?

What's the next book? I need something to read.

O You Pretty Pioneers

Ok so I have a confession to make. I have not read the last two book club books. By the time I was able to get The Children's Hospital from MCPL I didn't have time to read it. And there are like 5 holds on The White Tiger. So instead, I grabbed one of the few books of mine that is not yet in a box and I hadn't read before. It was O Pioneers! by Willa Cather.

And let me tell you something, Willa Cather is a badass. That book is awesome. The prose is super tight and descriptive, like Steinbeck or Hemingway. But the scope of the narrative is also vast, like a big Russian novel. So when you combine the two, you get this sweeping panorama of frontier life without the plodding, drawn-out plot. It's awesome. I'm not going into too much detail because I'm the only one that read the thing, but suffice to say that I highly recommend it.

Now I have to go back and read My Antonia, which I hated in high school. I hated lots of stuff in high school that turned out to be cool, and I expect this to be one of the bigger ones.

THE NEXT BOOK

Since we don't yet have a book for this month, I'm taking it upon myself to choose the next book as:

The White Tiger: A Novel
By Aravind Adiga

This book is about an Indian taxi driver who, embroiled in class struggles, commits murder. It is the debut novel for this Indian author, and has apparently won the Booker Prize (whatever that means). Lets hope the protagonist is in fact the ultimate bad ass.

I have such violent dreams, and yet they are never nightmares

I thought The Children’s Hospital was fantastic, and definitely one of the best books I’ve read all year.

I was about to lavish praise on Chris Adrian for his vivid descriptions of life at the hospital and the various medical procedures/conditions, but wikipedia tells me he has an M.D. and has been specializing for his residency in pediatric hematology/oncology residency in San Francisco. So I guess he didn’t have to do much research…

This book in general had a very dream-like quality to me, and I felt myself stopping at several points and seriously wondering if it was going to have one of those terrible Wizard of Oz/Alice in Wonderland endings where Jemma wakes up and finds out it was all a dream, and she had just fallen asleep during a particularly intense night of her medical training. In that sense, it does seem like the entire novel can be interpreted as some kind of strange, anxious dream of Jemma’s, told from different perspectives of characters inside her dream. Jemma is clearly presented as a dreamer in general, both in the bits from her childhood and as an adult – exemplified by the weird interaction with the nun at catholic school, who catches her daydreaming and tells her daydreamers will end up in Purgatory for their sins. Anyway, I can definitely see what unfolds after the flood as having explicit connections with Jemma’s past or “present” – manifested as either events or people in the hospital. For instance, Jemma’s former close relationship with her protective brother (and the pact they made never to marry) causes her anxiety about intensifying her relationship with Rob – this seems to manifest in her dream as her brother, in angel form – jealously pushing away those to which she becomes close. Or Jemma’s magical healing powers may be a response to her perceived helplessness to fix all of the really sick children she encounters in the hospital. I realize these are two obvious examples, but its what came to mind.

I’d have to agree with Mr. Wertz’s point about the blanket of dread that hangs over this book; I definitely at no point could shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. I certainly don’t think it ruined the book for me, in fact it seemed to make me appreciate the loving, positive moments in this book more (perhaps because they were so fleeting).

I absolutely loved the speech that Vivian gives right before she sort of goes nuts and confines herself to the upper floor. For some reason, it struck me as exactly how I’ve been feeling lately about humanity – biding our time on an inevitable trip to our individual and collective deaths while distracting ourselves with Twitter and reality TV. Although Vivian’s speech is crude, what I liked about her monologue (straight, desperate, and precisely to the point) is what I hate about similar philosophical statements in books like Atlas Shrugged (rambling, preachy, and vague). I don’t think its far-fetched to compare humans on this Earth to a bunch of people on a floating-hospital – we’re both seemingly killing time with more and more elaborate dumb shit, but can’t seem to identify what we should be doing that’s “better”.

The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian

To be honest, I picked this book primarily because the day I started reading it, John asked me to pick a book. I know it's a bit hefty, and especially after having finished it, I recognize that there's a lot here to wade through. I think that the reading experience will be equal parts rewarding and frustrating. There will inevitably be times when you can't put it down, and times where you can't seem to pick it back up. That said, if you start this book, and get to a point where you care about the characters, do whatever you can to finish it. I think you'll be glad that you did.

Spoilers ahead folks, read at your own peril.

