CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

I'm a tiny bit ashamed to admit how late I am in getting into the writing of George Saunders.  I read Pastoralia last year and recently finished up his first short story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  Both were amazing and I really need to track down the rest of his books.  In the meantime, I have decided to write out brief synopses of the stories and the novella included in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  Maybe they'll sound good to you and you'll want to check it out.

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

The story from which the collection takes its name is about what happens when a struggling Civil War theme park hires a sociopath to deal with its gang violence problem.  We don't need to go into the details, but let's just say that's not a very good idea.  "CivilWarLand in Bad Declind" features a beautiful last sentence.

Isabelle

"Isabelle" is about a man and his handicapped daughter.  It isn't a touchy-feely Hallmark movie-of-the-week story, though.  It's full of murders and suicides and bags of human ears.  Try making a movie out of that.

The Wavemaker Falters

The third story in the collection is about a man who accidentally kills a boy at a water park while oogling an all-girl glee club lying around in their bathing suits.

The 400 Pound CEO

"The 400 Pound CEO" tells the story of an obese man who works at Humane Raccoon Alternatives, a company that claims to release captured raccoons into an idyllic wild, but actually beats them to death with tire irons and dumps them in a burial pit out back.

Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz

This is my favorite story from CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  In it, a man overwhelmed by guilt uses technology to make life easier for himself and his elderly companion.  This story is similar to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but predated it by almost 10 years.  If you think George Saunders is too weird or distant or dystopian or Pynchonesque, then you must read this story.  The last few paragraphs will break your heart.

Downtrodden Mary's Failed Campaign of Terror

This story is about a woman in her 90s who works in a museum.  Her name is Mary.  She's downtrodden.  She engages in a campaign of terror.  It fails.

Bounty

"Bounty" is the novella included at the end of CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  It's one of those post-apocalyptic tales I like so much.  In it, America has bacome a country in which people are divided into two groups, the Flawed and the Pures.  The protagonist in "Bounty", a Flawed with claws on his feet, heads out on the road to find his vestigial-tailed prostitute sister, who may or may not have been sold into slavery by a rich client.  His journey brings him into contact with a strange assortment of rubes, slave catchers, and Flawed revolutionaries.

So there you go.  That's it.  Six short stories and a novella packaged together in one 192 page collection.  If you keep up on short stories, you've probably already read CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.  If you don't, or if the book managed to slip by your radar, you should probably remedy that right away.

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I graduated from a decent college and have gone on to tackle some of the toughest novels in the English language.  I like to think I'm a relatively intelligent guy.  I like to think I'm a good reader.  Well, it turns out that I'm a lot dumber than I thought.  I read two books over the weekend and didn't understand either of them.  Both left me perplexed.  One of them was even a comic book.  Here they are: 

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron--Daniel Clowes

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron was my seventh Daniel Clowes graphic novel.  It's also the first one I wasn't able to follow.  As far as I can tell, it's about a man named Clay who sees his former wife in a pornographic movie.  He then goes on a quest to find her.  Of course, you can't have a quest without some trials and tribulations.  Clay gets puked on by a drunk, gets arrested and beaten by some cops, wakes up in a cult full of busty, short-haired girls, steals a van, meets some conspiracy theorists obsessed with corporate logos, acquires an orifice-less dog, earns the unwanted affections of a mutant girl who looks like a potato, accidentally kills the orifice-less dog, finds out about a little girl who writes snuff films, and is then literally torn limb from limb by a crazy man hired by the orifice-less dog's former owner.

What is all that supposed to mean?

I have no idea. 

Invisible Cities--Italo Calvino

3 Volume Boxed Set

Invisible Cities was my second Italo Calvino novel.  I'm not even sure I should call the book a "novel".  I have no idea what it was.  It's unclassifiable.  Invisible Cities basically consists of a long conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan in which the explorer tells the ruler about 55 cities he's visited on his travels.  The thing is that the cities described don't seem to actually exist.  They're clearly imaginary.  Perhaps they're metaphors for something.

For example, two of my favorite cities were Euphemia and Eusapia.  The former features a thriving market where the trading of spices and cloth is supplemented by the trading of memories.  The latter features an identical copy of itself underground where the citizens go when they've died.  They're not just buried down there, though; they're propped up like puppets or mannequins.

Once again, I have to ask, "What is all that supposed to mean?"

Once again, I have to answer, "I have no idea." 

CURRENTLY READING:

• The Book of Yoga--Christina Brown
• Civilwarland in Bad Decline--George Saunders

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BOOKS BOUGHT:

• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic--Alison Bechdel
• Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron--Daniel Clowes
• Fight Club--Chuck Palahniuk (for $1)
• The Escapists--Brian K. Vaughan
• The Enchantress of Florence--Salman Rushdie
  

BOOKS READ:

The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman--Lawrence Sterne

Tristram Shandy

I had this really great quote about The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy.  I got it from the bonus features on the DVD version of the 2006 movie adaptation, A Cock and Bull Story.  I paused the movie when I heard the quote, ran off to get a piece of paper and a pen, and then replayed the quote and wrote it down.  I wanted to use the quote as an intro to this review.  Unfortunately, Tristram Shandy is a very long book.  It took me a couple months to get through.  In that time, I managed to misplace the piece of paper with my introductory quote.  I guess I could go back up to the library and re-rent A Cock and Bull Story, but that seems like a waste of precious energy and time.  Instead, I will forget all about that quote and quickly come up with an entirely new approach to this review.  Hmmmm.  Okay, I will share with you my four favorite quotes from the book itself (which I just happened to mark with Post-its).  Here we go:

#1 - On Digressions in Writing

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;--they are the life, the soul of reading!--take them out of this book, for instance,--you might as well take the book along with them;--one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;--he steps forth like a bridegroom,--bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.

