Book reviews

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Idiot America is a book filled with little that will surprise anyone who has been watching the devolution of U.S. politics, debate and public thought over the last forty (or more) years.

Pierce uses a series of events–the war in Iraq, the Terry Schiavo life-support battle, efforts to give “intelligent design” (creationism) equal footing in public schools–and couples them with observations and actions regarding the necessity of intelligent government and an informed, educated populace from the founders of America to paint a bleak picture of the current state for what passes for discussion (he argues there is little to no actual debate) in the current U.S. landscape. It is a relentlessly bleak picture, punctuated by the occasional triumph that shines like a diamond in a bin of coal.

Pierce presents his premise as such: intellect and expertise have somehow become regarded as undesirable qualities, things to be mistrusted or rejected outright. It is more important to have a president you’re comfortable having a beer with than one who can make nuance, evidence-based decisions on matters of foreign and domestic policy. The soundbite is better than the essay, hair is more important than the brain that resides beneath it.

Pierce argues that the gut (or Gut, as he calls it) has come to dominate thinking, with emotion displacing rationality and logic, where cranks who once had an audience no larger than the people passing by listening to them exhort their conspiracy theories on a street corner now have the wide reach of cable television and the instant access of the Internet to project their lunacy. At times caustically funny and by turns surprisingly lyrical, painting scenes with the care of a novelist, Pierce offers example after example of how idiocy has become ascendant.

As I read the book I found myself alternating between a sense of frustration and outright anger. The length to which people–who should be intelligent adults–fully and completely reject intelligent thought for ridiculous, easily-debunked hokum, is at times astonishing. If some fabrication is repeated often enough, Pierce says, it takes on the patina of truth. If enough people believe and believe fervently enough, it becomes indisputable fact. Actual facts no longer have any effect on these believers. People simply stop listening. There is no debate, there is no reaching out, there are only sides yelling at each other over who is right.

This is a depressing but important book. As I said at the beginning, there are no real surprises here, but Pierce catalogs the problems and hammers his points home. Given the circus that is the current group running for the Republican nomination for president, and given the wholesale manufacture of fiction in the guise of endless reality TV shows, it’s hard to believe that the situation is improving, but perhaps we can draw some hope that it can hardly get worse.

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Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m actually having a difficult time articulating my opinion of Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. On the positive side, David Wong (aka Jason Pargin) continues his breezy, effortlessly sarcastic way of writing that for me is the equivalent of a belly rub for a dog. Okay, that analogy was a little labored. Let me try again. I like the way Wong writes. His characters are smart and funny, the situations he puts them in are equally silly and dangerous and somehow all the gonzo stuff he throws together manages to work.

In this novel he shifts to third person to tell the story of Zoey Ashe, a young woman in the near(ish) future who inherits the estate of a father she never saw or liked much, along with technology that can turn an ordinary person into an unstoppable force of destruction (ie. a supervillain). The setting is a designed city in the Utah desert called Tabula Ra$a, a largely lawless place peopled by dozens of millionaires and those who work for, prey on and gawk at them.

So far, so zany. My first stumbling block is Zoey. She’s presented as tough and independent, but also makes some very (unbelievably) stupid decisions, usually in service to moving the plot forward. I really dislike characters doing things solely to keep the plot rolling. King was right–story is good, plot is bad. Wong does this a number of times throughout, using coincidences, slip-ups and kooky hijinks to make sure the plot continues from A to B to C.

On the other hand, the novel is less about the clever machinations of the characters and more reveling in the excesses of this future world that takes the smartphone/always-connected thing to its ludicrous conclusion, where everyone has a video camera, a live feed and the insatiable need to draw an audience, whether through quirky or homicidal means.

Tone is another issue here. As the title promises, there is violence aplenty and much of it is graphic. While many of the characters are cartoonish, some are genuinely repugnant in their actions (even as they are simultaneously ridiculous in presentation). The main villain, Molech, is a self-obsessed diva who brutalizes Zoey repeatedly, all of it depicted in vivid detail. It feels a bit at odds with the sillier parts of the story, but maybe it’s just edgy and I have insufficient hipness left to appreciate it, given that I am mere years away from wearing suspenders and inexplicably hiking my pants up to my nipples (which is to say, getting older). None of this was enough to keep me from wanting to see how it all turned out, but it did lessen the experience a bit. Maybe I just don’t like reading (in detail) about terrible physical violence being inflicted on people.

