Look, really I am not a prude. I don't think. But I could not take anymore of Ragtime. Ok, the story wasn't really captivating me although it seemed like historical fiction set in turn of the century NYC would be a no brainer literary lurvefest. I also get worried that I'll confuse the fiction with fact. Not really an issue as it turned out when I read the part where Emma Goldman (love her IRL) gives an astringent rubdown to an infamous chippie (already forgot her name) including her breast and "her mons. 'Yes, even this. You must have the courage to live.'" Uhhhh...what the FUCK? The chippie works herself into a...private happy moment which causes the young man who was stalking her to fall out of the closet he was watching her from while masturbating and, oh, dump his spirit all over her "in a ticker tape parade." How is any of this not seriously creepy? (nevermind the part where the same chippie gives a little girl a bath and dwells a wee too long on the details of her bosom. You know, I don't want to think about little girl's bosoms but thanks E.L. Or the part where the explorer Dad watches two Eskimos have sex on the polar expedition and is way too interested in it. And so on.)
Could not take anymore. My new tactic is you don't like the book? Fuck it. You ain't gots to finish it. White Noise I'm happy to call pseudo-intellectual twaddle but lots of people seem to like Ragtime. Goodreads has it on best books ever lists. Dennis liked it. Shit. I wonder what I'm missing? And does that still mean I'll like The Corrections whenever I finally get my reserve?
Oh well. Too many books to read to sweat shit you aren't digging-or that makes your skin crawl. I picked Neon Angel up from the library yesterday and cannot wait to start it. Hello Daddy, hello Mom I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch Cherry Bomb!
And, I have felt Christopher Hitchens beckoning to me from the shelf (beat that cancer and fucking quit smoking Hitch!) so I just started God Is Not Great. I tend to run out of steam with screed-style books before the end so I'll see how it goes.
In which I engage in shallow discussions about books, movies, science, history and whatever else I'm thinking at that moment. And have beers with Captain Howdy.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
A great line from E. L Doctorow
So I just started reading Ragtime last night and I'm not very far. Dennis assured me that I should read it. I hatched this idea to read some of the books that seemed omnipresent on adult shelves when I was a young'un but for whatever reason never read. I was trying to make a more definitive list the other night but I went blank after Shogun (well, there's also Clan of the Cave Bear and The Thorn Birds but I don't really know if they were true literature or just zeitgeisty literary hiccups.)
Anyways, yes I should make that list. But in the meantime, speaking of precocious young people, here is a great description of Doctorow's young protagonist:
He had reached that age of knowledge and wisdom in a child when it is not expected by the adults around him and consequently goes unrecognized....He felt that the circumstances of his family's life operated against his need to see things and to go places.
I know JUST how you feel kid.
Anyways, yes I should make that list. But in the meantime, speaking of precocious young people, here is a great description of Doctorow's young protagonist:
He had reached that age of knowledge and wisdom in a child when it is not expected by the adults around him and consequently goes unrecognized....He felt that the circumstances of his family's life operated against his need to see things and to go places.
I know JUST how you feel kid.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
First and last lines for The Monkey House
First:
Last:
(on walking through the snow to his Serbian captors)
It was like cutting through the crust of bread so fresh it was still warm from the oven. He told himself there would never be a finer day for such a walk.
Rosso was alive and was ashamed of it.
Last:
(on walking through the snow to his Serbian captors)
It was like cutting through the crust of bread so fresh it was still warm from the oven. He told himself there would never be a finer day for such a walk.
Final thoughts on The Monkey House
Just finished Fullerton's The Monkey House and I'm really torn trying to figure out the rating. I loved the descriptions of war and the unforgettable images of the population of Sarajevo, terminally hungry and exhausted and sudden experts on differentiating small arms fire. The last 30-40 pages when Rosso first discovers Tanja is in the hospital, he makes a dash during the night in a flurry of sniper fire and mortar shells, his conversation with poor decent Serbian Dr. Misic who says she will lose her other leg if she remains in Sarajevo and finally his exchanging himself with the journalist Flett to the Serbs so Tanja, Mahmud and Noor could be flown out of the country. He knows the Serbs will almost definitely kill him just for being a Rosso as his father was a Nazi sympathizer and war criminal (the Serbs were targets of Nazi ethnic cleansing.)
