Just Finished: True Grit

I just finished True Grit by Charles Portis.

No, not that Grit.

I'm supposed to see the Coen Brother's version tonight, if all goes according to plan. I have huge expectations from that film. I liked No Country for Old Men a lot. And some portions of the book by Portis reminded me a lot of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.

As for the book, I can tell you this: Mattie Ross has just as much "true grit" as Rooster Cogburn, and every bit as much of an original voice as Holden Caulfield. I give it the rr seal of approval.

Until next time,
rr

Just Finished: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is the last book I finished in 2010. (Bought it on 12/26, I finished it on 12/31 with just hours left on the clock, no less! I’m not a fast reader, either.)

Like this, but with 100% fewer flying DeLoreans.

Set in an alternate universe where only 93% of the laws of physics have been installed, the story focuses on Charles Yu’s time-machine repairman counterpart, also named Charles Yu.

The first (almost) half of the book is packed with science fictional ideas, and the whole thing is written with a bold, fresh voice. There’s no technobabble doublespeak explanations here; no lame Star Trek knockoffs to be found.

The most interesting sci fi ideas in the book regard how he deals with time travel: namely, through semantics; the engine that powers time travel in Minor Universe 31 is well reasoned and well thought out; it is literally derived by the tense of language, it is not powered by some simple applied phlebotium.

Without being too direct in the area of spoilers, there are various red herrings planted about in that first half; the second half starts with one, and goes off in an entirely different direction, exploring familial themes more common to straight up fiction (or W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe). That isn’t to say I found the back nine to be boring or without merit; on the contrary, to explore these themes within a genre story makes it the more remarkable. The story's resolution is very satisfying. And there is a neat little trick at the end that reminded me greatly of The Man in the High Castle.

Fun ideas, bold new voice. Highly recommended.

From the book:

“There is just enough space inside here for one person to live indefinitely, or at least that’s what the operation manual says. User can survive inside the TM-31 Recreational Time Travel Device, in isolation, for an indefinite period of time.

I am not totally sure what that means. Maybe it doesn’t actually mean anything, which would be fine, which would be okay by me, because that’s what I’ve been doing: living in here, indefinitely.”

Just Finished: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

First off, let me say up front that I understand Huck Finn's importance in the history of literature, and respect it as the achievement it is. Written in 1885, it was a "novel" in the modern (21st Century) sense of the word. It dealt with themes of coming of age, understaning morality, and coming to terms with slavery in America, a mere 20 years after slavery had ended; many, if not most people who read Huck Finn when it first came out had lived through the Civil War, and so the story was relatable on a very human level.

That being said, I didn't really like it. For all of its merits, it is on some level, the story of a redneck boy, an unfair racial stereotype and a couple con men. The con men subplot is resolved off the page, and there are significant portions of the book when I had no idea where Jim had gone. There were other parts that weren't clearly written, and I had no idea what was going on. Other parts tended to drag. The closer I got to the end, the more effort it took to finish it.

In the end, I'm glad I finally read it. If you are in high school now and reading this blog, I urge you to read it now. Get it over with. It's not that great, even though it is a classic.

UPDATE/December 23, 2010, 3:30 pm: I haven't decided what I will be reading next. Probably Iain Banks' Transition, but I haven't made a final decision yet.

Just Finished: The Wordy Shipmates

It took me a little longer than I thought it would, but I just finished The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of 17th Century New England by the always charming Sarah Vowell.

Shipmates is a look into an obscure corner of American History: the era of the first white settlers to what would eventually become Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. I learned a lot by reading it - namely, that Thanksgiving wasn't a yearly ritual, it had to be earned; that Pilgrims and Puritans aren't the same thing; that the Pilgrims wanted to separate from the Church of England, while the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wanted to reform it from within; and that the Puritans gave us the New World traditions of democratic elections and the "acceptibility" of the slaughter of Native Americans.

Vowell uses her trademark blend of insightful historical inquiry and biting social commentary, with a side of pop culture, throughout.
If I had one complaint about this book, it would be the (seeming) repetitiveness of the New England names: Winthrop, Williams, Cotton, Hutchinson. Maybe it was the strong theological subject matter or maybe it was the fact that I felt so removed historically from the people of 17th century New England; either way the result was the same: I felt that Shipmates wasn't her best work. That honor would go to The Partly Cloudy Patriot for its variety and quality of the essays within. I also liked Assasination Vacation better than Shipmates, probably for its macabre sense of history, and the fact that I had visited a lot of the places she described.

Sarah Vowell is an amazing writer. In fact, the strongest conclusion I had after thinking about it for a while was that she would make an amazing history professor: smart, funny, relatable, good with primary source materials. Unfortunately, I'm well past school and she probably makes more money writing history commercially than she ever could at a university.

Either way, I'm glad I read it, and I'm looking forward to reading her new book Unfamiliar Fishes when it comes out next year.

Favorite Quote: "The United States is often called a Puritan nation. Well, here is one way it emphatically is not: Puritan lives were overwelmingly, fanatically literary...the country that became the U.S. bears a closer family resemblance to the devil-may-care merchants of New Amsterdam than it does to Boston's communitarian English majors."

The Empire never ended

I finished VALIS on Wednesday: this book is a masterwork of religion, history and philosophy. I'm not sure I can completely understand it, short of a PhD in those disciplines. Philip K. Dick was either completely brilliant, or thoroughly mad. Possibly both.

I don't think this is for PKD beginners, but once you've read even just a few of his books, it is nothing to be afraid of. (I used to think his novels were impenetrable. They're not. It's just a matter of getting used to his style.) Also, I'm not particularly religious, but PKD's take on how all religions are unified was a fascinating journey to watch unfold.

Interestingly, while the book was featured at least a couple times on the tv show Lost, I think it bears at least a passing resemblance to some of the themes in that other great mid-00's sci fi tv show, Battlestar Galactica; especially Chapter 7. In Chapter 7, the protagonist Horselover Fat discovers that early christians knew how to reconstitute themselves after death, and that it had been going on since before humans came to Earth. It's not a complete 1:1 ratio, but the themes of death, resurrection, and monotheism central to the cylon characters is all there, and it may enhance my understanding of that show as a result.

Also, I'm basically where I want to be on The Stand. After being behind for most of November, it seems like I could be finished with what I want to read in December by the end of the weekend.
Good stuff. Now to finish The Wordy Shipmates...

Just Finished: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

November 17, 2010 - I just finished The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. This was an intriguing, yet somewhat unsatisfying true story of John Gilkey (the man in the title) and Ken Sanders, the former head of security for the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America. Gilkey would obtain books through...unconventional means. Sanders was responsible for putting him in jail. It was a riveting story 75% of the way through. The end of the book lacked the solid resolution I was hoping for. A fascinating look at the seedy underside of the rare book trade.

Favorite Quote: "...Gilkey is typical of many book collectors. It is his crimes and his unwavering, narcissistic justification of them that sets him apart."

I'm not entirely certain what I'm going to read next.