whirlwind commentary
It occurs to me that I have revisited my general attitude of 6th grade, to wit:
Love reading. Hate writing book reports.
As I am woefully behind, I shall make some veryquick and exceedingly scattershot comments on recent books read:
Creek Mary's Blood - 433 pages; fiction; rating &&&1/2
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 420 pages plus notes; history; rating &&&&1/2 - both by Dee Brown.
These books cover similar ground, and it is heartbreaking. Vindictive exterminatory racism against Native Americans, repeated government betrayal, broken treaty after broken treaty, and ultimately ethnic cleansing. My reaction to both is revulsion against the mores of Manifest Destiny, and smug convictions of Euro-supremacy. Creek Mary's Blood is by far the easier read; Wounded Knee is dense with historical detail, and is arranged geographically rather than chronologically, so historical figures (particularly U.S. military) often are recurring figures in distinct events, and frequent reference to endnotes is necessary.
Curiously, these books combined to make me profoundly reconsider my pro-gun-control stance. Gun control is a good thing in a society that is governed justly and is desirous of eliminating thuggery and violent property abuses by a hardened criminal element. When there is institutional racism, and perfidy regarding human rights and property BY the government and its agents, when specific cultures are designated as subhuman by law as well as popular opinion, it becomes a far less obvious societal boon. If the Indians had not been systematically disarmed - and if those who refused to disarm had not been hunted down as outlaws - they might have had a fighting chance of defending their culture and their lands, and persuading the white settlers and U.S. government to share and not usurp. Instead, they were subjected to genocide because their existence was inconvenient to the majority. It's a sobering lesson in the so-called "integrity" of the American government.
Peyton Place rating &&&&
Return to Peyton Place, rating &1/2, both by Grace Metalious
fiction, 621 pages total
Peyton Place is a re-read, fifteen years or so after my initial reading, but I had never read Return before. And there really was no need to; it is a far inferior book to the original, a disjointed attempt at rehashing and continuing a story that already had hit its climax and had little further to develop - and it doesn't satisfactorily develop a few key points left unexplored in the original, such as the castle built by the town's namesake, a former black slave named Samuel Peyton whose unorthodox presence was an embarassment to the insular townspeople. (Return furthermore commits the consummate sin of completely changing a key character's name - what the HELL? It's sort of like when an actor quits a televised show, and is replaced by a different actor for what we're supposed to believe is the same character. But worse. And so Metalious' writing career that started with a bang ended with a whimper.)
Peyton Place was the original trash American popular novel, a lurid and gritty glimpse behind the closed doors of American life, heralding a new and seminal fiction style, and spawning everything from Valley of the Dolls to steamy and sordid television soap operas, including its own incarnation as a television series that ran for several years in the 1960s. Some of the book's literary pretensions (invocation of the seasons as mood-setting device for the townspeople, for example) feel strained, but once the actual story starts it clicks along in a way that - 52 years after initial publication - is predictable but still topical. One can only imagine the seismic shocks it sent through America in general and small towns in particular in the image-conscious and repressive 1950's, when things like teen sexuality, incest, and domestic abuse weren't exactly the stuff of Father Knows Best.
A final stylistic note: rereading this book, I saw a lot of my own fictional style in it, both the good and the bad. Metalious' voice is both distinctive and very familiar to me. And when it's good, it's easy to read. When it's bad - as in Return to Peyton Place - it's repetitive, prosaic, and dull. A stinging cautionary example to my authorial efforts. :)
Interesting note: apparently Sandra Bullock has been signed to play Metalious in the movie version of her life. We'll see how much renewed interest and outrage the movie provokes among the small-town, keeping-up-appearances folks.
Budding Prospects - 326 pages, rating &&&&
A Friend of the Earth - novel, 349 pages, rating &&&&
After the Plague - short stories, 303 pages, rating &&&&& - all by T.C. Boyle
Boyle excels in these books, his quirky, shady, or marginal characters springing to life with clarity and a sympathetic appeal, even when they're behaving abominably and/or illegally. Budding Prospects details a pot-farming operation gone awry; Friend of the Earth explores the psyche and actions of an eco-terrorist; the short stories of Plague are populated by both ordinary and extraordinary folks, acting in ordinary ways under extraordinary, even crisis circumstances, and generally failing some moral test - while gaining our wholehearted empathy, if not reminding us disturbingly of our own weaknesses, failings, lapses in judgment, and casual cruelties.
Set mostly in New York State and central California, mostly in the late 20th to mid-21st centuries, the slightly claustrophobic, mildly menacing geography Boyle invokes, and the compellingly precise situations he places his principals in, are as pivotal and critical to these stories as the actions and thoughts of any animate character.
The more I read of Boyle's work, the more I want him to keep writing stories about the present and future, and leave his historical oddities such as The Road to Wellville and Riven Rock behind him.
