The Mercy Papers, Robin Romm.

My path to this book was pretty typical for me - it was featured in the Sunday NYT Book Review with outstanding reviews attached. Coming straight out of the holidays with giftcards burning holes in my pockets I tried to stave off the feeling that I had to have this book (I mean, I have so many I haven't read yet), but there was something about it that made me need to buy it.

Maybe it was the picture on the front cover. It's kind of haunting, don't you think? I mean, to the random passerby in the bookstore, it's reminiscent of childhood. As I read the book, though, I came to realize the significance of the popsicles lies in the fact that, as Romm's mother nears death, its one of the only foods she can still stomach.

Part of the reason I loved this book so much is because of how close I've grown to my mother over the past few years. Moving out of the shadow of teenage angst and curfew arguments really does wonders for a relationship. Most notably, I catch myself thinking about how she felt when her mother died my freshman year of college and how that will, eventually, happen to me someday as well. There was something about the way Romm described it that was mentioned in the NYT review that just hit home all too accurately.

“She’s building a boat to sail my mother out. . . . Barb will build the boat of morphine and pillows and then I will have no mother and the days will be wordless and empty.”

And then I will have no mother and the days will be wordless and empty. I must have read that sentence thirty times over that Sunday morning and decided I had to buy the book the Tuesday it came out. So I made it until Wednesday, broke down and bought it, and read it over the following weekend.

To be honest, it was all such an emotional blur, I don't even know if I should say whether it's good or not. When something is that truthful and that honest, you can't label it "good" or "bad," it just is the truth. Does that make sense? There were moments late at night that weekend where I would read with tears streaming down my face, feeling so much pain for Romm, feeling so much frustration for her mother, the exhaustion of her father. Knowing that someday that will be me is a terrifying thought, but one almost all of us think from time to time.

This book is just incredible. It effortlessly struggles with the anger, the grief, the acceptance, the anticipatory sorrow (because by the time it actually happens, you can't feel much of anything). And I say it effortlessly struggles because obviously there's a struggle. There's a struggle of Romm to accept her mother won't be around forever and that, at this point, there's nothing she can do but be there and wait. There's the struggle of her mother, a once self-sufficient woman, to resign herself to death and dependence upon everyone else in the meantime. And yet Romm's words in no way stifle exactly what she wants to say when she wants to say it. So, in a way, it's effortless.

I'm well aware this is a meandering, train of thought type of discussion. I think turning this into a clean write up would make it lose some of its meaning. At the end of the day, this book was beautiful, sad, horrible, terrifying, and so painfully real that I couldn't stop turning the pages.

Revolutionary Road

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, Richard Yates

I know it seems like I'm jumping on the bandwagon with this one, but I actually finished it before the movie came out and before it graced the pages of the New York Times Bestseller list, so I guess you could say that I'm driving the bandwagon. Yes, I'm a trend-leader and all the rest of those people with the movie tie-in version of the book are just followers. Having said that, this book is fabulous. Since it's been more than a month, my comments on this will be brief. Yates has the clean, direct style that I loved in Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides. That's not to say that there's no descriptive prose, just that you don't get this feeling that entire chapters, passages, characters are unnecessary. In fact, just the opposite, there are only 7 characters that are actually people with sides, nuances, personalities. The rest are merely background noise, stereotypes of who they are and what they should be, and their sole purpose for existing is to be literary devices for Yates in the lives of his central characters.

I'm sure everyone has been peppered with the synopsis of this book from TV, movies, etc., so you all get the drift. Suburban malaise in the most painful and deadly way. Two twenty-somethings who are convinced they are destined to lead more extraordinary lives than settling in Connecticut and raising 2.5 children, they have always planned for something greater than their current situation. When it reaches the point of being unbearable, they make plans to escape their predetermined destiny and, well, plans just sort of unravel from there.

Yates is a beautiful writer. I regret being unable to say more about it, but I waited a long time from finishing it to writing it up (mostly due to turmoil in my own life). Having said that, it really is worth the read, beautifully written, identifiable characters. It has a haunting quality that nags at me long after I finished.

I bet you thought I was gone for good...

