A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD – Jennifer Egan

A novel in vignettes, and if you like a book that bings you around the lives of the characters like you are riding a pin ball then this is for you. A little unsettling sometimes maybe, but a really creative ride it is. Egan toggles the reader around between 1970 and sometime in the not too distant future after 2020, and through a myriad of protagonists. Their lives are all connected and do come together in the end so there is that to keep in mind. Perhaps we are doing one of those “six degrees of separation” things here? I am not familiar with Egan but I found whole chapters that were so intense and characterization so colorful that leaving them to romp off with another while many years passed left me somewhat irritated. It would be possible for me to go back and reread for instance all the “Sasha” chapters and be happy. All the characters come and go over the years and seem to bang around and into each other over and over.

Sasha begins the book. She is a kleptomaniac who is compelled to steal personal items and who is also working for Bennie, a record producer. They have their middle-aged dilemmas. Bennie is trying to keep his career together, have a normal relationship with his child, and fight impotence. Sasha tries to keep Bennie in tow, date, and fight her mental illness. When people from the past enter the scene like Scotty, a Flaming Dildo band member who has been living on the street, Sasha's college lover Drew, Jules a celebrity journalist, Lou an amoral entertainment mogul, and Stephanie, Bennie's ex-wife, then the book rockets into the 1970s. Sasha had been a runaway to Europe working as a prostitute and Bennie was the guitarist for the band Flaming Dildos. There is also a bloated has-been rocker trying to be resurrected, a genocidal dictator, and an aging starlet to contend with.

The rocketing around from character to character and back and forth between four or five decades takes 13 chapters but only 288 pages so you know it goes fast. At first I thought this piece could never hang together but it did and I liked it. Before I read it I saw a reference to A Visit From the Goon Squad as a “mash-up.” Possibly that is a good description but it is more than that too. If you are, as I am, in your “middle age” you may be called upon to remember the 70s and 80s and try not to judge the characters too harshly. There is sadness, irritation, but also humor, irony, and sarcasm written here with skill. 

THE PALE KING - David Foster Wallace

A paperback copy of The Pale King has been sitting on the table by my reading chair for several months now. After several tries of being faced with run-on sentences and “stream-of-consciousness” type writing with which I never do well, it occurred to me that it might not be worth the effort it was going to take to complete the 545 page tome. Therefore, I stopped to go in search of reviews. Bolstered with the thought that better thinkers and readers than I have given this piece superb recommendations, and that it is possibly Pulitzer material I soldiered on. Also the Kennedy Library book group in Muncie, Indiana was scheduled to discuss it this month and wanting to go I decided it would be good to finish it before attending. I have to say that now I am very glad I did. That being said this is probably a book that if it ever gets recommended by me it will be with trepidation. This piece has some brilliant writing, enthralling plot lines, and wonderful characters. However, it is very difficult to read for several reasons.

First of all this book is referred to in most reviews as “unfinished” due to the untimely death of the author, and in reality it does feel fragmentary and chaotic. Also the average reader may not have enough understanding of what the IRS does and of tax code to follow some of the plot and dialogue. There is no set plot line, not much exciting action, and many characters. Finally, the interjection of the author himself into the story via ponderous footnotes apparently is also off-putting to many readers.

When I got to book group there were only two of us that had finished the book and all, to a person, had basically the same impression of the book being too fragmentary and rambling. Knowing ahead of time that it was published posthumously did nothing to excuse what some felt was a disservice to the author. We discussed whether better editing could or should have resulted in an arrangement of the vignettes that comprised the chapters into a piece that made better sense. As it is, it remains very hard to follow. This is a novel-in-stories. Every chapter is different; in perspective, style, theme and even the font. Some chapters are monologues or dialogues, some are third person vignettes, some are in the past and some present tense. Sometimes the reader will be several paragraphs or even pages in before it is clear who is talking or whether the chapter is in the present or the past. I so much longed to have the chapters titled with at least the name of the character whose thoughts we were examining. I have to confess I wrote the names in my book as soon as I figured out who was talking.

