Welcome to Reader Meet Author. This is where Nils and Jessica talk about the books they read in 2009.

Monday, March 16, 2009

The Moviegoer

Walker Percy's first novel brings to mind J.D. Salinger on many levels.  The novel's protagonist, Jack Bickerson Bolling, is essentially Holden Caulfield if he had grown into a man without losing his feelings of alienation.  While Holden's disaffection is nowadays acceptable among teenagers, seen as a normal part of growing up, it's still largely viewed as pathology or even mental illness in a thirty year old man.  Jack, though, is a charming narrator,  full of wry observations on humanity, and he describes his alienation in terms that strikes pangs of recognition in the reader.  His feelings are ones most of experience in our inner thoughts,  even though we seldom admit them openly.  The novel is hardly about moviegoing at all, except that Jack has an easier time relating to the order he sees in movies than he does to the hollow relationships he sees in real life.  The novel is almost plotless, but yet is about the highest stakes of all:  the search for a meaningful life in a modern world, without succumbing to the easy answers.  

The one person Jack seems to relate to is his step-cousin, Kate, who is as damaged as Jack is, perhaps more so.  Their conversations recall the back-and-forth between Salinger's Franny and Zooey (without the mysticism that Salinger occasionally veers into.)  Likewise,  Jack's family is as full of distinctive characters as Salinger's Glass clan, although all the relationships can be a little hard to parse out.  Jack's father's side is New Orleans old-money establishment gentry,  while his mother's side are Louisiana hicks.  Jack doesn't feel part of either side, as he feels equally disaffected from the past and from the social changes that surround him in the early 60's.  

As you may have guessed by now, this is an existential novel, but one that is still grounded in a deep feeling for humanity.  There are several passages of stunning, devastating beauty that took my breath away.   Although much of the novel is bleak, almost unbearably so,  it has a surprisingly positive ending.  Altough Jack doesn't get much in the way of answers, he does achieve a measure of peace by turning his attentions outside of himself to those around him.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity!

Book club choices can be a hit or miss, huh? It's sort of hard to tell if the members of the club are all going to like the book that's chosen for that month. But I guess that's the whole fun of book club. To be apart of the discussion that arises from those who advocate for the author and those who critique. I think what I love most about the book club that I am in is that we are all open minded, constructive, and value one anothers perspectives.

Many in my book club enjoyed You Shall Know Our Velocity!, but some did not. Some of us read it all the way through. One member even had the special edition that debunked the whole story that the rest of us thought was reality. Some of us tried to finish it. Some of us never picked it up. I was one that tried to finish it, but struggled with it because I had no faith in the story.

I read What is the What and that is the only reference of Eggers that I have. And other than what I have heard from friends, I am not too familiar with McSweeney's. I am trying my best not to be negative in this review, because ideally, Velocity! has good intentions. And I wanted to like this novel, because What is the What was so compelling, but I didn't like Velocity! and that's that. It's actually just a sad story about a sad man that goes no where. Right? And then I guess most of the story I read was based on delusions? Ug, I am so confused now. What the hell did I just read?

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Riding Toward Everywhere

William T. Vollmann is kind of nuts.  In 1981, the author travelled to Afghanistan in an ill-fated attempt to join the Mujahideen rebellion against the Soviets.  He wrote a 700-page novel entirely in Elizabethan English.  Doing research for another novel, he travelled by himself to the magnetic North Pole, and almost froze to death in the process.  And so on.  

So it's not much of a surprise to find out that one of Vollmann's hobbies is hopping freight trains.  What is surprising is that the book he wrote about riding the rails is unassuming and even sort of sweet.  It's short, less than 200 pages (by contrast, his next book is a 1300 behemoth about a county in California) and, as Vollmann himself says, it's a book with very few points to make.  Vollmann's main goal seems to be to convey the joy he gets from trainhopping, the sense of freedom it gives him in an America where freedoms are increasingly restricted.   His language is descriptive and poetic, and at the same time unsentimental.  He doesn't romanticize train riding,  being frank about the dangers,  the discomfort, and most of all, the mind numbing boredom that goes along with the activity.  But he also vividly captures the moments of beauty that make the downsides worth it.  Vollmann also explores how trainhopping has been treated by other American authors like Hemingway, Kerouac, and Mark Twain. 

Vollmann never claims to be an authentic hobo.  He's upfront about the economic advantages that he and his trainriding partner Steve have, labeling themselves fauxbeaux.  They ride the rails by choice, not necessity.  But when Vollmann does encounter real hoboes, his descriptions of them are compassionate and humanizing,  without turning a blind eye to the prejudices that can exist in the community.  It's a delicate balance, but he pulls it off well, even if he does succumb to the occasional burst of purple prose.  A charming book.

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