28 year old and the coolest 30 year old was probably a pain in the butt at 29.

Anyway, I heard about The Book of Dahlia by Elisa Albert on NPR this morning. I am interested because it is supposed to be funny (not as funny as Ant Farm by Simon Rich that I wrote about here), but I am not really buying what the write up is selling.

I would normally avoid any and all entertainment that involves someone suffering from cancer, but could be persuaded if it was done in such a way that was funny (which is, apparently, what this book does).

But, I just don't believe it can be truly funny and not annoying (mostly because the main character is 29).

What Do The Cigarette Girl, Shopgirl And A Random Diary From Ebay Have In Common?

Despite a variety of good reviews, I avoided Shopgirl by Steve Martin for a long time. I avoided it not because I thought Steve Martin couldn’t write a novella, but because it seemed a little unfair that he was a great comedian and a great serious writer.

But, eventually, I picked it up and it is a terrific read (short, to the point and observational). What I liked best about it was the way that Los Angeles is evoked. In that sense, it was super similar to The Cigarette Girl by Carol Wolper, which was also excellent.

What about the diary? Well, on eBay there is a brisk trade in other people’s diaries (true story) and I bought one once. It was written by a woman living in LA in the 30s and I have to say that the LA she describes produces some of the same images (albeit 30s style) as both Martin and Wolper.

What Would Machiavelli Do?

Stanley Bing is the second reason that I buy Fortune magazine at the airport (the first depends on what is on the cover). Bing writes a column on the last page and (even if the entire magazine sucks that month) his column makes it worth the price of a latte that you have to pay for it.

What Would Machiavelli Do? by Stanley Bing, like the column, is super funny (100 Bullshit Jobs and How to Get Them is also funny). And, while Bing makes it clear (even insists) that you shouldn’t have to bother with reading the actual Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, I started to give it a try (owned it for years).

Before I even got to the text itself, I took a detour. In the foreword to the version published by “Everyman’s Library” the author writes:

The aim is to extract from observed events those recurrent features that provide a basis for practical action. If, as Machiavelli claims, politics can be a science comparable to medicine, then history is its pathology. The decline and fall of the Roman state has always had an obsessive interest for commentators; it could be called the shaping myth of western political thought. (xiii)

Of course, after reading that, I got distracted by Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy. The Prince will wait, I think, a few more years (back to the shelf with Sun Tzu and The Art of War).

This Just In From Oprah

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the newest Oprah’s Book Club selection. Set in the Caribbean coast of South America, spanning multiple years, filled with a type of romance and beautifully written. And, yet, I have never been able to finish it. Ever.

I really want to read this book and, I swear, one day I will persevere, but I never make it past page 20 or so. I have started it so many times that I have basically memorized the opening sentence (which, I think, is one of the best lines ever written):

“It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.” (3)

It is the same story with 100 Years of Solitude by the same author (Oprah’s 2004 selection). But, worse, in the case of 100 Years of Solitude I have started it twice as many times!

The First Draft Of The Reincarnationist

The honest truth is that, while I appreciate literature, my literary standards are not that high when it comes to an interesting plot or theme. And, as far as great plot devises go, it is hard to get better than reincarnation (deals with identity and spirituality with a bit of inherent time travel – hard to get better than that).

The Reincarnationist by MJ Rose (which I was fully expecting to be a great read) might possibly be the worst book that I have ever read. Truly. The plot devise is good, but the characters are flat and make no sense, the storyline is interesting, but doesn’t hang together and the book should be edited in a big way. It really should be about half as long as it is.

At best, The Reincarnationist is a first draft!

“Sex In The City” Saudi Arabian Style

I first became alerted to the book The Girls of Riyadh written by Rajaa Alsanea in a review written up in the Economist. Suitably intrigued I bought and read it.

The cross-cultural communications researcher in me loved it and so did the social media consultant.

I think this book is a “must read” for all Western women, but especially those women who get pissed off every time they see someone covering their hair. Even though the book’s story is frivolous in many ways, it gives the reader clear insight into a world that is completely misunderstood.

The narrative is delivered via the context of social media (arguably, old social media – a Yahoo group – but, still social media). It is an interesting construct (like The Last Messages which is told completely through text messages). Over time it will be interesting to see what fiction includes narrative or other elements that revolve around social media trends and technology.

Anyway, this book is well worth the price of purchase

The Uncertain Hour

The Hours by Michael Cunningham and Being Dead by Jim Crace are two of my all time favorite books. When I saw that both Cunningham and Crace endorsed a new book, I bought it immediately.

The Uncertain Hour by Jesse Browner is a masterpiece and it is impossible to put down. Based on the basic description (a “vivid portrait of life in Rome” and “a gripping entrée into the mind of a great man during his final hours”), I thought there might be parts of it that would be like Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (not in terms of the narrative, but in the sense that the main character in both books are confronting their own death).

It is not. In general, I liked Never Let Me Go (I wrote about it here), but the narrator in The Uncertain Hour is far more philosophical and his anguish more palpable and so the book forces the reader more fully into the story.