An acquaintance told me that probably one could skip the whole beginning and just start with chapter nine and be better off. Well, knowing that could not be right I didn't follow his advice. He was spot on. After reading the whole book and suffering through those first eight chapters I do wish I had simply skipped them. Chapter two is Claude Sylvanshine's musings and wonderings while being captive on an airplane. He switches from mundane daily observations to the recitation of accounting problems that are going to be on the exam that he is on his way to take, and which will be very important for advancing his position at work. I think as a reader we are supposed to understand that Claude has no control over a constant data flow that runs through his mind. The second paragraph of this chapter is ten pages long, which must be the longest paragraph I have ever read. However, in this paragraph Claude remembers his roommate, Reynolds telling him that, “Reality was a fact-pattern the bulk of which was entropic and random.” Therefore one simply needs to figure out what “facts” are important. That I took to be indicative of this whole novel and I decided to simply read it fast and try to remember the parts that are relevant.

Trying to encapsulate the premise of the novel I will say this, it is about a bunch of IRS employees who are each unique with stories to tell of their lives and travails. While you are privy to their tales you also will struggle with them in their jobs while working to set up a new IRS office in Peoria, Illinois sometime in the 1980s. There are some great characters here. I loved the Toni Ware chapters and wanted more about her. Her childhood was sad and often very scary but she is smart and strong. Leonard Stecyk is and always was a true selfless nerd who seemed so “good” no one could ever stand him and yet he becomes an inspiration to others. Lane Dean has been a devout Christian but is questioning his beliefs. My favorite chapter is Chris Fogle's life story most of which takes place in the 70s. It was fun for me because there was a lot of 70s slang and reminiscing about things that went on then. The death scene of Chris's father is bizarre and so vivid. I still think about.

There is a lot here and a lot to think about. One other thing I did not like at all was the interjection of the author into the story including many annoying and useless footnotes. My friend Mike says this is a horrible piece of drivel and he would never recommend it to anyone. I do not agree. There is much here to enjoy and I can see in the future many excerpts of this book being included in college anthologies for study. I would love to discuss this book with someone else who sees its value. I may go back and make notes in my own book telling anyone who reads it after me what parts to skip which could end up being half of the piece.

As I said before there is in this novel much great writing, many beautiful thoughts, witty and interesting language. I think my favorite line is on page 438 in chapter 44, “To be, in a word, unborable.... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.” the very reason I may like it so much is because when my own children were young and complained of being bored I always told them, “Only boring people get bored.” which is my way of saying that the secret to success is to be immune to boredom as apparently also thought David Foster Wallace.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS – Ernest Hemingway

OOPS! While cleaning out my computer files I found this review from March that I forgot to post. Dang-it I hate it when that happens. So belatedly here is my review of a classic Hemingway.

I believe the Jay county Public Library book discussion group may have had one of its best discussions ever! Four of us had read this Hemingway book before and two of us when we were teens. This group enjoys picking up a classic every so often and even though as a group this wasn't our favorite we were all actually quite happy to have read it or reread it.

Let me begin by saying that my morning walking partner Susie and I both read this as teens and we both loved it then. So we spent some mornings reminiscing and analyzing why this time around we didn't “love” it. To make a long discussion short, I would say that when we were teens and being naive we found the love story romantic and believable and perhaps the shocking violence was exciting. Also both of us no doubt had been exposed to Hemingway in our English class anthologies and could feel grown up reading a classic which we could understand and didn't take too long.

The whole book takes place over a four day period in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Robert Jordan, an American professor has joined the International Brigades in order to aide the republican guerrillas fight the nationalists. He has been sent to lead a band to dynamite a significant bridge outside of Segovia. With the guerrillas is a beautiful young woman whom they rescued from a derailed train. The band is loosely held together by Pablo and his wife Pilar.

