Sherman Alexie’s newest book, War Dances, is a farrago of short stories, poems, question-and-answer sections, and short musings. The pieces—especially the short stories—seem to be connected by central characters who are sad and lonely. (In fact, these characters frequently make a point of noting how sad and lonely they are.) While I have enjoyed Alexie’s other work (such as Reservation Blues, which I read again earlier this summer), War Dances just didn’t do much for me. I didn’t feel a strong investment in any of the characters, I didn’t always feel like I was reading a final draft of the stories, and I was able to set down the book (which is very short) without any strong desire to pick it back up. For me, this is a disappointment—it just doesn’t stand up next to Alexie’s other work.
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Take a Trip to the Circus
Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants appeared about three years ago, and a few friends read and recommended the book back then. When I heard that a movie version is in the works, I figured that I better get to the novel before Hollywood does.
Water for Elephants is narrated by Jacob Jankowski, who is either 90 or 93 years old—he can’t quite remember. When the circus begins to set up on a field within sight of his retirement home, Jacob begins to reflect on his own days with the circus in the 1930s.
When his parents are killed in an auto accident just days before he completes his veterinary degree, Jacob is left with no home and—in the midst of the Great Depression—with no job prospects. With no clear destination in mind, he hops a train in the middle of the night. Fortunately for Jacob, the train belongs to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth (a circus troupe that—as Jacob notes at one point—is far from spectacular), and gruff Uncle Al (the show’s owner and ringmaster) is in need of a veterinarian. Jacob starts tending to the (frequently neglected and abused) menagerie of animals (including Rosie, the circus’s prized elephant), and before long he finds himself drawn to the beautiful, young, married woman who performs with Rosie.
The elder Jacob intrudes too frequently on the story of his younger self, the quality of the writing is a little inconsistent, the dialogue can be anachronistic, and the ending feels completely implausible. Still, Water for Elephants is a pleasant summer read.
Hungry for a Good Book?
A friend of mine recently raved about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. She said it is one of the best books that she has read all summer, so I decided that I had better check it out.
Set in an indeterminate future, The Hunger Games takes place in the country of Panem (a country which rose out of the ashes of the United States). The country consists of twelve districts, all of which are ruled from a city called Capitol. Each year, as punishment for the districts’ failed rebellion against the rulers of the capital city, one young man and one young woman from each district must compete in the Hunger Games—a brutal “game” of survival and battle in which only one competitor will survive.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss, the book’s narrator, lives with her widowed mother and her younger sister in District 12, a poor coal-mining district far removed from the heart of the country. She is an accomplished hunter, secretly hunting in the forbidden forest with her best friend to provide for her family. At the district’s annual “celebration” to choose two competitors for the Hunger Games, Katniss’s sister is selected; unwilling to watch her sister sent to certain death, Katniss volunteers to go in her place. With Peeta (the male competitor selected from District 12), Katniss is whisked by train to Capitol to prepare for the games.
To say any more would be to give away too much of the novel’s plot. Suffice it to say that The Hunger Games is part The Giver, part “The Lottery,” part Lord of the Flies, part Survivor. What impressed me most about this young adult novel, though, is that it’s not only an adventure story. It encourages consideration of important ideas—the disparity between the rich and the poor, the lifestyle produced by technological luxuries, the ethics and uses of genetic engineering, the legacy of reality television, and our society’s desensitized response to violence.
This fast-paced book is the first in a trilogy (Catching Fire—the second book—is already available, and Mockingjay-–the final volume—releases at the end of August). I’m not always a fan of books that are part of a series, but The Hunger Games is really a book that can stand on its own.
What is the Purpose of Schools?
With summer inching ever closer to the start of a new school year, Mike Rose’s new book—Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us—felt like a good choice.
In this slim volume, Rose (perhaps best known for Lives on the Boundary, the largely autobiographical accout of his experiences as a student and an educator) tackles several key terms in contemporary education: accountability, assessment, opportunity, equality. The thirteen essays in the book encourage the reader to consider what we—as members of a democratic society—want from education. He argues that education, of late, has placed too much emphasis on economic functions (at the expense of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and passion). He discusses the need for accountability and assessment but laments the way that those terms are understood in the current legislative climate.
Near the end of the book, Rose calls for an open, non-partisan discussion about education in America. This book, though, will more likely just lend itself to a lot of head-nodding agreement in some corners and eye-rolling dismissal in others.
A Thoroughly Disturbing Read
Over the past several weeks, it seems that every time I turn around I see a review for Bill Clegg’s Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man. This fast-reading memoir, which details Clegg’s descent into crack addiction, is—without doubt—the most disturbing book that I have read in a really long time.
Clegg, a recovering addict in his early thirties, would appear to have a perfect life; he is a successful literary agent, he has recently opened his own agency in Manhattan with a close friend, his filmmaker partner is a caring and supportive person, he mingles with the famous and accomplished. But one night, when he is alone in his office, he feels the temptation of his old addiction. He thinks that he can control it, that he can just do a little crack and then stop. Instead, the first hit leads to another . . . and another . . . and another.
Clegg ultimately finds himself on a 30-day crack binge—thirty days in which he drains $80,000 from his bank account, slinks from hotel to hotel because he can’t go home (and because he is paranoid that the DEA is following him), engages in sex with complete strangers, loses so much weight that he needs to add seven extra holes to his belt, runs from his boyfriend and his family members (who try to convince him to enter rehab again), drinks liters of alcohol every time that he comes down off a high, breaks out of a rehab center, staggers into a crack den, downs enough sleeping pills to kill himself (something he longs for by the end), and never changes his clothes once.
While telling this story, Clegg inserts short chapters about his childhood (his domineering father, his distant mother, the friend who introduced him to the world of books), his college years (his first serious foray into drugs, the friends with whom he shares a house), and his early years in New York. These may provide a little more insight into Clegg’s background, but I’m not sure they’re necessary to his story; by the time I got into the second half of the book, these chapters sometimes felt like unnecessary intrusions on the story of his addiction.
As I read Portrait, I felt sadness, horror, sympathy (especially for Clegg’s boyfriend—I have no idea how he stayed with Clegg through some of this).
Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man is not a book for the weak of stomach (or a book that I’m going to recommend to my mother!). Clegg’s descriptions of his drug use and sexual activity are pretty graphic. (His graphic details, though, are always honest; they never feel gratuitous or intended merely to shock.)
