Finished David Benioff's City of Thieves. Surprisingly good, despite the blurb from O, Oprah's Magazine. I'm not even sure why I was reading it--it was there, I had a gift certificate, and it was about Leningrad, is there anything more to say? But it was a nice surprise. Benioff is not a great writer, but he is a good one--the kind of good writer of good, but not great, books that one needs to read more of if one ever hopes to bridge the gap between the epic, Dostoevskian, tomes one prefers to read and wishes to write (but likely never will) and the more pedestrian kind of novel one probably could write if she ever got around to it and/or stopped worrying about failing at the effort. This no doubt sounds stupid, but I worry sometimes that by refusing to read all but the most amazing of prose I'm creating a false standard for myself...one that almost no one ever reaches. Benioff is the kind of young writer who reminds me that it's okay to fall short of the amazingly profound...that the less than amazingly profound can still be pretty darn good.
As advertised, it is a coming of age story, and it is true to the inner nature of what it means for boys to become men (or whatever it says suchlike on the back cover), provided that what it means is to be incredibly obsessed with the inner workings of cock, balls, and GI track. I'm beginning to think that this is not an inaccurate picture, however, not only for troubled boys at boarding school, but for the majority of the male half of the species, so I will not fault Benioff on this assertion. It is also, as advertised, very funny, if you find funny jokes that center around the inner workings of cock, balls, and, well, you get the picture.
If you've been to Leningrad/St. Petersburg, City of Thieves will appeal all the more. I liked the way I could remember my way around the city as Benioff wrote about it, superimposing my twenty-first century images on his WWII descriptions. And I liked how Lev, the first-person narrator's, naivete was transmitted through the narrative. What's this? A log cabin full of plump girls in the midst of a siege? Hmmm...why ever would the Germans leave them alone in the woods like that? You have to feel bad for a generally likable character whose trains of thought keep derailing in such spectacular fashion. My only wish is that he might refrain from musing at such length about these derailings.
My one real problem with the book, though, is that it wrapped up in such an unsatisfying way, by which I do not mean that I'm upset that someone had to die in the end, because that's pretty much a given. A couple of weeks ago my husband and I were watching A Single Man, and he reminded me of Chekhov's adage, "introduce a gun in the first act..." This is true, but it's not a suggestion to use it in the third then press FF until you reach the end. Which is kind of what I feel Benioff let happen in this book. He uses the proverbial gun in the third act, then reaches what is supposed to be the epitome of the emotional arc in the fourth then immediately launches into hyperdrive for a few pages, reaching THE END as neatly as possible, wrapping up all loose ends and teaching the implied author a few choice things about his grandmother, too. It's all too simple, really. And it's unfortunate that it begins with a chess game, because from the moment chess reappears as a theme in the third act, you know exactly how the rest of the book is going to unfold, as neatly as if the moves were plotted out before you on a chess board.
I don't really fault Benioff any of this, however. It's only his second book. And I'm tempted now to go back and read his first.
For now, though, it's on to the Coetzee. Summertime was waiting in my doorway when I got home tonight, so that's for tomorrow. I will be much more exacting with him.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Summertime...
Despite bringing half a dozen books home with me, I did not read a page in the three days I spent in NH with my family.
Tonight I'll be reading the second novels by Mina and Theorin, but I think that tomorrow I will put them down for a moment and buy myself Coeztee's new "autobiography," Summertime. According to all the reviewers, at least, there are a lot of problems with calling this new book "autobiography" at all, not least of all the fact that several of the narrative's establishing facts are complete fictions. Not that this is the first time that Coetzee has given us this puzzle--the two autobiographical works that proceeded Summertime (Boyhood and Youth) are ostensibly autobiographical, but Coetzee has always contended that they should not be taken literally. However, the broad strokes of the first two books do largely mesh with Coetzee's own life events, and they do feel like autobiography albeit (strangely) in the third-person. In Summertime, though, Coetzee divorces himself a few more degrees from the conventions of autobiography by making up events and contexts and, more so, giving us a narrative that supposedly consists of a piece written by an unrelated biographer after the subject's death. In some ways this is a gutsy move, imagining what posterity will say of you, but in others it is quite cowardly as it spares the author the necessity of providing an honest narrative and gives him an easy excuse for the half-truths and outright fabrications he perpetrates.
