4 posts tagged “daniel clowes”

The first two books I read in November were The Best American Comics 2008 and A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley.  My reviews for those two books can be found here.  This post covers the rest of my book-related activities for the month.

BOOKS ACQUIRED:

• The Lottery and Other Stories--Shirley Jackson
• Stories in the Worst Way--Gary Lutz
• So Long, See You Tomorrow--William Maxwell
• Parade's End--Ford Madox Ford
• The Railway Children--E. Nesbit
• The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil--George Saunders
• #$@&!: The Official Lloyd Llewellyn Collection--Daniel Clowes
• Peepshow: 1950s Pin-ups in 3-D--Bunny Yeager

BOOKS READ:

Knockemstiff--Donald Ray Pollock

Donald Ray Pollock is from the real town of Knockemstiff, Ohio.  His first book is a series of 18 short stories featuring a group of interrelated characters from the town.  Most of the characters have issues.  There are alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, and down-on-their-luck losers.  Most of the individual stories are worth reading, but I came away from the book with a feeling of disappointment.  My complaint about Knockemstiff is that it didn't feel like there was any progression to what I was reading.  With the exception of the first and last stories, just about everything in this book could've been read in any order.  I usually don't have an issue with that in a short story collection, but this book featured related characters and I think it would've been more powerful if the book had been designed in a way that it told a larger story.

I don't even know what that means.  Maybe I'm just jealous of Donald Ray Pollock because I wasted a good chunk of my life trying to write a similar book about a group of interrelated losers from Ohio.  Pollock actually finished his book and it's far better than anything I could've ever come up with.  (And I just ended the previous sentence with "with".  I think that's against the rules.  And I just started a sentence with "and".  I'm pretty sure that's against the rules, too.  I actually did that one twice.  Dang.) 

What We Won't Do--Brock Clarke

One of the highlights of Brock Clarke's collection was a story called "She Loved to Cook but Not Like This".  The last line in the story was:

And since I was lonely and scared of repeating myself and sick at the thought of telling, revising, retelling this story of my life, I promised to never tell it again, and this is the last time.

Of course, Brock Clarke later went on to rewrite and expand this short story into the novel, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England.  I wish he'd taken his own advice and worked up a different story.  The novelization isn't anywhere near as good as the story he adapted it from.

My favorite story in this collection was probably "Plowing the Secondaries".  It's about two reckless brothers who drive around town plowing things with their snowplows other than snow.  "Up North" was also a highlight.  Like Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk", this story deals with a town that decides to hang an elephant after a circus-related mishap.  Gold's story is the better of the two, but Clarke's has a great last line (also the last line in the collection) that really packs a punch.

Overall, I'd say that Brock Clarke is a much better short story writer than he is a novelist.  If you feel like reading some of his work, I'd recommend you start with this collection.

The Baron in the Trees--Italo Calvino

Sometimes a book's title provides a better synopsis of the book than any reviewer ever could.  This is one of those cases: The Baron in the Trees is about a baron who lives in the trees.  As a boy, the character gets into a fight with his family over having to eat snails for dinner.  He climbs up into a tree to sulk and decides to stay there.  Fortunately for him, there are a lot of trees nearby and he can climb from his tree to the others.  In this manner, he's able to move around the town and the countryside.

Years pass and the Baron stays up in the trees.  He manages to lead a full life up there.  He has a pet dog.  He reads books.  He makes friends and has adventures in the war.  He even has relationships with some of the local ladies.

This was my third Italo Calvino book.  I liked it a lot more than Invisible Cities, but not as much as If on a winter's night a traveler.

The Enchantress of Florence--Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is one of my all-time favorite books, so I thought I would give his latest a try.  I read it over the course of a week or so, and can honestly say I wasn't able to follow it very well.  I enjoyed it, but I really didn't know what was going on half the time.  I was at about page 150 before I finally figured out who the titular character was.

As best I can tell, The Enchantress of Florence is about an Italian who shows up at Akbar's imperial court with a strange story to tell.  I'm not going to go into much more detail than that because I gave/lent the book to someone and I don't want to spoil things for her.  Let's just say that the book is full of mystery, magic, four giant albinos from Switzerland, and about a hundred characters taken from the real world historical record.