What I didn't like was Fullerton takes too much for granted of his reader. I expected and of course didn't mind researching for this book but I wasn't clear on so many things. I still don't think I understood everything at the end. I realize it's a stupid hangup of mine but I think the author should have mentioned what year this takes place as clearly that is significant. The back of the book says 1996 but the Dayton Agreement was signed in December 1995. As I said before I am assuming this is taking place in late 1995 as it seems the war is over in Croatia. Also, as locations are key to the story I think the book could at minimum really have used a map of Sarajevo, if not the Bosnian coast (since that plays a key in the drug smuggling story.)
Maps and dates just tend to be weird peeves of mine. A more general complaint is the story felt a little too insider. I really had trouble understanding some characters' actions, particularly why was Tanja in that cemetary where she got her leg blown off in the first place? It was fairly nonsensical.
Fullerton apparently has done a lot of war reporting and lived in Peshawar (can you imagine after covering the Bosnian War he consented to live in Pakistan?) He has since written 3 other novels. If I were him, I'd be snuggling up to a fire in jolly old England with some biscuits and a cricket match.
Some words he used at the end that I didn't understand:
Roulement is a term used the the British Army for major combat units deployed on short-term duty (usually less than six months)
When Rosso is talking to the Minister after he has arrested Luka (as per their plan as it turns out), he says to him "Hvala" (thank you) to which the Minister replies "Nema na cemu" (you're welcome.) Fullerton prints the English next to the Bosnian but since that's redundant, I thought it must have meant something else.
I like the touch that Anil drives poor, doomed Rosso to the place where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in June, 1914 for the hostage exchange. Because of the mosques, churches and temples, apparently Sarajevo is referred to as the European Jerusalem. No wonder it has such a sad history.
Finally, I liked Tanja and Rosso's final conversation where she asks him to forgive himself for being his father's son. The end clearly shows that he couldn't.
What I didn't like was Fullerton takes too much for granted of his reader. I expected and of course didn't mind researching for this book but I wasn't clear on so many things. I still don't think I understood everything at the end. I realize it's a stupid hangup of mine but I think the author should have mentioned what year this takes place as clearly that is significant. The back of the book says 1996 but the Dayton Agreement was signed in December 1995. As I said before I am assuming this is taking place in late 1995 as it seems the war is over in Croatia. Also, as locations are key to the story I think the book could at minimum really have used a map of Sarajevo, if not the Bosnian coast (since that plays a key in the drug smuggling story.)
Maps and dates just tend to be weird peeves of mine. A more general complaint is the story felt a little too insider. I really had trouble understanding some characters' actions, particularly why was Tanja in that cemetary where she got her leg blown off in the first place? It was fairly nonsensical.
Fullerton apparently has done a lot of war reporting and lived in Peshawar (can you imagine after covering the Bosnian War he consented to live in Pakistan?) He has since written 3 other novels. If I were him, I'd be snuggling up to a fire in jolly old England with some biscuits and a cricket match.
Some words he used at the end that I didn't understand:
Roulement is a term used the the British Army for major combat units deployed on short-term duty (usually less than six months)
When Rosso is talking to the Minister after he has arrested Luka (as per their plan as it turns out), he says to him "Hvala" (thank you) to which the Minister replies "Nema na cemu" (you're welcome.) Fullerton prints the English next to the Bosnian but since that's redundant, I thought it must have meant something else.
I like the touch that Anil drives poor, doomed Rosso to the place where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in June, 1914 for the hostage exchange. Because of the mosques, churches and temples, apparently Sarajevo is referred to as the European Jerusalem. No wonder it has such a sad history.
Finally, I liked Tanja and Rosso's final conversation where she asks him to forgive himself for being his father's son. The end clearly shows that he couldn't.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Epistemophilia: William Pitt(s)
William Pitt were a father and son team that were big in 18th century Britain politics and both served as Prime Minister. And within two days, I listened to a Matt's History podcast on the father and then saw a Modern Marvels at the gym about his son. So I have one cool anecdote about each. And I'm glad I looked it up because until I did I thought there was just one dude.
