Mr. Joel

I’ve been thinking about books again. I know. I only ever seem to come here when I have been thinking about books. Mostly about my problems with digital books. These revolve around the fact that some of my favorite things about physical books are things that digital books just cannot do well. However I do look forward to the day when some one (let’s face it, probably Apple) will roll out the e-reader that is just right for me. Because there are things that digital books do and will do much better than the paper and ink versions. There is the obvious ability to have a library without the shelves, the glory of being able to look stuff up as you go, and getting another book to read right now. But I want more.

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A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Wild Sheep Chase is the fourth Murakami novel that I have read and the earliest. It is also the first of Murakami’s novels to have received wide international acclaim. The novel is broken up into multiple parts, eight in all, but really there are only two main parts, the observational character development describing the narrator’s relationships with his wife and then his new girlfriend and the sheep chasing adventure. I found it weak story telling that the slow clear description from the first bit of the book did not reoccur as the narration unfolded. Murakami must have too, in his later books he overlaps the two styles with much greater success.

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Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My father got me this book; he was really enjoying it and wanted to know what I thought. After reading it I see that he didn’t really want someone to talk with, he wanted someone to gossip with. Now it’s true, once I started it I couldn’t put it down. That’s because it’s like The West Wing, but real life. Well, and in a book. The rubber-necker in me really wanted to know how Hillary took to Obama’s absurdly quick rise to national prominence and, most of all, exactly what thought process lead to Sarah Palin as the VP nominee. And, as well as it can, this book delivers. Most of the quote are unattributed and the sources are unnamed, but he fact that this book has gotten as much publicity as it has without anyone raising their hackles at it leads me to believe that the reporting is right on. And what reporting it must have taken to piece together all the information it took to make this book. The authors conducted over 200 interviews.

The news cycle being what it is, all of the events in this book seem like they are in the distant past. While reading it, I was constantly being struck by just how amazing the last presidential race was. The knock down drag out Democratic nomination. McCain’s amazing comeback. The release of Sarah Palin . The economic meltdown. Let alone the fact that however you cut it, this was a race of epically historic proportions. I was constantly amazed that I lived through this.

In the end nobody comes out of this looking good. The entitlement assumed by the Clintons is staggering. Hillary was putting together a transition team, in charge of moving her and her staff into the White House, before she had even secured the nomination. McCain’s selection of Palin is almost painful to read about. She was selected to be a media ‘wow’ moment, and her debut at the RNC was all that and more, but when it became clear that she was not ready for a national campaign and had no idea what she was getting into when she said yes she was abandoned by the main campaign. And then there is the crazy story of the downfall of John Edwards. whew.

Although it comes in at just over 430 pages this book felt like a surface level read. It spends most of its time on the Democratic nomination fight. The pages dedicated to the Republican nomination seem cursory at best. I was left wanting so much more. It just scrapes the surface of almost every topic it touches. There should be dissertations written about Obama’s fundraising machine and McCain’s campaign belly-flop. There probably will be and I look forward to reading those too.

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Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best books about the Civil War, or the War Between the States if we northerners are being polite, that I’ve ever read. But really, that’s because it’s not about the Civil War at all. Instead, Tony Horwitz studies the footprint left by the Civil War and how we are still facing most, if not all, of the important issues of the war. This book is not an academic study, it is more of a travel story: one man’s journey into history, beginning with his childhood fascination with the war and ending with, well, more experience but very few conclusions. But I’m okay with that, because these issues, race, heritage, and the interpretation and misinterpretation of history are not the kind of things that we never really do reach conclusions on, ever. I found this book is a satisfying read anyway, because it illuminated many points of view that I had no real understanding of before.

Raised and educated in the north I never really understood the glory of the romantic south. I remember watching Gone with the Wind with my father. He would grow soft and sigh and Scarlett’s fortitude. I turned to him and asked

“Why do people like this movie?”

“Because it reminds them of a lost time, of something they can never really get back.”

“But they were wrong, and they lost.”

The conversation died there. I clearly didn’t get it and my father did not want to push the point with his ten year old. That I was sitting through a cinematic epic that did not contain spaceships was enough of a victory. I high school we were taught about how the Confederate states were well within their right to secede, but we didn’t dwell on it. The AP was in May and we had a lot of ground to cover. I get it now Scarlett. You were one classy lady. I understand why some people want to fly the Confederate flag over state houses and why some people weep at the sight of it. This is a story told in the only way it can be told, shades of Confederate gray.

