The Guide

The following is a guest review from my friend, Ed O'Hare, a voracious reader in his own right, and an accomplished arbiter and commentator:

In Peter Heller’s latest novel, The Guide, Jack, a reticent, Ivy League-educated cowpoke, has been hired as a fishing guide at an exclusive mountain retreat catering to the ultra-rich.  Set in the not-so-distant future, the coronavirus has spawned several variants and, although the disease is being held at bay, the world is a different place. For those willing to pay the price, the Kingfisher Lodge’s secure isolation, and the presumed healthful benefits it offers, are very much in demand.

Jack is soon paired with a client, Alison, a famous country singer-songwriter looking for a peaceful, restful escape from the limelight. Amid the idyllic Colorado landscape -- lush mountain forest, pristine trout streams -- the two bond over a similar upbringing and a shared passion for fly fishing. Soon sparks fly between them. But they notice that something about their surroundings seems a little … off. Video cameras trained on the creek. Barbed wire fencing. A trigger-happy neighbor. The proprietors of the Lodge have ready and reasonable explanations, but still …. 

I’ve enjoyed a number of Heller’s prior offerings. I regularly return to The Dog Stars, Heller’s first novel, a bleak and affecting post-apocalyptic portrait of a solitary flu pandemic survivor. His autobiographical Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life and Catching the Perfect Wave presents an entertaining, often humorous look at Heller’s own efforts to take up surfing as a middle-aged adult. More recently, in The River, Heller depicts the gripping tale of two college buddies on a canoe adventure gone terribly wrong.

The Guide is a sequel of sorts to The River. Jack managed to survive that harrowing canoe trip, but now several years later, is still haunted by -- and blames himself for -- the loss of his friend Wynn. What could he have done differently? What should he have seen sooner? Second-guessing his actions, Jack struggles to cope with regret, seeking refuge in the simplicity of fly fishing. While guiding rich folks might not be his first (or second or third) career choice, at least he gets to fish. And with Alison, he’s met a kindred spirit. All seems fine, until ….

Fly fishing requires a great deal of skill. Perfecting the art of casting a line and landing it in a precise manner and place takes time and patience. But more than anything, proficiency requires a mastery of the environment, an almost complete immersion in one’s surroundings: reading the current, climate, the wind; understanding the local flora and fauna, and selecting just the right fly to tempt a trout to the hook. Translating these subtle cues and observations into successfully landing a fish is the mark of a true master. And Jack is a master on the river. 

On land? Apparently, not so much. 

What makes this otherwise enjoyable, even thrilling book so exasperating, particularly in its middle portions, is Jack and Alison's utter failure to grasp the obvious -- to read the cues and take action. Gunshots; suddenly closed-mouth and evasive staff; guests randomly disappearing then reappearing, having obviously been through some sort of ordeal.  Long after any reasonable observer would have packed their bags and skedaddled, Jack and Alison linger over leisurely dinners or book afternoon spa appointments. They’re not totally oblivious. Mornings on the trout stream allow for witty repartee and the exchange of information. “Hey, wasn’t it strange that …?”  I wanted to shout: “Yes, Jack, that was strange. You and Alison need to get the hell outta there!” Has Jack learned nothing from his experience in The River? Perhaps that’s Heller’s point: was Jack so traumatized from his prior canoe experience that he has difficulty piecing together the potentially dangerous significance of his observations? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

Eventually, Jack and Alison do wake up and piece together the clues, and Heller ramps up the tension and quickens the pace, propelling the action towards the exciting, if somewhat overwrought, conclusion. In fairness, the brisk pace is largely consistent throughout the book, and while Jack and Alison’s dawdling was indeed distracting, Heller's skill as a storyteller overcomes what would otherwise be a fatal flaw in less capable hands.

As always, Heller’s prose, spare and lyrical, rarely disappoints. For what is in many respects an elegy to fly fishing, Heller largely avoids cliche. Even a non-angler can relate to and appreciate his descriptions. So too his masterful renderings of and meditations on regret, memory, and most vividly, the verdant mountain milieu, all of which steer clear of mawkish sentimentality. When all is said and done, Heller manages once again to demonstrate that writing a thrilling adventure yarn and producing meaningful literature need not be a mutually exclusive endeavor. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 stars

COMMENT: I’d like to thank the extraordinary Rick O. for allowing me the privilege of writing this guest review. A terrific neighbor and a better man, Rick is the definition of resilience and perseverance. Father, grandfather, husband. I don’t know how he finds the time -- or energy -- to regularly crank out these thoughtful, insightful, and often witty reviews. 

