Category: Books

"Wish safe quick soon mission into next eternity."

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I’ve finished one book and moved on to the next, and in doing so may have wrecked my brain’s transmission.

It was a pretty dramatic shift to finish The Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela (amazon) and start reading Chuck Palahniuk‘s Pygmy (amazon), not only because of the drastically different subject matter, but also because I’ve left the articulate and erudite memoirs of a lawyer and freedom fighter and found myself waist-deep in the bizarre pidgin of Pygmy’s protagonist. Here’s an example from page 2:

“Only one step with foot, operative me to defile security of degenerate American snake next. Den of evil. Hive of corruption. Host family of operative me waiting, host arms elbow bent to flutter fingers in attention of this agent. Host family shouting, arms above with wiggling finger.”

The entire book is like this, every single page…or so I assume. So even though Pygmy’s a fraction of the size of Long Walk, it’ll probably take me just as long to read.

I wonder how many hits I'd get with Naked Lunch, Ethan Frome and Everybody Poops?

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From the Quill & Quire’s blog: bookseller Borders UK is getting into the matchmaking business.

Borders U.K. is hoping that lovelorn literary singles will gravitate to its site to connect with other like-minded readers for some off-the-page encounters. The Bookseller is reporting that Borders’ new online dating service, optimistically dubbed “Happily Ever After,” will successfully match “people who share similar interests and hobbies.”

I think it’s not a bad idea. Things like books and movies and music are nice things to have in common with a romantic partner, and might even be knockout criteria for some. Why not just start from there?

How long before Amazon gets into this? “Hello Dan. We have new recommendations for you. Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk, Post-Nothing by The Japandroids and Kate, a brunette from Ottawa who likes Michael Mann films and Wii Sports. Not Dan? Click here.”

You knew it was him

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Maclean’s (who I’ve been going to a lot lately) reviews the new book about John Cazale, and makes it sound very interesting. I might pick it…

Wait, who?

This guy. The guy who only acted in five films, all five of which are considered to be among the best American cinema ever made: The Godfather, The Godfather II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter.

More than three decades after his death, this unsung talent is now being hailed as one of the most brilliant and influential actors of his generation. Those doing the hailing include Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman and Meryl Streep, who all worked with Cazale. Their opinion is seconded by younger actors who never knew him but cite him as a crucial influence, notably Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell. These testimonials are part of a remarkable new HBO documentary titled I Knew It Was You, which is showing this week as part of the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto.

I noticed his impressive credentials a couple of years ago, but I didn’t grasp the level of respect Cazale still commands among the top actors of his generation.

I feel ashamed that I haven’t seen The Conversation, even though it’s by far the least well known of the five on that list. If you haven’t seen one of the other four, you should hang your head.

Millennials = goddamn phonies

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Spotted at Maclean’s: a NY Times article about today’s teens’ reaction to Catcher In The Rye.

“The Catcher in the Rye,” published in 1951, is still a staple of the high school curriculum, beloved by many teachers who read and reread it in their own youth. The trouble is today’s teenagers. Teachers say young readers just don’t like Holden as much as they used to. What once seemed like courageous truth-telling now strikes many of them as “weird,” “whiny” and “immature.”

…

Julie Johnson, who taught Mr. Salinger’s novel over three decades at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill., cited similar reactions. “Holden’s passivity is especially galling and perplexing to many present-day students,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “In general, they do not have much sympathy for alienated antiheroes; they are more focused on distinguishing themselves in society as it is presently constituted than in trying to change it.”

Amen, today’s teenagers. I didn’t identify with Caufield when I read the book, even though I felt desperately as if I was supposed to. I just wanted to punch him.

"I have just met you, and I love you."

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Well, I’ve had an enjoyable forty-ish hours. It started Friday night when we walked down to Front Street to see this year’s criterium. I have no real interest in cycling, but it’s fun to watch racing on a downtown street. Plus, it gave me a chance to test out our new camera: a Canon SX10 IS. We used to have an S3 but sold it when Nellie got her Nikon SLR. I still have a little Canon S230, which is fine for carrying around in my pocket if we’re out with friends, but it turns out there was too big a gap between that and the D40. This SX10 feels familiar (it’s basically just the update of the S3 we had before), is a pretty good mix of convenience and quality, and the 20x zoom will come in handy. For example:

These guys were way down Front Street when I took that. Anyway, we couldn’t stay long as we had dinner reservations at Canoe with Nellie’s mom, so home we went to get all gussied up. Canoe was magnificent, as one would expect, and lives so comfortably in their place atop the Toronto restaurant pile (according to Toronto Life, anyway). Nellie and her mom started with the chevre with rosemary brioche, I had the prawn & asparagus chowder with tarragon butter, and we shared a bottle of 2007 Fielding viognier. For our mains I had the caribou (which was amazing), Nellie and her mom had the prime ribeye and we took a 2006 a bottle of Domaine Gardies Mas Les Cabes. No dessert, just dessert wine for Nellie and I and a glass of white for her mom. Oh, and at some point the afore-mentioned mom took off her shoes and went for a stroll through the restaurant. Don’t ask.

