The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
by John Boyne
Nope, it wasn't the best choice. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was left in my classroom over the summer; it's an award winning children's book, so I tried reading it sometime in September during class. I was immediately intrigued because it gives absolutely no information on the jacket -- it says it's about a young boy and a fence, and hopes that the reader never has to deal with a fence like that. So I started reading it while trying to get my lame students to read silently in class, and within the first few chapters I got that it was a nine-year-old named Bruno who lived in Berlin, and whose father had some military job. Then it made some mention of the Fury coming over for dinner, and it took me a few repetitions before I got it: Fuhrer. As in Adolph Hitler. The father gets transferred to a job with great big responsibility, to some place the kid and his sister call Out-With. Yeah: in German that would be Aus, and Mit. A kid's version of Auschwitz.
So I wanted to read the book since then, and it's been sitting next to my computer at school, just winking at me. Well, then I finished Maltese right before going to school, and I had a book to read with class -- but then I saw this one, and I just couldn't turn it down this time. So I read it.
It was very good. The author did a wonderful job of portraying the Holocaust from a kid's point of view, the son of the Auschwitz camp Commandant. He showed not only how ridiculous the whole thing was, how obscenely illogical and foolish, and thus showed that once you got out of the propaganda and furor and hoopla, the whole thing just falls apart. There's a great scene when the kid falls and hurts himself, and the inmate who cuts up the vegetables for the family's dinner is the only one home; he comes running out and picks up the kid and cleans up his cut, and does a great job. And you know the whole time that this man is a Jew serving in the household of a Nazi, and could easily be forgiven for letting the kid suffer until his Aryan mother comes home. But he doesn't. And when the kid, hoping for a good story and maybe some pity, says that he thinks he needs to go to the doctor, the man says he'll be fine -- and he knows because he was a doctor. It makes you love and hate humanity, at the same time.
Of course, this is not, as you can imagine, a happy book, and it was probably not the best choice to follow on the heels of Dashiell Hammett's little fun fest. Here's the thing: as evil as the ending of the Maltese Falcon was, this one is worse. And as evil as you might imagine the ending of this book is, it's worse. As bleak as you could wish for, in a book for children about the Holocaust.
So next I'm reading something happy, damnit. Come hell or high water.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Book #12
The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett
I did the Big Read, the NEA's promotion of a classic novel, intended to be a national book club. This year it was Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, which I've never read before and which my superintendent (The near-psychotic Judith Custy) wanted us to teach to our classes (I don't think so).
Here's what was good about it: Sam Spade is a great character. The villains were outstanding, both in their strengths and especially in their weaknesses; this was one of the only books I've read that captured a realistic competence and incompetence on both sides of this equation. The villains pull a couple of great tricks, but Spade manages to manhandle almost all of them at different times with relative ease, and they say and do a couple of stupid things; and while Spade catches them in their stupidity most of the time, they did nail him with the trip down to Burlingame, and he does lose at the end. Then there were two of the best analogies I've ever seen: a fat man moving compared to a cluster of bubbles hanging off the end of the bubble pipe that blew them, and the line that something disappeared "like your fist when you open your hand." That's just a fantastic line.
Here's what was bad about it: The ending was entirely too evil. Entirely. Completely. I hate Hammett for writing it, and Americans and literati for approving of it by making the book a classic. That was a vile, horrible, cruel way to wrap this up. Gah. Now I need to read something nice to get the taste out of my mouth.
Crap -- I'm reading a book about Auschwitz. Probably not the best choice.
by Dashiell Hammett
I did the Big Read, the NEA's promotion of a classic novel, intended to be a national book club. This year it was Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, which I've never read before and which my superintendent (The near-psychotic Judith Custy) wanted us to teach to our classes (I don't think so).
Here's what was good about it: Sam Spade is a great character. The villains were outstanding, both in their strengths and especially in their weaknesses; this was one of the only books I've read that captured a realistic competence and incompetence on both sides of this equation. The villains pull a couple of great tricks, but Spade manages to manhandle almost all of them at different times with relative ease, and they say and do a couple of stupid things; and while Spade catches them in their stupidity most of the time, they did nail him with the trip down to Burlingame, and he does lose at the end. Then there were two of the best analogies I've ever seen: a fat man moving compared to a cluster of bubbles hanging off the end of the bubble pipe that blew them, and the line that something disappeared "like your fist when you open your hand." That's just a fantastic line.
