Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Author David Mitchell is one of the best of the best! This is the fourth of his books I have read, and all have been excellent, and all have been totally different, not only in plot and characters but also in style. That is quite an accomplishment, as so many writers tend to write the same book over and over, just changing the plot. The one constant in a Mitchell book is his ability to write in a distinct voice for each separate character--his ear is extraordinary.

Black Swan Green is a first-person narrative by a 13-year-old boy and tells the story of one year in his life. The voice here is so natural, with thoughts and words so typical of a young person of this age, that it reads like a true journal; it is totally believable.

Jason Taylor lives in a small village in England; the year is 1982; his main concern in life is not falling to the outcast-level at his school because of his stammer. He writes poetry but hides it from everyone because it would be considered "gay," and to be considered "gay" also means an instant drop to the bottom of the social ladder. During this coming-of-age year, Justin experiences first kisses, first cigarettes, the first instance of the death of someone he knows, a first realization that other people have lives which are different from the one he knows.

Nothing very shocking or ultra-dramatic happens here. Rather, it is the very ordinary catalog of events which makes the novel seem so true. Jason's year unfolds typically; even the slow dissolve of the marriage of his parents is an all-too-common occurrence. But during the course of the year Jason matures and learns how to confront many of his fears.

Mitchell has said that this novel is semi-autobiographical (he is himself a stammerer), and perhap that is one reason for the "trueness" of this narrative; only a very few writers have done as well in the coming-of-age genre.

I give it 6 stars out of 5--most highly recommended.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

No, I have not suddenly developed a scientific bent, as the title of this book might lead you to believe. Rather than a science textbook, this is a creatively done coming-of-age/mystery novel. Despite some irritating problems, it is an eyes-glued-to-the-page book, a very good read.

The mystery to be solved is revealed in the first few pages: did the teacher Hannah Schneider commit suicide and if so why, or was she murdered? The remainder of the novel is a flashback to the narrator's senior year in high school and to the events leading to the death.

Blue van Meer is a 17-year-old, precociously intelligent girl who is moving yet again to a new school, accompanying her professor father who changes jobs as many as three times a year. Contrary to her usual new-school experiences, however, she is almost immediately befriended by a socially elite group, called the Bluebloods by other students, who are disciples of the charismatic teacher. Socially awkward, Blue has in the past related almost exclusively only with her handsome, arrogant, information-spewing father and is understandably puzzled by her sudden social inclusion, particularly by the actions of the teacher, who has apparently forced the Bluebloods to include her.

As Blue gradually gets to know the group members, she learns that the beautiful Hannah Schneider is also something of a mystery to the other students. Then, while on a camping trip with Hannah and her new friends, Blue finds her teacher dead from an apparent suicide.

Refusing to believe the death a suicide, Blue becomes an amateur detective in the last half of the book, and the answers she finds are surprising and change her life forever.

Problems with this book: Author Pessl has her narrator include an end note (as in a research paper) after every little item which could be considered scholarly information. Yes, this reflects the narrator's upbringing by a father who recites facts in the most casual conversations, but it becomes annoying and interrupts the pace. These notes could have been reduced by at least half while still getting the point across.

Another annoyance: the over-the-top use of similes and metaphors. While some of these are perfectly evocative, some are pretty silly, and THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! Maybe this is supposed to reflect the writing style of the high-school-age narrator, but she is portrayed as being genius-level and amazingly well-read. So what is the excuse for the annoying excess?

I could give a few more reasons why this novel isn't perfect. But that would just be me being overly critical and maybe jealous. This novel is brilliant even if it is not perfect. Highly recommended.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

White Teeth tells the story of Archie Jones, a white lower-middle-class Englishman, and his best friend Samad Iqbal, a devout Muslim immigrant to England from Bangladesh, and of their ancestors and their children. It covers a lot of ground and features a great hodge-podge of nationalities and religions. For example--Archie's wife is a Jamaican-English mix who was reared as a Jehovah's Witness but who has rejected her religious upbringing; Samad's wife is from Bangladesh, but for her the Muslim religion is inconsequential; Archie's daughter Irie is just a mixed-up, mixed-race girl trying to find a direction; Samad has twin sons--Magid, who grows up to be an atheist, and Mallat, who grows up to be an almost-accidental Muslim extremist. The lives of the two families become entangled with the lives of Marcus and Joyce Chalfen, who are upper-middle-class English and lapsed Catholic-Jewish atheists, and their son Joshua, who turns into an animal-rights activist. Suffice it to say, many viewpoints are represented here.

This book had a strange effect on me. When I was reading it, I liked it very much and read far into the night to complete it. When I had finished and thought about it, I didn't like it nearly as much.

