Inherent Vice Review

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Inherent Vice Review4.5 out of 5: Cloaked as a detective thriller, Inherent Vice contains the snappy dialog, complicated plot, and criminal underworld types typical of the genre. Don't be fooled by the packaging, though. This novel is pure everything-including-the-kitchen-sink Pynchon with satirical song lyrics, paranoia, drugs, pop culture, lawyers, sex, politics, zombies, more drugs, and a side-trip to Vegas. The neat resolution of a convoluted plot is not really the point. Instead, let go of your need for closure and join Pynchon for a buoyant romp through the psychedelic haze that was L.A. in the late 1960s.
Doc, an amiable, drug-addled personal investigator, stumbles onto a vicious international crime ring as he works on a case brought to him by his ex-girlfriend. By turns brilliant and bumbling, Doc exudes a kind of humble innocence and is the likeable center of this novel. He's both trustworthy and trustful and never far from questioning his own abilities and actions ("Did I say that outloud?"). In a typical example of the endearing workings of Doc's logic, he tries to deduce the origin of a postcard he receives "from some island he had never heard of out in the Pacific Ocean, with a lot of vowels in its name":
"The cancellation was in French and initialed by a local postmaster, along with the notation courrier par lance-coco which as close as he could figure from the Petit Larousse must mean some kind of catapult mail delivery involving coconut shells, maybe as a way of dealing with an unapproachable reef."
In Doc's world, postcards delivered via coconut catapults make perfect sense.
Clearly, Pynchon is having fun with the detective genre. In one scene, Doc drives to a mansion protected by a moat with a drawbridge. After the drawbridge descends "rumbling and creaking," "the night was very quiet again--not even the distant freeway traffic could be heard, or the footpads of coyotes, or the slither of snakes." Beneath all the humor and satire, there's a darker message here. The fun is almost over for Doc and his fellow hippies as paranoia, the harbinger of future oppression, overtakes the fun-loving sixties "like blood in a swimming pool, till it occupies all the volume of the day."
At times Inherent Vice is overly constrained by its purported genre as Pynchon weaves together the complicated plotlines of a detective story, maintaining too tight a grasp on a linear reality. The excessive plotting hampers some of the book's whimsical exuberance. But, unlike much of Pynchon's previous work, Inherent Vice is eminently readable and even, at times, actually suspenseful. At under 400 pages, Inherent Vice is also one of Pynchon's shortest novels. If you've been too intimidated to attempt a Pynchon novel up to now, try this one.Inherent Vice Overview

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Nine Stories Review

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Nine Stories ReviewJ.D. Salinger has rightfully been one of the most highly praised authors of the 20th century. Although best known for his coming-of-age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger also wrote brilliant short stories of great complexity. This is quite an accomplishment when one considers the fact that the short story poses problems the novel easily overcomes.
Salinger's skillful use of language is what distinguishes him most from his contemporaries. There is never a dull moment in a Salinger short story as this expert author intertwines detail and dialogue to convey emotion to the reader.
Although the short story leaves little room for character development, Salinger's superb style and careful use of language allow us to get to know his characters intimately in a very short period of time.
The stories included in Salinger's dazzling collection, Nine Stories, were published between 1948 and 1953 in The New Yorker.
They exhibit a unified tone and theme, something not usually found in short story collections. They are classic Salinger and classic stories; each one contributes to the volume as a whole and each is therefore enriched in its relation to the others.
Although people disagree on which story is best, each contains elements of the relationship between children and adults, one of Salinger's signature themes.
Two of the stories, A Perfect Day for Bananafish and For Esmé--With Love and Squalor, both feature protagonists (Seymour and Sargent X) who, as veterans of WWII, have sacrificed their psychological well-being and are no longer the men they once thought they were. Both feel alienated from life and, more importantly, from those they love. Both protagonists are searching for new forms of comfort and security in the respective characters of Sybil and Esmé.
Here, however, the similarities end. For Sybil lacks Esmé's insight and the final outcome for Seymour is very different than that of Sargent X and perhaps different than what it could have been.
In A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Seymour's wife, Muriel, goes to great lengths to reassure her mother regarding Seymour's soundness of mind, although Salinger carefully lets us, the reader, glimpse Seymour's paranoia.
Searching for the non-judgmental understanding of a child (but the love of an adult), Seymour befriends young Sybil, a child he's met on the beach. After realizing the impossibility of his desires and his own isolation, Seymour is driven to one last, desperate act, an act that makes some question his sanity while others will see him as finally regaining the control he had lost.
In For Esmé--With Love and Squalor, Sargent X also has a relationship with a child, but it is one that is quite different from that of Seymour and Sybil.
An intelligent and vivacious girl, Esmé lost her own father in North Africa and is quite aware of the horrors of war. When she approaches Sargent X in an English tearoom, she senses his isolation and resultant alienation and offers to write him, something Sargent X immediately agrees to.
Thirty minutes after their meeting, Esmé takes her leave of Sargent X with the words, "I hope you return with all your faculties intact."
Had it not been for Esmé, however, and the letter she writes, Sargent X would not have returned with all his faculties intact. Esmé's letter provides the one certain connection to reality and the constancy of day-to-day life that Sargent X needs. It both comforts him and reassures him that there is still some happiness out there to be found. At a time when the war has left him with nothing else to relate to, Esmé provides the needed link.
In this extraordinary collection of stories we find different people in different situations, yet a common thread of life runs through all, linking the stories to one another and to readers everywhere. This is only a small part of the genius that typifies J.D. Salinger. Read this book and I guarantee, like millions of readers before, you'll come back for more!Nine Stories Overview