A few weeks ago I watched David Lynch's Eraserhead for the first time. I'm generally not much of a Lynch fan, and watching his first film did absolutely nothing to change my opinion. If anything I find myself even more of the opinion that he does things just to do them, and people call him a genius for it. But I digress. The one positive I can pull from the film is what he does with tone. With setting, and lighting, and dialogue (or lack thereof), and especially sound, he imposes a sheer dread throughout every last second of that movie. While any discernible message or coherence is generally lost on me, I couldn't help but be impressed with how disconcerted I felt just watching it. At any rate, that's the best way for me to articulate the way I felt reading this book. That same constant sense of dread that permeates nearly every moment. I suppose that's a given; in a story about the apocalypse you're bound to see some terrible things happen. But it's not just the dissonance that comes from being thrust into a world of the dead. Dread abounds everywhere; In the assorted grisly afflictions some of these children are struggling to live with (seriously, when you read about Harlequin Fetus, I dare you not to google it...good lord); in the characters, whether it's their own personal guilt brought to light, the way they interact with one another, the struggle to find love or intimacy or just normalcy in a situation of which they have barely any control, the lack of trust you have as a reader for nearly every character other than Jemma; and particularly, in those moments when the recording angel narrates his story, or we catch glimpses of the terrifying hero who was Calvin, and you find yourself wondering "whose side God is really on?" This is a book and a story that wash over you in a way that requires an emotional response. There are characters you hate and characters you want to love and characters that scare the shit out of you. Ishmael in particular never settled with me, and the validation I may have felt for never trusting him was overpowered pretty effectively by how terrifying he becomes. I felt betrayed by Vivian when she abandons everyone to answer the ultimate question. A question which, incidentally, remained unclear through the end of the book, perhaps intentionally. And isn't it just heartbreaking to see what becomes of Rob, him perhaps more than anyone deserving a little dignity, and having so little? Though I never cried for any of them I did dream myself into their hospital on three separate occasions, so I guess that's something.

I'll admit that while I couldn't make my way through the first 4/5's of the book fast enough, the last bit slowed me down. That last leg of the story, where the botch is tearing through the adult population, and no one seems to trust Jemma (because they've all just "gotten over" her performing nearly 700 miracles...um...what a bunch of dicks?) is frustrating and tedious. Still, once you get over that hump, and Jemma's alone in the hospital with infantile Rob and terrifying Ishmael and unrecognizable Pickie, it's clear the tedium was necessary. It's not as though the characters don't find it frustrating and tedious to watch idly as their peers all drift away into ash with no explanation, so close to some kind of ending. And Jemma's final moments on the roof, as she struggles through her final trial, then herself drifts away, are remarkable, and sad, and very, very final. As she, now herself some kind of apparition, watches the children make their way into the new world, it seems appropriate that we stay next to her. If the new world isn't for her, then it's not for us either.

I loved the mash-up of reality and surreality: the descriptions of life as an angel, or the pliability of the new hospital. In particular, Jemma's miraculous awakening to her power is one of the best extended sequences I've read in a long time. It's exhausting just to read. The slow renaissance of the Replicating Mist throughout the book is well constructed and considered, and never seems fantastical, though it inevitably is. I suppose that once you've established a world where, yes, God exists, and yes, he's flooded the world again, and yes, your hospital is your vessel to the new, perfect world, you open up a bag of tricks that is essentially bottomless.

I often wondered if this book would mean more if I had a stronger sense of biblical history. I'm sure it would, and that's a little frustrating. Still, as best as I can tell, the theology remains some what ambiguous to the end. I suppose angels are Christian, and it seems clear that it's a monotheistic system, but other than that it's not entirely clear. And it's better that way. This is a fresh start, where all the old rules or ideas or dogmas are being thrown clear of the new path. It's up to children now to figure it out, and that seems right to me. Or at least more interesting.

So yes, I thoroughly enjoyed The Children's Hospital. It's a vast story that changes directions over and over. When the end finally arrives, it defies expectations, and inexplicably meets them. Mostly, it's a book you have to feel and not consider.

THE NEXT BUK

Ok Nerds,

The next book shall be:

The Children's Hospital
by Chris Adrian.

It's a tale of the apocalypse told by an angel and focusing on God's chosen survivors. I've started it, and so far I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. Read it, or don't read it, but if you don't read it, your opinion won't mean anything.

