G A N Z E E R . R E V I E W S

by Albert Camus o-o

Did not end up enjoying this as much as I thought I would. For one, it's a sausage fest. I don't recall encountering any female characters at all. So strange for a book that centers on an isolated town, where each of the characters featured is to a large degree meant to represent an entire segment of society. Are women not part of society? Are there no stories about women in a plague-stricken town worth telling at all? Such an odd and bizarre choice.

Another issue is that the book could've easily been a third of the size and not at all been substantially different. It's kind of a slog to get through despite not even being that big. Part of the reason is the characters and their stories: not all that interesting. I really didn't care for most anyone, which isn't as much of a problem as my inability to even remember any of their names by the end of the book. Most of them, to me, came off as awfully interchangeable.

Camus also commits what I consider to be one of the most cardinal sins in storytelling in that he has one character deliver this long monologue about what the plague presumably philosophically represents, thereby attempting to drill into the leader the point of the book in the most on the nose way imaginable. Even if that point was actually interesting, this is a terribly way of making it known, but Camus' philosophy here doesn't even strike me as all that interesting.

But that doesn't mean there aren't things I did like about the book, there are! I certainly enjoyed the opening chapters, the way Camus describes the creeping in of the plague. How denizens would come across the occasional dying rat and how they would deal with it. The gradual increase in dead rats and the odd ailments people began to suffer from shortly thereafter, all of which is chronicled by Camus most evocatively. I do like how he makes it a point to illustrate how this town erected on the Algerian cost exists solely for commercial activity and it was commercial activity that governed its inhabitants very existence. Which would make something like being subject to a plague of particular economic concern, something I wish would've perhaps played out more in the novel. There is one character who takes advantage of the city being quarantined, and makes the crisis work to his advantage by being part of some smuggling operation, and I thought that was a nice touch, but it wasn't really a major enough part of the story.

All in all, an okay read that could've been much better, much slimmer, and far more profound on the basis of the premise alone.

Buy anyway

#fiction

by Cesar Aira o

My first Aira and most likely my last. The book's premise is certainly charming: a seamstress in a small town near Buenos Aires who is very good at what she does is making a wedding dress for a pregnant woman, but then suddenly her son goes missing. She suspects he might've been kidnapped by a local truck driver and taken off to Patagonia (he is in fact—completely unbeknownst to the driver—a stowaway). The seamstress gets a local taxi driver to help her follow suit, but not without taking the wedding dress along with her because she really needs to finish it. The pregnant bride-to-be hears about this and is worried she won't get her dress in time and follows suit too. So far so good, with echoes of IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD but maybe even better, but then it gets strange when midway through the journey the truck driver stops at a casino and things get weird. The entire plot is dropped, no longer does anyone have any purpose or motive. There's an auto-accident, the dress is swept away by strong winds along with the seamstress herself who engages in conversation with the wind, the pregnant woman is bet on at the casino, and the sleeping quarter within the truck leads to a vast underground world and at some point a car is repaired by replacing its wrecked body with the idle shell of a huge Paleozoic armadillo.

Listen, I like whimsy. In fact, I love whimsy. But I like my whimsy to add up. The Looney Tunes of old are full of whimsy, but it's whimsy that when strung together, delivers one coherent narrative. THE SEAMSTRESS AND THE WIND starts off on solid ground and sort of promises something but ends up delivering nothing but completely detached scenes of whimsy that don't actually say or do anything. It is said that Aira is influenced by fairytales, but fairy tells are seldom incohesive and almost always have a pretty obvious point to make, or a few. It is why they are so enduring and successfully pass the test of time and space. Whatever it is I just read, it is certainly not that.

Buy anyway

#fiction

by Jorge Luis Borges o-o-o

Not quite a collection of short fiction as much as it presents blueprints for approaching fiction, often very grand, interestingly-structured fiction. The reviews of fictitious non-existent books are my favorite in the collection, but there are only a handful of those, and the rest is mostly pretty straight fiction which I didn't get much out of. Not that I didn't like them, they just mostly went over my head. Tedious read, despite how slim the book is (179 pages). Very often I would find myself rereading a sentence I'd just read just to make sure I understood what I had just read and after multiple attempts still not sure that I fully know what I'd just read. Lots of clunky sentences, the reading of which is the literary equivalent of chewing abhorrently tough meat. It's a shame, because you know there are some really great ideas supposedly being expressed (the ones I could understand for example touch upon stories nested within stories, as well as infinite stories that end where they start, and stories told backwards). You can feel you're reading something great but you can't quite grasp it most of the time. This leads me to believe that it may be a translation issue I've encountered here. The edition I have is the Penguin edition featuring translations by Andrew Hurley, which I admittedly nabbed because I preferred the cover design (not the image featured above, that's my interpretation). My experience with Hurley's translation however is prompting me to consider acquiring the Grove Press edition which features translations by Anthony Kerrigan, Anthony Bonner, Alasteir Reid, Helen Temple, and Ruthven Todd. Perhaps then I can compare both and adequately assess whether the issue is one of translation, or the actual ideas expressed in the text, or my very own brain.

