LITERATURE: The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

So the reviews about this book on Amazon (where I went to look up the spelling of the authors' names) were sort of mixed. Some were really good, others really poor. All the good ones, though, seemed to tout this as a purely thriller / actiony novel, a "quick and dirty" read that must, inevitably, I suppose, be compared to Dan Brown's work, since it, like his Da Vinci Code, features a historically-based mystery that gets solved by smart people who happen to know stuff / have the ability to figure out stuff that's eluded the most brilliant of minds for ages.

I have to agree that this was definitely an interesting enough action book -- I sped through it in a matter of a few evenings, and found the pacing very much to my liking for a plot like this--the clues were revealed quickly, and the solutions didn't take forever to puzzle out. I also really did enjoy the unfolding of the double plotlines Caldwell and Thomason developed--the mystery revealed at the center of the historical text that the main characters puzzle out, the Hypnerotomachia, a real text, by the way, and the sort of murder / real life professorial conspiracy that happens in the foreground.

Ultimately, though, what I noticed and liked most about this novel had nothing to do with the mystery (either one). In fact, while I found the murder plot interesting, I found that the Hypnerotomachia mystery fell sort of flat. It was too complex for the average reader (or any reader, for that matter) to puzzle out because it was so intensely ingrained in history; I felt like someone would have had to have read the complete historical, artistic, and literary breadth of 17-18th century Italy to even be able to grasp at straws (which, frankly, may have been totally wrong and unfounded because the keys to the mystery are entirely fictional). This is somewhat different from the Da Vinci Code, which, though fictional, was at least somehow based on artistic / historic fact; the Hypernotomachia, in contrast is unraveled in total unrealism.

But back to what I liked about the book. I found that the biggest success of these two young (at the time) writers, came from their adherence to the age-old adage of writing what they know. Caldwell and Thomason, graduates of Princeton and Harvard (respectively?), detail the Ivy league college experience well. I'm probably totally biased since Princeton is my alma mater, but then again, maybe, on the contrary, I'm a good judge. I felt like they captured both sides of the Ivy league lawn--the rich, traditional side, and the poorer, more down to earth aspect that most people tend to forget. While their characters were a bit caricaturist, I felt like their explanations of Princeton traditions, right down to the eating clubs, danced well along the edge of being good for Princeton grads and non-Princeton grads alike. It was enjoyable regardless of your personal experiences, filled with the kind of interest in the other half that you get from reading F. Scott Fitzgerald. In fact, their details and love of Princeton's Ivy towers filled me with the same kind of pride and obsession that I got from the parts of This Side of Paradise that I read (review to come when I finish it!).

Overall, though there were parts that were fairly trivial, and others that were somewhat pretentious, I thought this was a great combination of action and mystery, in the perfect setting for tradition and discovery. Though I'm not going to pretend that my love of the setting didn't totally tip my enjoyment of the book up.

FINAL VERDICT:
*** and 1/2 out of *****

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LITERATURE: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Let me start by saying that this review is probably helplessly biased. Because, in my eyes, when it comes to dystopian novels featuring women, Ms. Atwood is tops.

I mean, The Handmaid's Tale is absolutely a classic, a staple in any dystopia-lovers collection, as necessary, if you ask me, as Brave New World or 1984. It is one of those dystopias that has the society as the perfect backdrop and compliment to the real meat of the story--the individual's life. And, if we thought she'd outdone herself with the Puritanistic society in THT, she blows us (or at least me) totally away with Oryx and Crake, which I've been fervently recommending to people since I read it a few years back. It. Was. Baller.

And not only because I happen to have a fondness for science-fictiony stuff that focuses on great storytelling. The world Atwood created in Oryx and Crake was unbelievably real. Down to the very extinction of animals, and the ability to watch executions online. It was the very picture of what could really happen to our current society with a little ballooning and enough time. That's what I loved most about it--how I could really see what was going on in our society dissolving into her world of fiction based in fact. It was mesmerizing.

But then, when I heard that The Year of the Flood was coming out, I have to admit that I was totally skeptical. Despite absolutely adoring Oryx and Crake, I've seen enough bad sequels to think twice. Even good authors sometimes take a nosedive, and I really wasn't looking forward to slashing and burning what I'd loved about O and C in a sequel.

