Collected Miscellany

I don’t know if you’ve read Greg Iles. He’s been writing thrillers for a dozen years now beginning with SPANDAU PHOENIX, a novel about Rudolf Hess. Hess was a high ranking Nazi who was captured during World War Two after parachuting into Scotland. Iles makes some interesting comments about at Bookseller.com about the state of thriller fiction. Iles claims that thrillers have been become “one dimensional and formulaic” due to the pressure on esttablished authors to crank out a book every year. I found the link over at Sarah Weinman’s.

Greg Iles uses the deep south as a backdrop for his latest novel, BLOOD MEMORY; I haven’t seen it yet and I don’t know when the release date is. His novel 24 Hours has been retitled TRAPPED for film; that book has a feel of Karin Slaughter to it, partially because of the small town southern setting, and the rapid pacing. He avoids series characters, preferring to recast every new novel completely; I haven’t enjoyed his later work as much as the thrillers with international settings where he began his career. Small town Gothic isn’t my bag, but he’s a writer worth checking out.

Jim Fusilli’s TRIBECA BLUES was on my list of notable books for the year. His latest, HARD HARD CITY picks up where TRIBECA BLUES left off. Fusilli is one of the current masters of the first person point of view; his books are character studies, steeped in setting and extended family. His style is unusual and takes a little getting used to; transitions can seem abrupt, he writes the way his character thinks, reacting to memory triggers, and the fairly constant input New York can create. Through both novels the main character is grieving over the death of his wife and their infant son. Fusilli uses the plot as a device to put the character’s process into motion; it’s extremely well done.

DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER by Jeff Lindsey made a splash with this suspense debut. Set in Miami the lead character, Dexter, is a blood splatter analyst for Miami Dade Police; he’s also a serial killer. That’s the hook. It feels like a gimmick; the story isn’t much and the ending is a muddle. The tone is light and ironic, but, overall, this is like a MIAMI VICE episode without the music and the Ferrari.

THE SLEEPER by Christopher Dickey was reviewed here a few months ago. It’s an interesting thriller and I mention it again in the context of Greg Iles’ remarks quoted above. If you’re weary of techno-nonsense try this one.

There has been some discussion of the relationship between film and fiction between books and movies based on them (see here and here). Touching on this theme is Frederica Mathewes-Green’s review of the film A Series of Unfortunate Events. The film is based on the children’s book series by Daniel Handler under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket. Mathewes-Green was disappointed that the movie didn’t build on the strengths of the books:

When I got home from seeing Lemony Snicket, I read through The Bad Beginning, the first in the 11-volume series about the unfortunate Baudelaire children. What with small pages and large print, it took about an hour. There I discovered that thing more precious than gold in publishing circles: a unique authorial voice. Daniel Handler, writing under the pseudonym “Lemony Snicket,” narrates in a quietly morose, worried tone, recounting events that go from bad to worse and then worse again . . . If you’ve never read any of these books, you think you can write it yourself from here. You can’t. What makes them delicious is Handler’s restraint. The Baudelaires’ situation is not so much terrifying as depressing, though it’s also absurd . . . All that delicate, intriguing capital is blasted in the movie version, just released by Dreamworks, starring Jim Carrey as Olaf and other big names in supporting roles (Meryl Streep, Jude Law, Catherine O’Hara, Dustin Hoffman, Cedric the Entertainer). The film is loud, frantic, and smart-alecky. It stoops to lows you could not conceive.

Despite this, she can’t fully indict the movie based on the book:

It’s not fair, of course, to criticize a movie for not being strictly true to its source; the two are separate works and deserve to stand or fall on their own. But it ought to be noted when a film destroys the main thing that made a book intriguing. How does Lemony Snicket, the movie, stand on its own terms? Well, watching it is a lot like watching most other big-budget kid movies. It’s trying so hard to hack out a space in the pantheon of favorites that you can hear it hyperventilating. Everything is big: the obsessively detailed sets, the immense special effects, Carrey’s sweeping gestures. You have to admire it, just for its audacity.

