2007 Reviews
S5 is yet another classic that I missed earlier in my life. (Yeah, I had a fairly shitty education in classical literature, why do you ask?) Going in, I knew that it was about Vonnegut's experience as a POW during the bombing of Dresden in World War II and that in my FPOW it was kept in the science fiction collection. The story of Billy Pilgrim brings to the fore the madness of war, including the madness it brings upon the poor souls unfortunate enough to get caught in its grasp. The novel is a bit wacky, involving time travel on the part of the protagonist and alien abduction. The combination of science fiction and realism makes the horror of the topic somewhat more palatable, not that being displayed in a zoo for aliens is all that happy a fate. But even those passages have a serious theme to bring to the reader. I now understand why this book is among the classics of American literature.
McCall Smith presents number 9 in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series about Botswana detective Mma Ramotswe and the people and land of Botswana. Everything moves slowly there, and the storylines are no exception generally speaking. In this installment, a few story arcs were glossed over too quickly for my taste (people falling in love in a matter of days, a thread of character development that was never addressed again). However, these small flaws don't mean that the books still aren't worth a read, especially for fans of the series.
Eugster's autobiographical tale recounts her life in a Virginia commune in the late 60s, early 70s. The twist: She was just 9 years old at the time, and her mother -- the founder of the commune -- moved Sandra and her two older sisters from a somewhat normal middle-class life in Baltimore to a cabin in the Shenandoah Mountains. Much of the book related to how thin the line was between freedom and neglect, and how adults can neglect their responsibilities in the pursuit of higher fulfillment. It wasn't usually a pretty picture from the outside, and often you'll want to slap Sandra's mother across the room. But the story is also about how family is made, and how it can be taken away. I'd recommend this for anyone interested in the counterculture era while it was happening as well as the aftermath.
I tend to like Bonewits as an author, as he comes at the topic from the dual position of researcher and practitioner. Frankly, I think he cuts through a lot of the utter bullshit one finds in the pagan literature and sounds like he has half a brain in his head, which can be fairly rare. He also has a biting sense of humor and isn't afraid to amuse as he informs. This book, a follow-up to his earlier book on paganism, is no exception. Here he combines historical information about druids and Druids throughout history with a look at the neodruid organizations that exist today, how they developed, what they believe, and how they practice. The book is capped off by a solid collection of appendixes and a lengthy annotated guide to further reading on the topic. If you're interested in Druidism, I'd start here.
This was my first foray into Bohjalian's novels, and I loved this book. In terms of plot, he presents the stories of various individuals and groups making their way across Germany in the last months of World War II: a family of aristocratic Prussian farmers and the Scottish POW who not only has fallen in love with the daughter but is also their passport to safety with the Allies, a Jew who escaped from a train headed to a concentration camp and now survives by taking the identities of the German soldiers he has killed, and a group of women from a slave-labor camp being marched to a factory farther west. At a deeper level, the book is about the combination of deliberate malfeasance and willful ignorance that led to the rise of the Reich and the Holocaust, about making family, and about survival. The historical aspects are all well-researched, and the different stories are inspired by actual events.
Snow White, Blood Red edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling. 1993.
This book marks the first in a series of fairy tales by modern authors, such as Tanith Lee, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, and Patricia A. McKillip. Some are modern takes on old stories, some are new stories in the fairy tale genre, but almost all are worth the read.
Challenge Book: Translated fiction
Schlink's novel is not formulaic in any traditional sense, so for the first 50 pages or so, you have little idea as to where the author is going with it. However, you don't mind because it is that interesting and well-written (or, rather, well-translated). In later chapters, you realize the narrator is on a quest of sorts, and again you are pulled into Peter's journey through time (e.g., the history of postwar Germany) and life. The novel is a deep one, with lot of themes intertwining: part philosophical treatise, part mystery, part self-journey.
A collection of previously unpublished short stories regarding topics he frequently addressed in his writing -- war and peace -- this work demonstrates why Vonnegut was one of the most important American writers of the modern era. The works range from funny yet serious to horrifying. The book is illustrated with doodles that pack as much punch as the prose. An incredible addition to literary canon.
I almost didn't read this book -- Englert's second featuring dog detective Randolph -- because of the neglect the lab experiences at the hands of his clueless, grieving owner, Harry, in the first few chapters. I stuck with it, though. The story of Harry and Randolph's search for the missing Imogen takes some even more convoluted turns with this book, and the book doesn't have quite the cleverness, creativity, and humor of the first. The mystery is a bit thin as well, with too few details and then a quick "rolling out" of the answers. However, Randolph is still the shining star of these books, and his commentary on the events unfolding around him as well as life in general are worth the price of admission. Here's hoping that Englert can recapture some of the magic of the original in the third book.
Part autobiography, part sociological study, this book looks at the collective silence in Germany about individual responsibility and action during the era of the Third Reich, particularly that of German parents with their post-war children and the impact that silence had on those children. The author, born in 1946, mingles her own experience with interviews and research. Among the specific topics addressed include culpability in the rise of the Reich, German cultural mores in regard to obedience and parenting ideals, the post-war education system, the author's love of all things American, and how her parents' backgrounds impacted their own actions during the war. A quick but fascinating reflection.
Kunstler here presents a different sort of apocalyptic novel. It's not the Russkies or the Infidels that destroy American society but rather American society itself, which proves itself unsustainable once the oil dries up. This takes place perhaps 10 years after the new world begins in an upstate New York town first decimated by the downfall of modernity and then by influenzas and other diseases. Areas of the country that haven't been destroyed outright by hurricane (Manhattan) or nuclear arms (Washington, D.C.), have moved back 200 years in time as the energy required to run the technology and the machines no longer exists. Governments are no more, and each community is a jurisdiction unto itself. The protagonist is a former exec who now works as a carpenter. Because paper money is worthless, his work earns materials and services through an informal barter system. His wife and daughter have died; his son has left to see what's left of the country. But the life he has built, and the lives of all thsoe in Union Grove, will shift again through a variety of events: a murder by a member of a scavenger gang, the purchase of the former high school building by a religious sect escaping racial troubles in the South, and the disappearance of a boat crew and the goods they were carrying downriver to Albany. Kunstler provides a fascinating and frightening look at an all-too-imaginable future.
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Smith provides a fascinating look inside Stalin-era Soviet life in the guise of a murder mystery. The protagonist is an agent in the MGB, the secret police force, who becomes involved in a search for a serial killer who murders children along thousands of miles of railway. A jealous colleague sets in motion the events that allow him to conduct an unofficial investigation, unofficial because the state considers murder to be impossible in the perfect Communist society, making anyone believing a murder to have occurred an enemy of the state. Along his journey, emotional as well as literal, the reader experiences the Soviet Union at multiple levels: the day-to-day impact of Communism on regular citizens' lives, the long-term impacts of fear on the populace, the physicality of the landscape, and the juxtaposition of the ideals that are the public face of the government and the people with reality.
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