I generally require narrative first and writing second (I learned that from Only Revolutions which I wrote about here), but in this book the reader gets both. Plus, it is filled with numerous excellent quotes so these are just a few of my favorites.

On living and death:

We owe so little time to life, and all eternity to death, so let’s pay off our small debts first, Petronius. (32)

On reputation:

A man’s reputation is a delicate vase, vulnerable in equal measure to the malice of enemies, the prurience of strangers, and the clumsiness of friends. (44)

On civilization:

“When it comes down to it, he thought, isn’t all civilization just an exercise in measuring time, in pacing off the foundations on which to build a model of the universe of oneself?” (138)

On love and empire:

“I believe in love just as I believe in empire. They’re both transactions between partners of unequal strength, dressed up in heroic rhetoric.” (170)

It is not often that I read a book and have no complaints, but, in this case, I am unable to think of even one.

Time Travel In The Biblical Sense

The Didymus Contingency: A Time Travel Thriller by Jeremy Robinson has a reasonably good set-up.

Basically, a couple of scientists working for a gigantic corporation invent time travel, decide to go back to witness the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (of course one of them speaks Aramaic) and get caught up in events while a bounty hunter from the big corporation tries to assassinate them to protect the time line (plus throw in some interesting twists from a pack of demons called Legion).

Anyway, pretty good set-up, right? Yeah, but it does not deliver. As time travel stories go, this one has a lot of dramatic potential none of which is realized. Suzanne Frank’s series of “time travelers adventuring through the Bible stories” (Reflections in the Nile, Shadows on the Aegean, Sunrise on the Mediterranean and Twilight in Babylon) is much better (though, I have not read the last book in the series).

Plus, one of the scientists in Robinson’s book makes an argument (for why the scientists should not save Jesus from his historical fate) that is so annoying and so absurd that I cannot bear to re-type it in this post.

Brett Ashley

Brett Ashley from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is one of the coolest characters ever created.

Her first appearance in the book is pretty engaging.

A crowd of young men, some in jerseys and some in their shirt-sleeves, got out. I could see their hands and newly washed, wavy hair in the light from the door. The policeman standing by the door looked at me and smiled. They came in. As they went in, under the light I saw white hands, wavy hair, white faces, grimacing, gesturing, talking. With them was Brett. She looked very lovely and she was very much with them. (28)

I think that might be my favorite entrance in all fiction, but maybe I am forgetting something.

Cats Would Do Great

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (which I wrote about here) is a lot of things, but one part of the book details the slow elimination of human beings on Earth. While I was reading the book, I kept thinking: “would infrastructure really collapse that fast without people maintaining it” (about 6 months or less for some major pieces).

After learning about The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (a review is on the Washington Post site and he appeared on the Diane Rehm Show), I suppose I am convinced some things would disappear much faster.

Weisman’s book details what would happen to our planet without any people on it and it isn’t good for the Internet. For sure it is something that Web developers have known for a long time. Web sites not only don’t build themselves they also don’t keep themselves running!

From what I understand, cats and bronze statues come out great (dogs and cockroaches not so much). I have to read this book!

Someone Make A Movie Based On This Book

Because they are so awful, some books should never become movies (The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld). Some books are great books, but are hosed up in the movie-making process (The Descent by Jeff Long). Then, there is that certain book that has “movie” written on every page (Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell).

Now, I fundamentally believe (as I said here) that graphic novels make the best movies, but I will have to make an exception. Company by Max Barry is a book just begging for a movie deal. Think Office Space meets The Firm. It would be hilarious, yet exiting and tempered with just the right amount of “romance”.

Ant Farm Claims Revisited

As it turns out (that phrase intended to reference part of The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams), some people (i.e. Carter) have told me that the quote I selected here (to demonstrate my thoughts on Ant Farm by Simon Rich) is not that funny.

As a second try, I am including a link to Simon Rich’s mySpace page where he has published two outtakes from Ant Farm. I think that “I still remember the day I got my first calculator” is hysterical.

Since I was curious about what others thought and wanting to try the new Facebook poll, I posted a question yesterday. Seems only 3% agree that Ant Farm is the funniest book ever, but 20% responded that it is “quite possibly” the funniest book ever.

It is still a minority so I continue my search.

The Funniest Book Ever

A collection of vignettes called Ant Farm by Simon Rich is the funniest book ever. I know that is a big statement, but it is true.

You must arrange to come in to possession of this book, but you can’t read it yourself. You have to find someone to read it to you (and then switch off in all fairness), because it is not readable through the tears of hilarity.

I simply could not read this book to myself. It is that funny.

I chose this quote because it not only illustrates my point, but uses similar imagery.

Where are all the time travelers? They’re on Wall Street, smoking Cuban cigars and laughing so hard that tears are streaming down their fat faces. Meanwhile, we’re sitting around like morons, betting our money on random dogs and horses and talking about how smart Stephan Hawking is. (117)

Of course, if my endorsement is not enough, Jon Stewart is quoted as calling it (among other things) "hilarious".

