The Road: Sparse but Stunning, Bleak but Beautiful

What's the bleakest, most depressing book you've ever read?  If you've meandered down Cormac McCarthy's The Road, chances are it's in your top 5. I read the book about a year ago, and was absolutely blown away by the beauty of the prose, and the bleakness of McCarthy's vision.

For those unfamiliar, the novel is about a father and son (simply called The Man and The Boy) trying to survive a post-nuclear world, dodging roving gangs for whom desperation has led to cannibalism. The goal of The Man and The Boy is simple: "to keep carrying the fire," to remain good in a slowly dying world that is increasingly debauched. The book is really about what happens when humanity is boiled down to its essence, when all notion of culture and decorum is removed. A father's love for his son remains, and love, therefore, must be the source of hope. Otherwise, humanity and decency decay into chaos.

I've hated everything I'd ever read by McCarthy, including Blood Meridian and The Border Trilogy, and only read The Road because it was short, it had won the Pulitzer Prize, and I'd heard it was different than most of McCarthy's other work. It is, and then some, and I absolutely loved it!

I write about this now, because earlier this week, I went to see the movie-ization of The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen. Putting real, concrete images to the bleakness of McCarthy's story certainly had its pros and cons. The landscapes in the movie, gray and lifeless, were beautifully rendered. But several of the more shocking scenes in the novel were even more frightening on the big screen, making me, at least, just incredibly uncomfortable. Even though it takes some intestinal fortitude to enjoy the movie, enjoy it I did. Mortensen is his usual brilliant self, and the child prodigy actor, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays The Boy is pretty solid, also. And, for the ladies, there are the usual Viggo Mortensen gratuitous nude shots -- though, thankfully, they don't rival the naked knife fight scene in Eastern Promises. Sweet Lord, that scene scarred me deeply! ;)

Have you read The Road, or seen the movie?  What were your impressions?

Books as Gifts: Homework over Christmas?

Doesn't it seem logical that if you love books, you'll love receiving books as gifts, right?  Well, consider the following: Your Uncle Chester, who you haven't seen in ages, and who knows only that you like to read, surprised you at Christmas with a gleaming new copy of....some book you've never heard of. (Or worse, one you HAVE heard of, like L.A. Candy.)

Reaction A: You smile politely, say "Thanks, I've been meaning to pick this up," and then mentally calculate the profits from your impending ebay sale.

Reaction B: You tell Uncle Chester how delighted you are (and truly mean it!) at his thoughtful gift, explain that you hadn't read this writer before but can't wait to dive in, and then you dive right in.

Which more closely describes your reaction to a gift of a book you didn't specifically ask for?  Me, I'm decidedly Reaction A, and I tend to think most book dorks feel similarly. Here's my logic: If the giver is someone like Uncle Chester, who won't care if you read the book or not, then you're off the hook. Luh-cky! However, if you actually respect and/or are close to the giver, than an unsolicited book gift is essentially a homework assignment. You're expected to read the book promptly and provide a reasonably coherent report. When there are billions of good books out there (including approximately 2,852,329 on my 'to be read' shelf), it's hard to justify "wasting" time on a book that wasn't in the plans. A little jerk-waddy? Probably. And, yes, I do realize there is something to be said for that "it's the thought that counts" cliche. And, I suppose you never know: What if the unsolicited book gift winds up being the most brilliant book you've ever read?  Not likely, but I'm willing to concede the possibility.  ;)

So, what is your take?  Do you enjoy getting unsolicited book gifts? Why? Or, are you like me? Do you feel like you've just been issued a book report assignment, due by the end of the week?

Open: An Autobiography -- Advantage: Readers

Even if you're not exactly up to speed on your deuce courts and forty-loves, you could still do much worse than spending a few days with tennis champion Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open. Yes, first and foremost, it is the story of an athlete, but the book is equally engaging when it moves beyond the matches to reveal the man -- conflicted, flawed, and at odds with the sport he's supposed to love. Through the prose of J.R. Moehringer, of The Tender Bar fame, Agassi chronicles his pockmarked journey from berated child prodigy, to precocious, rebellious teenager, to husband, father and legend.