Boom roasted,
Pertz

fortress of suckitude

so. i didn't really like this book.

well, i really liked the first half. it was kind of meandering and unfocused, but i felt it was good overall. however, the second half kind of just killed it for me. actually, i think the final 50 or so pages kind of ruined it for me.

this book is pretty unlike most of lethem's other stuff. his work tends towards the surreal, post-modern genre mashup like kabo abe or george saunders. this one felt more like a memoir he'd been working up to writing for way too long. and to me, it feels like he gets too involved with the telling of the story and loses himself in details that feel unnecessary at times.

the characters are definitely interesting, but the way the story breaks down at the end feels incomplete to me. it sort of trails off and feels unfinished, like there is something more that needs to be said. maybe i was hoping for a reunion with his mother or i wanted to see mingus and dylan reunited, but it just felt like the story sprialed out of control and kind of gets muddled in its own intentions.

i read it all, though, so i guess it wasn't so terrible, but this isn't something i'll likely revisit again in the future.

I just this minute finished Fortress of Solitude. I liked the second half of the book much better than the first.

I agree with Peter, the first part of the book does feel really familiar. It was interesting, but also awful. I really dislike the micro-examination of a person's own self. I think it's tremendously boring and usually unimportant. I'm not saying that a person isn't allowed to reflect (an unexamined life is supposedly not worth living, after all), but a novel-length meditation on stoopball, graffiti, and comic book characters isn't my idea of profound. Everybody had a childhood. Every adult has little talismans from that childhood. I really don't get the relentless need to explore that stuff. Maybe I just had a super boring childhood, but it to me it seems like on some level that kind of writing is the same thing as I Love the 80s.

But the prose itself I liked. Lethem did a really good job of putting you right inside his protagonist, I thought. You definitely feel like you know him, although the half dozen or so members of the supporting cast in this book weren't really fleshed out, and seemed like they served mostly to illuminate Dylan's personality. We got a pretty thorough back story for Barry in those liner notes, but that was about it. What was Robert like when he wasn't yoking someone? How did Arthur and his mom interact after he turned crazy? I especially would have liked to know more about Abraham, because I thought he, as the silent, looming hermit upstairs, was one of the most interesting characters in the book.

So yeah. I liked how he wrote, just not really what he wrote about. Overall though, the book was enjoyable and I would probably read another by the same author.

Fortress of Togetherness

This book was a bit of a paradox to me because I tore through it, but ended up feeling generally unimpressed for reasons I can’t really identify. One of the things I found mildly irritating was that in one form or another, I feel like the first part of this book seemed really familiar – nerdy white/Jewish reminisces about growing up in a NYC borough, gets picked on and into trouble with juvenile criminal types, but perseveres and as an adult feels an attachment to his old block and its former tenants. It at least reminded me of the book/film Sleepers, about an Irish kid growing up in Hell’s Kitchen – you throw in some superhero shenanigans and send the main character to jail with his friends, and you’ve got a very similar story. That being said, I thought Lethem developed some very interesting characters – characters that are well aware of their flaws, yet carrying on despite being fully aware of the negative consequences of their actions (for example, Abraham’s full devotion to his film, at the expense of his deteriorating family, income, and artistic prestige, and both Dylan and Mingus’s loyalty to their fuck-up friends Robert and Arthur).

This is something I’ll leave to you more insightful literary types, but on the back of the book, our friend Michael Chabon praises Lethem for creating Dylan, “a genuine literary hero”. I exaggerate for the sake of argument, but is it a bit cynical to question why we should bestow this title on a dude whose life accomplishments consist of: Cocaine dealer, college dropout, accessory to prison escape, and writer of liner notes for obscure compilation albums? Generally, his “heroic” deeds seem to be limited to helping out his friends, maintaining a relationship with Mingus, and (mostly unsuccessfully) attempts to stop relatively innocuous crimes from occurring. Or am I confusing a literary hero with an extreme alpha-male hero that shoots down helicopters and deactivates apocalyptic nuclear warheads at the last second, saving humanity? Or maybe that’s precisely a statement of this book – that Superman/save the world types really only exist in comic books, and real heroes may be really flawed, but at least have the balls to try to make a difference where no-one else gives a shit (i.e. saving homeless alcoholics and incarcerated crack-dealers)? Something to think about, anyway…

P.S. I liked Yiddish Policeman's Union - good call, Chilibone.