Here's what was bad about it: The ending was entirely too evil. Entirely. Completely. I hate Hammett for writing it, and Americans and literati for approving of it by making the book a classic. That was a vile, horrible, cruel way to wrap this up. Gah. Now I need to read something nice to get the taste out of my mouth.
Crap -- I'm reading a book about Auschwitz. Probably not the best choice.
Book #11
Twilight
by Stephanie Meyer
Because Toni quite liked it, and because I wanted to use it as something of an example for my students who are starting their book reports, I read Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I was a little apprehensive that it would be a stupid teenaged narrator, since that's what Hairstyles featured, but it wasn't. I quite liked it, as well, though it was a violation of my most basic belief about vampire books: vampires should be monsters. These vampires are magnificent, not only beautiful and sexy and young and immortal and powerful and deadly, but also possessing special gifts such as telepathy or clairvoyance, able to go out into the sunlight (and when they do they sparkle like diamonds) and smelling nice enough to drive girls wild. And while that makes sense for a romance, it does leave me feeling a little resentful: I feel like the author is denigrating humanity by making non-humans so much more in every possible way than we could ever be, and then comparing the two directly. It seems the only flaw in a vampire's life is the need to kill human beings -- oh, wait. These guys don't even do that. Well, they have to live alone and watch their loved ones die -- oh, wait. No, they can turn their loved ones and have the perfect mate for eternity, which six of the seven featured vampires have done (The odd man out being our hero, who has, of course, found the love of his life.). It seems that the only flaw in being a vampire is that it hurts to turn into one. Except for the girl who doesn't remember that, of course. So every time I read about some other magical thing that Edward or his family could do, I was a little more irritated, though I did relate better to Bella because of it, since she reacted as I would have: she gets a little miffed and keeps looking for something, anything that Edward doesn't do better than everyone else on Earth -- and when she can't find anything, she wants to become a vampire. I did like that part, especially since it ended with him protesting that he didn't want to ruin her experience of living, and her saying, "This isn't finished." That was good.
Otherwise, it was a great book; I loved the heroine, I liked her writing, I thought the villain was excellent -- though the end of the villain's big scene was lame; Bella never should have given in that quickly and gone to see him, and he shouldn't have made the hunt so easy by trying to lure her in. If his eternal existence is all about the thrill of the hunt, wouldn't he try to make the hunt more thrilling? Instead of just relying on others to make it harder for him? He doesn't treat it as a game, and he should. So that I didn't like either, though I thought the whole resolution of that -- what he did to Bella, including pounding her around so badly, and how he ended up afterwards, that was good.
So I liked it overall and I look forward to reading the next one. I'm hoping we'll find Edward's big flaw soon. Though I personally think kissing and touching someone as cold as stone is the opposite of thrilling; I just can't see that as attractive.
by Stephanie Meyer
Because Toni quite liked it, and because I wanted to use it as something of an example for my students who are starting their book reports, I read Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I was a little apprehensive that it would be a stupid teenaged narrator, since that's what Hairstyles featured, but it wasn't. I quite liked it, as well, though it was a violation of my most basic belief about vampire books: vampires should be monsters. These vampires are magnificent, not only beautiful and sexy and young and immortal and powerful and deadly, but also possessing special gifts such as telepathy or clairvoyance, able to go out into the sunlight (and when they do they sparkle like diamonds) and smelling nice enough to drive girls wild. And while that makes sense for a romance, it does leave me feeling a little resentful: I feel like the author is denigrating humanity by making non-humans so much more in every possible way than we could ever be, and then comparing the two directly. It seems the only flaw in a vampire's life is the need to kill human beings -- oh, wait. These guys don't even do that. Well, they have to live alone and watch their loved ones die -- oh, wait. No, they can turn their loved ones and have the perfect mate for eternity, which six of the seven featured vampires have done (The odd man out being our hero, who has, of course, found the love of his life.). It seems that the only flaw in being a vampire is that it hurts to turn into one. Except for the girl who doesn't remember that, of course. So every time I read about some other magical thing that Edward or his family could do, I was a little more irritated, though I did relate better to Bella because of it, since she reacted as I would have: she gets a little miffed and keeps looking for something, anything that Edward doesn't do better than everyone else on Earth -- and when she can't find anything, she wants to become a vampire. I did like that part, especially since it ended with him protesting that he didn't want to ruin her experience of living, and her saying, "This isn't finished." That was good.
