The Lies of Locke Lamora
Author: Scott Lynch
Publication Date: 6/27/06
Publisher: Bantam

Blurb(GR): In this stunning debut, author Scott Lynch delivers the wonderfully thrilling tale of an audacious criminal and his band of confidence tricksters. Set in a fantastic city pulsing with the lives of decadent nobles and daring thieves, here is a story of adventure, loyalty, and survival that is one part Robin Hood, one part Ocean’s Eleven, and entirely enthralling.…

An orphan’s life is harsh–and often short–in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains–a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected “family” of orphans–a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting.

Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld’s most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful–and more ambitious–than Locke has yet imagined.

Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi’s most trusted men–and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr’s underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game–or die trying.…

Review:
I’ve seen a few readers refer to this book as “fast-paced” and my honest opinion is that this book is anything but.  This story wanders; it spends time on the small details; it reveals itself slowly.  Reading this book is like standing nose to tile with a mosaic and backing away one tiny step at a time.  We’re given a tile here, a tile there…one from the past, one from the present, a piece of random history, a side-note about one of the characters.   The completed picture isn’t visible until you’re a good distance away – until you’ve reached the end.

Finishing this book is like waking up to the realization that you’re actually surrounded by several floor to ceiling mosaic frescoes.  This writer quite obviously has a lot more planned for this cast of characters.  And unlike the authors of some series, I have absolute confidence that he has a firm grasp of where everything is going.  He probably knows the intimate history of every single character he’s ever written (even the minor ones): what they were like as children, who they’ve been with, what they had for dinner last night.  His imagination is clearly a force to be reckoned with, but the challenge for him (in my humble opinion) is one of editing.  It takes a very precise, steady hand to leave in enough detail to achieve that brilliant panoramic atmosphere, without going overboard into slow-as-molasses territory.

And actually, I think that he’s largely successful.  There were only a few times where I felt like…really? Did that detail really need to be in there?”  Even then, I was by and large so charmed by his hilarious/sarcastic dialogue that I didn’t much care.  And I love the entire cast!  I love that the “hero” Locke Lamora is short, non-descript, and scrappy.  He’s a brilliant con-artist (perhaps too brilliant) but his cons sometimes fail - spectacularly.  And his merry band of grifters stole their way into my heart one by one.  

Still, I would only recommend this one to those who don’t mind a bit of meandering – to those who are willing to trade off break-neck speed for a lot of interesting depth.  His writing reminds me quite a bit of Guy Gavriel Kay, with added heists, disguises, sleight of hand, gore, and plus about a million percent more f-bombs.  This book is hilarious and sometimes silly, but it’s never light.  He’s not afraid to hit you with real tragedy.

My only other comment is: Sabetha needs to make an appearance pronto!

4/5 Stars

Trainspotting
Author: Irvine Welsh
Publication Date: 6/17/96
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Blurb (GR): Irvine Welsh's controversial first novel, set on the heroin-addicted fringe of working-class youth in Edinburgh, is yet another exploration of the dark side of Scottishness. The main character, Mark Renton, is at the center of a clique of nihilistic slacker junkies with no hopes and no possibilities, and only "mind-numbing and spirit-crushing" alternatives in the straight world they despise. This particular slice of humanity has nothing left but the blackest of humor and a sharpness of wit. American readers can use the glossary in the back to translate the slang and dialect--essential, since the dialogue makes the book. This is a bleak vision sung as musical comedy.

Review:

This is why I love reading challenges - they allow me to discover books I would have never picked up on my own. Let's face it, would I ever intentionally seek a book about Scottish low-lives - junkies, thugs, and prostitutes? Don't think so. But alas, the fate threw Welsh's "Trainspotting" my way and I ate it up like hot cakes.

"Trainspotting" is a collection of short stories narrating scenes in the lives of a Skag Boys (skag = heroin) - Rents, Sick Boy, Begsbie, Spud, and various people around them - their families, lovers, drug suppliers, partners in crime, or victims. Mark Renton (Rents) is more or less is the protagonist, this is mostly his story, even though the stories are written from multiple points of view in 1st and 3rd person. The majority of them is also narrated in Scottish dialect, so some initial effort to understand is required.

