Book 14: The Pickup Artist

The Pickup Artist
Terry Bisson

This novel, like so many others, begins with a wonderful premise, one that can open up immense questions about the nature of expression and censorship- but a different kind than we are used to. Unfortunately, however, while his narrator's voice rings true and is eay and enjoyable to immerse oneself in, the philosophical potential of the novel's set-up is wasted on absurd plot developments that provide nothing but distraction and, in the end, disappointment. Bisson begins impressively, with his narrator addressing the reader directly and throwing readers headfirst into his world, where his job is to confiscate lingering works of art from artists who have been deleted. The conceit looks promising as Shapiro begins to doubt the utility of his job, but it quickly descends into a chaotic tangle of increasingly absurd and unexplained events. There is suspense and the reader comes to care about the characters (or at the very least Shapiro and his sick dog), but Bisson begins on such a serious note and with such a serious and important (not to mention meta) topic at hand that the novel's descent into endless jokes seems almost offensive, as if Bisson himself has missed the point in order to garner a few cheap laughs. There is too much that is unexplained and nebulous in this book, too much extraneous matter that simply doesn't belong- quite a feat for a slender volume such as this.

Though the novel fails on the largest levels, The Pickup Artist does have its merits. Shapiro is a likable and able narrator; the reader understands immediately the major predicament of the unfamiliar narrative world. Bisson also wisely intersperses historical notes between plot-based chapters, explaining the backstory behind the continuous cleansing of the artistic lexicon and giving the novel its most ponderous and fitting moments, even if they too dissolve into meaninglessness when they collide with the plot. Certain aspects of the novel, such as this backstory, are extremely well thought-out and thought-provoking, even after the book's events fail to hold the reader's interest. The talent and fundamental ideas are present here, along with some hilarious jokes, but they are lacking in execution as Bisson seems too concerned with making a "fun" book rather than an important one (and the two need not be mutually exclusive). The overall theme of the book, which takes the original premise and stands it on its head somewhat, is definitely interesting and provides a nice circular tie to the confiscation of A Canticle for Leibowitz that sets off the novel. Ultimately, the ideas and the writing are here, but the novel's execution and plot fail to give it the weight its subject matter deserves, weight that can be provided by the correct subtle hands but which is here used excessively to the detriment of the novel's overall quality. Bisson provides an interesting overall narrative and his ideas regarding artistic saturation are particularly relevant in the Internet era, but as soon as Shapiro steps afoul of the law the story follows him into unpleasantly loose and pointless territory.

Grade: C

Book 13: The Truth Machine

The Truth Machine
James Halperin

I read this author's two books in reverse order, which didn't do much except dull my expectations for this book and provide me with some basic expectations about the plot of this novel; my expectations were, for the most part, duly met and even at times exceeded. I knew that Halperin is at best a lousy writer, but I was absolutely unprepared for the extremely dull and at times hilariously stiff nature of his prose. That's what I get for expecting retroactive improvement in his writing style; The First Immortal looks excellent compared to the writing in this book. Here again, however, we have a fundamental conflict for readers: Halperin's writing is sufficiently terrible but his ideas are again interesting and pose interesting questions, even if he does blatantly call attention to them while interjecting his own personal beliefs into every second of his future vision. Held to any reasonable literary standards, then, this book is terrible; I found it nonetheless quite enjoyable, though much more wooden and far more underdeveloped than his second novel.

The characters are all wooden caricatures with completely predictable and unrealistic actions and concrete beliefs that are relayed incessantly to the reader without much straight exposition to back them up. Everything is quite compact and fits rather neatly, making even the likable characters grating after a while and the reprehensible characters truly repellent. The Truth Machine does, however, look at world events on an incredibly grand scale and chooses adequately connected characters to drive them and, consequently, the plot. Even I was rooting for the main characters to triumph by the end of the book, though I found his stuttering distracting and remarkably unnoticed in situations where it should raise significant alarm. In fact, Pete Armstrong, the novel's protagonist (not to be confused with the author, per the author bio!), is actually rendered more dislikable by his distinguishing characteristics; when he is a wooden cutout he is somewhat tolerable. Other characters seem realistic only because Halperin operates in a world of sweeping generalities and needs those who populate his world to be easily understood. The characters of The Truth Machine, while absolutely driving its action, are almost incidental to the story being told, and while this leads to boredom and dissociation, it allows Halperin to focus his efforts on the ideas the characters unfailingly represent.

