Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Catching Up On #Read26Indy Books 16-18


When I started the #Read26Indy challenge, I thought it would be absolutely no problem to read 26 books in a year. I love reading, why would it be difficult? But I didn't count on starting a new career, moving, running a marathon, and doing a number of other time-intensive things that kept me from reading. Well, no more! I have just over a month to read 8 more books, once you count the three I'm posting about here. Can I do it? I guess we'll see. I do like a big crazy goal. But first, I need to get to these three.

Book 16: Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Then he met Herakles and the kingdoms of his life all shifted down a few notches.
They were two superior eels
at the bottom of the tank and they recognized each other like italics.

Autobiography of Red came highly recommended over the summer by a friend of mine. It took me a couple months to actually crack it open, but when I finally did I was hooked by its hazy beautiful haunting world. Our hero is Geryon, a reimagined version of the Greek monster. Our Geryon is red and has wings, loves photography, and lives with his chain-smoking mother and a brother who does terrible things to him in the dark. One day Geryon meets Herakles and falls in love. In the Greek stories, Herakles is the hero who kills the monster Geryon. In Carson's story, Herakles leaves Geryon with a broken heart. Years later, he meets Herakles again, with a new lover. But the story is less about plot, and more about the feeling of what is missing in us, and finding our way. 

Book 17: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. 


Before I get into Gone Girl, I would like to take this moment to rant about my dislike of movie covers on novels. I know, this is the rant every book-lover goes on when a book they love, or even one they haven't read but think that they may someday, is stacked up in the bookstore with the cover displaying Ben Affleck looking angstily into the distance and a sticker announcing "Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture." I wonder how many people select a book because they are lured by this promise that at some point in the near future they will have the opportunity to sit down in the theater and complain that the film isn't faithful to the book. Would a shopper still buy a book with its original artwork? Or does good old Ben convince them to put the book in their shopping cart? I suppose it must work - there must be some solid market research that determined this definitively boosts sales, just like putting candy at the eye level of a child sells more Skittles at a grocery store checkout. 

Coming down from my soap box, Gone Girl really is a well-written book. It's one of those rare books that manages to be a page-turner, while also containing smart writing. So thank you, Gillian Flynn, for that. I appreciate some nutrition with my sugar.

We learn about married couple Nick and Amy as we read Amy's journal. It goes from happy boy-meets-girl to the struggles of any relationship to something darker. One of the reasons I wanted to read this book was because a writing teacher used it as an example of a story with an unreliable narrator, so maybe I was predisposed to expecting a twist. It's a neatly plotted story, but to be honest, I was less interested in seeing where the plot goes, and more interested in Amy's editorial asides, my favorite being the Cool Girl rant. I identified with that rant - the idea that so many women are these crazy, clingy, needy harpies, and so we need to show that we're the "cool girls", that we don't care if you can't come support us at an important event because we're so self-assured that we don't need the validation, and that we're totally happy just watching the game and eating cheeseburgers, while at the same time looking gorgeous without needing to spend any time to get that way. I found myself agreeing with Amy when she wrote that women have embraced this idea of the cool girl, convinced ourselves that its who we really are, and then stuff down anything that is not in the job description of "cool girl" so that we don't contract that image. Of course, as anyone who saw the Gone Girl previews knows, Amy is not to be trusted and is not particularly sane. So does that mean her words are untrue, or is it a case of sometimes crazy people can say incredibly sane things? 

Book 18: Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

But does Man have any "right" to spread through the universe?
Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politicians--you name it--is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is--not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be.
The universe will let us know--later--whether or not Man has any "right" to expand through it.
In the meantime the M.I. will be in there, on the bounce and swinging, on the side of our own race.

Other than the few pages from which I excerpted the above, Starship Troopers bored me to tears. It took me over a month to get through this short novel. It's the opposite of the "show don't tell" rule they teach you in writing classes. Heinlein gives us a very detailed description of the military of the future. But he fails to make any of his characters seem more than one-dimensional. Even our hero, Johnnie Rico, is ill-defined. I know this may be a heretical opinion amongst sci-fi lovers, as this book has quite the cult following. I looked up articles about the book, and found it lavished with praise. I really wanted to like it. Maybe it reminded me a little too much of other sci-fi books I've read over the years, like Anne McCaffrey's The Rowan and Damia, which, who knows, may have actually been influenced by Starship Troopers

In the future, service in the military is optional. Most people don't do it. (That sounds familiar, hmm...) Our hero is from a fairly upper-class family, and he decides, along with his best friend, that he's going to join up. In this future, the only citizens allowed to vote are those that have served time honorably in the military without being kicked out or quitting. Rico's father is so upset by his decision that he stops speaking to him. It's been a fairly peaceful time as mankind has slowly grown out over the universe, but now there is a new enemy - the Bugs. They have a hive mind, and no sense of the individual. They can't be reasoned with, but they are trying to take over our worlds, so we have to fight them. Rico takes us, in detail, through his training as a soldier and up through his training to become a leader. But not a whole lot happens, until we finally see a showdown with the bugs. And even then, its not a high-stakes battle. Sure, Rico and the men he is commanding could die, but it has no major ramifications outside of the battle itself. 

This may be a case of the hype ruining my enjoyment. That's fairly common - like seeing the movie Bridesmaids after hearing for weeks how hilarious it was. It was funny, but it couldn't live up to the hype. I probably assumed Starship Troopers was a classic for a reason, so I was looking for a little something more. Or maybe I'm just not "cool girl" enough to enjoy it. 

And now - I'm up to 18 books read. 8 more to go, in a little less than 6 weeks. So if you're looking for me before 2015, you might look behind a stack of books. See ya next year!