Books I Read, November 14th 2019

Autumn has finally come, such as it is in LA. Sometimes you have to drag the days behind you. But you do it. The last two weeks, I read these books...

Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard – An executive suffers a traffic accident, is forced to survive in a trash strewn borderland between several highways, recreates the essential evils of capitalism among the vagrants he finds there. One of Ballard's slim nightmares, taking an absurd premise and working it with vigorous practicality into a vicious indictment of modernity. Ballard was a raw and unique talent, and belongs in any list of the 20th century's best writers.

The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened by Don Robertson – The conclusion of the Morris Bird III trilogy, which chronicled the growing moral sense of a Cleveland everyman (boy?) from early childhood, takes an abrupt and unexpected turn here, such that almost any description would serve as spoiler. Rather than offer that I'll just say I found this funny and sad, stylistically unremarkable but extremely readable and genuinely affecting. Taken together they serve as a really lovely, unassuming bildungsroman that should be better known than it is.

Love and War in California by Oakley Hall – A college-student and would be writer suffers through his first love, goes to fight in Europe, spends the rest of his life obsessing over the aforementioned in this uneven triptych. It gets a little loose in the third section, but the bulk of the book is compellingly readable if perhaps not staggeringly original. It didn't change my life but I also didn't throw it out the window at a passerby.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf—A woman plans a party, thinks thoughts, in this classic of modernist literature. Quite fabulous, I'm sorry I put off reading Woolf for so long, but glad I finally managed it. The soaring prose, the peculiar structure, the sharp insight, it's always nice when the cultural establishment elevates a writer to a deserving position.

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler – Maybe not for me.

The Low Road by Chris Womersley – A junkie ex-doctor escorts a gut shut hooligan through the Australian countryside. In it's favor, its both nasty and short. I can't say I got a ton out of it apart from that.

Volcano by Shusaku Endo – A petty scientific functionary retires, grapples with his meaningless existence and horrible family in the shadow of a volcano which may or may not erupt. Endo was a great talent, and his status as a Christian offers a peculiar and distinct insight into the nature of Japanese society. Less grand than his period pieces, but with the same fine sense of—not subtlety, exactly, this is after all a book in which an active volcano serving as a metaphor for life's subterranean passions—but appreciation for the complexity of human agency. Good stuff.

Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert – A government agency discovers an underground cult-nation of humanoid-bug creatures, in this sci-fi thriller by the author of Dune. It is...not Dune.

The Journey of Ibn Fatouma by Naguib Mahfouz —A traveler passes through a loosely veiled parody of the third, second, and first worlds. Sort of a modern, Islamic take on Gulliver's Travels, lyrical but a little heavy-handed.

The Taiga Syndrome by Christina Rivera Garza – An out of work private detective tracks a man's ex-lover through the Russian wild. In so far as there is a plot, I mean, which there basically isn't. Probably there's a name for this contemporary sub-genre, with its esoteric, unstructured paranoia, or at least I feel like I've read a bunch of books like this. It evokes a mood effectively, but its an easy mood to evoke. I didn't love it.

The Balloonist by MacDonald Harris—An obsessive explorer battles the Arctic elements, his patriarchal limitations, in this gorgeous and peculiar novel. Lyrical descriptions of nature interspersed with a compelling an idiosyncratic romance. Excellent stuff, I'll be looking for more from the author.

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury—A collection of short stories by one of the most beloved fantasists of the 20th century whom, I confess, I had not actually read prior to last week. These are a somewhat mixed bag, and occasionally I tired of the underlying conceit that the far future is exactly like middle-America in the 1950's, but there's some hot fire in here, and a real willingness to go nasty which I tend to find admirable. I'm not sure I think he's Borges, but this is stronger than most of the stuff I can remember reading by his contemporaries.

When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka– A tightly written description of a Japanese family's internment. It's narrow, but it owns the ground it stakes, and the language is compelling.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn—A reporter returns to her home town to investigate the murder of a young girl, revisits the tawdry and awful circumstances of her upbringing. Probably everyone already read this, or I guess saw the adaptation, I know I'm late to the game. Also, I have nothing particularly relevant to add to the torrent of acclamation which it enjoys. This is very strong stuff (although the ending didn't land perfect), Flynn is an excellent writer, with a disturbing and authentic viewpoint on gender relations, sexual misbehavior, adolescence, evil generally. It's always hard to compare a contemporary writer to their predecessors, but if I made a list of best crime writers of all time, I think I'd probably have to put Gillian Flynn on it.