The best thing about this book is that it takes you on a roller-coaster ride - it takes you from revulsion to uncontrollable boasts of laughter to tears of compassion. Considering that every other word in this book is a profanity, I think Irvine Welsh has talent.

"Trainspotting" starts off as a rather repulsive read - within the first 10 pages Rents is fishing out the drugs that he has just rectally ingested out of the filthy overflowing public toilet. The repulsive factor doesn't really go away as the story progresses, we are faced with psychopath Begsbie who is extremely abusive to everyone around him, including his girlfriends, or Sick Boy who is very popular with women and at some point becomes a pimp of a few of them, or Rents himself, who drunkenly has sex with a 14-year old girl or shags his dead brother's pregnant fiance in the bathroom during his funeral. The list goes on and on. But the thing is, in spite of all these depravities, Skag Boys are strangely relatable and, dare I say it, often likable. They are losers and addicts and criminals, but their emotional and moral struggles are real.

The book is, although very dark, at the same time hilarious, it is filled with Rents' sarcastic humor. This quote from the scene can give you a good taste of the writing.

Here Rents is held by his parents under the house arrest. They are attempting to get him off the heroin, Rents' mom is trying to feed him.

"The auld girl sticks us in the comfy chair by the fire in front ay the telly, and puts a tray oan ma lap. Ah'm convulsing inside anyway, but the mince looks revolting.
- Ah've telt ye ah dinnae eat meat Ma, ah sais.
- Ye eywis liked yer mince and tatties (potatoes). That's whair ye've gone wrong son, no eating the right thing. Ye need meat.
Now there is apparently a casual link between heroin addiction and vegetarianism."

In the latter part "Trainspotting" is no longer a repulsively hilarious read, it gets darker and darker, as we follow the fates of Rents' many friends, and it's not pretty - too many of them are dying - from HIV from sharing needles, from cancer, gangrene, heart attacks. Seeing this many deaths, 25-year old Rents attempts to kick his habit over and over again, but will he and his friends succeed?

I think "Trainspotting" is a remarkable read and I will definitely read more of Welsh's work. But is this book for everybody? Absolutely not. It is filled with human depravities, profanity, and written in Scottish dialect. This will turn off many readers. But if you are looking for a challenging (in many ways) read, give "Trainspotting" a try. You won't be disappointed.

5/5 stars

The Left Hand of Darkness
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publication Date: 7/1/00
Publisher: Ace

Blurb (GR): On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female during each mating cycle, and this is something that humans find incomprehensible.

The Ekumen of Known Worlds has sent an ethnologist to study the Gethenians on their forbidding, ice-bound world. At first he finds his subjects difficult and off-putting, with their elaborate social systems and alien minds. But in the course of a long journey across the ice, he reaches an understanding with one of the Gethenians — it might even be a kind of love.

Review:
"The Left Hand of Darkness" turned out to be quite a pleasant surprise for me. I do not read science fiction often and had to abandon my last attempt ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy") for its utter stupidity, but this book was a sci-fi of a completely different sort. It wasn't just another novel about green aliens or space travel, it was an extremely clever and deep exploration of gender.

Genly Ai is an emissary of the Ekumen (a union of human worlds) to planet Gethen, or Winter (called so for its extremely cold climate). His mission is to convince inhabitants of the world to join the rest of humanity in exchange of ideas and technology. However Genly is met with some reserve as the decision to join is hindered by alien to him intricacies of Gethenian politics and culture. What makes Gethen so unique and thus so hard for Ai to understand is that it is inhibited by the race of ambisexual (hermaphroditic) beings. All Gethenians have an ability to be both male and female. Most of the time their sexualities lay dormant and awaken only a few days a month during a period called kemmer (mating period). At the time of kemmer each Gethenian can become either male or female. The choice of gender is always incidental. Between the kemmers Gethenians are asexual. This sexual peculiarity makes Gethen quite a subdued race - its inhabitants are not assigned any gender roles, they are not sexually driven or sexually frustrated, they are less violent and ambitious. As the story progresses, Genly learns to understand this strange world a little better and even finds love.

