Stop reading this and start reading The Knife Thrower

As difficult as a novel can be to talk about, a collection of short stories is even harder. A collection of highly metaphorical, offbeat short stories like Steven Millhauser's The Knife Thrower is even more difficult. But it's the best thing I've read in quite a while, so I owe it to all of you to try.

There are few things more frustrating than a book that promises a lot, from its title and appearance, and fails to deliver. I talked about Houdini's Box: The Art of Escape in a previous post. Toni Morrison's Jazz is another offender. Even if I liked the book (which I didn't) it had nothing to do with jazz whatsoever. Millhauser promises a lot with his titles: in addition to the title story, there's "Paradise Park", "Beneath the Cellars of Our Town", "The Sisterhood of Night" and others ( full table of contents). And he delivers, every time.

The stories have a fantastical, dreamlike quality to them. They start grounded firmly enough in reality, describing the opening of a new department store, for instance, or a lost amusement park. But they spin off-kilter quickly. I mentioned earlier that they are highly metaphorical, but they can be enjoyed on their simplest level too. Millhauser has a gift for using things that naturally intrigue us, like amusement parks, automatons, flying carpets and sideshow acts, to talk about larger currents in society, like the nature of consumerism and the hungers that drive it.

And I've just made this book sound unspeakably dull. I can't think of enough positive things to say without wrecking the book, so I will conclude this post by saying that I recommend you head down to your local library and experience it, or another of his short-story volumes, for yourself.

Book Club Again

I didn't make it on here after last week's Book Club -- I was busy with Easter preparations. So I'm writing about it a bit belatedly.

I was looking forward to this one, since it featured a writer whose books I enjoy. I've read My Sister's Keeper and The Pact by Jodi Picoult. I've noticed that if you read enough works by any writer in a short period of time, they start to seem formulaic. You notice the connections between them: how Richard Russo's main male character always has a screwed up relationship with his dad, or how Barbara Kingsolver likes to put a scientist or failed scientist, etc. With Plain Truth, I've spotted Picoult's formula. Her books are about a legal melodrama and the lives of everyone it touches. In My Sister's Keeper, a girl who was conceived to be a bone marrow donor for her older sister (a victim of childhood cancer) seeks emancipation from her parents when asked to donate a kidney. In The Pact, a teenaged boy stands accused of killing his girlfriend and best friend since infancy.

In addition to the emotional power of Plain Truth, there's the added attraction of a glimpse inside a world not frequently treated in popular culture, that of the Amish. The legal melodrama in this book centers around Katie, a young Amish girl who gave birth out of wedlock in her parents' barn. The baby was found dead in the barn. Katie denied not only killing the baby, but even being pregnant or having sex at all. Ellie, a driven attorney and lost human being, is persuaded to take the case by her aunt-by-marriage who left the Amish faith, and who is Katie's aunt. At Katie's hearing, the judge releases her on her own recognizance, on the condition that someone accept responsibility for her. Katie's Amish family is not allowed to do so, so Ellie speaks up.

It's a measure of Picoult's skill as a writer that this moment didn't sink the entire book. It's a plot more worthy of a bad sitcom than of a book by a popular writer, but you do come to care for Ellie and enjoy seeing the Amish world through her eyes. The Amish are easy to romanticize, but Picoult doesn't hesitate to depict some of the more unpleasant aspects of Amish life: the subordinate role of women to men, and the requirement that individuals subordinate their own will to that of the church, for example. Picoult makes few judgements on the beliefs of the Amish and lets the reader decide for themselves.

She handles Ellie's personal life less deftly. Ellie has run away from a long-term relationship with a fellow laywer. At issue is -- you guessed it -- Ellie's desire to have a child. During the course of the novel, Ellie rekindles a relationship with an ex-boyfriend. Then, she threw up the morning of the trial. On TV (and apparently in some books), there is only one reason a woman ever throws up. Yes, indeed. Picoult made Ellie learn of her pregnancy in the midst of defending someone for murdering her newborn!

Despite maudlin plot devices, the book is very engrossing and enjoyable. Picoult populates it with enough interesting people to keep you busy: the devoted Samuel (Katie's Amish boyfriend), Katie's brother Jacob, torn between his intellectual curiousity and his family, Katie's unyielding father Aaron, her stoic mother Sarah, who has suffered several stillbirths, the death of her youngest daughter, and the loss of her son through shunning. The book has a surprise ending, as well. There was much debate at the book club over what actually happened, and how Katie's baby actually died. I won't say more in case any of you want to read it.

There are plenty of criticisms you could level against Picoult's books. They often tend towards the sappy and melodramatic. The ones I've read have that "ripped from the headlines" feel of Law and Order (in fact, Lifetime cast Mariska Haritgay of Law and Order SVU to play Ellie in the movie version). But you could also do a lot worse. They are entertaining and uplifting and will take you away from yourself. I will probably continue to read her from time to time.

The silent function of libraries

Perhaps this will not be news to readers in more urban environs, but it was to me out here in the sticks. In this article on WorkingForChange, a recently retired librarian discusses the modern library and the homeless problem. It's a very moving article about society's inability to deal with the chronically homeless in any kind of compassionate or even cost-effective fashion. Rather than simply point fingers, the author suggests some changes that could be made, many of them not terribly expensive. It really makes you wonder why, as a society, we've allowed all this to go on.