The next day, after dropping Nellie’s mom off at the airport we went to see Up (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at Yonge & Dundas. I’m not a big animation fan, and while I did like the last two Pixar releases (Ratatouille and wall-e) I didn’t bother to see them in the theatre. However, a screaming 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and a lot of advance critical praise made this one my top movie theatre priority this weekend. And it was good. Really, really good. It was sweet, funny, entertaining and (of course) spectacularly animated. Fun story, too, like Raiders Of The Lost Ark if Indy were an octagenarian. In the end I think it might have actually been a mistake to see it in the theatre, since the kid and mother behind me who talked often — and loudly — occasionally “pulled me” out of the film. But I’m still glad I saw it yesterday.

The movies weren’t done there. We freed up a little more room on the PVR by watching Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which I kind of liked (bizarre mismatched music notwithstanding) but I felt it would have made a better short film than feature. There were so many repeated scenes and long tracking shots that nine minutes likely would’ve done it.

We also finally got around to watching the pilot of Glee (fox | onion a.v. club), which I found fairly funny, but if the singing keeps up like this I may struggle to keep watching. I can only take so much Amy Winehouse and Journey. While we watched that a killer rainstorm passed over Toronto, followed quickly by a brilliant rainbow (and another faint cousin):

Also, at some point this weekend I finished reading The Blind Side (amazon) by Michael Lewis. Only about a quarter of the book was what I expected it to be — an historic and financial look at the left tackle position in football. Instead it focused on a kid named Michael Oher, and told a very engaging story about his life. There is, in fact, a movie being adapted from it but with Sandra Bullock cast as one of the leads I don’t hold out much hope for it not sucking.

With that book done I’ve taken the advice given to me over the years by several friends, including those who’d just finished with my copy, and begun reading The Long Walk To Freedom.

Unfortunately it’s a bit too chilly out today to enjoy the sun the way we’d like, but that gives us a good excuse to tackle yet another chunk of the PVR’s hard drive.

Wrath

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Today I finished reading Columbine by Dave Cullen (amazon | indigo), one of the best books I’ve read in a while. Cullen breaks down everything you think you know about the shooting at Columbine high school ten years ago and starts the story over again. Telling in equal parts the buildup to the shooting and the aftermath of it, he manages to turn a decade-old news story into something you can’t put down.

As I’ve said before, it’s important to understand why people do things like what Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did, without resorting to the easy (and dangerous) label of “monster”. They weren’t crazed loners, they weren’t bullied, they weren’t part of a black-clad gang, and they didn’t “snap” and suddenly start shooting. It was a long, complicated plan executed by a full-fledged psycopath and his depressive sidekick.

While Cullen maintains professional distance throughout the book, he can’t hide his disgust with the media, for manufacturing so much incorrect information. He singles out the Washington Post and Rocky Mountain News for doing good work, but his criticism for how the incident was reported among most of the media is clear. There’s also a marked difference in the portrayal of some of the churches. Some of the area religious leaders come across as opportunistic, trying to profit and recruit from the tragedy, while others were criticized for preaching forgiveness.

Columbine should be required reading for those who think they know what happened at Columbine ten years ago, or for anyone who wants to understand better the dangers of media furor.

I look forward to Volume II

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Yesterday I finished reading Almost Home: My Life Story Volume I, the story of Damien Echols written in his own words. Echols is a member of the so-called West Memphis 3, sentenced for the killing of three small children, a crime which the evidence — or lack thereof — suggests they did not commit. Echols is the sole member on death row.

This is not a great book. Echols isn’t a great writer. It’s almost certainly self-serving. It doesn’t shed any insight on the case. It doesn’t even seem to have been thoroughly checked for spelling errors.

Here’s what it is, though: if you’re of the same opinion that I am — that the WM3 is wrongly imprisoned — then this book is a heartbreaking look at what happens when a teenager, a foolish awkward uneducated kid, is ripped out of his own life and thrown into limbo. What he writes, the events he talks about…it’s clear that his life stopped in 1993. Outside of the trial the only dramatic things that happened to him happened in high school. It’s all teenager drama. He’s roughly the same age as me, and all those things I got to do — graduate from high school with my friends, go to college, move away, get a job, get married, buy a home…to grow up, basically — he didn’t get to do.

It’s a credit to him that he discovered zen while on death row, but it’s just crushing to think of this shame — the undeserved ruination of a good part of three lives — compounded on the original tragedy: the murder of three little boys those 16 years ago. If I thought there was an afterlife, I would worry about how uneasily those boys must sleep, knowing their killer is still out there.

Why I don't have favourite books

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Do you have a favourite book?

I don’t think I do. I have favourite films. I have favourite songs. But I don’t have favourite books.