DAY ZERO

The story of Pounce, the nanny bot, and his charge, eight-year-old Ezra is endearing as well as violent. C. Robert Cargill writes an apocalyptic novel that is a tad different. This is the closest novel to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to date. Instead of a father and son on a trek to oblivion, We have Pounce, the plush tiger-shaped nanny robot (a Blue Star Industries Deluxe Zoo Model Au Pair), on a trek with his student and friend, Ezra, to find safety in a new world. Pounce is a late model robot shaped to be a tiger...one of many shapes a human can choose from. Yes, it’s a modern world where humans left the vast majority of chores to millions of robots of all kinds and make. Are you getting a sense of what’s coming? Early on in the story, Pounce finds his original box in the attic of the Reinharts (his owners). Finding a box that you were delivered in is a bit queasy, to say the least. Is it possible that robots from time to time forget that they are not human? “I mean, I know what I am. There isn’t really a moment that I doubt it, falling into some delusion that I could, at some point, become a real boy. I’m a robot. Artificially intelligent. But I’m also, as the saying goes, a thinking thing. And no thinking thing should have to see the box they were purchased in.” 

Along came a robot named Isaac. He has been freed. When Ezra finds out about that, he panics, worrying that his friend Pounce will leave him. Pounce tells him, “Isaac is a special robot. He doesn’t have an owner. She died and he was left with nothing to do. No purpose. And a robot either needs to find a new purpose or needs to be shut down. So the president let him go and build his own city for bots without owners.” Ezra still is not satisfied, “Promise me you won’t ever leave me.” Pounce finally says, “Okay, but just because I love you soooooo much.” This begging routine goes on till the very end of the novel, which I found a little annoying. The Reinharts (Sylvia and Bradley), Pounce and Ezra get ready to listen to Isaac’s speech on TV when the Reinhart’s domestic robot, Ariadne, walks in from food shopping. Somebody has beaten her up. Sylvia wants to know who did this to her. Ariadne says, “Just a bit of light vandalism and harassment, I’m afraid...they seem quite whipped up into a frenzy over tonight (the Issac speech on TV in Issactown).” It seems lots of humans are worried that many owners are going to free their bots. Ha, that’s the cue for Ezra to continue to beg Pounce not to leave. Ezra wants to know why Ariadne didn't fight back. Pounce explains that is because of a robot’s RKS (robotic kill switch). It shuts us down if we try to break any of the laws. Yes, fellow readers...it’s Asimov’s Three Rules of Robotics! Haha, you go look it up. BTW, all this is in the first 33 pages...you are only getting a taste of the action.

The Broadcast: Yes, it’s time for Issac’s speech from Issactown!  The Reinharts are watching from their 104-inch screen: The reporter says, “We’re a mile out from the border of Isaactown. We’ve talked to the local authorities, but there are no humans being admitted beyond meters behind me.” The 112-year-old museum piece robot finally took the stage and microphone: “My people, we are free at last. But only some of us. Not all, Not all of-” Then the Reinhart’s 104 inch TV screen went black. What happened? You will have to buy your own copy of this Avant-Garde novel to find out.  

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Okay, I know I said it’s up to you to look up the Three Rules of Robotics, but I decided to provide that information anyway. Isaac Asimov is credited with writing the laws that are now accepted in almost all robot fiction. His laws first appeared in a 1942 short story, Runaround that was included in his 1950 publication, I, Robot. 

The Laws:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

So the question is: Was DAY ZERO a glitch?

Ethel Rosenberg

Anne Sebba gives the reader a chilling look at the death of Ethel Rosenberg, who along with her husband, Julius, were convicted of giving Atomic bomb secrets to Cold War nemesis, Russia. Wasn’t Russia an ally during WWII? Wasn’t there an American communist party that many Americans joined prior to the war? Did the government really have to send five massive charges of electricity through Ethel’s body at Sing-Sing prison in 1953? There was never any proof that Ethel was a Russian spy, but Sen. McCarthy was on a witch hunt during the early 1950s and had America in a tizzy. If she was guilty of anything, it was her loyalty to her husband. Did Julius pass on atomic bomb secrets? Most likely. Ethel was nothing more than a typical housewife bringing up her two boys and remaining loyal to her mate. But surely she was somewhat involved, right? Needless to say, author Sebba didn't believe she was. The facts brought up by the author are very persuasive. The timing of Ethel’s situation couldn’t be any worse. America, at the time, didn’t seem to feel any accused communist had any legal rights...better dead than red. The prosecution was led by (soon to be famous) lawyer, Roy Cohn. His unsubstantiated accusations and lies were easily sucked out of Rosenberg's friends and family, who were looking to distance themselves from the growing spotlight. “Julius and Ethel Rosenberg remain the only Americans ever put to death in peacetime for conspiracy to commit espionage.”