My wife really wants to see the movie so I am sure I will end up seeing it. I confess I wasn’t that impressed by the book (I only read the first one); it just didn’t do anything for me. Has anyone else read the books and seen the film? I would be interested in reactions contrasting the film and the books.

Regular readers are aware that I am a big fan of William F. Buckley, Jr. WFB is a vivid and impactful figure in the history of American conservatism. His life is a fascinating tale of multiple careers intertwined: founder of the flagship conservative magazine of the 20th century; host of the longest running show on public television; successful novelist; syndicated columnist and word-smith; accomplished sailor and author of numerous books and essays on sailing; music lover and occasional public performer.

I have been fascinated by his life and work since I was a freshman in high school. I own all of his books and have read them all except for the collections of his columns. It goes without saying that he deserves a serious biographer. Many literary bloggers have been unhappy with the tenure of recently appointed New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus. Not being a regular reader of that publication I am not similarly troubled, but I was bothered that in order to take up those duties he had to postpone his planned biography of WFB. His excellent book on Whitaker Chambers seem to indicate that he would take on Buckley with the appreciation but critical eye that he deserves, but alas that prospect is no on hold.

One of the burdens of auto-biography is that it requires a great deal of time and a good bit of self-reflection. WFB’s career and personality have never pointed toward a grand auto-biography. He has already written a number of biographical type works (two “a day in the life” type memoirs, a couple of books on his adventures in sailing; one describing his run of NYC mayor; one on his time at the United Nations, etc.) and so much of his life has been in the public eye that it would almost seem redundant. Plus, Buckley has never been one to engage in long drawn out writing projects (his books are produced in a couple of months in Switzerland).

So what does all of this mean? It means that those interested in Buckley’s life must content themselves for now with his recently released “literary autobiography” Miles Gone By. Miles Gone By (MGB) is a collection of what Buckley calls “scenes and essays” he has written over fifty years and in which he figures prominently. They cover “personal experiences, challenges and sorties, professional inquiries, and memories beginning in childhood.” Long time fans of Buckley will not be surprised by anything in this collection but they will obviously want it in their collection. Each reader will probably bring a unique interest and taste to the collection, but the collection is surprisingly personal and not particularly political. The quality and impact varies, but overall I found it to be an interesting look back at the life of a unique American through the lens of his own writing.

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AOL is saying that more men are shopping online now, than women. Not only that, the ISP is saying that men are spending more money online than women.

The first notice–one of several I received, this week–came via a notice from MediaPost (subscription required), which posted an article by Gavin O’Malley on the topic, titled, “Men Open Their Wallets Online.”

According to the article, “On average, men spent $204 online each month, compared to $186 spent by women. Furthermore, 42 percent of men shopped for luxury goods online vs. 35 percent of women.”

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Ok, I exaggerate. I only have a couple of links to share:

– Megan Bashem at National Review Online discusses John Stewart’s America (The Book):

Last week, Publishers Weekly threw more than a few politically minded bibliophiles for a loop by naming not our 42nd president’s protracted, excruciatingly detailed autobiography, My Life, book of the year (perhaps they’re reserving for it the honor of “Book of the Decade”?) but rather The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s first literary offering, America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy in Action.

So, out of the approximately 175,000 books published this year, this was the work chosen by the self-described “leading publication” in the industry as the most deserving of the public’s consideration and currency. What, one wonders, were the criteria?

– Robert Birnbaum has apparently cloned himself and is now cranking out interviews double time. This time it is Cynthia Ozick. I don’t always appreciate the tangents that Robert takes his authors on or the perspective of said authors but what comes through is his passion for literature and his insights into each author’s work. This particular interview (Ozick) is a prime example. It is simply fascinating. here is a taste:

RB: I was more interested in how you decided that you were going to write a fiction or an essay.

CO: That’s more than a question, that’s an insight, because if you are going to do thought and write about ideas overtly as ideas, you should write an essay. Or a sermon or a tract. If it’s going to be didactic, it’s going to be intellectual. But you write a novel, you have to use your head, as Philip Roth said in a wonderful interview in the Guardian—they asked him to define novel writing and he said it’s problem-solving. So in that sense your intellect is incorporated into it. But it’s basically chaotic imagination. So that you don’t know what’s going to happen next. If you are going to write an essay you make discoveries—you know, mental, conceptual discoveries, as you write an essay, but at the same time, you have something in your head to begin with. Say you are going to write an essay on Henry James, you know that. You know it’s on Henry James. You have something to start with. But in a novel you have nothing. You don’t know where you are going.