listen well, sweetness

so for some reason, i held off on reading this book for a long time. lately picking up a book of any substance has been intimidating to me. i think the stress of work and real life make me want to escape into the mindlessness of video games or light comedy like terry pratchett or john hodgman. however, once i started reading this book, i became pretty obsessed with it. i was sitting on park benches on the canal, reading on my lunch break. i would go to coffee shops to read it. i remembered how to just enjoy getting immersed in a great story and enjoying the mystery and living alongside the characters for a little while.

the entire book had such a strange sense of sadness to it. the feeling of existing during the reversion of the jewish land back to america was very powerful. imagine knowing that soon your entire world was going to become a mired mess of confusion and exile, but not really be able to do anything about it.

the little bits of magic and mythology sprinkled throughout the narrative really helped to draw me in as well. i love a good far-fetched fantasy story now and then, but this garcia marquez level of magical realism is pretty much the perfect amount for me. the whole idea of the messiah as a gay junkie is appealing to me, not in a mean-spirited way. i think it is appealing to humanize religion and to temper the divine against the human in a story like this. landsman was always regretting not getting to know shpilman before he died, and i think that feeling was passed on to the reader as well.

after i read this book, i picked up another chabon novel "gentlemen of the road." it's short and easy and great.

May

Hey friends,

The next book on our list shall be (drum roll please!) Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. Sound good? Let me know if you have all read that and I'll pick something different.

Happy reading,
Caitlin

Yiddish Policemen's Union

I'm only halfway done with the book, but I thought I would blog about my thoughts so far to give the site some love and give my friends something to read while they're bored at work.

So at first I really didn't think I was going to like this book. Which is not surprising, because it is true for like 85% of books that I pick up having never read anything by that author before. But I powered through the initial disinterest and now I am totally into it.

Just like with Rabbit, Run, I am finding the supporting cast to be just as, or even more interesting than the protagonist. The down-on-his-luck noir detective is a pretty worn out plot device (see Roger Rabbit, Tracer Bullet, the 1930s) and I thought at first that the character was going to be two-dimensional. Swig from a flask, make a comment about a "dame" or a "broad," run off a string of one-liners, and solve the case. I thought Landsman was going to be simple, basically. But turns out he has a detailed past rife with complications and tragedy, his motivation to keep going is unclear but seems rooted in a general desire to do good work, and he is dirty and gritty without becoming a parody. He's pretty balanced.

Berko the sidekick is pretty awesome too. Pretty much anyone who carries around a giant hammer to scare the shit out of some gangsters with has got my general approval. I think he and Landsman pair very well. Again, at first I thought that as a duo they would be pretty flat, the typical big/little, clean/dirty, Jewish/Alaskan Native dichotomies, but I think they are funny together.

And the idea of a giant Jewish colony in the middle of Alaska is pretty awesome too. Chabon does a really good job of dropping little bits of information about the alternate reality so that you have a little bit of a hint of these past events, but don't get the full story. Like mentioning that the a-bomb fell on Berlin. It gives you a brief, fleeting glimpse. It's like when you're reading Lord of the Rings and Tolkein suddenly drops a reference to Ancalagon the Black, baddest dragon of all time or whatever, but doesn't go on to fully explain it or give the details of events. It's a great author trick that allows them to create this big world but also allows the reader to use some of his or her own ideas to fill it in. Just well done.

The plot, in typical page-turner fashion, is sucking me in. Without giving anything away, I just want to say that I like the twists and turns and the (sometimes excrutiatingly) slow revelations.

So those are my halfway thoughts.

sand county, sad country

the edition of the book that i read was supplemented with photographs by gentlemen who retraced aldo's footsteps and lived on the land where he lived. seeing the landscape as he saw it made it all the more real for me. there were these really haunting images of aldo's grinding stone, laying broken under a tree in different seasons. he died of a heart attack fighting a brush fire on his neighbor's land, did you know that?

living in a city is weird and alien to me. reading this book made me really homesick for a place and time that maybe really only exists in my memory. i grew up on about 50 acres of wooded farmland and feel like i keep moving farther and farther away from that life as i grow older. as i grow older, i romanticize the old farm more and more. i get involved with the local green movements and urban beautification projects, but parts of it seem so masturbatory and filled with this weird sense of self-satisfaction. i feel like some people join these local conservation movements because of the image of it and just spout off this meaningless rhetoric. i appreciate anybody who is involved, but it's a strange, sad simulacrum of the real experience.

being in the country is quiet and leads your mind down quiet roads. i feel like leopold's conservation ethic is borne out of this experience. he focuses on the harmonious co-existence of man and nature, something that a city by its nature defies. i guess the book made me feel dissatisfied with my half-acre plot of city land and small raised vegetable beds. i definitely started feeling like the grass is greener everywhere but here.

