Thursday, July 30, 2009

Review: Till We Have Faces

This review is, for many, many reasons, very difficult to write. To begin with, I should be doing things for my wedding in about a week, and as such I find myself a little distracted. For another, this is my favorite book from my favorite author, and I wonder if I will be able to give it the praise it deserves without being sycophantic. Well, all I can do is give it my best shot, right?

Genre:
fiction

Plot: This is a retelling of the Greek myth Psyche and Cupid, set in a barbaric kingdom called Glome. Lewis tells the story through the eyes of Orual, Psyche's older sister/mother figure, writing a long complaint against the gods for what they have done to her. His chief change to the story, which seems like such a small thing but has such brilliant ramifications to it, is to make Psyche's palace invisible to mortal eyes.

Structure: The book is unequally divided into two parts. In the lengthier Part One, Orual, seething with hatred and wrath for the gods, sets down to write her story once and for all and to show how unjust, how unfair, the gods have been to her. She begins in her early childhood, and carries it all the way to late adulthood, telling of her kingdom, her relationship with her sisters, the great sacrifice of Psyche, and the choices she made in trying to cope with what happened to her and her family.

Part Two is an answer to her initial writing. She receives an answer from the gods, a change in perspective, and writes an amendment to her initial, raging work. Part of my enchantment with this novel is its unusual epistolary structure (which has fallen out of favor in modern literature, much to my dismay), which is a perfect platform for the emotional story Lewis sets out to tell.

Execution: Lewis is a master of the English language, no doubt about it. His prose is perfect, suited exactly for the dark, heavy language of an ancient world and yet full of modern sparkle (where, I think, he vastly improved upon his colleague Tolkien). More than that, he gives touches of allegory. What do I mean by "touches?" I mean that you cannot come at this book straight on and say, "ah, this must be a symbol for this." It's too artless. This is a story that demands to be taken in sideways. You cannot come at it from the front; you have to come at it sideways and see glimpses, parallels, of what he alludes to. This to me is what makes this a supremely good book. Like true theology, clear, rational thinking gets you a little ways.

One of the best things about this work, I think, is that it combines Lewis' rich depth of knowledge, imagination, and deep questions without easy answers (why must holy places be dark?). It marries his fertile imagination with a powerful, emotional story; I think we all see ourselves in Orual, and so she touches us deeply. Her rage, her confusion, her disbelief and frustration are all ours. Her shock when she discovers she is, deep down, dark and ugly and selfish, is ours. And her ultimate redemption gives us hope. The pathos, the empathetic imagining which makes this story so distant and beautiful but also so near and real, that is what makes this a masterpiece.

Theme: Greek myth (Psyche and Cupid), love, sacrifice, allegory, philosophy

Read this if you want the richly imagined world of Tolkien in a lighter prose. This is, I think, also good for those dark nights of the soul when we wonder what God is doing or where he is.

5 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Lewis is a prolific author, but some of his best loved works are:
The Pilgrim's Regress
The Space Trilogy
The Chronicles of Narnia
Mere Christianity
The Screwtape Letters
The Four Loves

If you liked this, you might also like:
Carolyn Parkhurst's The Dogs of Babel - another story of love and loss

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Update on the Lack of Updates

Hey all! Wondering why your favorite place for book reviews is suddenly not looking so fresh anymore?

Well, I have a confession to make readers. Here's what's been hogging my reading hours as of late:

Distraction #1: Video Games


This would be funnier if it weren't also true

Yes, yes, I've been giving into my inner 10 year old lately; I'm playing Super Paper Mario. It's so frustrating at times I could throw the Wiimote (but I won't), but the humor is so good it keeps me coming back again and again.

Also been playing through FFX again with the Nicholas, which is fun if for nothing else than the cosplay jokes:




Distraction #2: Good Sci-Fi


is realy just Shepperd wif boobz

While Stargate Atlantis will always have a place in my heart, Battlestar Galactica is helping me with the withdrawl. Oh, Blockbuster, how I love thy dollar-per-day deals...

