Reading Rainbow: Riding the Rap by Elmore Leonard

With Justified having returned this past Tuesday, now is probably as good a time as any to get this one up. I actually read Riding the Rap when I went to Europe back in August. It was coincidental, but I started reading it about a day before Elmore Leonard died. I followed it up promptly with When the Women Come Out to Dance, the book that contained "Fire in the Hole," but I'll talk more about that in a separate entry.

Picking up after Raylan shoots Tommy Bucks dead--which is where Pronto left off and is the scene that kicks off the aforementioned series, Justified--Raylan is with Harry Arno's ex-girlfriend, Joyce. Harry Arno, at least arguably the co-lead of these first two books, is at the end of his rope when he ends up getting held hostage by three fellow lowlifes who set off to try to work Harry over to get the money he's stashed away in a Swiss bank account.

The cast of characters is every bit as colorful as anyone with Leonard's work has come to expect. The natural evolution and escalation of violence as the crime spins out of the captors' control has that wicked Leonardian logic to it that makes you smile in horror. Raylan's wise-cracking never stops being hilarious, and with Timothy Olyphant having immortalized him on television, the reader gets the added bonus of imagining him quite vividly acting out every look of irritation and anger, adding an originally unimagined layer to the reading experience.

Just as you would expect, Riding the Rap is a fuckload of fun and drops you right off at the front steps for where "Fire in the Hole" and the Justified series picks up.

Reading Rainbow: Resuscitation of a Hanged Man by Denis Johnson

My last run-in with Denis Johnson in full, novel form was with the 2007 National Book Award winner Tree of Smoke. Personally, I felt like the sprawl engendered all the wrong feelings, and rather than reading like some wild work of genius, it was a mess of a book. It was not a beautiful mess.

His novella Train Dreams was fantastic, and the short story collection Jesus' Son was entirely deserving of the mounds of praise that have been heaped upon it. My experience then with Johnson had been that his pieces that required less extended focus for him were thrilling while the full novel I'd read was an overrated borderline clusterfuck.

Upon finally wading back into the world of the full Denis Johnson novel with Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, my trepidation regarding Denis Johnson the novelist was proven to have been completely unfounded. This time around the reader is treated to a first-person narrative from the point-of-view of the scarred, outsider protagonist, Leonard English, who moves to gay haven Provincetown, Massachusetts, to split time between working at a radio station and helping the station owner, Ray Sands, with his private investigation side business.

Awkward at nearly every turn, unable to connect on any meaningful level with just about everyone with whom he comes into contact, English makes for an unique lead in what is at least primarily a private eye novel. I say "primarily" because we are talking about Denis Johnson here, and Johnson definitely puts his own spin on the conventions of the genre. Leonard watches his subjects from the periphery rather than more directly engaging with them. The case--and life--is happening around him, but much like the reader his involvement is limited to that of the spectator. When Leonard does attempt to take action, it generally doesn't go well for him.

The book itself is really damn good. It sits down in a genre I love and deftly subverts its conventions. Johnson's prose is simultaneously propulsive and impressive, alive and jumping from the page. Despite its humbler aims, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man stands well above his more recent bemedaled tome.

Reading Rainbow: Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis

Having read Money: A Suicide Note and Time's Arrow: or The Nature of Offence previously and having been entirely enamored with the latter while not getting what all the hubbub about the former was about, I went into Martin Amis's latest novel Lionel Asbo: State of England in the hopes that it would strike a chord much more similar to the one that Time's Arrow struck. While Lionel Asbo was a mostly entertaining read, it wasn't the propulsive work of genius that Time's Arrow was, which I suppose shouldn't be the expectation for any book and is an unfair standard by which to judge Lionel Asbo (buy it here) against but is nonetheless what I found myself thinking when all was said and done.

Judged on its own merits, without prejudice from having read other Amis novels, Lionel Asbo: State of England is an enjoyable comic novel set on the wrong side of the British tracks following Desmond Pepperdine, a mixed race orphan being raised by his miscreant thug of an uncle who has chosen to take on the last name of Asbo, derived from the abbreviation for an Anti-Social Behaviour Order--a civil order handed down to a person shown to act out in anti-social ways. For all of Desmond's strong suits, Lionel stands at the opposite end of the spectrum, allowing for Amis to get laughs, and in some cases ratchet up the tension, using the sharp contrast between the pair to that end. For the most part, this works. There are, however, moments where the character of Lionel stops being interesting and is just irritating, and this is where the novel loses a bit of its luster.