So what is Coetzee doing? What is the point of a fictionalized autobiography, especially one several degrees divorced from the subject? I can only begin to answer that by relating Summertime to the things I know about the man himself. I met the real Coetzee in 2002 when I took a graduate seminar team-taught by him. I kept in touch with him over the next several years, and eventually put him on my dissertation committee in 2005. He ultimately served as second reader of the dissertation I completed in 2008. For years I made a point of emailing him in response to everything he published, whether it was a new novel or a piece in the NYRB. You might think that after all this contact I'd actually know the man, but in point of fact, I don't.
He's slippery like that: the better you think you're getting to know him, the more closed off he becomes. Which seems to be exactly what he is doing with this autobiography, turning what is ostensibly the most revealing of genres into perhaps the most concealing. I learned the hard way that Coetzee doesn't want to be a mentor, no matter how gifted or insightful the student. This was not only my own experience with the man but also an experience that I've watched two friends--both brilliant and insightful--undergo. Clearly Coetzee has always been ambivalent about the concept of autobiography--his use of the third person in the first two volumes tells us as much. But at some point something drove him to create autobiography/confession (a la Tolstoy) in the first two volumes. and perhaps this is the natural development of a mind that has grown increasingly fond of playing with narrative conventions. My point though, is that the man does not like to share personal information, thoughts, feelings, etc., and this is clearly the autobiography of one who has such a hang-up. That's one thing I know.
Another thing I know is that Coetzee, in real life and in the fictions in which he has taken on an alter ego, is morally stringent to an extreme degree. He is one of the only people I know who understands the meaning of supererogation. He holds others to immensely high standards and himself, if possible, to higher. When he writes about the ethics of vegetarianism in The Lives of Animals or Elizabeth Costello, it is not an idle point, but rather the plea of one who believes that our understanding of ethics itself should be expanded to include animals, and one who lives by that edict. But it is also the plea of one who (at least within recent memory) limited his contact with animals to the flocks of birds and so on migrating across his property. A (supposed) animal lover, in other words, without a pet. It would in no way surprise me if this man used a fictionalized autobiography to find fault with himself and his character, as he apparently does to a great extent.
Perhaps it is easier to take oneself to task for one's fictional failings than for one's very real ones, although at first glance it appears that the two may be one and the same, as when, for example Coetzee calls his character "autistic." That is an excellent metaphor, in fact; surely he is not cut out to fulfill even the barest social niceties.
So can we fault the real Coetzee for the failings of the fictionalized Coetzee if, in fact, the two possess the same underlying character, even if the life events that befall them are completely disparate? Perhaps we can. I can say without reading it that Summertime is clearly the work of one who is either pathologically modest or pathologically arrogant, perhaps to such an extent that deciding which one does not matter much. If the character of the man described therein is largely the same as the real man, than the fictionalized events become events that might have happened in a reality that might, perhaps should have, been. Perhaps Coetzee is simply too modest to give us anything other than a disparaging picture of himself, or perhaps he is simply too arrogant to give us the real, unvarnished, story. Perhaps he is no longer comfortable thinking of himself as anything but a character in his own fiction; perhaps he is just getting a jump on the inevitable biographers to come. Posterity will have its say, of course, and doubtless Coetzee will have his little laugh about posterity coming to grips with the post-modernity of this text. Those of us who've tried to know the man for real have found that it's best to glean what wisdom he is willing to give and save the puzzling over these mysteries for a kind of after-dinner drinking game that doesn't have a right answer. Maybe that's the best way to approach too--a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a drinking game for over intellectual graduate students and critics.
Tonight I'll be reading the second novels by Mina and Theorin, but I think that tomorrow I will put them down for a moment and buy myself Coeztee's new "autobiography," Summertime. According to all the reviewers, at least, there are a lot of problems with calling this new book "autobiography" at all, not least of all the fact that several of the narrative's establishing facts are complete fictions. Not that this is the first time that Coetzee has given us this puzzle--the two autobiographical works that proceeded Summertime (Boyhood and Youth) are ostensibly autobiographical, but Coetzee has always contended that they should not be taken literally. However, the broad strokes of the first two books do largely mesh with Coetzee's own life events, and they do feel like autobiography albeit (strangely) in the third-person. In Summertime, though, Coetzee divorces himself a few more degrees from the conventions of autobiography by making up events and contexts and, more so, giving us a narrative that supposedly consists of a piece written by an unrelated biographer after the subject's death. In some ways this is a gutsy move, imagining what posterity will say of you, but in others it is quite cowardly as it spares the author the necessity of providing an honest narrative and gives him an easy excuse for the half-truths and outright fabrications he perpetrates.