Following the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years War according to the Brits), the British government enacted the Stamp Act on the Colonies to pay for it where they were taxed for any paper that changed hands. This rightly pissed them off as there were already other taxes like the Molasses Act and stirred the whole Taxation Without Representation pot that would be a big deal later. In 1766, Pitt the Elder, in the House of Commons at the time, gave a speech in defense of the colonies saying, "I rejoice that America has resisted." He went on to say they were members of the Empire and shouldn't have a special financial burden imposed on them for their defense and they had the same rights as other Englishmen.
Tea originated in China waaay back in a ridiculously high BC year. By the 18th century in England, it was the rage but due to exorbitant taxes it was difficult for most people to get legally. The vast majority of tea in England was drunk illegally. Unfortunately, it had toxic chemicals in it and sometimes even sheep dung (for color.) William Pitt the Younger, then Prime Minister, as one of his first acts in office in 1784 reduced the tax from 119% to 25% with the India Act. It also organized the British East India Company. I'm sure this probably had negative repercussions down the line, like for India. But what I want to point out here is that he appeared to have good intentions and also people in England weren't drinking sheep dung tea anymore.
Following the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years War according to the Brits), the British government enacted the Stamp Act on the Colonies to pay for it where they were taxed for any paper that changed hands. This rightly pissed them off as there were already other taxes like the Molasses Act and stirred the whole Taxation Without Representation pot that would be a big deal later. In 1766, Pitt the Elder, in the House of Commons at the time, gave a speech in defense of the colonies saying, "I rejoice that America has resisted." He went on to say they were members of the Empire and shouldn't have a special financial burden imposed on them for their defense and they had the same rights as other Englishmen.
Tea originated in China waaay back in a ridiculously high BC year. By the 18th century in England, it was the rage but due to exorbitant taxes it was difficult for most people to get legally. The vast majority of tea in England was drunk illegally. Unfortunately, it had toxic chemicals in it and sometimes even sheep dung (for color.) William Pitt the Younger, then Prime Minister, as one of his first acts in office in 1784 reduced the tax from 119% to 25% with the India Act. It also organized the British East India Company. I'm sure this probably had negative repercussions down the line, like for India. But what I want to point out here is that he appeared to have good intentions and also people in England weren't drinking sheep dung tea anymore.
First thoughts on The Monkey House
So I'm a little over halfway through John Fullerton's The Monkey House. The book was a little slow in the beginning although I can't say why. It certainly should have been exciting with Detective Rosso flying from Zagreb into Sarajevo and the plane having to bank sharply to avoid Serb artillery. Maybe I just have so much I want to read I'm distracted.
What I don't like is the book is not precise about the time period. It's just Sarajevo during the war. It appears to be wintertime. It's a pet-peeve that I think was fanned into a fire by Dennis that I have to know when exactly a book is taking place (assuming it's not just a novel that is presumed to be contemporary.)
Fullerton says that Rosso flew in from Zagreb which is the capital of Croatia. He also says Zagreb is safe. So I am guessing this is in 1995 as the Croatian War was from 1991-August 1995. As late as May of 1995, the Serbs were firing rockets into Zagreb. I dunno, this conflict, or really a series of them, is so frakking complicated its reminiscent of the Middle East. All anyone can agree on is that no one particularly likes the Bosnians as they are a Muslim majority and, hence, apostates.
The war spilled over into Bosnia (as Rosso's wife and others predicted it would) soon enough in April 1992 and lasted until December 1995. It and the war in Croatia ended officially with the Dayton Agreement. Hard to imagine this crazy multi-national conflict being resolved in little Dayton, Oh. Poor Bosnia was unprepared for war. In 1991, Croatia and Serbia were attempting to partition it between each other.
Anyways, enough about the history. Clearly I need to read some books about this. I'm ashamed to say I was aware of all of this going on in the early 90's but I didn't pay much attention.
My interest in the book has grown as I've kept reading and slowly fallen into the rhythm of life in Sarajevo. Everyone is slowly starving. Rosso's wife is an alcoholic who sold most of their belongings for booze. The mental hospitals can no longer tackle problems like alkies as they have to keep the schizos and manics from walking into firefights. His goddaughter Tanja is having an affair with the local crime lord, Luka. She is a paramedic and saves a woman who was shot in the street by a sniper when no one else would help. She also resents to woman for getting shot.