Oh, and before ANYONE SPOILS ANYTHING I'm not done with Season 1.

Distraction #3: Epic Cross-stitchery

My ambition is matched only by my Zelda fandom!

Seriously, I've been working on this over a year now, and it's so close to being done I can't help but work at it while watching TV or watching my fiance play with his newest toy, Need for Speed Underground. Oh, and by the way, those of you who thought WindWaker sucked need to go read the article on Destructoid.

Distraction #4: Nearly Newlywed


Nothing says classy like kegstand

There's also this other little thing. I happen to be getting married in 11 days to a wonderfully geeky and goofy man I love dearly. And after the wedding, moving to a new city with my new husband for a new job.

Needless to say, I'll be occupied with other life things for the next few days. But you know, since I'm going through all these major changes, wouldn't it be a perfect time to put Shelf Life through some alterations as well? Yes, yes indeed.

So consider this your "pardon our dust" warning. Reviews may be sparse the next few weeks (I'll try to get in a few before the big day), but rest assured, Shelf Life is far from finished! Soon 2.0 (aka Shelf Life Electric Boogaloo) will debut with...

Well I can't tell you! Otherwise you might not come back! But oh, many awesome things will come, including a new domain. So check back often, entertain your now empty Internet time with The Gearheart Audio Book and The Domestic Scientist, and we'll see you soon!

P.S. the poll from last week was a tie, but I'm halfway through Till We Have Faces.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Poll!

I have read 49 books this year, which puts me just a little behind on my goal of 100 for all of 2009. But since #50 is still a huge accomplishment, I thought I would put the choice into YOUR hands! I will somehow occupy myself otherwise this week and leave voting open until Friday. On Saturday I will announce the winner and get to work on that review!

I chose for the options books I already have checked out from the library, but you're free to suggest something else.

So get with the voting already!

Review: Sex God

I surveyed my 2009 Shelf the other day, and I wasn't too thrilled with what I found. It's like I've gone on a fiction binge since college ended, and while that was fun for a while (and tempting to return to since Alruff raved about this), intellectually I crave books that will jar my brain, or at least rattle it.

So on my last trip to the library, I stayed far away from my favorite fiction section and chose to wander non-fiction for a while. One of the titles I found was the one up for review today by Rob Bell. I have to warn you, I am highly skeptical of Rob Bell. Theologically, we dissected his work at lot in school and found a lot of it lacking or at least not articulated well. But although the first few chapters of his book started off exactly as I expected it to, the last few definitely gave me exactly the kind of brain jolting I wanted.

Genre: nonfiction (theology)

Plot Synopsis: The book begins with an introduction to the "new-but-not-really-new" of "this is really about that," i.e., most of what we talk about or argue about or think about is about one thing on the surface, but really about another, deeper thing. This is basically the heart of his book--sexuality is really about spirituality.

Chapter 1 I really can't tell you what it was about, because I'm not sure myself; it was all fireworks and glitter but no substance (which is exactly what I expected of Rob Bell). Chapter 2 explains how sexuality is really just connectivity, which means that any relationship is based in sex somehow. Chapter 3 discusses the two extremes in viewing sex: as a crude, physical thing with no true value (the angelic, or gnostic, view) and the carnal hedonism that refuses to think of anything spiritual happening (the animal, or Epicurean view). Chapter 4 approaches the dark subject of lust and how to overcome it. Chapter 5 recalls a junior high dance to make a metaphor about the inherent choice and power found in love, both human and divine. Chapter 6 continues the theme of chapter 5, this time focusing more on the divine side.