Halperin operates mainly in black and white, with generous doses of The Obvious Hammer thrown in for good measure. He is extremely transparent about his beliefs, including those on mandatory capital punishment and his minor obsession with cryonics. This rampant evangelism would be maddening were it not rendered absolutely laugh-out-loud hilarious by the appendices and the author's own extra sections. The former is a useful addition to the outrageously unbelievable premise of the narrative's construction while the latter, calling for readers of The Truth Machine to help make it a reality, actually made me laugh out loud. The book includes the hilarious author bio I described above, which notes the similarities between the author and his protagonist (one sentence is actually, "There the similarities end."); the acknowledgments section is certainly appreciative but clearly self-aggrandizing; and, true to form, the book contains advertisments for the World Futurist Society and the science of cryogenics. Halperin is, at the very least, always aware of himself and what he is doing.

Perhaps despite himself, then, Halperin has actually constructed an interesting, if over-executed, narrative conceit by having a computer narrate the book- while this is plausible given the vast technological developments he foresees, he doesn't include any relevant technologies in the body of the novel and often interrupts the flow of events with parenthetical notes that try way too hard to make the computer narrator believable. The footnotes, many of which (cleverly?) insult our own primitivism by explaining semantic differences to readers contemporary to the book's events, are equally unhelpful and actually call attention to the conceit rather than adding to its delusion. Funniest, though, is the computer's introduction, which seems to be an unintentionally ironic acknowledgment of Halperin's lack of literary finesse: the computer apologizes for his lack of literary flourishes, perhaps apologizing for the poor quality of the prose to follow and even the news timelines that begin each chapter, which are actually well thought out and perhaps the book's most redeeming feature.

I must admit, though, that even the flaws of The Truth Machine only add to its charm, and while it's bizarre to read about "future" events happening in a mythical parallel 2009, Halperin's visions are, again, quite interesting. He hits his main points pretty hard, and while I certainly disagree with him on many of them he does occasionally present the merit of the detracting sides and has clearly thought out his positions on the issues. He praises rationalism throughout without insulting religion (just the institutions, not the beliefs themselves), a nice change of tone from the current atmosphere and includes some debates pertinent to the book's main issues. And though the book's characters are unrealistic and two-dimensional, I found that they were still compelling in their own way as they shaped this potential future. It's shocking, too, to see the kinds of things Halperin got right and sobering to realize that certain timelines once seemed viable (no, we did not get an AIDS cure last year). This book is kind of a literary train wreck in its writing, but at the same time it is hard to look away entirely or even to dismiss Halperin's happy jaunt into the realm of speculative fiction. The Truth Machine is rudimentary in many ways but it tackles interesting moral dilemmas, however condescendingly, and is actually enjoyable purely as entertainment and brain fodder.

Grade: C

Book 12: Cat's Cradle

Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut

And now for something completely different, yet again; I sure am running the gamut with the books I'm reading this year. I've only read one book by Vonnegut before (Slaughterhouse-Five) and it was quite a while ago. Also, I'm usually not one for absurdist books and am almost totally unfamiliar with the genre, but I didn't get very far into Cat's Cradle before I could appreciate its incessant satiric jabs, presented perfectly in a light tone but possessing quite the punch. Without very many solid characters or easily understood chronology, at least initially, it is a bit difficult to get into the book unless you sit back and allow it to absorb you completely; once it grabs a hold of you, however, it doesn't let up for a second. Most piercing, and central, is the book's hilarious answer to religion, found in the pack of lies known as Bokononism. Bokononism attracts its followers by immediately asserting itself as a false religion, but one that can improve the lives of its followers. It's actually a very subtle and nuanced philosophy that pokes fun at faith while retaining its best elements. Particularly uproarious is its send-up of people who wish to see connections in the most mundane and meaningless of coincidences: though Bokononism holds that humanity is organized into teams performing God's will, granfalloons are teams people invent for themselves and which hold no meaning (nationality, fans of a particular sports team, people named Dave, etc.), similar to the cat's cradle string game which, in fact, has no cat and no cradle. Imagine my delight when the central granfalloon turned out to be Hoosiers.

Bokononism and the way Vonnegut gradually and matter-of-factly presents its central tenets and history provide a wonderful and assertive, yet gentle, attack on many fallacies of modern self-centric philosophy, but its use in the novel as an opiate of the masses is right on target as well. Bokononism is outlawed on the main setting of San Lorenzo, but only to distract the masses with a common enemy in its prophet and a hero in its prophet-hunting dictator; everyone on the island is, of course, a devoted Bokononist. Aside from satirizing human associations and interactions, Vonnegut directly tackles the arms race and the end of the world, linking the two through the narrator's projected book on Hiroshima and the sudden omnipresence of ice-nine, a potentially apocalyptic new way for water to arrange its molecules. Here also Vonnegut is sharp but keeps his observations coated in a candy-sweet covering of humor. Many satires can be read entirely on the surface as good works of literature, but Cat's Cradle is inseparable from its social context on all levels, and though Vonnegut's jabs are obvious and finely pointed, they are spot-on and as entertaining as they are revealing. It's hard to say exactly what it is that makes Cat's Cradle so enjoyable, particularly when its plot is often difficult to follow, but its humor and its lighthearted view of the apocalypse and the cheerful abandon of reason by modern humans make it both searing and satisfying, a wonderful quick jaunt through absurdism that turns out, in the end, to be far too real.

