Tenth of December Review

Tenth of December - George Saunders

2013

 

I read this book ages and ages ago, and never quite got around to reviewing it, and I was going to just toss it into my end-of-the-year un-reviewed list, but this book is way too good for it to not have its own.

So I really, really, really wanted to give this books a 5, but the thing about short story collections is that some are a hit and some are a miss, and unfortunately, there were some stories that I was less enthused about than others. Not that they were necessarily bad, but that they were lacking in that mph that really makes a short story punch. But of course, not every single story you write can be amazing, though when George Saunders is at his peak, damn.

So, Tenth, for those of you who haven't been paying attention (because its had a fair amount of hype) is his latest collection. I'd previously been aware of his work from a class I took waaaay back as a freshman in college and while I really liked his stories, I wasn't a big short fiction reader at that point and so kind of forgot about him for a while, except that I knew his name and I associated it with something good. So his new book came out and I put a hold on it and four months later I finally got it and I just cannot get enough of George Saunders.

I've heard his work compared to Vonnegut, and that's probably the best way to describe his writing--his stories often utilize the tragicomic and the strange. It's funny and clever, but then also really sad and really dark.You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll go home happy. I really don't know what else to say because it's all just going to sound like gushing.

So, my favorites out if this collection:

"Victory Lap", "Home", "Escape from Spiderhead", and especially, "The Semplica Girl Diaries" and the eponymous  "Tenth of December".

While it's not my favorite of his collections--that would probably be CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, considering he's my favorite living short-story writer, it's all good.

4/5 Fancies.

Laika Review

Laika - Nick Abadzis

2007

 

You ever get that feeling sometimes, where you really just need to cry, but for some reason you can't quite squeeze those tears out? Like, it's just been a real crappy week and you just need something to trigger that cathartic release? WELL, have I got the book for YOU!

So, history lesson! In 1957 the Soviet Union shoots a dog into orbit, thus becoming the first country to launch a living creature into orbit, right after being the first country to launch a non-living thing (Sputnik I) into orbit. Which is just one of the examples of the massive posturing fest that was the Cold War. Anyway, the dog, Laika as she's known in the US, and Kudryavka (Little Curly), as she's known in Russia, died about six-hours in to the launch, though that information wasn't released until around 2002. Sorry if that's a spoiler, but c'mon guys, this is history. I mean, even if you didn't already know the story,  the fact that it's a book about a dog should sort of be a tip off. Because if the dog's name is in the title of a book, it most likely won't be around at the end of the book.

Anyway, Laika is part history, part speculation on the kind of life Laika may have had leading up to her final odyssey. She's caught between the kindness and the cruelty of humans, and despite the abuse and neglect she receives, she never seems to lose her faith and her trust in us, which makes for a truly heart-rending ending.The story is meant to question the ethical quandary of the mission. On the one hand, at that stage in experimentation they really couldn't use people because people tend to rank higher than animals in our collective sense of morality (though, that depends on who you ask). On the other hand, one of the scientists responsible for the project did say,

"We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog." 

Have I mentioned this is a graphic novel? Because makes it about 10x sadder. It is a good choice of medium, as Abadzis is able to put a human, and canine, face on the subject matter, and Laika's death scene is handled with artistic care and sensitivity. Also, according to the Author's Note, the moon phases on specific dates are accurate to the day. Which is some pretty detail-oriented work there.

According to Amazon, this book is intended for ages 10 and up. I would say based on language and subject matter, it's probably more suited towards the older end of the middle-grade group. It's definitely a denser graphic novel, with a lot of text. As I mentioned, it does get pretty depressing, but then again, little kids are all sociopaths anyway. I don't know how else I could've watched The Land Before Time over and over without batting an eye back when I was a wee-one. 

Basically, it's very well done, but also sad, sad, sad, and sad. So, if you're not one for weeping uncontrollably, or if you're a vehement dog lover, you might want to stay away, though I suggest you steel yourself and pick it up anyway, because it's definitely a good read.

4/5 Fancies

The Middlesteins Review

The Middlesteins - Jami Attenberg

2012

 

So, you know how you never actually trust those blubs on the back (and front, and side flap, and first five pages) of a book? Because they're all probably very expensive lies? I mean, does anyone actually, seriously consider them when you pick up a book ? Right, so I always kinda sorta scan over them just because they're there and when you know how to read, it's hard to not-read something that's there (I highly recommend GRRM's blurb on The Magicians, though, because you can tell how obviously bitter he is about that Hugo award in 2001 (jk, ilu George, plz don't ever hate me)). But I have to say, if you believe just one book-blurb in your entire life, believe Jonathan Franzen's blurb on The Middlesteins. It's right there, smack-dab on the cover and basically sums up exactly how I feel about this book.