#2 - On Reading the Same Thing Over and Over Again...and the Results of Doing So

O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of Diana's temple--you must read Longinus--read away--if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time over--never fear--read him again--Avicenna and Licetus read Aristotle's metaphysicks forty times through a-piece, and never understood a single word.--But mark the consequence--Avicenna turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of writing--for he wrote books de omni scribili; and for Licetus (Fortunio) though all the world knows he was born a foetus, of no more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as long as himself--the learned know I mean his Gonopsychanthropologia, upon the origin of the human soul.

#3 - On the World We Live In

What a jovial and a merry world would this be, may it please your worships, but for that inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, melancholy, large jointures, impositions, and lies!

#4 - On Reading Tristram Shandy

I write a careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good-humoured Shandean book, which will do all your hearts good--And all your heads too,--provided you understand it.

The nine volumes of Tristram Shandy were originally published between 1759 and 1767, making it the second oldest novel I've ever read (after Don Quixote).  It didn't read like an old book, though.  Sure, some of the language came off a bit archaic, but the book as a whole felt surprisingly modern.  I'm not going to lie, though.  Tristram Shandy was a difficult book to get through.  Sterne wrote and wrote and never seemed to get anywhere.  I don't think Tristram was even born until a couple hundred pages in.  Just about the entire book was made up of tangential ramblings and digressive loops.  It was a frustrating, yet ultimately rewarding book.  Reading it did my heart good...I'm not sure about my head, though.

Swann's Way--Marcel Proust

Swann's Way

Swann's Way is the first volume in Marcel Proust's masterpiece of 20th century fiction, In Search of Lost Time (sometimes called Remembrance of Things Past).  The book is divided into three sections.  In the first, the unnamed narrator (supposedly a fictionalized version of the author himself) looks back on childhood memories spent at his grandparents' home in Combray.  In the second, he tells the story of Charles Swann's love affair with Odette de Crécy.  The final section of the book deals with the narrator's own love for Swann's daughter, Gilberte.  Simply put, Swann's Way is the most poignant, beautifully-written examination of love and memory that I've read.

I look forward to the second book, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.  If that volume is even half as good as its title, it's going to go down as an all-time personal favorite.

Buddy's Got Three Moms: A Hate Collection--Peter Bagge

Buddy's Got Three Moms

When I'm not reading post-modern masterpieces that somehow managed to be written prior to modernism, and when I'm not reading the first volumes of 3,000 page books, I like to settle back with a comic or two.

Amy sent this Hate collection to me in the mail along with the original #1 and #2 Hate comics.  I'm not sure why she thought I'd like them.  What does it say about me that she thinks I'd enjoy a series of comic books about a cynical slacker who drinks too much?  What does it say about me that I actually did enjoy them?  These Hate books were pretty funny.  It took me awhile to get used to the art which Peter Bagge admits looks like something drawn by "a retarded garage mechanic who copies out of Car-toons magazine."  Once I got over that, I was able to concentrate on the stories themselves, which were usually hilarious...and sometimes surprisingly touching.

CURRENTLY READING:

• The Book of Yoga--Christina Brown
• Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron--Daniel Clowes

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BOOKS BOUGHT:

• McSweeney's #27--Dave Eggers (editor)
• The Bostonians--Henry James
• The Baron in the Trees--Italo Calvino
• Invisible Cities--Italo Calvino
• Civilwarland in Bad Decline--George Saunders
• When You Are Engulfed in Flames--David Sedaris
• Swann's Way--Marcel Proust
• Slapstick--Kurt Vonnegut
• God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater--Kurt Vonnegut

BOOKS READ:

Hotel California--Barney Hoskyns

Hotel California

The full title of this book is Hotel California: The True-Life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends.  That's a mouthful right there.  Although I don't care even one tiny bit about David Geffen stories, I like most of the other musicians mentioned in that run-on title.  In a fit of boredom, I actually counted up the albums I had by the musicians mentioned in the title.  I came up with 94, so this book was right up my musical alley.

Hotel California examines the Southern California music scene from about 1965-75 with a close look at the rise of the singer-songwriter movement and the country-rock genre popularized by the Eagles.  It was actually a pretty good book.  My only complaint was that parts of the book paid too much attention to Joni Mitchell's voracious sexual appetites.  I don't remember exactly, but I think she had sex with everyone in the title with the possible exception of Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young.  David Geffen was gay, but I'm pretty sure she tried to get with him anyway.  When the author wasn't keeping track of bedpost notches, he was telling interesting anecdotes about all my favorites.  He also gave Gene Clark his due respect and credit.  That right there is enough for me to recommend this book to anyone with similar musical tastes.   

The Adventures of Augie March--Saul Bellow

The Adventures Of Augie March

Augie March was a great book for the first 300+ pages.  It followed the titular character's boyhood and young adulthood in Depression-era Chicago.  Special emphasis was given to Augie's relationship with his family and his many employers.  Then Augie went down to Mexico to train an eagle to catch lizards, and it seemed like all the characters suddenly stepped into a Malcolm Lowry novel.  It was strange.