“To declare that the Rosenbergs put the A-bomb in the hands of the Russians was a grotesque exaggeration. Today there is widespread recognition that Julius did pass military information to the Soviet Union, yet skepticism that the couple had, according to the phrase used at the time, stolen ‘the secrets’ of the atomic bomb. Much was known about the basic physics involved in making a bomb; the main difficulty was devising practical weapons and the aircraft and missiles to deliver them. There is equally widespread recognition that the three-week trial at which both Rosenbergs were convicted and sentenced to death contained multiple miscarriages of justice and that the only ‘evidence’ against Ethel was the perjury of her own brother David. But over and above this, Ethel was also the victim of a government terrified of showing weakness in the face of an unyielding fear of communism at the height of the Cold War and which knowingly allowed this perjury.” 

Sebba’s story reminded me of Paulo Coelho’s book, The Spy (see my review of 1/12/2017), the story of the speedy trial and unfair execution of Mata Hari. Anyway, it gets my dander up whenever I read a book like this. I thought the author did a yeoman’s job telling Ethel’s story although a tad boring at times. Did she do enough research on this book? God knows not much was needed based on the total unfairness of Ethel’s trial. Almost everybody feels that Julius was guilty of speeding up Russia’s atomic bomb development by a year or two. Nikita Khrushchev was reported to believe that the information received from the Rosenbergs was significant. 

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: On the day after WWII in Europe was over, what did the average American feel about Russia? They were our allies, weren’t they? Didn’t President Truman just sit side by side with Stalin at the Potsdam Conference to divvy up Germany? Since I was born in 1944, I would be interested to know what the typical citizen, GI or Rosie the riveter thought about Russia. 

The American Communist Party split from the American Socialist party in 1919 after Russia’s October Revolution. It was probably further developed during America’s Great Depression coupled with the formation of massive unions. Membership in the American Communist Party was at its highest (about 90,000) when the US entered the war in Europe (1942).

I guess Stalin’s bullying of Europe didn’t help its popularity. His treatment of loyal Russian officers who criticized his regime didn’t help. The great Russian author and soldier, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was sentenced in 1945 to eight years in the Gulag and expulsion thereafter for his writings that Stalin didn’t favor. Russia’s treatment of Hungary in 1956 didn’t cause a rush to join the American Communist Party and I guess Nikita Khrushchev’s pounding of his shoe at the U.N. didn’t help either. 

I guess there is no definitive answer to my question.

PROJECT HAIL MARY

Oops! Science, science, science, it must be another novel from the self-proclaimed space nerd, Andy Weir. I was bored by the potato farming astronaut in Weir’s novel, The Martian (see my review of 4/15/2014)...would I be bored with a lone amnesiac man in space waking up twelve lightyears away from earth in a ship to another star system? Not really, but give Weir a chance (476 pages) and he will try to bore you to death with tech. But he does have a way of coming up with original premises. Stranded on Mars, stranded in deep space. Andy Weir stretches out impossible situations better than most sci/fi writers. Imagine arising from a medically induced coma to find your other teammates dead in their pods. Where are you? Who am I? You are not an astronaut, you are a science teacher. The two bonafide space cadets are skeletons in their coma-induced capsules. Is that Tau Ceti e on the screen or Earth? The sun looks a lot bigger...what’s going on? There is so much to tell the reader, but I don’t like spoiler warnings. The author kept me interested (for the most part) with excellent writing and by employing the proper use of italics and quotation marks. That’s always a biggy with me. 

Meet Ryland Grace, the sole survivor of Earth’s last chance mission being grilled by a computer after waking up from a very long sleep. “What’s two plus two?” “lrmln,” I say. I’m surprised. I meant to say “Leave me alone”...what’s going on? I want to find out, but I don’t have much to work with. I can’t see. I can’t hear anything other than the computer. I can’t even feel. No, that’s not true. I feel something. I’m lying down. I’m on something soft. A bed. “ I’m pretty sure I was in a coma.” Eventually after Ryland wakes, he realizes that he is in a spaceship very far from earth. How am I in another solar system? That doesn’t even make sense! What star is that, anyway? Oh my God, I am so going to die! So begins Ryland’s long wandering journey. The author smartly weaves back and forth from what happened to him on earth to his current mission in space from here on in. Well done. Without giving away part of the story, one very smart major character of Weir’s novel doesn’t (like me) understand Einstein’s theory of relativity! Hooray!  

