BLACK SWAN GREEN, LONDON CALLING
This one will be shorter, I promise, literaticat. Because it's only two books, neither of which I read last night (I didn't read last night, except a poem or two--shocking! Well, OK, I read email and the NYT online. That don't count though.) (OK, I wrote that yesterday. Last night...um...didn't read either because I taught. Argh!)
Firsties, David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. I think I read his marvelous Cloud Atlas in the pre-blog days (is that even possible?), so I don't think I reviewed it here. Oh, Cloud Atlas, you were so fun and smart and science fictiony and intricate. And guess what? People are shocked that BSG isn't just like Mitchell's other books. OK, I haven't read his first two, but I hear they're quite experimental. BSG, people say, is not experimental, it's just another boy-coming-of-age book, vaguely autobiographical. And book reviewers (who usually review other adult books) have been known to compare it to Catcher in the Rye as if there's no other Bildungsroman* out there.
(*This is Berit Lindboe's fault. She taught it to us freshman year in high school, and I'm sorry, but I haven't forgotten it: A Bildungsroman, capped b/c it's Deutsch, meinen Freundin und Freundinen [ok, that's probably wrong construction, it's been a while since the whole German class thing], per Wikipedia, is a novel of education or self-development, and I'd say about 99% of YA-aimed novels fall on that line.)
Pointless digression aside, I refuse to compare Jason, the hero of BSG, to anyone else. He's a fully realized individual. I read an interview yesterday in which Mitchell talks about the problem of first-person POV and making sure that jason doesn't know more about other characters than he actually could know. I liked Jason a whole lot. I also read a review in which the review writer talked about how each of the 13 chapters is a short story in and of itself. Wish I had time to go back and reread and think abotu that--I didn't get that sense, but I wasn't reading for it either. The character painting is, as usual, unique and strong for Mitchell. Some characters are bad, and some of the things they do and the choices they make are also not only bad but occasionally horrific. And then Jason sort of observes and does what he can to keep his standing from totally sliding down the pole. He tries to hide his stutter and deal with his bitchy older sister, asshole of a father who's clearly doing something he shouldn't (Jason is not the one who figures this out; the reader is), the bad boys of his class and the classes above. And oh, the Falklands War. Who knew it was actually a big deal? I had no idea that British soldiers DIED in the Falklands War. I thought it was kind of like our stupid, insane Grenada invasion. All about scrota, so to speak, with no real world consequences (in my defense, I was younger than Jason is in the book). But no, I was wrong. And seeing Jason's view of it was fascinating because he was so unaware of the wider world, and when his sister, the brilliant Julia, reads the Guardian, he just doesn't know what to think. A very, very satisfying book, not like a YA book even though there's a YA narrator. Just had less of the "message" feeling and more of the "slice of life" feeling. And super well written.
OK, read Edward Bloor's London Calling, which has been sitting on the shelf alongside Boy in Striped Pajamas, waiting to be read. Why wait so long, you wonder, and you'd be right: This book's a real winner, with all kinds of things going on. The main character, Martin, is a junior high boy at a Catholic private school. He's on scholarship and is friends with some of the other outcast kids; his grandfather is practically a legend in his family for working with Joe Kennedy and the grandfather of the main bully kid at the school. Martin's dad is an high-functioning alcoholic who doesn't live with his family, and his older sister Margaret is a genius college kid who works at an encyclopedia for the summer. His grandmother dies and leaves him a special radio from WWII. The radio becomes the nexus for Martin's connection to the past, to options for his present experience and for ways he can help heal people in his own family. Or help them learn to heal, at least. What's most interesting about it is that there's a serious belief in God and a strong sense that being Catholic is just fine but there's also time travel, mysterious social justice moments, some smackdowns of bullies and some bad behavior from family members and adults who might in other books where the author had religious beliefs command respect because of their positions of authority. Not sure the ending works, the very ending, the framing device, but otherwise it's quite, quite good.
Won't be readin' tonight either b/c of a dinner party, a trek to campus to see a prof read from her forthcoming book and probably, if the BP is up for it, the 9:25 showing of Notes on a Scandal (which I suspect will piss me off with its weird sexual politics, but we'll see). When I do have a moment to read (Friday? Saturday?), I'm starting another book for VOYA, so we'll see when I have time to post again. But hey, I'm doin' good--two posts in three days! And I've been reading my Friendslist. (No cover stories for a couple of weeks, see?)
