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July 15, 2007
Books I Read in June
New Total: 124
Absurdistan: A Novel
by Gary Shteyngart
Publishers Weekly: *Starred Review* Misha Vainberg, the rich, arrogant and very funny hero of Shteyngart's follow-up to The Russian Debutante's Handbook, compares himself early on to Prince Myshkin from Dostoyevski's The Idiot: "Like the prince, I am something of a holy fool... an innocent surrounded by schemers." Readers will more likely note his striking resemblance to John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius Reilly. A "sophisticate and a melancholic," Misha is an obese 30-year-old Russian heir to a post-Soviet fortune. After living in the Midwest and New York City for 12 years, he considers himself "an American impounded in a Russian body." But his father in St. Petersburg has killed an Oklahoma businessman and then turned up dead himself, and Misha, trying to leave Petersburg after the funeral, is denied a visa to the United States. The novel is written as his appeal, "a love letter and also a plea," to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to allow him to return to the States, which lovingly and hilariously follows Misha's attempt to secure a bogus Belgian passport in the tiny post-Soviet country of Absurdistan. Along the way, Shteyngart's graphic, slapstick satire portrays the American dream as experienced by hungry newborn democracies, and covers everything from crony capitalism to multiculturalism...Extending allegorical tentacles back to the Cold War and forward to the War on Terror, Shteyngart piles on plots, characters and flashbacks without losing any of the novel's madcap momentum, and the novel builds to a frantic pitch before coming to a breathless halt on the day before 9/11. The result is a sendup of American values abroad and a complex, sympathetic protagonist worthy of comparison to America's enduring literary heroes.
My Review: This book is weird. There were parts that made me laugh out loud, and parts that made me feel like I should be analyzing the overly obvious satire with my 9th grade english class. Frankly, I'm not quite clear why it deserved a *starred review*, but then I've never been a fan of the slapstick satire genre.
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Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
Booklist: After 10 years of traveling with her father, a perennial (and pedantic) visiting lecturer at various, obscure institutions of higher learning, Blue Van Meer finally settles in as a senior at the St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina. There she is bemused to find herself part of a charmed circle of popular kids called the Bluebloods and the protege of the mysterious film-studies teacher, Hannah Schneider. When a friend of Hannah's dies at a party the kids have crashed, this extravagantly arch and self-conscious coming-of-age novel turns into a murder mystery that--although never as Hitchcockian as its publisher claims--is, nevertheless, almost compelling enough to warrant its excessive length. Intriguingly structured as a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class, Pessl's first novel is filled with references to invented books--and to some real ones, too, including several by Nabokov. Overkill? You bet. But, as a result, the novel is generating a great deal of buzz that will excite the curiosity of readers who enjoy postmodern excesses and indulgences of this sort.
My Review: I adored this book. No, that's not strong enough...I throw myself down and proclaim this to be one of the best books I've read in the last 5 years. And if you look over all the books I've read in the last 5 years, that's saying a LOT. I loved the clever ramblings--even when they were a bit too clever and rambling (as all college freshmen are), and thoroughly enjoyed the murder mystery wrapped in a secret society, wrapped in a high school clique enigma. It was hip, it was totally different than anything I've read recently, and I finally get the joy of "postmodern excess". More of it, I say.
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Rosseau's Dog
by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
Publishers Weekly: In 1766, Scottish philosopher David Hume helped the radical Swiss intellectual Jean-Jacques Rousseau find asylum in England; a few months later, the volatile philosopher accused his benefactor of masterminding a murky conspiracy against him and triggered a virulent response. The argument had nothing to do with philosophy (or Rousseau's dog), but, as in their well-received Wittgenstein's Poker, the authors use the dispute as a pretext for an engaging rundown of the two thinkers' great ideas—with a big swig of human interest to wash down the philosophical morsels. Their (sometimes excessively) detailed, meandering account of the feud points to something larger: the contrast between the affable, urbane rationalist Hume and the moody, paranoid, emotionally overwrought Rousseau prefigures, they believe, the shift from the Enlightenment cult of reason to the Romantic cult of feeling. The authors widen their vivid portraits of the antagonists into a panorama of the cross-Channel intellectual community that refereed the squabble, taking in the ancien régime salons and their brilliant hostesses and the London and Paris streets where visiting philosophers were mobbed like rock stars. The result is an absorbing cultural history of the republic of letters in its exuberant youth.
My Review: This book is exactly what I like about a well-written nonfiction book. It got me caught up in the drama and the intrigue, while still providing me with an "I am superior than you because look! a! nonfiction! book!" cover. Very entertaining, and dare I say it, educational too.
Note: In the last month I had also re-read and re-listened to Harry Potter #4-6, and the Thursday Next Series #1-4, in preparation for their latest sequels--both due out in the next few weeks. So really, I should get WAY more credit for squeezing in non-repeats, don't you think?
Note #2: You know when Amazon.com does really freaky things, almost like it's watching you? I put "Absurdistan" into the Amazon.com search function and it spit out the proper link. But immediately below it is Special Topics in Calamity Physics, the VERY BOOK THAT I READ IMMEDIATELY AFTER ABSURDISTAN! The books were bought at completely different times, and there is no rhyme to why I chose these particular two for June. Also of note, my July book club book also appears on the Absurdistan list, but much further down. Clearly, Amazon is spying on me.
Comments
I can't believe you read Special Topics in Calamity Physics without me!? It was going to be my suggestion for next month's book club. Bah, I say. Thank goodness I still have several shelves worth of unread books from which to select...
Posted by: ada at July 16, 2007 08:20 AM
Interesting list. I made it about halfway through Rousseau's Dog and abandoned it for the absolutely lowbrow reason that it didn't get to the juicy details of their personal drama fast enough...and not enough talk about their shared/contrasting philosophies.
I plan to to pick up "Physics" soon (in order to continue my effort to read more female novelists) but first have to slog through Shteyngart's first book and Slaughterhouse Five because I feel guilty for having never read any Vonnegut...I'll take Dead Icons of Modern American Lit for $200, Alex.
Posted by: jason at July 16, 2007 01:18 PM