– I may not be reading Tom Wolfe’s latest but I am reading Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. Ross Douthat at the American Scene is a bit skeptical of the thriller writer’s latest concept:

With that said, and without having read the book, I think the plot of Michael Crichton’s latest sounds uncommonly silly — and the eagerness with which conservatives are jumping to praise it bespeaks an all-too-typical right-wing response to any cultural effort, however mediocre, that somehow sticks it to the Left. If Crichton wants to write a book puncturing global warming panic, that’s great . . . but to have the plot revolve (if Ronald Bailey is to be believed) around a cabal of radical eco-terrorists, led by a Ralph Nader clone, who create killer weather events in the hopes of scaring the world into reducing CO2 emissions seems just a little bit — what’s the word I’m looking for? Ah yes: Stupid.

All the fuss over Crichton’s right wingedness peaked my interest. I am not a avid Crichton reader so I will only be able to judge this work as I read it, but I will give you my take when I am done.

Fascinating review of I Am Charlotte Simmons by S.T. Karnick at Books and Culture. In fact, it is almost a model of a good book review. It is interesting even if you haven’t read the book, it doesn’t spoil the book either, and it takes the work, and its author, seriously. While discussing ideas outside of the book, it doesn’t hijack the review to ride a hobby horse or get on a soap box (to use/mix two different metaphors/clichés).

The first paragraph sets out exactly how Karnick is going to approach the work:

The social value of the novel is in its unique ability to present human choices in all their variety and complexity. Plays and films also can show such choices, of course, but the novel has the advantage of easily allowing us to enter a situation from a particular character’s point of view, or even to hear and consider their thoughts. All of this allows us to identify with the character within the situation and judge how we would act if placed in a similar dilemma. There can, however, be too much of a good thing, and that is what happens in Tom Wolfe’s new novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons.

Karnick discusses Wolfe’s style and structure in reference to novelists like Flaubert, Fielding, Defoe, and Richardson and uses this to get to what he sees as the philosophical heart of what Wolfe is up to:

Wolfe’s story, while rather charming in its final irony (which I shall not reveal here) and sharp observations of contemporary American life, is more cynical and less hopeful than any of these, and the reason lies in Wolfe’s very different ideas about what drives human behavior and indeed whether people can really be said to make free choices in any meaningful way.

Karnick’s explication of what Wolfe is up to seems convincing to me, but I have not read the book (although I did watch Wolfe discuss the work on C-Span at some length).

Karnick adds to this philosophical discussion some well tempered critiques of Wolfe:

Regardless of whether one agrees with the philosophical conclusions Wolfe brings up, he is to be commended for considering such weighty matters in what is ultimately a fairly diverting story. Unfortunately, Wolfe’s biggest disadvantage as a novelist is the flip side of his greatest advantage as a writer: his astute journalist’s eye. He is a sharp observer of people, and his insights show a good deal of intelligence. However, Wolfe includes far too many of these observations, accumulating a vast store of unnecessary details unhappily reminiscent of Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Wolfe. The story frequently bogs down under the weight of its long descriptions of physical settings, considerations of the inner workings of college athletic programs, and the like.

Especially exhausting and superfluous are the lengthy descriptions of characters’ thoughts. Wolfe tends here, as in his other books, to depict each scene from a particular character’s point of view, and that is often a very good choice. His tendency to filter each scene through a character’s point of view, however, puts the events at an additional remove from the reader and actually prevents us from seeing them as vividly as we would if the descriptions were briefer and seemed objective.

This is exactly what has kept me from enjoying Wolfe in the past and keeps me from picking up his latest. I don’t have the time or energy for massive books of this nature.

Anyway, I think Karnick’s review is a model of usefulness and intellect. If you have any interest in Wolfe, the novel, and or the issue of free will I encourage you to take a look.