I was extremely impressed by Le Guin's imagination. The world of Gethen was thoroughly detailed and very well realized. Everything about Gethen - the direct effects of Winter's climate and Gethenians' ambisexuality on the social and political order, science, philosophy and even folklore - were developed in the most remarkable way. I was also amazed at how skillfully Le Guin presented romance in the story, because as you can imagine a love story between a man and an ambisexual being (or between two ambisexuals) can go horribly wrong in less talented hands.

My only reservation about the book was the language. It took a few chapters to get used to a huge amount of Gethenian words, names and concepts. At times I had to reread some passages to understand them, because they seemed a little too densely written (my recent obsession with YA literature might be blamed for the softness of my brain too I suppose). But this wasn't so overwhelming as to spoil the reading experience for me.

Highly recommended to those who enjoys quality science fiction.

5/5 stars

Runaway
Author: Alice Munro
Publication Date: 10/26/04
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Blurb (GR): The incomparable Alice Munro’s bestselling and rapturously acclaimed Runawayis a book of extraordinary stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from the title story about a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband, to three stories about a woman named Juliet and the emotions that complicate the luster of her intimate relationships. In Munro’s hands, the people she writes about–women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children–become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own.

Review:
Like many readers, I claim quite often that I am not really a fan of short stories, that is, I claim that until I come across the next good short story collection, like Alice Munro's Runaway. My imaginary dislike for shorts can surely be traced to reading too many poorly assembled multi-author anthologies. There are maybe two of them in existence that I can honestly call good. From my experience, single-author collections are much, much more satisfying.

Once again, I have a podcast to thank for discovering a new great author - this time, The New Yorker fiction podcast. The moment I finished listening to Munro's "Axis," I went straight to my digital public library to download me more of her stories.

What Alice Munro's stories remind me the most of are the works of another fabulous Canadian writer - Margaret Atwood, particularly The Blind Assassin and Cat's Eye. (Maybe Canadian books, similar to Australian, have a specific regional "flavor"? I am starting to believe they do, Canadian fiction tends to evokes feelings of cold, emptiness, spaciousness and loneliness in me.)

Munro's stories have the same structure, they are told through a prism of many years past, usually by a mature female narrator, who looks back in time and recollects a specific experience of her youth that changed the whole course of her life. The stories are told from a position of maturity and understanding, but with a feeling of a mild regret. In the present, decades later, those life-turning events do not sting as much as they used to, but the narrator knows unequivocally, they have changed EVERYTHING.

These events that Munro writes so beautifully about, can be quite trivial on the surface (like going on a wild car ride with one's passionless fiance's brother or being momentarily rude to an annoying passenger on a train) or traumatizing (appearance of a strange woman in a child's life who makes the strangest insinuations about the child's birth), but whatever these events are, they affect the narrator in a major way.

Munro's prose is deceptively simple and straightforward, but what she achieves with it is tremendous. Her fame as one of finest short story writers is well deserved.

4/5 stars

Killing the Rabbit
Author: Alison Goodman
Publication Date: 7/31/07
Publisher: Bantam

Blurb (GR): Murder is the main attraction in this dark and wickedly comic new thriller that follows a young indie filmmaker on her way to fame, fortune, and a shoot-out to the death.

Hannie Reynard landed every aspiring filmmaker’s dream: a hefty grant to make her documentary Freaks or Frauds. But the groundbreaking film that was supposed to launch Hannie’s career may kill her first. Blowing the grant money on a lost weekend in Paris was bad enough, but now the “stars” of her film–women who share a unique genetic trait–have stopped talking…and started disappearing.

Coupled with a burned-out ex-classmate hitching his own hopes for a comeback to her project, Hannie finds herself the unlikely co-star of a movie that will never be made if a very powerful someone has anything to say about it. For Hannie is already in the crosshairs of his chief “cameraman”–a ruthlessly unconventional hit man who never misses a lethal shot.

Review:
Whoever wrote Killing the Rabbit's description, has done it a great disservice. "A wickedly comic" thriller? Really? When was it funny exactly? When pregnant women were shot? Or when a man was cut into ribbons by some gang members? I am still waiting for those LOLs.

Anyway, the book is actually a quite gruesome and occasionally gross crime drama.