Firsties, David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. I think I read his marvelous Cloud Atlas in the pre-blog days (is that even possible?), so I don't think I reviewed it here. Oh, Cloud Atlas, you were so fun and smart and science fictiony and intricate. And guess what? People are shocked that BSG isn't just like Mitchell's other books. OK, I haven't read his first two, but I hear they're quite experimental. BSG, people say, is not experimental, it's just another boy-coming-of-age book, vaguely autobiographical. And book reviewers (who usually review other adult books) have been known to compare it to Catcher in the Rye as if there's no other Bildungsroman* out there.
(*This is Berit Lindboe's fault. She taught it to us freshman year in high school, and I'm sorry, but I haven't forgotten it: A Bildungsroman, capped b/c it's Deutsch, meinen Freundin und Freundinen [ok, that's probably wrong construction, it's been a while since the whole German class thing], per Wikipedia, is a novel of education or self-development, and I'd say about 99% of YA-aimed novels fall on that line.)
Pointless digression aside, I refuse to compare Jason, the hero of BSG, to anyone else. He's a fully realized individual. I read an interview yesterday in which Mitchell talks about the problem of first-person POV and making sure that jason doesn't know more about other characters than he actually could know. I liked Jason a whole lot. I also read a review in which the review writer talked about how each of the 13 chapters is a short story in and of itself. Wish I had time to go back and reread and think abotu that--I didn't get that sense, but I wasn't reading for it either. The character painting is, as usual, unique and strong for Mitchell. Some characters are bad, and some of the things they do and the choices they make are also not only bad but occasionally horrific. And then Jason sort of observes and does what he can to keep his standing from totally sliding down the pole. He tries to hide his stutter and deal with his bitchy older sister, asshole of a father who's clearly doing something he shouldn't (Jason is not the one who figures this out; the reader is), the bad boys of his class and the classes above. And oh, the Falklands War. Who knew it was actually a big deal? I had no idea that British soldiers DIED in the Falklands War. I thought it was kind of like our stupid, insane Grenada invasion. All about scrota, so to speak, with no real world consequences (in my defense, I was younger than Jason is in the book). But no, I was wrong. And seeing Jason's view of it was fascinating because he was so unaware of the wider world, and when his sister, the brilliant Julia, reads the Guardian, he just doesn't know what to think. A very, very satisfying book, not like a YA book even though there's a YA narrator. Just had less of the "message" feeling and more of the "slice of life" feeling. And super well written.
OK, read Edward Bloor's London Calling, which has been sitting on the shelf alongside Boy in Striped Pajamas, waiting to be read. Why wait so long, you wonder, and you'd be right: This book's a real winner, with all kinds of things going on. The main character, Martin, is a junior high boy at a Catholic private school. He's on scholarship and is friends with some of the other outcast kids; his grandfather is practically a legend in his family for working with Joe Kennedy and the grandfather of the main bully kid at the school. Martin's dad is an high-functioning alcoholic who doesn't live with his family, and his older sister Margaret is a genius college kid who works at an encyclopedia for the summer. His grandmother dies and leaves him a special radio from WWII. The radio becomes the nexus for Martin's connection to the past, to options for his present experience and for ways he can help heal people in his own family. Or help them learn to heal, at least. What's most interesting about it is that there's a serious belief in God and a strong sense that being Catholic is just fine but there's also time travel, mysterious social justice moments, some smackdowns of bullies and some bad behavior from family members and adults who might in other books where the author had religious beliefs command respect because of their positions of authority. Not sure the ending works, the very ending, the framing device, but otherwise it's quite, quite good.
Won't be readin' tonight either b/c of a dinner party, a trek to campus to see a prof read from her forthcoming book and probably, if the BP is up for it, the 9:25 showing of Notes on a Scandal (which I suspect will piss me off with its weird sexual politics, but we'll see). When I do have a moment to read (Friday? Saturday?), I'm starting another book for VOYA, so we'll see when I have time to post again. But hey, I'm doin' good--two posts in three days! And I've been reading my Friendslist. (No cover stories for a couple of weeks, see?)