Chapter 7 speaks of the intimacy of marriage, and the danger of losing it. Chapter 8 also speaks of marriage, specifically about the unity and intimacy of "two becoming one." Chapter 9 looks to the future, anaylzing Jesus' words in Luke 20:34-36 and positing that actually, marriage is just a temporary window into the state we will all be in at the Final Age. The Epilogue closes with a touching story of a marriage between two broken people that itself implodes a few years later. The point is to simultaneously shatter your rosy expectations of marriage and to give you hope; for although life is a messy business, Bell believes God can heal anyone and anything.

Structure: Each of the chapters is a pretty quick read, unless you stop to read all 173 endnotes (most of which are just Scripture references, but sometimes are short essays on some point he's making). Always opens with a recollection or story, and always closes with some sort of provacative statement. Which is good, I guess, just a little repetitive.

Execution: Bell, of Nooma fame, is known for painting powerful pictures or giving interesting perspectives on a theological subject, and this is mostly what he did in the first five chapters. Comparing God to a junior high girl, humanity to lipstick, sexuality to friendship; it's all very typically Bell. The biggest thing I disagreed with was his clearly Freudian view of sexuality, i.e. that any relationship is rooted, grounded in sex (which he sees as simply connectivity with others). I disagree, and believe that my friendships with my best friends/bridesmaids, or with my good friend Alex for that matter, is entirely divorced from any sexual feelings towards them. Likewise, this is what makes my relationship with Nicholas so special; he is the only person I have a deep, meaningful relationship with that is also sexual in nature.

If there were some way to remove chapters 7-9 from the other chapters, I would do it and recommend it to any dating couple. Bell gave very interesting, thoughtful, Biblically-grounded views about marriage, submission, intimacy, oneness, and Jesus' mysterious words about "being like angels" is all about. Some of the passages here were very moving, and sparked great discussion between Nicholas and myself.

A word about his use of the Greek/Hebrew: I normally cringe when authors insist on citing the original languages, because it's very hard to test their use of it (even for theology students). However, Bell used a fair deal of it, about 70% I was familiar with already and can verify that his use of these words are quite sound. So, I think he's fairly credible.

Theme: theology, God, sexuality, marriage, Hebrew, Greek

Read this if well, if you're already a fan of Emergent Church authors like Bell, William Young or Don Miller, obviously you will like it. But I would say that even more conservative students like myself will find some things to enjoy about it, even if you disagree with a lot more than you agree with.

3 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Velvet Elvis (his most controversial work so far)
Jesus Wants to Save Christians

If you liked this, you might also like:
C. S. Lewis' The Four Loves
There are SEVERAL commentaries out there about Song of Solomon, but I would suggest in particular Intimacy Ignited by Dillow & Pintus.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Review: Under the Table

Besides reading (and crafting), the other big passion in my life is for food. I love to cook, especially to bake, and my husband-to-be never fails to remind me of his appreciation for this passion when I step up to the stove. So it's no surprise, really, that when I came across this title in a Barnes & Noble in Chicago, I knew I had to track it down. Turns out it was the best book I've read this year, and I can't wait to tell you why I devoured (haha don't mind the pun) it in just 3 days.

Genre: nonfiction (memoir)

Plot: Sick of her desk job and realizing her life has had a steady undercurrent of food, Katherine Darling decides to follow her dream and enter chef school at the French Culinary Institute in New York. This book is about her journey, her struggles and her triumphs (and her annoyances).

It also made me really, really, REALLY want to go to chef school myself and become pastry artist.

Structure: Darling put together her book in a really clever way. She has written each chapter as a short story, of sorts, recounting one experience or fiasco or lesson or reflections on supporting character, and has grouped them according to "levels" corresponding with her progress through the four levels of chef school. The result is a light, fun read that is hard to put down combined with a very clear progression. It's the best of both worlds! We know the plot is marching onward with every page, and yet at the same time, it has all the fun and jaunty storytelling of anecdotes shared around the table. In my opinion, perfect.