What is most interesting is the moral/pragmatic counterweights of Rosso and Luka. Rosso hates that he is involved with Tanja but his interest in Luka for now is his involvement in a particularly nasty murder of a Serbian dentist who was also a police informant (Fullerton is playing that novelistic game of not handing out all the facts that the protagonist knows to sustain the mystery. That normally annoys me as it seems like cheating but he throws in so much other detail that you almost don't notice.) She was beaten and possibly stabbed and then choked to death in her own bathtub where she was left face down in a puddle of bloody shit. Yes, nasty. A nearly blind little girl was in the apartment scavenging, hid and tells Rosso she recognized Luka's voice.
So, he's a bad man. But why is Rosso even still trying to do his job at this point which has that deck chair on the Titanic feel? The government is practically non-existent. There isn't enough food. Rape and murder by the Serbs are commonplace. Plus, as Luka points out, his smuggling of booze and cigarettes which he trades for weapons are what is keeping the Serbs out of the city. The people love Luka. And it makes sense. Who would you side with in such a situation?
Fullerton (he's a British journalist, btw) has some lovely descriptive passages. I always appreciate effortless yet lovely prose. Here he describes the amorphous front:
Trenches and foxholes ran along a line of apple trees, zigzagging across the far side of the orchard. The trees themselves were mostly bare, the branches grey, the trunks slick and black, their roots emerging from the ground that was soft, wet and uneven...Rosso heard sporadic firing; the double crack of a single Kalashnikov, the vicious thump of an RPG, the fast ripple of a light machine-gun in quick short bursts like the sound of tearing cloth, only louder, more abrupt. Brrp. Brrp. .. Torn trees, churned soil, boots sucking in the mud. The drip, drip of snowmelt. Splashes of weak, watery sunshine. So this is the battlefield, Rosso thought. This is what it is like, for us and them.
...The ground was uninviting. It was too wet to hug with any enthusiasm and too flat do to much good if he did; the worst of both worlds. I don't mind getting wet if I'm still alive afterwards. It was bocage country; short murderous rushes, infantry charging in terror against other infantry lying in wait, waiting in terror. ..You could hear a man breathing behind the one just ahead, lying in his scrape, friend or foe, wondering too, index curling around the trigger, waiting for you to cough or sneeze...No front, no rear. Just murder.
How can you not read that and picture everything now? The mundane winter landscape. Barren trees, snowy muddy ground that can suck your boots right off, the drip of melting ice. Interspersed with vivid and varied gunfire and musing about the flat ground that provides no cover from it. I won't be able to decide how much I like the book overall until I finish but this passage? Amazing.
Ok, what the hell is bocage you are asking? Unless you are British because then you probably already know. It is Norman in origin and referred originally to a landscape of mixed woodland and pasture. During WWII, British soldiers referred to the countryside of Normandy this way and the gently rolling hills and hedgerows that made visibility difficult and gaining territory on the Germans notoriously difficult.
What I don't like is the book is not precise about the time period. It's just Sarajevo during the war. It appears to be wintertime. It's a pet-peeve that I think was fanned into a fire by Dennis that I have to know when exactly a book is taking place (assuming it's not just a novel that is presumed to be contemporary.)
Fullerton says that Rosso flew in from Zagreb which is the capital of Croatia. He also says Zagreb is safe. So I am guessing this is in 1995 as the Croatian War was from 1991-August 1995. As late as May of 1995, the Serbs were firing rockets into Zagreb. I dunno, this conflict, or really a series of them, is so frakking complicated its reminiscent of the Middle East. All anyone can agree on is that no one particularly likes the Bosnians as they are a Muslim majority and, hence, apostates.
The war spilled over into Bosnia (as Rosso's wife and others predicted it would) soon enough in April 1992 and lasted until December 1995. It and the war in Croatia ended officially with the Dayton Agreement. Hard to imagine this crazy multi-national conflict being resolved in little Dayton, Oh. Poor Bosnia was unprepared for war. In 1991, Croatia and Serbia were attempting to partition it between each other.
