townesvanfaulkner

Writing Style-5.9
Originality-6.1
Plot-6.0
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-4.5
Overall-5.4

This book was okay. At ~1000 pages it’s probably more of a time commitment than it is really worth.

It’s a bestseller and it shows. It’s very soap operaish. It’s sort of a vulgar, poor man’s Dickens that revolves around the world of prostitution in the late 1800’s in England.

It starts out very well, delving into this seedy underworld in a very gritty manner. But then it actually turns into a hooker with a heart of gold story. I kept thinking, ‘Okay, surely he’s going to complicate things somehow along the way?’ But he never really does.

And the ending might be the most abrupt ending I’ve ever read. There are tons of loose ends left hanging. When you invest time in 1000 pages, you expect some satisfaction and you aint gettin none here. It’s pretty much like the author has this really fecund imagination and could have just kept going and going, but knew that he had to cut it off somewhere short of the four-digit page length mark.

I’m not gonna spend any more time on this one, since I’m almost 7 books behind on my reviews now. If you think you’d like a soap-operaish, bestseller, hooker with a heart of gold, period piece dressed up as something more intellectually redeeming then you could do worse than read this book. I was thoroughly entertained all the way through, but left feeling hollow.

Writing Style-5.2
Originality-4.1
Plot-0.2
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-0.003
Overall- -1

Shew lord… this book caused me to lose a ton of respect for Vonnegut. I loved Slaughterhouse, Mr. Rosewater, and Breakfast of Champions. Didn’t much care for Player Piano, but it was okay. I read a collection of essays called something weird like Wampeters, granfalloons, and something or other and I recall thinking that it was a bit pompous and that I didn’t want to read any more of his essays. And then… Bluebeard, I wisht I never knew ye.

A-killa and I were put in a Vonnegut mood a couple of weeks ago when we saw him pimping his new book, “Man Without a Country”, on the Daily Show. He was hilarious. At one point he was talking about how we’re teaching Iraq about democracy and he said something like, ‘We need to let them know that after 100 years you’ve got to give up your slaves, after 150 years you have to give women the right to vote, and that there is generally a lot of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the beginning.’

So, I had this turd of a book sitting around pretty much left forgotten. I guess I picked it up on the cheap somewhere down the line. I decided to give it a go.

I was immediately taken aback by the forward, which reads:

“Tremendous concentrations of paper wealth have made it possible for a few persons or institutions to endow certain sorts of human playfulness with inappropriate and hence distressing seriousness. I think not only of the mudpies of art, but of children’s games as well—running, jumping, catching, throwing.
Or dancing.
Or singing songs.”

So, basically, the whole point of the book, as far as I can tell, is that art that doesn’t deal with war is a waste of time. Wow, how egotistical do you have to be to write this book? Hey, Picasso, Beethoven, Mozart, Bob Dylan, Coltrane, Bach, Van Gogh, Shakespeare (at least most of his plays), Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie guess what, Kurt Vonnegut thinks you’re all a bunch of phony, stupid, masturbatory losers. (Apparently no better, or more important, than Shaquille O’Neal or Alex Rodriguez.)

Alright, he doesn’t go so far as to attack all these folks specifically(except for Picasso), he mainly goes after Jackson Pollock and his friends. But still, it’s not much of a stretch when you are totally dismissing aesthetics and psychology and putting war commentary and realism on a pedestal as the highest form of art that these persons’ work starts to slip down the sewage drain that is Vonnegut’s mind. Surely you can see how it becomes a slippery slope. I mean where does Mr. Vonnegut draw the line?

And secondly, and I say this with the utmost respect for the novel, but really, when you get right down to it, how much more do you think Slaughterhouse Five has decreased the world’s penchant for fighting wars than one single Pollock splatter? I mean really, common on. It’s not exactly Uncle Tom’s Cabin or the Bible or the Communist Manifesto or anything.