Otherwise, it was a great book; I loved the heroine, I liked her writing, I thought the villain was excellent -- though the end of the villain's big scene was lame; Bella never should have given in that quickly and gone to see him, and he shouldn't have made the hunt so easy by trying to lure her in. If his eternal existence is all about the thrill of the hunt, wouldn't he try to make the hunt more thrilling? Instead of just relying on others to make it harder for him? He doesn't treat it as a game, and he should. So that I didn't like either, though I thought the whole resolution of that -- what he did to Bella, including pounding her around so badly, and how he ended up afterwards, that was good.
So I liked it overall and I look forward to reading the next one. I'm hoping we'll find Edward's big flaw soon. Though I personally think kissing and touching someone as cold as stone is the opposite of thrilling; I just can't see that as attractive.
Book #10
Hairstyles of the Damned
by Joe Meno
I went a bit, shall we say, more leisurely after that last political tirade, and read Hairstyles of the Damned, by Joe Meno. This is in some ways my own story, since the main character is a kid who is exactly my age, a junior in high school in 1990, who doesn't fit in, listens to heavy metal, is obsessed with girls but has no idea how to deal with them, and so on. It's not exactly my story, since this guy has much more trouble than I did in dealing with his problems, and he fucks up a lot more than I did. Not that I did nothing wrong, but man, this guy does almost nothing right.
I did like the narration; it sounds a lot like me and my own thoughts at that age and time. I liked the music references, though they went a little bit more punk than I ever did. The conversations were perfect, absolutely letter perfect. I loved the D&D scene, since that was exactly like my own experience (except they have a mom who brings them their own favored drinks in their own individualized Star Wars glasses, which they call chalices, and we were never that lucky). I appreciated the way he described the character's feelings about girls, but not the way the character acted with girls; I was that horny, but never that crappy to girls. And I was crappy enough -- this guy goes way too far. It made it hard for me to like him, which made it hard for me to accept his redemption at the end. That went both ways, as well: his friends treat him like crap, and so the way they make up at the end was not good enough for me.
Overall it was very good, but a little bit too dark and depressing. I did, however, absolutely love the lists of best heavy metal band names and horror flicks, as well as the possible ninja movie plots. The magic camouflage nunchucks were priceless.
by Joe Meno
I went a bit, shall we say, more leisurely after that last political tirade, and read Hairstyles of the Damned, by Joe Meno. This is in some ways my own story, since the main character is a kid who is exactly my age, a junior in high school in 1990, who doesn't fit in, listens to heavy metal, is obsessed with girls but has no idea how to deal with them, and so on. It's not exactly my story, since this guy has much more trouble than I did in dealing with his problems, and he fucks up a lot more than I did. Not that I did nothing wrong, but man, this guy does almost nothing right.
I did like the narration; it sounds a lot like me and my own thoughts at that age and time. I liked the music references, though they went a little bit more punk than I ever did. The conversations were perfect, absolutely letter perfect. I loved the D&D scene, since that was exactly like my own experience (except they have a mom who brings them their own favored drinks in their own individualized Star Wars glasses, which they call chalices, and we were never that lucky). I appreciated the way he described the character's feelings about girls, but not the way the character acted with girls; I was that horny, but never that crappy to girls. And I was crappy enough -- this guy goes way too far. It made it hard for me to like him, which made it hard for me to accept his redemption at the end. That went both ways, as well: his friends treat him like crap, and so the way they make up at the end was not good enough for me.
Overall it was very good, but a little bit too dark and depressing. I did, however, absolutely love the lists of best heavy metal band names and horror flicks, as well as the possible ninja movie plots. The magic camouflage nunchucks were priceless.