While I will admit that it's somewhat embarrassing to take four months to finish a book (The Grapes of Wrath), that in no way diminished the pride I felt the day after I turned the four hundredth and sixty something page and realized I'd reached the end. Since I started Grapes, I quit my job, moved 1000 miles, went (and still am going) through a break-up, and am working in a new field of interest, so it's been quite a tumultuous road. Needless to say, I haven't been reading every night and, for awhile there, I had to force myself to power through.
That said, the book is very well written (obviously, it's Steinbeck) and I was amazed at Steinbeck's ability to craft words in ways that, until now, I hadn't thought possible. I wish I could sit down and write something coherent about the book, but given that I read it over such a long period of time, I really don't think I can do it justice. Aside from the beautifully crafted prose and chapters of descriptive narrative, I thought that the most astonishing part was the end. It was sudden, and contradictory to what I felt the story arch should be, and yet now I look back and think that if I had been in Steinbeck's position, I don't know if I would've written the story to a conclusion either.

The vast number of migrant workers that moved from the Midwest to California during the Dust Bowl didn't become the prosperous, independent business owners they had dreamt they would be. The sudden influx of labor created an enormous surplus in a market that had, at one point, needed workers, but now had more than they knew what to do with. Wages plummetted below the standard of living and suddenly the people that had transplanted themselves in hopes of starting life anew found they were in a position much worse than before. Families broke apart in the face of unanticipated stressors: prejudice, threats of communism, police brutality, to name a few.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am starting to see why Steinbeck didn't finish out each character's trajectory. Yes, he could've written about how the family serendipitously encountered food, found work, and managed to survive, but his aim wasn't to write an uplifting novel describing an outcome that happened only for the very few. Steinbeck obviously wanted to write about what really happened. For the most part, these people were forcibly removed from the land where they had been for generations and transplanted to another part of the country where they faced the harsh reality of what had always been their situation. Yes, they had always been on the brink of poverty, but the closeness of their family and the simplicity of their lives had obscured that fact from view. With the elimination of their property, they became a transient working class with no skills other than manual labor at their disposal. Most of them became unemployed and with no work, there was no money; with no money, there was no food; with no food, most wouldn't like to extrapolate outward.

Sure, Steinbeck leaves the end up to the reader's imagination, but manipulating the story to a positive end would involve some sort of deus ex machina vehicle that is so clearly unrealistic that the end is effectively written without writing. It's striking in so many ways, it really leaves you sitting there with a hollow feeling about the whole thing. While I could wish the ending was different for the Joad family, it just, well, isn't.

Moving on, I'm getting back on the reading/writing horse. Next up is Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. Goal is to finish it before it is in theaters (December 25). I'm actually quite excited for the movie version because it's gotten a significant amount of buzz, it is no doubt going to be Kate Winslet's sixth Oscar nomination, and the director has a fair amount of experience adapting written work to film (American Beauty).

In the meantime

So it's that time of (four) year.  The presidential election is upon us and it's what everyone's trying to keep themselves from talking about.  Even though we know it's borderline inappropriate to discuss personal political views at work, we're all doing it.  I'm trying not to offend anybody in the process, but, at the same time, I feel like my doing so is unavoidable.  I feel like I'm losing control to politics - it's all I can talk about, all I can think about, all that I care about?  This blog is the last politics-free area of my life and I want it to stay that way.  So obviously, I'm starting a separate blog on politics and current events.  It will be a group venture and a learning experience at the same time.  I'm quite excited about it and will link to it on my blog links once it is up and running.

In the meantime, I'm still enjoying The Grapes of Wrath and Google's new internet browser, Chrome.  For more details, click here.

Would you like Pommes Frites with that?

Waiter Rant by The Waiter (Steve Dublanica), Ecco 320 pages.

This weekend I only managed to finish Waiter Rant. Among other things, I had to reinstall Windows (see earlier post), treat a heat rash, and get rid of a migraine, so, needless to say, it was a busy three days. Still don't feel much like myself, but I figured I'd write up my thoughts on this book.

Waiter Rant is a brief look at a few years in the life of a New York waiter. Pseudonyms are used to protect the innocent (presumably the author himself), though Steve Dublanica has since come forward as the author of both the blog and subsequent book that has raised so many eyebrows.