Is Lionel Asbo: State of England Amis's best work? That's a decisive 'no,' but not every book can be Time's Arrow.

Reading Rainbow: Attempting Normal by Marc Maron

Over the last ten months or so, I've been taking in a whole lot of Marc Maron. Sure, the first season of his show Maron aired on IFC recently, and I watched every episode--most more than once--but that's mostly the icing on the cake. I really liked the first season--it managed to be exactly as honest as you'd have hoped while holding to the standards of broadcast cable (I really don't understand why IFC holds to these standards while freely showing unedited films later in the evening, as they should given the origins of the network, but that is neither here nor there)--but that's the tip of the iceberg for my borderline Marc Maron obsession.

Since the end of last summer, I've probably spent more time listening to his WTF? podcast than doing anything else. At first, I just listened to episodes in which he interviewed people who interested me. Then, I started listening to episodes that vaguely interested me. What broke the floodgates open, though, was probably the episode with Jimmie Walker, which was fucking fascinating and a complete surprise. It was around that time that I decided to go back and listen to every episode from the start. I'm over 100 episodes in, re-listening to episodes that I'd already listened to in an effort to keep Maron's past four-plus years in order.

So it should come as no surprise that I also read Marc's (when you have someone talking in your head for well over 100 hours, it's hard not to think of them as a friend--hence the use of the first name there--despite the obvious insanity implicit in that leap) latest foray into the realm of the humorous episodic memoir, Attempting Normal. Just as one would hope, it's every bit as funny and brutally honest in that self-evaluative way that is uniquely Marc Maron's way. His voice is finely honed through his more than 25 years of work on the stage. It should come as no surprise (not having read his first book The Jerusalem Syndrome: My Life as a Reluctant Messiah) that Maron speaks about himself and his struggles laying everything extremely and unabashedly bare. Sure, as someone who has listened to a fuckload of his podcast episodes over the past year, a lot of the issues have at least been touched upon in his monologues that open each of his podcast episodes, but there's still a unique spin on even these stories that makes them not feel like they've simply been rehashed to fill a book.

Thankfully, Maron avoids this potential pitfall, and Attempting Normal is an outrageously propulsive read. No subject is off limits, and his perspective spins these situations in a singular and refreshing fashion. His insights into a wide range of topics, but as he works through (his) issues, it opens a doorway in your own head that helps you work through your own issues. His introspection gets the reader to join along with him while never stepping over the line into being laborious. The stories within are all funny, but more importantly they are easily relatable, at least metaphorically, to your own life. While reading Attempting Normal, you'll surely laugh, but you'll also figure out things about yourself.

Reading Rainbow: Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

I'm way behind for reasons that I don't really care to get into right now and which are only partly due to a weird TV binge that I'm on. I've got a sizable backlog of posts to get to, so some of these upcoming posts will be brief. That, of course, bears no weight on the random post from somebody like word mule, who has a Prick Tunes post coming tomorrow at noon. This will be a brief one.

I quite like Don DeLillo. I positively loved Underworld and White Noise. I liked Falling Man. Cosmopolis was a different story.

Cosmopolis felt like a novel from a bygone era. I suppose much of the reason for that was the author's intent, but that doesn't really make this novel feel any antiquated or played out. Frankly, Cosmopolis felt like a lesser version of Martin Amis's Money or a more recently penned version of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho or Jay McInerney's Bright Lights Big City. Yes, the latter two writers couldn't hold DeLillo's jock, but that doesn't make Cosmopolis feel any less irrelevant.

Perhaps more importantly, Eric Packer, the lead character who I'll refrain from labeling a protagonist or anti-hero because frankly I don't know what to or care enough to call him anything. His story is one that never engages. DeLillo never draws the reader into Packer in any way, never gives any insight to the character, never imbues him with enough character or pathos or gravitas to ever make one give a fuck about him. Things happen to him and he does things, but they are simply a series of events that bear little in the way of importance to the reader.