Sand County and Leopold's Conservation Ethic

First of all, I am a huge fan of A Sand County Almanac - as a student of ecology, I consider this book to be essential reading for anyone in the biological sciences. More than anything, to me what this series of essays highlights is the power of observation - it is a clear demonstration of the insight that can be gained from simply opening one's eyes and taking in their natural environment. It has recently become a trend in the natural sciences to hire biologists that are question driven; they ask broad ecological or evolutionary questions and then choose a natural system appropriate for answering these questions. Unfortunately, this translates to a dwindling number of true natural historians - experts like Leopold who have vast experience in particular habitats or systems and use observation to motivate their questions. It seems as if the result of this shift is a lot of biological theory manufactured on laptop computers by scientists whose lack of field expertise is as apparent as a shit stain on a pair of fresh underpants. In this vein, I consider Sand County to be a throwback to an older, more organism-based, way of doing science. And I like it.

One of the more interesting themes brought up in this book is Leopold's conservation ethic - as John stated, there are reasons beyond money or public health why we feel the need to restore or preserve our natural environment. It is curious to me where this ethic originates - is it simply because some of us want to do the "right thing" (whatever that is), or is it basally some innate selfish understanding that after a certain point, we will screw up the environment so badly it will cease to support humanity? With the popularity of this new Go Green trend, it seems there has emerged a new, social, motivation for environmentalism that for some has no apparent connection, at least on the surface, to the arguments presented in Sand County.

Of all the essays in this book, I find the bit Axe in Hand to be perhaps the most meaningful piece , as far as a commentary on the practicalities of conservation/restoration ecology. Particularly, Leopold mentions his "own axe-in-hand decisions", or a-priori biases that influence his specific land-use choices. Its funny to me that Leopold recognized in the 1930's what goes virtually unstated in conservation biology today - that the strategic goals of restoration are absolutely based on human "axe-in-hand" priorities that may often have no relevance to natural ecosystem dynamics

The goals of any conservation strategy include often dogmatic ideals that are considered generally "good", or worth conserving: diversity, native species, or species that provide "ecosystem services". Really, this is a list of things that humans like in a habitat - lots of diverse, interesting species that make ecosystems productive, not a list of community attributes that promote stability. In reality, many communities are not like this - some are simply unproductive, highly disturbed, or dominated by a single keystone species (and probably should be maintained like this). In this way, Leopold's discussion of axe-in-hand decisions to me really say something about conservation biology in the present.

READING, FOR A LADY OR A MAN

Attention literati:

It has come to my attention that it is time for me to suggest a book. I thought about suggesting a totally bitchin' comic book or making everyone read this, but instead I am going to make April's book The Yiddish Policeman's Union, by awesome dude Michael Chabon.

If you don't read this book you are not a man (even the ladies).

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

So...Rabbit, Run

Just finished it moments ago, and have taken in a few thoughts from everybody. So I'll start like this:

I find myself splitting the difference between John and Kyle in regards to identifying with Rabbit. Obviously there's a part of me that disregards the things I might find myself reacting to or identifying with initially, just because he's such a bastard. Objectively though, it's hard not to see in myself that impatience and lack of direction and making a choice because of what I feel opposed to what I think or know. But I don't think it's Rabbit's impulses that make him a bad guy. I think it's that he constantly allows himself to act on those impulses. Or maybe not even allows himself to act on them, but that he can't help but act on them. Maturity or adulthood seems very much determined by a person's ability to do what they said they would, or what they know they should do. I agree with Kyle in that there are decisions we make because others have already made those decisions for us, and we never questioned them, but second-guessing scholasticism as a sophomore in college is very different then second-guessing fatherhood with a wife, a two-year-old and another child on the way. Maybe it's even as simple as the equation changing once you become responsible to somebody else. For my part, you just can't run out on your kids. If a relationship doesn't work, fundamentally has problems, you reconsider, but you do it in the interest of your children.