So what is Coetzee doing? What is the point of a fictionalized autobiography, especially one several degrees divorced from the subject? I can only begin to answer that by relating Summertime to the things I know about the man himself. I met the real Coetzee in 2002 when I took a graduate seminar team-taught by him. I kept in touch with him over the next several years, and eventually put him on my dissertation committee in 2005. He ultimately served as second reader of the dissertation I completed in 2008. For years I made a point of emailing him in response to everything he published, whether it was a new novel or a piece in the NYRB. You might think that after all this contact I'd actually know the man, but in point of fact, I don't.
He's slippery like that: the better you think you're getting to know him, the more closed off he becomes. Which seems to be exactly what he is doing with this autobiography, turning what is ostensibly the most revealing of genres into perhaps the most concealing. I learned the hard way that Coetzee doesn't want to be a mentor, no matter how gifted or insightful the student. This was not only my own experience with the man but also an experience that I've watched two friends--both brilliant and insightful--undergo. Clearly Coetzee has always been ambivalent about the concept of autobiography--his use of the third person in the first two volumes tells us as much. But at some point something drove him to create autobiography/confession (a la Tolstoy) in the first two volumes. and perhaps this is the natural development of a mind that has grown increasingly fond of playing with narrative conventions. My point though, is that the man does not like to share personal information, thoughts, feelings, etc., and this is clearly the autobiography of one who has such a hang-up. That's one thing I know.
Another thing I know is that Coetzee, in real life and in the fictions in which he has taken on an alter ego, is morally stringent to an extreme degree. He is one of the only people I know who understands the meaning of supererogation. He holds others to immensely high standards and himself, if possible, to higher. When he writes about the ethics of vegetarianism in The Lives of Animals or Elizabeth Costello, it is not an idle point, but rather the plea of one who believes that our understanding of ethics itself should be expanded to include animals, and one who lives by that edict. But it is also the plea of one who (at least within recent memory) limited his contact with animals to the flocks of birds and so on migrating across his property. A (supposed) animal lover, in other words, without a pet. It would in no way surprise me if this man used a fictionalized autobiography to find fault with himself and his character, as he apparently does to a great extent.
Perhaps it is easier to take oneself to task for one's fictional failings than for one's very real ones, although at first glance it appears that the two may be one and the same, as when, for example Coetzee calls his character "autistic." That is an excellent metaphor, in fact; surely he is not cut out to fulfill even the barest social niceties.
So can we fault the real Coetzee for the failings of the fictionalized Coetzee if, in fact, the two possess the same underlying character, even if the life events that befall them are completely disparate? Perhaps we can. I can say without reading it that Summertime is clearly the work of one who is either pathologically modest or pathologically arrogant, perhaps to such an extent that deciding which one does not matter much. If the character of the man described therein is largely the same as the real man, than the fictionalized events become events that might have happened in a reality that might, perhaps should have, been. Perhaps Coetzee is simply too modest to give us anything other than a disparaging picture of himself, or perhaps he is simply too arrogant to give us the real, unvarnished, story. Perhaps he is no longer comfortable thinking of himself as anything but a character in his own fiction; perhaps he is just getting a jump on the inevitable biographers to come. Posterity will have its say, of course, and doubtless Coetzee will have his little laugh about posterity coming to grips with the post-modernity of this text. Those of us who've tried to know the man for real have found that it's best to glean what wisdom he is willing to give and save the puzzling over these mysteries for a kind of after-dinner drinking game that doesn't have a right answer. Maybe that's the best way to approach too--a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a drinking game for over intellectual graduate students and critics.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Hell Hath No Fury
I just finished (12:42 am) Denise Mina's gritty Garnethill. I initally started reading it because I was wondering if Stieg Larsson had borrowed anything from Mina's protagonist in creating Lisbeth Salander. And my, it is refreshing to read a few books with unlikely protagonists. Unlike Salander, however, who has mad skills, Mina's Maureen O'Donnell is more of an everywoman...just a little (okay a lot) tweaked.