Augie eventually finished up the Mexican chapter in his life and went back to Chicago.  Then it seemed like Saul Bellow didn't know what to do with the story so he just had Augie marry somebody he met down in Mexico.  It was a disappointing ending to what started off as a very interesting, well-written book.

Augie March is considered a classic in many circles.  In my mind, it's half classic/half disappointment.  I liked the author's Henderson the Rain King much more. 

One Picture for Every Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow--Zak Smith

Gravity's Rainbow Illustrated

Zak Smith got the idea of making a drawing or painting that represented what took place on each page of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.  It was a great idea, but the final result was surprisingly dull.  After about 50 pages, it became glaringly obvious that Zak Smith's art wasn't consistently interesting enough to pull off the project.  Illustrated became very repetitive.  How many pages can he represent with a black and white scribble?!  He was always sure to draw the sex parts, though.  I guess that's what happens when you let a pornographer make a book.  A much better idea would've been to commission a different artist for each page. 

I read Gravity's Rainbow about seven or eight years ago.  I didn't reread it when I read Zak Smith's book.  Maybe it would've been more interesting had I tackled both books simultaneously.  Maybe not.   

CURRENTLY READING:

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman--Lawrence Sterne
Swann's Way--Marcel Proust
The Book of Yoga--Christina Brown

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Here are my synopses and comments on the second half of The Uncollected Works of J.D. Salinger.  The post concerning the other eleven stories can be found here.  I spoil the endings of quite a few of them, so tread lightly if you think you're going to track the stories down and read them.

Soft Boiled Sergeant (Saturday Evening Post, April, 1944)

In this story, a former soldier reminisces about the friendship he had with a staff sergeant named Burke.  He looks back on his first days in the military and how Burke's kindness helped ease his transition into the Army.  Salinger's main character speaks in an annoying, sloppy English ("pitchers" for "pictures", for example), but the story as a whole is a good one.

The Hang of It (Colliers, July, 1941)

This story is very similar to the one the author published the following year called "Personal Notes of an Infantryman".  Both stories feature a twist at the end where we learn the actual relationship between the characters.  Neither of these stories did much for me and I'd say they're the least of Salinger's works.

The Heart of a Broken Story (Esquire, September, 1941)

"The Heart of a Broken Story" starts out as your typical boy-meets-girl story, but the author interrupts things a few paragraphs in and addresses the reader directly.

The world needs boy-meets-girl stories.  But to write one, unfortunately, the writer must go about the business of having the boy meet the girl.  I couldn't do it with this one.  Not and have it make sense.

Then he explains all the reasons why the story would never work.  He offers some potential ways to get the boy to meet the girl, but dismisses them all as foolish or unrealistic.  The boy doesn't chat her up on the bus.  He doesn't steal the girl's purse in a desperate attempt to meet her.  He doesn't get sent to jail where he strikes up a relationship with the girl based on letters.  He doesn't get shot in the back trying to escape.  None of this happens.  They never meet.  The end. 

The Inverted Forest (Cosmopolitan, December, 1947)

This story is about a girl named Corinne von Nordhoffen who invites a boy named Ray Ford to her 11th birthday party.  The boy doesn't show up, so Corinne and her father's secretary go looking for him.  They find the boy and his mother unexpectedly moving out of town.

Nineteen years go by.  Corinne now works at a magazine; Ray is a famous poet.  Corinne calls Ray on the telephone and the couple start to see a lot of each other.  Things are going well until one of Ray's female admirers arrives in town with an endless supply of lies and charm.  The girl's name is Bunny, so you know there's going to be trouble.

Most of the uncollected stories are 3-5 pages in length; "The Inverted Forest" is over 25.  It's definitely worth tracking down. 

The Long Debut of Lois Taggett (Story, September-October, 1942)

Lois Taggett has a coming-out party.  She then gets a job as a receptionist but leaves after eleven days to go on a cruise to Rio.  She marries a handsome man who turns out to be demented.  They get a divorce and Lois marries a man who always wears white socks.  They have a baby.  It dies. 

The Stranger (Colliers, December, 1945)

"The Stranger" is another good one.  It features Babe Gladwaller and his sister Matilda, the characters from "A Boy in France" and "Last Day of the Last Furlough".  In the latter of those stories, Babe and his friend Vincent Caulfield are about to ship overseas.  In "The Stranger", Babe is out of the service and Vincent is dead.  Babe and Mattie stop by Vincent's ex-girlfriend's apartment to tell her the circumstances surrounding his death in combat.

"The Stranger" features one of my favorite lines from the uncollected stories:

There was never a way, even back in the beginning, that a man could condition himself against the lethal size and shape and melody of beauty by chance.   

The Varioni Brothers (Saturday Evening Post, July, 1943)

The Varioni brothers are a songwriting team along the lines of George and Ira Gershwin.  Sonny Varioni writes the music; Joe Varioni writes the lyrics.  Before he became a lyricist, Joe was a promising novelist.  The songwriting kept him from realizing his potential in that field.  Years after Joe's death, Sonny finds the pieces of his brother's novel and vows to put it together and have it published.

The Young Folks (Story, March-April, 1940)

This was J.D. Salinger's first published story.  It's about young people interacting at a party.

