Night, Elie Wiesel; Atonement, Ian McEwan; The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Uncannily, the three books I picked at random this February all feature arduous treks along which the characters’ livelihoods are at the mercy of some despised, faceless enemy. The tragedy behind each of these stories serves as a reminder of all that we have to cherish, and how short life really is. Strange coincidence, for sure, since all the while I am pondering my own dogged march for the past eight years and when I may finally be able to step off the track, fall out of step with my comrades and explore what lies in neighboring woods and inland lakes just beyond my current reach. 

Night, by Elie Wiesel 

This little dagger of a memoir has the power to gouge into your gut with a twist of its blunt edge. I never heard of Elie Wiesel before Amazon.com listed this book as one of my recommended reads. I learned quickly in the preface that “Night” was published decades ago in longer form and is a rather famous Holocaust memoir. This recently released version, however, is a new translation by Wiesel’s wife, Marion Wiesel, and edited down from the original. In short, the memoir recounts Wiesel’s trek as a young child from his hometown to Auschwitz. Separated from his two sisters and is mother, Wiesel endures the unimaginable with his father by his side. 

What I found most touching, besides the obvious father and son storyline, was the horror that Wiesel describes when witnessing his own humanity shrinking in fear. When your shaken soul cowers in the battered shell of your body, you find within yourself thoughts and actions you never thought you could be capable of. Makes you wonder how you much dignity you could preserve when reduced to a naked, shivering waif by so-called fellow humans. 

Atonement, by Ian McEwan 

Despite raging reviews and the whole Oscar nomination thing, I was not that impressed with this one. The writing is elegant, sure, and the characters all have their eccentricities, but I failed to find resonance in the stories unfolding through parts I, II or III. Maybe it is because I could not get Keira Knightley’s face out of my head from way too much media bombardment. Given the intricacies of the story, I found myself mostly unable to believe that “that just happened”. Something about it was forced. Or maybe it was I who felt coerced, obliged to plod on and on until the final kaboom. 

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy 

The style of this post-apocalyptic account brings you right back to the high school Eng. Lit. stalwart, The Old Man and the Sea. Throughout his methodically sparse storytelling, McCarthy chooses to go with character names of “the man” and “the boy”, seating the reader squarely in the mezzanine section of the third party observatory. At the same time, however, you find yourself leaning forward in the creaky velvet seats, drawn into a story that is much more personal than the prose lets on. In the event of some global nuclear disaster, “the man” could very well be you, and “the boy” your son. 

As in the other two February picks above, resounding themes include courage in the face of extreme adversity, humanity fraying at the seams, and the primal instinct to survive. Somehow though, where Atonement’s extensive imagery and lengthy character studies lacks a certain degree of soul, The Road’s simplistic depiction guides you straight into the heart of humanity under attack. Definitely a book I would recommend for the uniqueness of its style, subject, and characterizations.

Annette Vallon, by James Tipton

It’s funny how context and history change perception. Before I read Annette Vallon, William Wordsworth was simply a poet that I loved for his affinity to Nature, for the unrestrained passion pouring into his verse. After reading this historic fiction, carefully told by Tipton, I cannot help but notice a constriction in Wordsworth’s verses that I never noticed before, a catch in the throat that checks a person from speaking straight from the heart, and a slightly querulous limp in his laments of foregone Youth.

The heroine, on the other hand, shines in the novel against the wider backdrop of the French Revolution. Of course, it’s important to bear in mind that Tipton’s storytelling, although compelling, has woven a version of reality from selected phrases in letters, fragments of history, and faded parchments of verse, with the hypersensitive imagination of a researcher trawling the stacks in a university library. In actuality, not much is known about Mme Annette Vallon except that she was Wordsworth’s French lover with whom he had a little girl named Caroline Wordsworth. The English Channel and repeated wars separated the two, and a decade later, Wordsworth went on to Mary, a Mary Hutchinson he wed in 1802.

Tipton’s portrayal of the puritan influence of Wordsworth’s cherished sister, Dorothy, leaves a sour taste of cowardice and lack of will in the character of the celebrated poet. The frightful anecdotes of the French Revolution also impress upon me just how horrific Robespierre’s Reign of Terror was. The valor with which Annette Vallon survived the perpetual separation from Wordsworth and faced the French Revolution endears this mysterious figure to the heart. And when you reach the final page, you may very well feel impelled to launch into a close reading of Wordsworth’s works in attempts to discern a reference here or a line there alluding to this love he left behind.

“Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind.”