Another aspect that I kept coming back to is the fact that this was written in a different time. I think that superficially the male and female relationships aren't that different, or at least aren't that startling. I think Rabbit slapping Mrs. Eccles on the ass is an interesting moment, in the same way it's interesting to watch an episode of Mad Men, but it doesn't shock me because it's the way I understand the male/female dynamic of this other era to be. However, it is very hard to empathize with the way sex is handled. I think Kyle's right in the way that it's a power thing, but I don't think it's the women who hold that power. It seems that here, men hold this power, and in Rabbit's case, what he has isn't enough. Again, the bj scene is a good example, as is the scene with Rabbit and Janice in bed after the birth. For Rabbit to approach these moments as though he's owed something just speaks to the larger sense of entitlement that he's pretty consistently walking around with. He can wrap it up in whatever kind of insecurity or neediness he wants to, but ultimately he's just an overgrown kid who wants what he wants.

The more I think about it, the more psychotic Rabbit seems to me. He's so sensitive to everything and there's something in every moment that could potentially invert his feelings about a person or place. The way that he can love a woman (Janice or Ruth) one moment and the next be repulsed by her facial expression to the point that he questions his entire opinion of her. He lives so much in each moment I suppose, that he can't help but act as erratically as he does, but it's still so off-putting. You can't really trust him from one moment to the next. Then again, I suppose that's the jumping off point of this entire story, so I shouldn't complain too much.

In the end I really did enjoy it. All the things that bothered me about the character motivated a really interested story. I will even admit that I enjoyed the run-on sentences for the most part. I think that type of writing is as close as I'll ever get to actually appreciating poetry. Also, I recently read American Pastoral by Philip Roth, and that dude's sentences go on for fucking ever. It was much more tedious in that case than here. Admittedly though, I don't really know what to make of the end. I guess he's running again?

Sand County

So obviously A Sand County Almanac isn't a complex work of fiction like Rabbit, Run, and there's not as much to parse. But I think what's most interesting about reading this book is the way it shows how conservationism has changed over the years.

I think Leopold is right even still when he says that very few people are interested in conservation for conservation's sake. You have to attach a price tag on it somehow. In Leopold's day they did that by mostly saying that fucked up land was land that couldn't be used to make any money. Today we do that by saying the world's going to be all fucked up for the kids when they get older, global warming is going to launch tsunamis at us, etc, etc. It's hard to argue that you shouldn't clear cut forests because that's just a total dick move.

I also think it's interesting how interwoven hunting is with Leopold's environmentalism. That also just seems completely alien today. When he first started talking about shooting ducks I was kind of shocked, because now we think of environmentalists more or less as hippies who want to preserve every last living thing. But, as he points out, hunting can serve a genuinely good ecological purpose if, say, the wolves in your neighborhood aren't doing a very good job of making sure the deer don't eat all the young trees.

Anyway I picked this book before I had read any of it, and I'm glad I did. It's a pretty good book that I'd never heard of before, and is evidently some kind of landmark in nature writing. It's pretty crazy that this book was published in the late 40s, when most of America just wanted to take the axe to nature in the name of chrome-plated Shining Progress.

Run On, Little Rabbit...

Run On, Little Rabbit...


I love this book. I have read it before as well, and honestly I was pulling for Witches of Eastwick, but John was impatient and pulled the trigger on me. I agree with the general assessment of Rabbit, that he is cold and impulsive and generally an asshole, but whereas John has mentioned that he can't identify with the character, I can 100% identify with the character. Rabbit's lived half of his life and he knows that the best part is over, and it fucking blows. Up to this point he's done everything he's supposed to have done, according to those societal rules we take for granted, and he's followed that standard arch of life - given up his dreams to settle down and get married. There're so many things that you just do before you even realize that you had a choice, and I feel like this is the trap that Rabbit has fallen into. I compare it to going to college-- the idea that I didn't have to go to college never even entered my mind. I thought that if you didn't go to college and graduate that somehow you were a failure, and the simple fact is that this is not true. I feel like that's where Rabbit is, his entire life everyone else has been making his choices for him, and then one day he's just like, "Fuck this." Maybe, had I not been so blinded by other people's expectations of what I was supposed to do, I would've spent a few years driving around the country playing music and doing different shit instead of going straight to college, but I felt so much pressure that I didn't even consider it as an option, and sometimes I regret that. Rabbit is full of regret, and I think it makes him a dick.