Cosmopolis could very well have gone over my head. That doesn't change the fact that I didn't care for it at all.

Reading Rainbow: A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews

There is some dark shit afoot in Harry Crews's 1976 Southern Gothic/horror novel A Feast of Snakes. Set against the harsh backdrop of the rural white-trash wasteland Mystic, Georgia as the town heads into its annual Rattlesnake Roundup, A Feast of Snakes primarily follows the troubled and psychotic protagonist Joe Lon Mackey, former High School All-American running back whose illiteracy kept him from chasing the dream of the star athlete, from following his sexpot high school sweetheart to college, and from escaping from the pit that Mystic is. Joe Lon beats his wife, sells booze illegally, helps his bastard of a father run his dog-fighting empire, and tries to stifle the rage seething within himself.

While Joe Lon is a dark and often scary character, the landscape of Mystic is littered with vividly drawn but deeply disturbed characters as they work their way through what has to be the most archaic, backwater local celebration imaginable. To get too far into describing the lay of the land, however, would be to do Crews a disservice. The world he creates is rich and fascinating and is best discovered for yourself. It should be noted, though, that A Feast of Snakes is not for those with a weak stomach.

Crews draws up the world with confidence and a natural feel for the dialectical intricacies of the region. While it certainly lends an air credibility to the proceedings, the reliance upon writing so heavily in a dialect can often work in ways equal parts complimentary and detrimental. While Crews's incorporation of the rural Southern dialect in dialogue adds an element of veracity to the novel, it also makes the book (intentional or otherwise) a much more laborious read. This is nothing new, I suppose. The same can be said for works by Joyce, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Pynchon. Some of the literary greats have employed this stylistic choice with varying degrees of success*, but it is not an unreasonable assertion to state that such a choice has its costs.

*I would argue that it is mostly distracting and ineffective in Mason & Dixon and For Whom The Bell Tolls at the very least. I'll refrain from bitching about James Joyce for the time being.

Crews's choices make for some uncomfortable reading, as a result of both subject matter and style. I feel it is my duty to reiterate that there is some dark shit within these pages. A Feast of Snakes is a fairly engaging read, but be prepared to read a book in which you may not empathize with any character.

Reading Rainbow: Canada by Richard Ford

In an effort to catch up on things around here, I'm going to throw this quick entry up.

The first time I read Richard Ford, I was smitten. His prose was revelatory. The Sportswriter and Independence Day were breathtaking. Sure, one could fault Ford for being self-indulgent in his wallowing in the late-20th Century mid-life malaise that Frank Bascombe wades through in the Bascombe Trilogy, but the journey is completely arresting.

Ford's newest novel, Canada, is a fairly significant departure from his best-known series which contained a Pulitzer Prize Award winner and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. This time we follow Dell Parsons, a 15-year-old whose parents in a moment of desperation go across the Montana/North Dakota border to rob a bank to get out from under the debt from a black market meat deal gone bad. Split into halves, the first section of Canada centers on the home as the Parsons clan is torn apart by the robbery. The second takes the reader along as Dell is absconded away to stay with the mysterious brother of a family friend across the border in the Saskatchewan.

Taking place in the late summer and fall of 1960, the tale of Dell Parsons is set just as America is seeming to lose its innocence. As his mismatched parents make their erred final stab at keeping their nuclear family together, Dell is finding nearly everyone around him to be of dubious judgment and make-up. Dell, allegorically, is America.

While it might be lacking in the depth of color and flourish by way of Ford's feel for the English language that imbues particularly the Bascombe Trilogy, the less evolved prose makes sense from a stylistic and thematic standpoint. Even though the novel is written from a point much later in Dell's life, the powers of observation and insight that a 15-year-old can be capable of, even in retrospect, has to be a bit limited. It only makes sense that the voice of the narrator would be slightly less evolved than that of Frank Bascombe, modern man adrift.

Though this authorial choice makes sense, it is a shame that the force of Ford's prose is sacrificed, even if just a bit. The reader gets a fair trade-off in the form of a more action-driven plot, but the difference in prose is noticeable. In Canada, one is not swept away, awash in awe at the way Ford pieces words together in sequencing that fill me with equal parts envy and joy. It is still a fine novel, but one cannot help but wonder what could have been.