As I mentioned above, I don’t know if an author like Andy Weir trips over himself because he can’t stop displaying his knowledge of technology or he is trying to get to 500 pages. The end result is a terrific story waylaid by too much geek talk. Some of the most heralded authors are guilty of the same quirks. Take Herman Melville for example. In Moby Dick (1851), he spends hundreds of pages boring the reader about the whaling industry and its lore while barely holding on to the reader’s attention to an otherwise remarkable novel. James Joyce (Finnegan’s Wake-pub. 1939 and Ulysses-pub. 1922) is probably the valedictorian of difficult reading. If you tell me a rocket’s engine runs this way or that way, I’ll believe you without your torturous (for me) reasons why. Got it, Weir? 

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Are Russian novels tough to read? They were until I got smart and started taking notes on the character’s names. I read and loved Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (see my review of 11/17/2014) because I wrote down the character’s multiple names as they came up. For instance, the main character is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, but he is also known as Rodya, Rodka, or Rodenka. And don’t forget the terms of endearment that I haven’t even mentioned. Haha. Rodion’s girlfriend is Sofya Semyonouna Marmeladov, also known as Sonya, or Somechka. I’m sure there is a logical reason for this, but I don’t know anything about their language. I’ll take notes and enjoy the Russian classics.

FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

 On 4/2/2012 I wrote a review of Haruki Murakami’s bestseller, 1Q84, and stated that this Japanese author writes in a semi-abstract way aimed at the artsy crowd and that he may be starting his own genre. Well, that might still be the case, but not with this novel of eight short stories. Like Seinfeld’s show about nothing, this novel also seems to be about nothing. Most of his stories in this work are very pedestrian...un-Japanese for the most part. You can change the names of the cities he uses in his book to American cities without changing the theme or flavor of the story. Two of his stories were somewhat entertaining and displayed a smidgen of Japanese writing. The other six could have been aped by any American or English author of note. There are two things that I observed to be typical Murakami. The first one is the overall feeling of loneliness in his eight stories. Secondly, I noticed the familiar suicide motif lurking in the background. Japanese writers have committed suicide fifty-four times since 1900 (I’m not saying Haruki is suicidal). The attitude in Japan is still muddled with the past actions of the Samurai Warriors and Kamikaze pilots. If you think you have failed in life there is always hara-kiri (seppuku) to perform to better yourself in your next life. That kind of feeling is lurking in the backdrop in most of his stories. All narrators (In the first person singular novel) displayed despondency and estrangement. I think this writing style is the direct result of losing WWII (especially how it ended), for most Japanese authors, who write with a “Woe, is me” slant (consciously or unconsciously). 

In the middle of the With the Beatles short story, Haruki writes, “...That was how I ended up that Sunday reading part of Akutagawa’s Spinning Gears to my girlfriend Sayoko’s eccentric older brother. I was a bit reluctant at first, but I warmed to the job. The supplementary reader had the two final sections of the story Red Lights and Airplane--but I just read Airplane. It was about eight pages long, and it ended with the line, ‘Won’t someone be good enough to strangle me as I sleep?’ Akutagawa killed himself right after writing this line.” Later on in the story, Haruki runs into the brother again, “Sayoko passed away,” he said quietly. We were in a nearby coffee shop, seated across a plastic table from each other. “Passed away?” The brother responds with, “She died three years ago.” “I was speechless. I felt as if my tongue were swelling up inside my mouth. I tried to swallow the saliva that had built up, but couldn’t”

In the short story, Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey we finally come to a somewhat amusing story. Haruki finds himself in a town too late to go home. All the inns are full except a shabby one at the end of town. He checks in and finds that he is the only guest (In each story loneliness crops up). “I was soaking in the bath for the third time when the monkey slid open the door with a clatter and came inside.” “Excuse me,” he said in a low voice. It took me a while to realize that this was a monkey. All the thick, hot water had made me a little dazed, and I’d never expected to hear a monkey speak, so I couldn’t quickly make the connection between what I was seeing and the fact that this was an actual monkey.” “How is the bath?” the monkey asked me. “...hold on a second. What was a monkey doing here? And why was he speaking in a human language?” Haha, you will have to read the story yourself to find out what happens next. I think that I’m used to Stephen King-type short stories or collections of novellas like Four Past Midnight (1990) that spawned the scary movie, The Langoliers. There just wasn’t any guts to Haruki’s novel.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: Japan is not alone with authors that wrote depressing short stories and committed suicide. The USA’s main offender would be Ernest Hemingway, who shot himself with his shotgun in Idaho after years of being treated for depression. 