Book #9
Empire
by Orson Scott Card
I gave in to my weakness for political rhetoric -- probably because it's been more than half a year since I was last on a debating site, and more than a year since I quit Debate Politics, home of the wackiest of conservatives -- and bought Empire, by Orson Scott Card, when we were getting a buy two get one deal from Fred Meyer's. After trying to read Book 10 of the Wheel of Time, which I didn't enjoy reading because I wasn't really in the mood for it and the end of the series is still up in the air, but I felt I should try to read before I forget what happened in book 9, I decided to give this thing a try. So the interesting part is that it's Orson Scott Card, whose writing I like very much -- Alvin Maker and Ender are two of my favorite series -- and the downside is, apparently OSC is a die-hard conservative, who believes Bush has done great things for our country by making our military strong again and using our might to combat the deadly threat of Islamic terrorism, despite the whining of European intellectuals who don't admit how lucky they are that we are around to save their asses, and despite the treasonous actions of liberals here in the US, whose opposition to the war has done great harm to our mighty and courageous troops. At least, that's the kind of crap he says in the book.
Reading Empire was like that from start to finish: I still like Card's writing, especially the way he does action scenes; one of the more exciting writers I know. I like the characters he creates (for the most part) and I like the way he leaves endings open while still wrapping up the main storyline. But goddamn, did I get sick of reading right-wing propaganda about how worthless and vile and stupid all liberals are, how nobody who has any brains or balls would ever support the left. He tried to disavow any allegiance to either side of the divide in his Author's Note, claiming that the greatest threat to America is the extremists on either side, particularly the rhetoric that both sides use to castigate each other, but it was tough to swallow his serene distance after reading all the mud he slung at liberals. It's pretty clear that he saw this book as an opportunity to get some payback on what he sees as the liberal media's domination of spin in this country (This despite some nods in the book to Fox as the preferred news outlet for the men of the armed forces, a seemingly neutral comment except for the fact that everyone in this book falls into two categories: rightwing conservative military men, and scum. He also makes Bill O'Reilly look fair and balanced [He has a Fox executive say that in all earnestness, by the by] and like a reasonable man who's just looking to broadcast the truth in order to serve his fellow man.) and that's exactly what he tries to do.
In terms of the plot, it would be reasonable except for one thing: in this world, a billionaire liberal funds an armed insurrection in the US, taking over New York City and using this as a jumping-off point for a full revolution, asking the state legislatures to disavow the government in Washington and join with the Progressive movement. This is never going to happen, regardless of conservative paranoia and the hurt feelings of right-wingers like Card who are sick of hearing that they are the ones who are dangerous to the country and not the Left. I hate to say it, Orson old pal, but it's true: I could see the Left taking over the government through elections, and maybe even going too far towards despotism/oligarchy once they were duly elected, but there's no way that the liberals of this country will ever start the fight. If anyone is going to start a revolution, it's going to be the right wing, or at best the Libertarians et al, assuming we are not meant to see them as conservative, per se. But it ain't ever going to be people like me and my family who break out the guns.
I did realize, after reading this book, that Orson Scott Card apparently subscribes to Ayn Rand's philosophy of human perfection, that a man with sufficient talent and ambition can become so perfect in every way that not only can that person make the entire world dance to his tune, but we should be glad to do so. The war in this book is apparently fomented single-handedly by the true hero, the unparalleled genius who seeks to take over the US in order to begin the movement away from the American Republic and towards the American Empire, exactly as the Romans did. And though it seems that this may be an evil thing to do, it's also fairly clear that Card is rooting for this, as the apparent hero has great admiration for the magnificence of the Great Man who would become Augustus (that's what the hero calls the Great Man, because we don't believe in subtlety here), and since the apparent hero is such a magnificent person in every possible way -- fit, brilliant, honorable, heroic, virile, and the perfect friend, father, husband, and team leader -- the person that he admires? Surely that man must be like unto a god. Even if he is trying to become a despot, dammit, that's the kind of despotism that would make America the greatest country in the world! Oh, if only we had a perfect tyrant to take over and make everything good again!