Her mother's an alcoholic, her brother's a drug dealer (the nice kind), her father raped her, and she may or may not be a paranoid schizophrenic. She's also funny as hell, with a mouth that could best my kids' on a bad day. And, somehow, she manages to put together the pieces of the puzzle and come up with a fitting punishment for the marauding therapist cum rapist cum murderer.
It's a triumph for the rights of women and the mentally ill. It is, therefore reminiscent of Larsson's books, at least, it reaches much the same conclusions, only on a much smaller scale.
Surprisingly, my copy came with a "reader's guide," despite the book's total unsuitability for all but the most masochistic of book groups. Ultimately, though, the message gets through the grime: you don't have to be a detective to solve a crime, or a certifiable genius either. Pluck, self-confidence, and shady friends sure help, though.
On to book two of the trilogy: Exile.
Her mother's an alcoholic, her brother's a drug dealer (the nice kind), her father raped her, and she may or may not be a paranoid schizophrenic. She's also funny as hell, with a mouth that could best my kids' on a bad day. And, somehow, she manages to put together the pieces of the puzzle and come up with a fitting punishment for the marauding therapist cum rapist cum murderer.
It's a triumph for the rights of women and the mentally ill. It is, therefore reminiscent of Larsson's books, at least, it reaches much the same conclusions, only on a much smaller scale.
Surprisingly, my copy came with a "reader's guide," despite the book's total unsuitability for all but the most masochistic of book groups. Ultimately, though, the message gets through the grime: you don't have to be a detective to solve a crime, or a certifiable genius either. Pluck, self-confidence, and shady friends sure help, though.
On to book two of the trilogy: Exile.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Cormac McCarthy
One of my best friends from college, an amazing American Lit. scholar in her own right, read something I wrote on Facebook about loving Cormac
McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Which I do. More, even, than his somewhat more popular books that have recently been turned into films. "Can't stand it," she said, wondering what on earth I see in it.
To begin with, it should be clear from my BA thesis and dissertation on Dostoevsky that I like novels that capture the fundamental anarchy and less-than-ideal nature of man that I feel define our world. Remember, I read morbid murder mysteries because they're lighter than the fiction I tend to read for "work." The other person who really captures this quality is JM Coetzee--my feelings about whom are deserving of their own post--however McCarthy embraces a complexity of language that ultimately I find more intriguing than Coetzee's (also beautiful) stark simplicity.
Also, McCarthy is Dostoevskian in his handling of the sacred and the profane. He uses sacred language to describe profane images or events, leading one to wonder about the definition of both terms. He also shows fatally flawed men seeking (okay, or at least taking about seeking) the sacred. This is a quality that I've previously discussed in regard to Dostoevsky, and I think it makes McCarthy almost other-worldly.
Finally, McCarthy--unlike Dostoevsky but like Coetzee--pulls no punches. He leaves no doubt that if there is going to be any meaning at all in this mean world, it will be the meaning that we make for ourselves. That's a message I'll take any day. Blood Meridian is especially good on this count because it is the story of an annihilation, and the very obvious conclusion is that nothing, and I mean nothing, constructive is being built in the wake of what came before. Meaning is there for the taking, language, especially that sacred language, gives the world meaning, but we have to take charge of it. Oh so existential, I know, but in the end a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.
Not that any of this makes for pleasant reading, but, well, I can't remember the last time I read a book that made for pleasant reading. That's just not why I read. I read to find things that help me make sense of the world, and these are the authors who do that.
The Girl Who...
Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is more than just a crime thriller. It is also a serious indictment of government corruption--in particular the kind of government corruption that takes place when an organization, or an organization within an organization, is allowed to act without oversight in the name of some abstract greater good. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is about the collateral damage that is the inevitable result of this corruption.
Given our recent political history and our current administration's seeming refusal to hold its predecessor accountable for its illegal acts, we would do well to take home the lesson of the novel, which is that the best defense against such abuses of power is a strong and respected free press. Unfortunately, we're lacking in that department. In the novel Mikael Blomkvist is able to help Lisbeth Salander largely because he is an editor of a respected journal of culture and politics. I am hard pressed to think of a comparable publication in our society that could have similar import. It's kind of as if the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg published a lead article breaking new ground on the secret torture memos and wasn't treated as a member of the lunatic (left) fringe.