This is one I'd really like to read again.  My concentration was off and it deserved better from me. 

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil--George Saunders

I read this novella on a plane trip from Seattle to Cincinnati.  It's a political satire about the residents of a tiny country named Inner Horner.  The country is so tiny that only one of its residents can be there at a time.  The rest have to wait in a containment zone in the surrounding country of Outer Horner.  An Outer Hornerite named Phil gets it into his demented little brain (which keeps falling off) that the Inner Hornerites are evil and deserve to be exterminated.  He usurps the presidency of Outer Horner and then uses his new-found powers to attack the helpless Inner Hornerites.

But wait...Outer Horner is itself entirely surrounded by a country called Greater Keller.  Will the Greater Kellerites sit back and let Phil disassemble the Inner Hornerites?  Will they let Phil's unprovoked aggression stand?  Or will they ATTACK!!?!

Oh, and the "people" in the book are made out of tin cans, ball bearings, and blinking lights.  You figure it out.

#$@&!: The Official Lloyd Llewellyn Collection--Daniel Clowes

This is just another Daniel Clowes collection.  I'm not a big fan of his Lloyd Llewellyn character, but I thought I'd buy this one anyway because it was only $8 and I'd never seen it before.  I think it's out-of-print.  I also really liked the cover art (different than the one shown here).  It features Lloyd and a woman who looks like she could have been an early prototype for the Enid character from Ghost World...if Enid had been an incredibly tall, busty gal with crooked teeth.  Very strange cover art.  As far as the stories go, they were alright.  My favorite was "Crawl, Worm!"  In that one, Lloyd lusts after a lady and she rewards his attentions by biting off his fingernail and turning him into a worm.  You know, the usual.

Peepshow: 1950s Pin-ups in 3-D--Bunny Yeager

This is really just a picture book, but I'm including it here because it's fun and I did actually read the intro (really, I did).  As the title would suggest, this book is a collection of photographs of pin-up models from the 1950s.  Each picture is printed twice and when the "reader" looks through a pair of fold-out glasses, the images appear in 3-D.  I found this strange little volume at Half Price Books while looking for books about Bettie Page.  She actually makes two appearances in Peepshow, so I'm glad I found it.  I just hope no one saw me looking in the nude photography section.

CURRENTLY READING:

• Stories in the Worst Way--Gary Lutz

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 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

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

BOOKS BOUGHT:

• Sacred Games--Vikram Chandra
• The Invention of Everything Else--Samantha Hunt (audiobook)
• The Book of Yoga--Christina Brown
• Caricature--Daniel Clowes
• Pussey!--Daniel Clowes
• McSweeney's #26--Dave Eggers (editor)
• Where to Invade Next--Stephen Elliott (editor)
• 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die--Stephen Jay Schneider (editor)
• The Pillars of the Earth--Ken Follett (audiobook)

BOOKS READ:

• The French Lieutenant's Woman--John Fowles

The French Lieutenant's Woman tells the story of Sarah Woodruff, a woman who becomes a pariah after having inappropriate relations with a shipwrecked Frenchman.  The book looks at the aftermath of that disastrous relationship and follows the new one Sarah has with a local gentleman, Charles Smithson.  Mr. Smithson is engaged to an heiress, but begins to question that engagement as he spends more time with Sarah.  You can take it from there.  Oh wait, maybe you can't just take it from there.  Did I mention the book has three different endings?  It's kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book for adults.

This was my third novel by John Fowles.  The first two, The Collector and The Magus, are among my favorite books.  The French Lieutenant's Woman isn't a bad book, by any means (it's ranked #93 on the Top 100 Novels list the Radcliffe Publishing Course put out in 1998), but I still didn't like it nearly as much as the other John Fowles books I've read.

By the way, The French Lieutenant's Woman should've been entitled The French Lieutenant's Whore.  That's what everyone in the book calls the "woman" of the title.  I suspect they called the book what they did because most people wouldn't want to be caught buying or reading a book with the word "whore" in the title.

