funk

slumberland

2009-04-12T12:01:00.003-05:00

slumberland by paul beatty published in 2009.

D.J. Darky goes to East Germany to find the Schwa during the time period when the Berlin Wall comes down.

As always Paul Beatty is humerous and hip.

assasination vacation

2008-08-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

assasination vacation by sarah vowell.

Sarah Vowell gives a modern ramble about her visits to the sites connected with the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Not a bad way to catch up on your history.

the heart of darkness

2008-05-11T22:22:00.004-05:00

the heart of darkness by joseph conrad published in 1899.

it is progression out of the darkness to face the darkness which begs the question where is the light?

the portable checkhov

2008-04-11T21:49:00.001-05:00

the portable checkhov by anton checkhov.

i like russian literature

lady chatterley's lover

2008-03-11T23:56:00.001-05:00

lady chatterley’s lover by D.H. Lawrence published 1928.

Apparently scandalous in its sexually explicit overtones, this novel's true outrageousness is it's heroine's rejection of aristocracy in preference of a sensual earthly grounding.

the savage detectives

2008-02-24T22:09:00.000-05:00

the savage detectives by roberto bolano published 2007.

This Chillean novel starts out as a novel and turns into a road diary more reminiscent of Kerouac's On the Road than Gabrial Garcia Marquez's writings.

the overcoat and other short stories

2008-01-06T09:47:00.000-05:00

the overcoat and other short stories by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol in the 19th century.

19th century Russia Literature like Gogol's stories turn seemingly mundane details of everyday life into universal truths that resonate true today.

the master and the margarita

2007-12-30T22:06:00.002-05:00

the master and the margarta by Mikhail Bulgakov written in the 1930s

A beautifully written go-around of of good and evil written as a political protest novel. Mary Clark provides an excellent synopsis posted on GoodReads.

"Surely no stranger work exists in the annals of protest literature than The Master and Margarita. Written during the Soviet crackdown of the 1930s, when Mikhail Bulgakov's works were effectively banned, it wraps its anti-Stalinist message in a complex allegory of good and evil. Or would that be the other way around? The book's chief character is Satan, who appears in the guise of a foreigner and self-proclaimed black magician named Woland. Accompanied by a talking black tomcat and a "translator" wearing a jockey's cap and cracked pince-nez, Woland wreaks havoc throughout literary Moscow. First he predicts that the head of noted editor Berlioz will be cut off; when it is, he appropriates Berlioz's apartment. (A puzzled relative receives the following telegram: "Have just been run over by streetcar at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three afternoon come Berlioz.") Woland and his minions transport one bureaucrat to Yalta, make another one disappear entirely except for his suit, and frighten several others so badly that they end up in a psychiatric hospital. In fact, it seems half of Moscow shows up in the bin, demanding to be placed in a locked cell for protection.
Meanwhile, a few doors down in the hospital lives the true object of Woland's visit: the author of an unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate. This Master--as he calls himself--has been driven mad by rejection, broken not only by editors' harsh criticism of his novel but, Bulgakov suggests, by political persecution as well. Yet Pilate's story becomes a kind of parallel narrative, appearing in different forms throughout Bulgakov's novel: as a manuscript read by the Master's indefatigable love, Margarita, as a scene dreamed by the poet--and fellow lunatic--Ivan Homeless, and even as a story told by Woland himself. Since we see this narrative from so many different points of view, who is truly its author? Given that the Master's novel and this one end the same way, are they in fact the same book? These are only a few of the many questions Bulgakov provokes, in a novel that reads like a set of infinitely nested Russian dolls: inside one narrative there is another, and then another, and yet another. His devil is not only entertaining, he is necessary: "What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it?"

Unsurprisingly--in view of its frequent, scarcely disguised references to interrogation and terror--Bulgakov's masterwork was not published until 1967, almost three decades after his death. Yet one wonders if the world was really ready for this book in the late 1930s, if, indeed, we are ready for it now. Shocking, touching, and scathingly funny, it is a novel like no other. Woland may reattach heads or produce 10-ruble notes from the air, but Bulgakov proves the true magician here. The Master and Margarita is a different book each time it is opened." --Mary Park

the german lesson

2007-12-30T22:02:00.000-05:00

the german lesson by siegfried lenz published 1968.

you didn't have a troubled youth?

One Day in the Life Ivan Denisovich: A Novel

2007-12-30T21:57:00.000-05:00

One Day in the Life Ivan Denisovich: A Novel by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

I feel like I should hoard my food.

the stranger

2007-11-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

the stranger by albert camus written in 1946.

The Stranger is close to the heart, not an arab on the beach, as the narrator is distanced from himself . nothing is nothing

dead souls

2007-11-10T21:19:00.000-05:00

dead souls by nikolai gogol written in the 19th century.