The Last Sentence

I have often thought that the best first sentence in a novel is in The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. (3)

Prior to reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, I thought the best last sentence was in the published version of A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (though, from what I understand, there are lots of unpublished endings, but I will have to look that up later).

After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. (332).

Now I think that sentence is tied for my favorite with the last one from Never Let Me Go (though, arguably, it is exactly the same in feeling and intent, if not the explicit words or preceding story).

I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. (288)

This Book Is As Tight As A Pilates Instructor

Some books don’t wrap it up well (The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve, Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean, A Certain Age by Tama Janowitz and many, many others) and they leave the divination to the book club.

The workplace novel Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris is the only book that I have ever read where the narrative is constructed so that one of the characters explains what the book is about to the reader (at the end of the book). The construct sort of works (and it is a surprise). Ultimately, it makes the book tight without a single loose end.

On the back cover it is called the “the Catch-22 of the business world”. I don’t think that is accurate. The book is mostly funny’ish, but mostly it is serious and only a little outlandish (but, here is the thing, not outlandish enough to be funny in a Joseph Heller sort of way).

I really did want to read a book about the workplace that would make me laugh so next up is Company by Max Berry.

Now, even though Ferris didn’t nail the humor throughout, one brilliant part of the book is that it is predominantly narrated by a collective “we” and that is cool and often funny.

Literally, almost all of the book is written in this voice:

Half the time we couldn’t remember three hours ago. Our memory in that place was not unlike that of goldfish. Goldfish who took a trip every night in a small clear bag of water and then returned in the morning to their bowl. What we recalled was that Karen didn’t let up on the story, day after day for an entire week, and when that week was over, we all had a better idea of Joe than we had gotten in his first three or four months. (63)

I like the collective “we” and was annoyed when he reverted perspective to the individual point of view. While I was reading it, I thought the author could have cut out the entire section titled “The Thing to Do and the Place to Be” (so boring it made my eyes bleed). But, then, at the end of book, one of the characters explains why it has to be there and I have to agree (I just don’t like it).

Wonder Woman!

A new Wonder Woman, written by Jodi Picoult, is coming out. I really enjoy graphic novels and think that they (hands down) make the best movies (300, Sin City, A History of Violence, V for Vendetta etc).

I am certainly excited to read what Picoult produces despite the fact that I have never read any of her books. Nineteen Minutes is her newest book and is in second place on the NY Times hardcover fiction list, but I don’t think I’ll be able to read that any time soon (if ever). In fact, it might be that all of her books are just a little too sad to read (My Sister's Keeper, Mercy and others, but maybe, just maybe, I'll read The Tenth Circle).

Anyway, yeah for Wonder Woman!

A Scientific Romance

When I picked up A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright, I thought I was going to read a steampunk novel. However, what I got included a lot more. In many ways it was like The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (which I wrote about here) meets V for Vendetta (plus more).

There were so many themes and concepts that it seems silly to list them all, but here goes (in varying levels and not in order of importance):

Civilization, Archeology, Pandemic, Imperialism, Globalization, Time Travel, Industrial Revolution, Morality, Mad Cow Disease, Friendship, Steampunk, Human Society, Fossil Fuels, Monarchy, Victorian Undergarments, Neolithic Societies, Vegetarians, Rome, Evolution, Love, Academia, History, Environmentalism, Shakespeare, Computers, Nature, Science, Religion, Cities, Anarchy, Racism, Betrayal, Mortality, Crime, Plumbing, Genocide and Culture

Things not in this book: the Internet, Feminism and Space Aliens

Anyway, much of the action takes place on a walk from London to Scotland and, since that takes quite a long time, a fair amount of narrative takes place in the protagonist’s musings as he walks. The result is a lot of themes and concepts.

Everyman

While I generally enjoyed the book, the problem with Everyman by Philip Roth is that it is a little inaccurately sold. The book is a collection of memories of a single man (supposedly an ordinary man) that starts with his funeral.

The problem is this: the main character isn’t ordinary. His father is a well-off jewelry merchant, his brother is a multi-millionaire, he has a successful advertising career, he manages to sell some of his paintings and in the middle of his life he hooks up with (and eventually marries) a gorgeous Danish model (oh, plus he is supposedly really good looking).

As I wrote, I did like this book, but it does have one thing in common with For One More Day by Mitch Albom. Basically, if you go out of town (and are doing something that you shouldn’t be doing), your Mom dies of a stroke (or something) while you are gone.

Of course, the main theme, the “everyman” theme, is the angst associated with internalizing mortality. Despite being in good shape (doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t gain weight) the main character has his share of health problems.

He is exposed early to death and thinks (right before he has a burst appendix):

Terrifying encounters with the end? I’m thirty-four! Worry about oblivion, he told himself, when you’re seventy-five! The remote future will be time enough to anguish over the ultimate catastrophe! (32)

I think that is pretty good advice (course, poor Mr. Everyman doesn’t actually make it to 75).