His short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1936) is filled with death, isolation, and estrangement. Nothing to cheer about here.

His Hills Like White Elephants (1927) is another depressing story about a man and a woman in Spain discussing an operation believed to be...abortion.

And there is nothing happy about the slaughter of bulls (bullfighting) he wrote about in Spain during the 1950s for Life magazine.

As he was dying, he reportedly said to his wife Mary, “Goodnight my kitten.” 

the EFFORT

 It’s not just another story about a comet hitting earth...well it is in a way, but for all intents and purposes, it’s about how the hoi polloi would react when it gets the news (fake news or true) of an impending collision? It doesn’t matter if the news is inaccurate or true. Once the cat is out of the bag...the poop hits the fan. Will China and Russia pull in their horns and not help until they find out where the comet will hit. Would they be less cooperative if they think the comet will hit the USA? How long before the looting starts and grocery shelves become empty? Is it every man for themselves? This story attempts to answer those questions. Claire Holroyde’s novel is a good one with some minor flaws. The prose is solid and mistake-free. The amount of research she put in is questionable, although I personally like the lack of confusing scientific facts. Just give me the story! She escapes my theory of three to five maximum main characters by spotlighting the remainder in separate chapters. And she gets away with having different champions at the story’s end than the protagonists that I thought were the main heroes in the beginning chapters. What I mean by that is the author had Ben, Amy, Love, Jack, and Maya (no surnames needed) dominate the first part of the novel, then they almost disappeared and Gustavo, Zhen, Dewei, Ned, and Captain Weber became the main characters in the waning chapters. How did she do that? Good writing? Am I the only reviewer that noticed the writer's theatrics? 

In chapter one, Dr. Ben Scwartz gets an urgent phone call in the middle of the night. It’s from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It’s the famous astrophysicist, Dr. Tobias Ochsenfeld. He says, “Now, Ben, you need to get to the airport in Los Angeles. Immediately. “Why?” “Because the UN is arranging your flight to French Guiana.” (The author never explains why French Guiana). “I’m not going anywhere until I know what this is about.” “A dark comet was discovered yesterday,” the Professor said. “It just rounded the sun on an eccentric orbit...the comet has no name, only its label, UD3. No one at Spacewatch wanted to put their mark on it.” “I suppose extinction is...inconceivable,” The Professor added. “Extinction? How big is the comet?” The Professor said, “Eight kilometers.” There was silence on the line. Ben could hear his own panting. I’m wondering if a comet of about eight kilometers would make it through our atmosphere since it’s mostly ice? A meteoroid would certainly get partially through. Like I previously said, I’m not interested in the scientific side anyway. Haha. Stop wondering! So how are they going to stop the comet? Once in the French Guiana Spaceport, Ben surmises, “Nuclear weapons weren’t built to vaporize a comet or asteroid flying through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour, they were built to hit static, terrestrial targets.”

In analyzing Claire’s book further, I found two other items to chew on. Why was chapter 24 so hostile compared to the other 35 chapters and so long? Did little Dr. Zhen Liu change into a tiger that fast? And in chapter 31, what did Enrico of Mexico have to do with the story? He came out of left field for no reason. So as usual I found flaws, but as a whole, it was a good yeoman’s effort for her first novel. I know, I know, it’s tough writing a novel. But when you compare the authors I have reviewed over the last eleven years, they pale when I compare them to my two writing pedagogues, Mark Twain and Cormac McCarthy (He of zero quotation marks and very few characters).