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Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Left Behind #12) Review

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Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Left Behind #12) ReviewJust as a preface, I found the previous books in the Left Behind series flawed but engaging enough to warrant reading. For a lengthy and relatively faithful rendition of how Revelation might play out in our world, I thought the books were suitable--though I would love to see this story retold more realistically and not in a preaching-to-the-choir sort of way.

All that said, Glorious Appearing was a large disappointment for a variety of reasons, most of which are problems in the writing rather than the content of the source material. The first major problem is that there is zero dramatic tension once Jesus shows up. You know the good guys won't get touched and you know all the bad guys will get what's coming to them. You also know exactly what's going to happen, because all the characters have been studying the Scriptures and talking about the prophecies which will be fulfilled. I know that the fulfillment of prophecy is very important for eschatological writing, but novels need dramatic tension to keep the reader's interest. I think it would have been much more interesting to have the focal point characters NOT always in the know, and have them struggle through these experiences without knowing all the answers before hand.

The second major problem is how Jesus and the angels speak: almost entirely in passages lifted straight from the Bible. I'd imagine Lahaye and Jenkins wanted to err on the side of caution here, not wanting to ascribe to Jesus anything that he might not say. That was a mistake for two reasons. From a dramatic standpoint, it made Jesus and the angels dull, their dialogue stale and tedious because we've heard it before (and in this very book series, too). From a theological standpoint, it's troubling because it feels like it's limiting Jesus. A better solution would be to have Jesus speak original, modern dialogue that fits with who he is (as presented in the Bible) and is tied closer to the context of the book.

The third problem is that individual perspective is all but obliterated. Very often there will be a six-page section during which the focal character's name is mentioned once... and then somehow he or she is able to witness things such as mountains splitting in two and entire cities raised hundreds of feet. This book is written like a summary rather than a personal experience. If I wanted the broad picture from a distant point of view I would read Revelation or one of the hundreds of commentaries written on that book. When I'm reading a book--particularly one labeled as FICTION--I want to know and feel what the characters are going through. To this extent, I would rather the characters and myself know less about what's going to happen, so I can experience a much richer and less predictable drama.

There are other problems with this book but those are the primary ones. If you've read most of the previous books in the Left Behind series, then you should definitely read through this one just to complete the story. If you haven't read any of the series or you've only read a book or two, you might want to reconsider before you invest your time in 12 books with a disappointing payoff.

The books are based on worthwhile material (Revelation--which I'd recommend over these books any day) and the authors seem to have good intentions (though I question why they had to stretch this out over so many books if not for money-making reasons), but the execution really falls short in the end. Hopefully the financial success of this series will pave the way for another, better fictional rendering of Revelation.Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Left Behind #12) Overview