I also love that she included several recipes, either inspired by the chapter she just retold or similar ones. This is a great way to involve the reader in more than just the passive sense of reading about great food; it gives them a chance to make great food! What a wonderful idea.

Execution: Darling can WRITE! This isn't shocking considering her former career (in publishing) and her current one (in food magazines), but still, it's the hallmark of the book. Many people can write about being in chef school, but few can do it with candor, grace, and polish. She has this easy-going, light storytelling that is combined with these great, dramatic moments that make it worthwhile and interesting. It's like hearing her talk about a favorite memory from chef school at Starbucks. Her characterization is superb as well, shifting the focus between herself, her classmates, and her chef-instructors seamlessly, providing much more depth. Surprisingly, the wit that I usually enjoy in favorite authors like Jasper Fforde and C. S. Lewis is absent, but the prose still entertained, delighted, and explained itself nicely without it.

Theme: food, chef school, french cooking, recipes

Read this if you love Top Chef. It's really very reminiscent of this show in terms of the gourmet food, the top-notch celebrity instructors, the competition in the kitchen, etc.

No question, this one gets 5 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Under the Table was published just a few months ago, so it's not surprising it's her only work right now.

If you liked this, you might also like:
Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love
Julie Powell's Julie & Julia (soon to be a movie! Yay!)
Julia Child's memoir My Life in France

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Review: Leonardo's Swans

You'd think that with less than a month until my wedding, I wouldn't have much time for reading but I've managed to find time here and there for it. And as often as I try to run away from it, I think historical fiction will always have a place in my heart; in fact, I'm afraid the majority of things I've read this year could be classified as such. Thankfully, Leonardo's Swans was one of the best of the genre! It was a delight to read.

Genre: novel, historical fiction

Plot: The story begins not exactly in media res but more like at the very end of the plot, with Isabella D'Este Gonzaga remarking to her dead sister Beatrice about how far they have both fallen in the days of French-occupied Milan. From there the story jumps back nearly 20 years, when both the girls are very much alive and competing with one another for attention, political clout, and art in the high Renaissance period of Italian art.

What makes this story jump off the page is its painstaking attention to political detail. Too many times--such as in the book that immediately jumped to mind when thinking of this title, The Birth of Venus--books about this time gloss over the intricacies of politics in favor of a "slice of life" look at the heroine's family/house/servants, etc. Not so with this book. These women are the most powerful in Italy at that time and are privy to all the secrets and intrigues of the politics of the day.

Also, I think it says much about author Karen Essex that even though she reveals how it all plays out in the end on the first page, she still manages to imbue her work with suspense and surprise.

Structure: This was actually a little sloppy in my opinion, and probably the one thing that keeps this book from achieving all 5 stars from me. First off, the chapter titles (which is always a tedious device to me anyway) were all, I assume, taken from Tarot cards. But without any explanation, this was just a guess on my part (and I assume on the part of my fellow readers). Second, these chapters were ENTIRELY too long, and had too many "breaks" within them. Third, there were these very random "excerpts" from Leonardo's notebook which REALLY bugged me. I have no way of knowing how authentic these excerpts are (although they seem to be legit), but more bothersome, they seem to have little if any bearing on the actual story. Instead of enhancing the plot, which is what a nicely placed quote can usually do in a book, these either blatantly repeated the story thus far or were completely unrelated. In short, these random little boxes didn't add to the book and I would have much preferred it to be written without them.

Execution: As I said, the plot was executed with perfect precision. You all may not know this, but at one time I was an art history major and so I was particularly attentive to the details of the paintings mentioned. On this count, Essex was clearly one of the most superior authors I've ever read. She described the works accurately and with an eye to the theoretical/esoteric discussions I was familiar with as an art history major, but did so with a natural air that never felt cumbersome. Also, her characters were fully realized and had great depth to them, which is always a good thing. I was especially pleased with her portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci, who fell somewhere between the benevolent grandfather of Ever After and the crazy conspirator of The Da Vinci Code (man I hate that book).