Reading Rainbow: Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

After an eleven-year hiatus, our old friends Patrick Kenzie and Angie Kenzie (née Gennaro) are back, having last been seen patching things up in Dennis Lehane's 1999 novel Prayers for Rain. While the fifth novel in the series was integral in that it saw the two patch things up, Moonlight Mile--taking its name from what might be my favorite Stones tune--ties in much more to the best-known book in the series, Gone, Baby, Gone [commas dropped in the Affleck-directed film adaptation], as it follows up with Amanda McCready twelve years after she was returned to her woefully neglectful mother, Helene.

Unlike the rest of the novels in the series, Gone, Baby, Gone had plenty of room for a proper sequel, and given the opportunity to explore the ramifications of Patrick's choice at the end of that novel, the ground for a thematically interesting book is fertile. Thankfully (and predictably), Lehane does not disappoint, having the consequences of Patrick's actions a dozen years prior wreak havoc throughout the book.

What transpires is a mesmerizing exploration into the far-reaching consequences of a single act, one made in a no-win situation, and it is delivered by one of the most enthralling voices out there. Lehane's books are ones that get their claws in you and don't let you go until you've devoured them and are left still wanting more. Moonlight Mile is another in a long line of dark page-turners, that despite their best-seller status and focus on crime never quite feel low or pulpy. That isn't to say that pulp is bad, but somehow Lehane seems to transcend the mystery/crime genre, existing in a world all his own.

Or perhaps I'm trying to validate a genre that I really don't think needs validation, as I'd much rather read Lehane or Chandler or Cain or Jim Thompson than James Joyce.

Regardless, Moonlight Mile is a worthy [apparent] conclusion to the saga that is Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's arc, the only book series I have read from front-to-back in at least a decade, and probably the only one I'd recommend to everyone out there.

Reading Rainbow: Box of Lies by Mark LaFlamme

There are a plethora of authors that can hide behind closed doors or in the cracks of creaky wooden floors, waiting to jump out with a dime-a-dozen scare, and then there are mold-breaking writers that puncture the mind with seeds of imagination that continue to grow over time. Mark LaFlamme is indisputably the latter. His work is easily devoured (the much sought after "quick read"), but sticks to the ribs like a rare T-bone with taters and gravy, just don't think about where that knife has been.

After rave reviews from friends, I was obligated to imbibe this work despite hesitation in fear of what I thought might be a cheaply constructed, pulpy horror-fiction mess, but contained within were twenty-seven short stories that piqued my interests in different ways: Where has that steak knife been? Do aliens watch baseball games? Is there a mass conspiracy training program in the military? How long can one survive the apocalypse on Vienna sausages and cheap beer?

I got more than I bargained for to say the least. Sure, this book has plentiful amounts of horror for the adrenaline junkies, but what I was shocked to find is the soul hiding behind the layers of madness. I wouldn't discount LaFlamme's penchant for throwing in a good laugh either. When is the last time an author crafted a narrative that could bind a gut one page, question human existence the next, and conclude with a rewarding polish, snickering along the way? I haven't been this invigorated by an author since snacking on Stephen King's novels as a teenager. Each story is individually florid enough to fill a novel, so don't be driven away by the short story aspect. Just think of it as twenty-seven books for the price of one!

Reading Rainbow: John Irving on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

We still hope to get a Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey entry up this week, but it probably will not be until tomorrow. Until then...

With the release of his new novel, In One Person, John Irving has been making the rounds on the talk shows. This past weekend, he was on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Last Friday, he was also on The Late Late Show. If you're new to these parts, this is pretty much the only talk show I watch.

Now I've never read John Irving. I never really had the desire. After hearing/seeing him on these two appearances, I have to say I might actually dive into Irving.

Reading Rainbow: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

Having read and loved the classic short story collection Jesus' Son and the collection of reportage Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond only to be left puzzled as to why Tree of Smoke was awarded the 2007 National Book Award upon finishing that laborious and unrewarding tome, I had no idea what to expect with Train Dreams, a novella that first appeared in print in The Paris Review in 2002 only to not get a proper hardcover release until 2011 when Farrar, Straus and Giroux went to press with it.