- Ode ‘There was a time’, lines 180-183, W. Wordsworth

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova

Kostova’s tale of vampiric legend and intrigue overflows with deliciously researched details much like a Dan Brown mystery yet delights with the polished prose of an author who can actually write. Descriptions deep and lush draw you into the shadows of Central Europe, rickety carriage rides through lands and mountains with names like Wallachia and Les Pyrenees-Orientales. Different perspectives are told through letters ancient and new, illustrating how black ink continues to link the past with the present despite the harried hand of time.

Even more notable than the above is the ingenuous narrative of the main character. Neither a weathered Tom Hanks nor an “o”-mouthed Audrey Tautou, the young protagonist is propelled to the forefront of this adventure by curiosity and daughterly devotion alone. There are definitely portions of the 704 page novel that seem tedious and off-track, but as a whole, a wonderful way to pass hours of air-time en route from one city to another.

Catching the Big Fish, by David Lynch

This was an ideal way to kickstart 2008. I read this in one sitting on the afternoon of January 2^nd, soaking in wintry rays that slanted through the living room window and the charming eccentricity of David Lynch. In eighty-three mini-chapters, he contemplates a random assortment of facts and opinions and Muses that have shaped his life, including, of course, his dedication to Transcendental Meditation. What’s funny about David Lynch is, the more you get to know his films and the more you catch those occasional glimpses of his personality, the more you realize that it just doesn’t do to put him on a pedestal. He’s more like the guy at a diner you casually strike up a conversation with and recognize midstream you never want it to end. 

Just the other night, Levi and I finished our annual January Twin Peaks marathon, starting with the pilot and ending with the film. The first time I saw Twin Peaks, I remember being freaked out by the strange images and inexplicable plot twists. This time, entering the town of 51,201 was like a familiar homecoming, or, better yet, like revisiting a funhouse where you’ve already seen it with all the lights on. Nothing to be afraid of, the protective ego lies back and lets the rest of you climb aboard the ride to enjoy the sights and sounds for all their mystifying beauty. 

For all those Lynchian fans out there, I’d venture that this book is a must read. Much like having a conversation with an old friend over a piece of cherry pie.

Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld

It has been a long time since my last book review. The subject of the last was James Frey’s ‘non’-memoir, which was bashed to a million pieces in America’s openly Oprah-rific forum. Looking back years later, I still don’t feel like a helpless victim of Frey’s treacherous memoir con. That’s probably because I find as much truth in fiction as in reality, so am not that fussed about mixing the two. Anyhow, enough with the passé Frey defense, this is about ‘Prep’.

I first picked up ‘Prep’ a few months ago, but I did not choose to read it until this past week as I traveled to visit my father back home. From its opening line, ‘Prep’ hooks into the shreds of high school trauma still left inside you and cinches them out one by one for re-examination. I spent the latter hours of my journey captivated by the novel. Uncannily, when I arrived at my father’s, my high school yearbook, which I haven’t seen in at least a decade, was lying on the coffee table, unearthed during his recent move.

‘Prep’ is narrated in the first person by Lee Fiora (who, by the way, should have been cool just because of her kick-ass name), who applies and enrolls herself into boarding school at fourteen. The messy details of her four years at “Ault” remind you why even your most loathed enemies should never have to go through high school again. The only more brutal form of torture that comes to mind right now is that ball-breaker scene in Casino Royale, but I digress.

The title of the book caught my eye immediately since I went to a college preparatory school for 7 years that was literally (and perhaps a bit unimaginatively) called “Prep”. It was a day school, though, rather than a boarding school. My “boarding school” days were the subsequent four years of college for which I was ironically not prepared for at all. As you can imagine, Sittenfeld’s debut novel dug up queasy memories of my personal 11 year nightmare and was an unexpected exhumation of the awkward, acne-d adolescent self that I’d interred long ago.

Just as Lee does at Ault, I felt like an outsider all throughout high school, and after that, all throughout college. Never quite fit in anywhere, and always aware of it. Sittenfeld drums up these feelings well in her first person portrayal of Lee. The daily self-immolation through embarrassment, shame, confusion, or insecurity (often in rotation) burning in your cheeks. The hyper-self-awareness of how “being cool” was always just out of your reach. The trying on of outfits and facades and characters to see if any fit. Through all this mental distillation, the essence of who you are hardens, crystallizes, and burrows deep inside you, to be mined years later when you are finally ready to appreciate its value.