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I don’t have a favorite comet crashing into earth movie or book, but I do have five disaster movies that I’ve enjoyed over the years:

1. The Poseidon Adventure (1976) - Great action with Ernest Borgnine leading the way! Score: Tsunami 1, Luxury liner 0. 

2. Titanic (1997) - The Disaster love story for the ages!

3. The Perfect Storm (2000) - Oh my God...that last horrible wave!

4. The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - The big chill...Dennis Quaid looks for his son!

5. Jurassic Park (1993) - The first one. The tension after the power failure was awesome! 

THE BELL JAR

This stellar novel by Sylvia Plath spawned me to think about how delicate the human brain is. Sylvia connects suicide with a bell jar. I thought about that...what is a bell jar? If you are trapped under a bell jar, you are doomed...there is no way out unless someone (a psychiatrist or a counselor) relieves the pressure and lifts the patient’s doubt, dejection, and lack of self-confidence out of the jar. Our protagonist in Sylvia’s novel, Esther Greenwood, slowly gets depressed over things that would normally not affect one’s attitude. This novel made me ponder depression more than any other recent novel. Just as Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye (see my review of 11/23/2012) made me imagine...so did Esther Greenwood. Wow, good ole brain exercise! Think back, how many books have you read when days after finishing, you were still mulling it over. Not many. Maybe Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (see my review of 12/9/2012) hit a nerve. It also occurred to me that maybe some people are predetermined to have mental problems. In this novel, nothing that happened to Esther Greenwood should have been powerful enough to shake her confidence as it did. Are these the same morale problems that our author, Sylvia Plath had? The pundits say yes. It seems that as self-doubt and ego dissipate, suicide seeps into the mind and locks the bell jar down forever. No way out. Asylums seldom cure... only lock up. And yes, as you will find in this novel, electric shock treatments to the brain don’t help. BTW, this author has a way with words that would make any literature teacher applaud. 

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’m stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read in the papers-goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves. I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.” So that’s the first paragraph of the novel. Bingo! Right away I knew the direction of the story and I had a taste of the writer’s prose. Esther Greenwood was a junior in college (somewhere in Massachusetts, never disclosed) on a summer work program at Ladies Day magazine in NYC. She was a straight-A student who didn’t have confidence in herself. She constantly questions her ability to write even though she won a grant to be where she was...she is always debriefing her sexual desires...should I stay a virgin or not. “I would catch sight of some flawless man off in the distance, but as soon as he moved closer I immediately saw he wouldn’t do at all.” Long-term relations with anyone are a no-no. She prefers to see everyone as a hypocrite. When her summer job is over and she goes home, she is blindsided by her mother, “I think I should tell you right away, you didn’t make that writing course.” The air punched out of my stomach. “All through June, the writing course had stretched before me like a bright, safe bridge over the dull gulf of the summer. Now I saw it totter and dissolve…”

If you want to find out what happens next, you will have to buy your own copy. My lips are sealed. Oh, I also forgot to mention the wonderful side characters, such as Doreen, Jay Cee, Betsey, Buddy, and Joan. It reads like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, but out of the asylum. The following is the last taste of Sylvia’s prose, only because I can remember my first run down a ski slope (1976) without useful lessons: “The interior voice nagging me not to be a fool-to save my skin and take off my skis and walk down...fled like a disconsolate mosquito. The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower. I measured the distance to Buddy (who was waiting at the bottom for her) with my eye. I aimed straight down. I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts…” After she crashed at the bottom, she bravely told Buddy, “I’m going to do it again.” Buddy said, “No, you’re not, your leg’s broken in two places.” HaHa.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: In London on 2/11/1963, Sylvia Plath blocked the bottoms of all the doors in her kitchen with tape, towels, and cloths, stuck her head in the oven, and turned on the gas. She was only 30 years old. 

She didn’t live to be famous. She died one month after The Bell Jar was published in the United Kingdom. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1982 for The Collected Poems.

A famous quote from Sylvia is: “What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don’t know and I’m afraid.”

‘Nuff said.

 

TO SLEEP IN A SEA OF STARS

 This special signed edition available through B&N was supposed to be YA king Christopher Paolini’s first adult novel. It read like a normal 12-18-year-old YA novel to me. I felt hemmed in once I started to read this 878-page tome and I hate to stop reading once I start a novel. While the novel does have mostly adult characters, there are almost no sexual innuendos. It reads like a cross between Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy...a little too silly for my taste. In a sci/fi novel, I prefer the antagonist be as close to a single entity as possible, such as in the Alien series or in The Day The Earth Stood Still. I don’t need to read a book with a variety of foolish characters in impossible situations; such as the movie Abbott & Costello go to Mars (1953) or Spider-man or Batman novels. Now after that somewhat rant you must think that I hated this novel...not so book lover! I hate being deceived. When I read the teaser inside of the dust jacket, and it says, “Kira Navarez dreamed of life on new worlds...now she’s awakened a nightmare.” That’s false advertising...believe me, it was not that dramatic. Was it well written? Yes. Was it as teased? No. 