[buy]

#prose #fiction

by Italo Calvino o-o-o-o-o

You are about to read Ganzeer's review of Italo Calvino's IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER, a book which Ganzeer devoured in a week and immediately upon completion couldn't wait to write his impressions of, the task he is embarking on at this very moment. In doing so, however, he must be careful not to spoil too much of the plot or even concept for you, because he's very aware of the added enjoyment he derived from not knowing anything about the book other than it being authored by Italo Calvino, and he didn't have the slightest idea of the compounded surprises that awaited him within its pages. How sad it would be if he were to deny you the opportunity to experience the same thrill he got from the unexpected events that unfold in the novel. Is it even possible to write a proper review without giving anything away though?

“Yes,” Ganzeer hears, “you can do it.” He looks around but there is no one in sight. Who said that? Where did it come from? Was it you, dear reader? Did you notice your lips moving? Or was your response communicated by other means? Ah, the metaphysical freeway that cerebrally connects writers and readers, of course. Why use any other means when such a connection exists? The existence of this special pathway is of course understood, given that every writer must have naturally started out as a reader. Of course, not every reader necessarily becomes a writer, but every reader by definition contains within them the receptacle for potential literary insemination.

Very well, Ganzeer agrees, he shall attempt to write just enough about Calvino's WINTER's NIGHT to entice you to want to read it while still ensuring that you will still enjoy reading it if you do in fact decide to read it. But where to start? His frame of mind upon exiting the novel is not at all the same as his frame of mind upon entering, and having just finished reading it, he is certain to relay an impression of the book you may find a little at odds with what you encounter upon starting it. Perhaps, the best thing Ganzeer can do at this point is find an early impression of the book he might've noted somewhere, and paste it right here in the body of this post unchanged and unedited. Yes, he decides, that is exactly what he will do right now.

Italo Calvino's IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER may just be the most post-modern book I've ever laid hands on. It's about an apparently misprinted book, whereby every other chapter seems to belong to a completely different book. In that regard, it can be quite challenging to get into, but in so doing it held up a mirror to me and reminded me of a thing I did in THE SOLAR GRID, in which I relegated the half of each chapter to what may seem like a completely new story, until much later you discover that it is all in fact one story. Which made me realize how challenging I must've made it for readers too.

Sticking with Calvino pays off though, because by around the 75-page mark, you're hooked, and the brilliance of Calvino's ploy begins to dawn on you like eureka.

Dear goodness, Ganzeer, what are doing? What part of not wanting to divulge too much of the book entails even hinting at what might occur several dozen pages into the damn thing?

Never mind any of that, reader. The only thing you really need to know about Calvino's WINTER'S NIGHT is that it is luscious bait for any lover of books. It will do things you may not have known books were capable of, but in the end may just create a convincing enough argument that it is actually doing the only things books are really capable of, and as such is very much a must read.

[buy]

#prose #fiction

by Bob Dylan o-o-o-o-o

I'd like to think you don't have to be a Bob Dylan fan to get a kick out of this book, but it's hard to say for sure given that I am in fact a big Bob Dylan mark. With that being said, I don't hold everything Dylan puts out on a pedestal, and I can in fact get a little critical about the bulk of his output. This is something to be expected in regard to the output of any artist who just so happens to be so goddamn prolific. Much has been said and written about Dylan's life, but not a whole lot has come out of the man's mouth himself, which makes this book incredibly revelatory even if one thinks they know everything there is to be known about Dylan. I'd go as far as mark this book as one of the best written autobiographies in existence.