Every chapter and story is interesting and worth reading. I felt that the amount of time spent with the hardcore re-enactors lagged a bit, but it definitely wasn’t bad or boring. It just seemed like these guys were deluding themselves, searching for their “period rush”, while so many other things were going on around them in the contemporary world. Undoubtably that was one of the points.

I know that the attitudes and personalities recored here do not form a majority in the south today (especially that of arch hardcore re-enactor Robert Lee Hodges); but it does seem like they permeate southern culture. I wonder how how many of these attitudes have changed in the ten plus years since this book was published. I imagine not much.

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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Perfume is the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man born without a scent but with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. It’s a murder story, but it is not all about the murder, victims, or evidence. There is no brilliant or cunning detective here. It is a period piece, set in the eighteenth century, yet does not feel overly historical. It’s a magic realism examination of the overlooked world of scent.

The main character, Grenouille, is not sympathetic. He is as cold hearted as he is talented. His motives are simple, create the the most appealing scent so that he can be loved by all. I found myself uninterested in the characters and most of the plot, I found that it drags in the first half f the book, yet drawn in by the vivid description of the smells, the people and, later, unlikely circumstances of the novel. It was similar to my experience reading Candide in high school, but without the complex social satire.

Though a very enjoyable and interesting read, in the end it came to more of a ‘hu’ than a ‘wow’.

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I know that this is a subject that has been raked over a more than hot coals in hell, but it’s something I have been thinking about recently. As tinabeans set off into the Atlantic with her iphone and her Kindle I found myself swallowing a surprising amount of ire at digital readers. And I’ve realized, what my main point of annoyance is. You can’t share them.

Now, I don’t mean that in a DRM is awful if only we could just boink our readers together so I could give you the book or upload it and send it to you somewhere or isn’t it horrible how you don’t own your Kindle books, you’ve only licensed them and they could disappear without you knowing about it (though I don’t like those things either now that you mention it). I mean that if I’m backpacking through Europe I can’t leave an ebook on a hostel shelf in Paris and take a new one. I read forty books in the summer of 2009 while I was traveling. I started with seven, bought four more in Europe and came home with three. One of those I kept the other two were given to friends. The rest are still out there.

Here are all the books that I have acquired in the four months I have been in nyc:

That’s thirteen books. I’m not speaking with any kind of authority here, but that seems like rather a lot. Now of those thirteen two have been gifts, and I’ve paid for one of them. The others were free. Here in nyc when people are done with books, or anything small thing that still got some use in it, they set it out on their stoop for people to take. I love it. Ten free books. Just left out for me to take. And it’s not like I’ve picked up every homeless book that I’ve seen, I’ve actually left far more than I’ve picked up. In addition, they’re good books. Books from authors I’ve heard of or have been meaning to read for a while now. Now most of these books are not books that I want to keep, but that’s fine. When I’m done with them I will simply leave them out for others to take or trade them for other books the next time I am out traveling in the world. That’s what I like about books. Now, yeah sometimes it would be great to look up a fact or word while I’m reading but I can usually do that with my iphone and if I can’t I’m usually in the middle of nowhere and a Kindle couldn’t help with that either. tinabeans pointed out that Kindles are good for nonfiction books that you read once and are done with and that’s true. But if I’m home I can get that book from the library and if I’m not I’ll cough up some money and take it with me traveling with the intent to trade it for another book.

There are other things I don’t like about ebooks. That they’re crap for art books is an easy and obvious one. Another thing is that you can’t get them signed. I don’t like to admit that, who likes to admit to celebrity fetishes, but being able to get a book signed or inscribe it to someone else gives me immense satisfaction. But really, my main gripe is that you can’t set ebooks free when you are done with them.

[Edit: Also http://www.offbeatearth.com/quiet-at-the-library/]

When You Lunch with the Emperor: The Adventures of Ludwig Bemelmans by Ludwig Bemelmans

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a charming little book of short essays by Ludwig Bemelmans drawn from the lifetime he spent working in the entertainment and hospitality industries. I think the jacket bio gives an accurate idea of what to expect from this book: “Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) wrote more than forty books, including the beloved Madeline books. He wrote for Hollywood, owned restaurants, designed sets for Broadway, and painted everything from magazine covers to hotel frescos. Born in the Austrian Tyrol, he was sent to America at the age of sixteen after he shot a headwaiter at his uncle’s hotel.”