Now the title I have to disagree with, but that's a personal nit to pick I guess.

Theme: 15th century Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, Ludovico Sforza

Read this if you love art history or political novels (like Tom Clancy or Ian Fleming, I would imagine although big fans of theirs might disagree). Also, I imagine if you enjoyed Tasha Alexander's work you would like this, too.

4 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Stealing Athena
Kleopatra
Pharoah

If you liked this, you might also like:
Tasha Alexander's Emily Ashton novels
Sarah Dunants's The Birth of Venus
Robert Alexander's Rasputin's Daughter

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Review: Nymph

As you may remember, I was quite impressed with my first encounter with Francesca Lia Block. Unfortunately, her next title (which I eagerly awaited) left me disappointed, bored, and more than a little disquieted to find that it was a "fantasy erotica" title. I wonder if they should have added an "o" to the title?

Let me be clear. I may be a bride-to-be, but I'm not interested in erotic fiction. Never have been, probably never will be. Thus I was understandably turned off (haha so pun-y) by the subject matter. But beyond the quite elicit sexual material, what really hurt this book is the lack of poetics I had come to adore in Block.

Genre: short story anthology

Plot: I'll cut to the chase. The only good thing to be said for the plot is it pulled off a Love, Actually by connecting all the major characters in some way. But I'm serious when I say that's it; the stories were basically just excuses to give a change of setting to the same sexual scenes over and over. The lack of creativity with these sexual exchanges, which really seemed to be the heart of the book, greatly hurt it in my opinion. At least I could have given her points for keeping it interesting, but nope, she didn't.

Also, it really bugs me that this was one of those supposedly deep books. She opens with a quote from Ovid's Metamorphoses (old school raunchy!) which promises to tell the reader of women's transformations. It never really does, I'm afraid to say, and even worse, she makes an artless reference to the same quote later on. So it was basically like someone took all the steamy scenes from those cheap harlequinn novels I will never touch, glossed over it with some fluff like names for the partners, and then called it a collection. Nothing of any artistic value, merit, or praise to be found from cover to cover.

Structure: Eight short stories each with one-word titles, about 4-5 pages each. Probably less, actually, since the type took up so little space on the page I'm willing to be the EPA received complaints about it.

Execution: Like I said, this is what really hurt it in my opinion. Even if it had just been a trashy romance, if she had done it with some pizazz I could have overlooked the subject matter. But in this case it was just too glaring a fault. Bad writing combined with poor storytelling, and of course the unrefined erotic material, made for a terrible reading experience.

Theme: mermaids, naughty nurses, lesbian fairies...I'd go on but it would just begin to get ridiculous

Read this if you're a fan of I don't know, Hot Topic lingerie?

1 out of 5 stars

Other works:
The much more elegant The Rose and the Beast
Blood Vampires (another fantasy anthology)
Psyche in a Dress (similar blend of poetry/prose and mythology)
Ruby (a "modern day adult fairy tale")

A full list of her work is available here.

If you liked this, you might also like:
.... for once, I think I'm out of suggestions.
Oh wait! You might like that other catastrophe I read this year. Man, when will I find a good anthology?

I think I need a good dose of C. S. Lewis now to replenish my literary sensibilities.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Review: The Gum Thief

Normally, I try to write a review immediately after finishing a book, so that my thoughts are still fresh. With this exceptional title, however, I decided to marinate on it a few days instead, just because it was SO DIFFERENT from anything else I've ever read. In fact, it's uniqueness is one of the reasons I'm giving this the distinction of a Top Shelf book.

Genre: novel (pop culture)

Plot: This is quite possibly the only novel ever set in an office supply store. Depressed, middle-age creepy alcoholic Roger passes his days stacking paper reams, drinking Vodka like water, and writing a novel so cleverly entitled as Glove Pond. But co-worker and goth beauty Bethany discovers his secret journal and starts confiding in him. And then all kinds of crap happens.

