Setting the Bar

This book is from the New York Times top 100 books of 2009 - I finally got to another one!  And it was a bizarre read - so bizarre that even though I was turned off at times by the style and the contents, I still kept reading until I actually finished the book, which I haven’t been inclined to do recently because I’m just too busy to read books I hate.

The Anthologist is Baker’s eighth work of fiction apparently. It is a quirky, sometimes funny, sometimes utterly ridiculous and boring tribute to poetry and meter that is narrated by Paul Chowder, a minor poet himself who lives in Maine and NH. Paul is trying to create a poetry anthology, but it isn’t going well because he can’t write an introduction and it gets more difficult to do so after his girlfriend Roz leaves him in the first few pages. He is also woefully accident prone (I think he cuts the same finger at least three times in the course of this book) and carries massive credit card debt. The book is told in the first person by Chowder, who is just weird and not all there, but he makes for an… interesting? sort of narrator - one that absolutely loves his subject and knows it inside and out, so much that there are inside jokes that a person that doesn’t know about poetry won’t pick up on.

I think that I would have liked this book more if I actually liked poetry and had an appreciation for it. As it stood, some of it was just boring and skimming sort of material for me. I liked Baker’s writing style - it is lyrical and beautiful.  But he can be very overbearing in some parts by taking over Chowder and making him a mouthpiece for his own beliefs on the world of poetry. I would pass on this one.

OK, this isn’t on any list but I wanted to read it to give me a break from the “serious” books and because I loved the Da Vinci code so much. I remembered devouring it one summer over the period of one day. This book is in the same vein - it’s a mystery novel that stars Professor Robert Langdon, who must decode various puzzles or people will die. This time, the novel takes place in Washington D.C. over twelve hours. Langdon has been summoned to the Rotunda in the Capitol building in D.C. to give, what he believes to be, a lecture on Symbology. Instead of a lecture, when he gets there, he finds the severed hand of the person that invited him to give the lecture - his mentor and friend, Peter Solomon, who also happens to be the leader of the local group of Masons and a 33rd Degree Mason. This leads to a cat and mouse game, taking us through the Smithsonian and many of D.C.’s tourist attractions, while giving us the Masons for Dummies history lesson at the same time.

Mal’akh is the evil villain in this case and Dan Brown did a magnificent job in creating him and his history. Mal’akh’s body is completely and utterly tattoo’ed except for a small circle on the top of his head. He is educated and unstable and muscled and a eunuch - something that he did to himself eerily and creepily enough. He is seeking a hidden Masonic pyramid in order to gain the mythical power and transformation that lies within - he believes that it is owed to him.

I enjoyed reading this book, but perhaps that is because I hadn’t read the previous two Brown books in some time.  This book follows the same exact formula as the other books - secret society, symbology, mystery and excitement - except that it takes place in the American Capitol instead of some fancy European city like Paris or Rome. It follows the same formula that Brown’s other books followed, so if you were bored by them, then you shouldn’t read this one. The book’s 500 or so pages flew by though - hard to believe that I tore through this book in one weekend or so with a two year old, but it moved quickly so I’m not complaining. And while some people might find the historical parts (the parts where Langdon is educating the various other people about the Masons) boring, I found them fascinating.

Generally, a pretty good, fun and mindless read.

Again, another book down from the WILLA list - making great headway.  This book is a collection of short stories written by African novelist Chimamanda Adichie. Her stories deal with everything from spoilt, rich young men being arrested and put in the infamous Cell One, to the experience of two women - a Christian and a Muslim - hiding together during a riot where Christians and Muslims are fighting each other, to a young woman living in suburban Philly and seeing her husband only two months a year.

What shocked me is that Adichie is only 31 - she and I are the same age - but yet she shows a wisdom beyond her years (and something that I, perhaps, should be aspiring to). Her stories drew me in almost immediately - just within the first few sentences really - and she was able to capture the feelings of each character so deftly, even within 15-20 pages.  It was absolutely amazing. I wonder if Adichie herself had experienced any of the things that she wrote about because the insight that she showed in her composition was so wonderful, that it made me believe that she really had experienced them. Her themes also struck home for me - she writes a lot about family an exile and how each impacts the other. It also deals a lot with self exploration and self definition and how location impacts how people view themselves, how others view them and vice versa.  Really well done.

