Whine & Cheese

Life After Life (Atkinson)

In my previous review, I mentioned my "fun" little reading assignment where I decided to read two books with the same title back-to-back, so it ended up being after LIfe After Life, I read Life After Life!

However, unlike McCorkle's book, Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is one of those "achievement" books. I am not sure how Kate Atkinson had all that story in her head, let alone put in all down in print in such a lush and intricate way. Much like her countrywomen Hilary Mantel did in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, it is I who feel the responsibility for any perceived shortcomings of this novel. Not being a good enough reader, not being able to keep all those details straight in my head.

The title is quite literal. While very (very!) short-term spoiler-ish, the protagonist Ursula dies repeatedly throughout the novel (I should have kept count!), only to return and try to fix things and get further on in her next incarnation. I share this, as this is a premise is a non-starter for some readers - though it would be a shame to dismiss this wonderfully complex, deeply layered novel for its unconventional, non-reality based foundation. Atkinson creates a narrative that feels like the incoming tide. Lulling, repetitive, but with each wave just getting further and deeper onto the shore... but with the occasional bigger surge that catches your off guard and unexpectedly knocks you off your feet.

While your own life may not take the dramatic turns that Ursula's does, it is still mind-boggling to think of all the reasons why your at this point in your life. What your life would be if you hadn't met that person, been at that intersection, taken that class, etc. Or the role (or heck, existence) of fate, the many paths your life could have taken to still get you to that same place, time, or person. The great fun of this work, is while we can never know these things re: ourselves, we vicariously experience it with Ursula.

Atkinson has also created something that is genre-defying: the fantasy/sci-fi premise (tho it never feels that way), a coming-of-age story, a family drama, a mystery, and a really intriguing piece of WWII historical fiction.

While never difficult reading, the book had a dense feel. It felt like it took me longer to get through it than it should have, this is not necessarily a bad thing - but I am sure some readers might get frustrated with the multiple and constant reboots and quite detailed and lengthy detours that the novel takes. As for the ending, my jury is still out. I experienced great anticipation as I was reading the conclusion of the novel. I had my theories of how it would end, and lets just say that none of them were correct. It was a case when I flipped back the page (ok, this is the 2010s -- touched the screen to page back), to confirm that was it. Not disappointed per se, but more like "oh, okay. (process)"

Ratings-wise, always between a 4 and 5, so unofficially 4.5 stars. Given my initial uncertainty about the ending, I hit the pillow last night thinking 4 stars -- but after writing up this review and being duly (and truly) impressed with scope, breadth, depth, etc., etc. of the novel and a creative genius turn by Atkinson (had read her once before -- good, but no lasting impression) I will give it the Goodreads bump up to 5 stars.

Life After Life (McCorkle)

Well, I have fallen quite behind (as usual!) with these book posts.  As of this writing, I have 5 more to post.  Not sure what the big issue is as these days I am basically just doing the cut-and-paste from my immediate day-of/day-after reviews on Goodreads.  I guess part of it is that this whole blog thing seems to be a bit of relic, not sure who is reading it anymore but still feels like I should keep on posting here.

I like to give myself some fun reading "assignments" every now and then.  If anyone is reading this, you know I am re-reading the Tales of the City series over the course of 2013.  But another one rose up as there were two pretty well-received books with the same exact title, so I decided to read them back-to-back and this is the first one!

There is some really lovely stuff going in Jill McCorkle's Life After Life, basically a collection of character studies that coalesce with each other and across time, from the past to present. Set in a retirement community (tho sort of combo'd with assisted living and nursing home), there is some wonderful meditations on the meaning of life and death. While many of the characters that populate this novel are elderly members of this community, central figures also include a hospice worker, a pierced and tattooed beautician, family members, and a young girl who lives near the facility and has a developed a special kinship with the residents (and a few more too!).

Each chapter is told from the perspective of one of the characters. Over time, connections (aha! moments) are made and a readers get the bigger picture and different versions of the truth, sometimes the character telling their own story, other times by someone else who is part of their life.

It was an interesting way to tell/grow a story, but I just never felt that I was fully into it. Particularly in the beginning, it was difficult to remember who was who and it would take a good step or two (or three) in a chapter to figure out what was what. If McCorkle was doing this purposely to make the reader relate to the characters via memory issues and/or dementia, well good for her - but my hunch is that it was not intentional.

Other issues? I had a credibility problem with one of the characters, a mother who was so inexplicably cruel to her child and just plain miserable period. I do not have a problem with evil or unlikable characters, or even "bad mothers" for that matter, but I just never got a sense of why this person was the way they were. The strength of this book was McCorkle's very well-developed, three-dimensional characters and this one stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.

