The Book Club

Great Quotes: William Saroyan's The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills

 

 

"I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness."

William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills

Comic Pull List: The End of Batgirl and Secret Six

Avengers Academy #17 (Fear Itself tie-in)

By: Christos Gage & Sean Chean

I've been raving about this series and its tie-in to Fear Itself, but this issue sort of hit the brakes for me. I mean, the kids come home, the teachers run off, and then, BOOM!, we're right back where we were, and all the emotional moments from the last few issues seem lost in a sea of Michael Bayisms.

Chen does a good fill-in here, grasping the characters different looks, but his best ability is getting the details right for some rather new characters - Finesse does a flip while her teammates get knocked on their butts or Mettle dives in front of his girlfriend when they get attacked. Well done on the characterization.

Batgirl #24 (Last Issue)

By: Bryan Q. Miller & Pere Perez

I always enjoy collections of possible futures or other worlds, especially if the artist is able to inject a lot of character and creativity into the images. But in this case, being the end of the road for my beloved Stephanie Brown Batgirl, I have to say I wanted more. There was some good closing moments (especially in  using the right supporting characters to end the series with), but the final battle, which should have been epic, got lost in what were obviously supposed to be another issue of stories.

I'll miss you, Steph. Come back soon.

Secret Six #36 (final issue)

By: Gail Simone & Jim Calafiore

Another casualty of DC's new 52 relaunch, Secret Six is just dang good fun and this issue showed us why. Simone gives a happy ending to only a few of our beloved not-so-villains, but does so by giving the reader some surprises and probably a dash of controversy. The art is great, especially Calafiore drawing some epic DC heroes.

I'm a little foggy as to what actually happens in the end, but that's pretty much the point. The Six takes on the entire DC heroic pantheon (a nice call back to them taking on a cadre of villains at the beginning of this run) and doesn't succeed, all while suggesting new and interesting takes on both what is a hero and who are your friends along the way.

Good-bye, naked Catman. We didn't see enough of you.

X-Factor #224

By: Peter David & Emanuela Lupacchino

Oh, I still love my X-Factor but Rahne's pregnancy and birth hasn't been my favorite storyline. While I do appreciate that David has been playing the long game with us (I actually didn't catch it), something just doesn't add up to interesting. The only thing that storywise saves this issue is Rahne herself, with one of the most horrible birthing scenes I've ever seen.

Plus, I don't get the ending. At all. I don't know the Jack Russell character that well, but I hope David is again playing the long game here, because otherwise it just doesn't fit. In the end, a disappointing end to two rather long storylines.

X-Men: Schism #2 (of 5)

By: Jason Aaron & Frank Cho

Oh, reliable Frank Cho. Can any comic book artist manage to out cheesecake you, with your gigantic and generally exposed female breasts? Although I have to admit, Cho also manages to show butt shots of the guys, so at least he's an equal opportunity objectifier. (Although that Dazzler cameo with the nearly bare breasts and starburst crotch was too jazz hands even for me.)

Other than that, I have to say I'm really kind of bored with the Cyclops and Wolverine show. I mean, I knew this was going to be a mini-series about their falling out, but the hugeness of the X-Men universe and all the diversity within it is what makes it so much fun. Reducing the X-Men to two points of view diminishes them,  I feel. Why are Emma, Rogue, and Storm not fighting back more? Storywise, it works, but not for long term characterization.

Book Review: Janet Evanovich's One for the Money

Title: One for the Money

Series: Stephanie Plum (Book 1, series ongoing)

Author: Janet Evanovich

Publisher: Scribner (1994)

Genre: Mystery

Sub-Genres: Bounty Hunters, Female Detectives, New Jersey, Romance

Plot Summary: Stephanie Plum is out of a job and down on her luck. Running out of appliances and furniture to pawn for breakfast money, Plum blackmails her cousin into giving her a job as a bounty hunter. Her first collar? The guy who took her virginity in high school and never called back, a cop named Morelli who allegededly shot an unarmed man. But there's something wrong in Trenton, New Jersey, and Morelli may not be as guilty as people think he is.

What I Liked: This book was such a quick read. And I mean that in a good way. It literally took only about three hours total to read, and for the most part, it was quite a joyful experience.

Plum is a great protagonist: she's engaging enough to be fun and make you want to follow her but enough of a cipher that the reader can project their emotions onto her. Combine that with a variety of local New Jersey characters, stellar descriptions of suburban hell, and Plum's grandmother rocking some hot pants, and you've got a fun adventure.

Evanovich's main mystery, and Plum's obvious attraction to Morelli, are also engaging. While the ending is much expected, there are still enough twists to be satisfying.

What I Didn't Like: At times, Evanovich comes off fairly racist and classist. It's not intentional, but rather that Evanovich was trying to protray Jersey as it is, or at least how Evanovich sees it. But with all the poor, downtrodden characters being minorities and our heroes all white, it becomes a bit much.