I can’t wait to get my next Adiche book out of the library!

This book is one of the books from the WILLA list that I keep blogging about reading. I’m slowly but surely making my way through them. This book is split between 1994/95 and 2008 but focuses on the lives of a single family - the Aschers - who seem to have everything but who don’t appreciate that they have it all. Or at the very least, they don’t appreciate how fragile their perfect life (read two children, dog, huge Manhattan apartment and a beautiful house in the Berkshires). And then it all disappears. In 1994, the Aschers have been married for twenty years. When they met, Laura had a lot of money and is a wealthy socialite. Joe Ascher was a struggling playwright. However, when we meet them, Joe is the more successful one — with plays written and starred in under his belt. The couple had been under their fair amount of strain but had managed to weather the storm. Emily is 15 in 1995 and when we meet her, she is beginning to rebel - she is experimenting with acting, alcohol, drugs and sex. This, of course, increases the amount of strain on the already strained marriage. Thomas, the older son, is the perfect, good son - successful, level headed. He is the one that everyone wants and loves. He is eventually diagnosed with a terminal disease. Bass alternates between 95 and 08, where Emily is a lawyer that is planning to get married, Joe is a struggling alcoholic and is divorced from Laura, who has since remarried.

This was Bass’s first novel and it was utterly wonderful, even though there were some rough parts. I really enjoyed the visual descriptions that she made - she fully engaged the senses which made it easy for me to actually believe that I was in the places where she set the story. Bass is also a magnificent story teller who was able to craft her characters as well as her scenes. I didn’t like how some of the character relationships - namely the one between a teenage Emily and her much older boyfriend - just stop abruptly with no resolution, seemingly. However, I loved the way that she created the relationships between family members - the tension that exists between various members of the Ascher family is very realistic and very palpable.

I loved this poignant take on art, life and family and how one impacts the other.

So, I saw a trailer for the new Iron Man movie when I went to go see Sherlock Holmes, so I opted to see the first one, well, first. Here’s a trailer:

This is a 2008 action movie based upon the Marvel comic book Iron Man. It was released in 2008, directed by Jon Favreau and stars Robert Downey, Jr., Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard and Gyneth Paltrow. RDJ plays Tony Stark, of course. Stark is the genius inventor that has inherited his father’s company and has created many, many different sorts of weapons that are in use by the U.S. Army. At the beginning of the movie, we are introduced to a playboy Stark who is gambling in a casino in Vegas, while he is supposed to be accepting an award for his ingenuity. Stark, after an evening on the town, flies to Afghanistan to visit the troops that he has so generously supplied with weapons of mass destruction and guns. On his way back, his envoy is attacked, he is critically wounded by one of his own weapons and he is captured. Upon waking up, he has found himself implanted with an electromagnet that is located in his chest. It keeps shrapnel from moving to his chest. Eventually, Stark creates a metallic body armor and sets about to determine what to do about the captured missiles.

All in all, this was a pretty entertaining movie. It isn’t going to challenge you or push you outside of the box, but it was still pretty fun to watch, even if it was one of those “classic” comic book movies (think X-Men and all of its progeny). What I appreciated was that it didn’t pander at all to me and try to impress me, even though I wasn’t into comic book movies. The pace was decent - it moved along without moving so fast that your head gets clouded and dizzy trying to figure out what is going on with whom and when. Generally, it was pretty easy to follow and generally fun to watch. The special effects were decent, but not dazzling, and the acting was above average, though not stellar. I will definitely go to see the next Iron Man, or at the very least, put it on my Netflix queue.