A forecaster for a huge Japanese pharmaceutical company specializing in contraceptive drugs in his zeal came up with a 200-year development plan. According to the plan, the only thing that will stand in the company's path to success in future is a peculiar genetic mutation that will eventually affect all women. Within a few generations, according to the forecaster's research, they will have an ability to resorb fetuses at will (some small mammals - rabbits and mice - have this ability already! I've never even heard of that). What is there to do? Of course, hire a hitman to eliminate all women displaying this trait.

On the other side of the world Hannie, an aspiring film maker, is working on a project called "Freaks or Frauds." One of her subjects is a woman who can resorb her unwanted fetuses. As Hannie continues working on her project, she comes across more and more deaths connected to it. Will this corporate conspiracy be brought to light?

Although this thriller is not particularly mysterious, you know all players and perpetrators practically from the opening pages, still I found this novel hard to put down. So many thing attracted me to it: the vivid world of hired killers, Japanese corporate culture, the freaky main characters, film making, the unique way the book raises the question of reproductive rights, the romance, violence and sex. And RESORBING! That thing is crazy!

Killing the Rabbit is a hard sell though. It had my innards churning on multiple occasions. Not only because of gore and blood, but whenever resorbing was brought up or the main characters mentioned their physical ailments.

Killing the Rabbit is not a book I would recommend to everyone. But if you are not squeamish and ready for some sick stuff, give it a try.

4/5 stars

The Stars My Destination
Author: Alfred Bester
Publication Date: 1956
Publisher: Vintage

Blurb(GR): In this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in which people "jaunte" a thousand miles with a single thought, where the rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with radioactive hit men - and where an inarticulate outcast is the most valuable and dangerous man alive. The Stars My Destination is a classic of technological prophecy and timeless narrative enchantment by an acknowledged master of science fiction.


Review:
I think that this book pretty much just blew my mind.  I mean, am I crazy, or is this one of the most profound things ever written?

"You pigs, you.  You goof like pigs, is all.  You got the most in you and you use the least.  You hear me, you?  Got a million in you and spend pennies.  Got a genius in you and think crazies.  Got a heart in you and feel empties.  All a you.  Every you….”

Alright, you probably have to read the book to appreciate that, and you should!  Can I entice you further by saying that an android delivers the meaning of life in a radiation fueled moment of lucidity, before collapsing, about five pages before that speech?  How about the fact that this book contains an evil millionaire, an albino with abnormal perception, a gorgeous telepath, a radioactive courier, a slick super spy, a cold-hearted, red-headed jailbird, and a bionic psychopath bent on revenge?  Okay, I am pulling out my very last card.  Wait for it…

The Count of Monte Cristo…in space.  That’s right!  Except in this version, he finds enlightenment and awakens humanity in the end. 

I could see the comparison between these two masterpieces right away, but at first everything seemed to be happening much too fast.  How could he cram the years and years of slowly simmering vengeance of Edmund Dantes into a paltry two hundred pages?  But then I started thinking.  This is the future:  where teleportation makes
travel instantaneous; where the body and mind can be upgraded with hypno-learning and a little re-wiring; where information can be gained with the latest psychological coercion techniques.  In short, this is a world where patience is no longer required for revenge.  Like Dantes, Gully is a simple man awakened to all of his great potential by a fiery need for vengeance.  But Gully is ten times more impulsive and rash than Dantes ever was; he kills indiscriminately and without conscience.  And when he begins to awaken, he wakes up completely.

This book contains one of the most colorful, interesting casts of characters that I have ever come across.  I can definitely see that Alfred Bester had a history in comics; many of these characters seem like comic book heroes in the making.  I can also see that this was written in the 1950’s.  It’s nice that he could envision women fighting against their oppression, but I am a little sad that he saw the double standard placed on women continuing for
hundreds of years.  Also, I can almost see him delighting in his own progressiveness when he repeatedly describes Robin Wednesbury as a gorgeous “negro girl,” more times than he describes the race of anyone else in the book
(stick it in your eye, racist pigs!).  But it comes across as a bit glaring to someone raised in the Sesame Street, avoid mentioning race at all costs generation.  Some of the technological advances that he envisioned are quite a hoot as well.  For example, he imagined that teleportation would end the need for communications systems:

”In an age when communication systems were virtually extinct – when it was far easier to jaunte directly to a
man’s office for a discussion than to telephone or telegraph – “

I think that he severely underestimated the lengths that people will go to to avoid speaking face to face.