Structure: By far the best part of this book is its structure, which is quite unique (I guess I shouldn't put a qualifier on an absolute like that, bad Ashley!). It's entirely epistolary, rotating between Bethany, Roger, DeeDee (Bethany's washed up mom), and Blair (co-worker at Staples) which makes for some interesting questions (especially in the middle, when Roger may or may not still be alive) and perspectives. Also, interspersed with the story are excerpts from Roger's novel, Glove Pond, which are hilarious in and of themselves but even more so when taken in conjunction with the novel's plot. All in all, a very clever, completely original way of storytelling that bumped this book from "great" to "awesome" in my book.

Execution: At first, Coupland's prose was incredible. Witty, engaging, funny (really laugh out loud funny), at turns sardonic and profound, it was some of the best prose I've come across this year. Additionally, he managed to bring complex, dynamic characters to life through notes, people. That takes skill. However, by the middle it became less funny and more somber, which was a little disappointing. But, the "what the !!!" ending totally makes up for it.

Theme: Staples, goths, alcoholics, divorce, writing, has-beens, wannabes, community college, England

Read this if you're a fan of The Office or, even more closely related, Office Space. Or if you work at a mega-chain store, because I bet you can relate to the characters extraordinarily well.

5 out of 5 stars

Other works:
JPod
Eleanor Rigby
Hey Nostradamus!
All Families Are Psychotic
God Hates Japan
Miss Wyoming
Girlfriend in a Coma
Microserfs
Life After God
Shampoo Planet
Generation X

(some of you may be surprised I'm willing to award an avowed atheist the highest review marks possible on this site, but I guess it just goes to show that pagans can use pen and paper, too).

By the way, website bonus! He totally lists some original aphorisms on his site.

If you liked this, you might also like:
Nietzche's Beyond Good and Evil

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Review: Bound

My last two reviews have mentioned one of my favorite childhood authors, Donna Jo Napoli. So on my latest library trip, I decided to pick up one of her books I haven't read, just for old time's sake. To my delight, it not only brought back all the good memories I associate with her wonderful work, but was a great story in its own right.

Genre: young adult fiction

Plot: Xing Xing lives as a second-daughter slave girl in Ming Dynasty (1368) China. Her young life has already been marked by the passing of both her beloved parents, and now she lives as a slave for her vicious stepmother and dim-witted half-sister. But Xing Xing is a clever girl, whose determination, virtue, and just a touch of magic, eventually enable her to escape her misfortunes.

Structure: The chapters were straightforward and quick-paced, allowing me to breeze through the 25 chapter within a day. Vivid and compelling, Napoli's greatest strength is her charm as a storyteller. She knows exactly how much detail to leave in, how much to leave out, and how to keep the pages turning. Although she used next to no reference to the Chinese language, the culture still shone through, striking the perfect balance between setting and story.

Execution: Napoli's prose is measured, but not lyrical. She writes with clarity and not much ornamentation, yet strangely this doesn't bother me the way simple prose usually does. I think her plot makes up for this by far, sweeping the reader off their feet too fast to realize the sentences are, for the most part, plain.

Napoli typically writes (or should I say, reimagines) fairy tales in modern ways, but I was so taken with this one that I didn't even figure out what she was basing it on until the very end (don't read the Theme section if you want to be surprised by it, too). And even then, I was still pretty surprised by the twists! Perhaps I'm just too smitten with an old favorite author, but I thought it was a marvelously executed attempt with spirit, zeal, and art.