Alas.
by Orson Scott Card
I gave in to my weakness for political rhetoric -- probably because it's been more than half a year since I was last on a debating site, and more than a year since I quit Debate Politics, home of the wackiest of conservatives -- and bought Empire, by Orson Scott Card, when we were getting a buy two get one deal from Fred Meyer's. After trying to read Book 10 of the Wheel of Time, which I didn't enjoy reading because I wasn't really in the mood for it and the end of the series is still up in the air, but I felt I should try to read before I forget what happened in book 9, I decided to give this thing a try. So the interesting part is that it's Orson Scott Card, whose writing I like very much -- Alvin Maker and Ender are two of my favorite series -- and the downside is, apparently OSC is a die-hard conservative, who believes Bush has done great things for our country by making our military strong again and using our might to combat the deadly threat of Islamic terrorism, despite the whining of European intellectuals who don't admit how lucky they are that we are around to save their asses, and despite the treasonous actions of liberals here in the US, whose opposition to the war has done great harm to our mighty and courageous troops. At least, that's the kind of crap he says in the book.
Reading Empire was like that from start to finish: I still like Card's writing, especially the way he does action scenes; one of the more exciting writers I know. I like the characters he creates (for the most part) and I like the way he leaves endings open while still wrapping up the main storyline. But goddamn, did I get sick of reading right-wing propaganda about how worthless and vile and stupid all liberals are, how nobody who has any brains or balls would ever support the left. He tried to disavow any allegiance to either side of the divide in his Author's Note, claiming that the greatest threat to America is the extremists on either side, particularly the rhetoric that both sides use to castigate each other, but it was tough to swallow his serene distance after reading all the mud he slung at liberals. It's pretty clear that he saw this book as an opportunity to get some payback on what he sees as the liberal media's domination of spin in this country (This despite some nods in the book to Fox as the preferred news outlet for the men of the armed forces, a seemingly neutral comment except for the fact that everyone in this book falls into two categories: rightwing conservative military men, and scum. He also makes Bill O'Reilly look fair and balanced [He has a Fox executive say that in all earnestness, by the by] and like a reasonable man who's just looking to broadcast the truth in order to serve his fellow man.) and that's exactly what he tries to do.
In terms of the plot, it would be reasonable except for one thing: in this world, a billionaire liberal funds an armed insurrection in the US, taking over New York City and using this as a jumping-off point for a full revolution, asking the state legislatures to disavow the government in Washington and join with the Progressive movement. This is never going to happen, regardless of conservative paranoia and the hurt feelings of right-wingers like Card who are sick of hearing that they are the ones who are dangerous to the country and not the Left. I hate to say it, Orson old pal, but it's true: I could see the Left taking over the government through elections, and maybe even going too far towards despotism/oligarchy once they were duly elected, but there's no way that the liberals of this country will ever start the fight. If anyone is going to start a revolution, it's going to be the right wing, or at best the Libertarians et al, assuming we are not meant to see them as conservative, per se. But it ain't ever going to be people like me and my family who break out the guns.
I did realize, after reading this book, that Orson Scott Card apparently subscribes to Ayn Rand's philosophy of human perfection, that a man with sufficient talent and ambition can become so perfect in every way that not only can that person make the entire world dance to his tune, but we should be glad to do so. The war in this book is apparently fomented single-handedly by the true hero, the unparalleled genius who seeks to take over the US in order to begin the movement away from the American Republic and towards the American Empire, exactly as the Romans did. And though it seems that this may be an evil thing to do, it's also fairly clear that Card is rooting for this, as the apparent hero has great admiration for the magnificence of the Great Man who would become Augustus (that's what the hero calls the Great Man, because we don't believe in subtlety here), and since the apparent hero is such a magnificent person in every possible way -- fit, brilliant, honorable, heroic, virile, and the perfect friend, father, husband, and team leader -- the person that he admires? Surely that man must be like unto a god. Even if he is trying to become a despot, dammit, that's the kind of despotism that would make America the greatest country in the world! Oh, if only we had a perfect tyrant to take over and make everything good again!
Alas.
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