Introduction
“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.”
Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)
If only that were true! We would never be at a loss as to what to read next. Here at the The Backroom Bookshelf, literature is worth reading so long as it is quality writing. This is a book review blog that is all about finding that next great read, and thus pays no attention to genre or the analytical value of a book when deciding what to choose next. To quote another author, Oscar Wilde, famous indeed:
“There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. A book may only be well written, or poorly written. That is all.”
That is my goal here–to find the books that are well written, to enjoy them, to share them. The status of the author does not matter, neither does the subject. All that matters is that the author connects to us, the readers, and that we can embrace and love a book for what it is, and not for what someone else thinks it should be. As this is a blog written at the end of the day as a way to relax, please do excuse any typographical or editing errors. I will correct them periodically, time allowing. Hopefully, every Wednesday or Thursday there will be a new review, though I apologize ahead of time for any potential lapse!
Well, here’s to a good start! Enjoy (or not)!
P.S.: Check out my blogs at history current and LIFEXPERIENCEWRITING!
American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis
(New York: Vintage, 1991)
There is no way to discuss the horror show that is Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho without drawing allusions to two of the least relatable cultural icons out of fiction of the twentieth century, Anthony Burgess’s Alex, of the novel A Clockwork Orange, and Oliver Stone’s yuppie forbear of film, Gordon Gecko, from the 1980′s classic, Wall Street. If Alex and Gordon could somehow raise a child together, that child would undoubtedly be Patrick Bateman, the viciously deranged narrator of Ellis’s novel.
Patrick Bateman is a serial killer. To be precise, he is a murderer whose delighted sadism has no bounds–and believe me, he has tried to find some boundaries. Beyond encountering boredom at the murder of a child, Bateman acknowledges no negative emotions from the murders he commits. They invigorate him sexually and keep his predatory investment banker mind keen for strategy toward the next kill. Unlike the pop literary and television serial killer Dexter Morgan, of HBO’s Dexter (where, incidentally, the title character used the name ‘Patrick Bateman’ as a pseudonym), Patrick is not an anti-hero. Therefore, throughout the novel, the reader enters and is drawn into the serial ravings of this insane killer, for whom no sympathies can be maintained. Nonetheless, Patrick Bateman is one of the most compelling literary characters of recent decades.
The story of American Psycho, told entirely through Patrick’s pounding and sometimes frantic narration, follows the narrator’s life as a socially ambitious executive on Wall Street. He is a young man, a Harvard graduate, 26 years old at the start of the novel, 28 by the end. The young men and women of his world are shallow and narrow-minded, whose only goal in life is to be rich, well married, and living as the social vanguard in the right communities, eating the right cuisine, going to the right schools, and associating with the right people at the right clubs.
The very stricture of this social world seems to be the successor to the one that once put Holden Caulfield over the edge during his adventures through middle class teenage angst in Catcher in the Rye. However, where Caulfield reviled and rebelled against the fatuous world of his peers, Patrick Bateman revels in it. He embodies it. He has internalized it to the point where all his basic desires serve only the shallowest needs of the basic ambitiousness and self-indulgence of his personality. Moreover, Patrick is entirely self-aware of the inanity of his world and the world of his peers, and he recognizes that this shallow world holds the potential to shield him from suspicion.
Patrick’s violent behavior seems to have a history at least as far as his college years, possibly earlier. His brief appearance the Ellis’s novel
To be continued shortly…
If you like American Psycho, then you might like:
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
Also, the next books on the reading list are (in order):
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis
Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
(The Dial Press: New York, 2008)
Despite occupation by German troops, and a dearth of food or basic amenities, the people of the island of Guernsey–north of France in the Channel, but possessed by Britain–survived World War II with resilience of spirit and a hearty sense of humor that could teach us all a thing or two about humanity, at least according to English novelist Mary Ann Shaffer and her author niece Annie Barrows.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (hereafter Guernsey) by Shaffer and Barrows is an interesting read to say the least, especially for the literary fanatic who craves some good old fashioned referential writing that is also quite good writing. The correspondence between fictional author Juliet Ashton and a slew of good-natured British islanders on Guernsey comprise the body of the novel, set in the years directly following the end of the Second World War. Between letters to her newfound pen pals, Juliet writes her friend and publisher Sidney Stark, trying to find a way to mold her romance with Guernsey into a new book.