I will admit that Rabbit is selfish, and that I don't feel like anyone should ever try to act like him. He is not a role model, and he is not an anti-hero - he's just this selfish guy who's kinda depressed because he doesn't feel like he's in control of his life, and when he tries to take control he turns into a giant dick, and worse, he doesn't really know what to do with himself. It's not like he leaves and does something romantic - like travel the world or compose a great artistic work, or something like that- he leaves his wife and shacks up with some other woman. Partially, I think the reason is because Rabbit is just simply not that bright. I mean, did you ever stop and think while you were reading this about just how whitetrash this shit is? It's totally daytime TV. I think Updike wanted to shock his generation by portraying Rabbit as this total asshole who does not give in to all these conventions of the time, but it makes him unlikeable. I think an interesting comparison is to the main character of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - RP McMurphy. He's another character who's struggling against control, but you end up loving him. He is a true anti-hero in that sense, and his example eventually leads to the Chief escaping and becoming free, so there is a positive payoff, but in Rabbit's case there is nothing redeeming about him, he learns nothing, and in the end there's only death. But RP and Rabbit are essentially both trying to escape from the same thing, they're both fighting for to live on their terms. That admirable quality that RP McMurphy posses is totally unadmirable in Rabbit.

The other thing that I loved about this book was the sex - or, more accurately, how Updike seemed to focus on how sex and power and control are all intertwined. I see more similarities here between One Flew and Rabbit, Run. I think both Updike and Ken Kesey were trying to make a comment about how post WWII America had become emasculated. After the war it was like no one wanted to disturb the peace, everyone was trying to avoid conflicts both domestically and abroad. You got crazy psycho Nazi bitch Nurse Ratchet in One Flew and then you've got Janice and Ruth in Rabbit. Obviously Rachet and Janice and Ruth are not the same, but the dynamic that exists seems to be very similar. Rachet is the symbol of matriarchal control that RP McMurphy, who is the quintessential Alpha Male, rebels against. In the same way, to Rabbit, Janice and Ruth seem to hold him back. The blow job scene is totally fucked, but it's all about power. Whoever has the power is in control. Sex compels Rabbit to get married in the first place, and sex compels Rabbit to shack up with Ruth - Rabbit is a slave to his sexual desire, and because of this I feel like he thinks that he is a slave to women, and that's why he hates them so much and treats them so poorly. It's even the same with the preacher's wife. I feel like he was trying to turn that dynamic around when he forced Ruth to give him the blow job. Rabbit tries, and tries, and tries but he is simply unable to take control.

I feel like Rabbit is a more realistic rendering of a character like RP McMurphy. RP, had he not been limited to the insane asylum, probably would've been an irresponsible, womanizing prick just like Rabbit. The things that make RP strong in his caged environment are the same things that make Rabbit so weak in free society. There's something here about the need for balance where sex and power are concerned. Sex is power is control. So is Rabbit a prick, or is he the way he is because he's an Alpha Male stuck in a matriarchal society? I don't know, and I think that's the point. Just when you think shit is finally going to go well, bang, Rabbit bails again and the baby dies. Maybe the point is that there's nothing Rabbit can do. He is totally and utterly dominated by his sexual urges... Maybe running is the only option he's got left.

Rabbit, Run (spoilers if you're still reading!)

I just finished Rabbit, Run about an hour ago. I read the first half of the book quite slowly, struggling at times to make myself keep going. I picked up the book this afternoon and read the last half of the book in one sitting. I was partly fueled by wanting to finish the book by the end of February, but at some point I found that I couldn't put it down. In the end, I really liked this book.

What I liked:

the characters Like John said, the supporting characters in this book were pretty boss. They were all so deeply flawed, but somehow very likable. I especially liked Ruth and Mr. Springer. All of the characters were incredibly well developed. The scene where Rabbit leaves Janice for the second time and she comes totally undone was so incredible I had to read it a few times.

At the beginning of the book I thought I was really going to like Rabbit, and I went back and forth pretty frequently throughout the book. I hated when he made Ruth give him a blow j, it was so insanely degrading I could hardly believe it. It was shocking the way he talked about Janice. Dude does not know how to treat women. There were parts, though, where he was so tender and kind. Two specific glimmers of him being a good human being were when he took off his shoes while walking through the park with Ruth, and when his daughter was born. He seemed way more confused than evil, and more than anything he seemed really human. I loved how flawed all of the characters were.

the prose (most of the time) Again I agree that sometimes his sentences and paragraphs were just too damn long. I would be reading a two page paragraph and be like, am I seriously still reading a bunch of run-ons about this random park? At spots I got bored with the wordiness. But overall I really liked how much detail Updike paid to everything. I liked scenes like the one where Eccles picks Rabbit up on the street and drives him back to Ruth's place. It was a simple thing, but Updike made it more significant with such thorough descriptions of the entire event from the scenery, right down to what the characters were thinking.