In some ways the book is groundbreaking--Lisbeth Salander hacking away at her prosecutors' computers from her locked hospital room and unearthing dirt on everyone involved is a revelation in crime-solving. One no longer needs to be a gloomy detective with a gun, kicking down doors and arresting suspects. A skinny girl with a smart phone will do just fine, thanks. On the other hand, the book also depends on the very old fashioned antics of the rebellious reporter, Mikael Blomkvist, who orchestrates Lisbeth's defense, including her very role in it. And that's where the book is a little weak: first, until Lisbeth becomes involved in her own defense (the first 300 pages or so) the book offers little of what the reader is coming for, and second, it defies plausibility that Blomkvist would be able to expose both the underlying political conspiracy and the particular wrongs done to Lisbeth (and write a book about both, and avoid being killed) in what little time he has.
It's an interesting book and it wraps up the trilogy nicely (maybe too nicely) and it speaks wonders of Larsson's faith in the press, more power to him. I only wish I were as confident in ours.
Given our recent political history and our current administration's seeming refusal to hold its predecessor accountable for its illegal acts, we would do well to take home the lesson of the novel, which is that the best defense against such abuses of power is a strong and respected free press. Unfortunately, we're lacking in that department. In the novel Mikael Blomkvist is able to help Lisbeth Salander largely because he is an editor of a respected journal of culture and politics. I am hard pressed to think of a comparable publication in our society that could have similar import. It's kind of as if the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg published a lead article breaking new ground on the secret torture memos and wasn't treated as a member of the lunatic (left) fringe.
In some ways the book is groundbreaking--Lisbeth Salander hacking away at her prosecutors' computers from her locked hospital room and unearthing dirt on everyone involved is a revelation in crime-solving. One no longer needs to be a gloomy detective with a gun, kicking down doors and arresting suspects. A skinny girl with a smart phone will do just fine, thanks. On the other hand, the book also depends on the very old fashioned antics of the rebellious reporter, Mikael Blomkvist, who orchestrates Lisbeth's defense, including her very role in it. And that's where the book is a little weak: first, until Lisbeth becomes involved in her own defense (the first 300 pages or so) the book offers little of what the reader is coming for, and second, it defies plausibility that Blomkvist would be able to expose both the underlying political conspiracy and the particular wrongs done to Lisbeth (and write a book about both, and avoid being killed) in what little time he has.
It's an interesting book and it wraps up the trilogy nicely (maybe too nicely) and it speaks wonders of Larsson's faith in the press, more power to him. I only wish I were as confident in ours.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Double Feature
I didn't get to read much yesterday, having seen a double feature of A Single Man and The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Scott and I snuck into the Chicago "Queer Film Society's" secret showing of A Single Man. The man who introduced it promised "surprises" for those who had read the novel, so now I have to drop everything and read Christopher Isherwood's novel--especially if one of those surprises was the film's totally unsatisfactory ending.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is going rather more slowing than I'd like, in large part because Lisbeth is stuck in the hospital unable to aid in her own defense. All the wonderful hacking that we've grown used to is missing in the first half of the book. I'm pretty sure, though, that Mikael is about to find a way to sneak her computer in, so that should liven things up.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is going rather more slowing than I'd like, in large part because Lisbeth is stuck in the hospital unable to aid in her own defense. All the wonderful hacking that we've grown used to is missing in the first half of the book. I'm pretty sure, though, that Mikael is about to find a way to sneak her computer in, so that should liven things up.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
My wonderful husband took it upon himself to import the third Stieg Larsson book from the UK for me. Since it won't be coming out in the US until May, I am duly thrilled. So now I'm reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, which follows The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.
The popular appeal of these books--the thing that has elevated them from other Scandinavian crime fiction this year--seems to be the pairing of two unlikely crime-solvers, neither of whom is the traditional gloomy detective weighed down by a drinking problem, ex-wife, and troubled young daughter. Instead, this time the troubled young girl is the unlikely crime-solver, whose involvement with magazine editor/writer Mikael Blomkvist begins as a financial arrangement, becomes sexual (as these things are wont to do), and finally becomes a matter of dire necessity as Lisbeth must clear her name, rid herself of her psychopathic father, expose the decades-old conspiracy that protected him, and, I hope, finally gain her independence. That might sound like a lot of tasks for one novel to accomplish, but, well, it is 600 pages long.