This exchange of letters is initiated by a Guernsey resident, Dawsey Adams, who has in his possession a secondhand copy of a book by English essayist Charles Lamb, which once was owned by Juliet. During the war, the people of Guernsey had resorted to using books to build fires as the Germans burned all the wood on the island; after the war, the only bookshop was long closed, so Dawsey, who wished to learn more about Lamb (his favorite writer), decided to write to the address printed by Juliet on the cover of his book, hoping that she could direct him to a London bookseller.
As their correspondence proceeds, due in part to a shared fondness for the works of Mr. Lamb, Juliet discovers that the Germans had cut off all outside communications on the island of Guernsey, so the islanders were still in the process of catching up to the news from the outside, and Dawsey’s act of reaching out was due in part to the remaining isolation of the island from the rest of England. Herself in the process of thinking up a topic for a new book, Juliet takes up a regular correspondence with Dawsey, and the two become quick friends.
Dawsey begins to tell Juliet of a gathering of neighbors during the war called the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was created on the spur of the moment one drunken night to avoid arrest for concealing a live pig after all pigs had been confiscated by the occupying soldiers, and then roasting it. Dawsey writes that one of the residents, Amelia Maugery had managed to hide her pig from the German soldiers, and after the pig had been slaughtered and roasted, several of the neighbors who left her home after curfew were stopped by soldiers on guard duty. Elizabeth McKenna–who would soon gain prominence in the novel–provided a quick excuse: the meeting for their book discussion group had run later than usual, so the discussants were trying to get home. One of the soldiers, proclaiming himself to be a literary fan, permits the group to return to their homes after taking their names. From then on, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society would meet on a weekly basis to ensure that the soldiers never suspected anything other than book discussion had been going on that night, otherwise those who broke curfew could be arrested, and if the roast pig was ever discovered, they could be sent to a labor camp as punishment.
As Juliet learns more about the group, of their quarrels, the way residents hungrily seek books to read and share with the group, it becomes clear that the literary society was no mere diversion to content nosy soldiers. For the residents of Guernsey, most of them farmers and fisherman who had not picked up a book since primary school, reading became an escape–the escape–from the occupation. While the group met in Amelia’s house to share the books, they entered a world of laughter, discussion and argument. Works ranging from Marcus Aurelius to Emily Bronte lifted the spirits of the islanders and provided the solace of hope while their children were away in England on transport, and their sons were on the continent in the war. Books became their last resistance against the occupation, where no soldiers could interfere, and where lasting friendships were formed and neighbors became family.
Guernsey enraptures Juliet and her publisher, Sidney, and Juliet, in turn, enraptures Guernsey. In time, Juliet decides to write about the literary society for her next book, and begins to receive correspondence from various islanders eager to contribute to her understanding of the events of the occupation. Eventually, Juliet realizes that the heart of the group was, Elizabeth McKenna. Elizabeth’s imagination and basic goodness made her the glue of the group and in her community. She was a nurse, a friend, and eventually a mother. However, her one mistake was falling in love with the German soldier who fathered her child. Though the identity of the child’s father was kept from the Germans, Elizabeth’s good nature was her downfall in the end, when she was arrested and sent to a concentration camp for hiding one of the slave laborers brought to work the fields for the soldiers.
Elizabeth’s story is one that many in Guernsey are happy to share, and while learning about the young woman, Juliet begins to better understand her new friends and learning more about herself at the same time; moreover, learning how the key to survival on Guernsey was not food or hidden luxuries, but love, which in the end was all that kept the community from turning on each other in the face of danger.
