Winter Book Reviews

Winter is usually a good time for reading, but for whatever reason I haven't gotten through too many books since the beginning of the year. Here are reviews of five books I've finished since January 1.

I just started two biographical books, Walter Isaacson's "Einstein" and "Dear Theo", a compilation of letters from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother.


The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Death in Suburbia

With "Suicides" (implying more than one) in the title, talented author Jeffrey Eugenides' debut The Virgin Suicides promises to be somewhat depressing, and it delivers. Plot becomes unimportant as the only mystery is just how many of the five daughters in a suburban Michigan family of the 1970s will kill themselves and how. Suicide number one by the youngest happens in somewhat spectacular fashion. The rest of the novel is given over to a third person description of how the family handles the tragedy as told by someone (an unnamed neighborhood teenage boy) who can only infer much of the action through closed drapes, rarely opened doors, and a collection of objects that is eerily archaeological--artifacts of a culture that has died right before his eyes.

All of this can be a bit confusing and a lot depressing to the reader, but I expect that such a reaction is exactly Eugenides' point--sharing the outsiders' view of what has to be an intensely personal tragedy for any family. Then again, perhaps the suicides and parallel ongoing extinction of elm trees by Dutch Elm disease are metaphors for the death of the American suburban soul.

For me, The Virgin Suicides was better in the analysis (four stars) than in the reading (three stars), during which it reminded me greatly of another depressing, but well-written tale of suburban life, Rick Moody's The Ice Storm: A Novel. I'll round up to four stars. Readers would be better served to start with Eugenides' amazing 2002 offering Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club), a definite five-star book all the way.


The Unvanquished by William Faulkner

Approachable Faulkner

A local English professor's answer to a radio call-in question, "What's a good place to start reading Faulkner?" sent me looking for The Unvanquished. This short novel of the Civil War and Reconstruction was created out of a series of magazine stories written by Faulkner in the 1930s, with one previously unpublished story added. Faulkner maintains his famous stream-of-consciousness style, but manages to remain approachable, perhaps because his narrator is a young boy, around whom (and his slave/friend) the stories revolve. The narrative is a little disjointed on a chapter-to-chapter basis, as each was written to stand alone. Apparently Faulkner didn't add much to enhance continuity in the novel format.

Like Cold Mountain, the story focuses on the homefront during the Civil War. Rather than spouses, children and older people are the lead characters. Their ingenuity during the hard times of war is impressive, as is the general chaos surround organizing a war effort. The book's last chapter "An Odor of Verbena" focuses on the Reconstruction period. Our current politics can't compete with this era for danger and intrigue, depicted at the local level in this story.

Some of my forays into Faulkner have foundered on his infamously difficult style--dense language, paragraph-long sentences and chapter-long paragraphs. The Unvanquished lowers this hurdle while retaining the sense that you are inside the character's minds while they deal with the challenge and tragedy that is the Civil War.

Recommended for all adult readers and even teenage readers with an interest in literary fiction or the Civil War.


Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus

Evolutionary Developments

In Kluge, author Gary Marcus takes on the evolution of the human brain, a potential subject for a difficult 10-page article in Scientific American, and presents it in a well-organized and readily understandable 200-page book. In chapters on memory, language, belief, and other aspects (including even mental illness) of human brain function, Marcus shows how lower, reactive brain functions, carried forward from man's earliest non-mammalian ancestors, both complement and compete with higher, analytical functions, and how each may have travelled the evolutionary path. Fascinating also is the idea that evolution is not an long-term optimizing process, as it can only add to what's developed already, when sometimes the best answer in hindsight might be to start anew (the non-brain example of the esophagus being used both for breathing and ingestion illustrates this concept well--choking wouldn't be a risk if we had separate paths for each). Marcus spices the text with descriptions of various modern psychological experiments that demonstrate aspects of the kluge (an inelegant solution to a problem) that is the modern human mind. Highly recommended to readers with even a casual interest in the field, including teenagers. Another book coming at the subject from a religious perspective is Michael Dowd's Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World, which I'm still reading and will review later.

Note: As an Amazon Vine reviewer, I read a pre-publication copy of this book, which will be generally available on April 16, 2008


An Unpardonable Crime by Andrew Taylor

Great Story But Someone's Missing

Andrew Taylor's 2004 publication, An Unpardonable Crime, is billed as a period thriller suggested by the years Edgar Allan Poe spent in England as a orphaned child. As a period thriller, it works beautifully. Like a 21st century Dickens, Taylor takes the reader deep inside 19th century London (a place where I've spent a good deal of fictional time lately, having just seen "Sweeney Todd" at the movies)--to the landed gentry, public squalor and many places in between. The thrill ride has the requisite number of twists and turns--the villains are dastardly, the settings foreboding, the murder circumstances murky and the hero determined, albeit a little at odds finding his place within society, having been rescued from an asylum by his now dead aunt/benefactor.