But what Atwood does (serves me right for ever doubting her!) is incredible. Both from a fiction-writing standpoint and from a series standpoint. The Year of the Flood is neither a sequel nor a prequel. It's a simultane-quel, a retelling of an already incredible story, but the retelling happens in such a way that makes it unlike anything else I've ever read. Specifically, The Year of the Flood happens not to the main characters from Oryx and Crake, but nor does it happen to completely unrelated individuals. The focus of this new novel are characters who are exactly one step removed from the people in Oryx and Crake--friends of friends, almost--which makes them perfect story-bearers who know enough of the conspiracy but who also have their own lives and own problems.

Even without reading Oryx and Crake (it's been a real while since I read it, so most of the details had faded away, sadly), The Year of the Flood still makes perfect sense and is a novel that can stand alone in its own right. And, even better (?) it offers the same kind of world-building satisfaction that Atwood accomplishes in the first novel. The facets of this new, futuristic world are developed further, and we even get to experience aspects of the society that we'd never seen before. All in all, it makes perfect sense that Atwood wrote this second novel--she obviously had more story left to tell in this incredibly developed world that she invented, and who wants to leave when they're only half-finished?

I also loved that Atwood's focus here was on two main women -- Toby and Ren, who live together in this religious commune known as the Gardeners. They are both strong characters, both real in different ways, earthy and relatable and modern all at once. They exemplify what Atwood does best in my eyes; no matter what her story or plot, she always remembers that it's characters and people that move things forward. And, no matter if it's the past of the future, people's fundamental issues and insecurities will always make them relateable. After all, we're only human.

My one fairly infinitesimal gripe (and the reason I lowered the score by half a star) was that the plot seemed sort of slow to start and get going; though the found the second half utterly tantalizing, I found the beginning of Oryx and Crake to be better, somehow, at drawing you in and keeping up the pace. Either way, fantastic read. Highly recommended.

FINAL VERDICT:
**** and 1/2 out of *****

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LITERATURE: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I found The Lovely Bones to be, in a word, delovely. And delightful. And delicious. It was heartbreaking and beautiful, with flowing, wonderful prose and meaningful, thoughtful characters.

I don't mean to keep littering it with praise like every other review has, but it's been a while since I read something that was simultaneously a can't-put-this-down mystery / thriller / murder book, and a book that made me think profoundly about death, love, and what it means to live.

Death is always a touchy, strange sort of thing in literature. When you see it happen via murder or old age, see the burial, see the aftermath, it is always from a third-person sort of view. Once the character in question is gone, everything about them ceases; the light goes out. Their consciousness is gone.

In The Lovely Bones, that problem of discontinuity, that missing hole in the plot, is eliminated because Susie Salmon starts from and continues to speak from beyond the grave, after her rape and murder by her neighbor.

Susie is the perfect narrator; her age is ideal--she's at the prime of life, not quite a child, but not as jaded as an adult. She is on the brink of everything and here, in the worst kind of tragedy, her life is taken. I've already said it, but I'll say it again: heartbreaking. And that's not what surprised me most about a novel that I half-thought would have been an over-hyped bestseller like The Lost Symbol. It's not only the narrator that's great--it's the whole construct of the plot. The very first thing that happens is the worst one, and yet the novel is totally wrought with suspense, the whole way through. And yet the suspense doesn't get in the way of the plot, of the beautiful developments of the still-living characters--of Susie's family, her love interest, the oddball friend, Ruth.

Susie's vision of heaven, even, is simultaneously stunning and eerie, strange and lovely without being overly perfect or filled with sunshiney clouds. It reminded me a lot of the heaven in one of my favorite movies-- What Dreams May Come. And yet perhaps the most beautiful part of the whole thing is that Sebold manages to really give her not only a heaven, but also a final taste of earth, a first taste of the love, the sex, and the adulthood that Susie spends the whole novel dreaming of--all without being overthetop, or cheesy, or unbelieveable. It is the cherry on top of a well-envisioned world; it makes perfect sense. As much as I wanted to be like GAH! That's awful stupid happy ending blah blah blah, I couldn't. Because it was just right.

It fit perfectly, all the pieces together, even the way in which the family breaks and then reassembles. Some people, my friend Michelle, for instance, take some issue with it, the way the mother left and then was able to reconcile. But I thought it was more believable than if they'd all just managed to adjust. People experience horror, and then break, but then survive. And in Sebold's world, I truly believe the way in which it happens.