Guernsey is peppered with the type of quirky country characters an American audience would expect from an English novel about a simple, rural community. There is the matronly benefactress, Amelia; the wild and crazy witch, Isola Pribbs; the puritanical spinster, Adelaide Addison; and the Darcy-esque farmer, Dawsey (whose name and late characterization, considering the bouquet of literary reference throughout the novel, could be more than a childlike phonemic resemblance to the former). Throughout the novel, these characters provide the twists and turns of Juliet’s literary adventure, observing for us what the readers cannot otherwise see, and maintaining a steady storyline through their letters, even if other characters are not kept in the loop.
I am tempted to call this book a combination of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at Whistlestop Cafe and Jan Struther’s wartime classic Mrs. Miniver (which, subsequently, was published as a series of newspaper articles before its original publication in book form–much like the fictional letters in Guernsey); however, this book can stand on its own without comparison–a rare feat for a work of fiction in 2009–and does not engage in the political undertones of the other two novels. Guernsey is an intelligently written book–not analytical or discursively engaged like many modern or postmodern works, but true to its mission of non-plot driven storytelling as its literary form.
Guernsey is not heavy reading; however, neither is it pulp or postmodern pop writing, as some readers might describe–previously reviewed–Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. This book is about good writing and good books. Moreover, it is about telling stories about people. Without the crazy characters and adorable conversations in the book, there would be little emotion to the story, except, perhaps, a sense of sadness and revilement at the descriptions of the occupation and concentration camps.
The authors manage to carry the story from London to Guernsey, to Paris and then Ravensbrück camp. They describe arrests and beatings, executions and torture. The authors even engage in that increasingly less controversial acknowledgement that, yes, there were outsiders aware of the horrors occurring within the borders of the Third Reich, and some sought to confront it, while others sought to ignore, even before some European governments promoted “putting the past behind us.” The moral or political values of the book are not necessarily transparent, though certainly present. The authors try to show that for every “bad German,” there was a “good German,” like Elizabeth’s soldier, and that perhaps behind the terror human beings still existed, and thus, humanity and sense of world was not lost for good. This, combined with the fact that Guernsey never loses the cheery optimism with which it starts, leads us to believe that there is an unobtrusive, humanistic moral fiber to the book, which (especially as Jane Austen’s work comes to play a greater role in the story) lends itself to the silly likability of the characters.
We live in a cynical age, and any book that can make us laugh–in spite of ourselves–and that manages to speak with invariable hope about one of the darkest chapters of human history, is a book well worth reading. There are many books about modern society, about fast-talking urbanites or high-powered professionals; dark stories about madness or losing your way in life. Often modern literature is a delicious smorgasbord of sex, violence, and affirmation of the individual. In our capitalistic, mass-consumer oriented society, it is no wonder that literature often resembles the nervous tension of Wall Street at rush hour; Guernsey does not. Guernsey feels old fashioned, almost awkwardly so at times, like it was written in the present day, but for a past audience; however, this tone of the book is, perhaps, its heart.
If you love literature for its beauty, for the scent of a page in a new book (or better yet, in an old, weathered, well loved book), for the feeling of connection between other book nuts that somehow the imaginary community of a story exists within the shared community of all those who have read the same book, then Guernsey is the book for you. I enjoyed it even though it is not my usual reading fare, which tends, I believe, to be that of an intelligent 16 year-old boy. If you could jump from Wuthering Heights to The Unconsoled without skipping a beat, simply because you love the power of a good yarn regardless of genre or intellectual weight, then please do pick up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, you will not be disappointed. This book is smart, it has a big heart, and you just feel good after reading.
If you like this Guernsey, why not try:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Fried Green Tomatoes at Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
(New York: Doubleday, 2008)
Well, what can we expect from the latest foray into comic shock literature from the master of the genre, Chuck Palahniuk? Readers have come to expect a light horrific or comic read wrought in quick lines and sarcasm after a decade of Palahniuk works, and Snuff is no less punchy, no less in-your-face in that markedly self-conscious way that Palahniuk’s readers have come to enjoy.