The big finale also felt a bit thrown together and was anti-climactic, but wasn’t actually bad. I mean, we’re talking barely registering on the It-o-meter for bad endings. Still, it could have been better.

If you liked Wong’s two previous novels, you’ll almost certainly like Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. In the end it’s a goofy, gory, gross ride whose strengths overcome its weaknesses. It’s not as good as This Book is Full of Spiders but it’s still a fun read, with more than a few laughs tucked in among the copious flying bullets, severed heads and talking toilets.

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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This time I took notes.

With a few weeks to go before I dive into my seventh National Novel Writing Month competition, I cast about for an inspirational book to read, to get me pumped up while I flail about for an idea for my novel. Getting pumped up reduces the chance of injury when flailing about, you see.

This is the third time I’ve read On Writing and perhaps surprisingly–given how often King’s books come out in revised editions–the text remains unchanged from the book’s original publication in 2000. This is not a complaint, mind you, as my five-star rating will attest.

What is it about On Writing that makes it work so well? Is it the best book to cover the nuts and bolts of writing? No. Is it the best autobiography of a writer? No. Is the best book to offer inspiration and advice to new writers? No.

But what it does so well is cover everything King sets out to tackle, which is all of the above. King fuses together a solid how-to book on writing with solid (if common sense) advice and tosses in a dramatic curriculum vitae in which the author’s life at one point actually hangs by a thread. More than anything, King has written an entertaining volume that appeals far beyond his usual horror milieu.

If you want his tips in super-condensed form, here they are (remember, this time I took notes):

– read a lot (he claims he is a slow reader and reads 70-90 books a year)
– write a lot (he writes 2,000 words seven days a week but suggests 1,000 words six days a week)
– don’t watch a lot of TV
– passive voice is the worst thing ever
– adverbs come a close second
– cut out unnecessary words (King is admittedly not so great on this score)
– story is important, plot not so much
– write what you know but do so as broadly and inclusively as possible
– research when needed but remember where backstory goes (in the back)
– write what interests you, not what you think will sell or what you think people want
– write two drafts and a polish (the polish may be a third draft)
– take 2-3 days off writing when done with the first draft
– don’t revisit your writing until at least six weeks later
– don’t have others critique or offer feedback on your work until after the second draft (it’s not ready till then)

Don’t let my list dissuade you from reading On Writing, though. As I said above, this is pretty common sense advice, but King makes the list entertaining as hell, maybe even a little magical.

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Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first read this book when it was originally published in paperback in 1988. That was literally half a lifetime ago, as I was 24 at the time. Over the last few years I’ve been returning to some of the books I read in my teens and 20s, to see how they resonate with me now that I am older, if not entirely wiser.

The first thing to strike me upon re-reading this book 27 years later is that I could recall nothing of the story. I mean, yes, I knew there was a detective named Dirk Gently, I knew it was a bit weird and froopy in that Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sort of way, but I could not recall any real plot details at all, nor any of the characters. I vaguely remembered something about cats. Cats are mentioned several times, though they play no significant role in the novel. I think I just like cats and projected.

The plot is a convoluted affair that unfolds like some complicated contraption you can’t recognize until it’s finished unfolding itself. You then stand back and say, “Aha, so that’s what it is!” Despite the narrative being at turns mysterious and then more mysterious still, Adams keeps events moving along briskly and the characters are more nuanced than in Hitchhiker’s, while still apt to say clever things we could only wish to come up with in our daily conversations. Eventually the mysteries come clear–the story is a time travel/ghost/romantic comedy of sorts that follows a few very peculiar days in the life of a software engineer who can’t remove a stuck sofa from his staircase–and all ends well, given the previously unrevealed cosmic scale of the stakes at hand.

What impresses me most about the book, and this may seem an odd thing to say in context of Adams, is how mature the writing is. There are ideas on the interplay of math, science, art, philosophy, mortality and more here, handled with wit and grace and occasionally genuine pathos (the scenes of Gordon Way after his meeting with the electric monk stand out vividly in their depiction of despair and sadness). I suspect when I was 24 most of this was lost on me, as I was expecting a Hitchhiker’s retread, which Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is very much not. Unfulfilled, my brain apparently flushed nearly all memory of the book, to better make room for all that great late 80s music and fashion. I forgot Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency but remember parachute pants.

I very much recommend this novel for those not needing their stories filled with car chases and instant gratification, or for anyone who has ever been flummoxed by seemingly immovable furniture.