And I haven’t even touched on the irony that a NOVELIST is commenting on how worthless modern art is at the same time as he is WRITING A BOOK ABOUT HOW WORTHLESS MODERN ART IS!! This is exactly the kind of irony that a younger Vonnegut probably would have gotten a kick out of.

And then getting back to the fact that he also attacks pro athletes. Now, I agree, some of them make a lot more money than what they deserve probably. But again, you could start down a similar slippery slope that if pro athletes are worthless and that war is bad and we should work on stopping it, then everyone who isn’t lending a hand to stop war is worthless. Sort of like that Colorado professor calling the people in the World Trade Center “little Eichmanns” because they weren’t actively working on getting their government to stop stupid foreign policies. I mean I work for the federal government, and I understand that our government does some pretty evil shit, but for fuckssake, what am I supposed to do about it? Does that make me a “little Eichman”? I mean, I’m just a guy trying to get through this shitty life and I gotta eat and I’d like to stick around at least for the sake of reading books, and writing some songs, and watching some football. We can’t ALL be Jesus Christ, okay. Give me a break.

Unless you hate modern art stay well away from this book.

Mr. Vonnegut, I SAID GOODDAY SIR!

Time magazine has just published a top 100 english-language novels since 1923. I'm still digesting it but, I think I've read 40 of them (41 if you include Gravity's Rainbow which I tried my damnedest to finish but was defeated).

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

I like that they include Blood Meridian. They chose Blind Assassin over Handmaid's Tale which makes no sense whatsoever. They include some rather recent ones which is nice like Atonement, The Corrections, White Teeth (which I just read and owe a review; I'm falling way behind in my reviews). Props to sci-fi with Neuromancer and pkdick (though Ubik is a VERY strange choice for best pkdick novel, maybe it's the only one that the creators of this list both read or something). FINALLY, A Death in the Family gets some cred. And the Sportswriter! I was beginning to think that it was only me that thought that book was brilliant.

Overall, I really like this list. I still want to see A Confederacy of Dunces and Bret Easton Ellis get some respect and then I'll be happy.

http://davereed.org/

This is good stuff. Looks very interesting and informative actually.

If Dave was around I'd give him a ride in my car.

Writing Style-6.5
Originality-7.0
Plot-6.7
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-6.2
Overall-6.7

This was a really nice book. It’s been on bestseller lists for a long time, so when I saw it for a decent price at McKay’s I bit.

It’s written by a guy from Afghanistan and most of the book takes place there. So, if you are at all curious about the history of Afghanistan and how the Taliban came to be in power there this is a pretty fun source of some of that info. You’ll also learn a bit about the ethnic divisions there as well as the whole sunni vs. shi’a thing.

The fictional story of a young boy growing up in the early seventies in Afghanistan proceeds up until post 9/11 and the boy’s story runs parallel to the political, social, and military upheavals taking place in the country over this period of time.

The young boy does something that he is terribly ashamed of, then moves to America, and many years later has the opportunity to return to his native country to try to atone for this mistake he made in his youth.

He describes his childhood in Afghanistan in the early seventies when it was relatively stable. There was a king that had been in power for around 40 years. Then in 1975 (I think) there is a political coup while the king is away in Italy and then there is the Soviet invasion and a long war with them which severely breaks up and destabilizes the region. Most of this he doesn’t dwell on, as the main character is now living in San Francisco. But then someone from his past calls one day and offers him the opportunity to come back and make up for his mistakes. When he returns, Afghanistan is totally different being ruled by the Taliban. He sees women being beaten for showing any amount of skin in public and executions during halftime of soccer games and so forth.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, it’s very entertaining book. I’d recommend it to people who like to read about other countries and cultures.

Ivan's Waltz
A Song For
Strange Angel
November Third Blues: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bush

All songs written and performed by Enoch except A Song For by Townes Van Zandt. All songs copyright of Bassless Accusations Music 2005.