It's an achievement. I loved it.

FINAL VERDICT
***** out of *****

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LITERATURE: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

This was actually a novel that was assigned for a class at Princeton--contemporary fiction, with the rather remarkable Professor Benjamin Widiss. I cannot fully express the impact that great professors have on students; even if he never knows it, I will be forever grateful to him for listening and for leading me on a fantastic discovery of some works that have since become forever ingrained in who I am as a person (Lolita, for instance). He was also incredibly helpful and kind when it came to advising my decision to switch from the English to Comp Lit department. (He, himself, is an English professor, so imagine how awesome he is to have recognized my desire to explore literature in a realm not his own!)
But, to get on with the review. I certainly recall reading bits of this for the class but, if we're being honest, I'm pretty sure I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing. (Hey, it happens. Especially in college. That's why I'm atoning by reading it now.)

So first and foremost, let's get the obvious out of the way. Coetzee won a Nobel Prize for this book--A FRIGGIN' NOBEL PRIZE!--in addition to the Booker Prize, which is also nothing to thumb your nose at. And yet, I'm not truly sure I agree that this novel is one of the best I've ever read.

On the surface, I think the plot is interesting. It tells the tale of David Lurie, a communications professor at a South African university who hates teaching communications and actually considers himself to be more of a literature scholar. He has an affair with one of his students, the shame of which leads to his ruin and his ultimate disgrace across multiple layers of his life--with his exwife, his daughter, the student, her family, his scholarly circle, etc, etc. Don't lets beat us over the head with the title, eh, Coetzee?

On the one hand, I think there are moments in the novel that present interesting, compelling criticism of human nature, especially with the backdrop of the apartheid in South Africa. I don't want to give away what I consider to be, probably, the acme of the novel, which involves, in a more specific way, David's daughter and her relationship with the African man who works on her property, but, essentially, I enjoyed the sort of awkward tension that builds from that moment, and the way in which Coetzee carefully deals with the broken people that result from the incident. I, in general, am a huge fan of broken characters--there is always something beautiful about them--so I'm totally on board here.

At the same time, while I can probably understand the political reasons for this novel's receipt of a Nobel--its address of questions like racism, rape, segregation, and the fundamental human emotion of loneliness--I also find that this novel is somewhat less profound and more straightforward than I would have liked, all things considered. It seemed to sort of trail along without very much change or development on the part of the narrator. Don't get me wrong, here. I liked the tone and the voice, but, overall, I felt that the hopelessness in the novel is hyper-present in the language, which was, for me anyway, a bit of a turnoff. I can certainly appreciate the sad / lonely / depressed kind of text that I would consider this to be, but I find myself losing interest and getting restless when this hopelessness is present for too long, without any sort of humor or release. Even Lolita, a prime tragedy, is littered with Humbert's jokes, allusions, etc, which all serve to break up the monotony of depression. In Disgrace, I didn't feel as much of that and it sort of made the whole thing very bleak and grey and drawn for me. Perhaps that was Coetzee's intent, but I didn't love the effect.

What I do totally have to respect, though, is that Lurie is one of those characters that you want to hate because he's not exactly a good guy, and yet since the story largely follows him, you sort of start rooting for him by the end. I typically don't like books like that (ahem, Atonement), but in this case it really worked.

At the same time, while I keep listing things I liked, there's something I can't quite put my finger on that kept me from loving this book. Maybe because it survives in a world of complete extremes, and ones that fall irresistibly into the abyss of depression. The student he has an affair with, for instance, would have been legally old enough to engage in the affair without it being some sort of pedophilia, rendering it as less of a big deal than it was made out to be in the novel; two consenting adults, irregardless of their student / teacher relationship are, after all, two consenting adults. The kind that have relationships all the time, everywhere.That being said, rape / accused rape is in fact a very a huge deal, but Coetzee was so ambiguous about whether or not it was rape that that also didn't quite seem to cover why it turned into such a huge deal. To give him credit, it's hard to be ambiguous about something like that, so perhaps therein lies his skill... It felt very much like a bad Humbert Humbert kind of sequence to me, mixed with, perhaps, a paperback novel kind of sex scene--all in all an awkward combination at best.