Over the three days and nights there is unrest among the guerrilla band members and discord with a neighboring band. Theft and murder ensue, and yet there is time for Jordan to become romantically involved with the young woman Maria. Now, there is no description of love making, even though you know it is going on and no swearing because in his infinite wisdom Hemingway substituted every expletive with phrases like, “go defile yourself,” or “I will obscenity in the milk.” This to me was somewhat annoying. I found it humorous that no expletives were allowed in this book while we read many pages of decapitations, mutilations, rapes, and tortures. I wondered how many novels in the 1930s were written like this. Sad to say in all my library classes we did not cover that.

One benefit from rereading this book was that I was prodded to refresh my memory about the Spanish Civil War and Hemingway history. Also, once again as I read the last chapter I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to get to the end of the action.

SWAMPLANDIA – Karen Russell

I must confess a bit of trouble starting this one and I kept hoping it would move faster until achieving the halfway point when suddenly I had to finish it. Two different book clubs I attend have discussed this title recently forcing me to think about the writing, characters, and plot in more detail thus adding to my appreciation.

In the Everglades of Florida lives the unusual Bigtree family. They own and operate an amusement park featuring alligator wrestlers. To say the least the life of this family is not conventional. They are messy, eccentric, very unusual, and happy. When the featured wrestler and matriarch Hilola dies of cancer, the oldest sibling, Kiwi runs away, and Dad leaves his two girls, Ava who is thirteen and Osceloa who is 16, alone for a few weeks in an effort to acquire some funds to keep the park afloat. Troubles multiply, danger lurks in the swamp, Dad doesn't come home.

The heart of the book is about the sisters Ava and Osceola alone in Swamplandia but there are rich and meaty chapters about Kiwi. The seventeen year old has taken a job at a rival park, The World of Darkness, based on the Book of Revelation from the Bible and Dante's Inferno. He wants desperately to be able to make enough to send home finances and also to go to college. Kiwi is my favorite character. His home-schooled education has not prepared him to navigate a world he little understands. Thankfully he is very bright and also acquires friends who help him.

Back in Swamplandia Ava struggles to take care of the park and alligators. When a government abandoned dredge drifts close by Osceola concocts fantasies of a ghost lover and one day disappears into the swamp to be with him. Soon an unusual stranger called the Birdman appears and offers to help Ava find her lost sister in the under world. The two embark on a surreal and dark journey. The writer's style is particularly engaging in these chapters. One wonders while reading what is real and what is fantasy and if the Birdman is a good character or not. These chapters contain a bit of swamp history too about the Melaleuca project in Florida of the late 1800s, dredging of the Everglades, and the killing of the Seminole people.

It was enjoyable to live with this quirky family for a bit. Visiting the grandfather in his nursing home comprised of docked houseboats was surprising and shocking as well. I found myself well able to see their house, the gator wrestling arena, and to visualize the museum. It was disappointing to not have more of a story for the Red Seth though.

A creative piece, not at all what I expected but worth the read. I found it artful, fantastical, gothic, and often funny. The book began with a quote from Through the Looking Glass and I did feel like I was down the rabbit hole while immersed in Swamplandia.

MADE FOR GOODNESS – Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu

Alas, I have been lax in reporting my reading. Actually months have gone by and the stack on my desk of books read to blog about is getting very tall. This was Zion Lutheran's First Tuesday class choice for the month of April. Also my friend Paula has read all or most of Desmond Tutu's works and named her youngest son in honor of him. Therefore I was looking forward to this book and I wasn't disappointed. Besides the fact that Pastor Mark can make any discussion fascinating, there was enough food for thought to make our group into an animated sharing session.

I won't go into the merits of this Nobel-winning holy man, you can look all of that up for yourself if you need to do so. I just want to talk about this book. The premise of this book is that humans are made in the image of God and therefore are full of goodness, love, and creativity. The important thing then is to see ourselves this way and to strive to be good servants, to care, have empathy, compassion, love our enemies, and work hard in this life to change things for the better.

