NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (audio)

Posted on November 14, 2013 by pagesofjulia

nos4a2Warning: here comes another rave review.

NOS4A2 is terrifying, enthralling, highly imaginative, and a deliciously entertaining wild ride. As much as I’m tempted to write a play-by-play plot synopsis, I shall resist, because discovering those twists and turns as told by Joe Hill is an excellent experience that I can’t match. So, a few brief sketches.

Victoria McQueen – known as Vic, or The Brat – rides a Raleigh Tuff Burner, a boy’s mountain bike that her dad bought her even though it’s really too big for her. We meet her at age 8, but follow her through several decades. Maggie Leigh is a small-town Iowa librarian with purple hair and an equal passion for Romance poetry and Henry Rollins. Lou Carmody is a fat man with a heart of gold who is passionate about superheroes, comics, fantasy, and his family. He works as a mechanic and is arguably the most loveable character in this story. There is a bad guy with a warped sense of “fun” and a love for little children; there is another bad guy who never really grew up and doesn’t want to. Settings range from the New Hampshire coast, to the Massachusetts woods, to the snowy mountains of Colorado, and of course that Iowa library.

NOS4A2 combines realism and a deft hand for family dynamics and truly touching, human, fully-wrought relationships with horror – and by horror I mean little children smiling sweetly while wielding chainsaws and singing Christmas carols by the light of an animate moon (and on from there). I came to love and care for Vic, Maggie Leigh, both Vic’s parents, Lou, Wayne, and all the rest: they are fully developed characters with all the quirks and back-stories a reader could ask for. The imagination employed to create these characters – not to mention the outrageous, chilling, perfectly explicated otherworld they have to deal with – is prodigious. I marvel at the mind that can create such things.

Spooky creepy world-building combined with all-American realism, horrifically menacing little children, and an expert sense of pacing and suspense put NOS4A2 in the highest class. Not to put too fine a point on it, then, Joe Hill has all the goods his daddy does. Full points as well to Kate Mulgrew for her narration, which ranges over numerous distinctive voices, including accents, genders, and terror. As Hill points out in the author interview at the end of this audiobook (on which more to come in a later post), a well-read audiobook is a uniquely awesome experience, and this is one. Fully absorbing, realistic and petrifying, NOS4A2 is a juicy good time, but not for the faint of heart. I’m on to find more of Joe Hill.

Rating: 10 Scrabble tiles.
(Final tip: DO listen to the audiobook!)

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The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable by Carol Baxter

Posted on November 11, 2013 by pagesofjulia

An exhilarating real-life thriller about the murder that revealed the power of the telegraph.

peculiar electric

Australian historian Carol Baxter melds true crime and science in the gripping The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable. The electric telegraph (or the “electric constable,” as it was known) was a newfangled, doubtful-looking invention in 1845, when a well-liked young woman was found gasping her final breaths in the small English town of Slough. Fortuitously, Slough was connected by an experimental telegraph line to Paddington Station; when a distinctively dressed gentleman was seen leaving the apparent murder scene and boarding a train, quick-thinking locals sent word along the line. The pursuit by telegraph of a criminal suspect marked a turning point, Baxter argues, and sparked the communications revolution that continues today. That the suspect, John Tawell, was a Quaker made this case still more sensational, and his personal history as a transported convict helped to transfix the public.

This peculiar case involved not only the “electric constable” but also the new fields of toxicology and forensic science. The murder trial riveted the medical and legal professions, setting new precedents; the public, already inspired by poisoning cases, was riveted by the cyanide evidence that “the Quaker murderer” provided. Baxter’s accounts of the telegraph’s technology, the prevailing cultural climate regarding murder and poisonings, contemporary forensic methods and Tawell’s personal history are all worthy of an engrossing thriller. (Her research was meticulous, though, she explains in an author’s note, and all the dialogue attributed and factual.) Expertly told, The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable is a captivating accomplishment in nonfiction.

This review originally ran in the October 29, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 dark suits.

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Antigone by Sophocles, trans. by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald

Posted on November 8, 2013 by pagesofjulia

oedipusThis is the third play in a trilogy. Please see my write-ups of the first two: Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus.

