A Man Called Ove is a thoroughly entertaining of a lonely curmudgeon who is really actually a good person. The writing is humorous and swift. There is a lot of detail but it doesn't bog the story down unnecessarily. This is a story of big sweeping themes about love and loss, friendship and family, told through small details about one individual person. The story starts with Ove attempting to buy an iPad and slowly through the story in various back flashes and limited description from other characters, we get to see what has brought Ove to be the person he is, and why he is so desperately unhappy. I liked this book so much that I went home after finishing it and stayed up way too late watching the Swedish language version of the film (apparently a Tom Hanks version is in the works but no real facts on that yet) and I cried even though I knew EXACTLY what was going to happen. The movie doesn't have some of the lightness of the book, but it's extremely well done. Highly recommend.
4.5/5 Stars.
Philip K. Dick was ahead of his time when he penned A Scanner Darkly. Published in 1977, it is a gritty dystopian story of undercover narcotics informant Bob Arctor who lives in a house with other substance abusers. The world is divided between dopers and straights and never the two intermix. The straights have been taught that the dopers are mindless fiends for the drugs - substance D.When Arctor puts on a "scramble suit" causing him to appear as a faceless nameless blur, he takes on the persona of Fred, a narcotics agent charged, ironically with the surveillance of Bob Arctor, who seems to be making a play to become a heavy drug dealer. Because Arctor must consumer substance D in order to maintain his cover, the damage done to his brain causes him to suffer a rift in his reality, where eventually he no longer recognizes that Fred and Bob Arctor are one in the same. It's brilliantly painful, and slowly wrought as Dick's writing makes smaller and smaller moves to make us aware of the breakdown. At once a condemnation of the damage done by drugs, without condemnation of the users, Dick's story came from a deeply personal place, evident by the epilogue in which he lists the names of several people who died or became disabled due to their drug use. The novel also serves as an early condemnation of the war on drugs, which criminalized small dealers, but created an industry that required the addicts in order to operate. I can only imagine this was difficult to write. There were times when the story moved frustratingly slow, but mostly it was a pleasure to read.
4/5 Stars.
Well here goes another review about a book about which I'm not sure how to feel. On the one hand, I like the journalistic straight-forward delivery of The Stranger in the Woods. The book tries to avoid stating a belief one way or the other in the morality of Christopher Knight and what he did surviving in the woods for 27 years on his own. And it presents views of those who both admire and despise him. The story is about Christopher Knight. A Maine man who walks away from society and carves out a camp for himself in the Maine woods, close to a cottage community from whom he steals in order to survive. Is he a parasite on this community? Yes. But was his attempt to live alone the most simple life he could muster admirable? Maybe. Hard to say and it probably depends on what traits in other humans you admire. And all of this conflict is fine and should exist in a book like this. The part I didn't enjoy was near the end, where the author becomes more of a character in the story and less an observer. It had the intrusive questionable ethics feeling of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Christopher Knight walked away into the woods and stayed there for 27 years, never even lighting a fire in the dead of winter in order to be alone and unobserved. I admit it's fascinating, but clearly this is how this man lived and would have continued to want to live had he not been caught in the midst of a burglary. So when a journalist continually visits the man in jail and goes to visit even after the man has told the journalist that his deepest desire is to be left alone, where should the line be drawn? When does the quest for the story steamroll over the man's privacy? He did not inject himself into the public limelight, indeed he did the opposite. I can feel the author's own struggle with this question in the last chapters, but ultimately it just left a bad feeling for me. Like I, in reading this book, have participated and assisted in the intrusion into a deeply private person's life. Towards the end of the book, Knight tells the author that he can write whatever he wants, "after [Knight] is gone." But since he hasn't died, I would suspect that the publishing of this book is exceptionally painful to him and his family.
3/5 Stars.
Wow. What a painful and powerful story. Their Eyes Were Watching God is about a naive but strong willed teenager, Janie Crawford who bows to her grandmother's influence and marries a man decades her senior. A former slave, her grandmother had visions and hopes for Janie that were different from Janie's own. And a loveless marriage makes Janie ache for those things she wants for herself. In order to find happiness she runs off with another man who promises her more freedom, only to find out that this man's definition of freedom is not her own. It is only as a wealthy but still young and beautiful widow that Janie meets Tea Cake, a young gambler who gives her a taste of the life she really wants. Their love story is simple and complicated at the same time. With great love comes great tragedy, and Hurston hits the notes perfectly.Years ahead of its time in themes of feminism, self-discovery, and self-determination for women, Janie is a force, an unforgettable heroine in the midst of lesser models.
4.5/5 Stars.