Theme: Ming China, foot binding, Confucianism, and Cinderella

Read this if it's been too long since you've heard a good fairy tale

4 out of 5 stars

Other works:
For fun, I will provide an (*) around the books of hers that I've also read:
Alligator Bayou
* Beast
Breath
Crazy Jack
* Daughter of Venice
Fire in the Hills
For the Love of Venice
The Great God Pan
Hush: An Irish Princess' Tale
The King of Mulberry Street
* The Magic Circle
North
* Sirena
The Smile
* Song of the Magdalene
* Spinners
Stones in Water
* Zel

If you liked this, you might also like:
Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love
Kara Dalkey's Little Sister, The Heavenward Path, and The Nightengale

Ironically, I will NOT recommend Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club because I hated that crap.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Grinning With Envy

Like most days when I'm blessed enough to spend an hour at the library, I rather brusquely collided with the fact that I....which metaphor to use here...have a rather ravenous literary appetite. Here was my process today: I checked my shelf for some new titles and jotted a few down. When we got to the library, I did a quick catalog check (only one was in that branch, but I requested two others).

I then went on what I lovingly refer to as a book binge. I wandered the shelves rather randomly, remembering certain titles (what was that book called? Oh, Snow Falling on Cedars, I should read that again) or authors (who wrote A Poisoned Season? oh right, Tasha Alexander. Where's the A's in fiction?), and skimming the titles for anything that catches my eye (Cold - why not?). Sometimes I get a vague impression of what I want, sort of like a food craving. I want a good mystery or when was the last time I read a good sci-fi?.

The point of this rambling is that at the end of the day, I wandered up front with a stack of about six rather randomly chosen books, knowing full well that I had another two at home and I probably won't read all eight of them even being unemployed.

Contrast this with my fiance, who I think indulges my library habit because either he thinks I'm adorable when I'm revved up or feels guilty about something. At any rate while I go slap-happy running around the genres like a pinball on crack, he methodically peruses the new book section at the front of the store and emerges with two books that are so compelling, so interesting, I'd rather trade my entire mystery-bag-du-jour stack for his meager but far more substantial one. In fact, I've had to tear myself away from reading one of them (Gum Thief, which you will definitely be reading about later) to write this.

After praising him for his judicious quality-over-quantity literary philosophy, I have laid down a literary gauntlet: our next trip to the library, YOU will choose all my books. You will choose one book that you know I'll love, one book that you love, and one wild card.

I'll be pretty interested to see what he comes up with (and who he seeks advice from).

Review: The Rose and the Beast

What do fairy tales and sci-fi have in common?

Well, there are plenty of ways to answer this (some might even argue that the latter is merely a new brand of the former), but the one I was thinking of was that both genres have incredible capacity for innovation and great stories while, simultaneously, having ample room for laxity and mediocrity. Thankfully, Francesca Lia Block's The Rose and the Beast falls into the former category, making it one of the more delightfully rich books I've undertaken this summer.

Genre: this one's hard to place formally, but I would say young adult fiction (anthology)

Plot: Block has taken 9 classic fairy tales and retold them, but in a way that's both timeless and fresh. Sometimes the stories are obviously modern, but sometimes they're just told with a more contemporary spirit. Sometimes the endings are a little different, sometimes it's the emotional depth that has changed more than the plot. Most of them are set in L.A., which seemed a little bizarre at first but actually makes plenty of sense when you think about it.

Structure: Each story is self-contained, and they vary in length. One of my favorite elements of this work was that Block deliberately kept herself to one-word titles, which sometimes obscured the tale they were trying to tell, but sometimes added an extra layer of depth to it. Overall it was a marvelously thoughtful book, and the precise care she took with each word was very apparent.

Execution: I could write essays about Block's prose. It's so lyrical as to be almost poetic, but at the same time, it has a weight that poetry sometimes just doesn't. Poetry has glamour and flash, but sometimes the meaning is much more hollow. But with Block's prose, you have all the polished care of a poet combined with the hearty meat of fiction. Everything sparkles, yet nothing is said without meaning to it. In short, exactly the right way to write this book.