I have studied Antigone in some depth before, also in Fitzgerald’s translation, and I enjoyed it immensely again. The action is this: brothers Eteocles and Polyneices have done battle for the kingship of Thebes, and both have been killed, Eteocles within the city walls and Polyneices, attacking from without. Now king again, Creon – uncle to Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles, and Polyneices – decrees that Eteocles will be buried with full honors but Polyneices will not, because he was a traitor who attacked his own city. You have no doubt noticed the great significance of the oracles I’ve named so far in these plays: the gods were a very real, very important part of life in the ancient Greece represented in these works. One of the deeply serious principles at play in their culture would have been honoring one’s family, and respectfully burying one’s dead. Therefore, Antigone doesn’t hesitate to defy Creon’s royal decree – on pain of death – and bury her brother. She is caught, captured, makes no denial, and is sentenced. Creon is too cowardly to order her death, so he orders her locked in an underground cell and fed; whether she lives or dies, he says, is no fault of his.

The real conflict here is between god’s man and man’s law. Antigone asked Ismene to assist her in burying their brother but Ismene refused, citing man’s law as dominant; Antigone takes it as a given that god’s law, regarding the burial of one’s dead relatives, is superior. When Antigone is caught, Ismene changes her opinion, begging to be put to death with her sister, but Antigone refuses her this honor: she didn’t earn it. Creon, for his own reasons, refuses to punish her: he has begun to dread the consequences of his stiff policy, in light of public sentiment sympathizing with Antigone’s cause. From being steadfast and confident in his decree in the beginning, Creon is increasingly worried that he may be wrong; but – in another theme of the play – he is too proud (or has too much hubris) to back down. His son Haimon is engaged to marry Antigone, and comes to Creon to ask for her pardon – not because he is “girlstruck,” but because he cares for his father’s fate. This is the first of several warnings that Creon should heed; the next comes in the form of the respected seer Teiresias. Ironically, Oedipus had failed to listen to Teiresias in Oedipus Rex, and Creon will make the same mistake here. The Chorus eventually convinces Creon to pardon Antigone and bury Polyneices, but this decision comes too late. When the party arrives at Antigone’s cell, she has killed herself; Creon is there just in time to see his son Haimon do the same. This is a classic tragedy, in terms of its fatal flaw – Creon’s hubris in thinking to rule against god’s law, and then in his reluctance to admit he was wrong and change his policy – resulting in the death of his family. Because, oh yes, his queen wife (Haimon’s mother) also kills herself when she hears the news. Whew.

To me this is by far the strongest of the three plays. I noted a number of iconic lines that I felt the need to share with you. In fact, these lines taken together serve somewhat to give a feel for the action of this play, which is most importantly internal action: Creon is stiff and unbending; Creon doubts himself; Creon reverses. It is a conflict between moral stances. Also, as you can see, there is a feminist undertone here as well – represented not least by Creon’s idiocy.

Ismene to Antigone when Antigone asks her to disobey Creon’s rule:

We are only women,
We cannot fight with men, Antigone!

Same scene, Ismene to Antigone again:

Impossible things should not be tried at all.

Creon, arrogantly scolding Antigone for what he ironically sees as her pride in disobeying him:

She has much to learn.
The inflexible heart breaks first, the toughest iron
Cracks first, and the wildest horses bend their necks
At the pull of the smallest curb.

Creon again, betraying the real reasons for his reluctance to reconsider his stance:

Who is the man here,
She or I, if this crime goes unpunished?

And even worse – still Creon:

Whoever is chosen to govern should be obeyed –
Must be obeyed, in all thing, great and small,
Just and unjust!

(Just and unjust? Did you really mean to say that, Creon?)

If we must lose,
Let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we?

Haimon, giving his father good advice:

It is not reason never to yield to reason!

Just a few of my favorite lines. I hope they communicate the power and drama in this short but very moving play.

Rating: 8 birds of augury.

