Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

Young journalist Jack Walser interviews the circus aerialist Sophie Fevvers, purported to be half woman-half swan, and is enchanted (almost literally) by her larger-than-life personality, her huge blue eyes and long golden hair, and her story. As she tells him of being found in a basket surrounded by the shells of the egg from which she was hatched, of being reared with kindness and love by whores, of being featured as the Angel of Death (complete with wings) in a female freak show/bordello, time stands still for Jack (literally). He convinces his boss to allow him to investigate further by joining the circus as it travels to Russia and crosses Siberia to get to Japan.

In his new undercover role as a clown, Jack enters the magic world of the circus, where a pig can point to letters to spell out business advice to the owner, where monkeys negotiate their own contracts, and where his Sophie "flies" with multi-colored wings as part of her trapeze act.

Then the circus train is blown up by outlaws somewhere in the middle of Siberia, and Jack loses his memory and is separated from Sophie and the others. Found by a native shaman, Jack is covered in eggshells from the train's kitchen and is "hatched" to become a shaman-in-training.

And he and Sophie meet again.

Nights at the Circus could be considered a book of magic realism, but it much more magical than realistic. It is more like a surrealistic dream, where anything can happen. What is real and what is an illusion? As a fakir in Kathmandu says to Jack, "...is not this whole world an illusion? And yet it fools everybody."

Many people abhor stories that are not "true-to-life"--which, as they see it, could never happen. They don't want to read about magic and intelligent animals and other fairy-tale-like happenings. These people will hate this book.

Others, like me, appreciate stories that explore the boundaries of what is real and what is illusion, enjoy a dream-like narrative where all things are possible. These people will love this book.

The writing is extraordinarily good and original, sustaining a dream-like quality throughout.

The novel is also somewhat of a feminist allegory,taking place at the dawn of the 20th century. One character says to Sophie, "Oh, my little one, I think you must be the pure child of the century that just now is waiting in the wings, the New Age in which no women will be bound down to the ground."

Some people would really, really hate this book, and some people would really, really love it. I really, really love it.

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

I love Charles Dickens!

He is the best storyteller ever. Sure, his plots are the tiniest bit melodramatic sometimes, but that's what a good story is all about--the big events. Would a story about a little girl on the way to her grandmother's house with a basket of cookies have been told to generations of children if it concerned only her inner turmoil and fear about becoming a woman? No, we need the (symbolic) wolf, and the attempted deception, and, yes, the wood chopper. Dickens published in serial form, so he had to include cliffhangers to keep readers coming back for more. You don't have to read the first 50 (or 100) pages to get to the meat of the story; he starts off with a bang and never lets up.

The story of Hard Times concerns the children of Thomas Gradgrind, who have been educated at his school and at home to ignore emotion and "fancy" in preference for facts. "Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else," he says. Consequently, his children Louisa and Thomas grow up emotionally stunted and, in the case of Thomas, selfishly self-centered.

Intertwined with their story is the story of Mr. Bounderby, the factory owner in the fictional city of Coketown, who also adheres to the philosophy of "just the facts," allowing him to ignore the wretched condition of the town and the workers because the statistics say that everything and everybody are proven to be above average.

Dickens often concerned himself with revealing the inadequacies and failings of society and government during his time, and that was the case here. While this philosophy of education is no longer in vogue (In fact, it has veered the other way somewhat.), the viewpoint of the factory owner still seems to be operative--it's all about the facts--profit and loss figures. What does it matter that rivers and lakes are polluted; it's too expensive to fix those problems. What does it matter that hundreds of thousands of people in my own country are put out of work; it improves the profit-margin to outsource overseas.

But the real genius of Dickens resides in his portrayal of characters. They are sometimes exaggerated, particularly the villains, but they are instantly recognizable as people you have known. When I meet a person who is a real suck-up, I think to myself, "He's a Uriah Heep." (from David Copperfield) When I meet a person who seems truly selfless and empathetic, I think to myself, "She's a Biddy." (from Great Expectations) Now when I meet a person who is a complete humbug, pretending to be someone he isn't, I will think, "He's a Mr. Bounderby." (Or maybe I will think, "He's a Rick Perry." Forgive the current political commentary, but Rick Perry is the biggest humbug I have seen in a long time.)

This is not the most enjoyable Dickens book I have read, but it was still better than books by most everybody else. It was a little grim, short on the usual comic relief, but still better than the rest. Just as the less-well-known plays of Shakespeare (which are also melodramatic and have exaggerated characters, but long on story and accurate character portrayal) are also better than the rest.

Read more Dickens!

Post Office by Charles Bukowski

I had heard about and read about Bukowski, a Beat-Generation poet and novelist from the early '70s known for his gritty realism, but I had not read anything of his until I picked this book up at Half-Price. The cover says that it has sold over a million copies in more than a dozen languages, and that it is "amazing, hilarious and unfalteringly entertaining." So I wasted half a day reading it.

Yes, wasted.

