Matt’s Book Review #5

Yes, that’s right, it’s one again time for Matt’s Semi-Annual book review! I actually managed to read 15 fiction books over the last 6 months which, while far from impressive, is a record for me since I started doing the reviews on here.
 
Anyway, as always I’m no literary critic and don’t claim for this to even resemble valid criticism. The books are just simply listed in the order that I liked them. If you’re interested in reading the other 4 reviews I’ve done, you’re both really bored and able to access them from a link on my diary frontpage.
 
Ok, here we go:
  
1) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer: Jonathan Foer really managed to impress me with this book. Though I will be the first to admit that the book is completely unbelievable at times and it does pull on your heart strings, Foer still makes it all fit the tone of the book perfectly. I read a lot of reviews that called it “one of the first novels about 9/11” but, while the post 9/11 setting probably does garner the book more attention, it is in no way what the book is “about.” It is more a book about grief and loss and the repercussions of not dealing with it, with a child protagonist who is borderline autistic, but incredibly likeable. One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the way Foer integrates images into it which, again, is something some see as a cheap gimmick, but I thought worked perfectly. In the end, how much you enjoy the book is likely going to be determined by how much you “lose yourself” in it and I was completely sucked in.
 
2) The Death of the Author by Gilbert Adair: This is a novella that is very refreshing in that it actually has style – it definitely isn’t ageneric modern novel. Adair is a very impressive writer and he has a noticeably distinct voice. Oddly, apparently he was overtly emulating Nabokov here, but, if so, he at least pulls it off without seeming like just a cheap imitation. This “literary thriller” is very very good and reading it makes me want to further pursue reading Adair’s work.
 
3) Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami: This, of course, is just Murakami and his usual awesomeness. I’d actually place it as my second favorite Murakami novel next to only Norwegian Wood. In terms of Murakami weirdness, it scores on the low end of things; whether or not you see that as a positive or negative depends on your own personal taste.
 
4) The Thought Gang by Tibor Fischer: Here is another novel that I thought had a very refreshing style. Tibor Fischer definitely has an intimidating amount of talent and his writing is comparably brilliant to the aforementioned Adair’s, but I place this book a little lower because it isn’t quite as sorted and there are several instances where Fischer loses flow (or, rather, the entire novel has no flow, but there are times when it becomes a fault). Still, I mean this as a mild criticism, as Fisher has written a book that is both very funny and meaningful, which is a hard thing to balance. He manages to both ponder and mock the significance of philosophy throughout and really does manage to hit a nice medium between humor and serious thought.
 
5) The History of Love by Nicole Krauss: Krauss is the wife of the aforementioned Jonathan Foer (which would make her Nicole Foer, I suppose) and her novel has incredibly similar themes to that of Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Both books deal with grief due to losing a father at a young age, grief due to being separated from a lover, and both even have a climax with unrelated characters, a child and an elderly man, meeting for the first time. I think Extremely Loud is the stronger work, though both books unsurprisingly contain the same strengths and faults, as they are at times unbelievable but done with the perfect tone to get the reader through it. Overall, I’d recommend trying out Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close first and if it’s the sort of thing you enjoy, you’ll probably enjoy Krauss’s novel too.
 
6) Poor Things by Alasdair Gray: A reinventing of Frankenstein in which Gray’s version of Dr. Frankenstein, Godwin Baxter (or God for short), uses the brain of a dead pregnant woman’s fetus to bring the woman’s body back to life. Or does he? Gray uses a fake-documentary style to introduce the novel, beginning with a preface debating whether the following story is either a work of fiction with some historical truths or complete nonfiction (it is actually, of course, complete fiction, but then so is the preface debating it). The novel can certainly be enjoyed without reading Gray’s preface and subsequent notes commenting on the story’s “legitimacy” but the notes add more than they detract, as it’s fun seeing Gray develop such an apparently well-researched argument on a completely fictional story. As for the bulk on the story, it’s an amusing ode to the horror stories of the past and I’d recommend reading it if it sounds like something you’d enjoy.
 
7) Footsucker </em>by Geoff Nicholson: As the title suggests, this is a book featuring a protagonist who has an extremely obsessive foot fetish. I really liked where Nicholson went with the concept in some places, but I also thought the plot was a little far fetched at times, which is counterproductive to establishing that foot fetishists are real and “normal” people like everyone else. At some points Nicholson’s goal seemed to be to show how, despite his unusual attractions, the protagonist of the novel is really as normal as anyone else, but he contradicts this constantly during much of the novel by having him (and the other characters) act outlandishly. Still, I thought this was interesting, and it’s probably worth a curiosity look.
 