This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise (Esquire, October, 1945)

This is another story featuring Vincent Caulfield.  In this one, he sits inside a military transport truck waiting to go to a dance with a large group of soldiers.  There are four too many soldiers, and it's up to Vincent to get the extras out of the truck.  He talks with the soldiers and tries to solve his personnel problem, but his mind is really on his younger brother Holden who is missing-in-action.

Blue Melody (Cosmopolitan, September, 1948)

As it says at the beginning of the story, this one's about a singer named Lida Louise, "who sang the blues as they have never been sung before or since." 

Hapworth 16, 1924 (The New Yorker, June, 1965)

"Hapworth 16, 1924" was Salinger's last published work.  It takes the form of a long letter written by the absurdly precocious seven-year-old Seymour Glass.  He's away at summer camp with his younger brother Buddy.  The letter reveals that Seymour can predict the future, shut off his body's pain receptors, and remember specifics from his previous lives.  It's also noteworthy in that it features the list of reading materials Seymour would like sent to camp (including the complete works of Tolstoy, Proust, and any volumes dealing with "human whirling or spinning").  He's a strange boy, that Seymour.  

"Hapworth 16, 1924" is the missing piece in Salinger's Glass family saga and worth searching out for those interested in the complete picture of one of literature's most enchanting families.  I doubt it would be of any interest to readers unfamiliar with Salinger's two Glass books and the Glass-related tales from Nine Stories.

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I used to spend a lot of time in libraries poring through old issues of The New Yorker and Saturday Evening Post in search of J.D. Salinger's uncollected stories.  These are the 22 stories the author published and then let disappear from circulation.  A few of them were anthologized, but none of them were readily available at the time of my search.  My hunt through the stacks was time-consuming and frustrating as many of the stories had been ripped out of the magazines by less scrupulous readers.  I eventually tracked them all down.  The strange thing is that once the search was over, I didn't even bother to read many of the stories.  I put them in a trunk where they remained for over a decade.  I recently rediscovered the stories and decided to read them all (many for the first time).  Here are brief synopses and comments on the first 11 stories: 

A Boy in France (Saturday Evening Post, March, 1945)

An American soldier tries to make an abandoned foxhole comfortable for the night.  He cleans it up, arranges his blankets, and then rereads a letter from his little sister.

A Girl I Knew (Good Housekeeping, February, 1948)

This is one of my favorites of the uncollected stories.  In it, a college flunk-out heads to Europe to learn languages.  He befriends a Jewish girl in Vienna.  He speaks to her in his meager German; she speaks to him in something resembling English.  Their language skills are limited, so they basically have the same conversation over and over again each time they meet.  World War II comes and goes.  The young man returns to Vienna to track down his friend.

A Young Girl in 1941 With No Waist At All (Mademoiselle, May, 1947)

A young girl (with no waist at all, apparently) is on a cruise to Cuba with her fiance's mother.  She meets an employee of the cruise ship and they spend a night living it up in Havana.  She tries to forget that she'll soon be married; he tries to forget he'll soon be in the Army.

Both Parties Concerned (Saturday Evening Post, May, 1947)

This story features a young married couple out on the town.  The wife is in a bad mood because she'd rather be at home with their baby.  The husband, who appears to be some sort of yokel, would rather drink beer.  This is one that should probably stay uncollected.  Salinger's dialogue isn't up to his usual standards. 

Elaine (Story, March-April, 1945)

"Elaine" tells the story of a girl who graduates elementary school at the age of 16.  Her father died when she was young and her mother spends most of her time at the movies.  Elaine leads a sheltered life until a boy named Teddy Schmidt invites her on a trip to the beach.  This story features a wonderful first line, but it goes downhill from there.

Go See Eddie (Kansas Review, December, 1940)

As the title would suggest, this story is about a man who keeps telling his sister to go see a guy named "Eddie".  This is one of the earliest stories in the collection.  I could tell while reading it that it was an early effort.  

I'm Crazy (Colliers, December, 1945)

"I'm Crazy" is essentially an early version of the second chapter from The Catcher in the Rye (it also has parts of chapters 1 and 21 in it).  Holden Caulfield gets kicked out of school, but goes to visit Mr. Spencer, his history teacher, on his way out of town.  Mr. Spencer reads Holden's feeble essay on the Egyptians and they talk about flunking out and the grippe.  Holden heads home and sneaks up to his sisters' room.  He talks with Phoebe and a second younger sister named Viola.  The parents arrive home to find Holden there.  After the yelling, Holden goes back to his sisters' room where he watches Phoebe sleep and then lines up a row of olives on the railing of Viola's crib.  The little girl likes olives.   

Last Day of the Last Furlough (Saturday Evening Post, July, 1944)

This story features a soldier named Babe Gladwaller and his younger sister, Matilda.  I believe they're the same characters from the story "A Boy in France".  Babe's friend and fellow soldier Vincent Caulfield comes over to the house to spend the last day of the furlough with Babe and his family.  Vincent talks about how his younger brother Holden has gone missing.  Babe's father tells some WWI stories at the dinner table and Babe tries to figure out how to tell his family he's gotten his orders to ship overseas.  This is definitely one of the best of the uncollected stories.

Once a Week Won't Kill You (Story, November-December, 1944)

This is another one of Salinger's stories about soldiers just about to head off to service in WWII.  It features one of my favorite lines in all of The Uncollected Works of J.D. Salinger:

It had been three years and she had never stopped talking to him in italics.