Uneducated, anti-social, and psychologically maladjusted, Lisbeth Salander seems an odd choice of heroine, but as we come to see, Lisbeth has been made what she is by a system that only she is in the unique position to expose. Psychological oddities aside, she is a kind of postmodern Robin Hood in black leather, combining her outstanding abilities at both computer hacking and real-life play-acting to rob from the rich, expose the corrupt, and enact perfect acts of revenge against those who have wronged her. My hope is that as Larsson shifts Lisbeth from her role as victim of a very specifically abusive mental health system to that of victim of a far-reaching political conspiracy, he does not forget the qualities that made her so attractive in the first place. Most of all, I hope that 500 pages from now Lisbeth, now in her mid- to late-twenties, finally gains independence from the system that has oppressed her since her early teens. That would be a true triumph, for both author and character.
The popular appeal of these books--the thing that has elevated them from other Scandinavian crime fiction this year--seems to be the pairing of two unlikely crime-solvers, neither of whom is the traditional gloomy detective weighed down by a drinking problem, ex-wife, and troubled young daughter. Instead, this time the troubled young girl is the unlikely crime-solver, whose involvement with magazine editor/writer Mikael Blomkvist begins as a financial arrangement, becomes sexual (as these things are wont to do), and finally becomes a matter of dire necessity as Lisbeth must clear her name, rid herself of her psychopathic father, expose the decades-old conspiracy that protected him, and, I hope, finally gain her independence. That might sound like a lot of tasks for one novel to accomplish, but, well, it is 600 pages long.
Uneducated, anti-social, and psychologically maladjusted, Lisbeth Salander seems an odd choice of heroine, but as we come to see, Lisbeth has been made what she is by a system that only she is in the unique position to expose. Psychological oddities aside, she is a kind of postmodern Robin Hood in black leather, combining her outstanding abilities at both computer hacking and real-life play-acting to rob from the rich, expose the corrupt, and enact perfect acts of revenge against those who have wronged her. My hope is that as Larsson shifts Lisbeth from her role as victim of a very specifically abusive mental health system to that of victim of a far-reaching political conspiracy, he does not forget the qualities that made her so attractive in the first place. Most of all, I hope that 500 pages from now Lisbeth, now in her mid- to late-twenties, finally gains independence from the system that has oppressed her since her early teens. That would be a true triumph, for both author and character.
Books I Took to Work this Week
I read all the time. Really. All the time. But I read the most during the twelve-hour overnight shift I work at my job at a residential school for mentally ill kids from Sunday night to Monday morning. Sometimes I watch DVDs, (I made it through the complete Sopranos and I'm working on Twin Peaks), but lately I've just felt like reading. So what was in my (heavy) backpack this week? For starters, Treating Personality Disorders in Children and Adolescents, which is waaaay too relevant to my work right now and which I'm slowly working my way through. It seems like psychiatrists are pretty eager to diagnose teenagers with, say, Borderline Personality Disorder (because really, what teenager doesn't seem to have BPD?) whereas there is no consensus on diagnosing young people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or anything of the sort. That's probably good for kids overall, but it doesn't meet my particular needs at the moment.
I read a bit of Arnaldur Indridason's The Draining Lake, which is the latest in my series of Scandinavian/Icelandic crime novels. Indridason is one of my favorites--his Jar City was a great book with a creative plot which was also turned into an extremely atmospheric movie (I was really confused reading the book until I realized that I'd already seen the somewhat different movie). The Draining Lake seems to be (in my mind) the best kind of crime fiction--a novel that is both a detective procedural and legitimate historical fiction--in this case a study of the Cold War era in which Icelandic students studied in communist East Germany. Totally fascinating on all fronts.
I finished Johan Theorin's Echoes from the Dead, which is one of the most atmospheric works of Scandinavian crime fiction I've read in a while. This is a book I picked out without the help of my favorite local crime fiction guru, so I wasn't quite sure if it would meet my standards, but it exceeded them by far. It's an interesting premise--you know from the beginning that the missing child is not going to be found, and it turns out to be more the story of the local black sheep--but that story is fascinating, and Theorin's writing style is lovely, even in translation. My only minor complaint about the book is that everything wraps up a bit too neatly in the last five pages, but that flaw is endemic to the genre. Regardless, I'll be reading Theorin's next book...probably within the next week.