8) Blueglass by Chris Wilson: Chris Wilson probably has the ability to deliver clever “one-liners” better than any writer I’ve ever read and this wit is certainly present in Blueglass. That said, Blueglass is one of Wilson’s earlier works, and he’s definitely developed as a writer over time. Also, Blueglass’s style is very similar to Wilson’s other work and is especially similar in style and plot to Wilson’s Cotton, which is a better book. So, in short, Blueglass is a serviceable novel that contains plenty of wit, but you’d likely be better off reading Wilson’s Cotton which I found both funnier and more developed all around, which makes Blueglass probably not worth the bother.
 
9) 69 by Ryu Murakami: Before you become excited and think I’ve been reading smut, the title comes from the book being based around the year 1969 and has nothing to do with sexual positions, despite it being by Ryu Murakami. In fact, there’s not much actual sex in the book at all, though there is plenty of talk of it with a college aged male protagonist. At any rate, the plot centers around the hippie generation and Ryu has fun mocking it and having the protagonist take up causes he doesn’t care about with the intention of getting laid. Overall, it’s an okayish but very forgettable book that could have easily been set in the U.S. as opposed to Japan.
 
10) The Accidental by Ali Smith: Fresh off a Whitbread Prize win, this is one that I was unimpressed with. It’s a very showy book, but it doesn’t really seem to have much to say and most of the plot isn’t believable at all. Smith got a lot of praise for the structure (the book is about a family and is told in alternating chapters through the voice of each of the 4 family members), but it didn’t do much for me. It also beat the aforementioned Chris Wilson’s Cotton for the Whitbread Prize, which absolutely baffles me and just goes to show you how much tastes vary.
 
11) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: Reads more like an autobiography than fiction (and probably is), I wasn’t extremely taken with Plath’s only novel. The plot just seems to hop around a lot and there’s very little cohesion to the events and there seems to be no reason that some parts of the novel exist at all. Again, this would be expected were the book straight autobiography, but it’s a novel and, thus, must be judged in those terms. Oh, and, yes, it is a rather depressing book and even more so knowing how much of the story is autobiographical and how Plath’s life would eventually end.
 
12) The Cannibal Galaxy by Cynthia Ozick: I’m normally an Ozick enthusiast, but, unfortunately, I thought Cynthia was really off in this one. I’ve read her for a bit, so I’m accustomed to the Jewish preoccupation, but I never was able to develop much of a connection with any of her characters here and the novel’s imagination didn’t grab me nearly as much as Ozick’s writing usually does. Still, the obvious talent is evident, but this is definitely an Ozick novel you’ll want to skip unless you’re just a completist.
 
13) Love and Other Near Death Experiences by Mil Millington: I wrote to Mil about this book just after he finished writing it and he assured me it wouldn’t be about “lurve” as much as his first two novels were and would have a somewhat different approach and plot. He lied. Not only is this book not very good, but it also has the same faults as his first two novels and the same basic plotline of two characters who insult each other constantly but really love each other, which gets tiring, especially after having two other novels with the same concept. The book is also over-injected with “humor” which manages to both not be funny and detract from any dramatic appeal the book’s absurd plot has. All that said, I still think Mil is an amazing talent and his nonfiction writing for The Weekly in the UK are some of my favorite things to read. His writing talent may just not transfer to novels, and I’m afraid this one was another step in the wrong direction. Still, if you’re the type of person who enjoys basic sitcomish setups done slightly more intelligently than on television then you might enjoy his novels, but I’d recommend A Certain Chemistry above this one.
 
14) The Plot Against Americaby Phillip Roth: I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the right person to appreciate this book. I simply don’t have the historical knowledge to be fascinated by Roth’s fictional “what could have been” portrayal of Charles Lindbergh becoming United States president in 1940. Having said that, I thought this novel was extremely boring, and I was very disappointed in the dullness of Roth’s writing, this being my first exposure to him (his writing is the exact opposite of the earlier praised Adair and Fisher). Further, after spending the entire novel setting up what seems like an inevitably dreary conclusion, Roth chickens out and very unconvincingly has everything turn around resulting in a misplaced ending and making me wonder what the point of it even was. Definitely not recommended.
 
15) The Butterfly by James M. Cain: I never knew a book dealing with such controversial themes (the possibility of an incestuous relationship is one of the major themes of the book) could be so boring. This is the first I’ve read of Cain and I was pretty shocked at how terrible this was on every level, though I realize it isn’t exactly considered to be one of his classics. I will admit, the ending plot twists are sorta clever (based around a butterfly tattoo, hence the title), but this is a really bad book.
 
As far as notable nonfiction that I’ve read, I enjoyed Like a Fiery Elephant, which is a Jonathan Coe biography of B.S. Johnson, so if anyone (rather doubtfully) is familiar with Johnson’s work, it might be a worthwhile thing to look into. And that’s about it.
 
Now you can look forward to another book review in 6 months, which will likely feature more Murakami, Ozick, and Adair along with whatever Heather convinces me to read. So you have something to look forward to.