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The Investigator: Fifty Years of Uncovering the Truth by Terry Lenzner

Posted on November 7, 2013 by pagesofjulia

An investigator’s caseload over the decades offers a captivating glimpse of the intersection of politics, celebrity and money in the U.S.

investigator

Terry Lenzner’s career began in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the 1960s, and has ranged from the Senate Watergate Committee through private legal practice to his own company, Investigative Group International. A lawyer by training, he found his passion in research and sleuthing. The Investigator reads like a Forrest-Gump-style catalogue of cases that have caught the public eye–from the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, to the Harrisburg 7’s federal case for antiwar activism, to Watergate, the Unabomber, Monica Lewinsky and the death of Princess Diana.

Lenzner’s clients include governments, politicians, businessmen and celebrities; the resulting wide-ranging subject matter in this memoir accounts in part for its appeal. Even the tedious financial fact-checking of an investigation into the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is brought to life by Lenzner’s passion. He gives character sketches of public figures he’s known, debunks public perceptions of certain events and offers investigative tips along the way. He is concerned with the truth, not satisfying the client at any price, and shares anecdotes in which the two goals were irreconcilable.

Impressively, this seasoned investigator is also a fine writer. His story opens compellingly, giving background while simultaneously jumping right into the action. Although “this isn’t meant to be a history book,” Lenzner writes, The Investigator is an absorbing and intelligent sampling of American history, told in puzzles and–sometimes–solutions.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the October 22, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 witnesses.

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Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles, trans. by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald

Posted on November 6, 2013 by pagesofjulia

oedipusThis is the second play in a trilogy; see the first, Oedipus Rex, here.

At the opening of Oedipus at Colonus, 20 years have passed, during which Oedipus has wandered in exile with his daughter Antigone as faithful companion and caregiver. He initially hoped for a sentence of death from Creon, but was given banishment instead. He arrives near Athens hoping for asylum, as his second daughter Ismene appears with news. Thebes is experiencing conflict: the two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, are fighting for the kingship. An oracle has instructed that Oedipus can help; but he refuses, even when Polyneices shows up to ask for his father’s blessing. Oedipus resents that his sons heartlessly allowed him to be turned out of the city. Although he wanted death in the beginning, he has since decided that his crimes were unknowing – he killed his father in a fair fight, not knowing who the man was, and defending his life; and he married his mother not knowing his relationship to her, only knowing that she was a queen whose favor he had won. And he resents the life he’s earned by his innocent crimes. At Colonus, he meets Theseus, king of Athens, who defends Oedipus and his daughters against the treachery of Creon. Following another oracle that says Oedipus will bring peace and glory to the city that offers him refuge, Theseus welcomes Oedipus to die there at Colonus.

This middle play (the only one that I had not read before) was in some ways the quietest of the three, and apparently the least known. It was followed, in my edition, by a commentary that Oedipus Rex lacked. This commentary described the principles of translation ascribed to by Fitzgerald, and gave some background information on Greek theatre and tips for presenting this in the modern era. I found it useful. I was probably least moved by Oedipus Colonus; but it did portray the loving relationship between Antigone and her father (brother) that helps establish her love of family, which we will see so strongly in Antigone. She is growing as a character; she did not speak in Oedipus Rex, and in this play she is a speaking character but still subordinate to her father’s needs. She is kidnapped, apparently helpless to defend herself, but her strength is increasing as her father’s life ends.

Rating: 5 holy places.

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Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, trans. by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald

Posted on November 4, 2013 by pagesofjulia

oedipus“The Oedipus Cycle” is made up of three plays by Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. I cannot remember at this moment what motivated me to read or reread these plays; something else I read, no doubt. I remember Greek tragic drama very fondly from high school, where Mrs. Smith inspired me in many of my present-day literary loves (hello, Hemingway and Homer).

This triptych concerns the mythic curse on the House of Thebes, which I will retell quickly in my own words. Ahead: spoilers. Oedipus was both to the Theban King Laius and Queen Jocasta, but upon his birth, an oracle prophesied that this baby boy would grow up to murder his father and marry his mother. Wishing to avoid this fate, Laius took the boy out in the woods, pierced his heels and pinned them together, and left him to die. Now, this is no way to avoid the fates. Oedipus was raised by a foster father and mother who claimed him as their own, until as a young man he heard this prophecy given, and not wishing to fulfill it against the parents he knew and claimed, he fled them. Along the road on his travels, he came across an older man who wouldn’t yield the road as Oedipus thought proper. They quarreled, and fought, and Oedipus killed the older man (guess who this will turn out to be). He continues on the road to Thebes, a city-state that has just lost its king to a mysterious murder; he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, marries their queen, and happily begets four children.