Perfect Musical Pairing

Tool – Lateralus

I’ve seen these guys twice in concert, and I love them for their sweeping, dynamic, ten minute long songs.  They put on quite a show – with crazy mind-bending imagery and clothes (or lack thereof).  Their shows always make me feel like I would probably be getting more out of them if I were on mind altering drugs of some sort, which isn’t really a
good thing for me (huge fan of reality and lifelong abstainer).  The ending of this book makes me feel almost the same way – it’s just a little bit too “out there” for me to fully appreciate, but I still found it incredibly moving.  This
song is all about transcending our basic, human selves.

4/5 Stars

Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon #1)
Author: Chine Mieville
Publication Date: 2/27/01
Publisher: Del Rey

Blurb(GR): Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none—not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.

Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.

While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger—and more consuming—by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon—and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . .

A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader's imagination.

Review:
When we’ve turned this world into a dried up husk and have to resort to shutting ourselves in to life sustaining pods and “living” within some sort of virtual environment, I vote we nominate this guy to imagine and design our virtual
realities.  Sure, we’ll probably end up with some weird shit, like fire breathing iguana flowers and pulsating organic clouds that rain mucus and blood (he won’t be able to help himself) but we’ll get the most detailed, complete, panoramic world, and I can guarantee that it won’t feel imaginary. 

I think that’s China Mieville’s greatest strength:  his limitless imagination and 100% commitment to his ideas.  Reading this book feels a bit like watching this video; like living in a place where nothing behaves as you are
accustomed to, but somehow it’s all still graspable.  This is my third Mieville, and I keep feeling like, when is he going to run out of ideas?!!  I mean, everything that I’ve read from him feels completely original and new…and
this book in particular just has one new and original idea stacked on top of another ad infinitum.  At times I did feel like I needed to slow down.  It’s like driving 100 miles per hour through an abomination of the Emerald City:  everything’s flashing by and I just want to slow down and focus on one of the disgusting, hideous details but I can’t, because…here’s another one!

So yeah, maybe I should actually write something about what this book is about.  Just as in the other two Mieville novels that I’ve read, the environment is a major character in this book.  New Crobuzon is a putrescent, festering, melting pot of a city, with combustible tension between its highly varied denizens and the city’s leaders (both formal and illicit).  It’s a place with a long memory, inhabited by recent arrivals, desperate and ignorant, building their lives up on top of waste, pollution, and the corpse of a desiccated behemoth.

In addition, this book has a large cast of compelling characters, which is something that I felt was missing from The City & The City.  Isaac is naïve in the way of scientists: he’s insular and so focused on his own ideas that he doesn’t pay enough attention to their potential impact on the world.  He’s a bit of an antihero: he’s impulsive and rash, sometimes lacking in bravery and integrity.  I found Lin and Yagharek to be the most fascinating characters.  I think there’s some interesting mirroring between them.  Lin was born down in the filth and muck, and managed to lift herself out and find a new life, but she can’t help but miss her old home.  Yag was born free and powerful, and through his own reprehensible actions, brought himself down to the gutter, and now he can’t get out.  Yag is also the only character to be gifted with first person narration for a few passages throughout the novel, which are my favorite
parts.

Isaac and Lin are in love, which is difficult because they come from two different worlds, and their relationship is viewed as taboo and perverted.  Isaac worries and guards the secret, but Lin is less concerned, as she is already an outcast among her own people.  When Yagharek arrives at Isaac’s laboratory, desperate to regain his former power, and Lin is commissioned to create a life size statue of a grotesque underworld boss, events are set in motion which could lead to the destruction of New Crobuzon.