The defining characteristic of this book is its honesty. With anecdotes (often hilarious -- if you're not easily offended, see the bottom of this post for an e.g.) about his infamous on-court tantrums or fights with his first wife Brooke Shields, Agassi frequently appears the prize idiot. That makes the book incredibly fun to read -- and you're willing to indulge Agassi here and there when he makes himself out to look better than he may have deserved. Even so, throughout the book, it seems clear that Agassi's not publishing this book as a testament to his own ego (though, yes, autobiographies are by definition self-serving). Nor is he grinding an axe. Sure, there are the requisite asides about other players he didn't care for, but on the whole, what we have is a rare, riveting and unbelievably forthright glimpse into the life of one of the most beloved American athletes of all time.

(Brief aside for tennis geeks, and I'm a huge one -- here are some of Agassi's thoughts on his peers: He HATED Boris Becker and he thought Jimmy Connors deserved his own class of egotistical as$. He constantly made fun of Michael Chang's propensity for thanking God after matches, and he begrudgingly respected Sampras, despite the fact that there may not be two more different human beings on the planet.)

Don't let the fact that many of the juiciest tidbits were already widely reported deter you from picking up the book. Yes, he used crystal meth on occasion for a brief, particularly rough patch in his life. Yes, his famous 'do of the early '90s was actually a hairpiece. And, yes, he really did hate tennis. And that is the one admission that ties the whole book together. Agassi played tennis the way many of us do our jobs, we put our heads down and go to work, looking forward to those things that make us truly happy. Agassi was no different: As he matured, he found ways that tennis could be a means to an end, like providing money and visibility for his charity that built a charter school in Las Vegas, and finally marrying the love of his life, Steffi Graf (one of the greatest women tennis champions of all time, for those unfamiliar).

If I haven't convinced you yet, well, Entertainment Weekly loved it also -- it gave the book a rare A, and installed it on its Top 10 for 2009 Non-fiction. Also, the book has 164 reviews on amazon, 139 of which are five stars. Really, I promise you, you'll like it!

(Off-color anecdote: One example of an on-court tantrum...Chair umpire: "Did you call that linesman a c@cks#cker?"  Agassi: "I said it. And you want to know something? He IS a c@cks#cker!")

To Those Who Are Gone, But Whose Words Remain

As is customary around this time of year, let's take a post and say a fond literary farewell to these brilliant writers we lost in 2009.

1) John Updike -- "Shut up, Updike," grunts Krusty the Klown in a 2000 Simpsons episode. Cartoon Updike is giggling at Krusty's "misfortune" at being reunited with his long-lost daughter. Rare is the literary novelist with such mainstream crossover appeal, but Updike was as popular as he was ubiquitous. A memoirist, critic, prolific novelist and short story writer, and literary feuder, he was as close to a literary celebrity as our reality-show soaked culture will allow. Updike is probably best know for his quartet of Rabbit Angstrom novels, the first two of which (Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux) are the only two Updike novels I've actually read. I did enjoy them, though, and have promised myself to one day soon finish the Rabbit series. Updike died of lung cancer on January 27. He was 76 years old.

2) Frank McCourt -- I feel a little guilty that McCourt's death was the motivation I finally needed to read his wonderfully brilliant memoir Angela's Ashes. His sobering tale of his impoverished Irish childhood, complete with alcoholic father, stunned critics and book clubs alike when it was published in 1996. It's a sad book, indeed, but infused with humor and Irish wit, as well. I loved it! He published a sequel to Angela's Ashes titled 'Tis about his young manhood in NYC, and another memoir about his experiences teaching in NYC public schools titled Teacher Man. He died July 19 of  melanoma with meningeal complications. He was 78 years old.