Understandably, the period of Dylan's life that is typically covered at nauseum is the early-to-mid sixties, when Dylan seemingly skyrocketed to fame overnight and put out what are still considered his greatest hits within the span of a couple years. Dylan has lived a long and interesting life though with a lot of great stories and observations to go with. He is wise not to dwell too much on the sixties given how much it's been covered already, save for a few key moments and interactions here and there. On which note, Dylan's recall is fucking astounding. He remembers being allowed to crash at someone's apartment in those early New York years and is able to remember precise titles of some of the books on the shelf, how some of the readings affected his mind, pulling out specific passages and recalling some of the conversations he had about them. His descriptions of time and place are atmospheric with so few words and he is able to put you right in his shoes and frame of mind. His retellings are for the most part not chronological, and that makes sense because that's not how memory works. He will often remember meeting someone say in the sixties and then tell a story about things they ended up doing together many years later before jumping back again, and you, the reader, will find yourself piecing together a beautiful mosaic that grows more elaborate and astounding with each new addition. Dylan dedicates a good chunk of the book to what you might describe as his development; all the things that might've happened as well as all the material he was exposed to that left a lasting impression on his person. People he met too, and the interactions he had with them. He even recalls when television was barely introduced in his hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, and how multiple homes shared a single telephone line. What a mindfuck it must be to have grown up with that and be alive today with high speed internet and pocket phones with social media and streamable music captured out of nowhere. It's already a mindfuck for the rest of us.

I think anyone with even a nominal interest in music—even if not a Dylan fan—would certainly be interested in this book. Dylan is very viscerally able to recall times when lyrics stormed through his mind like a hurricane, as well as other times when the well of inspiration was painfully dry, sometimes for years. There are parts where he talks about music theory, coming upon what he believes to be a new formula or approach that will open pathways to great new exciting things, but then those visions could sometimes get fuzzy and elusive when it finally came time to make something. One of my favorite chapters was his recollection of the time he recorded NO MERCY in New Orleans, an album I have no love for. The experience of recording the thing makes it clear why. Despite Dylan feeling inspired by New Orleans (some really great passages about the city and walking down its streets), and the producer he was to work with for the first time, in addition to a really great band that was put together for him, things just aren't quite clicking. The entire experience is plagued by trying time and time again to get at something but never quite arriving at it. It's a tale of out of sync wavelengths, collaborators that don't quite jive despite their immense skill, and the terribly illusive nature of inspiration. I imagine anyone who's ever engaged in any creative endeavor would get a kick out of it.

Bob Dylan's CHRONICLES is also a great sourcebook of other works of great artistry. He rattles off numerous albums and musicians—some I'd heard of for the first time—and talks about what aspects of them had an effect on him and what that particular effect was. He talks about books as well, and even about film in a few of instances. He's apparently a big fan of movies, so much so that there are a few times in the book where he'll mention going into a movie theatre all by himself to watch a movie just to get out of a creative funk (or life funk even) and how sometimes one particular scene just might do the trick. Dylan's knack for lyricism has clearly been internalized (I mean, not surprising, right?), so much so that you can almost hear a kind of singsongy ring in almost every sentence. You may just come out of reading it with a dash of musical swagger in how you speak and write yourself. I note that a few reviews, especially on Goodreads, seem to be screaming “plagiarism” without any actual mention of what other writing Dylan may have plagiarized. So I can't speak to whether or not that is true, but even if it were, I have a feeling that said readers may not quite understand the nature of the folk tradition and how said tradition has had an impact on Dylan's thinking or how he writes, and as such I don't doubt that there are numerous turns of phrase in the book that may have been heard or read elsewhere. Turns of phrase and the use of specific terminology aside though, there is no doubt that there's nothing unoriginal about Dylan's life story and his own experiences, all of which are beautifully committed to paper in this here volume. And I for one really hope we get a Volume 2 and 3 to carry forth the tale. I'm sure the man's got a lot more to tell still.

[Buy]

#prose #nonfiction

by Albert Camus o-o-o-o

A man's mother dies. That right there puts you in the state of mind he might be in. Camus doesn't tell you what state of mind that is, nor does he tell you a lot of things. That's what's great about Camus' writing, he spoon-feeds you nothing, and instead prefers to paint a general impression of things and lets you make heads or tails of it however your mind can muster. His sentences are short, telegraphic, unadorned, yet he is able to create a great deal of mood.