Grade: A

Book 11: Dream House

Dream House
Valerie Laken

Due to its vivid Ann Arbor setting and the fact that it was blurbed by a former professor of mine, it is incredibly difficult for me to give this book an entirely fair shake, so I'll attempt to get my most biased comments in during this first paragraph. It's extremely odd to read a book set in a city I have come to know so well, often with areas and landmarks that I see almost every day, and while most details were drawn directly from life (including street names), the street that holds the book's pivotal setting doesn't actually exist. This, coupled with a tendency to thinly veil certain locations (LeMar's instead of Meijer when Wal-Mart is mentioned just half a page later, and groan-inducing pun Frontier High as a stand-in for Pioneer), made the reading process go a bit less smoothly for me. When I realized that Laken had renamed the high school a mile away from me, I had to set the book down and actually laugh at the audacity of the new name. Additionally, it's especially painful to read blistering social commentary aimed directly at your neighbors and yourself. Perhaps this speaks to my own priveliged position, but it seems like it's laid on thick at times, and when it comes to Ypsilanti and Eastern, Laken can be quite scathing (but perhaps, after all, she's right). It's impossible not to be biased when a town you know intimately and love is so vividly portrayed, but Laken does a good job using Ann Arbor to examine racial and socioeconomic residential patterns of the past two decades; I'm not sure that readers unfamiliar with the area will get the full picture as well, but for those in the know Laken paints a fairly accurate portrait.

That said, this book is rather ambitious for its relatively small size, and its high aspirations often overshadow its actual accomplishments. Laken is torn between writing a novel about a priveliged white couple whose marriage is falling apart and a scathing portrait of residential inequality personified by the struggles of a disadvantaged black man to maintain the American Dream his father began to build. The book is all about building and centers around a house and a grisly crime committed therein; though all of its characters belong in a web of connections centering on this hub, their interactions often feel forced and unrealistic. Additionally, the first portion of the book (after its prologue) revolves entirely on two characters, only to branch out awkwardly later. Point-of-view shifts are often jarring and confusing, particularly after one character's story continues long after he has seemingly severed his connections to the house. The book does its job as an in-depth character study of two, maybe three people, but their stories could have been juggled with a better view toward the whole. This effect is achieved a few times near the end of the book where the point of view shifts as with a camera angle in a scene, but the beginning of the book feels disjointed both in its distinct parts and the second half that follows.

That said, however, Dream House is an interesting character portrait that quite adeptly tackles the American ideal of home ownership, especially timely since the economy has tanked and foreclosures are on a meteoric rise. Its characters and setting are vivid and believable, even if their situations often are not (though if Pioneer teachers really break in and throw a party, I am totally changing my career path). The book's conclusion is fitting in retrospect but still feels forced as it plays out in real time (and animal lovers beware, I'm still pissed that she kills the dog). Dream House is filled with not-so-subtle social commentary that occasionally veers into Obvious Hammer territory but which is often insightful and thought-provoking. Laken takes a considerable risk making none of her characters entirely likeable, but that risk pays off as they become even more intriguing and real because of their far-too-human flaws. Despite its occasional missteps and larger plotting awkwardness, Dream House is a page-turner that I devoured in about three sittings. It is, at times, extremely gripping and provides a great portrait of disaffected but not-too-cynical suburban malaise without succumbing entirely to cliche. Its writing is fresh and crisp and happily readable despite its litfic overtures. Dream House is an unforgiving and refreshingly new view of the American Dream and some of its less-noted ramifications through recent decade.

Grade: B+

Book 10: Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century

Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century
Edited by Orson Scott Card

What an amazing collection of science fiction! As a relative newcomer to the genre, I cannot speak for this collection as definitive or even representative of the "best" science fiction (which always must be relative, anyway). What I can say is that every story brought something entirely new and fresh to the table and that each probes a different facet of the general science fiction label to high success. This collection highlights excellent writing and heart-wrenching and/or thought-provoking characters and themes that rival the very best in "mainstream" fiction. Very few stories were disappointing at all, and only one stood out to my mind as nearly incomprehensible. While it is true that I did not enjoy every story equally in this collection, I was incredibly pleased by the variety and quality of the stories herein, thoughtfully grouped by era and chronological appearance and tracing the general arc of science fiction through the late 20th century. I had already read several of these stories, and I found that although Ray Bradbury's "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" didn't work as well outside of the framing context of The Martian Chronicles, Isaac Asimov's "Robot Dreams" is an excellent and well-built exploration of what makes humanity...human. Arthur C. Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God" is stunning on re-read, despite its known ending, and it fully retains the awe it awakens in first time readers.

