Recently Read

I just added several reviews for books I read last week, and thought I'd include them here. I'm afraid I'm spending so much time reading that I've paid little attention to what others consider newsworthy, thus the lack of commentary on the tragedies of the moment. These reviews are, of course, just one man's opinion.

Neuromancer - William Gibson

>I think this is one of those novels that is probably more noteworthy as a landmark than as a piece of literature. Its vision and prescience are remarkable, and there can be little doubt that it has had a tremendous influence on the last couple decades of science fiction. It is, for example, hard to imagine The Matrix without Neuromancer. To the extent that cyberpunk can indeed be traced to this novel, I am largely grateful it was written. Yet it was a bit of a disappointment to read. Gibson is so wrapped up in the style of what he is creating, the world of cyberpunk, that the substance of the story gets left aside. We get inklings of existentialism, some faux-Eastern philosophy, and lots of name dropping (e.g. the police are called "Turing agents"). It had a sleek sheen, but little more.

Grade: C

How to Be Good - Nick Hornby

I am a big Nick Hornby fan. In fact, it is hard to imagine how I could have avoided becoming a big Nick Hornby fan. I'm a music obsessive (and a music snob!), and have always loved making "top 5 lists." So I pick up High Fidelity and love it. I pick it up again, and love it even more. I currently include it in my top five favorite books. Fandom secured, I go looking for more. About a Boy intrigued me, and I think a second reading of it could be in the works anyday now. Then I ran across Fever Pitch while browsing the biography section. By this time I have been an Arsenal fan for almost 4 years (having adopted them upon my return from Europe in summer 1996, where I had become obsessed with European football; my favorite player during Euro '96 was Dutchman Dennis Bergkamp; Arsenal was his club, so it became my club, and that was all she wrote). Turns out Hornby is an Arsenal fan. No, not just a fan, an obsessed man who writes an entire memoir of his life framed in relation to Arsenal matches.

So when Nick Hornby came out with a new novel, I was interested. I would have picked it up immediately, but I began hearing lukewarm reviews. So I did not buy it right away, and slowly it faded out of my attention. Until, that is, a few weeks ago when I found it on one of the discount online bookstores I frequent. I purchased a remaindered copy for $3.99, and put it on my shortlist.

For once, I would have been better off listening to the reviews. It was just not very good. It took me a few days to figure out what I didn't like. It is not just that Katie is so unlikeable. Most of Hornby's protagonists have rough edges, with the reader constantly wavering between antipathy and sympathy. But this one is different. First, everyone else is unlikeable too. No charming (or even amusing) side characters or subplots. Before his "conversion", her husband is wretched and unbearable. Afterwards, he and GoodNews are one-note parodies of themselves. Same with the children, her friend Becca, and her patients. Second, she had no character arc. She starts out self-involved, selfish, pessimistic, and confused and stays the course throughout the book. Though there are supposed to be signs of change (she moves out, she moves back in, etc.), these physical plot pieces seem unrelated to any actual internal evolution.

If there had been a strong plot, perhaps the book would have been more enjoyable. At least there might have been enough tension to create some desire to turn the page. But Hornby is never really about plot, he just wants vehicles to give his characters room to play, to grow. With unlikeable, two-dimensional characters and a distinct absence of internal development, this book is left with little to recommend it. The best that can be said is that Hornby's prose is easy to read, making it even simpler to breeze through its vacuity. A huge disappointment.

Grade: D

Big Fish - Daniel Wallace

This is not a big or complex novel, and it does not aspire to be so. But it is a simple pleasure, offering one of the most unique and creative takes on the difficulties of fatherhood that I've seen. In its breezy 180 pages (big font, big margins), Wallace takes the oft-explored tension between absent fathers and their distant sons and turns it into a story of wonder and wisdom. The influence of Greek mythology is evident throughout, and it certainly has the flavor of that grandeur and glee, the pure pleasure of storytelling. Yet there is a sad undercurrent which comes to the surface in the recurring scenes at the father's deathbed. That these wondrous stories are all the son has to construct his father's life with is a testament to the tragedy of the emotionally inaccessible. As one who is always on the lookout for stories offering a new take, some new wisdom on the father/son relationship, this was a welcome cautionary tale that I will keep on the shelf until it can serve me as a vocational tool as well.

Grade: B

Gabriel | March 22, 2004 | Permalink