Tutu interweaves vignettes from his life, many which are painful and ugly but also many that are beautiful and inspiring to make all his points. My favorite chapter might be #4 “Free to Choose.” Along with quoting Ghandi, “be the change we want to see,” and citing many times when making choices isn't easy Tutu assures the reader that Making good and right choices is often far from easy. God respects our right to choose and isn't going to send angels down on wings to make it clear but we are charged with doing the best we can and living with blessings and consequences of our choices.

Chapter 8 is really good too (well they are all good) “Why Does God Let Us Sin?” This chapter reminds me a bit of some of the work in Phillip Gulley's book If Grace is True. Like Gulley, Tutu reminds us that all humans are God's beloved children, not only Christians but all people. We need to face the fact that even our worst enemies may not burn in hell. God calls us to goodness but we may choose not to go. Conscience plays a big part and we should listen to these whispers from God. When he says, “Did you have to do/say that?” “Was that necessary?” “Couldn't you say a kind word here?” “Forgive.” “Give.”

In Chapter 9 Tutu talks about helping others heal by offering the “listening ear.” We don't have to have the answers or fix the problems, we just need to listen. There are plenty of other great lessons here but those are my favorites. This is a one afternoon read but one that I will want to turn to again and to pass along to a valued friend.

The Tutu's speak from experience with love, wisdom, and true goodness. I can only hope to be like them someday. 

THE PHILOSOPHER'S APPRENTICE - James Morrow

Do you totally understand your own moral compass? Does anyone? Why do we all see morality differently? I certainly think about morals and try constantly to evaluate my beliefs. While I do try to stick by my beliefs and back them up with faith and facts I also have very close friends who feel that my compass is “off” so to speak. They believe that their brand of morality is better, cleaner, or more Christian than mine. Obviously I don't believe them but I also know that as I have aged I have changed my compass somewhat and probably will again, but so might they.

Mason Ambrose is a Darwinian ethicist who has read about, studied, researched, and grappled with morality and written a book intended to be his doctoral thesis. When he fails to complete that process he takes a job on a remote island for a reclusive millionairess, Edwina Sabacthani. He is hired to tutor Sabathani's teenage daughter who apparently has amnesia to the pint of being a tabula rasa or blank slate. His job is to develop in her psyche a moral compass. Soon Ambrose discovers that Sabacthani and her assistant Vincent Charnock have been experimenting with genetically engineering plants, animals, and humans. They have created by artificial means three “daughters” for Edwina who is herself terminally ill. The girls were created by inserting DNA into donor eggs. The fetuses were then aged in a special vat or ontogenerator which speedily advanced them to the desired age after which each child's brain was advanced with the use of programing from a “dunce cap.” Donya is chronologically aged to five, Yolly to eleven, and Londa is 15.

Taking note of the following quotation as a bit of foreshadoing, it was clear early on to me that the daughters Sabathani would not end up well:

In recent years I'd seen Max Crippen's sculpture of the Crucifixion rendered entirely in LEGOs, Valerio Caparelli's Norman Rockwell-style painting of God inseminating the Virgin Mary on their first date, and Leonard Steele's rock opera set in the Vatican's luxury suite for retired pedophile priests, but what Edwina and Charnock had achieved was sacrilege of a wholly different order, blasphemy beyond the meaning of the word. (pp.87-8 of the paperback)

Upon Edwina's death the girls are assigned guardians and trust funds. Ambrose heads off to begin his own life. Londa and Yolly create an empire for helping women including a multi-million dollar complex housing lawyers, medical consultants, and activists of all kinds working on women's social issues. Ambrose and his wife, Natalie face serious health issues leading them to choose abortion over endangering Natalie's life. Ultra religious fanatics join forces to destroy the Sabacthani empire. Vincent Charnock becomes depressed and reclusive from guilt about what he has done with the Sabacthanis and sells his creation machine to the religious fanatics. Soon populating this book are aging creatures made from aborted fetuses, animatronic non-humans, and “created” people called immaculoids who are programmed to accomplish specific tasks.