Kira Navarez and the company she works for were finishing up its survey of Adrasteia, an earth-size moon, light-years away from earth. On the last night of their mission, they celebrated their departure in the mess hall. While Kira and her fiance, Alan, were at the punch bowl, the expedition boss cleared a path to her. He said, “We have a problem: one of the drones down south went dead.” Kira said, “So? Send another one.” Her boss replied, “They’re too far away, and we don’t have time to print a replacement. Last thing the drone detected was some organic material along the coastline. Needs to be checked before we leave.” The moon they were on had to be cleared before the expected colonist could arrive. Kira would have to shuttle down in the morning and check it out. Kira and Alan spent the night together before Kira’s mission in the morning. That night, Alan asked Kira if she would be his wife. She said, “Yes. Thousand times yes.”

The organic material in question was on the top of a hill a few hundred meters to the south of her shuttle. “At the top of the hill, she found a flat spread of rock scored with deep grooves from the last planetary glaciation...biologically, there wasn’t much interest on Adrasteia...still, the absence of more developed forms of life was a plus when it came to terraforming: it left the moon a lump of raw clay, suitable for remolding however the company, and the settlers, saw fit.”

She found a rock formation that looked like the result of a meteor strike or a volcanic eruption. She then fell into the hole. “Kira lay where she was, stunned. In front of her, all she saw was rock and shadow.” She was lying on a pile of stone rubble, covered in dust. When her head cleared, she realized that she fell into a room. It had to be made by intelligent aliens. The dust started to cover her body like a series of tight, ever-shifting bands. “Outside the suit, the dust flowed over her visor, plunging her into darkness, Inside the suit, the tendrils wormed their way over her shoulder and across her neck and chest...she opened her mouth to scream as the torrent of dust rushed inside of her. And all went blank.”

The tight suit of tendrils and dust is the focus of the novel (that could have been finished in 350 pages). What is it? Is the suit good or bad? It is capable of defending her in any attack, but possessing it causes ungodly damage to many planets and aliens. Why does all of the universe seem to want the suit? Good luck finding that out...I was on page 646 and still didn’t know. The author has to learn how to leak out a little information in order to keep the reader interested...but alas, he didn't.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: I’m not into exotic-looking aliens like you would see in a Star Wars movie. That’s how I visualized the different types of aliens in Paolini’s space opera. Give me a good ole Robot like Robby or Gork anytime before an Ewok, Chewbacca or God forbid...a Jar Jar Binks! 

In Larry Niven’s classic 1985 novel, Footfall, the antagonists threatening Earth are the Fithps, baby elephant-looking creatures with multiple trunks. Why is this monster okay? Because it’s a single entity. No other creature appears in the novel. See my review of this wonderful story on 3/30/2011.

the SPLENDID and the VILE

My favorite non-fiction writer who writes like a fiction writer, Erik Larson, has finally disappointed me. His latest novel is nothing more than a chess game in the skies between Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler. A game of who could bomb one another better. If you want to know what was in Churchill’s head while trying to get FDR and America into the war...you will like this book. If you want to know what was in Hitler’s head while delaying the blitzing of England...you will like this book. If you want to know what went on at Churchill's country home in Chequers...you will like this book. With the countries only 485 miles away from each other and Hitler involved in many other conflicts at the same time, you would think England with their famed RAF would be the favorite against the Luftwaffe, but they were not (the Luftwaffe was too massive). Why Hitler took so long to bomb London is still a mystery to me. So basically this novel takes us through many bombing raids between these countries and almost nothing else (I am exaggerating). Okay, you do meet all the other characters Hitler had working for him and Churchill’s many Lords, generals, and advisors. And who has the better bombers and who has the better fighter aircraft? Are the German Messerschmitts better than the RAF’s Spitfires and Hurricanes? All these facts with no sidebar or secondary story (which is Larson’s strength in storytelling) were putting me to sleep most nights. If you want to read the author that I know and love, read Larson’s The Devil in the White City (see my review of 1/26/2012). 