The essays are loosely organized into three sections, childhood, work, and play. Which is good because without this structure the book would jump around wildly be pretty much unreadable. Though some of the essays are a bit tedious, on the whole they are amusing little stories that provide insight into life at the beginning of the 20th century. They have an charming rhythm, typical of someone for whom English is a second or third language. As well as a rather dry quiet humor. I think this would be just the thing to give to an older child who has grown out of Madeline, it is just the kind of thing I would have enjoyed in middle school, or a any grown up who likes to read books in front of a fire or before bed.

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The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Master and the Margarita is a series of parables wound around the devil’s visit to Moscow. The story starts when Berlioz and the poet Homeless encounter the foreigner Woland, later revealed to be the devil, in the park and try to convince him of his non existence. This encounter leads Woland and his entourage, Koroviev the “ex-choir master,” Azazello the sharpshooter, and Behemoth, the giant black cat, to the MASSOLIT organization, their apartment building, and the Variety Theatre. Where they wreak all kinds of havoc. Along the way Homless is taken to the insane asylum where he meets the Master, a persecuted writer separated from his lover the married Margarita. In the second half of the book the devil invites Margarita to play hostess at his Walpurgis night ball. Throughout the stories are linked by the tale of Jesus and Pontius Pilot.

I found the book difficult to follow. I had a hard time keeping the characters strait. It seemed like people would come and go without mention and unknown characters would interject suddenly. Although that could be the fact that I am not good with Russian names and that when it seemed like a character spoke up without ever being introduced, I simply missed the fact that the character was in the room the whole time. Also the prose seemed rough and clunky some how. I often had difficulty following the action. The wording seemed a little off. This could have been me or the translation. I read this book with only a passing knowledge of Soviet history, but even so I think that that was enough to understand the broad commentary of this book. Even if I missed the details, a rough understanding of purges, loyalty, false loyalty, and the feeling of betrayal by the system is enough to ground the story. I also missed the fact that the ball on Walpurgis night coincides with good Friday. The linking points of the story go askew if you miss this fact. So make sure you know that before picking up this book. You will feel better for it.

I guess the story just never really grabbed me. The characters all seemed too much like symbols rather than fully formed beings. While it’s obvious that this book is meant as an ironic parable and bitter social commentary, that fact hangs around it’s neck rather than rising gracefully out of the pages. It simply feels stiff. Maybe that’s part of the point, that you can’t miss it. That’s fine, and really does suit the subject matter and time when this was written, and I do feel more knowledgeable and well rounded having read it, but I did not find it to be an enjoyable read.

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Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 - Aug. 5, 1944; Revised by John Keegan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this book because I was preparing to go on a trip to visit the D-Day beaches and my knowledge of the invasion was embarrassingly scant. I had only what I remembered from high school history (next to nothing) and what I gathered from watching Band of Brothers all the way through at least seven times (more than I realized). What drew me to this book was its length, I was going to be backpacking and couldn’t afford the weight of most surveys of the subject, and its perspective. I wanted a broader view of the invasion and this book delivered. Keegan gives and overview of the commanders in allied high command as well as highlighting each of the ‘armies’ that fought in Normandy. I write ‘armies’ because two of the forces he described, the free French and the Polish soldiers, were hardly full armies but did their duty to its fullest.

I enjoyed Keegan’s writing as well as his perspective. He was a child during the Second World War so he has some recollection of the war years, but not the harrowed memories of the soldier nor the removed historical perspective of the scholar. This is not a tight work of historical analysis, but an overview of how the armies functioned, the differences in their leadership, and how they worked together to achieve victory. This book begins with the formation of the allied high command and ends with the liberation of Paris. It also includes a chapter speculating on the future battlefields in Europe that will be created by the Cold War which in hindsight is an interesting, though thankfully incorrect, piece of speculation.

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The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Eric Weiner is a grump. Despite this, he sets out on a journey to find out what makes people happy in the most statistically happy places in the world. In each place he highlights what he thinks it is that makes that place so happy. In Iceland it’s the ability to fail without being ashamed, in Switzerland it’s the ability to enjoy boredom, and in Qatar it’s the fact that the country won the petroleum jackpot. Each anecdote is enjoyable and, though not earth shattering, gave me something to consider when I think about what my style of happiness is and how I can realize that in how I relate to the world.

My main problem with this book is that it is one of those ’studies show that’ kind of books. Although Weiner is cognizant of the difference between causation and correlation, which does give his book more solid footing than others, it is still the kind of book that lasts in the long term research wise or provides what I would consider an adequate number of footnotes. But nevermind that, because it is not that kind of book. It is the kind of book written so that anyone can learn a little about the study of happiness and, perhaps, learn a few things that will make them happier too.

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