The structure was interesting, as there were no chapters, and very few places where there was even a tangible break. I felt like each section flowed so well into the next, that even though it was slow at times, the book as a whole was so easy for me to just keep on reading. The book started coming together for me when he went back to his wife when she had the baby. It almost seemed like a different book after that point. His character was changing, and the entire pace of the book just really picked up for me.

miscellaneous First off I was totally shocked when the baby drowned. I had been feeling so optimistic about Rabbit ever since he went back to his wife, and had suddenly become emotionally invested in the well-being of these people. Things seemed to be going so well. It seriously depressed me. I guess most of all I didn't dislike Rabbit because he left his wife, or because he didn't stay with Ruth. My thoughts on our friend Harry were really hit on the head when he is in the Springer's house and there is that line about "the good way versus the right way." It was such a different world back when this story took place. It wasn't wrong for women to drink when they were pregnant, and it was seriously wrong to leave your wife. Is it good to drink while you are pregs? No. But neither I would argue strongly is it good to stay in a marriage that isn't working. Of course there are much better ways to leave said relationship. I really love reading about this time period.

I'm glad he kept going in the end.

Finished the book. Totally glad I did.

Rabbit, Run

Ok so I'm like 3/4 done with Rabbit, Run.

REASONS WHY I MAY NOT FINISH THE BOOK

1. Run-on sentences. John Updike's prose is for the most part very cool and evocative, but I hate it when ANY writer puts in gigantic paragraphs filled with super long descriptive sentences. I like my poetry and prose to be separate entities.

2. The protagonist is a gigantic dick. Here come some spoilers, so be careful if you read on. I've had a very hard time identifying at all with Rabbit. He bails on his wife and 2-year-old son without a thought or even trying to work things out. He attempts to carry out some crazy dream about going down South, fails, comes back to town, and moves in with some chick he meets on a blind double date. Knocks her up. Forces her to go down on him to get even with her in some way. Slaps a preacher's wife on the ass. Etc. Etc. I'm hoping that all this is building to some kind of dramatic denouement where he mans up and figures his shit out, but since I'm only 3/4 of the way through, right now I think Rabbit is a total ass.

REASONS WHY I MAY JUST POWER THROUGH

1. Supporting cast. I really like the character of Eccles the preacher, and of the old lady that Rabbit gardens for whose name I forget. Eccles's personality is very interesting to me, how he's kind of sarcastic, kind of bitter, but at the same time he's the most powerful force for good in the whole book. I also like the tension between him and his wife over his job. I like how she resents his congregation for being, in her view, a bunch of whining incompetents, as opposed to some sanctimonious, stereotypical old church lady. I think they're the best characters in the book.

2. Psychology. I enjoy how most of the book takes place inside the characters' heads. I like having a front row seat for their motivations, internal debates, insecurities, etc. Every character is fully fleshed out with a strong personality, which I think has a lot to do with the way we're privy to the characters' inner thoughts.

3. It will bother me if I don't finish it. I hate not finishing books. It'll bug me.

I found A Sand County Almanac

I've started reading it and am finding it very enjoyable so far. I like books with pictures. It soothes my raging testosterone-laden blood.

Yeah, I can't find Rabbit, Run anywhere. The Florida Department of Education isn't helping much either, with their damn propaganda.

This is in no way a reflection of my impressive masculinity

OK Men, I have a quick non Rabbit, Run related request, really!

How do you change the settings on the blog so that you are updated via e-mail when someone posts? I've spent a good amount of work time trying to figure it out, and I can't. Not that this doesn't make me a man, in fact it makes me MORE of a man because I only know how to do two things: smash things and sex things. Everything else is for the lady-boys.

Rabbit, Run is also apparently Slate's book club book this month:

http://www.slate.com/id/2211521/

i have having the dickens of a time finding rabbit, run anywhere. i'm about to break down and get it from amazon. all copies are taken at the library and i saw no copies at the bookstore. what the dickens!