I have to pause to comment about her heroines, too. Like fantasy, it's all too common for fairy-tale revisionists to make the main characters from the same mold as Xena, Warrior Princess, which in turns makes them dull and forgettable. In these stories, the girls were not this unapproachable warrior women. They were fragile, passionate, humble, talented, beautiful, strong, violated, broken...as different from one another as the stories they sprang from.

Theme: Fairy tales (snow white, thumbelina, cinderella, sleeping beauty, little red riding hood, rose white and rose red, bluebeard, beauty and the beast, the ice queen), Los Angeles, love in all its many-splendor'd forms.

Read this if you appreciate the work of poetry but not the poem itself.

5 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Blood Vampires (another fantasy anthology)
Psyche in a Dress (similar blend of poetry/prose and mythology)
Ruby (a "modern day adult fairy tale")

A full list of her work is available here.

If you liked this, you might also like:
- Again, I have to run to the fairy-tale revisionist masters, Jane Yolen and Donna Jo Napoli
- T. S. Elliot's The Wasteland
- George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Review: Tithe

Readers, I have been in a funk lately. There is an enormous stack of books on my refridgerator/side table (my room has become the holding cell for all manner of junk these days), most of which I am, or was at some point, interested in. But lately I just haven't been able to stick to it. Two weeks went by without me finishing anything other than Coraline, which is pretty sad really. But the downward spiral has been broken, if only by a mediocre offering.

Genre: novel, young adult (we all know what that means)

Plot: Kaye is a weird 16 year old who, when she's not pulling her washed-up rock-star mother's head out of a toliet, daydreams about the faerie friends who used to play with her as a child. Now back in New Jersey, a chance encounter on a rainy road draws her into the world of Faery, where her actions have unforeseen consequences.

I'm not going to lie, this plot had about as much depth or coherency as a Sci-Fi Channel (or should I say Syfy) Original Movie. I have good memories with many YA writers, such as Jane Yolen or Donna Jo Napoli, but much of what makes the genre compelling was missing from this one. One dimensional characters, terribly boring story, no true twists, unpolished language all contribute to its failure, but worst of all is the supposedly-complicated plot cliche. Oh I hate this trope. You know the one, where the author pretends she's come up with this marvelously intricate plot, but if you stop and think half a second it's really pretty lame.

To sum it up, every negative thing you've heard about Twilight could probably be said of this book. Even Roiben, the main male emo hero/love interest shares a lot of similar qualities to everyone's favorite statue.

Structure: 15 Chapters, each beginning with quotes so randomly obscure I seriously thought Black was making it up. But when I got to one I recognized from Rilke, I knew they were real. The beginning chapters jump so far into the story without any explanation that I was left with a jarring sense of abandonment. The ending chapters, however, go completely the opposite direction -- the story is neatly wrapped in a pretty conventional/predictable package.

For something that obviously had a LOT of development from the Tam Lin story, I guess I'm just a little disappointed it didn't take on some of the more interesting, clever turns it could have.

Execution: This was Black's first novel, and it shows. The prose is unremarkable, at times wandering into the ridiculous. The climax Tithe scene was the only interesting, well-written piece, but even then I suspect heavy amounts of influence from The Chronicles of Narnia and/or Harry Potter (which, I should say, isn't necessarily a bad thing). Still, I hope the sequel amps up the prose pizzaz, because hiding okay prose behind cool-sounding quotes is not something I'd make a habit of.

Theme: New Jersey, Goth Faeries, modern fairy tale

Read this if you like those gothic "faerie" drawings I always see at the mall.

2 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Well, apparently she got better. Holly Black is the author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, in addition to the two sequels to this series (Ironside and Valiant).

A full list of her work is available here.

If you liked this, you might also like:
Anything by Jane Yolen or Donna Jo Napoli -- I think you will find their ability to retell fairy tales and mythology much better realized

The oft-mentioned, always-mocked Twilight series

I'm currently reading Francesca Lia Block's The Rose and the Beast, which is another fairy tale retelling but in much more lyrical prose