The book was a quick and fascinating read that I finished in less than two days. Ultimately, what it wasn't, however, was very intimately involved in the life of young Poe, who appears as essentially an extra character. Perhaps his exposure to macabre events like those depicted in this the book shaped his literary sensibilities. Certainly his years in Europe helped him write convincing fiction with European settings. But we didn't need this novel to know that. I came to this book on the recommendation of a Poe scholar, for which I thank him. Still, An Unpardonable Crime enhanced my understanding of the life and mind of Edgar Allan Poe very little.

I recommend the book to lovers of both mysteries and 19th century period fiction about Great Britain (5 stars). As a story I liked it even better than the similar The Dante Club: A Novel by Matthew Pearl. However, I warn Poe fans that they may not get much about the anticipated connection between Poe's life and this story (minus one star). Total--four stars.


Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Self-Taught Copper

Having enjoyed Going Postal, my first Terry Pratchett, I jumped on Night Watch with a Christmas gift certificate and started reading it right away. Somewhat inexplicably, the book took me nearly a month to finish. Pratchett parodies modern societal infrastructure in his books (communications in Going Postal; law enforcement in Night Watch). Perhaps I'm just not clued in enough to police work to get all the jokes.

The story blends elements of The Time Machine (as protagonist Sam Vimes is accidentally thrown about 30 years into then past), Les Misérables (Signet Classics) (a citizens' revolt involving heavy use of barricades makes up much of the action) and The Streets of San Francisco - Season 1, Vol. 2, but with a time-twist as the veteran Vimes (the Karl Malden character) trains a young Vimes (the Michael Douglas character) thirty years in the past. I expect that there's a British TV version of this old cop/young cop story (without the time-shifting, of course).

Still, it doesn't work out as wackily as it sounds. Slowing down the fun, Pratchett devotes many pages to the drudgery of night policing (the "night watch" of the title) and to the inner workings of a precinct house. Sectioning the book into more chapters might have also helped the story flow better. I will say that the ending came together well, if a little on the sentimental side. Though I didn't enjoy Night Watch (3 stars) as much as Going Postal (4 stars), I still plan to read more Pratchett. I'm told that some of the earliest books in the Discworld series have more of the jocularity that charmed me in "Postal".

September Book Reviews - Now Complete - Melman, Burns, Pratchett, McEwan, Chabon

I read five books in September, all fiction--three period novels, one sci fi satire, and a young adult discovery story. All were at least four star books. Look for these and other of my reviews along with other information about the books at my Amazon Profile Page:

My Amazon.com Reviews

Landsman by Peter Charles Melman - The author went to grad school with my stepson at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Both now live in Brooklyn, NY. Melman's first novel tells the story of young Confederate soldier Elias Abrams who joins the fight to escape the consequences of his life as a street tough in pre-War New Orleans. The title refers to the protagonist's desire to have a settled life as a landowner, a dream that his upbringing and the war are doing little to advance.

Melman does a great job with the horrors of war and with the strange nature of epistolary love, which Abrams experiences when at the depth of his war experience, he receives a charitably motivated "Dear Soldier" letter from a young woman of New Orleans. After his first battle he befriends a fellow New Orleanian from a different walk of life, professor and self-described man of culture John Lee Carlson, who by turns both befuddles and inspires the semi-literate Abrams. A villain from Abrams' shady past in New Orleans lurks in the background. Melman handles it all deftly, especially for a first-time novelist, and his skill with language will often delight the reader.

Coincidentally, this is the second book I've read in two months that prominently uses the word "Landsman" in reference to the Jewish culture. The protagonist of Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" was named Mayer Landsman. The concept of owning land is critical to someone from these largely nomadic people.

My main complaint with the book is in what it is billed to do, but never really accomplishes--telling the story of the Jews who fought for the Confederacy. We hear the story of one not very pious Jew, and a bit about his dilemma of coming from an enslaved culture and then fighting to preserve slavery. Melman tells a great soldier's story, but falls short in an attempt to describe the experience of a culture in one of the great events of American history. To me, Abrams story could have been that of a young man from any religious tradition. Maybe Abrams' dream of becoming a landsman tells the larger story well enough.

Four stars for an excellently written war story--one star missing for the promised, but mostly missing, larger scope about Jews in the Civil War. Recommended or all readers. Teenage readers will need to be fairly well read to stay with the period story and literary style.


Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns - this book was on my daughter's summer reading list for ninth grade. It's the story of life in small Cold Sassy, Georgia in the early 20th century, told through the eyes of a young boy whose grandfather marries the milliner from his general store just days after his wife of many years dies. Burns wrote this book, based on the memories of her grandfather, when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease in middle age. She finished it and the followup Leaving Cold Sassy before she died.

Looking back, the story had a lot in common with one of my favorite musicals, "Fiddler on the Roof", except that it's the older generation that tries to break with tradition. Grandson Will Tweedy, whom his grandfather always addresses by both names, represents the future of Cold Sassy and other small towns--torn between the comfort and support of tradition and the promises of happiness based on new ways of thought. Personally, I'm happy to live in a world where everyone's just a little more detached from their neighbor's business than were the people of Cold Sassy. John Prine and Dolores Kearns sang a duet about the situation, "In a Town This Size"--"In a town this size/There is no place to hide. . ." Ironically, the Internet is taking us back in time, but on a larger scale, where everyone can know everything about everyone, at least to the extent that someone is willing to share it on line.

But that's getting away from Ms. Burns' book, which shimmers with authenticity of time, place and language. You'll almost choke in the dust roiled up by grandpa's first trips in his new Buick. And, boy howdy, you'll try out some of the Southerisms out loud just to test whether people could really talk that way. (My daughter and I got a big kick out of this.)

With Cold Sassy Tree, Ms. Burns accomplishes everything she set out to do--preserve the memory of a place and time in her past; honor the life of her grandfather; and entertain generations of readers. Five enthusiastic stars for all readers from 12 to 112.



Going Postal by Terry Pratchett - my friends in Amazon.com reviewing community love this English author, so I decided to give him a try. Pratchett has written dozens of books about Discworld, an Earth-like place populated by bureaucrats, benevolent despots, and wizards, among many wondrous creatures (including golems in this story). Going Postal is the exciting story of the rejuvenation of a moribund postal service (really), led by a young swindler who's been given the choice of taking the job as Postmaster, or being executed for his previous crimes.

Pratchett's tone reminds me of Mark Helprin in Freddy and Fredericka, or Philip Roth in The Great American Novel - farcical and mischievous with language, but with a more than a smidgen of truth behind the farce. He's also done a great job of imagining all the pieces of Discworld and how they fit together into a whole. I'm sure that this impression would be reinforced by reading other Discworld books. Here, we met only one city and a few of its denizens.

In Going Postal, science fiction (or more accurately, alternate universe fiction) meets British cultural satire, a la Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Recommended to all readers with social awareness, a love of language and enjoyment of a good laugh, though younger readers may not get all the references to the foibles of adult society. On the other hand, British readers might enjoy the satire even more.


On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - again, my friends at Amazon recommended a British author, this time Ian McEwen. On Chesil Beach is more a novella than a novel. It's also nothing like the similarly-titled On the Beach or Beach Music. McEwan tells the short, but intense story of a young British couple on their honeymoon in 1962. Both are virgins, but with very different attitudes about sex, and, in keeping with the times, utterly incapable of discussing the subject.


With such a narrow scope, essentially the events of one evening of the couple's honeymoon, On Chesil Beach is necessarily intensely personal, sometimes uncomfortably so--even though we know that we're reading about fictional characters and the events of the story "happen" almost 50 years ago. Still in the retelling of those events, and of their consequences in the later lives of the characters, McEwan makes a very important point about dangers of miscommunication or worse, no communication, in relationships. Five stars for this short but powerful work, but for adult and near-adult readers only.

The climactic scene isn't lascivious, but it is fairly graphic. Younger readers may also get bored by the British understatement and calm of the first half of the book. I look forward to reading more of McEwan's novels.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon - this was the first novel by one of my favorite current authors (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union). It's not really a traditional plot-driven "mystery" novel, but rather a story of young man's search for his identity in the summer following his graduation from college. Chabon's potential as a novelist is apparent in the characters he creates and language he uses.

Protagonist Art Bechstein, whom you suspect of sharing more than a couple life details with the author, exists in the shadow of his gangster father, from which he's trying to escape. Aiding the escape, though not in a very organized manner, are best friend Arthur Lecompte, loose cannon Cleveland, and girlfriend Phlox (how could I forget that name?). You could easily see Art growing up to be the dissolute professor of Chabon's Wonder Boys. The book also reminded me quite a bit of Zach Braff's film Garden State.

If you like young adult stories along those lines, Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a good choice. If you haven't read any Chabon you might want to start with this one, so you'll appreciate his growth as a writer when you read Kavalier and Klay and his other, more mature novels. If you've already read more recent books, you may be disappointed with Mysteries, though it's still fun to read the portrait of the artist as a young man. Three and a half stars. I'll round up to four for Chabon fulfilling the promise he shows here in later works.