Category: Books

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Asymmetrical

Will North & South Korea benefit from cultural connections at the Olympics? If so, it may be the best outcome of a lackluster Games. Meanwhile back at Homeland, ripped from the headlines. Will Alex Jones mount a standoff? Guns. Militias. Tipping toward civil unrest.

Franco out. Tiger in.

Read Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, Asymmetry. The first section a novella memoir of her romantic liaison with a forty-years older Philip Roth-esque author mentor. That section was good. The second and third sections failed as did the structure. Not so much.

Book Treks reviews.

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Writing Wrongs

Just finished the novel Golden Hill by Francis Spufford. Manhattan 1746. Richard Smith, a young handsome man, appears at a counting house after a long voyage from London. He has a note for an extremely large sum to be paid to him in sixty days. Everyone is wary because his plans for the money are secret. Smith finds New-York gritty and dark where a sense of morality seems out of place. During the days he awaits payment, Smith has many misadventures as a result of bad luck and bad choices. Especially his love for a combative clever girl. But in the end. He rights some wrongs. Historical redemption. A beautifully written read.

Speaking of horrific wrongs. Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is named for a journalist who turned activist protecting the Everglades. As with the shooting in her eponymous school, journalists converged to report the story. Yet they lost objectivity and immediately became anti-gun activists, even going so far as to exploit students in shock. It’s okay to have opinions. Editorialize. Show sadness in the face of tragedy. But do it after the story has been reported. And tell your audience that it’s an opinion piece. Not news.

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Serpentine Shifts

The Golden Globes. Hats off to the few women who represented true individualism by not conforming to walking the red carpet in black. What’s the point when you pose and strut and remain objectified as a pretty thing anyway? Nicole should have thanked her co-star. Male directors need not have been dissed. Misandry is not the answer to bad behavior by a few jerks. Happy about James Franco. Of course. And Seth Meyers was solid.

The Essex Serpent, a novel by Sarah Perry. An amorphous Ness. Meant to be a Victorian Gothic homage, it didn’t quite manage either. Science, medicine, modernity dispelled the gossamer blue fog along a rural estuary where the mythic serpent was reportedly glimpsed. The so-called monster never conjured a terror commensurate with the village’s reaction. Perry draws her characters well. They just didn’t seem to belong in the same story together. A good read, but don’t agree with all the literary accolades.

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2017

GOOD

Dr. Husband’s great photos every year

TV–
Schitt’s Creek
Big Little Lies
October on the Forks

Lots of Fun Theater-
Liev Schreiber- Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Cate Blanchett- The Present
Amy Schumer- Meteor Shower
Uma Thurman- The Parisian Woman, liaisons undangerous
Mark Rylance in Farinelli & the King

BAD

Petulant Adolescent President
Media’s Russia obsession
Democrats shallow bench & lack of message
Snowflakes against free speech
Hurricanes & Fires
Twin Peaks redux sucked
Pets overrunning public places

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In a Nutshell

Golf Ball. President’s Cup. A yawn of vanilla look-alike Americans vs. unknown international team. Ex-Prez’s Billy, George, Barack together. Hey. It’s right across the river at Liberty National. NFL has taken a knee financially as controversy sorts itself while the real crime of physical injuries sidelined. These days it’d be good to be confined inside a nutshell.

As Hamlet lamented to Rosnecrantz and Gildenstern:  “O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”

Ian McEwan took this as his conceit for Nutshell, a novel. Our latest book group pick. Some of us liked it more than others. A fetus’ view from the womb. Premise a bit ludicrous. Some ludic moments. A long short story that seemed meant more to expound on the global issues of his time, McEwan’s pedantic take on Mother earth being poisoned, North Korea, Iran, race, religion. Unborn nugget sees what’s wrong in his own upcoming life and the world at large.

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Hillary’s List

Hillary Clinton’s new book. What Happened? An in-depth catharsis about why she stunningly lost the election to that “reality star clown” Donald Trump. It clearly wasn’t her fault.

On her blame list: James Comey. Vlad Putin. Julian Assange. Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden. Matt Lauer. Mark Zuckerberg. Baskets of deplorable men. Well. All white men. Plus Barack Obama. So. What happened? Men happened. Of course.

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Deuces Wild

Wild storm. Hurricane Irma dodging around Florida defying predictions. Covering the entire peninsula. Relentless. Tenacious. Meanwhile. NFL season has begun. Wobbling on whether or not to keep watching. Patriots game was riddled with injury interruptions. Half of Sunday’s pregames are dedicated to who will be benched for various broken bones, torn muscles, not to mention concussions. It has gotten close to criminal.

Speaking of risks. New York in the ’70’s. Garth Risk Hallberg’s novel City on Fire makes a fair attempt at shining a light on the dark corners of that era in the City. Tonight, HBO’s The Deuce will focus on the porn industry when Times Square was a combat zone.

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Summer Clunkers

Beach reads not even worth the reviews. Chick lit lite. At best. The Heirs, Susan Rieger. A superficial soap opera with implausible scenarios. Ditto. The Arrangement, Sarah Dunn. You guessed it. A couple with an autistic boy decides to set ground rules for cheating on each other for six months. Of course. It all goes wrong. Syrupy in the end.

Ray Donovan. This season better get better. Fast. Devolved into maudlin slow episodes. Last week of GOT. No! Good thing it’s gorgeous weather. Tavern on the Green patio. Or. Bringing our own chairs to watch eclipse, read, have lunch in the park. Yes!

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GOT Books?

Game of Thrones returns. After reviewing the last two episodes of gory wars, exploding bodies, and dogs’ ravenous dinner of Ramsay, Season 7 began. It couldn’t get grosser, could it? Oh yes. How does a library become a cesspool. Literally. There are tomes and turds galore. And.

Speaking of bad reads. Leaving Lucy Pear, Solomon’s “mother load” touted by WaPo, is a dud.

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Literary Mind Craft

The Night Ocean, by Paul La Farge. I’m not sure. It kept me rapt. Author clearly had lots of things to work through. Personally. Maybe. Literarily many unfinished stories found their way into this dense work. Sprawling disjointed tales of several complex people in different times and places. Spaces. Told from a woman’s point of view, Marina the shrink, working out her own issues. The author gave her an authentic voice. It begins as her husband Charlie disappears into Agawam Lake in the Berkshires. H.S. Lovecraftian fandom less clear. More context necessary for those not acquainted with this cult of science-fiction-horror genre. Nonetheless. Worth the meandering page-turning journey. Lots to think about. La Farge’s New Yorker view.

Speaking of mind-bending. Twin Peaks so far is a self-indulgent David Lynchian acid trip with no redeeming plot value. Vomitaceous. Literally.