As much as the details of Lee’s narrative strike dissonant chords, the perspective from which she narrates wrenches even deeper. Sittenfeld not only chooses the first person, but a retrospective first person as well, as if Lee is re-telling the story a decade later. At once you are not simply back in high school, but you are in your late twenties, shoveling knee-deep in the graveyard of past personas. “Don’t go there,” the townsfolk cry! Sittenfeld’s narrative is tinged with an aged bitterness that bleeds off the pages, and you can’t help but squint at your own mordant memories through her vinegar fumes.

Some look back fondly on the yesteryears of young adulthood. I am not one of these people, and clearly, neither is Curtis/Lee. I’d like to think that I’ve moved completely past the bitterness of then and am able to look positively upon those years as the ‘preparatory’ period for who I am now, or better yet, for recognizing who I have always been. After all, surely the phases define the journey. But even so, as I dusted off my old yearbook and thumbed through its glossy pages, the familiar twinge that returned in my gut was a bit sharper than I’d like to admit. Funny, that of all the personas, the outsider is the hardest to decompose.

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

I read James Frey's uncompromising account of his drug rehabilitation on December 31st, in two separate sittings, the first on the way from Honolulu to Tokyo, and the second from Tokyo to Hong Kong. Would have probably read it in one if it wasn't for the layover. I was taken in by his unyielding stream of consciousness that opens a window to the world of Addicts and their Addictions. Frey's prose does not use standard phrasing and plants you smack dab in the pilot seat as he relives his nightmare. He does not even use any quotation marks to offset the dialogue outside of his head from the monologue within, which is at first confusing but you catch on pretty quick.

The details of drug addiction and the insight into the world of drug use are both fascinating and shocking, oftentimes invoking the reader's morbid curiosity. You learn specifics about crack and cocaine and meth use, as well as the ravages of those drugs on your mind and organs. Most heartwrenching is the extent to which Addicts degrade themselves when in need of a fix. But most captivating of all is how mercilessly Frey sizes himself up within the memoir, placing the responsibility squarely upon his own shoulders. His self-awareness and honesty are inspiring. Addicts or ex-addicts or not, everyone has something to learn from reading this memoir. Perfect read to end 2005. :) 

Oh, and a big Happy New Year hug to you all, here's to an incredible 2006 filled with love and inspiration! =D

Mister Candid – Jules Hardy

Amazing read…I couldn’t put this book down. The very hilarious husband of a friend of mine recommended it to me about a year ago and I just got around to picking it up via Amazon.com. Jules Hardy, first of all, is a female author, which I did not realize until well into the 406 pg novel. Most of the characters in the book are male and I assumed incorrectly that ‘Sheila was a man’ due to her succinct and to the point characterization of these men.

The book evokes a range of emotions in the reader, from horror and disbelief during more macabre scenes to curiosity and revulsion regarding sexual taboos. The way Hardy approaches both the sick and the gruesome is neutral and in a way without judgment, so that the reader himself is left with the scales and the decision to weigh or not weigh.

Morality is a funny thing. We all must have our own sense of right or wrong, but when it comes down to matching societal mores, what if our intuition goes against the guidelines set by the world around us? I have always intuitively been against the death penalty. To me, it is just wrong for any system to make a judgment on whether a person lives or dies. I have always felt that the higher powers that be make that decision for us, and courts should not intervene. That seems so intuitively right to me. And in terms of a person taking the life of another…I always abhorred the slight flitter of contentment I would feel when an evil character in a movie finally dies at the hand of the hero protagonist. Who are we to make decisions on the life or death of our fellow human beings?

Mister Candid challenged these views for me. As the back cover will reveal, the story is about a serial killer who rids society of its depraved offenders, namely rapists and child molesters. The title character, I hesitate to type “protagonist” but in a sense that is who he is, makes a career out of this societal “cleansing”, and I found myself rooting for his success in the end. After all, he is killing the vermin that have themselves killed and tortured before, so it is poetic justice, isn’t it? But who is to judge who should or should not be “cleansed” from society? Where do the lines blur before we evoke another Hitler extreme into our midst?

The story follows how Chum Kane, aka Mister Candid, became the serial killer that he is, and is paralleled by the soul-searching of Flanagan, a cop who wants to find Mister Candid and decide for himself which is the better way, to hand over the depraved to the justice (and often injustice) of the courts, or to enforce judgment upon them by pulling the trigger himself. I found myself closely relating to Flanagan’s moral struggle and when I set down the book reluctantly after the 406th page I found myself at a bit of a loss. Rooting for a serial killer. Hmm…

This novel is extremely well-written in a blunt, matter-of-fact style, and will keep you on the edge of your seat and your principles. If I were to point out any criticism, it would be that the ending seems a bit truncated, almost rushed. But perhaps that’s only because I just want to keep following Chum Kane until he finds redemption. Perhaps.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom - Don Miguel Ruiz

This book was gifted to me this Christmas by a incredible, sensitive soul in Vancouver whom I love…she knows who she is! This is an extremely short read, almost like a quick guide to finding happiness, but much more inspired than the many “self-help in a nutshell” guides you find in the Personal Well-being section of the bookstore these days. I am pretty much open minded to any of these “guides” and usually end up reading both fundamentally soul soothing books as well as the Velveeta ordained ones that just recycle a bunch of known “truths” in a jumbled and inarticulately cheesy mess.