I was especially pleased by the stories that put a new spin on now-familiar scenarios. "The Tunnel under the World" by Frederik Pohl reminded me a bit of a Simpsons episode but combines social satire with a baffling scenario to keep readers engaged and, in doing so, creating an excellently constructed story that reveals its surprises only gradually, though it gets a bit expository at the end. Though both "Tunesmith" by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. and "A Work of Art" by James Blish look at the importance of music, and art in general, on society, each approached this theme in an extraordinary new way, forming together an interesting pair ruminating on the impact of creation in a more rigidly controlled culture. "All You Zombies--" by Robert Heinlein is absolutely hilarious despite its now-familiar punchline and creates a truly convoluted storyline that is fun to attempt to unravel. On the more serious side, Brian W. Aldiss and "Call Me Joe" both put forth almost-great attempts to further refine the definition of humanity, and in an entirely different way both from each other and from other works of fiction. "Sandkings" by George R.R. Martin and "Dogfight" by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick are almost incidentally science fiction as they explore the deeply important and universal themes of karma and isolation, respectively, and again are distinct from any other stories that touch upon those general themes.

My favorite stories in the collection are spread out across the eras defined by editor Orson Scott Card, but each leaped out quickly as relevant, original, and deeply moving. "Passengers" by Robert Silverberg is absolutely pitch-perfect, with a science fiction element that is so innovative I'd love to see it employed elsewhere or here at greater length but which belongs firmly in this story and, perhaps, this story alone. "The Road Not Taken" is a not-so-subtle jab at human militarism that is playful throughout but which takes a sharp turn in its final sentence, pivoting entirely and perfectly on a chosen moment to reveal issues not immediately apparent on a first reading. The story may be a bit on the didactic side, but its lesson is timely and is made in an incredibly original and friendly way. "A Clean Escape" is a psychological drama that can reach no true solution and which benefits greatly from the confusion at its ending. It is the perfect length to allow the reader to understand what is going on and its ending makes its point perfectly.

My favorite story in this book filled with gems, however, is "Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven, which takes an apocalyptic scenario and explores human psychology within the framework of an incredibly moving love story. The story is perfectly narrated and captures the emotions that can both overtake and arise from stone-cold logic, as well as constructing a believable and immediate narrative world that envelops the reader entirely from start to finish; its ending is both unforeseeable and retroactively obvious. It, and so many stories in this collection, are wonderful testaments to the power of unlimited imagination and the power of literature to transcend genre and open readers' eyes to new ways of thinking and to stories that are buried deep within us. This collection embodies all that I love about literature, and in an oft-maligned genre nonetheless. This may not be a beginner's guide to science fiction, but it will delight fans of genre fiction and has the power to soften a few hearts to the skill and power with which science fiction can operate.

Grade: A

Book 9: Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End
Joshua Ferris

I finally get around to reading my first straightforward novel in a while, and it happens to be one that's narrated in the first person plural ("we"). I suppose this just goes to show that each book is new, exciting, and different from the rest, which is reflected perfectly in this refreshing, lighthearted book about the day-to-day drudgery of office life. Despite some plotting missteps and my blissful ignorance about the subject matter, Joshua Ferris appears to have hit the nail squarely on the head in this chronoicle of not-quite-white-collar office humor. His most daring choice, the use of the first person plural for the main narrative voice, is entirely and completely appropriate and fits the story perfectly, setting its tone as a kind of collective manifesto. Ferris balances sweeping pronouncements with character-centered stories, and though the book's first section makes readers a bit weary, the rest of the book is easy to follow and reconstructs stories in an omniscient first person plural that allows for sentence variation and readability. A mid-section told in third person present tense feels a bit out of place but provides a nice break from the main story and is connected to the bigger picture by novel's end.

What is most striking about Ferris's choice of narrator(s) is how well and how seamlessly he moves from generalizations to specific stories- a group gathers at a water cooler and is regaled by a tale that itself comes into sharp third-person focus. One by one, the members of the office group are singled out and characterized while maintaining a collective persona that makes them, and their environment, what it is. This effect, however, does take some time to flourish, and the beginning of the book feels muddled and fails to immediately establish characters or a general timeline. Events are related only to have the story revert for much of the book; though the anecdotes that make up the core of the book need not happen sequentially, there is too much hopping around in the beginning and it takes some time for the reader to become comfortable with the environment. This is a shame, because Ferris has clearly put a lot of thought and careful construction into his characters, all of whom embody some cliches but defy complete stereotyping. By not shying away from cliche but not succumbing entirely to it, Ferris creates a realistic office environment; we know people like these people, personalities just shy of boring but with a splash of unique flavor that makes them memorable. What's remarkable is that these characters are so fleshed out and so realistic when they are all supporting characters in a non-serial ensemble piece, and despite this loose feel the storyline becomes more coherent as the book goes on and the sitcom begins to settle down into a thought-provoking drama.