The story is about a soldier who tries to convince his wife (of the italics) that she should take his aunt to the movies once a week while he's away.

Personal Notes of an Infantryman (Colliers, December 12, 1942)

In this one, an older man tries to enlist in the military.  It's got a bit of a twist at the end.  Even with the twist, it isn't much of a story.  It probably would've been better without the twist.

Slight Rebellion Off Madison (The New Yorker, December, 1946)

"Slight Rebellion Off Madison" has Holden Caulfied on Christmas break from Pencey Prep.  He calls up Sally Hayes and they go out on a date.  Holden has an existential crisis of sorts and suggests to Sally that they should run away and get married.  After their date has ended, Holden goes to a bar and gets drunk.  He calls Sally a couple times in the middle of the night to let her know he'd like to come over to help trim the tree on Christmas Eve.  Then he dips his head into a sinkful of water in the bar bathroom.

If you're interested in reading "Slight Rebellion Off Madison", it's now available in a collection called Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker.  I believe it's the only one of the 22 stories currently in print.

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For Whom the Bell Tolls--Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls

It was never my intention to read For Whom the Bell Tolls, or any other Hemingway books, for that matter.  I read A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises years ago.  They were enjoyable books, but they left me feeling a bit let down.  This was, after all, Ernest Hemingway, one of the titans of 20th century American literature...and yet his books didn't touch me like I thought they should.

Earlier this year I went to a huge booksale and found a hardback copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls.  It was ragged and enveloped in the musty smell of basements.  There was even some turquoise mold growing on some of the pages.  I normally would stick a book like that right back on the shelf, but I noticed there were old pieces of paper sticking out of the side.  I opened the book up and found that its previous owner had decorated the inside covers with pictures and articles about the 1943 movie adaptation starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.  There were a couple loose pictures, but most of them had been pasted into the book itself.  Some of them even folded out of the book.  Some of the pictures were in color, but most of them came out of a local newspaper trying to promote the movie's October 8th, 1943 Cincinnati premiere at the Capitol Theater.  It was just about the coolest thing I've ever found.  I dropped $2 and took the book home with me.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is about an American partisan (Cooper) who's given the strategic mission of blowing up a bridge during the Spanish Civil War.  He teams with a group of guerrilla fighters and falls in love with a girl in their charge (Bergman).  The love story is kind of stilted in places, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.  Even with all the outdoor screwing and pet names, For Whom the Bell Tolls is one of the best books about war that I've ever read.  The only one I can think of that tops it is Norman Mailer's The Naked & the Dead. 

It took me 471 stinky pages, but I finally understand all the hubbub about Ernest Hemingway.  (If you're a doubter as I was, I challenge you to read Chapter 10 of For Whom the Bell Tolls.)

If on a winter's night a traveler--Italo Calvino

If on a winter's night a traveler

Simply put, Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler is one of the most amazing books I've ever read.  This might sound like hyperbole, but I literally had butterflies in my stomach throughout much of it.  It felt like the author had sat down 25+ years ago to write a book for me to enjoy today.

(Thanks to Scott for telling me about it.)

Death and Restoration--Iain Pears

Death and Restoration

Death and Restoration is the sixth book in Iain Pears' seven book Art History Mystery series.  The series stars Flavia di Stefano, a high-ranking investigator in Rome's Art Theft Squad, and Jonathan Argyll, an art dealer and occasional professor.  Just about the same thing happens in all the Art History Mysteries: a painting goes missing and Flavia is called in to investigate.  Jonathan (who by the 6th book is Flavia's fiancé) supplements the investigation from a more academic perspective.  His research usually turns up a previously hidden secret about the missing painting or a far-reaching conspiracy of some sort involving monks, Nazis, or museum curators.  By the end, the painting is recovered, the international art community is shocked, and Flavia and Jonathan are one step closer to matrimonial bliss (or disfunction).

Death and Restoration has the couple investigating a burglary at a small Roman monastary.  There are harmless-looking old lady art thieves, egomaniacal painting restorers, hired assassins, kidnappers, gullible monks, and a strange family whose members have been janitors at the monastary for 400 years.  You know, the usual stuff.

If this kind of thing interests you, forget about Death and Restoration for awhile and start in on the first book in the series, The Raphael Affair.  I accidentally started with the seventh book and it really goofed up my reading.

Icelander--Dustin Long

Icelander

"Never judge a book by its cover."  I often ignore that adage and read books solely because they look like they'd be good.  Conversely, I often skip over books because they're poorly presented...they've got cheap paper, lame cover art, or a picture of Chuck Palahniuk on the back.  I usually have pretty good success with this method.  Unfortunately, I sometimes get taken in by packaging.  That was the case with Dustin Long's Icelander.  The braintrust over at McSweeney's Rectangulars took a poorly-written, convoluted Icelandic murder mystery and gave it perhaps the most beautiful cover ever.  There's a gigantic fox overlooking a tiny cartoon town.  The fox has real silver flecks in his coat that sparkle at certain angles.  Fat snow flakes complete the scene.  The blurb on the back calls the book "Nabokovian" and compares it to The Crying of Lot 49.  Surely this is a book I'm meant to love.

Wrong.