That’s not to say there aren’t tons of great books that I was really in love with. I just wouldn’t describe them as favourites. I’m not sure exactly how I define that word, or how my definition might differ from the standard interpretation, but I would loosely describe it this way: a favourite is something I will go back to again and again. I have watched the 13 films referenced in the above link countless times, just as I’ve listened to the songs in the other link so many times I have them all memorized down to the quarter note. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve read any book twice.

So why is that? Well, I think I’m looking for something different in books than I get from films or music. I want to be challenged, I want to learn something, I want to have my mind changed. I suppose this is why I also don’t have a ‘favourite’ documentary, even though I usually prefer them to feature films. I expect from a documentary the same thing I expect from a book: to get my brain going.

Maybe that’s the difference. It’s hard to label something a ‘favourite’ when it might push me, challenge me, make me work. None of my favourite movies or music qualify as terribly difficult or avant-garde, but they all impressed me with their artistry or nuance (yes, even Hoosiers) while still being entertaining. A great book or documentary will teach me something, or disturb me, or change my mind about something…but none of those impacts will make me want to go back to it. The moment is passed, the effect has been felt.

But that documentary vs. feature film distinction tells me something about my books: that I prefer non-fiction to fiction. Truth be told, I buy and read much more non-fiction than fiction; were I to consume as many novels as I do films or albums I would almost certainly have a list of favourite books, but as it is the books I remember having a real impact on me were all non-fiction. Much as I distinctly remember them, I can’t say I feel the need to read any of them again.

What I do crave, and what I’ve missed recently when reading A Fine Balance, enjoyable as it was, is the engagement I get from non-fiction books. Reading a book the likes of The Coming Of The Third Reich or The Shock Doctrine makes my mind race about in all directions, to the point where I have to re-read paragraphs because I’ve wandered off on this tangent or that, formulating questions or testing hypotheses. I don’t get that same engagement from fiction — which is often a testament to the writer’s pacing or narrative skill, but also reflects the nature of fiction. It’s a story, not a study.

When I finished the MBA last year, I figured that my brain was starved for fiction after reading textbooks for so many months, but it turns out I’m still hungry for non-fiction. I’m easing back into it with Almost Home by Damien Echols (the member of the West Memphis 3 on death row), and plan to read Dave Cullen‘s Columbine (which I blogged about last week) next. After that I may take up Niall Ferguson‘s The Ascent Of Money or The Age Of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. Or I may finally pick up Don Tapscott‘s Wikinomics or resume my study of the buildup to WWII with The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s by Piers Brendon. All of those appeal to me more than the copies of Absalom, Absalom or American Pastoral sitting on my shelf.

For now, anyway.

Twitter and the Monkey Man

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Since I stayed home sick today and had little better to do in between nose-blowing than read, I just finished A Fine Balance. I can tell it’s going to stick with me. It’s too bad I waited so long to read it, but I’m glad I finally did. I even learned a little history along the way. I knew precisely nothing about The Emergency in India in the mid-70s, likely because I was a month old when it began, but it’s a fascinating period in time, and Mistry spun within it an equally fascinating story with wonderful, tragic, inspiring characters.

.:.

You may have noticed some odd blog posts recently. Since I find my thoughts more scattered these days, a situation which lends itself more to Twitter than to the blog, my blog will automatically consolidate my daily (sigh…) tweets into a single post. Just in case you’re wondering.

"Kids had never been attacked in this kind of way"

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Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of Columbine, the familiar title given the killings at the Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado. CNN yesterday ran a piece about the release of a new book — Columbine, by Dave Cullen — which I’ve been meaning to pick up. The big draw of the book for me is that is tells the real story of what happened and debunks many of the myths which sprung up in the immediate aftermath. Among them:

  • There was a group of kids at Columbine called the Trench Coat Mafia, but Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren’t part of it.
  • The killers did not target jocks (those wearing baseball hats, as it’s sometimes reported) or black kids. There was no discernible pattern to their killing.
  • Harris and Klebold, though clearly unstable and dangerous, were not outcasts or loners, nor was their rampage apparently caused by bullying.
  • Cassie Bernall, reported to have been killed when she replied to the killers that she believed in god and subsequently made a martyr by evangelical christians, in fact said no such thing. Another student was asked whether she believed in god; she answered yes, was shot and lived.

The first three myths are explained by psychologists in the CNN article as being persistent because they were (irresponsibly) reported immediately after the killing, and are convenient for people to believe because they point to Harris and Klebold being misanthropes, different from everyone else, conveniently monstrous. People don’t like to think that normal people can do terrible things, so they cast them as evil. While not logical, this is understandable as a coping mechanism.

The last myth, though…that’s the one that gets me. By the fall of 1999 it was well established that the rumour about Bernall was false, but her parents still earned royalties from a book about her death called She Said Yes released in Aug 1999 (and reprinted several times) and earned $3,500 per speaking appearance in the years since. Misinformation is one thing; exploitation another.