Books I Read in August 2008

Every book I read in August left me with lingering thoughts. I could write volumes about each, but I'm going to resist the urge and instead, provide a link for each to a review that echoes my sentiments.

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen was a book I resisted reading for quiet a while, due to its popularity. I was particularly interested in reading it because of the shifts in time the story takes. It's told from the point of view of a man who is ninety or ninety-three (he can't remember) in the present day and shifts back to where the real story takes place, during the depression. This review is from the New York Times Sunday Book Review. It was a unique, intriguing story and it was very well written.

Hoffman's Hunger, by Leon de Winter came to me by way of the LibaryThing Early Reviewer Program. From the Toby Press:

"Felix Hoffman’s hunger is both physical and emotional. A Dutch diplomat with a checkered career behind him, he is now Ambassador in Prague in the late 1980s; his final posting. In Kafka’s haunted city, Hoffman desperately feeds his bulimia and spends his insomniac nights studying Spinoza and revisiting the traumas of his past.

A child survivor of the Holocaust, Hoffman married and had beloved twin daughters, but a double tragedy has befallen his family; one daughter died as a young girl of leukemia, the other, who became a heroin addict, has committed suicide. This has wrecked Hoffman’s marriage and his life; he has not had one decent night’s sleep since the death of his daughter over twenty years ago, and his constant physical hunger reflects his emotional hunger for truth and understanding. When Carla, a Czech double agent, gets into Hoffman’s bed, political and emotional mayhem ensues.

Hoffman’s past and his present predicament are inextricably bound up with the tormented history of Europe over the fifty years since the Second World War. Like Europe, he is at a crossroads, and the signs point to an uncertain future. With this spellbinding philosophical thriller, a bestseller in Germany, Leon de Winter charts a search for identity which is both personal and political.

Translated from the Dutch by Arnold and Erica Pomerans."

This book really blew me away. As soon as I finished, I knew I'd read this book again. I also had the thought that this was a book I wish I could have written, and that thought doesn't often come to me. It was Leon de Winter's first novel and it was published in The Netherlands in 1990.

Bad Behavior, by Mary Gaitskill is a collection of nine stories, originally published in 1988. This interview in Nerve.com will give you a fairly good idea of the kind of ride you're in for when you read her work. I'd previously read her novel, Veronica and found that although I really liked it, Gaitskill is actually a better short fiction writer. The stories are gritty and edgy and Gaitskill has a voice unlike any writer I've ever read. Certainly, this collection is a reflection of the sexual mores and rampant drug use in the 80s. She's really an incredible writer.

She Was, by Janis Hallowell is the second novel from this Colorado writer. The main character was a political activist in the early 70's and was responsible for a university bombing that killed someone. She's lived underground since that time and as the story opens, she is about to be exposed. See this review from Bookreporter.com for more on the story. Although there have been other stories about sixties and seventies radicals, what makes this one particularly interesting is that it takes place in the post 9/11 era and therefore, public and governmental views on terrorism are quite different than they were in the eighties and nineties. This book shifts between the past and present, Hallowell does it from the points of view of two different characters and her prose is lyrical and precise.

Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill reviewed in the New Yorker by James Wood here is the critically acclaimed new novel, described by Pantheon Books as:

"In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, Hans--a banker originally from the Netherlands--finds himself marooned among the strange occupants of the Chelsea Hotel after his English wife and son return to London. Alone and untethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. Ramkissoon, a Gatsby-like figure who is part idealist and part operator, introduces Hans to an “other” New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality. Hans is alternately seduced and instructed by Chuck’s particular brand of naivete and chutzpah--by his ability to a hold fast to a sense of American and human possibility in which Hans has come to lose faith.

Netherland gives us both a flawlessly drawn picture of a little-known New York and a story of much larger, and brilliantly achieved ambition: the grand strangeness and fading promise of 21st century America from an outsider’s vantage point, and the complicated relationship between the American dream and the particular dreamers. Most immediately, though, it is the story of one man--of a marriage foundering and recuperating in its mystery and ordinariness, of the shallows and depths of male friendship, of mourning and memory. Joseph O’Neill’s prose, in its conscientiousness and beauty, involves us utterly in the struggle for meaning that governs any single life."