Ferris's ability to mix the stereotypical and the unique in his characters reflects the somewhat dual nature of Then We Came to the End. Blurbs compare it to Catch-22, and rightly so as it has its moments of perfectly tuned cynicism. It is, however, also a moving testament to our innate need to socialize and form rules of engagement with the casts of our everyday lives. By the end of the book, the characters are in vastly different places and the reader is emotionally connected to them despite the sometimes childish nature of their pranks and idle chatter. The characters that populate this unnamed Chicago advertising agency are the same that populate offices and other institutions across the country and perhaps the world. Then We Came to the End reflects a very specific brand of white-collar upper-class culture but also has a vibrant undercurrent that asks readers to reconsider their own daily interactions. The book is hilarious but carries with it moments of deep sentiment that do not overwhelm its lighthearted tone but which do give the thoughtful reader a moment's pause. Then We Came to the End is much more than it first appears to be and cuts much deeper than an amateur office farce, but the joy of reading it is that Ferris allows these themes to build naturally and does not force them down readers' throats. We come to the end, and, like Ferris's separated former co-workers, we see simply what has been there all along.

Grade: A-

Book 8: The American College Town

The American College Town
Blake Gumprecht

In my continuing accidental quest to avoid traditional novels, I stumbled across this nonfiction book that studies its eponymous phenomenon. Having lived in what I believe to be the consummate college town for several years, I thought the book looked incredibly interesting and decided to read it; as a bonus, I discovered that Ann Arbor is indeed the focus on one of the book's chapters. If there's one authorial quirk that defines this book, it is definitely Gumprecht's self-awareness as a writer. For a book that attempts so hard to be a field-defining academic tome, The American College Town defends its existence rather much and uses quite a few familiar I's that are ill-advised at best. The book immediately launches into a quite-autobiographical preface that does a good job of outlining the book's goals, setting it up for brilliant failure, but seems a little self-indulgent. Each chapter begins with a formulaic college-paper type opening and none fail to present a self-conscious thesis statement that, again, only establishes goals Gumprecht doesn't even begin to reach.

The book reads like a poorly thought out research paper, complete with maddening typos (like ridiculous plurals), but its lack of diversified sentence and chapter structures eventually became delightful as I attempted to locate the thesis at the beginning of each chapter, and to note specifically how Gumprecht failed in its inevitable second part (relating a case study to the college town phenomenon as a whole). The best part about Gumprecht's consistent inability to properly support his assertions was the inevitable final few paragraphs of each chapter, which rather frantically attempted to translate hyper-specific situations into sweeping pronouncements about college town culture. The entire structure of the book is inherently flawed, and these chapter-ending grandiose parades of utterly unsupported assertions simply highlight the extravagant failure of Gumprecht's attempt to launch the study of college towns as such. The preface and first chapter of The American College Town do, in fact, a wonderful job of exploring the topic at large. Gumprecht knows he is attempting a miracle in uniting all college towns into a unified theory of everything, but manages to intelligently extract define several qualities (note the absence of "unique" here) that create a college town-y atmosphere. He attempts to zero in on several archetypal college towns to illuminate these qualities, but instead of using case-studies to illuminate general trends, The American College Towns is simply an interesting amalgamation of short, thematic city histories that all attempt to become relevant and sweeping in their final page but which remain entirely too specific to be useful.

The main problem of this book may not be its scope, which is immense given the diversity of city habits and atmospheres and multiplied given the enhanced weirdness and eccentricity of most college towns, but its lack of editing. This seems incredibly odd given Gumprecht's constant near-self-deprecation, but this book's structure isn't utilized at all towards his purposes and his nagging repetition of phrases is absolutely maddening, particularly when they are flat out lies and contradictions (Ann Arbor is a college town. College towns have cheap rent. One has to be a lie.). And though Gumprecht self-consciously attempts to avoid cronyism by omitting his beloved Lawrence, Kansas as a focal point, his bias is apparent throughout the book and is flagrantly flaunted in his chapter about Ann Arbor. Perhaps I am exercising some cronyism myself, but holding Ann Arbor as the gold standard of how college towns are deteriorating in their college town-iness seems misguided, particularly when the chapter focuses on research facilities that invented minor things like, say, the Internet (a claim made by the book). The appearance of my twice-professor Jonathan Marwil doesn't salvage this chapter, which unprofessionally opens as a blatant attack on my beloved city. This seems even more egregious when the (seemingly) completely moronic Newark, Delaware gets a free pass and escapes without flagrant bias and without obvious comments that would, in fact, support Gumprecht's views about college towns and their development.

