Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts

Understanding Hubert Selby Jr. (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) Review

Understanding Hubert Selby Jr. (Understanding Contemporary American Literature)
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Understanding Hubert Selby Jr. (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) ReviewGiles' analysis of Selby's major works offers deep insights into these powerful pieces of literature. He delves into the psychological state of Selby's characters, common themes that run through all the works, allusions to influential literature, and Selby's evolution as a writer and person. His treatments of Last Exit to Brooklyn (Bloomsbury Classic Reads) and Requiem for a Dream: A Novel are especially illuminating.
Giles' observations are clearly expressed and most importantly, he isn't trying to convince you of HIS profundity, which is so common of authors writing this sort of thing. He's focused on the texts and explaining what they mean and how the various elements of the story relate to Selby's overall vision.
My one complaint with Giles' work is that it's short. It's 164 very small pages that you will get through in 1 or 2 reading sessions. That said, the analysis will likely make you re-read Selby's works and deepen your experience of them.Understanding Hubert Selby Jr. (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) Overview

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The Bottom of the Sky Review

The Bottom of the Sky
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The Bottom of the Sky Review"You think a family means more than people in it? If one might kill the other one, which one would you save, Geno?"
William Pack's novel, "The Bottom of the Sky" poses this question early on... ...and answers it in such a way--two ways, actually--that I am lost for the proper word. Brilliant? No. That's on the dust cover. `page turner?' No, that's on the dust cover too. Timely? Well, yeah, but that's on the dust cover. Powerful? Poignant? Naw. People in the know already said that and were stunned.
Stunned. That's it. That's me at the end.
Stunned. Stunning. Stunning. The thesaurus has no suitable synonym for that.
I lost count of the places I wanted to savor again. On page 314, nearly two thirds of the way through, I started taking notes: "... his guts were processing a ball of nails."
You don't get this kind of writing just anywhere; hardly ever in a debut novel.
Page 320: "...I lose this, I become them." Levi's struggle in six words. Page 346: "I don't want my world to contract until I'm all that counts to me." His fear. He was on the way, too. Almost becoming all that counts to himself--much, much earlier, in the parts before I started taking notes.
In chapter 41, I wanted to jump through the book so I could personally strangle Dierdre, whom I started thinking of as `Devildre' because she was so... so... evil.
So read the book. You're a fool if you don't.
You'll be a fool not because you'll miss the word-choices, the rich, rich language few novelists dream of on their best day, even if they have a superb editor like Pack does. Not because you won't find your guts processing nails. Not because you won't confront yourself where you don't want to go in the darkest region of your fear. Or your hopes either, for that matter. And by the way, not because you won't find out what's really, really important in life: It's not the corner office.
Read this book for the education you'll get while you're doing all that.
You'll learn what caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Sound familiar? Recent? I never really understood it until I read "The Bottom of the Sky." William Pack explains it all in terms that will make you seethe even if you think 'sub-prime' is some kind of meat.
Bernie Madoff-like shenanigans on Wall Street: You'll come to understand the culture that makes such things possible in the financial world. The culprits are all here, in "The Bottom of the Sky."
"The Bottom of The Sky" sort of begins and ends in Two Dot, Montana. It's a real place. I've been there. It has a bank, and a hardware store, both vacant, both ghosts of something that never should have been. And a few die-hard residents who don't realize that the whole damn town is a ghost. Two Dot, Montana. Look it up on Yahoo Maps or Google Earth. It's a real place, all right. Real close to the Crazy Mountains--the bottom of the sky.
Young Levi grows up in Roundup, Montana, which is just down the road a piece from Two Dot. His mother collects dryer lint. If you don't shed a tear when you find out what she does with it, you have no heart. Don't hold your breath. You won't find out until the end, nearly.
Levi's the sort of kid who visualizes answers to complex mathematical problems without working it out on paper. As a young man he takes this prodigy--and a wife--with him to the financial world where he works his way up in the mythical firm of Bookman Stuart Securities on the sheer strength of his intellect. Those closest to Levi love him for his honesty and integrity, but some of his Ivy League coworker-superiors-competitors hate his success even though it's making them rich too. Some of them want to stab him in the back for it and take it all for themselves.
Levi brings common sense and honor to his job, but he pays a heavy price. You'll have to read the book to find out just how heavy it really is.
If you do read it, you'll be rewarded by a new understanding of human nature, of human greed, of human love. On top of all that you'll understand what's going on in the financial world at this very moment in time. You'll get an education on that.
William Pack should know. He was there. In Two Dot, and on Wall Street.
"Kill the firm, save the planet." That's one of the answers. There's another. Maybe you'll find a superlative for 'stunning' and write your own review.
Get this book and read it. Then wait until William Pack comes up with another. It will be a blockbuster, because everyone will know him by then.
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ReviewA 24-year-old computer hacker sporting an assortment of tattoos and body piercings and afflicted with Asperger Syndrome or something of the like has been under state guardianship in her native Sweden since she was thirteen. She supports herself by doing deep background investigations for Dragan Armansky, who, in turn, worries the anorexic-looking Lisbeth Salander is "the perfect victim for anyone who wished her ill." Salander may look fourteen and stubbornly shun social norms, but she possesses the inner strength of a determined survivor. She sees more than her word processor page in black and white and despises the users and abusers of this world. She won't hesitate to exact her own unique brand of retribution against small-potatoes bullies, sick predators, and corrupt magnates alike.
Financial journalist Carl Mikael Blomkvist has just been convicted of libeling a financier and is facing a fine and three months in jail. Blomkvist, after a Salander-completed background check, is summoned to a meeting with semi-retired industrialist Henrik Vanger whose far-flung but shrinking corporate empire is wholly family owned. Vanger has brooded for 36 years about the fate of his great niece, Harriet. Blomkvist is expected to live for a year on the island where many Vanger family members still reside and where Harriet was last seen. Under the cover story that he is writing a family history, Blomkvist is to investigate which family member might have done away with the teenager.
So, the stage is set. The reader easily guesses early that somehow Blomkvist and Salander will pool their talents to probe the Vanger mystery. However,Swede Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is no humdrum, formulaic whodunit. It is fascinating and very difficult to put down. Nor is it without some really suspenseful and chillingly ugly scenes....
The issue most saturating The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that of shocking sexual violence primarily against women but not excluding men. Salander and Blomkvist both confront prima facie evidence of such crimes. Larsson's other major constituent elements are corporate malfeasance that threatens complete collapse of stock markets and anarchistic distrust of officialdom to the point of endorsing (at least, almost) vigilantism. He also deals with racism as he spins a complex web from strands of real and imagined history concerning mid-twentieth century Vanger affiliations with Sweden's fascist groups.
But Larsson's carefully calibrated tale is more than a grisly, cynical world view of his country and the modern world at large. At its core, it is an fascinating character study of a young woman who easily masters computer code but for whom human interaction is almost always more trouble than it is worth, of an investigative reporter who chooses a path of less resistance than Salander but whose humanity reaches out to many including her, and of peripheral characters -- such as Armansky -- who need more of their story told.
Fortunately, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in English translation will be followed by two more in the Millennium series: The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Air Castle that Blew Up. I can't wait. Larsson also made a 200-page start on a fourth book, but sadly he succumbed to a heart attack in 2004 and his father decided the unfinished work will remain unpublished.
I recommend this international bestseller to all who eagerly sift new books for challenging intellectual crime thrillers, who luxuriate in immersing themselves in the ambience of a compellingly created world and memorable characters, who soak up financial and investigative minutiae as well as computer hacking tidbits, and who want to share Larsson's crusade against violence and racism.The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Overview