And this is nowhere more true than with Evanovich's horrible dialogue styling. The characters all have different voices, which is great, but they also come with these dialect inflections that are distracting and not done well. None of the writing in this book is pretty, but beyond the dialogue, it's forgivable because it still gets the job done, if done plainly.

Similar Works: More Stephanie Plum: Two for the Dough (Stephanie Plum, No. 2), Smokin' Seventeen, and Visions of Sugar Plums: A Stephanie Plum Holiday Novel.

More Janet Evanovich: Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby Series #1), Back to the Bedroom, and Full Bloom.

More Female Sleuths: Deja Dead: 10th Anniversary Edition (Temperance Brennan Novels), The Scarpetta Collection Volume I: Postmortem and Body of Evidence (Kay Scarpetta), and A is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries, No. 1).

Buy It Here!: One for the Money (Stephanie Plum, No. 1)

Last Thought: A quick, fun mystery and good enough that I might read the second book.

Great Quotes: Virginia Woolf's The Common Reader

 

 

"We may enjoy our room in the tower, with the painted walls and the commodious bookcases, but down in the garden there is a man digging who buried his father this morning, and it is he and his like who live the real life and speak the real language."

Virginia Woolf, Montaigne from The Common Reader

Quote Analysis: Umberto Eco's Baudolino

"If you want to to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent tales, otherwise your History would become monotonous. But you must act with restraint. The world condemns liars who do nothing but lie, even about the most trivial things, and it rewards poets, who lie only about the greatest things."

Book: Baudolino

Author: Umberto Eco

Translated from Italian by: William Weaver

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2002)

Genre: Literature

Sub-Genres: Fantasy, Frame Story, Hero's Quest, History, Metafiction, Middle Ages, Religious Studies, Unreliable Narrator

Character Speaking: Otto (being told by Baudolino)

Analysis: The thing I love about this quote is just how insanely meta it is.

On the one hand, the quote is spoken by Otto in a conversation with the title character Baudolino. Otto is, in fact, a historian himself, and Baudolino was his student. Baudolino relies this quote to Niketas, in the present, while telling Niketas his own history and life story, all the while admitting that he is a great liar. Otto, too, tells Baudolino, that he is a great liar.

In the end, the listener, Niketas, is so wrapped up in Baudolino's history that no one ends up hearing it again. It is just too fantastical, so that no one would ever believe it. The story ends with, "A greater liar than Baudolino will tell it." Since the book is essentially a frame of Niketas' flee from invaders, you can take the quote as Niketas being the greater storyteller or the author Eco himself.

In other words, this is perhaps Eco's own view on writing: the poets, classically considered the greatest writers, are the best liars. Fiction writers, in fact, are doing just that - they're taking something not true and making it real for the reader. Since the book deals with the fantastical, a large portion of this book could be a thesis on the subject of the willing suspension of disbelief, and how the writer uses that against the reader to make them believe in things like unicorns, vampires, and true love.

But the best part is that it also deals with the narratives inherent even in true things. Otto tells Baudolino that he must make the truth exciting to make a great history. Taken in the context of the modern age (the book was published in 2002), Eco is definitely pointing us towards things like the 24 hour news cycle, where the smallest thing can become a huge story, and the lies Hollywood stars tell us about their lives. Eco is trying to make us question just how much of "the truth" that we hear is actually reality, while pointing out that all stories, especially the good ones, are inherently untrue.

Buy It Here!: Baudolino

PFS Book Review: Umberto Eco's Baudolino

Book Review: Jim Butcher's Ghost Story, Book 13 of The Dresden Files

Title: Ghost Story

Series: The Dresden Files (Book 13, series ongoing)

Author: Jim Butcher

Publisher: Roc (2011)

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery

Sub-Genres: Adventure, Chicago, Detective Story, Magic, Noir, Urban Fantasy, Witches & Wizards

Plot Summary: Harry Dresden, wizard for hire, has destroyed the Red Court of vampires. And then someone shot and killed him. Apparently resurrected, Dresden, as a ghost, no less, must work to try to save his friends against new foes, his murderer, and his fairy godmother. Blinded by love and trapped by his inability to do magic in his current form, Dresden must be creative, calling upon all his past help to figure out just how his body ended up in the cold waters of Lake Michigan before his killer comes for his friends.

What I Liked: I was so excited by the previous installment in this series, Changes, because Butcher did such a good job of changing the game. Dresden had grown so powerful over the course of twelve books that there had to be a way for Butcher to make Harry human again. And he did it, by killing him.

This story's central mystery is fun and different, giving us a new view not so much on Harry but on Harry's friends. The majority of Dresden's minor characters show up, and each has been altered by the events in Changes, and for the most part, the changes are engaging, make sense with what came before, and (even better) are actually surprising. Lea, Butters, and Molly in particular have great character moments.

Basically, I couldn't stop reading this book. It has a great premise that makes it different from any other Dresden book, and it still forces character development into its star and supporting cast. The plot moves along at a great clip, and the ending is filled with surprises. It's a well-constructed and fun addition to The Dresden Files.