Despite all of its flaws, however, I was quite amused and educated by this book. Despite its complete failure to explore the universal facets of college towns, The American College Town does include several interesting portraits of places I never would have even considered. The University of Delaware wouldn't have ever been on my radar before we scheduled them in football for 2009, and I would have automatically dismissed Norman, Oklahoma or Manhattan, Kansas as conservative college town poseurs. Auburn and the aforementioned Newark look incredibly narrow minded and stupid, but whether this is because of the book's one-sided approach to them I cannot say. Ann Arbor is derided for not feeling like a college town once one gets out of...er...town, but I think we actually come out looking better because of Gumprecht's insistence on defining the college town as a single entity and his idiotic refusal to look at the parts of Ann Arbor that make it a better exemplar of other chapters than the one for which is was profiled.

Gumprecht begins his book by attempting to codify common elements of the college town feel, but he ends up accidentally celebrating the diversity within such towns. While some elements of each chapter are relevant at least to Ann Arbor (with which I am intimately familiar) and, often, to the snapshots of other featured towns, Gumprecht fails to see these similarities and ironically continues to expound upon their differences in chapter after chapter. The American College Town has some interesting ideas about the college town, but they emerge only after readers ignore the blowhard comments that purport to expose them (with the exception of the book's first chapter). The book fails miserably at giving a unified portrait of the American college town, but it is a decently written and captivating thematic look at several quirky cities that fit his well thought-out definition of college towns. With a little less self-consciousness and a lot more general editing, The American College Town may have been the defining work Gumprecht was attempting to create, but as it is it is no more than a panoramic view of several separate and thematically distinct American college towns.

Grade: C+

Book 7: The Best American Mystery Stories 2008

The Best American Mystery Stories 2008
Edited by George Pelecanos

Being a relative newcomer to the general mystery and crime genres, I was a little unsure what to expect from this collection, but excited nonetheless by my enjoyment of The Plot Thickens. The book as a whole was a little disappointing, as I was expecting more of detective-type stories I typically associate with the mystery genre. I would perhaps re-title this book to indicate that the stories within are crime fiction and not necessarily mysteries, but aside from that nit-picking many of the stories were quite good. One, "Child's Play" by Alice Munro, was also printed in The Best American Short Stories 2008 and does quite well on a second read, retaining and refining its punch. I also thoroughly enjoyed the child's voice employed to wonderful effect in Melissa Vanbeck's "Given Her History". Several stories were close to brilliant but ultimately came up short, such as "The Emerson, 1950" by Scott Phillips and "The Invisibles" by Hugh Sheehy, both of which begin with interesting premises but ultimately fail to deliver on their high beginnings (indeed, the former seems to have little plot at all but would be quite interesting if it found one).

The best part of this collection as a whole was the variety I was lamenting a bit earlier. While Michael Connelly's "Mulholland Dive" was more of the kind of story I expected from this collection, my enjoyment of this superb and sly story came from true talent and not just previous expectations- it also delivers a fine and satisfying twist ending. "The Hour When the Ship Comes In" by Robert Ferrigno and, to a lesser extent, "Hothouse" by S.J. Rozan both do an excellent job of adopting the perspective of someone on the other, darker, side of criminal activity. Chuck Hogan does a top-notch job setting his scene with a rundown neighborhood and shady characters throughout- "One Good One" is one of the most moving stories in this collection. There are also a couple of stories ("At the Top of His Game" by Stephen Rhodes and "The Monks of the Abbey Victoria" by Rupert Holmes) that use somewhat dark humor to excellent and subtle effect while delivering thought provoking narratives and, more crucially, compelling characters. Leo Sarkozy from Jas. R. Petrin's "Car Trouble" is completely compelling and I would love to read an entire novel devoted to him.

This collection was overall incredibly interesting and varied, and though I don't think it necessarily represents the mystery genre, though I am absolutely no authority to speak on that, it delivers far more hits than misses and can entertain throughout. There were only a couple of stories that were truly boring or worth skipping, and while only a couple were somewhat Earth-shattering, this anthology is definitely worth reading for fans of crime fiction. The Best American Mystery Stories 2008 is a lovely showcase of the variety possible in its stereotyped genre and each of its stories has something different and interesting to offer, coming together in a comprehensive understanding of the genre and revealing facets of human nature often hidden in more mainstream contemporary fiction. This book is a good ride.

Grade: A

Book 6: Watchmen

Watchmen
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

This famous graphic novel, soon to be released as a movie, is my first foray into the world of graphic narratives, and what an opener it is! This book has just as much, if not more, depth than many of its more traditional counterparts and provides a perfect balance of mass, pulp appeal and high art. Though I don't have anything to directly compare it to, Watchmen balances its written words and its art marvelously, using both to advance the narrative in ways unique to its medium. Not content to rest on a simple, straightforward narrative, Watchmen utilizes a uniquely complex mix of flashbacks, sub-plots, primary document-fueled backstory, and parallel narratives to completely immerse readers in its hardscrabble alternate future. Combine these intense and extremely well-executed literary techniques with the book's impeccably evocative artwork and Watchmen easily becomes a masterpiece in the world of printed art.