It's sort of like, the things Lurie does that are supposed to be his undoing don't really seem that awful to me. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but maybe not. I also felt like Lurie's relationships with people are unnatural and forced most of the time. While I get the point of that with his daughter, to some extent through the context of the plot, it feels off to me that 1. Lurie is such an awkward, strange person that it's shocking anyone would talk to him in the first place, and 2. He's simultaneously supposed to be really attractive and all that jazz, but he doesn't seem that way at all to me.

I feel like, maybe, if I understood more about the political climate in Africa, I would have felt differently about this book and would have been even more effected in a profound way by his daughter's plight, which, even without that background was moving and harrowing. Ultimately, though, for my money, I liked the book, but probably not enough to have awarded it a Nobel Prize in Literature; I guess that while the topic might be profound, the literary aspect of it all, the beautiful language, etc, just wasn't there for me as much as in other novels. Coetzee, despite his affairish plot, is no Nabokov.

FINAL VERDICT:
*** and 1/2 out of *****

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Currently Reading - Reviews Coming Soon

Just wanted to give you all a taste of what I'm reading now, so you can expect reviews soon. If there's something you want me to read / see / taste / etc, give me a shout and I'll get on it.

Hugs and kisses,
Daria

1. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
2. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
3. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
4. Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko
5. The Sacred Book of Werewolf (A-Hu-Li) by Viktor Pelevin

These are in no particular order, and yes, I'm actually reading them all at once. I'm a serial reader. Entering a Barnes and Noble is a dangerous undertaking for my checkbook..

Also, Margaret Atwood's new novel the Year of the Flood comes out tomorrow, and as it is a retelling of her incredibly brilliant novel Oryx and Crake, which also happens to be one of my favorite pieces of literature ever, you may as well add that one to the list, too, since I'll be buying it tomorrow :).

YAY BOOKS!

D

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LITERATURE: Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger

I initially bought this book because (luck of all luck!) I'd heard good things about it and I happened to be at a bookstore, and it happened to be on sale. One of the joys of my life is when bookstores have sales. And it was sort of a cult classic, particularly around Princeton, as most things that feature it in some way, shape, or form, often are.

So I was reading it, and, after devouring Catcher in the Rye in, like, I don't know, 9th grade or so, I was eagerly awaiting the moment when Salinger would sweep my off my feet and carrying me away to literary la-la-land.

I'd be lying if I told you that I "got" this book. I didn't. I'm not sure anyone would really "get" it. I can appreciate his whole shtick re: enlightenment and zen buddhism and whatnot, but, while I found the characters delightfully real, and, as is typical of JD, blissfully intelligent, I also found them cold and only half-formed in the context of the story.

What I mean to say isn't that they're not full fleshed out; on the contrary, they're seriously fleshy. Fat, even. They've got so much emotional baggage that a Boeing jet would have trouble. But that's precisely the problem for me, here, in this case. We get only a tiny glimmer of the two title characters from their own eyes. We see them from the perspectives of everyone else, even though the story is technically told in third person omniscient. It's just a little frustrating because I found myself reading and reading and waiting for the "AHA" moment that never comes. Another fantastic example of literary blueballing. Oh. Dear.

I guess, ultimately, I'd have to chalk this up to an exersize more than a finished work because it seems just like a very long slice of life rather than a complete narrative. And I really did try to understand this. I'm the first one to admit when I've missed something in literature. But even wikipedia gave me nothing I didn't already know from reading it. So I'm left wondering what exactly the point was. Maybe it's supposed to give me more context for examining the Glass children who apparently appear in more Salinger texts. Or maybe it's Salinger ultimately making fun of the reader for salivating over a relatively long story in which not very much happens.

I like Franny's part for more than Zooey's, mostly because within Zooey's I felt as though I was slipping into the realm of Zooey's insanity, a place I'd really rather not enter.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the vocabulary lesson (JD's always fantastic with words. I learned, in particular, the meaning of the words rancor and obstreporous :)) but found the plot difficult to swallow, and had an even harder time wondering why I should care about the characters, who seem sort of full of themselves, in the first place.

Although, I must concede that if I feel this strongly about a work I don't feel I even understood properly, I can only imagine the way I'd feel if I loved it. Good job, JD.

