Cannonball Read 3 Review #14 - The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese-English writer who is somehow able to completely capture the restrained, reserved English personality while writing complex and developed characters who go through trying ordeals. In Never Let Me Go, the novel was centered around three friends who love and hurt each other while on growing up and then on the verge of their deaths. He expresses their pain, confusion and passion while never being melodramatic or amateur. In The Remains of the Day, the narrator is a proper English butler who has worked most of his life in a great English house for Lord Darlington. Not only is Stevens a stiff-upper-lip Brit, but he is a butler who takes his job very seriously and dedicates his life to serving his master. So when I say that he is restrained, I mean he is really restrained. Yet his story, told in diary form, is so clear and thoughtful and coherent that you don't feel a disconnect. Just because he doesn't flail around or cry out about his feelings doesn't mean we don't feel his frustration at his weaknesses, befuddlement over the housekeeper's mood swings and sadness over the decline of his beloved Lord Darlington. In the present day, it is the 1950s and Stevens works for an American man who has bought the Darlington manor after the lord's death. Stevens sets off on a brief road trip to meet with Miss Kenton, the former housekeeper of the home, and during his trip he thinks back to the days working for Lord Darlington, the height of his career in the years leading up to the second World War. Through Stevens reflections, we explore the ideas of what it means to have dignity, the social constraints of English society, and the complicated relationships in his life, both personal and professional. Stevens is trained to always do the right thing, to be loyal and gentlemanly, and it is interesting to see how he struggles to do his best while others around him falter or try to pull him down. Ishiguro's language in the book, through Stevens narrative, is straightforward and sparse, fully illuminating his narrator as a character. I can't wait to see the film, as Stevens is played by Anthony Hopkins and Miss Kenton is played by Emma Thompson. You can't really get much better than that.

Cannonball Read 3 Review #13 - The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Secret History is a unique novel, a sort of calm and detached telling of a group of strange college students to do evil things. The story is narrated by Richard, a transfer to the fictional Hampden College in Vermont. He itches to get away from his depressing town of Plano, California and get away from his cold parents, so he heads to Hampden, a small liberal arts college in a small Vermont town. He immediately notices a small, close-knit group of students who study Greek and the classics with a strange professor, Julian, who has no small amount of influence on his students. Richard manages to ingratiate himself to Julian and the others, and is allowed in the small, six-person program. He becomes a part of this eccentric group of students and is involved in the murder of their friend, Bunny, which I'm not spoiling, as he mentions it in the first page of the novel. The novel is split into two books, and we know going into it that the group murders Bunny, so the first half is the events that lead up to the murder, and the second half is what happens to the group in the aftermath of their crime.

The novel is an interesting one, as it is not in the form of a typical murder mystery. As I mentioned, we know up front that the group kills their friend Bunny, so the only suspense is wondering why it happens and what happens to everyone afterwards. Though it is never specifically stated, the novel takes place in the 1980s, but the students at the center of the novel have this strange, old-world vibe, and this cold, disaffected air so that the reader is never comfortable with them and never connects with their motivations. It's a picture of how cool and capable evil can be, how seductive and calculating. Only in the aftermath of this horrible act does the reader, and our narrator, really start to understand the scope of what happened and become horrified with how we were lead astray. It was an unexpected book, and I think Donna Tartt is a wonderfully capable storyteller. I'm excited to talk about it with my book club.

Cannonball Read 3 - Review #12 - Bossypants by Tina Fey

There are a few writers who could write about something like salad or the history of calendar publishing and make it hilarious. Bill Bryson is one of them, and even though this is the first book I've read by Tina Fey (her first book ever? Probably, right?) I believe she is another one of those people. She does draw from her own life, which has been colorful and not exactly mainstream, so she has less than boring source material, but even so, the humor and biting wit in her writing makes me confident she could make almost anything funny. Bossypants doesn't read like a typical memoir, and I don't know if it's even marketed as such, but instead Fey tells stories from snapshots of her life from childhood up to the present that paint a picture of her experiences and world view without her having to give a blow by blow account of how she got from here to there. Tina Fey was an awkward child/teenager/adult with a keen eye for observation. She writes in vivid detail and is honest and self-deprecating about her admittedly many faults. She is more than aware of the many things people think and say about her that are unflattering, true or untrue, and she gets her detractors back in the most satisfying way: by being so funny and smart that it takes them a second to figure out that they're the ones being "oh, snapped!" Fey tells stories about her childhood, her family, her early start in improv, the challenges and triumphs of working at SNL during a time of transition, and what it's like to be Tina Fey in all aspects of her life, from work to family. The most satisfying chapters for me were the chapter about her dad and the chapter called "All Girls Must Be Everything" where she talks about the beauty standard for women and the media assault telling us what's wrong with us that we never would have even thought of until they told us. I laughed out loud and even though I'm already a huge fan, I was won over all over again by her self-effacing humor and honesty. It was a really fast read, funny and engrossing. I hope it's not her last.