The tone is satirical and humorous, but on reflection it seems to me to be almost mocking and superior. Smith comes up with some very, very funny observations about people and culture, but when events turn more serious her tone trivializes the gravity of consequences. She seems to be ridiculing her characters; Irie is the only character not lampooned, and she is, obviously, the intelligent observer--in other words, Smith herself.

Smith introduces several themes--nature versus nurture, fate (what goes around comes around), and the perils and advantages of cultural assimilation. It is unclear, however, what her point is intended to be. She never really follows an idea through to completion.

(SPOILER ALERT) The ending, which brings together all the various ethnic and religious factions, is predictable, on reflection. I had anticipated, long before, that Archie was hiding a secret and what that secret might be. However, it did take considerable ingenuity in plot construction to get all these people involved in one event in order to have the grand finale.

This is a feel-good novel, in that you come to believe, "We can all get along." But I don't believe (regardless of opinions in the opposite direction)that it is a GREAT novel--in spite of the fact that it is listed in the Times Top 100.

So I would say, "Read it!" It will hold your attention; it is often very funny; it has just enough suspense that it will carry you through to the end. Then think about it--was it as good as you originally thought? I will welcome different opinions.

Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by James Joyce

I liked it; I really liked it! Who knew? I've neglected reading this book for years and years because Joyce's Ulysses took me all one summer to read and I didn't care to devote that much of my life to another book. Then I read Dubliners just lately, and I enjoyed it. So I decided to take it a step further and read this one, and I am so glad I did.

Portrait of an Artist seems to bridge the gap between the relatively realistic narration of Dubliners and the language experimentation and symbolism of Ulysses. It tells the story of Stephen Dedalus from his youth through his adolescence and young adulthood. His is a typical progression: thoughtless adherence to his parents' beliefs, to rebellion against those beliefs with the accompanying guilt, to attempts to find his own beliefs and philosophy of life through intellectual examinations of the beliefs of others, to self-realization and the formation of his own life philosophy. It is a journey we all must make, and it is one often seen in literature. But Joyce conveys the evolution better than anyone.

For one thing, the complexity of language increases as Dedalus progresses through life. The first section perfectly reflects the primacy of physical sensations and the disjointed and selective thoughts of a child. The language of the section portraying Dedalus as a teenager communicates his sexual awakening and his deep sense of guilt and defilement.The very words used arouse feelings of disgust. The language in the section of his university days is pretentious, and the characters often speak in Latin and cite quotes from various distinguished models as they search for their own identities. The language in the last section is the first instance of direct discourse from Dedalus, as he arrives at an adult determination. And it returns to the much less complex language of his childhood. All that is to say that the language of this book conveys the story more even than the narration of events. What an accomplishment!

A section in the middle of the book, after Dedalus has "sinned" and before his university days, features the sermons of a priest on hell and its various torments. This section is so powerfully written that one does not wonder that Dedalus, as he hears it, turns from his "sinful" ways. Preachers everywhere should memorize and declaim this section--it would bring people to repentance in droves.

It's the masterful use of language, and not the story, which makes this novel great. I might even try Finnegans Wake some day.

This is #3 on the Modern Library Top 100. Only 10 more to go for me!

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

What an extraordinary book.

I feel so much smarter since I've read it, because now I know all about the Roman Empire from 10 B.C. to 41 A.D. Seriously. I read a great many historical fiction novels when I was a teenager, but I have not read very many as an adult. As I got older, I discovered that much of the history I learned from fiction was not very accurate. Even now, though, I probably have some skewed facts floating around in my head that I still consider history, but which are totally wrong.

I believe this book got everything right, and it is written in a style that is totally convincing as an account by a witness to the intrigues of Rome during the times of the Caesars.

This is supposedly the autobiography of Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, which carries the action from before his birth to the time of his becoming Emperor of Rome in 41 A.D. Claudius survives against the odds, as he is despised as a weakling and dismissed as an idiot because of his lameness, nervous tics, and stammer. He is thus not considered a serious contender for Emperor and escapes the poisonings and executions that befall so many of his relatives. As a youth, he is told by a wise counselor, "Then exaggerate your limp, stammer deliberately, sham sickness frequently, let your wits wander, jerk your head and twitch with your hands on all public or semi-public occasions. If you could see as much as I see, you would know that this was your only hope of safety and eventual glory." He follows that advice and is thus witness to the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and the mad Caligula before becoming Emperor himself.

Graves does a remarkable job of bringing all this to life in an understandable fashion. He has to deal with a very complicated genealogy, as most of the central characters are married at least twice, with children from all marriages, and also often adopt the children of deceased relatives (which happens with some regularity). Graves also has to differentiate between people who have the same, or almost the same, name. For example, you have Julia the Elder, Julia the Younger, Livia Julia, Julia Livilla, and Julia Drusilla. And so it goes with all the names. And Graves manages to make this clear, so that I was never lost.