So, this movie was released recently and I picked it up because it looked like one that Nate would enjoy. And you can see why:

This is a computer animated children’s film that is based loosely upon the book of the same name written by Judi and Ron Barrett. It stars Bill Hader , Anna Farris and Neil Patrick Harris. The movie introduces us to Flint Lockwood, who wants to invent something totally cool (and show us to our inner geek) but everything that he has invented has ended in disaster and being made fun of by classmates and colleagues alike. To help solve the food shortage that resulted from the the closure of the local food cannery, Lockwood invents a machine that combines water molecutes and creates food, but he must do so at the bait shop instead of home because his father hates science. The machine absorbs so much energy that it takes off like a rocket, destroys sardine island and is absorbed by the atmosphere. Somehow, Lockwood manages to avoid being killed by an angry mob and meets Sam (played by Anna Farris), a wannabe meterologist. The two witness a couple of big purple clouds approaching and are really excited when it starts raining cheeseburgers. Soon, everything has an element of the creation the Lockwood birthed.

I actually think that this movie’s humor was more geared to adults then children - the wordplays were witty and funny (but not something that my child would necessarily get right now).  The pace was also much faster then I think the average 2 or 3 year old is going to get but, I do have to say, that Nate sat and watched the entire movie (even though it was about 90 minutes long). I attribute that to mostly the visuals. The animators made no effort to make the characters look utterly realistic. I mean, you can tell that they are humans but they have bug eyes, their heads are way too big for their bodies and they’re just funny looking. Also, the fact that food is falling from the sky is enough to tickle anyone pink and it did so for Nate. I also had fun watching this movie and appreciated not only the appearance of Mr. T, who voices one of the characters (::hears strains of A-Team music::) but the references to Abbot and Costello that pop up as well.

I really enjoyed this movie as did my two year old. It was fun and zany and entertaining!

In college, I majored in history.  While my concentration was women’s history, I took a lot of classes on Asian history and American history from the 60’s on, so the Vietnam war was a big topic area. So I was excited to see the reviews of this book - I decided to get it out of the library - and I enjoyed it!

The book is non-fiction/biography/history about Kim Phuc, a young girl that was burned by napalm in a botched attack. A picture of her, naked and in obvious pain and terror as she ran from the bomb was captured by Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer.  Phuc was nine at the time and no one has since forgotten her - she became a symbol of how the war impacted ordinary civilians. This book documents Kim’s life from childhood to adulthood. It discusses the extreme physical, psychological and often emotional pain that she experienced as a result of her injuries. She also experienced extreme poverty and manipulation at the hands of the Communist regime in Vietnam, who wanted to make a profit of her “fame” (or misery depending on how you look at it).

This was a really great book. It provided a pretty comprehensive history of the Vietnam war and the policies behind it while interweaving the story of perhaps, one of its most famous survivors. The prose was a little short and sometimes felt choppy but I was able to get by it because the story and the history absolutely fascinated me. Chong did a very good and careful and thorough job in researching this book. As a result, it was chock full of information, facts and pictures.

I don’t remember how I heard about this movie, but it ended up on my Netflix queue and I ended up watching it over the long weekend. Here is a trailer:

This movie is a drama/comedy that was released in 2001 and was written and directed by Nicole Holofcener . The story centers around Jane Marks, her adult daughters - Michelle and Elizabeth - and her adopted, pre-teen African American daughter Annie.  Each allows their insecurities impact majorly on all aspects of their lives. Jane, for instance, wants to look younger and thinner, so she opts to have liposuction and ends up nearly dying from complications from the surgery. Michelle considers herself to be an artist and didn’t work in order to devote all of her attention to her art. When she can’t sell any of her artwork - to both she and her husband’s dismay - her marriage begins to fall apart and she takes a job at a one hour photo place, where she meets and begins an affair with the teenage manager. Elizabeth is an aspiring actress who just wants to be loved and, when she is rejected for a part because of her looks, she ends up seeking the affection of another actor, who is as shallow as they come. Annie is overweight and is struggling to fit in with her white adopted family - in the process she runs away, makes everyone believe that she is drowning whenever she swims and nearly ruins her hair when she tries to straighten it.