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The Family Fang: A Novel Review

The Family Fang: A Novel
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The Family Fang: A Novel Review
It's such a pleasure when a book catches you totally by surprise....and you're delighted. I had absolutely no idea what to anticipate when THE FAMILY FANG arrived - the title reminded me of the Muensters. Well, yes, the Fangs are certainly an outre family but the plot is nothing short of inventive, spellbinding, and amazing.
Caleb and Camille Fang are performance or conceptual artists who use their two children, Annie and Buster, otherwise known as Child A and Child B, as integral parts of their pieces (think of Buster donning a sparkly gown and wig to win a beauty contest or throwing himself on the floor of a mall and shoving giant handfuls of jelly beans into his mouth when his mother's coat reveals the sweet bounty she has just shoplifted. Or, consider Annie plucking a guitar string and singing along with Buster in pitiful voices as they sit on the street beside a guitar case with a sign in it reading, "Our dog needs an operation. Please help us save him."
To the senior Fangs their art is everything regardless of the toll it may be taking on their children. But eventually the children do grow up and leave home. Each tries to create a life and career for themselves, but are unable to make it work. Left with one choice - to return to their parents' home, Annie and Buster do just that. It begins again with the elder Fangs trying to create performances using their children. But then, quite suddenly, Caleb and Camille vanish at a roadside rest stop. Has something dire happened to them or this just another work of art?
Kevin Wilson has fashioned a wise, witty, fantastic novel, delving into familial relationships, and how actions or non-actions may affect each generation.
- Gail CookeThe Family Fang: A Novel Overview

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Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp: An Interview-Novel with Questions Asked and Answers Recorded by Laszlo Szigeti Review

Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp: An Interview-Novel with Questions Asked and Answers Recorded by Laszlo Szigeti
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Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp: An Interview-Novel with Questions Asked and Answers Recorded by Laszlo Szigeti ReviewIt is hard to see why this is subtitled "An Interview-Novel..." It is definitely an interview--an extensive and interesting one at that. Perhaps it is partially "fiction" if some of his answers are not true to the facts--I'm in no position to say. But it has no feeling of being a novel or any kind of story really. The charm of Hrabal's novels is nowhere evident.Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp: An Interview-Novel with Questions Asked and Answers Recorded by Laszlo Szigeti Overview

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