Midwest is Young and Restless

Racing in Place by Michael Martone
published by University of Georgia Press
168 pages

I like Michael Martone. I like what he tries to do. Sometimes he fails, but he tries. He tasks risks. Sometimes he can get a little "writerly", a little to "flowerly" with his sentences. But again, he's taking the risk. And I can respect that.

This book is pretty much what it says it is: fragments, collages, ruins and postcards. And a fun drinking game is to chug a beer every time Martone mentions that he grew up in Fort Wayne.

Quotes:

"Despite the confusion about its location, people agree that the Midwest is a good place to be from. It is as if we keep the region purposely vague in order to include as many as people as natives. 'I am from the Midwest': that coin is worth collecting." pg. 97

Our Ridiculous Selves

Earth (The Book) by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show
238 pages
published by Grand Central

If you have read America The Book, you know what to expect heading into Earth The Book. And that's not a bad thing, because America was hilarious and Earth doesn't disappoint. Not as good as America, but very very good.

"For society to flourish, it would take work. So what was work? Tasks we performed for compensation in the service of an employer, be it individual or corporate entity. And yes, it was as exciting as it sounds. We didn't want to work. In fact, that's about as good a definition of "work" as you could have-- 'that which we didn't want to do, but had to, if we didn't want to eat dirt.' Of course, some workers attacked their jobs with passion and creativity. These people were known as brown-nosing jagoffs." pg.128

"We relied on a system of small regular bribes to keep certain sorts of transactions moving smoothly. Tipping 15-20% of the bill encouraged servers to treat customers with something milder than disdain. Tipping was both an acknowledgment of servers' underpayment by management, and a handy excuse for management to continue underpaying them." pg.133

"The only thing that increased more rapidly than the speed of new technology was the speed with which we became irritated at its now relative slowness. Eventually, we developed the capacity to be instantaneously disappointed. This was the final triumph of faster." pg.182

"If necessity was the mother of invention, then laziness was its drunken stepfather. Man created many contraptions to free up as much of his time as possible. This helped us achieve our life's greatest goal: doing nothing." pg.183

"As confident as the human species was that after death, a Higher Power awaited us in an eternal utopia filled with everyone we've ever known and/or virgins, one thing we all feared was death. And although we never quite succeeded in conquering the Grim Reaper, we did manage to confuse and delay him, allowing many of us to enjoy up to twenty extra years of feeble dependence." pg.188

DeLillo Gets A Fresh Coat of Paint From Picador

In March 2011, Don DeLillo's novels will be re-released with spiffy new covers. Here's a few, just to give you an idea:

Death is the Mother of Beauty

Angels by Denis Johnson
209 pages
published by Harper Perennial

I'm going to devote almost this entire review to Johnson's really just beautiful prose. This is Johnson's first novel and while it took a while to get going, the last half of the narrative (where one character is an mental institution, the other on death row awaiting the gas chamber) is probably the best stuff I've read in a long time.

"She snuck over to Sarah's to borrow the gun and there he was, sneaking home, out of Sarah's trailer with the door creaking so loud in the quiet she took it for herself, screeching, Bill, and he saw, and she saw, and Sarah in the doorway with her panties saw, so everyone knew that everyone else knew what was what with who." pg.15

"Freed of negative energies, he moved easily toward solutions." pg.89

"He felt like a grownup in a room full of children playing with toy cars. To get them to see who he was involved tearing them out of a tiny exclusive world of their own creation." pg.162

"He knew a rush in his veins--he felt their need baked into these walls--and he wanted to make himself a sacrifice and his death payment for something more than his stupid mistakes. If Brian could promise him he'd make the crucial difference for somebody, he would walk through the door and be slaughtered here and now." pg.174

"He couldn't believe he'd actually been asleep. All night he had lain with the Unmade, with God, the incredible darkness, the huge blue mouth of love. I'm going to be turned into space. This is the hour of my death." pg.204

Chris Ware is One of The Greatest Artists Alive

Acme Novelty Library #20 by Chris Ware
72 pages
published by Drawn and Quarterly

Another addition to the world of Rusty Brown! This time we learn about Jordan Lint. Lint was introduced in the first Rusty Brown volume as a school bully.

This new story line follows Lint from birth to death, with each page representing a specific time in his life. The narrative and art work also represent each developmental, with the first few pages visually representing the world as a baby would see it and then as a toddler, a small child, a pre-teen, a teenager, etc. As the story progresses, the artwork and narrative become more and more complex, a la Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by Joyce.

Ware pushed himself to experiment a little with this work and it worked out beautifully. If you have never had the pleasure of reading Chris Ware, you better get started.

Genocide? What Genocide? Have some tea and cake.

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
308 pages
published by Random House

This is the latest selection for our book group at the book store where I work. I led the group this month, so obviously, I had to read the book. Well, it wasn't terrible but it was pretty bad.

This is a debut from Parkin, who grew up in South Africa and has done lots of volunteer type work, teaching, and other good stuff. But a fiction writer she is not. The story centers around Angel, the resident cake baker for this UN type compound in Kigali, Rwanda. Various characters come to her to order cakes, tell her little stories about why they want the cake and maybe give a little snippet about their horrible lives in terms of surviving genocide, AIDS, poverty, et al. You'd think this would be pretty riveting stuff but in Parkin's hands, it all falls flat. The dialogue is super stiff and polite and every statement is met with the proper response, for example, "How are you today," she asked. "I'm lovely, thank you for asking. And you?" "Eh, I've been better." "Oh, what is the matter?" and so on. That is not verbatim but it's not far off. The main narrative isn't really any better. And the plot device was repetitive (customer comes to order cake, Angel listens to their story, x12).

And since the story takes place mostly on this isolated apartment complex which has its own guard, you get the sense that this isn't exactly an accurate portrait of modern Rwanda, post genocide. It's a little too sunny and everything has a silver lining and the book even ends with a triumphant wedding. It's kinda like watching Disney's Aladdin and thinking, "So that's what the Middle East is like!"

Parkin tries to touch upon some serious issues (AIDS, genocide, homelessness, female genital mutilation, feminism, prostitution, corporation, race, education, traditional African marriages) but they are more less mentioned in passing and not fully explored.

Now, the rest of the book group almost completely disagreed with me. They enjoyed the "light hearted" tone and outlook of the main character. They felt that this was a nice change for a book about Rwanda, to show that it's not all bad there and that people have happy lives. Sure. Fine. I'm just saying Parkin didn't do a good job with that premise. Maybe if the setting had been more indicative of Rwanda as a whole it would have worked. The book group, all middle-aged women, said I didn't "get it" because I'm a man. Please.

Why can I write so much more about the books I don't like than the ones I do?

Immigrant Song

Vida by Patricia Engel
182 pages
published by Black Cat

Vida is a hard nut to crack. Engel is clearly influenced by Junot Diaz, whom she gives a shout out to in her acknowledgements and Diaz also blurbs the front cover. That's pretty much why I read it, because this is the debut Diaz had been waiting for, apparently. But this influence comes off as more imitation than her own solid voice but then again, it is a debut and Engel is still finding that voice.

Moderately recommended though nothing new in terms of moving Latin American immigrant fiction forward, not to pigeon hole her stuff but I mean, that's what it is...at least right now.