When Oedipus Rex (or “Oedipus the King”) opens, King Oedipus is struggling to relieve his city of a plague. He must appease the gods, and the oracle tells him the way to do this is to finally avenge the former king’s murder. He agrees that Laius deserves justice – ironically volunteering to serve as his child should: “I say I take the son’s part, just as though / I were his son…” (as translated in my edition by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald). And Oedipus curses the murderer, or anyone who would hide his identity, with death or banishment. This will have consequences. The action of the play, the tension and emotion, resides in Oedipus’s earnest cursing of the murderer who turns out to be himself; adding incest to his unknown crimes is too much for him, as his queen (wife, mother) kills herself and Oedipus gouges out his own eyes and puts himself at the mercy of his brother-in-law, Creon. Here the play ends.

There is some ambivalence, at least for me, in identifying the fatal flaw or crime of the tragic hero in this play. (It will be much clearer in Antigone.) Oedipus is indeed guilty of murdering his father and marrying his mother – terrible crimes, to be sure – but he did both unknowingly, and to his knowledge had every right to kill (in self defense) and marry. I think his fatal flaw is at least shared by his parents: the crime was in trying to avoid the predestined fate assigned them all by the gods. This you can’t do! One wonders, if Oedipus had been raised at home, how these things would have come to pass; clearly differently, as he would have known his parents. Presumably he would have been more at fault. But at any rate, the point is made that it is futile to avoid the fate assigned you by the gods. Perhaps his limited responsibility here is what earns Oedipus a somewhat reduced sentence – of which, more in the next installment.

I enjoyed this play for its feeling. The characters are passionate, emotional, and all of this is well evoked by the somewhat dramatic (but this is drama, after all!) but very understandable language. I think Fitzgerald’s translation is excellent; I find it moving, and the atmosphere of building doom and foreboding is exquisite.

Coming up: the next two plays.

Rating: 7 places where 3 roads meet.

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Farewell, Dorothy Parker by Ellen Meister (audio)

Posted on October 29, 2013 by pagesofjulia

farewellI “like” the Dorothy Parker facebook page, available here, which is run by Ellen Meister and posts Parker quotes and anecdotes regularly. This is how I became aware of Meister’s new book, a nod in novel form to the feisty one.

In wrapping up this audiobook experience I am a little conflicted. I was alternately spellbound and greatly entertained, and exasperated, with the novel’s protagonist, Violet Epps. Violet is a movie critic in present-day New York, and her verbal wit on the page is razor-sharp (as they say), in the spirit of her acknowledged hero, Dorothy Parker. But in real life, she’s petrified of everything, rarely finding the voice to ask for a seat at a restaurant; in the opening scenes (quite frustrating) she is trying to break up with a dirtbag loser boyfriend but can’t. And then she obtains a book signed by Dorothy Parker, and discovers – gasp – that she can summon the dead writer at will. This changes Violet’s life enormously.

Violet needs a helping hand in several areas of her life: dumping the boyfriend and fielding a new one; dealing with a horrible bratty new underling at work; and fighting a custody battle for her recently orphaned niece. Mrs. Parker (as she insists on being called) is a great help – or sometimes a great interferer – in these matters, giving Ms. Epps (as she insists on calling her) the backbone she needs. Sometimes this takes the form of encouragement (or even feeding her lines); but Mrs. Parker also has the ability to enter Violet and take charge of her body, which can be messy. There is always the questions of where to give credit (or blame) – how much is Violet in control of herself? She is apt to give Dorothy Parker the credit, but she’ll have to learn how to stand up for herself by herself in the end, of course. The satisfying flip side to Violet’s growth is that she has something to offer Mrs. Parker, as well.

On the one hand, Meister’s characters were well-developed and believable (with the possible exception of a rather ogre-ish grandmother), and I cared about them. Dorothy Parker was wonderful, everything you’d want her to be, realistic, heroic but humanly flawed. I was honestly desperate to get back to this audiobook when I had to shut it off. I needed to know what was going to happen next; I was excited or anxious for Violet, who I liked.