O'Neill's prose is exceptionally beautiful and I found myself frequently reading passages more than once for the pure pleasure of it. The story was good, but by the end I felt there was something missing.

Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami. This, from Publisher's Weekly:

"Starred Review. Previous books such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood have established Murakami as a true original, a fearless writer possessed of a wildly uninhibited imagination and a legion of fiercely devoted fans. In this latest addition to the author's incomparable oeuvre, 15-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home, both to escape his father's oedipal prophecy and to find his long-lost mother and sister. As Kafka flees, so too does Nakata, an elderly simpleton whose quiet life has been upset by a gruesome murder. (A wonderfully endearing character, Nakata has never recovered from the effects of a mysterious World War II incident that left him unable to read or comprehend much, but did give him the power to speak with cats.) What follows is a kind of double odyssey, as Kafka and Nakata are drawn inexorably along their separate but somehow linked paths, groping to understand the roles fate has in store for them. Murakami likes to blur the boundary between the real and the surreal—we are treated to such oddities as fish raining from the sky; a forest-dwelling pair of Imperial Army soldiers who haven't aged since WWII; and a hilarious cameo by fried chicken king Colonel Sanders—but he also writes touchingly about love, loneliness and friendship. Occasionally, the writing drifts too far into metaphysical musings—mind-bending talk of parallel worlds, events occurring outside of time—and things swirl a bit at the end as the author tries, perhaps too hard, to make sense of things. But by this point, his readers, like his characters, will go just about anywhere Murakami wants them to, whether they 'get' it or not."

I'd not read any Murakami previously, but from the first few minutes, I was hooked. John Updike's review in the New Yorker is excellent. This was another book that I wanted to begin all over again once I'd finished it.

* * *

The limits I've placed on my internet use have been working out pretty well. I expect to reach 50,000 words with The Foundling Wheel today -- word count as of this minute: 49,294. I've had a target word count in mind of roughly 65,000 - 75,000 words, so 50,000 is going to feel pretty good. Carleen assures me that the seas are considerably calmer after 50,000 and I want to believe her.

I've had to make some radical changes to my web surfing behavior in order to cut down on my time on line. I now check blogs almost exclusively through Google Reader with one or two exceptions. I still read most posts, but I have drastically cut down on the number of comments I leave. I also realized there were a handful of sites I visit regularly, even though I always seem to feel somehow annoyed or agitated after visiting, because of either the tone of the blogger or the commenters. Something led me to those sites at some point in time and I kept going back out of habit, but I realized I can no longer spare the time on the distraction. I do have to wonder if I am the only one who has had this experience. It's sort of like having that "toxic friend" who somehow always makes you feel bad about yourself, yet you keep spending time with her.

Anyone else run into this online?

I did run across a great resource that I've subscribed to in Google Reader, called 43 Folders. It's about finding the time and focus to do your best creative work. Many of you may already know about this site, since apparently it gets about 8 zillion hits a month. It's good stuff.

Facebook and MySpace have never been much of a draw for me, even though I have (poorly maintained) pages and I do have some "friends". I've pretty much abandoned most of the social networking sites in the name of time management.

On the other hand, Twitter has become a lifeline for me. There is a small group of writers I "follow" around and their regular updates on writing activities motivate me. Since I'm not posting or commenting on blogs as often, Twitter also scratches that itch to check in and be accountable for my writing.

And, the biggest danger to my limited attention span these days is the election. I've decided to watch the debates and I check out any links that my fellow Twitterers find noteworthy, but other than that, I am trying to stay away from the day to day speculation and soap opera aspects.

I do have a small achievement to share. I entered the Women on Writing Spring Flash Fiction Contest (my first submission anywhere) and I got an honorable mention for my piece called, The Frailty of Memory. If you go there, you'll have to scroll down for about ten minutes to find my name. There are quite a few winners, but I'm pretty happy about this small bit of external validation -- AND they're sending me free stuff too!

How is your writing going? Any tips or anecdotes to share on effective time management in the information age? How closely are you following the election coverage?