The narrator Henry Chenaski is a low-life alcoholic who spends his life getting drunk, having sex with girlfriends and chance acquaintances, and betting at the race track, all while working at the post office. Finally he resigns from the post office. End of story.

All this is written in an arrogant tone, as if the narrator feels himself to be superior to all the other characters, especially to his fellow workers. Bukowski has stated that the novel is autobiographical, and he seemed to take pride in the tumble-down life that he led. I have known guys like this--he is every drunk or drug addict who ever excused his addiction as an indication that he is too intelligent and sensitive to deal with the angst of living among the clods and drudges.

Alcoholism is not hilarious and entertaining, even to the alcoholic, eventually. And it is not hilarious and entertaining to read about.

I hated this book more than any other I have ever read. (And I have read some really bad ones in my time.) The fact that many have bought it and (I suppose) liked it is very discouraging.

Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Here's another book that is wildly popular, and yet I just heard about it. It is Book 1 in a five-book series, and I don't know if Martin really finished the story or if other books are still to come. The blurbs on the cover and inside-front of this book compare the author to Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)and T.H. White (The Once and Future King), and those are two of my favorite escapist reads. So I gave it a try.

Game of Thrones is set in an alternate world in a medieval society with knights, jousting tournaments, liege lords, and high kings. The current king, Robert, visits the home of his dearest and oldest friend to ask him to be his "Hand," kind of a prime minister. The friend, Eddard Stark, and his family become the focus of the book, which follows them through a political turmoil of assassination, betrayal, and war. All of this is written realistically and could very well have been inspired by England's long War of the Roses. But lurking on the border of the main action lies an element of magic and the supernatural.

The book is 800 pages, and the plot is too convoluted for me to even attempt to summarize it.

Suffice it to say, Martin is not the new Tolkien or even the new T.H. White, although those authors do write of wars and include elements of magic. He is not even close to being as good a writer as either one. He could certainly be the new Robert Jordan, who attempted the same sort of "epic" series; in fact, that is the best comparison I can think of. But to give Martin his due, he does tell a darn-good story, and I did keep turning those 800+ pages.

He has structured his novel cleverly, with each chapter being from the viewpoint of one of the main characters, with the action being simultaneous but in different places, to follow the multiple story-lines. And each chapter concludes with something of a "cliffhanger," so that the reader keeps reading, wanting to know what happens next, wanting to get to the next chapter from the viewpoint of that particular character. This reminds me so much of the structure of soap operas, which use the same technique exactly. This book is, indeed, a multiple character, medieval setting, political, supernatural soap opera. And as with The Days of Our Lives,you become involved despite yourself. And afterward, you feel as if you have somehow lowered your normal standards, but you watch the next day anyway.

However, some things bothered me all the way through. The writing was very uneven: Sometimes it is actually quite good, as in Catelyn's description of a battle at night: "The battle came alive around her. She heard hoofbeats, iron boots splashing in shallow water, the woody sound of swords on oaken shields and the scrape of steel against steel, the hiss of arrows, the thunder of drums, the terrified screaming of a thousand horses." Sometimes the writing is very bad, as Martin repeats himself often and frequently misplaces modifying clauses and phrases or pronoun references, so that the reader is left adrift as to what is really being talked about. This example is actually very humorous:

"Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. (Woo, woo. This is getting risque.) They were so beautiful, and sometimes being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the strong dragons locked inside." (She has dragons in her breasts? No, wait, the dragons are in the eggs.)

Martin is also very free with his depiction of sex, which is not usually particularly offensive to me, except that his situations are pretty off-putting: We have brother-sister incest, many instances of rape, sexual orgies, mentions of children with adults, sexual sadism, and only one mention of what might be considered normal sexual union. It just seems a bit sensationalistic.

I realize that it was difficult for Martin to see the whole as he was writing a book this lengthy, but a good editor should have cleaned things up for him. I could have improved the book myself and cut about 100 pages by leaving out some of the descriptions of the clothing. In a climactic scene where Lord Stark denounces the new self-crowned king, Martin takes time to describe the wearing apparel of all participants. Really?

I don't subscribe to HBO, but I understand the network just aired a series based on this book. The costume designer shouldn't have had to use imagination at all, because all clothing is minutely described.

I will not read this book again, but I might read Book 2 in this series--I want to know what happens. If it is better than this book, I might read the third one. If it is like the Twilight series, and just the same old-same old, then I am done.

Old School by Tobias Wolff

I wish I had attended the prep school in this book, where the entire school revolves around the English faculty and the young writers and scholars who love literature. In my high school the faculty and student body revolved around the football coaches and team and cheerleaders. Tobias Wolff attended a prep school much like the one he writes about here, and he has written this most extraordinary book; no writers, great or otherwise, came out of my high school. No professional football players, either.

In the early '60s, the unnamed narrator is in his last year as a scholarship student at his school, although at this school great care is taken to maintain a "classless" atmosphere, so that supposedly nobody knows who has money and who does not. He is also half Jewish, although his last name does not reveal that. And he takes great care to hide both of these facts, perfecting a pose as a privileged-class intellectual. Even with his long-time roommate, he is never really himself, and he feels that with his roommate the same is true. They are always playing out their assumed roles.