Anyways, enough about the history. Clearly I need to read some books about this. I'm ashamed to say I was aware of all of this going on in the early 90's but I didn't pay much attention.
My interest in the book has grown as I've kept reading and slowly fallen into the rhythm of life in Sarajevo. Everyone is slowly starving. Rosso's wife is an alcoholic who sold most of their belongings for booze. The mental hospitals can no longer tackle problems like alkies as they have to keep the schizos and manics from walking into firefights. His goddaughter Tanja is having an affair with the local crime lord, Luka. She is a paramedic and saves a woman who was shot in the street by a sniper when no one else would help. She also resents to woman for getting shot.
What is most interesting is the moral/pragmatic counterweights of Rosso and Luka. Rosso hates that he is involved with Tanja but his interest in Luka for now is his involvement in a particularly nasty murder of a Serbian dentist who was also a police informant (Fullerton is playing that novelistic game of not handing out all the facts that the protagonist knows to sustain the mystery. That normally annoys me as it seems like cheating but he throws in so much other detail that you almost don't notice.) She was beaten and possibly stabbed and then choked to death in her own bathtub where she was left face down in a puddle of bloody shit. Yes, nasty. A nearly blind little girl was in the apartment scavenging, hid and tells Rosso she recognized Luka's voice.
So, he's a bad man. But why is Rosso even still trying to do his job at this point which has that deck chair on the Titanic feel? The government is practically non-existent. There isn't enough food. Rape and murder by the Serbs are commonplace. Plus, as Luka points out, his smuggling of booze and cigarettes which he trades for weapons are what is keeping the Serbs out of the city. The people love Luka. And it makes sense. Who would you side with in such a situation?
Fullerton (he's a British journalist, btw) has some lovely descriptive passages. I always appreciate effortless yet lovely prose. Here he describes the amorphous front:
Trenches and foxholes ran along a line of apple trees, zigzagging across the far side of the orchard. The trees themselves were mostly bare, the branches grey, the trunks slick and black, their roots emerging from the ground that was soft, wet and uneven...Rosso heard sporadic firing; the double crack of a single Kalashnikov, the vicious thump of an RPG, the fast ripple of a light machine-gun in quick short bursts like the sound of tearing cloth, only louder, more abrupt. Brrp. Brrp. .. Torn trees, churned soil, boots sucking in the mud. The drip, drip of snowmelt. Splashes of weak, watery sunshine. So this is the battlefield, Rosso thought. This is what it is like, for us and them.
...The ground was uninviting. It was too wet to hug with any enthusiasm and too flat do to much good if he did; the worst of both worlds. I don't mind getting wet if I'm still alive afterwards. It was bocage country; short murderous rushes, infantry charging in terror against other infantry lying in wait, waiting in terror. ..You could hear a man breathing behind the one just ahead, lying in his scrape, friend or foe, wondering too, index curling around the trigger, waiting for you to cough or sneeze...No front, no rear. Just murder.
How can you not read that and picture everything now? The mundane winter landscape. Barren trees, snowy muddy ground that can suck your boots right off, the drip of melting ice. Interspersed with vivid and varied gunfire and musing about the flat ground that provides no cover from it. I won't be able to decide how much I like the book overall until I finish but this passage? Amazing.
Ok, what the hell is bocage you are asking? Unless you are British because then you probably already know. It is Norman in origin and referred originally to a landscape of mixed woodland and pasture. During WWII, British soldiers referred to the countryside of Normandy this way and the gently rolling hills and hedgerows that made visibility difficult and gaining territory on the Germans notoriously difficult.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Great lines
Still slowly reading The Monkey House. Having a week where I come home exhausted every night and fall asleep with a book in my hands like my grandma used to do. At least thus far I do not have removable teeth.
Fullerton starts each chapter with a quote. This one from my favorite playwright Tennessee Williams' "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" was particularly resonant:
'We have to distrust each other. It's our only defense against betrayal."
Some literature just doesn't fully make sense until you reach a certain age.
Fullerton starts each chapter with a quote. This one from my favorite playwright Tennessee Williams' "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" was particularly resonant:
'We have to distrust each other. It's our only defense against betrayal."
Some literature just doesn't fully make sense until you reach a certain age.
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