On the other hand, Violet’s behavior was often infuriating. She was so slow to learn, so allergic to speaking up for herself in even the most obvious of needs, that I wanted to shake her. We spent what felt like eons in situations where she should have just done something. Now, I’m not a person who typically struggles to speak up for herself; I don’t suffer from social anxiety except in the most exceptional of circumstances. Perhaps I should be tolerant of this portrayal because perhaps it is entirely realistic for people who truly fight these issues. [Although, the explanation for Violet’s social anxiety – a trauma involving her recently-deceased sister when they were small – I found rather trite.] But even if this was a realistic portrayal, I found it tiresome.

Similarly, perhaps I should give allowances for this part because I’m not a romance fan – but in the thread of this story that was a romance novel, there occurs that maddening trope wherein the woman wants the man but pushes him away, and it takes far too long for them to reconcile their totally obvious mutual desire. My patience was tested. But, romance fans, you should like that part.

I know I sound harsh here, but I point out again, the plot’s action had me riveted and I am going to miss Violet Epps (and Dorothy Parker!) very much now that this book is finished. I just want to communicate that I had conflicting moments throughout.

And in the end, I was silly putty in this book’s hands. I was so pleased for the happy endings and for all the characters that I forgot my earlier quibbles. Had I been I overreacting? Or did the later success of this novel simply wash away the memories of my frustration? Whatever it was, my patience with this book was rewarded and I’m won over. Three cheers for Violet and Dorothy, both.

Rating: 6 edits.

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

Posted on October 25, 2013 by pagesofjulia

photo (2)Arguably Tennessee Williams’s best-known or best-regarded play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may be familiar to some of us for the 1958 film starring Elizabeth Taylor (shown on the cover of my copy from the local library) and Paul Newman. It won Williams the Pulitzer in 1955.

The action takes place in a few rooms and on the full-length upstairs gallery of a Mississippi Delta plantation home. In the opening scene, young wife Margaret is complaining to her husband, Brick, about his family: his brother Gooper (what a name!) and Gooper’s wife Mae are obnoxious people, with five children and a sixth on the way, bent on securing the plantation for themselves as inheritance, as Big Daddy is dying of cancer. Brick is no longer sleeping with Margaret, for reasons that go unexplained, at least by Brick himself. Margaret (and the rest of the family) are concerned with Brick’s drinking; and there is much innuendo directed towards his relationship with a now-dead friend named Skipper. The play, in three acts, with no break in time – so that the action of the play takes the same time as the playing of it – portrays discussions between various family members around these issues. Brick drinks too much; he doesn’t sleep with his wife; they’re expected to have a baby, at least one, to try and compete with Gooper and Mae’s outstanding performance in that department, despite which Brick is still the favored son. Big Daddy has been told he does not have cancer, but this is a lie to protect him, a lie that Brick exposes.

The nastiness of Mae is perhaps the least subtle element of this play – she is every inch a schemer – but overall it’s very well balanced in terms of what is said and what is left unsaid. The greatest victory Williams scores here, in my opinion, is atmosphere. It’s hot; there isn’t enough air flow, and the characters are mostly anxious to keep doors closed so that other family members don’t hear what is said. There are many secrets: the extent of Brick’s drinking; Margaret’s infidelity with Skipper (intended to prove his sexuality); the question of Brick’s sexuality; Big Daddy’s diagnosis of advanced and inoperable cancer. The secrets and the hot, still air are claustrophobic; and add to this “Maggie the Cat”‘s sensuality, her desire for her still-attractive husband, and her attempts to get him back into the marital bed, and we have a sultry, charged scene.

I observed about this play – but I think it’s true of all Williams’s work – that he writes quite lengthy and detailed and imaginative stage directions. There is almost a novel living within this play, so much does he put into his narratives about scenery and the manner the actors should take. It also occurred to me that some of his directions to the players were fanciful and difficult to act out; for example: “Big Mama has a dignity at this moment; she almost stops being fat.” How is Big Mama’s actor supposed to play that out?? On the other hand, Williams often releases his characters (more typically of a play script) into dialogue or monologue and lets them run. I think the characters we meet here are very well matched to help one another release truths, or hide them, or release untruths, as they will.