However, unlike the virile energy of Fight Club or the dark humor of Choke, Snuff is a novel about superficiality, loss and gain. And yet there is some depth. Palahniuk has been called a minimalist, an intellectual, a pulp-writer, and a postmodern post-adolescent. For the first time, perhaps, we can call him a realist (if we stretch our understanding of realism to include black comedy). The narrators of his latest novel each seek to rebuild their identities and reclaim former glories–or, in the case of the young Actor 72, discover what glories could have been his had life turned out differently. In the end, each must give up their original goals and adapt to new situations. Similar to the industry in which they participate, the four main narrators learn to drop everything and give in to the changing circumstances that could alter their lives.
Snuff is a comic tale of the American porn industry, told through four alternating narratives that describe the day aging starlet Cassie Wright takes on 600 hard and hardy men to attain the world record for a gang bang. What almost no one knows is that Cassie plans to bite the big one (er…commit suicide) by vaginal embolism, and in that way secure a 10 million dollar insurance payment for a child she once gave up for adoption. The men, each numbered 1 through 100, wait for an entire day as they are led into the studio in randomly chosen groups of three to do the deed on camera for Cassie’s latest (and potentially last) cinematic masterpiece, World Whore Three. Enduring hours of sweating, body odor, and stale potato chips, the actors await their turns while watching Cassie’s old flicks on flat screens perched on the walls, snacking on little blue pills to avoid being “the guy who couldn’t get it up,” ruining Cassie’s chance at the record.
The tale is initially narrated by Mr. 600, Mr. 72, and Mr. 137, who each answered the casting call in order to get some form of notice or notoriety from Cassie. Mr. 600 is Branch Bacardi, an old porn actor who brought Cassie into the business, her lover on and off screen for years. The locket around his neck holds a secret that he keeps from the other actors, but he plans to give it to Cassie, following plans the two set up prior to the filming. His career is over, and the aging actor has found himself relegated to kitsch within the industry. Beyond the secret agreement he has with Cassie, this film could be his big comeback (no pun intended).
Mr. 72 is an interesting young fella. His knowledge of Cassie’s career and anatomy are almost unparalleled, and he waits for his turn carrying a bouquet of wilting white roses. While the other men worry about erections and performing well on camera, Mr. 72 has other concerns. As we discover through his conversations with Branch and Mr. 137, 72 is not there just to be another dick–so to speak. Through the embarrassing tale (that I will not spoil for you) that he tells the other two, we learn that he and Cassie may have a common bond–of the mother-son variety. He plans to unveil this truth to the starlet while in her bed, and then convince her to run off with him to live as a family after years apart. Unfortunately for Mr. 72, he is only one of about 60 potential offspring of Cassie who answered the casting call.
Mr. 137 is a television actor known for his role as Detective Dan Bunyan. After losing his contract due to scandal, the actor’s agent urged him to join the cast of the gang bang flick, with the hope that if Cassie Wright dies during the making of the film, Mr. 137 might garner some much needed media attention. Mr. 137 has a problem though: he’s never been with a woman (in the biblical sense). Terrified that he will not be able to perform on camera and fans will discover his closeted homosexuality, he purchases an entire bottle of little blue pills from the casting director. Though warned that he will go blind when the blood rushes behind his eyes, Mr. 137 pops all but one of the pills, the last one given out of charity to the nervous Mr. 72. Yes, the boy still thinks he is her son when he accepts the pill.
Toward the middle of the novel, a fourth narrator enters the arena, Sheila the casting director, who also happens to be Cassie Wright’s personal assistant. Sheila chooses the actors to go on stage, labels their naked flesh with a number, and generally is in charge of all the goings on during the making of the film. Sheila is smart, well educated, and hopelessly unglamorous. She is, however, bitter and ambitious, which combined with an inexplicable acquiescence to all of Cassie’s ludicrous demands, leads the reader to understand, through her narration, that Sheila carries a secret that could change the lives of everyone involved on set.