The writing is elaborate and ornamented with a surfeit of big big words.  For the most part it feels appropriate, like he’s using just the right word at the right time.  It doesn’t feel overdone.  However, he definitely has a few favorites that appear frequently enough that I took note:  palimpsest, vestige, palimpsest, exudations, ineluctable, palimpsest, autopoiesis, ichor, and uhh…did I mention palimpsest? I wonder; if these words weren’t so conspicuous (because of their big big-ness) would I have even noticed?  I mean, if he had used “layered” or “inevitable” twenty times I doubt it would stand out in the same way.

I just have one more thing to add:  I’m onto you, Mr. Mieville!  That climactic slake moth battle scene?  I know exactly where that idea came from.  Do you get all of your material from cheesy 90’s movies or what?

Perfect Musical Pairing

Bon Iver – Holocene

Because I listened so obsessively to the new Bon Iver album for the entire time I was reading this book that they melded and layered themselves together.  Parts of each were visible, but they had combined and concealed each other as well…they had become a blend, a…oh god, what is that word?  I know it…if I could only just remember...it’s on the tip of my tongue….
4/5 Stars

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
Author: Mindy Kaling
Publication Date: 11/1/11
Publisher: Crown Archetype

Blurb(GR):  Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

Review:
There’s a passage in this book in which Mindy Kaling laments that she will never be the kind of comedian who can get away with really raunchy humor or jokes about race.  (She cites Sarah Silverman and Dave Chappelle as examples.)  But, here is what she can get away with: writing a book chock-full of lists and stories all about how she’s basically (in her words) a “vain flake” and still coming across as a kind, intelligent woman and an excellent best friend.

I kind of wish that Mindy Kaling were my best friend.  She’d be the kind of friend who would call up on a Saturday night, and when you sheepishly admitted that you really didn’t feel like going out, would show up at your door wearing pj’s and laden down with fancy chocolates and champagne.  Then she would plop down on your couch and make absolutely no complaints when you wanted to watch a Say Yes to the Dress marathon.  She’s the kind of friend who would never shame you for loving (just as a few completely out-there random examples which have absolutely nothing at all to do with me) When Harry Met Sally (like, to the point where I you can recite every single line), or
Sixteen and Pregnant, or US Weekly, or cheddar cheese pretzels, or house music.

One of my favorite chapters in this book is entitled “Best Friend Rights and Responsibilities” and outlines a few of Mindy Kaling’s rules for BFF-dom:

“I MUST BE 100 PERCENT HONEST ABOUT HOW YOU LOOK, BUT GENTLE
Your boyfriend is never going to tell you that your skirt is too tight and riding up too high on you.  In fact, you shouldn’t even have asked him, poor guy.  He wants to have sex with you no matter how pudgy you are.  I am the only person besides your mom who has the right (and responsibility) to tell you that. I should never be overly harsh when something doesn’t look good on you, because I know you are fragile about this, and so am I.  I will employ the gentle, vague expression ‘I’m not crazy about that on you,’ which should mean to you ‘Holy shit, take that off, that looks terrible!’  I owe it to you to give feedback like a cattle prod: painful but quick.”

Mindy and I (I’m just going to go ahead and call her Mindy…because that’s what future best friends do) are also about the same age, and there is some excellent 90’s nostalgia porn in here.  In particular, I loved her list of favorite comedy moments (Chris Farley as Matt Foley = more evidence that we should be best friends) and her list of remakes that she’d like to take a crack at.  An all-girl remake of Ghostbusters?!!  I would totally go and see that, especially if they cast female comedians in all the main roles.

I didn’t enjoy the pieces about dieting and dating/commitment quite as much but overall I really had a fun time with this book.  This is a humorous memoir that also belongs alongside the fluffy/frothy books and I think that’s exactly what my little Min was really going for.  Well done!  (Call me later!)

Perfect Musical Pairing

Mariah Carey – We Belong Together

I may or may not love Mariah Carey with all my heart.  And I may or may not have seen Glitter more than once, possibly not even to make fun of it.
3/5 Stars

The Age of Innocence
Author: Edith Wharton
Publication Date: 1920
Publisher: D. Appleton and Company

Blurb(GR): Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.”

This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion,
Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it.