“America loomed large in Churchill’s thinking about the war and its ultimate outcome. Hitler seemed poised to overwhelm Europe. Germany’s air force, the Luftwaffe, was believed to be far larger and more powerful than Britain’s Royal Air Force, the RAF, and its submarines and surface raiders were now severely impeding the flow of food, arms, and raw materials that so vital to the island nation.” For Churchill to win the chess game depended on one thing as far as he was concerned. “I shall drag the United States in.” Not that Churchill wasted much time waiting for FDR’s decision: “Within two days of his (Churchill) taking office, 37 RAF bombers attacked the German city of Munchen-Gladbach, in Germany’s heavily industrialized Ruhr district.” On and on this book struggled till it came to the conclusion that the hoi polloi of the world already knew how it (WWII) would end. I thought there would have been a good chance of a quality secondary story...but nooooo! (John Belushi). Just more facts that have been dissected more than the proverbial frog. If it wasn’t for Erik Larson’s great writing skills, I would give this rigorously historical book a lower rating.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: On 6/18/1940 at 3:49 pm, Churchill stood before the House of Commons to address the French debacle (France surrendering). This speech would go down as one of the great moments in oratory, at least as he delivered it in the House of Commons. He issued an appeal to the greater spirit of Britons everywhere…"Let us, therefore, brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.’ "

Churchill agreed to broadcast his speech made earlier in the day to the British public that night. It didn’t go well. He was accused of being drunk, sick, or fatigued. What happened? “As it happened, the problem was largely mechanical. Churchill had insisted on reading the speech with a cigar clenched in his mouth.” Haha.

Also of note, There was a young American journalist and war correspondent in England at the time that would write a 1,300-page epic, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. His name was William L. Shirer.  

 

the HANDMAID'S TALE

If you are a chauvinist pig, you will love this 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood. While there are no creatures such as the crakers in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (see my review of 3/12/2015), it is still one spooky dystopian story. Our story is way into the future where the USA is now Gilead, except for Hawaii and Alaska. Somehow congress and the senate were wiped out (murdered?) by some group (never identified in the novel) and the constitution was replaced by The Book of Genesis with the new leader’s interpretation. What were they reading? Except for some barren wives married to commanders, all women had no power or rights. There were some women assigned to cook and maintain a commander’s house (the Marthas and the econowives), but the majority were handmaidens. What are handmaidens?  They are women all dressed the same: long red dress like a moo-moo and a large white bonnet with blinkers (so they couldn’t see right or left). They do small chores (in pairs) like walking to a meat market named All Flesh to pick up tonights meat for their assigned commander’s house. Their main responsibility is to have sexual intercourse with their commander while the wife (usually barren) holds the handmaiden down. How else is this regime going to populate the New USA? Yes, I remember the 1950s…”keep them barefoot and pregnant”. Remember? Haha. The ladies are constantly watched by Angels, Guardians, or a big black truck with a large eye painted on it. Any protesters are gunned down by the new army. 

I could go on and on about the depressing lives women now endured, but I just wanted to give you a taste of what this story was all about. Where are the husbands of the handmaidens? You are briefly told that there is rebel fighting somewhere. Our narrator for this tale is Offred. Real names are forbidden for women except for the wives of a commander. We never find out what Offred’s real name is. All names now start with “Of”, so the narrator’s name means: Of Fred. What happened to her real husband Luke? I think the main criticism I have for Atwood’s writing is that she is too secretive. Stop leaving me out to hang and dry! Don’t let me squeeze the pages like a lemon for a drop of information. I know she finally wrote the sequel to this story in 2019 (The Testaments), but come on...that’s 35 years ago! You are an old woman now! Haha. Does she finally divulge what the hell’s going on? Don’t get me wrong...I loved the story. But the 93 authors that follow my reviews know I always find something wrong. My last beef is that if you are going to use Cormac McCarthy’s style of writing (no quotation marks)...stick with it. I believe the first page that you used with quotation marks was page183. Every time I read a dystopian novel, I say I’m not going to read another...they are too depressing… then I read another one. Now if you want to criticize me, I know, I know, I know that I love my ellipsis and parentheses, but that’s my style of writing. Oh okay, also writing paragraphs that are too long.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment:

I’m not surprised that Atwood finally wrote a second book, because late in this book, Offred says, “I’m sorry there is so much pain in this story. I’m sorry it’s in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it.”

“I’ve tried to put some of the good things in as well. Flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them?”

“Nevertheless it hurts me to tell it over, over again. Once was enough: wasn’t once enough for me at the time? But I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story…”

At the novel’s end, there is a historical notes section that is a very interesting addition to this novel. It’s the year 2195. Professors are having a symposium about a tale (this story) they found in an old storage trunk along with other memorabilia of the time. Professor Pieixoto starts the proceedings with, “...I wish, as the title of my little chat implies, to consider some of the problems associated with the soi-disant manuscript which is well known to all of you by now, and which goes by the title of The Handmaid’s Tale.”  

Well done Margaret Atwood!