What I Didn't Like: To be honest, not much. Harry, since he's a ghost, is actually more a platform through which the reader watches the minor characters. We get to learn more about Harry's childhood, but the detour doesn't fit as well as it should. The central mystery gets answered, and the clues are almost too obvious - the surprise in the end isn't "who" but "why", which might be the point but still kind of deluted the whole thing for me. But overall, those are minor quibbles.

Similar Books: PFS Review of Harry Dresden Short Stories: Side Jobs

PFS Review of Jim Butcher's Other Series Codex Alera: First Lord's Fury

My Other Favorite Urban Fantasy: Laurell K. Hamilton's Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter)

Buy It Here!: Ghost Story (Dresden Files, No. 13)

Last Thought: A study in how to refresh a series and make it new (and still fun!).

Great Quotes: Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

"One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid."

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Literary Terms: Red Herring

The red herring is a term that used to deal mostly with mystery stories and thrillers. Thanks to the cross-genre-ization pollination that happens in today's publishing, red herrings now actually show up in pretty much every type of story.

A red herring is a deliberately misleading plot device that is designed by the writer to distract the reader from the actual clues for the book's narrative.

In the broader sense, a red herring is any plot device that purposely tricks the reader into thinking the book or narrative is going one way, when it is  actually going another. A red herring in mystery stories is generally a clue found by the protagonist that is either wrongly interrupted by the reader or character or has nothing to do with solving the crime at all. In  a romantic plot, the red herring could be an overheard conversation wherein the love interest describes his love for another woman that our protagonist overhears, not realizing he's talking about how much he loves hanging out with his sister (and not in an incest way).

In essence, the red herring is a tool of the writer's craft in which the reader is deliberately misled. This comes from the narrative tool of the willing suspension of disbelief. We allow the narrative to mislead us with red herrings because we have been programmed to believe that in stories, characters speak truly and act with some sort of recognizable motivation, unless told otherwise by the text. Writers exploit that belief to trick the reader in believing something false.

In more literary settings, the red herring could therefore be related to both more Modern ideas (like the tearing down of the artificial narrative to get closer to human experience) and the unreliable narrator, wherein the narrative's storyteller cannot be trusted at their word. These narrative tools all rely on using what the reader normally does when reading against them.

Book Review: Tina Fey's Bossypants

Title: Bossypants

Author: Tina Fey

Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books (2011)

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Memoir

Sub-Genres: Art, Celebrity, Coming of Age, Family Studies, How To, Television

Plot Summary: Fey, former head writer of Saturday Night Live and creator of (and actor on) 30 Rock (not to mention being famous for impersonating a certain former Alaskan governor), details just how she got to be where she is now. From stints in theatre camps to a summer job at the YMCA, Fey looks at where she's been, all with her unmistakable comic talent. She also addresses the questions that she's always asked, like being Sarah Palin and being a working mother, without ever missing a chance to  make a joke. She even manages to detail why she's not as pretty or as funny as you think she is.

 What I Liked: The book's funny. It's in Fey's voice. It's a pleasant, easy, and enjoyable read. In other words, this is the perfect, don't-have-to-think beach read for anybody who just wants to avoid the real world for a while and chill out, while laughing a bit along the way.

I enjoy Fey's sarcasm, especially at the moments where she actually seems vulnerable. When she talks about her high school experiences, her family, or the fates of her 30 Rock employees all hanging on her (rounded) shoulders, it seems real. When she talks about how much she did and didn't want to portray Sarah Palin on SNL, it was nice. She's frank about her own abilities and does a good job of pointing out that part of being a great performer isn't knowing what you're good at, but rather, what you're not good at.

What I Didn't Like: While the fun tone and jokes make this book easy-to-read, it also makes the book fall flat at times. The book itself can be read in a few hours, especially with those extra blank white pages taking up the ends of each book section (and there's about 10 book sections, so that's a whole lot of extra white space). In essence, the book just needed more.

Fey doesn't go into too much detail about any particular topic - mostly, she just skims through her life, makes some jokes, and then moves on. While she does have some moments of reflection (like on breastfeeding or Photoshopping), it doesn't seem enough to warrant a book. The book needed to have more actual Tina Fey and less Tina Fey the performer.

Memoirs, unlike stand-up or improv, require a frankness that most people simply cannot handle divulging. Here, I'm not sure it's really Fey's fault, as she seems to just be writing about what somebody told her to write about. Also, this caused the book to feel disjointed, without an overreaching theme connecting each section of the book. It's more like comedy snippets, than a held together book.

Similar Works: Books by Funny Women: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler, Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin, and The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman.

Books by TV Stars: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling, Snooki's A Shore Thing, and Priceless: A Novel by Nicole Richie.

Another Book about Saturday Night Live: Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests.

Buy It Here!: Bossypants

Last Thought: You'll laugh and you'll like it, but you'll read it in an hour and probably won't learn anything new.