Also, the end seemed a bit rushed/"time to wrap this up" in nature. It all seemed a bit uncharacteristic (there we go again with characters!) given the with the rest of the novel -- more plot/twist driven, than leisurely and meandering reflections on lives lived and lost.

I vacillated between 3 and 4 stars throughout the book, so an unofficial 3.5 stars but with a not too toss-and-turn Goodreads round-down to 3 stars.

More Tales of the City

Round 2 of my 2013 re-read of the Tales of the City series, and if at all possible it seemed as if this installment was even breezier than the first! Perhaps with all the character intros out of the way -- as well as success of the initial series -- Maupin seems to really hit his stride here.

Having originally read the series some 20-ish years ago, I was still surprised that I could be... well, surprised. Ok, maybe more "oh, yeah" shady-minded remembrances. But it was still very fun to re-live these moments with my friends on the page. I remain quite enamored with Mary Ann, Mouse, Mona and Mrs. Madrigal (maybe it's an alliteration "M" thing), though less so with Brian, Jon (seems a bit harsher than I remembered) and the Halcyon crew.

Still going to stick with my 4-star rating here. Although, once again, I am tempted to kick it up a notch as this book contains Mouse's "Letter to Mama" -- one of the most poignant things I have ever read and arguably the most famous part of the entire series. Despite all the cultural changes and advances in the past 30+ years, this coming out letter still feels very current/relevant (well, except for the Anita Bryant references!).

Looking forward to returning to Barbary Lane in June!

A Tale For The Time Being

I like to think I am fairly stingy with handing out 5-star review. A lot of the times I hedge and give out 4.5 stars and round up on the Goodreads site.  Over there I am even less generous adding books to my "Favorites" cyber-bookshelf.  While I can be wow'd by a book, be impressed (or even just respect) the quality of writing or the scope of the work to give out that top rating, but in order to land in "Favorites," it has to sneak up on me and I have to fall in love... such is the case with Ruth Ozeki's A Tale For The Time Being.

I read Ozeki's debut novel, My Year of Meats, and in my all too typical reader's amnesia-style, don't remember all that much about it (we're talking the late 90s here!), except that "I liked it." So while I had that positive memory tucked back in the far reaches of my mind, I still didn't go into this novel with super-high expectations (tho just a warning Ms. Ozeki, this won't be the case next time, no pressure!)

This is such a magical and multi-layered work, that I am not even sure where to start or how to do it justice. Try as I might, I certainly can't explain my feelings about it. It just struck so many chords from its meditations of "time" and "being" (plus the combo of the two words, which can take on multiple meanings) to just a real appreciation as book lover for how well and intricately crafted it was.

On one level, it is a split narrative about writing and reading. The novel switches between the diary of a Japanese teenage girl named Nao (pronounced "now"... time theme!) who sets out to write the story of her 104-year old great-grandmother (a anarchist, feminist Zen Buddhist nun!), but ends up telling her own coming-of-age story as well as peripheral tales of her chronically suicidal father and great-uncle who was a kamikaze pilot in WWII. That's the writing.

In the reading, Nao's diary, safely packaged Hello Kitty lunchbox, mysteriously washes up on a shoreline and is found by Ruth, an Japanese-American author struggling with writer's block, who pines for her previous life in NYC but currently makes her home, with husband Oliver, on a remote island on the West coast of Canada. If that doesn't ring a bell, take a look at Ozeki's bio: Japanese heritage, splits her time between NYC and Canada, and has a husband named Oliver. While this fictionalized version of herself, should seem a bit gimmicky -- it never is. It's just another layer on top of another layer, fiction vs. non-fiction... or fictionalized non-fiction, which describes both narratives.

If it all sounds a bit mind-blowing/cramping, it is. "Time" and "Being" are two very unexplainable concepts and we all struggle with their meaning, even if most of the time it's not thinking about it! But we're all part of this universe/time continuum, and Ozeki's observations about the interactions and interplay with each other and particularly our ancestors was fascinating: things in life repeat themselves, there are odd coincidences, such is life/existence/being. While this all may seem to be too new-age-y (or appropriately, Zen), it never was heavy in the hands of Ozeki (okay, maybe some passages about quantum physics were a bit too "whoa!").

Obviously, I wholeheartedly recommend this often funny, and sometimes heart-breaking (or vice versa?), book. But, as is the case with the other books on my Favorites bookshelf, I hesitate as it always hurts just a bit more when someone doesn't like it (love it!) as much as I did. Playing devil's advocate, my fear would be that it would be too much for some folks: too philosophical, overly-constructed, etc. But my hope would be that you read it and love it (else, just figure out to hide your rating/review from me if not).