Icelander was a mess of a book.  It could have used a real editor as opposed to the editor "character" who kept interrupting the flow of the story with his comments and useless footnotes.  The book was fun and creative in places, but as a whole it felt like Dustin Long was just throwing into the book all the tricks he'd picked up by reading other (far better) authors.  I'm not sure if this was an attempt to make his book hip or post-modern or whatever, but he failed.  Normally I'd sell a book like this back to Half Price Books.  I'm going to keep it, though; it looks wonderful on my shelf.

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The Apocalypse Reader--Justin Taylor (editor)

The Apocalypse Reader

As the name would suggest, The Apocalypse Reader is a collection of 34 short stories dealing with the apocalypse.  Justin Taylor defines the term very broadly, so readers will be disappointed if they're looking for a book about zombies or robots that take over the planet.  For every story about the living dead or alien invasions, there's one about Jews escaping from the Inquisition or marriages falling apart.  I came to this book hoping for stories in the same vein as The Road, World War Z, and "After the Plague".  As far as I'm concerned, too many of the stories in The Apocalypse Reader were off-topic.  

There were a few good ones, though.  Here are my personal highlights from the book:

• "These Zombies are Not a Metaphor" by Jeff Goldberg was one of the best stories in the collection.  It's the only story in the book that featured the brain-eating living dead.  Unfortunately, it was only three pages long.  Boo!
• Jared Hohl's story, "Fraise, Menthe, Et Poivre 1978" was another of the highlights.  It's about a group of friends slowly starving to death in Paris.  According to the brief biographical blurbs at the end of the book, this was the author's first published story.  I look forward to his second.
• "Crossing into Cambodia" by Michael Moorcock was also a favorite.  I thought it was going to be the usual, run-of-the-mill Vietnam story, but I soon realized it was much more than that.  It featured a chilling ending that I'm sure will haunt me for awhile.  I'd love to see that closing image on the big screen.
• "An Accounting" by Brian Evenson tells the story of a man who accidentally becomes a "Midwestern Jesus" to some post-apocalyptic rubes.  He inadvertently makes cannibalism one of the tenets of their new religion.  This was probably my favorite story in the book.
• I also liked "The End" by Josip Novakovich.  It featured a non-traditional apocalypse, but was still a quality story.  Much of the action in "The End" took place in my real-life neighborhood.

In addition to the stories mentioned above, the ones by Nathaniel Hawthorne and H.G. Wells were also worth reading.  I'm going to be honest, though.  The rest of this collection was a disappointing waste of my time.  Some of the stories were flat-out garbage.  Dennis Cooper's contribution, "The Ash Gray Proclamation", was basically 30 pages about boys selling their bodies for heroin.  I now know what "fisting" means, but I really wish I hadn't read that story.  Let's talk about comics.

The Best American Comics 2006--Harvey Pekar (editor)

The Best American Comics 2006

I read and largely enjoyed The Best American Comics 2007 earlier in the year and decided to go back and read the 2006 edition.  The worst part of The Best American Comics 2006 was Harvey Pekar's introduction.  For some reason, he felt the best way to introduce the book was by spoiling the endings for all the stories he'd selected.  Seriously, he went through the stories one by one and basically ruined them all.  If you read this book, save the introduction for the end.  You'll be better off.

My favorite comics in the book were "The Amazing Life of Onion Jack" by Joel Priddy and "Adventures of Paul Bunyan & His Ox, Babe" by Lilli Carré.  The former features Onion Jack, a stickman superhero who'd rather be a chef.  The latter features a melancholy Paul Bunyan who'd prefer to stay inside and read Proust than go out for drinks with Babe after a long day spent kicking down trees.  Paul also bemoans his inability to find an appropriately-sized woman.  Both of these comics managed to be funny and sad at the same time.

Other personal highlights were "Dance With the Vultures" by Jonathan Bennett, "Thirteen Cats of My Childhood" by Jesse Reklaw, and "Passing Before Life's Very Eyes" by Kurt Wolfgang.

Of course, in a collection this size, there are bound to be some selections that I didn't care for.  The blabbermouth editor could have left out "La Rubia Loca" by Justin Hall, "Wonder Wart-Hog" by Gilbert Shelton, and the incredibly stupid "Busted!" by Esther Pearl Watson.  Overall, though, The Best American Comics 2006 was a worthwhile collection and slightly better than the 2007 edition. 

Deadeye Dick--Kurt Vonnegut

Deadeye Dick

I bought a very old hardback version of Kurt Vonnegut's Deadeye Dick.  It came with the dust jacket, but there was absolutely nothing printed on it that even hinted at what the book was about.  There was no plot synopsis and not even a single reviewer's quote.  There was, however, a full-body photograph of the author napping on a couch.  He's wearing a beautiful button-up sweater, a brimmed cap, and no shoes.  There's a tiny dog resting on his lap.  I don't think Kurt Vonnegut was faking for the photographer.  I think he was really sleeping.  I liked the picture so much that I bought the book even though I had no idea what it was about.

I think that if you have any interest in reading Deadeye Dick, you should approach the book as I did...without knowing anything about it.  I also think you should look around and get an old copy with the picture of Kurt Vonnegut sleeping on the back.  It'll be worth it, trust me.