Galveston was a good start for a new writer. The pace moved well. The writing, for the most part, was smooth and well structured. In essence, the story is about Roy Cady, a strong man for a New Orleans criminal organization run by Stan Ptiko. Stan's new girlfriend had a prior fling with Roy and it appears that Stan is not about to let that go. Right after Roy gets some bad news about a terminal illness, Stan asks him to go do a job, but to go "unarmed." Hmmm.... Roy gets suspicious and doesn't listen. Which is good because it turns out to be a setup. In the process of rescuing himself he also rescues a teenage prostitute.The two head off to Galveston where Roy wrestles with his prognosis, a drinking problem, and a desire to do something good with the days that are left to him. Both he and Rocky, the prostitute are broken people, trying to figure out how to live life on the straight and narrow when neither have had any experience at it. So the elements of a good story are all there, and it was in the end, fulfilling to watch these two broken people be broken, but try very desperately to get something, anything right in their lives. Some scenes stretched credulity and some of the flashback writing style led to a lot of confusion. Some elements of the characters and some plot points didn't make sense. All in all this was a solid book, but lacked some finer tuning which would have made it really good.
3/5 Stars.
The One from the Other was a little all over the place. I still like Bernie Gunther and his wit. In this installment it's no different. The story begins with Bernie travelling to Palestine with a young Adolph Eichmann. Bernie is there to set up a bank account and property for a Jewish business owner emigrating with the assistance/urging of the SD. Eichmann is there to see if he can make a few alliances that will help Germany strategically. Then we fast forward to after the war and Bernie is living in Dauchau at his father-in-law's hotel while his wife, Kiersten is in a mental hospital following a break down. Following Kiersten's death, Bernie travels to Munich to set up shop as a private investigator again. However, the clients who keep coming in are looking to help former SS war criminals awaiting German amnesty. Bernie doesn't' have a lot of enthusiasm for the work, but when a good looking woman shows up trying to find her missing husband, he doesn't ask many questions to figure out his motives. This leads to some further violence and well... the plot gets really twisty and turn-y after that. I still enjoyed reading/listening to this book, but at times I felt the history lessons were turning into filler.
3/5 Stars.
It's Ploughshares Time! Do you subscribe yet? There are a lot of good stories in this Winter 2017-2018 Edition. So here are some of my favorites:Fiction:The War Ghosts Bureau by Eric Fair was achingly delicious and dark. I loved so much about this story. Its subtle moments and its over the top moments. It deftly explores the theme of collective guilt and the dirty secret of the paltry percentage of Americans who serve in the modern all-volunteer armed forces. In order to avoid the burden of collective guilt, former military personnel are required to carry their ghosts around with them until they achieve understanding and forgiveness. If they start to lift the burden on themselves and forget their deeds in war, the War Ghosts Bureau is there to keep them in check. It's brilliant. Almost by Carol Dines explores a complicated sister relationship wherein one sister seems to make herself the patron saint of lost causes (despite Jude already having that job) and the other sister tries to keep her distance so as not to entangle herself in the drama. I love stories that explore siblinghood. I think it's one of the most important relationships you can have in your life. And this story's exploration of siblinghood into adulthood was excellent and nuanced. Minnows by Nathan Go is the story of five sailors living on a beached ship claiming territory for the Philippines, or rather, keeping the Chinese from claiming the territory. It's a lonely duty and frankly a situation I had just never thought of before. I love that Ploughshares can take me to far away lands and worlds and existences of which I know nothing about.Il Piccolo Tesoro by Valerie Miner was a lovely story of strangers who live in a pensione in Italy and come to be a family under the watch of the Scottish proprietor. It was a cute diverting story that took me back to my twenties and days spent in a cafe in Italy and not quite grasping the novelty and luck that had brought me there. Nonfiction: Eulogy by Patricia Foster is a great story in which a wife uncovers the past of her mother in law. Her husband's painful childhood is brought into clearer focus as the wife comes to terms with the woman her mother-in-law had been. It has that muddy clarity of grace we can offer people as we get older.Poetry:It's so hard to describe what it poems are about or what makes them my favorites in Ploughshares. Some I like because of the lyrical quality. Others I like because of the meter, or I'm struck by a single line, a single word. So without further explanation, here are the poems that struck me, stuck with me, inspired me, comforted me, or merely amused me:Theodicy by J. Estanislao LopezGlimpse by Amy GerstlerThe Woman Who Had the Job by Jenny IrishPavlov was the Son of a Priest by Paige LewisMementomori.com by Owen McLeodEpistle from the Hospital for Cheaters by Jenny MolbergFine Despite by Dzvinia Orlowsky
4/5 Stars.