In Palahniuk’s porn universe, women have the power to seize control of the hearts and bodies of men, while intellectuals transgress entertainment standards to create art. This is not the usual portrayal we see in popular culture, where pornography is viewed as socially degrading, and moreover, the source of terrible denigration of women. In a culture that objectifies women on a daily basis in magazines, film, and politics, it is no wonder that an industry constructed upon the objectification of fornication should incite the wrath of feminist critics and religious commentators (though I’ll be damned if both don’t enact their own forms of objectification–and I say this as a feminist). Porn shows the human form at it most raw and messy, transforming parts of the anatomy into an assorted anonymous collection of glory holes and splash guards.
Palahniuk turns this image upside down. In the world of Snuff, actors have the ability to transform their lives by surrendering their privates. Underachievers and artists alike have a home in the industry, creating campy sex romps that critique popular culture, or pay homage to great moments in history. Moreover, the actors–women especially–achieve a level of freedom and financial success that permit extravagant lifestyles. However, like the courtesans of royal courts, their freedom is restricted by taboo nature of their profession. Despite having money and status, there are just some tables to which a porn star will not be invited. As such, many a porn actor mentioned in the book grew bitter and disenchanted, and ended her or his life prematurely, attaching a tragic sense of drama to the career path that served only to increase its popularity amongst fans. Thus, the inimitable Cassie Wright lives on a pedestal created by adoring male fans, but she has no social mobility outside her industry, and when her time is up (as it is) because of age, she will have nothing left but a collection of obsolete video cassettes.
Cassie Wright is the Norma Desmond of the porn industry, and Snuff is Palahniuk’s Sunset Boulevard. I think this is the best way for us to think of this novel, and when we get to that humorous twist (or was it?) of an ending, we might just realize how true a comment on pop culture Palahniuk has made. As Cassie Wright gets ready for her final close up, we see just a little bit of the inside of the marginalized worlds of Snuff‘s characters. These are our worlds, in caricature, and Palahniuk manages to make it all seem a little less serious, a little less unequivocal. Most of all, he makes our caricatures funny. And that is just what this book is: funny. Do not expect Tolstoy, or even Kerouac.
If we try to find traditional literary tropes in this book, then our task will be hard at best. This book represents a moment in the American postmodern pulp trend. The talent is there, the story is quirky. Still, in the end the intellectual reader may want a bit more to chew (and the low level intellectual snob will whine about stylistic quality). Perhaps this is the legacy of Ernest Hemingway, who subsequently, was trained in journalism, as is Palahniuk, and bascially intitiated the stylistic character of modern popular writing. What Palahniuk does offer, however, though not intellectual stimulation or epic storytelling, is that particular form of pop culture writing that critiques the system of mass distribution and commercialization that is the cornerstone of modern entertainment. His writing is nervous at times, and at other times aggressive, but Palahniuk has enough talent to paint a picture of the real world, making it look sillier and darker than we like to think.
Perhaps Snuff is not the middle-brow cultural critique of Brett Easton Ellis’s violent pop-literary American Psycho, or even Don Dellilo’s yuppie-centric Cosmopolis, but Palahniuk offers a none too subtle critique of the role of sex in America, which after reading this book seems more like a sad fetish of modern society than a sensory pursuit. Perhaps this is why the characters find their identities formed by the underbelly possibilities of the porn industry, and why I like this book for what it is, and not for what it does not try or pretend to be. If sex is reduced to a fetish of modern living, then Snuff is a modern day Metropolis, sadly true, sadly unsatisfactory, but it allows readers to laugh at themselves.
This book was a quick read and by no means achieved the level of philosophical introspection we might expect from literary fiction; however, in its punchy journalistic literary style, replete with a beat-era sensibility of transgression, and repeated one-liners, Snuff is well worth the time you will spend waiting for the money shot, getting grossed out or getting in touch with your inner anti-prude. This is not fine literature: but we can all use a cheap, but thoughtful, laugh every once in a while, right?
If you like Snuff, why not try:
Cosmopolis by Don Delillo
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