[Sidenote: Warning to e-book readers, this book has A LOT (over 150!) of footnotes... so a lot of toggling back-and-forth, not so bad on a "touch" screen, but it would have been more burden/cumbersome on previous readers I have used.]

The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Despite not being in the teeny-bopper demographic (or even a parent of said demographic) from a pure pop culture point-of-view, I thoroughly enjoyed Teddy Wayne's The Love Song for Jonny Valentine -- a roman à clef of sorts to Justin Beiber (tho arguably 11-year old Jonny is more the Beibs wannabe to his older rival Tyler Beats). [Okay, confession... that catchy song by One Direction is on my iPod.]

This is also another instance of never having got around to the author's first book.  You know how it goes sometimes with me, when I don't get around to an author's book occasionally I do get to their next one (Wayne's debut novel Kapitoil was part of the Tournament of Books a few years back... and didn't stick around long thanks to a first round match-up vs. beheamoth Jonanthan Franzen's Freedom).

But back to Jonny, where Wayne taps nearly every aspect of the cult of celebrity from mutual media manipulation to mommy-gers (mom managers) to meltdowns. While one of my personal nagging points of child narrators is being too wise beyond their years, Wayne does a good job of walking that tightrope here. Despite being surrounded by the familiar entourage, Jonny is very much isolated and and fend for himself. He is a child immersed in video games and happily struggling with puberty, but carrying the weight of the livelihoods of many, many adults. In not one the novel's subtler moves, Jonny is tutored about slavery, while certainly no slave -- his feelings of being trapped and "used" are palpable. The book is very much a coming-of-age journey of Jonny trying to break free and gain control from what on the surface seems to be a dream life(style).

Issue-wise, while I thought Wayne handled the adult-child aspect quite well, I felt the end was a bit too soft in what had otherwise been a sharp, and often satirical take on today's culture. Also, I found the absentee father subplot shaky throughout, particularly in the end where the actions/events leading up to its resolution just did not seem real-world believable/possible.

Given the subject matter, there is almost a temporal quality to this novel. In the cutthroat world of celebrity "reality," we can "care" about Jonny today, but what about when (if!?!) he sprouts some facial hair?

I am struggling with my Goodreads rating. For sure (like totally!), it's a solid, but unofficial 3.5 stars: 3 stars on technical merit, 4 stars on personal enjoyment and voracious readability (with the Goodreads bump to the latter).

Nate In Venice

I am a bit obsessed with Italy, so when I stumbled upon this shor-vella (totally made-up word: too long to be a short story, too short to be a novella... Amazon says it's 87 pages, tho it only exists in the virtual world as an e-book) I knew I had to read it.

While my initial focus/interest was on "returning" to Italy, Nate in Venice ended up being an instance of an increasing personal favorite pseudo-genre of books, one I recently "discovered" had a name: the white male f&ck-up novel. Being a white male who has suddenly found himself in a middle-age bracket, I find that I can relate to these stories or, alternatively, take some comfort in *not* being as much of a f&ck-up as some of these characters.

So alas, Nate has messed up and finds himself in Venice. And while this story did not quite give me the large and longing doses of Venezia I may have hoped for, it does provide quite the appropriate setting for someone who finds himself a bit lost and even sinking.

This had the feel of a much longer work (so leaning towards novella, if you force me to choose), but in a good way as Russo efficiently packs quite a bit of story and character into a small space. I believe I have only read one of book by Russo (Straight Man?) and that seems like eons ago (pre-dating this blog, which is sayin' something!), but given this little gem of a story, perhaps his next novel will make it off my virtual to-be-read list.

Pure

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel...

Well, frankly a bit fatigued.

It could just be a bit of post-apocalyptic fatigue. Or it could be fatigue re: spunky female teenage protagonists in said environment. Or it could be eye-roll-y named character fatigue in said environment (we have Pressia, Bradwell, and Partridge here).

While intrigued by many of the concepts and most certainly the world that Julianna Baggott creates -- well, what's left of it... which is truly original, amazing, horrifying -- this naggy pile-up of "fatigue" items as well as some other things just never had me connecting with Pure. This lack of connection a tad ironic given the "fusings" in the novel (everyday objects -- tho sometime even other (living!) humans and animals -- fused into nuclear blast survivors).

I have read a decent amount of book in this dystopia sub-genre and I think that was part of the problem here. While it never seems fair to compare books, it's really quite impossible as one always brings their cumulative experiences to each book. My "set the bar" books here are The Hunger Games (well, books 1 and 2) and Cormac McCarthy's The Road and this one just didn't approach either of those books on any level (tho again props to Baggott for the "world").