3) Jim Carroll -- Most folks are more familiar with Carroll's famous work The Basketball Diaries because of Leonardo DiCaprio's role as Carroll in the movie version of the book. But the book is fantastic -- it's a coming of age tale that reads like a much racier version of The Catcher in the Rye. Carroll's autobiography chronicles his descent into drug addiction on the streets of NYC in the mid '60s. I read the book for a literature survey class in college and have been slightly haunted by it ever since. It's terrifying. Carroll, who also wrote poetry and composed music, died September 11 of a heart attack. He was 60 years old.

4) E. Lynn Harris -- Frankly, I'm not real familiar with Harris's work, but judging from the news stories about him after he died, he had a small but very loyal following, especially in the gay community. His novels depicted black men struggling to come to terms with their closeted homosexuality. He published 15 books, including novels, short story collections and memoirs. He died June 20 of heart disease. He was 54 years old.

5) Dominick Dunne -- Dunne is another writer I haven't read. He was actually a novelist, movie producer, TV personality, investigative reporter and writer for Vanity Fair. His novels were generally centered on real-world crimes and punishments. He died August 26 of bladder cancer. He was 83 years old.

What are your reactions to any of these brilliant writers? Has their deaths changed your level of appreciation for their work? 

Under the Dome: Over The Top

It's hard to imagine more fertile ground for a thrilling novel — a small town in Maine is trapped under an impenetrable dome, its citizens left to their own devices. As you'd imagine, especially in the world of Stephen King, chaos ensues.

Under this dome, however, the chaos is rather predictable. This novel is supposed to be about characters, and how they respond to their dire circumstances. But the main reason this novel failed for me is that these characters are rendered as flimsy stereotypes of real people; and they always do exactly what you'd expect. The bad guys do increasingly bad things, and the good guys scramble to stop them. There's no middle ground. There's no moral confusion. And hence there's no real conflict, other than the obvious and predictable good vs. evil.

Chester's Mill, Maine, is supposed to be a microcosm of American culture in general, and the political culture war specifically, but the people who populate this small town of King's imagination are nothing but tropes and types. Not one single character in this supposedly character-centric novel has any nuance or depth whatsoever.

To zero in on specifics: This caricature of a small town, populated with a bunch of bumpkins, is led by Big Jim Rennie, a religious, self-righteous, hypocritical despot (he's almost EXACTLY the same character as the Warden in The Shawshank Redemption, to give you a frame of reference). Big Jim and his ever-increasing band of nogoodniks are opposed by a small band of rebels for whom common sense, decency, and the welfare of the town are, of course, their guiding principles. The two sides collide in increasingly clunkily plotted and laughable ways. ("...the book’s broad conspiratorial strokes become farfetched..." understates a NY Times review.)

I tried to consider this novel as simply a novel, not a Stephen King novel, and I'm sure many King fans will scream about how wrong that approach is. But given how this novel was positioned (this NY Times piece, e.g.) as a a real literary leap for King, I thought it should be held up to some literary standards, as opposed to just saying I liked it because it was a fast read and the action was cool — both of which are true.

Still, even holding the book up to the "King Standard" — it's only an okay book; that according to my friend Jeff, a huge King fan. Here's what he told me: "More than any disappointment about the book -- which is mild at most -- I'm more disappointed by the fact that such a talented storyteller spent almost two years writing this mediocre genre fiction rather than something more soulful/lasting/engaging/humorous/thought-provoking/etc." Jeff mentions Hearts in Atlantis and Misery as two examples of novels where King moves beyond genre-y, predicable fiction.

So, my advice: Venture under this dome at your own risk!

(On a related note, kudos for King and his wife Tabitha!  They're paying bus fare for a bunch of Maine soldiers stationed in Indiana to return home for the holidays. That almost made me feel guilty about totally laying out his novel here.)