FINAL VERDICT:
** out of *****

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LITERATURE: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Allow me to preface this post by saying that The Lost Symbol is, for better or worse, only the second DB novel I've read. The first one was--I'll give you three guesses--the most obvious of his bunch, and (perhaps this is where for worst comes in) I find it difficult to talk about this book without invoking the tome that is the Da Vinci Code.

Now, in some sense, that's a good thing. The fact that both books are "Robert Langdon" books definitely calls for comparison. Then again, Angels and Demons was also a "Robert Langdon" book, yet I found myself sufficiently satisfied with having just seen the movie on that one. (Not a bad movie, as a matter of fact, though I feel like the surprise would have been lost entirely had I read the book--but, alas, that's to be expected.)

So what to say about The Lost Symbol? First, I guess my big gripe is that I really, really liked the Da Vinci Code. As you can probably guess from this blog, I'm pretty into literary fiction, lyric texts, modern language, blah blah blah. I'm also a girl who likes her action novels. Give me some old fashioned Robert Ludlum Borne Identity kind of thing any day. I really do enjoy a page-turner, and considering that Da Vinci Code was a page turner with a deep, intellectual meaning behind, I was signed up from the get-go. Add to that the fact that the collective American conscious is pretty interminably linked with badass professors like Indiana Jones, and we've got ourselves a combination that's unlikely to fail. And yet, in the Lost Symbol, I think it does fail just a little bit.

First, the beginning got off to a sloth-like pace, especially when compared with the whiz-bang start of DVC. I mean, dude. A museum curator murdered in the Louvre before the end of the first chapter? MONEY IN DA BANK. The Lost Symbol, on the contrary, takes its sweet time. Sure, it starts with Brown's beloved perspective of the evil / misunderstood / plot twist-ridden character, and then floods off to Langdon / other relevant parties, but I just felt underwhelmed. I really had to pull through until we got to the puzzles, which was one thing I think Brown generally does fantastically, especially with regard to pacing and reader interaction. You're constantly trying to figure that shit out right along with his characters, but, again, LS seems to be just a little bit slow on the uptake. I would have love a quicker execution when it came to uncovering certain things.

That being said, I thought the overarching idea in this work of Brown's (if we're comparing to DVC and Angels and Demons re: main plot as it relates to the Church / religion / science / controversy-causing stuff) was actually really interesting. I truly did appreciate all of the consideration Brown included with regard to religion and enlightenment as an ultimate reflection of man's ascent to godliness through use of his intellect. I think it's a beautiful concept, though one that sort of gets him in trouble with the church again if we're taking about men being equal to God and whatnot. Not my fight, but let me just say that I think this is the least propagandish of Brown's novels, and that, moreover, people who take really serious issues with his work need to remind themselves that, as it says in the copyright page of his novels, this is a work of fiction. Frankly, one thing I have to give Brown absolute credit for is his incredible ability to piece together seemingly unfittable works of art, historic locations, obscure encryption tools, and ancient organizations to create a conspiracy tapestry worthy of Henry V. That being said, it does get a little old when the plot is always sort of predictable, and the only reason I find myself reading is to uncover the deciphering of the clues.

On the other hand, I did really enjoy the Neo-science stuff he included, and especially that moment towards the end where Langdon's situation becomes, shall we say, precarious. I thought it was really clever, but also sort of predictable. You can't just **SPOILER WARNING** off your main character and expect a halfway intelligent reader to buy it. Um...really, Daniel?

On the third hand (third hand? hmm...) I just started reading The Rule of Four and am immediately willing to say it will beat The Lost Symbol on my list of good action / thriller reads, because the writing actually flows and feels quick, sharp, and unforced. Some of the scenes in the classrooms with students had me rolling my eyes and holding a stitch in my side. ALL of the students DB describes somehow wind up being like Minkus from Boy Meets World. Anyone? Buehler?

Ultimately, I can't say it was a bad book, because I got through it pretty quick and did enjoy several parts of it. I also can't say that it was a fantastic book, one of those that is the complete package, the way I really did think Da Vinci Code was. I guess, for me, the locale of DC doesn't do very much to add to the "coolness" of it, and the writing wasn't as crisp or fast-paced as I would have liked. I also felt like Brown beat us over the head a little bit with his message at the end, though, I suppose, this message is far more innocuous than others he could have picked.

FINAL VERDICT:
* out of *****
Get it from the library.

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