• Caricature--Daniel Clowes

I've recently been tracking down some of Daniel Clowes' pre-Ghost World material.  I picked up Caricature and Pussey! this month and they helped me through the weeks of not being able to read real books.  I've been writing too much about comics and graphic novels lately, so I don't want to go into much detail on these.  I'll just say that Caricature was excellent.  It was similar to Twentieth Century Eightball in that it featured short stories (as opposed to one long story like Ghost World).  The stories were all good except for "Gynecology".  I had no idea what was going on with that one.

 

• Pussey!--Daniel Clowes  

This book was really little more than a funny title.  The story looks at the rise and fall of a comic book penciller named Dan Pussey.  It was funny in places (particularly the chapter "Dan Pussey's Masturbation Fantasy"), but mostly it was a let-down.  Pussey! is still better than 99% of things to be found in a comic book store, but it's not nearly as good as the other Daniel Clowes books I've read.

I'm not sure what I'm complaining about, though.  Pussey! only cost $10.  Most of the other Clowes books cost twice that much. 

  

• Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, etc.--Ted Thompson (editor)

My mom bought this off the McSweeney's website for $3, and I stole it off her bookshelf and took it home with me.  The full title of the book is Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out.  Upon first glance, it appears to be a children's book.  The stories are short, illustrated, and often feature children as the main characters.  Further reading reveals that these young characters often end up decapitated in the woods or abandoned by their parents, so I'm not really sure it's a children's book.  Maybe it's a demented children's book.  It's hard to say.

I have no idea what to make of Noisy Outlaws, but I certainly enjoyed reading it.  It was probably my favorite book of the month.  With the exception of Jon Scieszka's "Each Sold Separately", the stories were all enjoyable and worth reading. 

• Gentlemen of the Road--M-----l Chabon

I was incredibly disappointed with The Yiddish Policemen's Union.  It was my least favorite book of 2007.  M-----l Chabon is still one of my favorite authors, though, so I decided to give Gentlemen of the Road a try.  It's an adventure story along the lines of Robin Hood or Don Quixote.  The working title of the novella was Jews With Swords.  That tells you a lot.

The main characters in Gentlemen of the Road are Zelikman, a skinny doctor with a hat fetish, and Amram, a gigantic Abyssinian warrior with an ax called "The Mother-Defiler".  These two mismatched travel partners get tangled up with an usurped Khazar prince who wants to reclaim his family's throne.  There are some adventures and some battles.  There are elephants.  You get the idea.  

It seems like strange subject matter for a Pulitzer Prize winner, but at least he's not writing about Alaska anymore.  Gentlemen of the Road was actually a good book.  It doesn't make up for The Yiddish Policemen's Union, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

• McSweeney's #26--Dave Eggers (editor)

Imagine that you're used to getting an awesome mixtape in the mail four times a year.  They're usually full of wonderful new songs by musicians you've mostly never heard before.  Imagine that many of your current favorite musicians were originally discovered on these mixtapes and you always look forward to the day the next tape will show up in the mail.  Then imagine that your most recent mixtape consists of little more than demos, backing tracks, and the first part of a really long song that you'd have to buy for $22 if you want to hear how it ends.

That's what McSweeney's #26 was like for me.  The issue was divided into two 120 page pocket-sized booklets.  Many of the stories enclosed were excerpts from works-in-progress.  In fact, the first 40+ pages of the second booklet was a selection from John Brandon's upcoming novel, Arkansas.  The novel is going to be published by McSweeney's, so they're basically using the Quarterly Concern to hawk their upcoming publishing projects.  I don't mind if they ship along free samples of future releases (as they've done in the past), but including the teasers in the issue itself is shady...especially when the hawked story isn't very interesting in the first place.