This movie was way too short, which disappointed me to no end because the messages and themes that it dealt with - dealing with insecurities surrounding looks, appearances, professional attainments and fitting in - were very powerful and were being dealt with in such an intelligent and insightful manner.  It could totally have been one of those message movies where you actually learned a lot, but because it was so short, some of it was lost. I found myself really caring for the characters because of how they were portrayed - sweetly, sensitively and respectfully. They are vividly written and vividly acted; these are women that you could know and interact with on a daily basis - they are your sisters, wives, mothers, cousins, girlfriends, wives.  Absolutely, wonderfully realistic. The movie seamlessly moves from one scene to the next; it is as smooth as silk. The inconclusive ending was the only drawback and left me unsatisfied.

Other than that this was a magnificent movie.

I read the book awhile ago and remember liking it very, very much so when I saw that a movie had been made, I was curious to see it.  Here is the trailer:

This movie was released in 2008 and is based upon the book by Bernard Schlink. It was directed by Stephen Daldry and stars Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes as well as previously unknown actor David Kross. This movie follows Michael Berg in 1950’s Germany, as he conducts an affair with an older woman - Hanna Schmitz.  Hanna, played by Winslet, encounters Michael (young Michael, played by David Kross and the elder Michael played by Fiennes), as he lays in a doorway, ill and helps him home, where he is diagnosed with scarlet fever. After he recovers, the 15 year old Michael visits Hanna, ostensibly to thank her and the 36 year old woman promptly seduces him and an affair begins. During their liasons, he reads her the stories that he is studying - everything from The Odyssey to War and Peace. After a vacation together, Hanna learns that she has been promoted and leaves abruptly, without telling anyone. Michael slowly moves on and enters law school. In 1966, he becomes part of a special seminar and, as part of that seminar, they attend a war crimes trial where he sees Hanna on trial for crimes that were committed while she was a guard at a concentration camp during World War II.

I was impressed by this movie on a lot of levels. It was a solid adaptation and made a very good attempt to explain why ordinary Germans did what they did during the war. It also did an adequate job at presenting arguments as to why said Germans should be demonized. Hanna wasn’t portrayed as a monster or demon, which would have been very, very easy to do considering what she was alleged to have done; rather she was portrayed as a woman to be pitied. And I almost did, for a moment, pity her. I didn’t pity the fact that she couldn’t recognize that she had committed a crime and that it had been a heinous thing to do morally. I liked how it dealt with the theme of coming to terms with our memories and delusions and faults. It is sombre and bright but I was immediately enthralled and captivated. I was very impressed by this movie.

Aya is the second book off of the WILLA list that I have read this year.  I hadn’t ever read a graphic novel before last year, when I picked up Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis (my review is here).  That changed my mind with regards to graphic novels - helped me to see the light so to say. So when I saw that there was at least this novel on the WILLA list, I was really excited. And it turns out that Abouet, who had never written a graphic novel before, was heavily influenced by Ms. Satrapi.

Aya is about a young girl that lives in the Ivory Coast, in Africa, during the seventies. There is a brief period of prosperity after French Colonial rule has been ended, and it is during this period that the story takes place. Clement Oubrerie is the artist. There are at least three different story lines going on here, all of which include Aya in some capacity.  The stories deal with coming of age in 1978 Ivory Coast where three young girls struggle to find love, job or education.  The girls battle with things like teenage sex and pregnancy, love and sexism.

The artwork was really charming. I enjoyed reading the novel, don’t get me wrong, but I also enjoyed just looking at the artwork itself. The colors were beautiful and it was very relaxed. If the characters were able to actually move, they would have been comfortable in their own skin; I could see how each character moved distinctly. The story was cute, but not compelling. I’ve read many more compelling stories and, quite frankly Satrapi’s story was more compelling.  The goals behind this novel: to educate people about Ivory Coast during this time period and the struggles that teenage girls had to go through was admirable and her messages were abundantly clear, even though the stories themselves could sometimes get confusing. I attribute my confusion to having to constantly remind myself about all the character names - I kept having to flip around to remind myself - and that led to a lot of my confusion.

What I found to be very helpful were the additions that Abouet made to the novel - she gave a brief history of Ivory Coast before the story started. This was helpful because I was able to put her story into an historical context. She also added a section in the back that includes pictures, a glossary and some recipes, which was fun and, again, provided me with context in which to read the story.

This is definitely a book that you should try for yourself.