The Postman Always Rings Twice--James M. Cain

The Postman Always Rings Twice

I read James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice because it was mentioned in the introduction to the Dashiell Hammett books I recently read.  Also, at 117 pages, it was the shortest book I hadn't read on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list.  Having read it, I have no idea how it made the list.  It was a well-written novella about a drifter and an unhappy young wife who team up to commit the perfect murder--and how even the best plans can unravel if a cat decides to climb up a step ladder.  It wasn't a bad book by any means, but I can't imagine that the Modern Library couldn't have come up with something with more substance to it.  If I had a section on my bookshelves labeled "Pulp Fiction", I'd place The Postman Always Rings Twice right there.    

I've now read 74 of the 100 books on the Modern Library's list.  I'm going to read The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow, but then I'll probably retire the list.  There's not much left on it that interests me.

CURRENTLY READING:

• Death and Restoration--Iain Pears
• The Pillars of the Earth--Ken Follett (audiobook)

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I stayed away from the computer last weekend and spent most of my extra time reading.  It's amazing how much I could get through when I wasn't checking my e-mail every twenty minutes.  I finished up Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, read McSweeney's #25 in its entirety, and then read the majority of Robert Coover's A Child Again (which I finished up today).  I usually do my "Stuff I've Been Reading" post at the end of the month, but I have horrible recall for the things I read, so I've decided to cover these three books while they're still fresh in my mind.

BOOKS READ:

Red Harvest--Dashiell Hammett

The Maltese Falcon/The Thin Man/Red Harvest

Red Harvest was the third and final novel in my Dashiell Hammett collection.  The other two, The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, were good, but I thought Red Harvest was much better than either of them.  Not only did the book add the phrase "blood-simple" into our lexicon and partially inspire the Coen Brothers' Miller's Crossing, but it also featured one of the highest body counts of any novel I've read.  In fact, one of the chapters was actually called "The Seventeenth Murder".  There were still a lot to go, too.

Red Harvest sees the Continental Op (we never find out his real name) arrive in Poisonville only to discover that the man he was supposed to meet has been murdered.  The detective quickly solves that crime, but he's annoyed by the locals in the process, so he decides to stick around and rid the town of its criminal element.  The criminal element in Poisonville consists of bootleggers, loan sharks, heads of industry, hookers, hitmen, thugs, bookies, crooked boxers, and just about the entire police force.  Why does the Continental Op stick around when he could just as easily head home?  For "fun", of course.  He's a bad-ass...and something of a criminal himself.  Before the book ends, he's breaking laws left and right, planning murders, playing sides against each other, and even taking hits of laudanum.

I understand that the Continental Op appeared in a number of Dashiell Hammett short stories.  I'm definitely going to look for a collection.  I'm not usually interested in the crime genre, but I've been very impressed with everything I've read by Hammett, and I think I'd enjoy the further adventures of his character. 

McSweeney's #25--Dave Eggers (editor)

McSweeney's #25

I'd been putting off reading this collection because it featured a short story by David Hollander.  He wrote a novel called L.I.E., which was, by far, the worst book I have ever read in my life.  I hated it so much that I ripped it in half and threw it in the garbage when I finished.

Fortunately, David Hollander has improved a bit since 2000.  His story in McSweeney's #25 was actually one of the highlights.  That's not saying a whole lot, though, as this issue was something of a dud.  Like many recent issues of McSweeney's, it looked pretty (ahh, shiny gold and silver!), but didn't offer much worth reading.

In addition to the Hollander story, the only other highlights were "The Ape Man" by Alexander MacBride and "A Death in Custody" by Chloe Hooper.  The former was a brief look at the darker side of the Tarzan legend.  The latter was a non-fiction piece about Australian police brutality; it was an update to a story originally published in McSweeney's #21.

A Child Again--Robert Coover

A Child Again

A Child Again is a collection of short stories that update some of our most enduring fables and fairy tales.  In "Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee", Robert Coover looks in on the characters from "Puff the Magic Dragon".  Jackie Paper, who long ago lost interest in his dragon friend, has grown up and become a famous orator.  Puff, on the other hand, spends most of his time setting towns on fire and eating virgins.  In "The Invisible Man", the titular hero gets sick of fighting crime and becomes a thief and a voyeur.  In "Alice in the Time of the Jabberwocky", Alice tires of Wonderland and grows old, fat, and grumpy.  I don't even want to think about the sordid activities Prince Charming engages in with his wife's little friends in "The Dead Queen".

My personal favorite was "The Return of the Dark Children".  That story revisits the town that refused to pay for the Pied Piper's rat-removal services.  Years have gone by and a new generation of children has replaced those lost to the Piper.  Everything is gradually getting back to normal...and then the rats return.

All of the stories mentioned above were inspired and a lot of fun to read.  There were a couple in the collection, however, that I could've done without.  I didn't know the story revisited in "Playing House", so I didn't get much out of that one.  There was also one called "Suburban Jigsaw" that didn't seem to fit in at all.  Still, as a whole, A Child Again was a great collection and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in new takes on some old childhood favorites.   

CURRENTLY READING:

• The Apocalypse Reader--Justin Taylor (editor)
• The Pillars of the Earth--Ken Follett (audiobook)

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BOOKS BOUGHT:

• The Adventures of Augie March--Saul Bellow
• The Pillars of the Earth--Ken Follett (audiobook)
• If on a winter's night a traveler--Italo Calvino

BOOKS READ:

Tree of Smoke--Denis Johnson

Tree of Smoke

If you know me in the real world, I've probably creeped you out by giving you a copy of Denis Johnson's Already Dead as a gift.  If not, just wait awhile.  I've bought every used copy I've ever found and you'll get yours soon enough.