So. Edie Middlestein is morbidly obese. Very literally. She is obese to a morbid extent. She has diabetes, has already had two surgeries in her legs, her doctor is hinting she may need a bypass, and she's still hitting up MickyD's, Burger King, and a Chinese restaurant all in one afternoon. At sixty-soemthing-ish, she quite frankly, doesn't seem to care. But when her husband of over thirty years leaver her, her children (and children-in-law) rush in to fill the vacuum of caring for her. Or at least, the motions of care. Despite their awkwardness and emotional distance, they all try to come together to help their mother. But the question remains whether you can change someone who doesn't want to change.

This is another one of those books that takes your from point-of-view to point-of-view so that you form a more rounded opinion of each character and are not shaped by the other characters' biases. For instance, when Edie's husband, Richard, first leaves her, naturally I assume he's some kind of terrible person. But then we get Richard's POV and we see that she was constantly criticizing and hounding him and that there hasn't been any love-loss between them for years.

The one thing I didn't like was that sometimes Attenberg jumps around too much without really settling you into it. There are chapters titled like "Edie, 241 pounds (or some other weight)" and that's our only frame of reference for the chapter at least until a page or two in, which made it hard to orient oneself in how old the characters were supposed to be at that time. She also had the tendency to trail off into extended flash-forwards, which sometimes worked, and sometimes didn't. On the one hand, it provided insight in to the characters' futures and how the events of the present (past) affected them in the long run. On the other hand, it sometimes meandered too far from the story going on at the moment and made it hard to jump back into the present and keep track of what was the present and what was the future.

I'm going to quote Franzen's blurb here because he basically said it exactly how I would have: "The Middlesteins had me from its very first pages, but it wasn't until its final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg's sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling."

This book really did grab me from the very first pages--initially, I wasn't sure if I was interested in checking it out,  but then I skimmed the first couple lines and I absolutely had to read more. And while the whole book was good throughout, it was really elevated by the ending.

4/5 big, fat Fancies.

Swamplandia! Review

Swamplandia! - Karen Russell

2011

The best way to describe this book is like the Florida swamps where the story takes place. It moves kind of slow, but the longer you stay, the more you are sucked in. Some parts flow quicker than others and though it is mostly open and bright, it can sometimes lead you through some pretty dark spots. Also, there are a lot of alligators.

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree lives on an island, one of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands, where her family wrestles alligators for tourists in their self-run amusement park, Swamplandia! The story begins, though, with the beginning of Swamplandia’s decline. Ava’s mother, their star wrestler, dies of cancer, and a rival amusement park opens on the mainland.  As Ava and her siblings struggle with the loss of a parent, the park struggles with a loss of revenue. Ava’s self-proclaimed genius brother, Kiwi, flees to the mainland in hopes of landing a job to send money home and discovers the joys of minimum wage work. Her teenage sister, Osceola, begins communicating with the dead and goes on dates with ghosts—or so she claims.

The eccentricity of the book’s setting reminded me somewhat of E.L. Konigsberg. The story does, however, take a rather dark turn towards the end, which serves to mark the shift in the characters' attitudes and I could go into some literary analysis ripe with dichotomies and symbolism here, but that would be spoiler-y, and besides this is a review not an essay.  Basically, I think I see what the author was going for...though it also sort of put a damper on the whole tone of the book. I don't want to give too much away because what I really liked about the book was the ambiguous IS IT REAL OR IS IT NOT feeling--is Osceola really dating ghosts? Is the entrance to the underworld really in the swamp? I went back and forth a number of times throughout the novel. Too often I read books that attempt to do similar things, but the author lacks the subtlety for me to really question both sides.

As I mentioned, the book does begin slowly and what I initially thought was the Big Plot Event doesn’t happen until almost halfway through. Looking back, I realize that the Big Plot Event, really isn’t the main plot of the story, and that’s why it happens so late. The story is about the decay of Swamplandia! and with it, the Bigtree Family’s way of life. It is also about the swamp and one of the things I really enjoyed about this book was that Russell completely brought me there.

Now, the most I've experienced of Florida swamps was a short trip to the Everglades. It began as an ambitious and highly romanticized adventure into one of our nation’s great parks and ended as a half-hour tromp across a humid boardwalk where I spotted one lazy and bemused alligator, and then a hike through a wooded area that was comprised of 30% air and 60% mosquitoes.

The point is, I was previously aware of  how much I dislike being near swamps (yes, I realize I am a massive baby).  But Russell doesn’t just transport you to the swamp, she transports you through the eyes of Ava Bigtree, and so her familiarity and love of her surroundings comes through in the descriptions as well. I kept catching myself thinking “I really should check out the ‘glades again” (though perhaps that just the 20-degrees-outside talking) before remembering the stupendous fiasco my trip was.

Aside from the ending where things get a bit...uncomfortable, the majority of the book is fairly light and there's a good smattering of humor, particularly in Kiwi's chapters. Overall,  Swamplandia! really draws you into the environment and it certainly beats trudging through the swamp myself.

4/5 Fancies.