This book would be notable for the successful execution of its story alone. It is difficult to write alternative histories without becoming overwhelmingly didactic or falling into the realm of tired cliches; there are no such errors in the world of Watchmen, which paints its world in vivid colors and whose world is not so foreign to the real climate of the late Cold War. Major details, such as the outcome of the Vietnam War, are changed, but the fundamental climate of fear (and flashpoints of Afghanistan and East Germany) are not, making the world believable and suitably familiar to remain chilling and effective. Additonally, the changes to our accepted timeline are relevant to the book's superhero saga and are all necessary to the mood of the book, which is its strongest point. Its plot, regarding real-life superheroes facing a difficult and often hostile world, characters (who face very real and very complex psychological dilemmas), and setting (both in time and space) combine as perfectly as in any fictional world I've ever seen- each component is carefully considered and balanced against the others to create a completely engrossing story.

The soaring success of Watchmen is largely due to the way that it uses and twists familiar comic cliches. I initially wanted to groan at the appearance of a comic within this comic, but before long it was apparent that this nested narrative is carefully balanced with the book's main plot to expose grand truths about existence and human psychology, besides being an excellent and chilling self-contained story itself. Its characters are likewise the kind of flawed anti-heroes we've come to expect in recent years, but each embraces his or her role in an entirely unique way that defies stereotypes. Even when the plot becomes grandiose in typical superhero-story fashion, it is riddled with moral dilemmas so complex that the book becomes a work of deep and difficult philosophy while remaining enjoyable on its basic story level. Watchmen has layers so deep and complex that it is a trip deep within the human psyche, and even if these considerations become overbearing and a bit confusing at some points, the narrative itself is better for it. This is anything but an easy, breezy read and that is just fine.

Watchmen is the perfect example of art that recognizes and exploits its medium to fullest effect. Complete with backstory-rounding primary documents that illuminate the rich world of the book, this volume creates one of the most complete fictional universes I have ever encountered, to say nothing of its engrossing, thrilling, and completely appropriate plot. In addition to commenting on traditional superhero narratives with enough originality to stay out of the trap of didacticism, Watchmen puts forth a compelling story that fits entirely in to the fears of both its alternate history and its real-world publication date. Moore and Gibbons are able to capture the very specific fears and paranoia of the Cold War while retaining the atmosphere of general fear and doubt that accompanies today's advanced nuclear age. The problems of Watchmen are hyper-specific to its fictional history, real history, and today's continuing history; they are at once specific in time and entirely universal without being dated or at all cliche. Combine Moore's ultra-intelligent writing with the recurring motifs and absolutely stunning and appropriate art of Gibbons and it is no wonder that Watchmen has become such a classic in its own genre and throughout the entire publishing world. This book packs a serious punch and deserves all of its accolades; anyone skeptical of the power of the graphic novel should pick it up immediately, as well as anyone interested in the psychology of trying times. Watchmen defies description and soars above any praise I can humbly seek to bestow upon it.

Grade: A

Book 5: Europe Central

Europe Central
William T. Vollmann

Here is a book that, judging by its jacket, sounds right up my alley: a collection of paired, loosely connected stories focusing alternately on the USSR and Germany during World War II. The book itself looks and feels as epic as its central conflict, but unfortunately it is hampered throughout by this very knowledge. Reading the book with the knowledge that it is a recipient of the National Book Award lays bare the book's pomposity and creates an unfriendly image of the author as compromising quality for award-worthiness. It is understandable that the vast Europe Central won an award but unfortunately this accolade does not reflect any sense of enjoyment or coherence when approaching the book, which is weighed down immensely by its cheap attempts at grandiosity and which ceases to be readable in its pursuit of honors. The project itself, to produce paired stories that expose moral dilemmas and reactions during the 20th century's most destructive conflict is interesting and occasionally yields fascinating results which are again muted by the posturing inflicted upon the reader. Vollmann takes an interesting and important structure and buries it beneath self-aggrandizing writing that is overbearing and at times so annoying that it is hard to imagine Vollmann legitimately believing that his sentences are the best way to get his point across.