This book pretty much satirizes everything, religion, atheism, pro-choice, pro-life, capitalism, socialism you name it. Actually, I think that is the point. All philosophies, even those based on goodness or philanthropy, if allowed to reach the fevered pitch of radicalism, become not only ineffective but harmful. The plot is complicated, the characters are colorful, and one must pay attention to detail. But I must say I really liked The Philosopher's Apprentice very much. We discussed it last evening at the Jay County Public Library book group and I did not hear anyone say they did not like it. Many said it was a hard read but worth it. It behooves me to say I did have to look up references to mythology, philosophy, vocabulary, and some people referred to. Not as smart as I thought I was apparently.

WHEN GOD TALKS BACK – T. M. Luhrmann

Reading this book was instigated by a discussion at our church book group. We were reading Desmond Tutu's new book (this will be in a separate blog) and discussing prayer when we started talking about how some of our friends and coworkers speak about prayer differently than we do and that sometimes we don't quite understand how to respond. Then this book appeared on NPR so my friend and I decided to look it over. To clarify – we don't think there is anything wrong with thinking or doing things differently than we do, but we want to understand why certain denominations do and say the things they do that seem so different from what we have grown up believing. Understanding is the key. When a few times that I have tried to gently ask a person who attends a charismatic or fundamentalist type church questions the response was often a defensive quip like, “It's in the Bible just read it.” That is not really helpful to broaden understanding, so to a book we went.

Reading the first several chapters of this book was very enjoyable. The history of the evangelical or charismatic movement across the nation was interesting. However, the author is an anthropologist and the book soon began to feel like a doctoral dissertation that became a book and I began to drown in information too technical for me. Do you know the difference between apophatic and kataphatic prayer? I read about it and still don't get all of the nuances. The best parts of the book for me were the footnotes.

The author was kind and respectful towards her study subjects. Too often those who don't agree with their subjects end up making fun of them and that is not what I was looking for. I wanted background and explanation without opinion or criticism. Luhrmann seemed professional, sincere, and careful.

Lurhmann explained that perhaps the biggest difference between these types of sects or denominations and those I grew up with is that they have made the break from academic Bible study such as we know. They do not care so much about the historic background of the texts. They are reading them as messages specifically to the reader. Mainstream denominations insist that pastors be educated, that it is important to study who wrote the original texts, why and for whom they were written, how many times and into what languages they were translated, and also discussions of what they mean for us today.

Reading about how differently we all view prayer was most enjoyable and educational. It was so interesting to read about training the mind, de-centering, reaching an almost a trancelike state in order to feel that God is talking to one directly. However, that same chapter offers up stories of girls praying about hair styles, what color to polish their toenails, and talking about God as being their “boyfriend” which I did not enjoy. But still, it is good to see that when people talk about  how they pray and about God being beside them and talking to them they are sincere and simply view the world differently than some others. Luhrmann covered worship demonstrations also like swaying, waving of uplifted hands, crying, and shouting during services. I would have to say that I am not comfortable with those things but it is good for me to read about why it is done and to be understanding.

When Luhrmann discussed demon possession, tongue speaking, and faith healing she did so with reverence except for one little humorous interjection. I am an introvert so those things will probably never be on my agenda. But, if that makes some people feel closer to God then that is what they need. There is so much more in this scholarly book like; spiritual direction sessions, God as therapist, singing as prayer, the feel good blurries, emotional cascading, and becoming a prayer warrior that I simply don't have time for right now. But if you want to understand these things and have not grown up with it this book is for you.

If I am to be entirely honest I would have to say that it is comforting to me also to learn that this movement is relatively a new thing beginning around the mid to late 1800s. The reason that is comforting to me is that since for almost 2,000 years Christians worshipped without it so... I'm ok.