So why is this one particularly good? I think it’s in the simplicity of what these agreements are trying to help the reader focus on. Also, as with all of these guides, the timing of when you read it and your readiness to receive the information within all plays into the effectiveness of the guide. For me, it seemed to reinforce things that I have been pondering recently, including the paradigms set by your parents early on in your life, thus creating walls of approval and disapproval that you eventually must break down yourself. There are no walls but those that you erect yourself. The only approval required is your own. How simple these concepts but at the same time it is this seeking of approval that results in the deep-rooted insecurities that plague even the most headstrong.

The book focuses on four tenets: impeccability to your word, don’t take things personally, don’t make assumptions, and do your best in everything that you do. I think the one that was most jolting for me was “don’t take things personally”. People’s actions germinate from their own motives and purposes, and even when they seem directed at you, the true instigator is within them. Thus, it doesn’t make sense to take things personally because it’s never about you. In the same way, your own thoughts and actions stem from within and there is no one else to blame for the feelings and emotions you experience except you. Being rather sensitive in general, I think this is one of those tenets that really made me find freedom in the recent past. I realized my sensitive reactions to other people’s actions were misguided and unnecessary, and that I was enslaving myself to guilt and blame. Once you divorce yourself from those two harbingers of pain and self-doubt, there’s this sense of liberation, of bindings slipped off, of tethers untied, and you begin to soar on your own terms.

A big thank you to the beautiful woman who sent this book to me…sending virtual hugs from Hawaii.

John Banville - The Sea

I don’t know what possessed me to pick up this book in the first place, as I’d never heard of Banville before. Perhaps it was the simplicity of the title and the Magritte-esque cover, and of course, that stamp of approval on the bottom right hand corner: “Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2005”.

What struck me most through reading this book was Banville’s prose…extremely elegant and at times esoteric as well. He uses words that I have never even seen before. “Blench” for example. I stupidly have always thought it was spelled “blanche”. Parboiled, leporine, lummox, costiveness, anthropic, polyp, vulgate, apercus. Words I’ve seen but forgotten: recreant, traduced, crapulent…so many, sometimes you feel like Banville’s choice of words is an angry onslaught to catch the reader offguard. You can almost imagine him spitting each distinct syllable of these foreign words at his ignobly ignorant readers, of which I am one. He demands an exercise of the brain and I like that.

Another distinction with his prose…he has no chapters. Just a part I and a part II. He slides in and out of scenes, memories, time periods, point of views in a quick turn of the pen and you feel securely seatbelted behind his mind’s eye, as it takes you for a ride. There are surprising moments, catches in his plot, points where you draw a sharp intake of breath as the twist dawns upon you, but it’s not the plot that keeps you going, but rather, the meandering vein of his prose.

The storyline circles around the grieving process of Max Morden, who has just lost his wife to cancer. Yet in grieving for his Anna, Max finds himself wandering through his childhood and past griefs. The intertwining of his adulthood and childhood forms a unique perspective as you trace the outlines of his mind. Unexpectedly, anger will boil up to the forefront, prompting him to address the dead Anna directly with foul epithets you wouldn’t think Max Morden could be capable of.

One particular passage that struck a chord for me…there is a moment when Max’s anger erupts in an all too familiar question that once ran through my mind during my early stages of grief. He demands of Anna, “Why have you not come back to haunt me? It is the least I would have expected from you. Why this silence, day after day, night after interminable night?…Send back your ghost. Torment me, if you like. Rattle your chains, drag your cerements across the floor, keen like a banshee, anything. I would have a ghost.”

All in all, the man has a succinct an elegant style that makes you keep reading. His perspectives are wide-ranging, sometimes you are deep in his neuroses, other times reading what seems to be just a straightforward, subjective account of a summer’s day. Which is so indicative of how one’s mind usually works…completely randomly. Deep one minute, then fixated on some superfluous detail in the next. He commands your attention by the very power of his prose and you follow, mesmerized in this alternate reality he weaves.