Literary Lollapalooza, October Edition

This month we check out the latest books from two of my favorite authors, and discuss a whole host of spooky and terrifying tales for your Halloween reading fun.

This is Literary Lollapalooza, October Edition.

Books Acquired:

Fiction: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson, If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler…by Italo Calvino, Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami, and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Non-Fiction: Hope for Animals and Their World by Jane Goodall with Thane Maynard & Gail Hudson, and Orangutan by Colin Broderick

Books Borrowed: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby, and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Books Read:

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

I have been a fan of Hornby’s work since Ryan Barbe gave me a copy of High Fidelity back in college. I had recently suffered through a rough break-up, and Ryan (knowing a few things about tough break-ups and good books), knew just what the doctor ordered. High Fidelity remains one of my favorite books today. About a Boy only confirmed what I already suspected. Here was a writer that not only understood a great deal about how adult relationships really work in all their thorniness, but how music and pop culture explained us to ourselves and to the world around us.
His works have not always lived up to the promise of those early books, but in this his latest, Hornby returns to familiar ground: adult relationships and how music helps define who we are. Annie and Duncan aren’t in love. That’s the first thing. Annie isn’t sure when she first realized it, or if in fact, there had ever been a time that the thought had crossed her mind. Duncan, an aging music fanatic who spends his time and energy retracing the steps of an American singer-songwriter named Tucker Crowe, who mysteriously quit the business and disappeared twenty years earlier, is too busy being self-involved to notice, or truthfully to even care. Theirs is a partnership of convenience, and really, where else would they go? When a seemingly new, stripped down recording of Crowe’s most seminal record arrives in the post, it leads to a cataclysmic change in their staid and regret-filled lives.
This is Hornby back in top form, revisiting his areas of expertise as only he can. The writing is sharp and sardonic, the characters flawed and complex, and as it seems, at least in my life, music serves as the emotional glue that connects us to the world. Juliet, Naked is a top-notch tale of aging, regret, and hope.


Under the Dome by Stephen King

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that Stephen King is important to me. His books are probably single-handedly responsible for making me the book lover that I am today. My clearest memories are of reading Christine at my grandmother’s house at the age of 11 or 12, completely enraptured, hanging on to every line, not able to turn the pages quick enough, my heart pounding in my chest. Since then I have read everything the man has written, including a little non-fiction book called Danse Macabre that isn’t even in publication anymore. Some of his books astonish and take me right back to that childhood memory at grandmother’s house. Others aren’t as well plotted, or paced, or are lacking in an emotional hook. But no matter what, I am what King refers to as a Constant Reader. And when I received an advance reader copy of his latest 1,000+ page epic Under the Dome, I was beside myself. And what better way to spend Halloween than with the Master of Terror?
Anyone familiar with the majority of the works of King knows that small-town Maine is his bread and butter. Here, King is right in wheel-house. Began in 1976, and then abandoned because he felt over-whelmed by the scope, Under the Dome tells the story of little Chester’s Mill, Maine. A small-town in the smallest of sense, (Castle Rock, of many a King story, is the big city to the North if that tells you anything. And readers of Needful Things will understand that.) Chester’s Mill is a place where every single person knows everything there is to know about every other person in town. They all hang out at the same places, they all support the high school football team, and they are all good God-fearing Christian folk. Nice people. The kind of people you find in small towns all over America. The problem with Chester’s Mill is that on the morning of October 21 a giant invisible dome descended on the town completely encapsulating the town at its borders, cutting off access to the outside world and trapping the citizens of the town within. What follows is typical King: The first two pages involve a decapitated woodchuck and an airplane crash, and the violence only worsens with each page. There is no new material here. I was reminded consistently of Needful Things, another small town America tale where good, kind people do horrible things out of fear and greed. But here, King finds a way to tie the story into our cultural zeitgeist. Racism and gossip-mongering fueling national politics instead of hard, deliberate facts; the way the mob-mind has a way of taking over and making ordinary people behave in ways they never ordinarily would (think the guards at Abu Ghraib); how ignorance and blind-faith can be an easy option even when the truth is plain to see.
King is painting in broad strokes here, and every swatch is a slice of modern America, in all its hope, rebellion, resilience and ugliness. The brilliant thing about King in this mode is that the enemy isn’t supernatural, or some outer force, but we at our weakest, most vulnerable states. It may be unpleasant to read, but when King describes how a quiet, inquisitive crowd turns suddenly and viciously into a rioting, looting, mindless mob you can’t help but recognize the scary truth behind the story: these aren’t some loons separate from us that we can frown at disapprovingly from above. This is us when we are fueled by fear, hatred, and ignorance. Do you doubt it? Turn on the TV. and watch the news coverage of the tea-bag parties and how quickly the most vile, ignorant, and hate-filled messages become mantras uniting a people; or how a peace protest can suddenly and without reason become violent and deadly. Again these aren’t new concepts, or even new examples of mankind being its own worst enemy. But they work. And they stick. The images in this book are brutal, gruesome, and terrifying. The book is overlong (as many of King’s books are) but unlike many, I didn’t feel this one drag. That may be because of the heightened sense of time (the entire book takes place in a little over a week’s time), and the extended cast of characters that never become forgettable or one-note.
It’s obvious that King was inspired to revisit this earlier effort because of the recent global and national political landscape, but he never gets preachy and tells one hell of a satisfying story. He has his flaws, including the ridiculous conceit that everyone in this small town in Maine would a.) know and b.) like singer-songwriter James McMurtry and would be able to quote selections from a little known song called “Talkin’ at the Texaco”, an obvious influence for the book. Now, I know who James McMurtry is because I pride myself on knowing esoteric pieces of information like that. I even had some of his music, but I had to find and download this song to have a reference point. To think that a small-town would one and all embrace this song and quote it to themselves in their head is laughable at best. But look at me, nit-picking about a foolish author conceit. The fact is, either you read King or you don’t. You know who you are. If you are a fair-weather friend, I think it’s time to reconnect. If you haven’t read King, this isn’t the place to start. Let me suggest perhaps, Christine. If you wouldn’t normally pick up a copy of King and read it, let’s not fool ourselves or anyone else, you’re not going to read this either. And that’s okay. There are us Constant Readers out there, and we are reading. Constantly.
Under the Dome is available for purchase at your local bookstore or online beginning November 10. (But personally, how they possibly missed a Halloween release date for this is the biggest mistake of all. This is perfect Halloween reading.)

Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami

I picked up this little oddity of a book while browsing the shelf of Haruki Murakami titles at the bookstore. It had an interesting blue cover of a Japanese man’s face, bald head, and painted pale white. It looked unusual and best of all, short (following the marathon that is King I needed a sprint).
This book was first published in Tokyo in 1976. Centering on the character of young Ryu, and his myriad of friends both female and male, the action takes place during the height of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll revolution that was the seventies. The meandering nearly plot-less 125 pages that make up this book are filled with surprisingly grotesque, lovingly detailed descriptions of orgies, drug use, hallucinations and other finery of Tokyo life near an American military base in the 1970’s. The author’s fascination with bugs, mucous, semen, torn anuses, and orgies involving all mixture of black American men and Japanese women and men is indeed unique.
Yeah. Having said that, I didn’t love this book; I also didn’t dislike this book. It was as I said earlier an oddity, the Japanese equivalent of William S. Burroughs. I’m glad I read it…but I’m not looking forward to reading it again. But hey, if you like that sort of thing…


The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is one of those writers whose reputation precedes him. I didn’t have to read Gaiman to know he was one of the premier English-speaking modern writers currently working in the idiom of science fiction/fantasy. That I had read Gaiman’s critically heralded Sandman comics before I knew there was a THERE there, is beside the point. I later read American Gods and was equally impressed with his work in the novel form.
The Graveyard Book is the award-winning latest book by Gaiman, author of Coraline, and is intended for younger audiences. What age range that might include is baffling to me, because I read it and was thoroughly engaged the entire time, not once feeling pandered to, or as if I was reading below my level. However, I could imagine falling in love with a book like this at the age of twelve or so and rereading it countless times over and over again the following years into adulthood.
This book is simply delightful. This is the story of a young child named Bod (stands for Nobody), whose family was brutally murdered as a baby, but who by chance or fate crawled into the nearby Highgate Cemetery and finds his salvation in the unlikely hands of the Graveyard’s denizens. This adopted family of ghosts, vampires, witches, and werewolves raise Bod in the graveyard, teaching him all the tricks they have to offer to ensure his survival against a brutal killer still intent on finishing the job he left undone.
This book is beautiful. The illustrations by longtime Gaiman associate Dave McKean are incredible, and the gentle, uplifting, and altogether heartwarming story about young Bod’s ascent to adulthood is fascinating and enduring storytelling. Gaiman proves here why he’s garnered the praise that he has, and establishes himself as a writer of unparalleled imagination and warmth. That creatures so ordinarily reviled and feared could be made warm, loving, and loyal is a testament to the man’s ability and charm. If you are looking for a great Halloween read for you and/or your pre-teen/teen that is not scary, but enlightening and uplifting this one is worth your time. Trust me.
I dare anyone to read this book and not love it. I dare you.
I thought not.

That finishes this month’s spooky celebration of Halloween, and well, my favorite authors…Tune in next month to see what I read when I promise myself, for my birthday (on the 9th if you want to send gifts, cash is okay) to only read books I’m really, really, really excited about!
Until then, keep on reading!