There’s no question that this is a beautiful piece of artwork, and another that I would very much like to see performed.

Themes include “mendacity,” as Brick continually refers to it: most overtly in regards to Big Daddy’s prognosis, but also relating to the inheritance that Gooper and Mae want so badly; Brick’s relationship with the late Skipper; and his relationship with his wife, and their likelihood of having children. A more understated theme, but one that shouldn’t be overlooked in the face of Williams’s own relationship with alcohol, is Brick’s alcoholism. This is something he doesn’t work particularly to keep hidden; the family is aware that he drinks a lot, but Big Daddy is surprised to hear about the “click” in Brick’s head that he needs before he can feel all right, and that can only be achieved by drink. I didn’t bother counting the drinks Brick takes before he feels the click, but it’s quite a few, and I believe was finally reached by three shots in quick succession. The poor guy. Adding to the claustrophobic, anxious, heated atmosphere I described above, Brick is on crutches, having twisted an ankle recreating his youthful athletic triumphs while drunk the night before; and instead of sitting and resting it, he’s jumpy, can’t stop moving. The people who want to communicate with him (Margaret, Big Daddy) try to take his crutch away to still him, but he continues to hobble. I think there is clearly some symbolism there. This wouldn’t be the same play if Brick weren’t crippled, or if he were to sit docilely and put his foot up on a pillow.

Another achievement for Tennessee Williams; and can someone produce this one locally for me, please?

Rating: 8 trips to Echo Spring.

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The Black Monk and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov (audio)

Posted on October 23, 2013 by pagesofjulia

blackmonkI am tagging this as a did not finish, although I did, in fact, finish two short stories (and barely started a third). I DNF’d the story collection, though. Meaning, I don’t seem to be a Chekhov fan. It’s funny when things turn out that way: when I turn out not to like an author who is Classic, or in this case, revered as one of the best short story writers of all time (I can’t remember where I’ve heard this, but I have. More than once. sigh). But it does happen.

I listened to The Black Monk and Gooseberries. It was remarkable to me how much these stories reminded me of Tolstoy (who, if you recall, I also did not like). I don’t know if it’s Russian writers with shared characteristics, or that they both evoke the same world and that’s what bothers me. At any rate, the Russian society on the estate felt very much like the same background, transferred from Anna Karenina to Chekhov’s short stories.

In The Black Monk, our protagonist visits the estate where he was raised family-like by non-relations. The father figure encourages him to marry the daughter of the estate (so, the sister figure?), and he does. At a party somebody shares the legend of the black monk, who is imaginary but shows up… sometimes, some places. Our protagonist sees the black monk, talks with him, and uses their conversations as fodder for his own writing (oh yes, he is a writer by profession). He gets caught talking to himself (as it seems – he’s talking with his imaginary black monk) and “treated” for his “illness,” which frustrates him. He and the wife split up. The end. This is a story in which nothing much happens, and the black monk bits I found uninteresting. Is this minimalism as a stylistic statement, or something? Is it not what’s there, but what isn’t there? (Like action, personality, conflict?) This is a well-regarded piece of literature, but it passed me right by.

In Gooseberries, a few friends gather and sit around and tell a story: the brother of one of these men, having grown up in the country but found work as a bureaucrat in a city, dreams about retiring to the country. He will have a farm, or something like it; and he will have gooseberry bushes. In time he accomplishes this: he has a country estate, and gooseberry bushes. The brother (who is telling the story, to his friends) visits, and is served gooseberries. The country-aspiring brother praises them highly, but they are in fact bitter. I assume this is the grand symbolic conflict of the story that is meant to impress me, but again I found it banal. Oh, there is some social commentary on the fact that this bureaucrat-brother now professes to be a nobleman and high-handedly distributes buckets of vodka to the peasants on special occasions, pretending grandeur. But again, this is a story in which nothing happens, and I am bored. So I stopped listening.