Review:
The title of this book is now one of my favorites of all time.  At first glance, it seems so dry, so suggestive of sweeping historical detail.  It made me think of the fond memories of an age gone by – how quaint, how rosy-hued and idealistic it all was.  Summoning the vague ideas that I had about 1920’s New York, I pictured smoky clubs and laughing ladies in fur-lined cloaks and peacock feather hats.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever come across another title so seemingly innocuous, yet so absolutely loaded with darker meaning.  Shouldn’t there be some quotation marks or italicizing in there?  Shouldn’t she have warned us?

But she doesn’t, and this book is all the more devastating for it.  The beginning had me laughing along with how ridiculous it all was – the gardenia in the buttonhole, the fashionably late arrival, the opera translated within an inch of its life, the fiancé waiting in all her cosseted “perfection”.  She lured me in with these little witty and darkly humorous asides.  How silly!  And then, just when I was getting comfortable, she twisted all those details into something stifling and malevolent and tenacious.  She’s violent with her readers, but her blows aren’t passionate or frenzied.  Rather, they are given out systematically, calmly, and with absolute precision.

This is how to write a love triangle.  My god!  I honestly don’t think I will ever read a more vivid and lacerating portrayal of the guilt, inner conflict, and yearning of it all.  These three characters are so fully realized and exposed to the reader, yet within the world of these pages, they are neatly sectioned.  They are sequestered inside of their own thoughts and feelings.  They do not see each other at all.  We are given the best/worst seat in the house, and it’s painful, but always absolutely compelling.

May is sheltered and grown in a tiny space, like some sort of delicacy.  She is preserved and wrapped, like a present, for Archer to unwrap – an offering to his male vanity.  But is that all that she is?  Archer constantly assumes that she is child-like and vacant, with no hidden depths.  But then, she has unexpected moments of shrewdness and lucidity.  I think that she has more insight than he knows.  She is very much a product of her environment and she has learned to navigate its roads.  She has learned to succeed in her role.

Unlike May, Ellen is given experience and perspective in childhood. Her eyes have been opened by her eccentric upbringing and the bad marriage that she’s run away from.  She’s realistic to the point where she’s almost lost the ability to be romantic.  Does she love Archer?  I still don’t know.  She sees the reality of their relationship so much more clearly than he does, and I think that holds her back.

Archer is given center stage in this drama and so he is the most visible to us.  In the beginning, he is the favored son, almost worshipped by his mother and sister.  His every need is cared for; his whole life set out before him.  But when Ellen arrives – a color photo in a sea of black and white – he suddenly begins to see his society as an outsider.  Without even intending to, she jars him out of his set course.  She makes him examine his own thoughts.  But his transition isn’t instantaneous and complete: he regresses to his earlier state of complacency when she’s not around.  Or at least, he tries to.  He's idealistic and romantic in his innocence, hoping for impossible things.

And then there’s a fourth main character: society.  Acting as a single, terrifying tribe, they collude to set trends, make rules, and excise bad elements.  They are a “society wholly absorbed in barricading itself against the unpleasant,” but as a result they also eschew learning, experience, and perspective.

The ending is intense, and made me question my own much touted love of sad and ambiguous endings.  Quite a feat.  I think that it can be interpreted in a couple of ways.  If you’ve read this book, please comment because I’d love to have a discussion about it.

*Spoilers Below!*
Archer seems to have fallen back into his old groove, but he feels that he’s missed out on “the flower of life.”  When he’s given an opportunity to see Ellen once again, he resists, thinking that the memory of his association with her will be more vivid and real if he doesn’t see her again.  Has he simply become complacent, or does he finally see things as they really were?  Reflecting on his son’s attitudes, he thinks,

“The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they’re going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn’t.  Only, I wonder – the thing one’s so certain of in advance: can it ever make one’s heart beat as wildly?”

I’d like to think that he’s realizing there that maybe he didn’t miss out on the flower of life: he had passion and sadness and powerful feelings.  Maybe the flower of life is more about the wanting, not the getting.  His mind is so obviously opened and broadened by his experience with Ellen, even if they are never meant to be, and he now sees his idealistic visions of freedom from society realized (at least somewhat) in his children. In the end, he isn't courageous enough to reach for more.
*End Spoilers*
This is some of the most breath-stealing, gorgeous writing I’ve ever read and I am now very happy that I have an old, battered, highlighted and written-in copy from a library book sale, because I dog-eared the life out of this thing.  

