luck be a lady tonight
Last time I went away for a dorky long weekend, I had a streak of terrible sitcom-esque bad luck immediately beforehand, followed by an almost suspiciously perfect trip.
Conversely, this weekend I was in Atlantic City with my family, where I had a streak of surreal sitcom-esque good luck (you don't just get handed two seven-letter words in a row in Scrabble! Slot machines never actually give you money! SOMETHING IS UP), which makes me sort of nervous for my upcoming dorky long weekend in Atlanta for D*C. Those whom I will be seeing there: I'm sorry if I used up all the luck! I didn't mean it!
Speaking of things that are surreal: I just read Rana Dasgupta's Tokyo Cancelled, a set of thirteen extremely surreal short pieces set within the frame narrative of passengers trapped in an airport after a cancelled flight who tell each other stories. This leads to a lot of reviewers shouting "modern-day Canterbury Tales!" all over the back copy. This is a lie. The biggest disappointment of the book (for me) is that Dasgupta basically doesn't do anything with the frame narrative, or use the stories to say anything about the people who are telling them, which kind of seems like a waste of a setup. This isn't really a bunch of strangers telling stories; it's Rana Dasgupta telling stories, and trying to be able to call it a novel. (I am also probably judging it against The Orphan's Tales, which may be unfair. But all the same.)
That being said, the stories themselves are doing some interesting things. All of them are highly magical realist, and all of them twist and subvert various fairy tale and mythological themes in various modern global locations. I loved some of them, passionately hated others, had no idea what to make of the rest. There is often the sense that the author is striving a little too hard to be postmodern and literary. The stories are set all over the world, but they're very male-centric and very heterosexual; there are only three female protagonists (out of thirteen), and of those three, two of them were among the stories I hated the most because of the way they wasted their potential for awesome. On the other hand, the language is often beautiful. There's a story about an idealist whose job is to edit out other people's unpleasant memories; there's also a story in which Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rosselini's secret superhuman love child finds a box of magical Oreos that allows her to transform into a Madison Avenue boutique. From this, you probably will be able to tell whether this is likely to be a book for you.
Conversely, this weekend I was in Atlantic City with my family, where I had a streak of surreal sitcom-esque good luck (you don't just get handed two seven-letter words in a row in Scrabble! Slot machines never actually give you money! SOMETHING IS UP), which makes me sort of nervous for my upcoming dorky long weekend in Atlanta for D*C. Those whom I will be seeing there: I'm sorry if I used up all the luck! I didn't mean it!
Speaking of things that are surreal: I just read Rana Dasgupta's Tokyo Cancelled, a set of thirteen extremely surreal short pieces set within the frame narrative of passengers trapped in an airport after a cancelled flight who tell each other stories. This leads to a lot of reviewers shouting "modern-day Canterbury Tales!" all over the back copy. This is a lie. The biggest disappointment of the book (for me) is that Dasgupta basically doesn't do anything with the frame narrative, or use the stories to say anything about the people who are telling them, which kind of seems like a waste of a setup. This isn't really a bunch of strangers telling stories; it's Rana Dasgupta telling stories, and trying to be able to call it a novel. (I am also probably judging it against The Orphan's Tales, which may be unfair. But all the same.)
That being said, the stories themselves are doing some interesting things. All of them are highly magical realist, and all of them twist and subvert various fairy tale and mythological themes in various modern global locations. I loved some of them, passionately hated others, had no idea what to make of the rest. There is often the sense that the author is striving a little too hard to be postmodern and literary. The stories are set all over the world, but they're very male-centric and very heterosexual; there are only three female protagonists (out of thirteen), and of those three, two of them were among the stories I hated the most because of the way they wasted their potential for awesome. On the other hand, the language is often beautiful. There's a story about an idealist whose job is to edit out other people's unpleasant memories; there's also a story in which Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rosselini's secret superhuman love child finds a box of magical Oreos that allows her to transform into a Madison Avenue boutique. From this, you probably will be able to tell whether this is likely to be a book for you.