Cover art by my possible kinfolk, Thomas Hart Benton

An exceptionally quick and easy read, Train Dreams bore none of the turgidity present in Tree of Smoke, a notable feat given the fact that much of Robert Grainier's life story is told with efficacy and brevity in a scant 116 pages. The book dreamily jumps around episodically through Grainier's life, a day laborer who lives out most of his life in the panhandle of Idaho (some takes place in nearby Washington, as well) as the Pacific Northwest begins its transition from the wild frontier it begins the first half of the Twentieth Century as. Train Dreams is not beholden to a linear narrative. There is a certain logic to it all, of course, and the stories that pertain to his wife and daughter are mostly beholden to a least a loose sense of linear chronology, but Johnson's novella follows a freer path.

The story of Robert Grainier  is an interesting one. From his murky beginnings to his relatively brief marriage to his later hermitic life, Grainier's life cast against the raw, wild backdrop of a Pacific Northwest still heavily influenced by the Kootenai's mystical roots that still had hold in the area is fascinating. The hard life he leads, heavily at the mercy of the harsh climes and geography of the region, and the resultant spartan lifestyle the land mandates is perfectly rendered in the lean, direct prose through which his tale is told. While there are tragic elements to Grainier's story, Johnson manages to avoid getting bogged down in tragedy, as in this environment these otherwise tragic events are simply a fact of life and treated as such. Just as everything in Grainier's life had utility, Johnson wastes few words in recounting his life, and its effectiveness without approaching being affected is astonishing.

For those wondering where this week's Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey is, we hope to have that up tomorrow. There have been computer issues that have held it up. As for yesterday's contentlessness, I apologize. I've come down with something, and I passed out really early Monday night. I wish I were dead right now.

Reading Rainbow: Independence Day by Richard Ford

Despite the fact that nearly three months passed between when I began and completed reading this book, Independence Day was every bit the masterwork that the first in the Frank Bascombe series, The Sportswriter, was. As I have surely stated before, there may not be a writer out there whose prose is as consistently awe-inspiring as Richard Ford's. The release of his newest novel, Canada (less than $19.00 brand new in hardcover), this week has me brimming with excitement because there is more Richard Ford--new Richard Ford--out there for me to read.

Returning to Independence Day, Ford's Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award winning fifth novel, Ford drops in on protagonist Frank Bascombe on another holiday weekend, this time on the titular weekend in 1988. Just over four years (if my memory of when The Sportswriter takes place is correct; I believe it was in 1984, but it could have been 1982) have passed since the reader last got a glimpse into the life of Frank Bascombe. The death of his son and the near completeness at which his old life had been torn from him have left Frank to live in his self-termed Existence Period, marked by ambivalence and characterized by his goal to simply be. Decisiveness, at least as it relates to life-altering choices, is not a trait that Frank is displaying at this juncture in his life. As the weekend progresses, the people in his life, both in the short- and long-term act with widely varying degrees of respect as pertains to Frank, and it all just happens to him with little [re]action from our hero.

What makes Frank Bascombe so compelling his his voice. Imbued with the natural predisposition of a philosopher, it is often how he reads a situation--sometimes in completely divergent ways within the span of mere seconds--that sets this book and Ford's protagonist apart from others. The first-person narrative construct allows for Frank to quizzically look upon the situations that present themselves, his voice ringing out with equal parts poetry and clarity. Ford's deftness at which he captures the essence of the Everyman beset by indecision while blessed with an innate critical eye that allows him to observe without acting leaves the reader with a book that is breathtaking even with the simplicity that lies at the surface. Independence Day is a much richer novel than one could ever expect given the events that occur and is absolutely deserving of the mountains of praise heaped upon it.

But don't take my word for it...

Reading Rainbow: Pronto by Elmore Leonard

With Pronto being the book in which Raylan Givens was first introduced, it made as much sense as any other book when choosing a re-entry point for Elmore Leonard, who I had not read since the late 1990s.

While readers flocking to the book in search for more Raylan than their weekly fix of Justified can give them may wade through the first 33 pages wondering where the hell he is, it isn't too long before he saunters in wearing his Stetson hat. Given the fact that Leonard can spin a yarn as easily as he might pour a drink, it's hardly even noticeable that Raylan hasn't made an appearance until he does--with an air of mystery about him.