2006 total: 41 books, 13051 pages
Love reading. Hate writing book reports.
As I am woefully behind, I shall make some veryquick and exceedingly scattershot comments on recent books read:
Creek Mary's Blood - 433 pages; fiction; rating &&&1/2
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 420 pages plus notes; history; rating &&&&1/2 - both by Dee Brown.
These books cover similar ground, and it is heartbreaking. Vindictive exterminatory racism against Native Americans, repeated government betrayal, broken treaty after broken treaty, and ultimately ethnic cleansing. My reaction to both is revulsion against the mores of Manifest Destiny, and smug convictions of Euro-supremacy. Creek Mary's Blood is by far the easier read; Wounded Knee is dense with historical detail, and is arranged geographically rather than chronologically, so historical figures (particularly U.S. military) often are recurring figures in distinct events, and frequent reference to endnotes is necessary.
Curiously, these books combined to make me profoundly reconsider my pro-gun-control stance. Gun control is a good thing in a society that is governed justly and is desirous of eliminating thuggery and violent property abuses by a hardened criminal element. When there is institutional racism, and perfidy regarding human rights and property BY the government and its agents, when specific cultures are designated as subhuman by law as well as popular opinion, it becomes a far less obvious societal boon. If the Indians had not been systematically disarmed - and if those who refused to disarm had not been hunted down as outlaws - they might have had a fighting chance of defending their culture and their lands, and persuading the white settlers and U.S. government to share and not usurp. Instead, they were subjected to genocide because their existence was inconvenient to the majority. It's a sobering lesson in the so-called "integrity" of the American government.
Peyton Place rating &&&&
Return to Peyton Place, rating &1/2, both by Grace Metalious
fiction, 621 pages total
Peyton Place is a re-read, fifteen years or so after my initial reading, but I had never read Return before. And there really was no need to; it is a far inferior book to the original, a disjointed attempt at rehashing and continuing a story that already had hit its climax and had little further to develop - and it doesn't satisfactorily develop a few key points left unexplored in the original, such as the castle built by the town's namesake, a former black slave named Samuel Peyton whose unorthodox presence was an embarassment to the insular townspeople. (Return furthermore commits the consummate sin of completely changing a key character's name - what the HELL? It's sort of like when an actor quits a televised show, and is replaced by a different actor for what we're supposed to believe is the same character. But worse. And so Metalious' writing career that started with a bang ended with a whimper.)
Peyton Place was the original trash American popular novel, a lurid and gritty glimpse behind the closed doors of American life, heralding a new and seminal fiction style, and spawning everything from Valley of the Dolls to steamy and sordid television soap operas, including its own incarnation as a television series that ran for several years in the 1960s. Some of the book's literary pretensions (invocation of the seasons as mood-setting device for the townspeople, for example) feel strained, but once the actual story starts it clicks along in a way that - 52 years after initial publication - is predictable but still topical. One can only imagine the seismic shocks it sent through America in general and small towns in particular in the image-conscious and repressive 1950's, when things like teen sexuality, incest, and domestic abuse weren't exactly the stuff of Father Knows Best.
A final stylistic note: rereading this book, I saw a lot of my own fictional style in it, both the good and the bad. Metalious' voice is both distinctive and very familiar to me. And when it's good, it's easy to read. When it's bad - as in Return to Peyton Place - it's repetitive, prosaic, and dull. A stinging cautionary example to my authorial efforts. :)
Interesting note: apparently Sandra Bullock has been signed to play Metalious in the movie version of her life. We'll see how much renewed interest and outrage the movie provokes among the small-town, keeping-up-appearances folks.
Budding Prospects - 326 pages, rating &&&&
A Friend of the Earth - novel, 349 pages, rating &&&&
After the Plague - short stories, 303 pages, rating &&&&& - all by T.C. Boyle
Boyle excels in these books, his quirky, shady, or marginal characters springing to life with clarity and a sympathetic appeal, even when they're behaving abominably and/or illegally. Budding Prospects details a pot-farming operation gone awry; Friend of the Earth explores the psyche and actions of an eco-terrorist; the short stories of Plague are populated by both ordinary and extraordinary folks, acting in ordinary ways under extraordinary, even crisis circumstances, and generally failing some moral test - while gaining our wholehearted empathy, if not reminding us disturbingly of our own weaknesses, failings, lapses in judgment, and casual cruelties.
Set mostly in New York State and central California, mostly in the late 20th to mid-21st centuries, the slightly claustrophobic, mildly menacing geography Boyle invokes, and the compellingly precise situations he places his principals in, are as pivotal and critical to these stories as the actions and thoughts of any animate character.
The more I read of Boyle's work, the more I want him to keep writing stories about the present and future, and leave his historical oddities such as The Road to Wellville and Riven Rock behind him.
2006 total: 41 books, 13051 pages