The most fascinating character here, for me, is Livia, the grandmother of Claudius and the wife of the Emperor Augustus. As the "power behind the throne," she is a very astute ruler but also absolutely ruthless in getting rid of children and grandchildren who stand in the way of her grand design for Rome.

This novel is totally fascinating and so convincingly done that Graves could have tried to pass it off as a "found" autobiography of Claudius. It is #14 in the Modern Library Top 100.

Highly recommended.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Marion and Shiva Stone are the twin sons of a secret union between an Indian nun and a British surgeon who are serving at a mission hospital in Ethiopia. Orphaned by their mother's death and their father's abandonment, they are adopted by an Indian doctor and grow to manhood in a troubled country, until Marion has to flee Ethiopia for political reasons and completes his medical training in America at an inner-city hospital, only to return in the end to Ethiopia, his adopted country.

But between the birth of the twins and Marion's return to Ethiopia comes some wonderful storytelling about love, betrayal, and sacrifice; political turmoil and its consequences on ordinary people; and medicine as it ought always to be practiced. For 600+ pages, the narrator, Marion Stone, take the reader on a journey that is attention-riveting.

This book has some problems.

Author Abraham Verghese is himself a doctor, and the story contains many very detailed descriptions of surgical procedures. For a non-medical reader, these were somewhat disruptive of the narrative flow, but they did give a verisimilitude to the narration of a physician who instinctively cares personally for his patients. Marion (and earlier his father) are asked the medical question, "What treatment is offered by ear in an emergency?" Marion and his father both answer, "Words of comfort." I wish I had seen a doctor like that the last time I was in the hospital. (My cousin, Phil McCurdy, M.D., who recommended this book to me, says that it is very medically accurate.)

The first-person narration works well in the first part of the book, as the character Marion tells only what he has learned from others about the early lives of his parents. The first-person point of view also give immediacy to other parts of the book, as Marion recounts what he does and what others do to him. But then in some parts of the book, Marion tells of thoughts and actions of others which could not have been known to him, and this seems contrived and unreal.

The ending also seems to me to be a bit too contrived, designed to be a real tear-jerker. Don't get me wrong--it worked and I cried through the last 30 pages. Afterward, though, I felt a bit manipulated.

This book has one huge plus.

The story-telling and the story are extraordinary. I stayed awake until 2:30 in the morning to finish.

This won't become a classic that will be studied in schools, but it is a very enjoyable read. I won't read it again, but I'm glad I read it once.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

Rick Deckard lives on a future earth following World War Terminus, which left a cloud of radioactive dust leading a large portion of humanity to emigrate to other planets, mainly Mars. Those who leave earth are given an "andy" (android) to use as they wish, usually as a slave laborer. Androids, which have become so advanced that they cannot be distinguished from humans except with special tests, are outlawed on earth, however, and those androids who escape from the colonies to earth are hunted down and eliminated. Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter who eliminates androids.

The ultimate test as to whether an entity is human or android is a bone marrow test after death, but bounty hunters are required to be sure they are eliminating androids, not humans, by using a test before elimination that measures the subject's empathy. It seems that the android makers have not been able to include empathy in the DNA structure of their androids.

Through a unique set of circumstances (including somewhat falling in love with an android), Rick perceives that he has developed empathy for his prey. He has a moral dilemma, for sure.

This novel is interesting as it develops a theme of what separates the human from the machine. Machines (androids) can be more intelligent, more physically apt, but are they superior? In Dick's book, empathy seems to be the difference that makes humans superior. They care about other humans and about animals (which are rapidly becoming extinct because of the radioactive dust in Dick's created world).

Among Dick's interesting ideas for his fantasy world-of-the-future, the most intriguing is the mood organ, which stimulates various parts of the brain so that a person can dial his desired mood for the day. If this were real, I would dial a 481, "awareness of the manifold possibilities open to me in the future, new hope." Sometimes, when I am bored, I might as well have dialed a 888, "the desire to watch TV, no matter what's on it." I think many people are stuck on 888.

Dick wrote this novel in 1968, and it seems almost prescient in its depiction of "machines" that are smarter than humans. The book is interesting and thought provoking; however, it did not seem as good as I had once thought it. (First read maybe 40 years ago.) Its plot was a little bit illogical at times, and it seemed to be somewhat according to the sci-fi formula. By the way, the film Blade Runner used the basic premise as a jumping-off-point, but conveyed an entirely different message.

Interesting; read when you have left-over time from reading better books. (This book has, however, one of the best titles ever, doesn't it?)