Dead Souls is an unfinished lifetime work of Gogol. The first volume flows well and the later volume leaves you wondering where Gogol is going with it all, however Gogol's character sketches are insightful and still relevent today.

garden state

2007-09-30T19:04:00.000-05:00

garden state by rick moody published 1992.

we all know jersey is hell; do we need yet another failure story from you 20-somethings?

dogrun

2007-09-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

dogrun by arthur nersesian published 2000.

See where being alternative will get you? A temp job and a dead boyfriend.

white noise

2007-09-14T20:49:00.000-05:00

white noise by don delillo published 1985.

Sure, this is a funny satire on the nuclear family. believable not so much. insightful maybe. cliche i am sure, maybe not so bad at the time.

absurdistan

2007-08-16T18:38:00.000-05:00

absurdistan by gary shteyngart published 2006.

Having read "The Russian Debutante's Handbook", it is evident Shteyngart is working hard his Russian emigrant theme however his theme (himself?!) is still humorous and worth a read.

the fifth business

2007-06-30T17:17:00.000-05:00

the fifth business by robertson davies published in 1970.

Anal-retentive? Well... Dunstable grew up in a small Canadian town in the early 1900s with stiff Scottish presbytian parents. In the pivotal moment, Dunstable will live with the guilt of his eight-yr-old slyness after dodging a snowball thrown by his best friend and arch nemesis, Percy Boyd Staunton . The rock-laden snowball hits the Baptist minister's wife instead, inducing labor to a pre-mature Paul who survives because of the iron will of Dunstable's Scottish mother's. The Baptist minister's wife is left simple and Dunstanble to care for her for the rest of your life.

After a winding hagiological path, Dunstan is reunited with Paul for whom he writes his autobiography "Magnus Eisengrim..." And Dunstan incidentally reunites the snowball with the owner.

Let the gigantic woman make you hero, villain, rival or lover.

this book will save your life

2007-05-23T20:56:00.000-05:00

this book will save your life by A. M. Homes published in 2006.

Sucks to have to do all those good deeds. Like buying the crying lady, whom he met in the produce aisle, a super beetle; like buying the donut guys another donut shop after offering him up the bentley for joy riding; etc etc

love story

2007-04-30T20:54:00.000-05:00

love story by erich segal published 1970.

It is a love story- what else can i say? oh, it was first published in the ladies home journal. (i still thought it was romantic - preppie!)

the trial

2007-04-10T20:52:00.000-05:00

the trial by albert camus published 1937.

Yes you are guilty too, just don't be a pompous ass about it.

the russian debutante's handbook

2007-03-17T23:07:00.000-05:00

the russian debutante's handbook by gary shteyngart published in 2002.

Eastern Europeans and liberals are fodder for Shteyngart's forray into the Russian Mafia.

the distance from the heart of things

2007-03-12T22:49:00.000-05:00

the distance from the heart of things by Ashley Warlick published in 1996.

Sweet thoughtful coming-of-age first novel by Ashley Warlick. I prefer a more narrative style, but Warlick carries through with her Southern retrospective.

angels

2007-03-05T11:10:00.000-05:00

angels by denis johnson published 1983.

angels is a plain language and pedestrian story with gratuitous violence, the rambling 'already dead: a california gothic' is a much better read.
After leaving her husband for good reasons, a mother fleeing on a greyhound joins paths with an alcoholic ex-navy petty thief who takes her to party in Pittsburg. She and her two babies follow him to Chicago after he splits having burned through his money and his fingers. After arriving at the Chicago bus station without any resources, the mother toting the two babies is taken in by a random hoodlum who proceeds to drug and gang rape her.

the plague

2007-02-18T17:34:00.000-05:00

the plague by Albert Camus published 1946.

Insightful character sketches of citizens in a town called Oran beleaguered by the plague.

"In the early days when they thought this epidemic much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all their hideous fears that stamp their face in the daytime are transformed in the fiery dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering their blood". - Tarrou

"Paneloux is a man of learning, a scholar. He hasn't come in contact with death; that's why he can speak with such assurance of the truth with a capital T. But every country priest who visits his parishoners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed thinks as I do. He'd try to relieve human suffering before trying to point out its excellence" - Rieux

white nights

2007-02-15T16:57:00.000-05:00

white nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky published in 1848. Typical romance story. Girl and boy meet. Fall in love. Have crisis. Crisis resolved. Live happily ever after. And at the brink of happiness this exceptionally lyrical Doestoevsky novellette kicks the protagonist to the curb.

the towers of trezibond

2007-02-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

the towers of trezibond by Rose Macaulay published in 1956.

Yes, typically British. If I was in turkey, it probably would be much more interesting as the novel is an introspective religious travel log framed around "Aunt Dot". Aunt Dot was a feminist before her time, hoping to empower the women hidden behind the burka. Traveling to exotic destinations on a white Arabian camel, Aunt Dot and her companions create a stir.