Readers should know by the first sentences of the book whether they are cut out to be dragged along in this quagmire of metaphor and nonsensical characterization and narration; the opening chapter is absolutely impossible to decipher and, while raising interesting points that are few and far between, succeeds only in introducing a shaky and useless telephone metaphor that occasionally comes back throughout the book. Much of the writing in this tome echoes this useless prelude as Vollmann stretches metaphors well past literary acceptability. Time and again metaphors extend sentences well beyond the limits of reason and, while these are often insightful, drag readers right out of the story and force them to recognize how clever the author is. This kind of writing is nothing but self-serving and, frankly, the importance of the book's core subject matter demands a more serious and mature writing style. Vollmann far too often uses Europe Central as a showcase for his witty insights which go on pompous display instead of being usefully integrated into the narrative (insofar as one may exist). Even more infuriating is the narration that mars most of the Russian chapters and which ends all of its sentences by abruptly dropping them before they say anything. It's almost as if they, so to speak, well, you know.

The subject matter and weight of these Russian chapters is also a problem. It is understandable that the content of this book would fall toward the Russian side; after all, it is no secret that the USSR bore the brunt of the absolute destruction that defines World War II's style of warfare. For a book masquerading as a look at all of Central Europe, however, Europe Central hardly focuses on the German side at all. This is an exceptionally glaring displacement of attention because the German mentality was so central to the war in the first place. Most frustrating, however, is the fact that the German-focused chapters of the book are its most coherent, best written, and to my admittedly biased mind the most interesting chapters by far. These infrequent and unfairly truncated chapters become mere pit-stops, however, as Vollmann travels the boring and incessantly redundant Shostakovich highway. Dmitri Shostakovich is a fascinating character to follow throughout the tightening paired nooses of Soviet oppression and German military aggression. Vollmann again misfires, however, when constructing the famous composer and every Russian ever as entirely obsessed with a certain enigmatic woman who happened to be his mistress for a year. By the end of the book, I would audibly groan whenever her name was mentioned; her legend is an interesting segway into the exposure of certain Soviet crimes and into Shostakovich's personal life, but using her as the sole inspiration for everything he ever did takes it much too far and turns him into a one-dimensional whiny character, hardly one readers want to follow for so much of the book.

Most annoying about this book is the fact that buried beneath the overbearing weight of unnecessary literary posturing and award-baiting are some incredibly moving stories that shed new and intriguing light on certain moral dilemmas faced in conflict. "Woman with Dead Child", an early look at Käthe Kollwitz's life and art, is incredibly moving if hampered a bit by this work's usual literary hang-ups. "Into the Mountain" provides an original look at the parallels between Norse mythology and Hitler's demise. When Vollmann focuses on an intense character portrait and limits it to one story, he belongs in the highest echelon of World War II fiction. "The Red Guillotine" makes a subtle comparison between the Soviet and German regimes and forces readers to face the uncomfortable fact that each may have been equally repressive and, perhaps, equally evil. Vollmann shows complexity and depth when probing his carefully selected and incredibly thoroughly defined characters within the contexts of the tough moral decisions they are forced to make. There are incredibly complex moral distinctions explored in "Clean Hands", the story of an SS officer who joins simply to reveal the organization's atrocities to the world, and "Breakout", the tale of Soviet general Andrey Vlasov and his cooperation with the Nazi regime against the USSR. The subjective and often fluid nature of ethical judgment, both by historical actors and in hindsight, is preserved in these stories especially as they (more or less) objectively expose the reasoning behind each man's actions. Vollmann is at his best here where he allows his stories to concentrate on compact narratives that center around a strong character- neither is drawn out and each shows an impeccable sense of narrative construction both within itself and in relation to the work as a whole. Vollmann positively shines in these select stories.

Judging Vollmann's vast effort, then, is clouded equally in shades of grey as its best narratives are. His best stories deserve to be preserved and read by anyone interested in the psychology of morals along with those interested in the unique mental climate provided by World War II. Here, Vollmann follows through on the jacket's promise to explore moral decisions forced in wartime. Here also the two great powers of Central Europe, Germany and the USSR, are compared in subtle and astoundingly anti-didactic ways: there is nothing forced in these stories; they are completely genuine. This makes the egregious errors which haunt the vast bulk of Europe Central even less forgivable and absolutely maddening. There is great promise but readers are everywhere disappointed and occasionally even despised. Additionally, those wishing to make any sense whatsoever of several crucial elements of the story must be well-versed in musical theory and history, Nordic and German mythology, and the history of World War II before even attempting to read this book. It is entirely an accident that one of my college classes touched on Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and its relationship to Stalin; without this nuanced exposure most of the composer's chapters, which dominate the book by far, would have made no sense whatsoever. Vollmann often refuses to make anything at all clear and sacrifices meaning for "art", mirroring perhaps Shostakovich's deepest ambitions but creating something extremely inaccessible and deeply difficult to read, let alone enjoy. This book reeks of wasted talent and unfulfilled promises while its best chapters show that it could have been more than worthy of its subject matter. Readers would be well-served to seek out this book's best stories, but its general framework is distorted and reading all of Europe Central is a waste of time for the majority of readers who simply want an engrossing, useful, or intelligible narrative.

Grade: C