What might be most odd about the whole book (in retrospect and given that Raylan Givens has become a rather iconic figure much after the fact) is that its events largely take place as a result of Harry Arno--a 66-year-old bookie from Miami--giving Raylan the slip for the second time in their dealings with one another. Knowing Raylan as we have all come to know him, this makes for an odd and almost incongruous introduction.

Regardless of the fact that one has to reconcile Raylan's error with the character on Justified, Leonard's penchant for taut, funny, unpredictable storytelling is on full display in Pronto, and there is the added bonus of getting to read the Tommy Bucks scene from the open of the pilot as it was originally written, complete with the full back story.

If you watch Justified--and if you don't, what the hell are you doing wrong with your life?--there is plenty to love here, even if there are slight changes from the source material that Graham Yost & Co. made with regards to Raylan's back story.

Reading Rainbow: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Despite having owned the book for a while and having intended to read Raymond Chandler for what seems like an eternity, I just got around to reading him for the first time. My initial reaction upon finishing The Big Sleep? Wow.

Chandler's flair for turning a phrase is intoxicating. His prose possesses a lyrical panache while nimbly maintaining a masculine voice. The world that he creates is one rife with low-lives from all walks and beset with landmines lying in wait, our hero.

This protagonist, the iconic Philip Marlowe--along with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade--served as the prototype for all the hard-nosed, smart-assed, heavy drinking, distrustful private dicks that followed. Through the first-person eyes of Marlowe, the reader sees the seedy side of Los Angeles of yesteryear as told in increasingly more unique and inventive simile, rich with fascinating imagery. Marlowe's world view is sardonic and disillusioned, which whether intended or not traverses the decades that have passed and remains strikingly relevant today.

Perhaps that is the most impressive aspect of the book as a whole. Aside from a detail here and a rare bit of arcane dialogue, The Big Sleep never feels even remotely antiquated. Philip Marlowe could just as easily have been bouncing around the Los Angeles underworld today. More importantly, it seems as though if it were published today The Big Sleep would be a huge smash hit. To be able to say something like that about a book published 73 years ago speaks not only to its staying power but also its vision. Its brilliance is self-evident from the moment the book kicks off to its thrilling conclusion. If for one reason or another you've not read Raymond Chandler, do yourself a favor and pick this up.

Reading Rainbow: The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

It might be most instructive to preface this piece with the fact that I started reading this book when The Hangover Part II was early in its theatrical run. I finished it about a week ago. That means it took about eight months to finish this book off.

The Monkey Wrench Gang made me want to read other books in its stead. Given the fact that this book is about righteous eco-terrorism and that the statement is coming from someone who aligns himself pretty far on the left side of the political spectrum (not that I would ever condone terrorism in any form*), this is relatively damning.

*Read: no need to put this guy on a watch list, Powers That Be.

Moreover, I fucking love the American West. My notion of the deserts of the Southwest is as romanticized as possible.

Yet even with the proper predisposition heading into the book, The Monkey Wrench Gang never hit the right note for me. Abbey's prose struck me as tedious, and his endless poetic waxing on the desert rather quickly became masturbatory more than anything else. By the time I hit page 300, the only thing keeping me going was the fact that seven months was too long to halfheartedly invest in a book to punt it.

The easiest way for me to describe my reaction to the book while I was reading it was that it felt like I was reading Pynchon if you took the enjoyment out of it.

To any Abbey fans out there, please feel free to defend him, but this whole enterprise struck me as naively idealistic. I suppose that is the reading that I would tend to take when reading anyone who claims to be an anarchist though.

Reading Rainbow: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Well, if ever one needed proof that all you had to do to win a Pulitzer Prize (or really any literary committee that conjures an image of stodgy white people, but most specifically this one) was write a multigenerational ethnic tale in the vein of magical realism, it can be found in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I suppose that sounds a bit dismissive, especially since the book is far from being 'bad,' but this is the same organization that saw fit to not award the prize to Gravity's Rainbow in 1974 after the three-member fiction jury unanimously recommended it. To be frank, though, reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao means doing so with the burden being placed on the book to prove itself worthy of having won such an award.