In many literary cases, we praise the understated. I’m thinking of Cheever’s short story, The Swimmer, and Hemingway’s, Hills Like White Elephants. The under-context of these stories remains pretty well hidden, but they are praised as masterpieces. (I enjoyed both, for the record.) In Hemingway’s story, nothing really happens; but it is still thought-provoking and oh, so emotionally evocative. In Cheever’s, a little more happens; nothing is said about what Cheever really wants to say; but it still works. I wonder if there’s something hidden in The Black Monk that, if explained to me, would make it so much more enjoyable? I suspect not.

Funnily enough, this audiobook I picked up right after The Gunslinger is read by the same narrator, George Guidall. That was an interesting experiment in the different voices and moods a good narrator can evoke. When I thought to notice, I could tell – obviously – that the same man read the two books; but it never would have occurred to me mid-story, because he does a fine job of bringing to life two such different worlds. The fantastic, dramatic made-up world of King’s fantasy series couldn’t be more different than Chekhov’s staid, frustrated Russian society, and Guidall did well by each, so none of my criticism falls on him. I was annoyed by the characters Guidall read; but I think he read them as they were written.

Rating: 2 empty comments.

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The Gunslinger by Stephen King (audio)

Posted on October 21, 2013 by pagesofjulia
This is my 1000th post! Thanks for your support, friends!

gunslingerI so very much enjoyed The Wind Through the Keyhole from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series that I had to find The Gunslinger, book one in that series. I was captivated by King’s own narration of the former, and disappointed to find that he didn’t read this one himself; but narrator George Guidall did a fine job, and I shouldn’t punish him for not being Stephen King.

In a fantastical spin on the western genre, we open with Roland Deschain walking alone with his mule, his guns holstered at his hips. He is pursuing “the man in black”, with an eventual destination of “the dark tower.” These terms are archetypal and possibly metaphorical. He has to cross a desert. He talks with a lone farmer (accompanied by a talking crow), and tells the man a story. (The story-within-the-story is repeated in The Wind Through the Keyhole, very enjoyably.) In the gunslinger’s story we experience the town of Tull, where Roland had also stayed for a spell, in pursuit of the man in black, with some nasty consequences. This is the first of the gory-bloody bits in The Gunslinger, but not the most extreme. We are also learning something of the magical nature of this world that the gunslinger inhabits. The man in black casts spells to entrap Roland; time doesn’t flow normally. At a glance, however, this could be our own world – possibly following war or other disaster.

Next, Roland meets “the boy,” Jake, who has himself come from some other world. As he describes it, Roland thinks he must be making things up; but the reader recognizes modern-day New York City. Jake and Roland travel together for a spell, still across the desert, and then have to climb a mountain, and then go into the mountain. I’ve put off saying this for long enough: The Lord of the Rings is strongly present. The dark tower, the linguistic touches, the lone-ranger type which is borrowed both from western books & movies and from Tolkien, and now the trip into the evil mountain with the ghoulish parahumans threatening them along the way, are all clearly inspired by that exemplary world-building trilogy. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I referenced Tolkien in my review of The Wind Through the Keyhole, too.

Anyway. They’re traveling, and Roland tells Jake a story, too – another story-within – this time about his training as a gunslinger, and the climactic, life-determining moment when he fought his teacher. This is the truly gory bit: it made me cringe a little, and I don’t consider myself a squeamish reader, so take note. This is Stephen King, after all. Horror joins western and fantasy-epic in King’s genre mashup. Roland and Jake will have a final meeting with the man in black; and I shall leave you there.

I enjoyed this book very much. Stephen King is, without question, expert at world-building and believable, fully-wrought, finely detailed backgrounds. Roland is both an archetype and a real person I easily learned to care about. The tension, suspense, and dramatic action are engaging and had me sitting up straight waiting for the next blow. The boy Jake is sympathetic. There is a mystery surrounding the man in black, and the final confrontation – I said I wouldn’t go there. On the other hand, The Gunslinger felt to me grittier, grainier, less literarily refined than The Wind Through the Keyhole, which in my memory, at least, was a superior book; but not by much. And for that matter, a grainier, less refined beginning feels like it suits this series. I am enchanted by the pulling together of genres, as I stated: western, horror, fantasy, and epic adventure. I don’t think I’m doing it justice in this review, but this is fine work, friends. I’ll be seeking out book two.

Rating: 7 slow mutants.

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