When The Tigers Broke Free

Normally, I don't do this sort of thing, but someone sent me this on Craigslist, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head, so I decided to post about it since I haven't finished The Knife Thrower yet.

One thing I've always admired about Pink Floyd is their ability to make a whole statement with a song. Lots of songs sound like real chop jobs: one guy in the band has a melody, the other one has some lyrics, and they cram them together. The singsongy, 6/8 time of the vocal line plays up the fact that the story is told by a child. The snare drums and brass give it a militaristic feel, the choir and the slow timpani in the background give it the funereal aura. You can almost tell what the song will be about before the lyrics even start.

This song is from the movie The Wall, but it didn't make it on to the soundtrack for whatever reason. There has always been discussion and debate about exactly how much of the plot line of the film was inspired from life, but there's no question about this song. It's the verifiable tale of what happened to Roger Water's father, Eric Waters (and the rest of Royal Fusiliers Company C) at the Anzio (weird side note: spell check suggested maybe I meant "Nazi" here) bridgehead in Italy during WWII.

Even in 1979, when the song was written, the story of WWII was starting to take on a romantic, heroic glow. Yet Eric Waters died because of a foolish mistake, and the king for whom he died didn't even bother to sign his real signature to the scroll he sent the family, just a rubber stamp. Roger's mother hid all of Eric's effects in a drawer, rather than have to confront the facts of his death every day. And the death of a father he couldn't have remembered well haunted Roger that he wrote this song, probably a good 25 years after he found the drawer with the scroll, and you can still hear his resentment and grief in the last line of the song.

"When the Tigers Broke Free" isn't your typical Pink Floyd song. Most of Pink Floyd's lyrics are more metaphorical, and frequently employ bizarre, trippy imagery which sends your mind off on all kinds of tangents (probably why it's so often associated with drug users). This song is as straightforward as it gets, about as metaphorical as a coffee cup. Hell, he doesn't even put a simile in there. Yet, it still has the power to make you think, about the futility of war, the lies we tell ourselves about noble causes and heroic deaths, the coldness of those who send people to die in their wars, the effect it all has on those left behind. It's as if Monet had decided to paint a photo realistic painting, just to show he could. Or, to use a simile from our times, it's like when Michael Jordan decided to play baseball too, if he'd been any good at it.

The Sad Tale of Tatum

Well, I finished the first of my library books last night. The pitifully titled A Paper Life, by Tatum O'Neal, was an engrossing, fast read. I remembered her primarily as the woman on "Sex in the City" who wouldn't reimburse Carrie for the Manolos that got stolen at her baby-welcome party, so it was interesting to me to learn about her early career, and how she was the youngest Academy Award winner ever.

Her private life, however, was devastating. Both her father, Ryan O'Neal, and her husband, tennis player John McEnroe, were controlling, tempermental, abusive, jealous men. Since she was very young when she got married, she basically went from one to the other. It's become a truism that childhood stardom ruins the child for life. People cite Danny Bonaduce and Gary Coleman as prime examples. But in Tatum's case, her movie work was actually a positive influence: it got her away from her family, put her in contact with more sympathetic adults, and gave her some sense of self-worth. You can, however, feel her own sense of failed potential, as her childhood success didn't carry over to her adult years.

Tatum's book ends on a positive note. She says that she has worked hard to come to some sort of peace with her father, her ex-husband and her children, and that she is now clean and sober. IMDB shows her hard at work, too, mostly in television shows.

But the thing about celebrity autobiographies is that the final chapter hasn't yet been written. Danny Bonaduce's book ended much the same way, yet I recently saw a promo for a reality series that has him coming to terms -- yet again -- with his substance abuse problems. The Motley Crue book ends with three of the four original band members in stable relationships (all except Tommy). I don't know what happened to Nikki Sixx, but I did see that Mick Mars' girlfriend from the end of that book is suing him, and the girl with Vince on "Remaking Vince Neil" was definitely not the same woman he married towards the end of the book.

Yet after reading all this, I'm rooting for Tatum. I hope she goes on to some kind of success. Only time will tell, I guess.

Farewell

It's time for me to say goodbye (or attempt to, yet once again) to some books that are just cluttering the place up. Books that were assigned for class and turned out to be dull, books that I bought on a whim and it turned out weren't so great after all...out with the old, in with the new (hopefully). If anyone wants to take a gander, you can find them here, at my Amazon page. Happy shopping!

Score at the library today!

I visited the larger of the two libraries near where I live and work today (and learned that it was named one of the top four best small libraries in America, WTG!!!!) and scored a nice balance of sleazy nonfiction and more serious fiction. On the serious (or at least mind-improving) side, we have On Beauty by Zadie Smith (I liked White Teeth!); The Knife Thrower and other stories by Steven Millhauser (I was hoping for the one with "The Illusionist" in it, but this'll do -- "The Knife Thrower" was a great story); and Loon Lake by E.L Doctorow. Sometimes I like him and sometimes I don't. We'll see where this one fits in.

On the sleazier side, we have A Paper Life by Tatum O'Neal; Salad Days by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; and Lana: The Lady, the Legend, The Truth by --aw crap -- Lana Turner. I didn't realize that last was an autobiography. I was hoping for something a little more objective about her (actually, I really wanted a book about Frances Farmer, but no such luck.) Will I get through them all by April 16th? Upon further reflection, will I even want to? Stay tuned to this blog, readers, for the answers to these and more questions!!!!!