It does not prove itself worthy.

In his first full novel, Diaz sets out to tell the story of an obese Dominican nerd growing up in New Jersey. Oscar's unabashed obsession with science-fiction, fantasy, and comic books when combined with his demeanor renders him repellent to nearly all women. This is a problem as the only thing he cares about more than his escapes into nerdery is his quest for love. Oscar's hope for finding this love is cursed though, as his family has suffered under the cloud of a fuku (curse) presumably foisted upon Oscar's grandfather by the heinous Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

As the novel travels back through time and follows the paths of first his sister Lola, then his mother Beli, and finally to his grandfather Abelard. Going back through the family tree, the evidence for a curse is certainly there.

The tale itself is compelling enough. The presentation is largely where the book comes up a bit short. Diaz's informal Spanglish prose is meant to be fresh and of the streets, but it comes across forced and grating. It also changes narrators and point-of-view, which is both off-putting and confusing, and granting Yunior, Oscar's college roommate, omniscience seems like an unsubstantiated leap. The parts that were often the most interesting were the footnotes, often but not always dealing with the history of the Dominican Republic. When the footnotes are one of the biggest things a book has going for it, there may be a problem.

But don't take my word for it...

Reading Rainbow: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

So that happened.

Having devoured every Haruki Murakami novel that has been officially translated into English with the exception of After Dark and Kafka on the Shore*, there was no reason to be leery of his three-book magnum opus 1Q84.

*I simply haven't gotten around to those two.


I was wrong.

For the first time while reading Murakami, my interest waned. With none of his novels having taken more than 10 days to read previously, I half-heartedly labored through the first 770 pages or so over the course of the past four months. Once Tengo's editor Komatsu came back into the picture, the narrative began to hurtle towards its end, eliciting a long-awaited sense of relief. The pace picked up. The pages began to almost turn themselves. Chapters ended and a desire to actually continue reading took hold. The last 150 pages were genuinely enthralling.

Unfortunately so much of the book consists of its two protagonists (who are featured in alternating chapters) doing the literary equivalent of running out the clock with little in the way of actual plot development. By the time to two star-crossed would-be lovers finally re-connect after about 20 years of being separated, somewhere in the neighborhood of 880 fucking pages have passed. While Tengo Kawana and Masami Aomame unknowingly long for one another, they meander through a surrealistic alternate 1984. It is just that this other 1984 is only slightly surreal. There are Little People, Air Chrysalises, and two moons; but given 900+ pages, the vision of this world might just be too pared down.

And then there's the issue of Aomame. She is a contract killer who eliminates abusive men, a feminist killer if you will, but she is emotionally fragile and withdrawn. Approximately 40% of the book is told from her perspective, but it never feels like Murakami feels at home telling her story. She never feels quite right.

When so much of the novel relies on a character that isn't well-executed, that's kind of a deal-breaker. There is simply too much time misspent in the first 5/6 of the book to have its conclusion (and an anti-climactic one at that) right the ship.

Reading Rainbow: Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane

Having just about completely caught up here, this is the last remaining Reading Rainbow entry in the backlog. Two movies and the baseball-related jam-up will have been remedied. 

Prayers for Rain is the fifth--and up until a year ago (when the series was surprisingly revisited in Moonlight Mile) the final--book in the Kenzie-Gennaro Series. Working solo after the fallout following the completion of the Amanda MacCready case (in Gone, Baby, Gone), Patrick Kenzie finds himself wrought with guilt after he fails to answer a call from a former client only to have that client turn up dead. As he looks into her demise, he sees that not only had he not actually solved her previous stalker case, but that she had actually been targeted by a sociopath deadset on destroying her. 

As Patrick delves further into the ruthless, calculated, and systematic dismantling of Karen Nichols's life, the man responsible for her demise turns his focus to Patrick. 

As is always the case, Lehane combines his snappy dialogue, taut pacing, and disturbing ability to create truly horrifying villains to great effect in Prayers for Rain. He also sets Patrick Kenzie afloat on a raft with only the deranged but reliable Bubba Rogowski at his side. It isn't until she is absolutely needed that Angie Gennaro comes back to help Patrick. While it is their dynamic that sets the series apart, their separation at the novel's open is vital and gives insight as to what each of them means to the other. From cover to cover, there is no slowing down. The action, suspense, and intrigue is unfurled at a fever pitch. With Lehane, this may be par for the course, but only because the bar has been set so high.