"The fact was that Father Chantry-Pigg would not really have liked the Byzantines much had he encountered them, though he would have preferred them to Turks and other Moslems. He was not actually a sympathetic clergyman, and, had he been with his ancestor for the great attack on Constantinople in 1203, he would have been amongs those who, brandishing the cross above their heads, massacred and pillaged and looted in the name of Latin Christendom, helping to put to flame the great libraries whose loss he now deplored. He was better at condemning than at loving; aunt Dot used to wonder what Christ would have said to him."

The Fuck Up

2007-01-28T22:43:00.000-05:00

The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian published 1992. The tenous exisistence of the narrator spirals downward after his best friend Helmesely, who was his mentor and lifeline, throws himself off the Brooklyn Bridge. Helmesely was brutalized and dumped violently by his first love Angela - leaving the narrator absolutely alone to richochet violently around nyc, working it as best as his 20yr-old self can work it, but ultimately falling rock bottom. The journey comes full circle when the woman who destroyed his lifeline becomes his last chance.

White Teeth

2007-01-08T16:30:00.000-05:00

White teeth by Zadie Smith published in 2000. Great organic character development, involving story which pinnacles as a clash of superegos. Brother against brother. Extreme science against extreme religion meet in an irie womb.

Daring human portrayal of inter cultural, racial, sex and generation themes. The story flows and even the supermouseTM extravaganza can be over-looked because the overarching story rings true.

Suicide Blonde

2006-12-22T21:02:00.000-05:00

Suicide Blonde by Darcy Steinke published in 1992. Melodramatic tale of a 30 year-old woman and her decomposition. In between homosexual confusion, a little heroin, prostitution and of course blondes and suicide. Wonderful pithy witticisms such as:

'I wanted to yell at Pig that there was no more poignancy in the aging of a beautiful woman than a plain one. If beautiful girls had higher expectations it was only because of vanity, not because they were better people, or more blessed. And besides, it didn't seem possible that I could end up like Pig. She let her nails dig into the soft part of my arm and with the pain I thought, Once she was like me.'

'"Is there anything more delicate than an egg?" he asked smiling.
"Yeah" I said. "Relationships."'

'Happy people are the cruelest, I thought. This is the cock Bell wanted in his mouth, up his ass. Kevin stopped kissing me and brushed my hand away from his pants. "You can't tell where you stop and other people start," he said. "That's a dangerous quality to have."'

catcher in the rye

2006-12-16T18:14:00.000-05:00

Comin Thro' The Rye
O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!

Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warl' ken?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a body's ain.

-Robert Burns

Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger in 1951. First person narrative. Journal style about the events of a manic-depressive teenage on the loose in manhattan.

Holden misquotes “if a body catch a body comin’ through the rye”. After his kid-sister Phoebe asked Holden one thing he likes, the only thing he'd like to do is to catch kids as they are playing from going over the edge of a crazy cliff. The title of the novel uses the word “catch”, instead of “meet”, because Holden wants to catch the boy coming through the rye to help him deal with an unfair, violent and dishonest world.

interpreter of maladies

2006-11-30T18:30:00.000-05:00

Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of stories by Jhumpa Lahiri published 1999. 'A Temporary Matter' - the disintegration of a marriage after their first child arrives as a stillbirth. 'When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine' - Bangladesh state separation through the eyes of an Indian child who's family hosts a Pakistani University professor for dinners. 'Interpreter of Maladies' - Indian family on tour in India reveals themselves as shallow Americans to tour guide. 'A Real Durwan' - Unofficial 'doorman' gets a bad deal when tenants obsess over home improvements. 'Sexy' - A married Indian man romances a young woman; she feels 'sexy' for the first time. 'Mrs Sen's' - Transplanted Indian wife through the eyes of the child she watches. 'This Blessed House' - Impetuous marriage reveals its cracks when the modern educated wife becomes determined to display the christian icons they find in their newly purchased home. 'The Treatment of Bibi Haldar' - disenfranchised epileptic woman finds her cure with an inexplicable yet wished for pregnancy. 'The Third and Final Continent' - After having an insightful relationship with the 100 y.o. matron who rented a room to him, young Indian man quietly establishes his life in Boston with his arranged wife.

Jhumpa Lahiri presents a good descriptive range of the Indian experience but her writing is slightly stiff, as if the author was not engaged but kept herself at a distance.

Desperate Characters

2006-11-29T15:43:00.000-05:00

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. "

Desperate Characters by Paula Fox published in 1970. Think Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby. It is social commentary of the late 60's NYC expressed through the pain of being, that is the pain of every day life. Paula Fox offers no solutions just a hushed intimate look as the changing era overtakes Sophie and Otto Bentwood.