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The only problem with the short novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane is just that–it’s short. The ending almost feels abrupt and though it comes at the end of an act, the story overall feels like it could serve as the opening to a longer tale.

But in a way it’s better by being so short. Rather than feeling slight, Gaiman’s story of a young boy inadvertently tangling himself between worlds in early 1970s Sussex feels neat and proper. In the author’s notes Gaiman recalls that he read the story aloud as he wrote it and how it benefited from this. You can see the evidence in the sturdy and somewhat melancholic narration of the protagonist, struggling to deal with situations seven year olds regularly have trouble with–parents, younger sisters, getting picked on at school–let alone having to grapple with the more supernatural elements that swirl in and around the matriarchal Hempstock farm where the titular “ocean” is situated.

By turns amusing, terrifying and nostalgic, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Gaiman in fine form. Anyone who enjoys his work will not go wrong here.

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Forever Odd by Dean Koontz

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I generally don’t like committing to a series but Odd Thomas is the kind I like. No epic story spanning ten 1,000 page tomes, just a series of short adventures featuring the same character that can be digested easily without consulting appendices to keep track of everything.

I would give Forever Odd 3.5 stars if Goodreads believed in fractions and the only reason it doesn’t rate higher is because it is an overall less ambitious outing with Odd Thomas that strips away much of the mystery and suspense of the debut novel in favor of a kidnapping orchestrated by a crazy and unpleasant woman. It’s interesting but not as rich or compelling.

The strength of the story is again the way Koontz utterly inhabits the character of Odd, taking full advantage of the first person narrative to take us on Odd’s journey into a gutted casino hotel in the desert where he confronts both the kidnappers and the tragic events of the first novel, emerging broken but not beaten (and conveniently setting up the third novel).

The plot is nothing special, starting with a kidnapping, an unnecessary murder (Koontz’s recurring theme in the series seems to be “life is awful and tragic and you will probably die horribly”) and quickly settles into an extended set piece that pits Odd against the villains. The villains are by turns vile, obnoxious, cruel and at times seemingly indestructible. Odd relies on a combination of skill, supernatural smarts and plain luck to get through.

While the book is short I wouldn’t exactly call it breezy. As with the first, Odd’s self-deprecating humor is regularly undercut by terrible events. Somehow Koontz manages to keep things light and dark at the same time–a good trick when you think about it.

Forever Odd is, then, a successful continuation of the series, even if it is somewhat slighter than the original.

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Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought Station Eleven as a daily deal and went in with no expectations.

I’m not exactly a post-apocalypse aficionado but very much enjoyed this vignette-style book that begins on the eve of a deadly flu that kills most of the world’s population, then jumps back and forth over the next twenty years, covering its aftermath primarily through the lives of The Traveling Symphony, a group that has banded together to travel around the Great Lakes area, performing Shakespeare and classical music to the small communities that arise after society’s collapse.

While there is a main thread to follow in the story’s present day, the author frequently jumps into the past (including the pre-flu era), yet the narrative never gets bogged down or confusing. Instead, Emily St. John Mandel carefully assembles the characters, their intertwined lives, hopes and ideas as a tapestry where everything is connected in some way, the titular comic Station Eleven, created by a character who succumbs to the flu in a delirium while on a beach in Malaysia, being the main linking device. The link is both literal–it goes from its creator to her ex-husband, an actor, then to a child who grows up to be a member of The Traveling Symphony–and metaphorical, as its science fiction tale depicts a split among people living on an artificial moon whose environmental systems have malfunctioned. It’s perhaps not a deep metaphor, but it is effective.

There is violence and madness in the post-collapse world but rather than being a grim depiction of a possible future, we are presented with the notion that some–maybe even most–want to do more than merely survive. A career therapist constructs a “museum of civilization” at an airport, gathering the detritus of our modern lives now rendered useless–iPhones, laptops, credit cards–to remember what humans had achieved. The Traveling Symphony, in its caravan of gutted motor vehicles, now drawn by horses, bears a quote on one of the wagons from Star Trek: Voyager of all things: “Survival is insufficient.” It is these three words that best exemplify the drive of the characters, the need to not merely manage in the post-plague world, but to keep art alive, to nurture the mind and spirit as human civilization re-shapes and mends itself.

It’s a hopeful message and Station Eleven is ultimately a hopeful story. Recommended.

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