Perfect Musical Pairing

Mendelssohn – Wedding March (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Joyous, grand, lively, triumphant…structured, traditional, confined, false…I’ll never hear this damn song the same way again. 

5/5 Stars

A Discovery of Witches
Author: Deborah Harkness
Publication Date: 2/8/11
Publisher: Viking Adult

Blurb(GR): A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.  Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break
its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.

Review: This book kept me hanging on just enough to stop me from abandoning it. I’m not really sure who this book is aimed at; it’s a very pedestrian, traditional romance wrapped up in a nearly 600 page, painfully slow tale filled with history and science.  It’s a bit like a Hallmark card wrapped up in an encyclopedia.  The history and science buffs will be turned off by the cheesy center, and the romance lovers will resent having to wade through pages of endless description and detail just to get to the good stuff.  And speaking of “the good stuff” – there isn’t any.  If I am going to struggle my way through a sappy romance, the least I would expect is a good sex scene!

The female lead is Diana, who is a highly intelligent woman and well respected in her field.  She’s also the daughter of two powerful witches who were murdered when she was seven years old.  Traumatized by their deaths, she turns her back on magic and devotes her life to study.  When she accidentally pulls a heavily enchanted manuscript from the Bodleian library and is somehow able to open it, she draws the attention of the supernatural communities.  Matthew, a biochemist vampire with many secrets and motivations of his own, seeks out Diana to investigate.

The main thing that turns me off about this book is the cast of characters.  Matthew will be startlingly familiar to any reader of paranormal romance.  He’s a perfect physical specimen, with vast wealth (including several ancient homes which he built himself), a guilt-inducing past, and a tendency to be an overly protective, patronizing control freak.  He also likes to name drop famous historical figures that he’s known, drone on and on about wine and spout obnoxious lines like, “Will you never wait until I help you?”  And, despite being alive for 1,500 years, he apparently still thinks that women are incapable of feeding and clothing themselves or knowing when they’re tired (Don’t worry, he’ll  give you sedatives without your knowledge if you try to disagree).  He’s the kind of guy who says, “I might not be able to control myself if you step away” after a first kiss, then spends the rest of the book avoiding consummating the relationship, because “there’s plenty of time” even though at this point the characters have become very committed.  Diana is the otherwise intelligent woman who acts like a child whenever she’s in his presence.  She has to be bullied and bated into using her powers, and saved time and time again by Matthew.  Despite Matthew’s continual marveling about how powerful and strong she is, her strength is barely in evidence.

This book needs some serious trimming.  This author is clearly a very bright, intellectual woman and she has a ton of ideas.  I just wish she hadn’t put all of them in this one book.  She manages to cram in alchemy, paranormal groups, magic, evolution, mythology, medieval knights, politics, DNA testing, yoga, and wine tasting, not to mention time travel before this book is done.  There are also four chapters (out of about forty) that are written in third person following Matthew, instead of the first person (Diana) perspective that’s used for the rest of the book.  It’s as if she feels the need to show the reader absolutely everything that’s going on, everywhere.  This book would have been so much better if she had kept a few ideas in reserve.  Some of the topics, like the wine tasting and the yoga,
serve no purpose to the story, except perhaps to make Matthew seem even more pretentious.

I did enjoy much of the science and history, but there were too many niggling little scientific inaccuracies to keep me spellbound.  For instance, Matthew has apparently mapped the DNA of enough witches and other supernatural beings to be able to locate and identify markers of different magical powers, not to mention create a map of the different lineages of witch families.  However, he is somehow unable to use the same information to determine whether the different supernatural groups (witches, vampires, and daemons) are genetically related.  For all of the author’s vast intelligence, I’m not sure that she really understands evolution either.  I’m not one who typically nit-picks stories on the technical details, but this book is so agonizingly slow and the sappy romance is such a turn off for me – I found myself focusing on the little details more and more.

This book is absolutely not for me.  However, if you are an intellectual person with a love of sweet, "courtly love" type romances, and macho-man heroes, then I think you might like this one.
 2/5 Stars