Fortunately, there were a few good stories in #26.  I especially liked "Porcus Omnivorus" by Ismet Prcic and "Charity" by Wayne Harrison.  The former tells the story of an ex-soldier who accidentally ends up at a backyard barbeque thrown by his enemies.  The latter tells why you should never hire a meth-head to work in your autoshop. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that your most recent mixtape inexplicably includes Rupert Holmes' "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)".  Garry Craig Powell's short story "Moving Crucifixion" blatantly rips off the 70s pop classic.  I can't believe the story got published as is.  

• Where to Invade Next--Stephen Elliott (editor)

This strange little book came packaged with McSweeney's #26 (although it can be purchased separately).  I guess the editors felt bad for their lackluster issue and decided to send along a free book to lessen my disappointment.  The fact that the freebie was a book about which country America should attack next came as a surprise to me, but it actually made for intriguing reading.  The information inside was legitimate and well-researched.  The editors at McSweeney's probably did a better job researching these seven countries than the Bush Administration did researching Iraq prior to invading a few years back.

I'm going to vote for invading Venezuela.  Maybe Sudan, too.  Then I would send some top-secret assassins to off some other despots.

CURRENTLY READING:

• Tree of Smoke--Denis Johnson
• The Invention of Everything Else--Samantha Hunt (audiobook)

Shortcomings--Adrian Tomine

I first became aware of Adrian Tomine when I bought a CD by the Softies called It's Love.  He did the artwork for the cover and I remember thinking it looked similar to the artwork in Daniel Clowes' Ghost World (especially the very last panel in the book).  I came upon his name again last month while reading The Best American Comics 2007.  He had an excerpt of his graphic novel, Shortcomings, in that anthology.  I enjoyed the part I read, but the excerpt ended abruptly without any sort of closure.  It left me wanting more.  I think the editors intended for me to buy my own copy to see how it ended (and began), but I felt the book was overpriced at $20.  I ended up doing something I've only done once or twice before.  I went up to my local bookstore, found a copy of the book, and proceeded to plop down on the couch and read the entire thing.  What are they going to do, throw me out?!

The main character in Shortcomings, an Asian-American man named Ben Tanaka, is whiny, insecure, and not very likeable.  He and his girlfriend Miko fall apart when she moves to New York for an internship.  He mopes about and bitches to his best friend Alice.  They go to parties together and Alice tries to sleep with as many girls as possible.  Ben has similar goals, but his lust is mostly directed at the white ones.  Eventually, Ben and Alice both end up in New York where Alice hooks up with an old acquaintance and Ben has a wonderfully comical confrontation with Miko's new boyfriend, the Rice King.

Shortcomings is one of the better graphic novels I've read*.  Ben is an annoying, self-absorbed character (who reminded me of myself, unfortunately), but every time I almost got sick of him, Alice would show up again and save things.  She's a wonderful character and deserves her own book.  Adrian Tomine's writing is often poignant and his art is always beautiful.  If your local has a comfortable couch, I'd highly recommend you give the book a try. 

Twentieth Century Eightball--Daniel Clowes

Daniel Clowes is my favorite cartoonist.  His Ghost World was the first graphic novel I ever read and it's still my favorite.  (I've got a vinyl Little Enid doll on a shelf in my kitchen.)  Although I've read just about everything he's released since Ghost World, I haven't done a good job tracking down and reading his earlier work.  Twentieth Century Eightball is a collection of some of that earlier work, so it seemed like a good fit for me.

The author describes the comics collected in Twentieth Century Eightball as "filler strips" or "bullshit strips".  There are about 35 comics in the book.  Some of them are only a page long.  Others stretch out three or four pages.  I guess they were initially published in the original Eightball comics.

The comics that appear here are drawn in a wide variety of styles.  Some of them remind me of Ghost World, while others look like they were drawn in a style reminiscent of the old Archie comics.  The stories told are often hilarious ("I Hate You Deeply", "The Sensual Santa").  Some are horribly sad ("My Suicide").  A few of them are downright vulgar ("Needledick the Bug-Fucker", "On Sports").  All of them--regardless of the style in which they were drawn or written--are classic Daniel Clowes and make for enjoyable reading.  I'm definitely going to see if there are other early collections available.

* = I think this is a terrible sentence, but I don't know how else to say it.