I also read almost the entirety of March Violets, the first in Philip Kerr's "Berlin Noir" trilogy. This was another pick without the help of my crime fiction guru, and it was a big leap for me, from Scandinavian crime fiction to German crime/historical fiction. I've always been fascinated by Wiemar and Nazi Germany, however, so it wasn't that much of a stretch. Kerr somehow manages to make feasible a scenario in which a PI totally opposed to the Third Reich is recruited by Goering himself. It's a different kind of historical fiction, one in which giants of history are shrunk to their proper size and held responsible for their all-too-human failings, which ultimately makes it more believable than one might originally anticipate. I'm looking forward to the next two novels in the trilogy, although I'm not sure if I'll buy more of Kerr's novel's after that.
Finally, Sunday night I was also carrying Walter Kirn's Up in the Air--the movie adaptation of which I had just seen and loved, and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, because try though I might, I can't let go of the nineteenth (or in this case early twentieth) century. I didn't read more than a few pages of either of these books, but it's always helpful to have a couple of totally different novels around when you're trying to stay awake from eleven p.m. to seven a.m. I'm hoping that Kirn's book is as good as the movie was, although I wonder if it might not suffer from the lack of George Clooney's deadpan humor, which I don't think I've ever given enough credit before. It might be one of those rare cases where the movie was better than the book, but I'll give it a try.
I just received a really exciting import in the mail, and I can't wait to make some headway in it. So for next time, more Philip Kerr, the next Theorin, the conclusion of the Indridason, and, ta dah, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third and final Stieg Larsson novel.
I read a bit of Arnaldur Indridason's The Draining Lake, which is the latest in my series of Scandinavian/Icelandic crime novels. Indridason is one of my favorites--his Jar City was a great book with a creative plot which was also turned into an extremely atmospheric movie (I was really confused reading the book until I realized that I'd already seen the somewhat different movie). The Draining Lake seems to be (in my mind) the best kind of crime fiction--a novel that is both a detective procedural and legitimate historical fiction--in this case a study of the Cold War era in which Icelandic students studied in communist East Germany. Totally fascinating on all fronts.
I finished Johan Theorin's Echoes from the Dead, which is one of the most atmospheric works of Scandinavian crime fiction I've read in a while. This is a book I picked out without the help of my favorite local crime fiction guru, so I wasn't quite sure if it would meet my standards, but it exceeded them by far. It's an interesting premise--you know from the beginning that the missing child is not going to be found, and it turns out to be more the story of the local black sheep--but that story is fascinating, and Theorin's writing style is lovely, even in translation. My only minor complaint about the book is that everything wraps up a bit too neatly in the last five pages, but that flaw is endemic to the genre. Regardless, I'll be reading Theorin's next book...probably within the next week.
I also read almost the entirety of March Violets, the first in Philip Kerr's "Berlin Noir" trilogy. This was another pick without the help of my crime fiction guru, and it was a big leap for me, from Scandinavian crime fiction to German crime/historical fiction. I've always been fascinated by Wiemar and Nazi Germany, however, so it wasn't that much of a stretch. Kerr somehow manages to make feasible a scenario in which a PI totally opposed to the Third Reich is recruited by Goering himself. It's a different kind of historical fiction, one in which giants of history are shrunk to their proper size and held responsible for their all-too-human failings, which ultimately makes it more believable than one might originally anticipate. I'm looking forward to the next two novels in the trilogy, although I'm not sure if I'll buy more of Kerr's novel's after that.
Finally, Sunday night I was also carrying Walter Kirn's Up in the Air--the movie adaptation of which I had just seen and loved, and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, because try though I might, I can't let go of the nineteenth (or in this case early twentieth) century. I didn't read more than a few pages of either of these books, but it's always helpful to have a couple of totally different novels around when you're trying to stay awake from eleven p.m. to seven a.m. I'm hoping that Kirn's book is as good as the movie was, although I wonder if it might not suffer from the lack of George Clooney's deadpan humor, which I don't think I've ever given enough credit before. It might be one of those rare cases where the movie was better than the book, but I'll give it a try.
I just received a really exciting import in the mail, and I can't wait to make some headway in it. So for next time, more Philip Kerr, the next Theorin, the conclusion of the Indridason, and, ta dah, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third and final Stieg Larsson novel.
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