I had read a bit of his material at his blog (http://www.waiterrant.net/). I enjoyed his writing, at least at the blog level, and figured I'd pick up his book. The book itself is pretty good - the writing is witty, very conversational, and I can identify with most of the horror stories from my brief stint as a server at Bertucci's Brick Oven Ristorante. His stories are assorted and funny, well-written, and I could see how it would be easy to get swept up in just telling stories. Instead, Dublanica keeps the pace well and the overall plot also has a healthy arch to it - beginning with his entry to the restaurant industry, ending with his departure.

It's an entertaining read, but like anything of this sort, it's sort of disposable. I mean, I enjoyed reading his stuff, but I guess I'm more in the mood for something a little more substantial? weighty? significant? I think it's unfair of me to criticize his piece with my whining for non-fiction. If I want non-fiction that is socially relevant, then that's what I should read. Bottom line: The book accomplishes what it sets out to do. It's entertaining, a well-written, fun, light read, and allows you to exercise your empathy for the serving staff among us.

The 1% Well-Read Challenge

I stumbled onto the 1% Well-Read Challenge and decided to give it a go. The premise is to read 10 books in 10 months (easy enough) and they have to be on the "1001 Books to Read Before you Die" list (also easy enough). The list is pretty exhaustive though some of mine aren't on there. I've joined late, so please allow me to put one that I've already read and reviewed as my first selection. Here are my ten.

Totally Random

I read PostSecret a lot. Today's was particularly disturbing, only because I know someone who would do something like this.

More on 'American Wife'

Sorry if I'm dwelling on this title, but Sittenfeld's Prep is really a great piece of literature, even if it isn't high-minded. Her character development and realistic plotlines make for gripping stuff... even if she isn't John Grisham. Her books are page-turners in other ways, and I admire that.

Here's a link to an interview with her.

And it appears she drew the short or long straw, depending on how Kakutani feels about it. The official review is here - the one I posted yesterday was by Joyce Carol Oates and was more reflective/descriptive. I haven't read it yet, but I'm praying for Sittenfeld's soul as Kakutani can be ruthless.

Curtis Sittenfeld, part deux

Curtis Sittenfeld, author of the great book Prep, has a new one out 'American Wife'. Here's the review. I'm not sure I'm interested in polisci chicklit, but it may be worth a read.

NYTimes 'American Wife' Review.

A Post-Trojan World.

I remember a time when I didn't have internet access. I remember a time when I didn't compulsively check my email or surf the internet. Without waxing nostalgic, I'm just going to say, boy, are those times over.

Two nights ago, my McAfee virus scan caught wiff of a virus. Ironically, I had run a scan a few days before that and there were no unusual results. This stubborn virus reared its ugly head quickly and powerfully. All of a sudden, I couldn't run any internet browsers. In the blink of an eye, I had no email. I started running multi-hour system scans. Each and every time I could detect the existence of the virus, but it couldn't be moved, deleted, or cleaned.

And it was all I could think about! The more stubborn the virus was, the later I stayed up. I'd just sit there in the dark, watching the DNC and contemplating my next move. Nothing I did worked. All the advice I researched at work was powerless against this crazy virus. And so I had no choice. After many discussions with myself and with others, I realized that the only solution would be to reinstall Windows.

I mean, this wasn't entirely unpredictable. My computer is 3 years old and has been gradually slowing down over the last several months. But I was really dreading this. Operating systems are one of those mysteriously complex pieces of software. It's not like updating iTunes, this is unchangeable stuff here.

I began my preparations. Putting my most valuable files onto my external harddrive felt a lot like packing before the gestapo raids your house: totally unsure if you have everything you need, if you're leaving anything behind, and fully knowing that everything left behind will be gone when you get back.... if you get back. I took my time looking through some of it. There were the 12 pages of memoir I wrote when I was 17 that has been moved through three computers in hopes of being continued, my senior thesis, pictures from my whole college career, and my music. The most important part I think - all $600 of iTunes glory.

So maybe I was overly emotional about the whole thing. It went fine, although I still harbor resentment against the powers that be for making me spend over 12 hours on this thing. At least it's a 3-day weekend and I staved off purchasing a multi-thousand dollar machine. I know it's only a matter of time, especially coming up on year four of abuse. I mean, this thing used to go everywhere with me throughout college: class, the theater, the dining hall, that one time I went to the library (not that I didn't study... just that the other people studying stressed me out. long story).

So I'm up and running again. Thankfully.