Cannonball Read 3 - Review #11 - Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

I've read Fahrenheit 451 and I own The Martian Chronicles and plan on reading that, so I know that Bradbury writes some science-fiction, but this book is a simple and beautifully written book that centers around Douglas Spaulding and other residents in the fictional Green Town, Illinois during the summer of 1928. Split into brief chapters, there is no real plot, but rather small stories and reflections of the characters as they go through their summertime lives. Douglas is a sensitive, passionate, and serious 12-year-old boy who treasures the joys of being a kid in a small town during the summer so much that he recognizes how amazing everything is while it is happening, and writes down his discoveries and joys so he won't forget. The reader gets perspectives from young children as well as the old and frail citizens who often are found reflecting on their youth with envy, amusement, and fondness. The whole novel is sort of restless, with a sense of urgency that time is flying by, and Douglas is so desperate to remember the little things that make him happy and the things he learns. One especially beautiful passage is at the beginning, when Douglas realizes that he's "alive." It's something he all of a sudden understands and marvels at, and it leaves him kind of flabbergasted. There is also a part at the end that endears him to me, forever, when an old sort of rambling man of the town tells Douglas how he is one of those children who become sad younger than everyone else. I think Douglas is the 1928, male version of me as a child. Mostly the book is made up of snapshots in the daily lives of these people in a simple town during one summer. People have their petty squabbles and their small worries that don't mean much in the long run, but then there are relationships that form us and genuine moments of love and kindness that stay with us forever. Bradbury's writing in this novel is flowery and lovely, and not something we see much of anymore, as in 2011 readers tend to scoff at the nostalgic or the precious. I, however, loved reading about the daily goings-on of Green Town, and the character of Douglas is a sweet and earnest little hero.

Cannonball Read 3 - Review #10 - Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

I have never read any of Murakami's books, and probably wouldn't have, as there are always too many books to read. However, it is the April selection for my book club, so Murakami it was. Set in the late 1960s in Tokyo, the book is told from the perspective of Toru Watanabe, who is looking back on his days as a college student and the intense relationships he had then. He is drawn to Naoko, a severely depressed friend from his high-school days who was childhood sweethearts with his best friend Kizuki, who committed suicide when they were seventeen. The shared grief over Kizuki draws Toru and Naoko together, and Toru struggles to help Naoko while she struggles with her mental illness. Toru is also drawn to Midori, a spirited young woman he meets in one of his classes, and he tries to navigate these intense relationships and do the right thing while dealing with his own pain and detachment from the rest of his carefee classmates. The characters are all wonderful. There are no "normal" people that Toru is friends with. Everyone from his roommate to his girlfriend all have unique quirks and serious problems, but while Toru acknowledges them, he does not make a big fuss of how strange they are. He calmly loves and understands the troubled people in his life, probably because his own pain makes him more aware and sensitive to that of others, a feeling I can relate to. The novel explores grief, mental illness, relationships, love, and the pain of growing up in a calm and deep way, and no one is a cliche or caricature. We follow the lives of a few deeply flawed people in Toru's life as he tries to love them. Except for many references to music and books from the era, the novel is rather timeless. It's a beautiful story of imperfect people trying their best to be happy, or peaceful, or alive.

Cannonball Read 3 - Review #9 - Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

It took me a while to finish the old boy, but here I am. Catch-22 is a whopper of a satire, and Heller does an amazing job of capturing the frustration and impotence of bureaucracy and the horror and senselessness of war. The novel takes place towards the end of WWII, and centers around Yossarian, an American soldier who is disaffected with the war effort and is constantly trying to figure out how to stay out of harm's way while the powers that be keep raising the number of missions before the soldiers can go home. Yossarian is our eyes as the reader, and seems to be the only one who really sees the stupidity of bureaucratic processes and how ineffectual a big effort like an international war seems from the front lines. While the book is very funny, there is this undercurrent of tension and darkness that really comes to a head towards the end of the book. The reader also gets to know Yossarian's friends and fellow soldiers, many of whom meet less than satisfying ends, as will happen when on the front lines of a major war. I really felt Yossarian's rage and frustration, and his struggle with wanting to save himself while also being loyal to his sense of morality. The book flips back and forth from past to present, sometimes returning to the same event from someone else's perspective, but the timeline is not terribly complicated, so it isn't bothersome. Catch-22 is so expertly written because Heller makes the reader just as anxious and angry as his main character and makes you feel something genuine amidst all that satire. It took me a while to finish, but I'm glad I took the time.

Cannonball Read 3 - Review #8 - Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

So I decided to read this book, too, after reading Julia Child's memoir, My Life In France, and of course seeing the movie Julie and Julia last year. I remember when the movie came out that a lot of people loved the Julia portion of the film, but felt like the Julie character, played by Amy Adams, was kind of selfish and unlikable. Well they will REALLY feel like that after reading the book. Julie and Julia is the story of Julie Powell, a 29-year-old secretary who is dissatisfied with her job and anxious about turning thirty, as she feels directionless and unhappy about where she is in life. She decides that she needs something to work for, a project, so she decides to cook her way through Julia Child's famous cook book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year, while writing about it on a blog.

It sounds like a great premise, and I tried really hard to like Julie, but honestly, it was a lot of whining and bitching and passing a lot of judgments on other people whose personalities we only get a shallow glimpse of from her perspective. She's constantly making these jabs at her Republican co-workers, but never really explains why they deserve to be put down, and she just kind of makes these vague "I'm a Democrat, they're Republicans" digs that don't really work. It also doesn't really flow. She'll go from talking about the sex lives of her single friends to making aspic for dinner, and I never really get where she's going. Is that really the best way to liven up the cooking stories? It just read really weird. I like a good memoir, but this wasn't one. She's constantly making life hard for her sweet, doting husband, and she recognizes how big of a jerk she is in many, many situations, only to keep doing it over and over again. Listen, you look like a bigger jerk if you're aware of how horrible you are being and do nothing to try to be better.

I was just really turned off by Julie, which isn't a great thing if the book is in her voice and all about her exploits. If I had just read her blog as this project was happening, then I probably would have just been reading funny stories about her cooking disasters and not as much of the misguided personal anecdotes and hissy fits. Whatever, it only took me a few days to read. Moving on.