Denis Johnson is one of my favorite contemporary authors.  I've read all seven of his novels, his short story collection, his book of travel writings, his collected poems, and four of his plays.  Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's Vietnam novel.  It follows the twisted adventures of CIA operative, William "Skip" Sands, the Houston brothers, and about 40 other characters who drift in and out of the sprawling 600+ page book.  I thought it was a tough read, but ultimately rewarding.  The main issue I had with it was the sheer number of characters.  Had I known there were going to be so many, I would've kept a list of them from the beginning to help avoid confusion. 

Tree of Smoke won the 2007 National Book Award. 

Zeroville--Steve Erickson 

Zeroville

Steve Erickson is another of my favorite authors.  The writing he deletes or shreds is better than the best published work of Chuck Palahniuk.  I've read all eight of his novels and can honestly say they're all amazing.  Zeroville is probably my favorite so far. 

Zeroville tells the story of Vikar, a man with the image of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor (from A Place in the Sun) tattooed on his shaven head.  He arrives in Los Angeles on the day of the Manson Family killings.  Over the course of the book, Vikar gets involved in the movie industry and ends up becoming a successful film editor.  His duties in the field eventually lead him on a search for the original version of the 1928 silent film, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.  (If you've never seen this movie, drop what you're doing and go find a copy.  It'll change the way you see.)

I would highly recommend this book to people interested in the history of cinema.  There are hundreds of movie references in the book and real-life actors and directors appear thinly-veiled throughout.  On top of that, it's just a fantastic book.   

The Invention of Everything Else--Samantha Hunt (audiobook)

The Invention of Everything Else

I'd been having a lot of trouble reading since February.  Something happened to my brain and I lost my ability to read in the middle of Samantha Hunt's The Invention of Everything Else.  I finished the book, but struggled with the second half.  I switched over to graphic novels and started listening to the occasional audiobook.

One of the first audiobooks I picked up turned out to be The Invention of Everything Else itself.  I felt that I had to give the book a second try.  I'm glad I did.  It made a whole lot more sense the second time through. 

As mentioned in my original review, The Invention of Everything Else is about the last days of inventor Nikola Tesla.  He lives in the Hotel New Yorker and befriends a maid named Louisa.  They bond over a mutual love of pigeons.  Who doesn't love a book about an eccentric inventor, pigeons, and...time travel?

I can now publicly announce that there's nothing wrong with Samantha Hunt's book.  The problems I initially had were mine alone.  I would like to officially declare my adoration for everything Samantha Hunt has ever written (or ever will write) and my growing respect for the criminally neglected Nikola Tesla.  Now gather your book club friends and read this book!

Please.

The Thin Man--Dashiell Hammett

The Maltese Falcon/The Thin Man/Red Harvest

I found the Everyman's Library edition of this Dashiell Hammett collection for $2 at a Friends of the Library sale.  I don't even have much of an interest in Dashiell Hammett, but the book was too beautiful to leave on the shelf.  I couldn't resist buying it.  I'd already read The Maltese Falcon, so I started in on the second book in the collection, The Thin Man.

The Thin Man was originally published in 1934.  It was tremendously popular and eventually spawned a series of movies and television shows.  The book is famous for introducing the characters of Nick and Nora Charles, a married couple with a prodigious thirst for alcoholic beverages.  In between benders, they occasionally solve a crime or two.  The book seemed kind of quaint in places, but it was refreshing to read a mystery where the author didn't rely on the character's cell phone or internet access to solve the crime.  I also found it interesting to see how much of Robert B. Parker's writing style was copped from Hammett's. 

Drunk by Noon--Jennifer L. Knox

Drunk by Noon

The owner and operator of the world's most disturbing poetry/digital arts blog recently told me about Jennifer L. Knox and suggested that I'd like her book, Drunk by Noon.  I'll read any book named after a Handsome Family song, so I ordered it from the library, walked up to get it a few days later, took it into my bathroom (the only place in my house approved for the reading of poetry--I always read poetry aloud and the bathroom has the best acoustics), opened the book up at random, and proceeded to read a poem called "Music to Watch Girls By in the Mysterious Perfect Infinitive".  The poem ends with the following line, a line so brilliant that the poem itself automatically leapt into fourth place on my All-Time Favorite Poems list (yes, I have a list):

How could I have known true love would come, briefly, on one leg, after 56 Jell-O shots in an upstate fraternity basement listening to Ted Nugent's "Wango Tango," so drunk I'd just fucked a pile of phonebooks?

I don't know anything about poetry, but I know what I like, and I like that a lot.  The complete published works of Emily Dickinson don't touch me half as much as that one demented line.  I will admit it; there were a couple duds in Drunk by Noon, but that's to be expected in any collection.  I'm happy to say that the vast majority of the poems in the book were very enjoyable.  This was the perfect poetry book for me.  Not only did it have the Handsome Family reference, but one of the poems was even dedicated to Denis Johnson himself.  I'm definitely going to need my own copy of Drunk by Noon.  I'll also keep my eyes open for the author's other book, A Gringo Like Me.  

CURRENTLY READING:

• Red Harvest--Dashiell Hammett
• The Pillars of the Earth--Ken Follett (audiobook)

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