Reading Rainbow: The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman

I wanted him to keep talking, even though the conversation was one-sided and pedantic. I know that must sound masochistic, but there's no influence like the force of personality: It overwhelms everything, even when it defies common sense. [pg. 138]

While hesitant to ascribe the label of pedant to Klosterman, there may not be a passage that better encapsulates his authorial pull than the one above. He does have a force of personality that draws the interest of the like-minded. I suppose there is an element of this in most people that we find ourselves drawn to in our daily lives. With Klosterman, though, this draw is undeniable.

In The Visible Man, Klosterman has constructed a platform to explore one of his central areas of concern: voyeurism. Set in an alternate universe Austin that had fallen under the tentacled grip of the Minneapolitan Caribou Coffee chain*, the story primarily deals with a therapist and a patient who have an extraordinary relationship with one another. The patient is a scientist who developed a suit that allows him to cloak himself, which he employs to study the true nature of the self, using unwitting people as his test subjects. Steamrolling the therapist, through whose eyes the narrative is told, Y___ attempts to reconcile his feelings of guilt with the belief that the greater thrust of his project is much too important to be dragged down by such ethical dilemmas as invasion of privacy.

*I am sort of joking here. Yes, the Caribou chain has never made its way to Austin. The setting is sort of immaterial, and the rest of the Austin settings are pretty on point with the possible exception of embellishing a patchouli smell at Waterloo Records, which is at least excusable. These things will not matter to most readers. Hell, many Austinites may not even know that Caribou is a chain and could have assumed that Klosterman invented a coffee shop out of thin air. Again, not an issue.

What unfolds between Victoria and Y___ is undoubtedly compelling and does raise interesting questions in regards to the true self, voyeurism, and the value of the experiment versus the costs involved. Klosterman's prose is, as always, engrossing. While dealing with occasionally philosophically complex subject matter, it never veers into the realm of being inaccessible. Really, it is quite shocking that a book with two main characters who are each at least in part unlikeable that is also dealing with loaded philosophical ideas can still come down in a moral gray area while still being incredibly entertaining. Klosterman definitely has an innate ability to tackle these notions while maintaining an irresistible style and verve.

Reading Rainbow: The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones

Having been given this book as a gift years ago, The Pugilist at Rest, a National Book Award finalist for fiction in 1993, puzzlingly sat on my shelf unread for at least five years. There is no real reason for this. It simply happened. Books were bought, placed on a shelf that had no room for them, covered by other books bought afterward, and buried behind front-stacked books.

Without prejudice I was unable to manage to get around to this book.

This was a mistake.

With a couple of minor exceptions, each short story in this collection is magnificent. There is a verve to his prose that is instantaneously engaging and nearly arresting. The characters jump off the pages, occupying a territory within a very real world without seeming too familiar. With many of the events and character traits clearly derived from personal experience, the stories (especially the Vietnam ones) ring true.

If there is a shortcoming, it is that Jones has issues inhabiting a female voice in the story "Unchain My Heart." Unlike the other story in the collection from a female point-of-view, "I Want to Live!" there is a knowledge of the character that seems at least somewhat deficient. Where "I Want to Live!" could conceivably have been told from the POV of a woman, the story of a female journalist smitten with a deep-sea diver simply comes across a man writing what he thinks a woman might think, which given the quality of work in the remainder of the vignettes is a bit of a disappointment.

What works is virtually everything else. The Vietnam material is the most gripping, but the stories "As of July 6..." "Wipeout," and "Unchain My Heart" are all damn fine pieces of short fiction. "Silhouettes" is also quite memorable and covers atypical territory in the form of a Special Ed student/janitor whose special lady friend is stepping out on him.

While cursed with the expectations that go hand-in-hand with being a National Book Award Finalist, The Pugilist at Rest does not fail to engage and enthrall. Upon finishing the book, one isn't possessed by an urge to question the selection committee, and that, in and of itself, speaks volumes.