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Cannery Row Review

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Cannery Row ReviewReading CANNERY ROW on the heels of TORTILLA FLAT, the reader quickly notices many parallels between the two novels, both of which spotlight the ironies of human existence, including its happiness, despair, success and failure, and how conventional wisdom often fails dismally in describing the realities of existence. Despite the many parallels and equivalencies between them, however, the two novels differ in tone and treatment, if not in theme, and are equally worthy of the reader's attention. In fact, the reader's grasp of Steinbeck's commentary on life will remain incomplete if only one of the novels is read. By all means, learn from both.
CANNERY ROW shows us many great ironies, not the least of which is the fact that "Mack and the boys," a group of down-and-out bums, seem to be more content and fulfilled with their lot in life than is "Doc," the professional man who operates the Western Biological Laboratory. Doc is alone in the world; he lacks that human attachment that brings comfort and connectedness to those who are otherwise adrift in an uncaring universe. He has lost his only lover some time before our story begins, and his stumbling across the corpse of a beautiful, drowned girl is a painful reminder of that loss. An even more poignant reminder of his alienation from humanity comes in the words of Frankie before he is isolated in an insane asylum. Frankie's simple answer of "I love you" sends Doc retreating to the seclusion of his laboratory.
Contrasted with the loneliness of Doc, we find a fulfilling camaraderie among Mack and his cohorts. Penniless bums living in a ramshackle warehouse that they have coerced from Lee Chong, the Chinese grocer, sitting in chairs painted red with stolen paint, drinking from the liquor jug filled with the leavings of bar customers' glasses, these men possess the connectedness and the feeling of belonging to the human race that Doc has lost. Despite the facts that their few possessions have been purloined, that they are employed only when necessity drives them to it for short periods, and that they would surely be classified as ne'er-do-wells by any member of polite society, the men are not only comfortable with one another but also reach out to others, wanting to "do something nice" for Doc simply because they like him, and lavishing ignorant but fully sincere love on Darling, doting upon her even as she eats their only shoes and makes puddles in their warehouse-home.
Other residents of Cannery Row also connect to the human community, sharing what they have and supporting one another when the fates bring misfortune upon their fellow men. When influenza strikes down both adults and children of the Row, Dora sends her professional girls, bearing thick, hot soup, to sit with the sick after their "work shifts" have ended for the day.
Misfortune, aided by copious drink, does sweep through the company. A party for Doc, who does not return from specimen gathering in time for it, gets well out of hand, and Doc's laboratory and personal belongings suffer greatly as a consequence. At other points, the reader encounters suicide, crime, the callousness of a "system" that cannot understand or tolerate unfortunates such as Frankie. Cannery Row is not Utopia. Yet, somehow in the midst of impoverished existence, life will go on. Connections will be made. Humanity will be preserved. Logic and reason may not always apply, for the most despised dregs of society may be those who discover the paths of camaraderie, of sharing, of giving and of loving. Yet, despite such ironies, the vibrant, growing, fighting, reproducing life of the tidal pools will find its counterpart on land as well.
And what of Doc, whom we have described as divorced from this community of humanity? There is perhaps some promise there, too. At another party thrown by the boys for his birthday (though it wasn't really his birthday), Doc truly enjoys himself-despite the broken glasses, windows, and door. Essentially, Doc remains alone, but now he-and we-know that bridges do exist across that gulf of loneliness and that connectedness, even though it may be temporary, is possible.
Steinbeck's CANNERY ROW paints a portrait of humanity set firmly in the naturalistic genre. It depicts all of the grime, the drunkenness, the self-incriminations, and the rationalizations of men mired in poverty and ignorance, yet it also depicts them as survivors, and being a survivor is essentially what life is all about. Steinbeck's novels should probably be "required reading," if there were such a thing, for every adult, but I am somewhat dismayed at the thought that there are high school teachers who use them in their classes. The dismay is not because of any Pollyanna-ish notion that students should be "protected" from scenes such as Steinbeck draws, but rather because having more experience with life and its diversity is really necessary for a greater appreciation of Steinbeck's observations. Here, of course, I write in generalities, for there are undoubtedly students of all ages and at all levels of life whose experiences will enable them to understand and, therefore, to appreciate Steinbeck's verbal portraits of the human condition, and to them I highly recommend him.Cannery Row Overview

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Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, the Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar Review

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Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, the Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar ReviewThe late, great Richard Brautigan was one of America's most talented and original writers. An icon of the 1960's counterculture, Brautigan was more than just another hippie writer, he was the Mark Twain of the 60's! A brilliant satirist with the soul of a poet, Brautigan's works were way ahead of their time, and this volume collects three of his best. "Trout Fishing In America", his most celebrated novel, chronicles the life and times of a fellow named, well, Trout Fishing In America, as he wanders across a bizarre landscape in search of enlightenment, a Zen fisherman, so to speak. "The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster" is a collection of poetry that mixes lyricism with smarmy humor. "In Watermelon Sugar" is a beautiful, lyrical novel about a group of people living in a commune, supporting themselves by making things out of watermelon sugar in a factory they call the Watermelon Works. That's just an abstract description of the plot - you have to read the book thoroughly to enjoy the unique structure of the narrative. Brautigan was indeed a writer far ahead of his time, combining brilliant Vonnegutesque satire with the homey charm of Mark Twain. Treat yourself to a great read and buy this book!Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, the Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar Overview

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