This fortunate school has, three times a year, visits from famous writers, and the students submit literary works to be judged by the writer, the reward being a private meeting, to be "anointed" by the great. This year the writers are Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway (the literary hero of the protagonist).

The winner of the Frost meeting has submitted a poem intended to be an homage to Frost, which Frost has perceived as a parody. No win there for the narrator. He feverishly reads The Fountainhead several times in preparation for his submission to Ayn Rand, falling completely under the spell of the book's philosophy and of its larger-than-life characters. But he comes down with some serious flu and does not even submit anything. He does, however, attend the gathering of Rand with the students and faculty, and her reality destroys the fantasy he has built in his mind about superiority and being a "misunderstood loner."

He returns to his idol, Hemingway, and gains a new appreciation for his honesty in revealing human (and his own) inadequacies. And then Hemingway's visit is announced, and the narrator wants desperately to win the audience, but can he write honestly and truthfully, as he perceives that Hemingway did?

The climax of the book answers that question. But then two more sections rather perfunctorily summarize the narrator's life after prep school and tell an additional part of the story of school days that he missed while there. These sections seemed weak and very anti-climactic.

The school-experience part of this novel was absolutely accurate and true, conveying the almost universal behavior of teenagers as they adopt "roles": the jock, the prom queen, the dork, the weirdo, the rebel. (Remember The Breakfast Club?) In this case, the roles are the rich kid, the intellectual, the budding writer, but they are roles just the same.

For someone who was briefly seduced by Ayn Rand and who later realized how Nazi-like her philosophy is (that would be me), the depiction of her visit is worth the price of the book alone.

But this is mainly a book for writers--about writing "the truth," no matter how painful or revealing that may be. And for avid readers who appreciate truthful writing.

A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul

A Bend in the River tells the story of an Indian man whose family has lived on the coast of Africa for three generations. He travels to an unnamed country in the interior to open a store, at the bend of the river. The town there has been a thriving European-run city, but is now largely ruins after a revolution, which put "The Big Man" in power. The protagonist's life there is a cycle of fairly stable times with rebuilding, and times of fear and dread, as counter-revolutions and government crack-downs repeatedly threaten the area. He encounters other Indian businessmen, young Africans trying to find a place in their new world, Europeans trying to adapt themselves to the new order. It is basically a story told through the eyes of an outsider of a country trying to find a balance between the modern world and the past and traditions of Africa, where tribal warfare is an inescapable fact of life.

I finished this book a couple of days ago but put off writing the review because I did not know what to say. It is well written, conveying a constant tension. The characters all seem to be uncertain, feeling their way through life, reinventing themselves to fit the circumstances but never at ease. Naipaul is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and this book is #83 on the Modern Library Top 100. It is well-done so that it has exactly the effect he intended.

But I did not like the book.

I think that's because I don't like the way Naipaul looks at life. He sees no glimpse of hope anywhere. This is my third Naipaul book: A House for Mr. Biswas and The Suffrage of Elvira reveal the same pessimistic attitude, (although the latter was not so bitter). One of his characters in this book says, "Nobody's going anywhere. We're all going to hell, and every man knows this in his bones. We're being killed. Nothing has any meaning." This quote pretty much conveys Naipaul's attitude toward living, it seems to me.

Life is too hard as it is, without adopting this attitude. Without hope, we should just all give it up and die. This is my last Naipaul book.

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick has imagined a world of the future in which those who die, if they are frozen quickly after death, can be kept in "half-life" for a period of time and can communicate with loved ones through the use of a "protophason amplifier." In this future, some people have developed strong psychic powers, many working for a company that specializes in sending psychics into businesses, who don't really like being spied upon. To counteract the psychics, "prudence organizations" employ people who can sense psychic activity and ferret out the snoopers.

Thus enters Glen Runciter, owner of the foremost prudence organization; his wife Ella, who is in half-life; and Joe Chip, his second-in-command. The company receives a big job on Luna, taking 11 psychic-sensors along, only to be caught in an ambush staged by its psychic competitors. And Glen Runciter is killed, or is he? Everyone else lives and escape back to earth, but then time begins to shift for the 11 survivors, sometimes with disastrous results. And they keep receiving cryptic messages from their dead boss, sometimes written on bathroom walls. Just what is going on here?

This is not your standard sci-fi novel, needless to say. "Ubik" is short for "ubiquitous"--existing or being everywhere at the same time. In the novel it is a product which can be used for almost anything, including an aerosol spray that can halt the killing effects of time-shift. Questions are raised here about the nature of reality and belief, and the reader thinks he has received the answer to the puzzle, until the last chapter. Then, oops, maybe all that was the wrong answer.

Science fiction is often dismissed when critics are choosing "great" novels, but this one was chosen by the Times Top 100. And I don't think it was even his best. It is funny; it gives you something to think about; it keeps you riveted to find out what happens next. It is short on character development, by then sci-fi is notoriously plot-driven.

It is well worth your time. Recommended.