Other issues? I found the fight/action sequences to be a bit dull and repetitive and this new world seemed to be driven by a continual string of coincidences or, if there is a reason for something happening, it is often all too conveniently explained after the fact (in particular, towards the end there was a block that arguably had more explanation of what all was going than say the previous hundred(s) of pages).

A quite (too) earnest effort, will not be continuing on with series.

Dear Life

Having read her last two short story collections, Too Much Happiness and now here with Dear Life, I hate to admit that I feel a bit underwhelmed with the legendary Alice Munro. Sure there is quality writing and storytelling here, but there seemed to be a repetitive nature to it -- the quiet life-changing moment -- that I grew a bit fatigued with over the course of the 14 stories in 6 reading days. In my first experience with Munro and despite being someone who does not demand closure in his literature, I noted my frustration with the abrupt endings. While I knew what to expect this time, I found my reaction devolved even further to more of an apathetic "okay" or "oh, well" and onto the next story.

Again, I feel some guilt about this given Munro's reputation and that there is truly some really lovely stuff going on here. But it almost had the feel of an elderly aunt or grandmother cooking a cherished favorite meal and finding yourself doing a lot of head nodding and smiling saying how good it is -- and it is! -- but perhaps just not as good as it was done in the past.

I think part of my ambivalent, leaning-indifferent reaction to this collection is having just read May We Be Forgiven.  Given that was so bold and brash, to go from that to somethin so quiet (and chronically dreary, to boot!) proved to be a transition that did no favors to Dear Life.  2.5 stars, with the caveat of bad timing/mind-frame.

May We Be Forgiven

There is some f&cked up sh&t going on in this novel.

And if that description offends you, A.M. Homes' May We Be Forgiven is NOT the book for you.

While attracted to the book cover, it was not until it was part of the 2013 Tournament of Books competition that I fully committed to reading it. I am glad I did, although I had a hard time at first wondering how this was "a darkly comic novel," a chain of horrifically tragic events set this novel into motion, and in the most unexpected ways. At times the events and circumstances seem truly absurd, but again I am often reminded of the adage of "truth is stranger than fiction" and that these things could happen, though I defy anyone to have the year Homes conjures up for protagonist Harold Silver.

I never knew where this novel was going. It almost seems as if Homes is playing a game of self one-upsmanship. What could be more crazy than the last crazy thing that happened? Or just when you think perhaps something was a tad too crude, it gets cruder.

[Sidenote: I will plead guilty the sexist card, but I was impressed Homes -- a woman! -- could be so crude, this novel definitely had the "feel" of being written by a middle-aged man]

Likewise, there are few tonal shifts in the novel. As hinted above, it's not at all funny in the beginning, does evolve into that, but with an ending that is something totally different, almost jolting/out-of-place (even a bit of a betrayal) given everything leading up to it.

It's random, with Homes not playing by any "rules" of fiction, with things turning on the proverbial dime, with characters not always acting consistently -- but alas this is a good description of "real" life and people, even in a quite amplified version here.

Bold, unpredictable, entertaining, train/car-wreck fascinating, real, unbelievable, setting the bar for "putting the fun in dysfunctional" -- it was a roller-coaster ride that I was happy to be on.

Tales of the City

As a fun reading "project" for 2013, I have decided to go back and re-read Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series. The plan is to read a new installment of the original 6-book series approximately every 2 months.  Expect a good deal of bias and ratings inflation here, as I have a great deal of affection for these books and characters. I discovered them shortly after making my own solo move cross-country in my early 20s, so much like Mary Ann Singleton -- tho Phoenix in the early 90s was not quite the free-spirited culture shock of San Francisco in the mid 70s. But these books -- and later the mini-series -- were important touchstones in my own coming-of-age story. I have to think it was one of my first positive exposures to being gay.

Despite a built-in love of it, I still had a bit of trepidation going back. Some 20 years later, would it still be the same? Yes and no. Of course, it loses some of its freshness. It's almost like opening up and old scrapbook or diary, already know the paths that many of these "friends" will go down years later. But it was still kind of cool, to vividly remember some of the good times and lines of dialogue that have remained stuck in my head over the years. The 70s setting might seem a bit tacky and stale, but at this distance in time it is almost transforming itself into historical fiction (eek!).

I simply devoured this book (I've dubbed it "potato-chipping" or "tortilla-chipping" it) again -- which is easy to do with its original newspaper serial installment brief chapters that have you flying thru scenes, characters, and social strata.

While I am tempted to pull out the 5 stars already, I will temper it a bit and go with 4-stars. But still found it to be wildly entertaining and Maupin's prose to be fun and utterly effortless. While I recall the series tapering off (overstaying its welcome), I look forward to the upcoming year with Mary Ann, Michael (Mouse!), Mona, Brian, DeDe, and Beauchamp and of course, Mrs. Madrigal.