THE STRANGER's plot is thin and may at first seem like a series of meandering, inconsequential happenings; i.e. this happened, and then I did this, and then I went over and spoke to that person, etc. By the end of it however, you realize there was a grand design all along, which isn't unlike how life itself tends to unfold a lot of the times. It is indeed a book about life, its joys and complexities, and how it can all be taken away based on societal perceptions and judgement. A slim, seemingly inconsequential tome that leaves you contemplating long after you're done reading it.

My only dislike is how the protagonist, a Frenchman living in occupied Algeria not unlike Camus himself, only ever refers to locals as “the Arabs”. But it now occurs to me that this may have been intentional on Camus' part, an attempt to illustrate how not entirely great people can still warrant a fair degree of sympathy.

[Buy]

#prose #fiction

by Kim Stanley Robinson o-o-o-o

May just be the best climate-fiction novel in existence, certainly the best climate-fiction novel I've ever read. It is for the most part a problem-solving novel, and I like that. Robinson is able to make the uphill battle involved in all the bureaucracy and policy-making and head-butting that would ostensibly constitute the seemingly impossible task of reversing climate change read like a rollicking adventure without ever once diverging from keeping it grounded in realism. Robinson also seems to have a genuinely global perspective, which comes across very believably and in a way that is not easily accomplished. Central to the narrative is also an assassination plot and an unlikely friendship that add a good dash of thrill to the narrative and help guide the entire story through. It is only at the very end that Robinson loses my interest, from chapter 100 onward, after all the damage to the planet is successfully reversed and the protagonist retires from her position, we spend several chapters following her around, meandering from place to place not really doing anything of great interest. At that point, the whole purpose of one's inclination to pick up the book at all, the “Ministry for the Future” stuff, has long passed and successfully been put to paper. What happens after that is just so pointless and boring and to my mind wouldn't really be of interest in any novel of any genre for any reason. It's a shame so many chapters were written to end what is otherwise a fantastic novel on the blandest note imaginable. Still, the first two thirds of the book are enough to make it essential reading.

[Buy]

#prose #fiction

by Todd Hignite o-o-o-c

I'm of two very contradictory minds when it comes to this one. On one hand, it's a very important survey of America's most celebrated alternative cartoonists, and on the other hand it's kind of disappointing. Feelings of disappointment may pertain to me and me alone and may not in any way be objective in relation to the book's content at all. It probably has much to do with my expectations going into the book, expectations that manifested on the basis of the book's title (“In the Studio”). Was I wrong to expect at least a peek into these cartoonists' workspaces? Was I wrong to expect copious amounts of craft talk and process stuff? We end up getting neither, hence the severe feelings of disappointment I cannot seem to shake off. With that being said, we do get into the cartoonists' heads quite a bit, along with a looksee at upbringing and early influences, both of which I find wholly insightful. Hense, the book's importance. (please excuse the shit lighting on these pix)

The cartoonists in question are: Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, Charles Burns, Jaime Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, Seth, Chris Ware, and Ivan Brunetti. So really, a who's who of the creme de la creme of working alternative cartoonists. If you know these artists' work well though, chances are none of the work by them featured and discussed in this here tome will offer any new insight. What this book does really well though is showcase all the material they cite as influences and allow them to talk about it at length, which very few interviews get to do. I've always been keen to look at the work that influenced my influences, so that aspect of the book I find to be wholly invaluable. Crumb talks at length about obscure working-class satire magazines dating back to the 1800s, along with early MAD and Carl Barks' Donald Duck comics and Thomas Nast's work for Harper Weekly. When you see his own work laid out next to those works, it really does begin to look like a natural mélange of the stuff. Spiegelman cites old Sunday strips, Harvey Kurtzman, art nouvea, Otto Nuckel's “picture novel” from the 1930's, and uncovering “weird” comic books like Fletcher Hanks' STARDUST. And it's like this for every cartoonist's profile, with pictured samples from all their influences (although sometimes the images can be quite small), so again: a truly invaluable survey in that particular regard.

But I'm still aghast that a book titled “in the studio” wouldn't include a single studio shot pertaining to any of the featured cartoonists. And virtually nothing whatsoever on their preferred tools and approach to making the stuff they make. Even when they do actually talk about the stuff they make, it's about theme and general circumstances and the stuff you might find in any interview surrounding the work but nothing whatsoever on the process of actually making it. Where exactly is the studio aspect of “in the studio”? Despite how invaluable the book is for other reasons, I still feel cheated. Had it been called “Conversations with Contemporary Cartoonists” or some such, I likely would've expected exactly what I got and been completely satisfied with it.

[Buy]

#prose #comix