Beginner’s Greek
If I ever inaugurate an unintentionally dirty-sounding e-review series called “Straight to the author’s inbox,” the first one will be to James Collins, and it will read, “Hey James, how’s it going? LOVED THE FIRST HALF OF YOUR NOVEL! xo talk soon L.” (Note to all the publications who’ve cut their book reviews of late: I will provide these under your institutional umbrella for a reasonable fee.) Because while Beginner’s Greek contains some of the most devastating, vivid characterizations (and character assassinations) I’ve read in the past few years, its lovely prose is marred by the fact that the central characters, Holly and Peter–who meet on a flight, lose contact, and spend the next few years (and remainder of the novel) seeking the lost soulmate–are, compared to the surrounding cast, relatively anodyne constructions. While a bullying husband speculates about his ex-wife, visualizing the clotted hairbrush left out for guests that sums up her pitiable circumstances, Peter chases a veritable ghost, a lovely cipher with whom everyone is immediately enchanted, although all we know about Holly is that when Peter met her, she was reading The Magic Mountain. (“She’s a dead ringer for Garbo. She always beats me at chess. She’s first on every punchline. Her drink is Absolut.”) One of the things I love about Larry McMurtry is that he’s one of the few male writers who can portray difficult, irritating women whom men still manage to like. Collins crushes the women in his novel admirably, but his satire can’t hold up against someone who only gives other people crushes. James: EVERYONE is worthy of crushing. Leave the bewitching, blank siren for Roth. He’s probably trademarked her by now, anyway.
Eat, Pray, Love
A sad truth for those of you out there seeking greater ones: Nothing is more boring than your epiphanies. (Even worse, sojourners–the more particular they are to you, the more they sound exactly like everyone else’s.) Such is the problem with Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey through the particulars of her digestive, spiritual and moral humors–located, for your corporeal information, in the regions of Italy, India and Indonesia, respectively. It’s a bit of a punt to say the book is self-aggrandizing–how could a book focused on one’s spiritual well-being not be?–but it’s the grand the Richard Bachian strokes that provoke the reader beyond speech: “Simply put, I got pulled through the wormhole of the Absolute, and in that rush I suddenly understood the workings of the universe completely.” (Simply put.) However, we’re a girl! Fish-in-barrel elements aside, of course we loved that someone would eat pasta, meditate and tool around Indonesia for a year to get over a broken heart. There’s a lot to be said for pasta in general. P.S. we leave the 16th.
Never Let Me Go
If all butlers from England sound robotic and all English clones sound like butlers, does Kazuo Ishiguro need to stop giving characters affects flatter than a freshly ironed newspaper? These and other points of information plagued me upon my “completion” — you’ll get it — of the author’s sixth novel, wherein a prep-school love triangle worthy of a great piece of teen chick-lit is inexplicably ruined by the fact that the characters all have to give up their organs afterwards. Much has been made of this great “secret” — and, oops, spoiler alert and all — but it’s no more a secret than the fact that, if a girl tells you her boyfriend thinks you’re a slut, it’s a sure bet he has a huge crush on you. HUGE, Kathy, HUGE. Even a butler could see it.
“I think it’s clocks.” [The Bat Segundo Show, mp3]
“Has done just about everything you can and should do to remain gainfully employed” [WYPR's The Signal, 88.1 in Baltimore, MP3]
“A very busy person” [MBToolbox]
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Old Hag is the work of Lizzie Skurnick, critic, blogger, writer, teacher. Don't talk about Jersey. more...
That Should Be a Word (The New York Times Magazine)
Click for entire list and links of Smalumns. And call them Sniglets if you must, but you’re dating yourself, friend!
State of Wonder (Barnes & Noble Review, 6/14/2011)
If the greatest compliment you can give an author is to ask if her book is “really true,” then our digital era’s version may be to skip the author entirely and go straight to Google to separate fact from fiction.
Self Sells: Bethenny Frankel: From Housewives Star to Thriving Mogul (Time, 5/9/2011)
Vulgar, vulnerable, wise and neurotic, Bethenny Frankel, Bravo’s last-minute addition to its blockbuster series The Real Housewives of New York City, was a poor mans Housewife from the first. Not a wife (single Frankel was expanding her catering business) nor a homeowner (she rented her Upper East Side one-bedroom), she weathered patronizing barbs from older, wealthier castmates for these and other deficiencies with a captivating mix of insouciance and insecurity.
Posted by Lizzie on 07/25/09
Two things:
In further upcoming podcasts, I discuss Neanderthal rape. No, no — YES I DO. Incoming.
Filed under: General |
Hello! I just heard you on Bob Edwards and it was a great show. Thought I’d jump in before what with book and interviews et al you are inundated (too late?).
You said you often got requests: “what was the name of that book?” Well here’s one, and if I am asking in the wrong place, please correct me.
YA book from the early 60′s
I think the name was the name of the girl and was “something something” Potts
A boy lives with his parents and one day this girl shows up w/ blood on her dress and a story about how her parents were killed in a car crash. They take her in.
She is strange and disappears at times. One day he follows her and she goes (maybe through a closet) over a bridge to another world with a king and queen and all sorts of conflict (NO it is not the lion/witch/wardrobe)
Somehow he follows her again but does not go over the bridge – surprise! turns out the bridge shrunk one so he arrives big.
OK, that is really all I remember. Any help????????
Your book sounds great – I will have to look into it.
Thanks,
Jenny
Comment by Jenny — 7/25/2009 @ 2:13 pm
Jenny — I don’t know this, but if you could email it to jezziefinelines@gmail.com I will add it to my enormous archive of Plotfinders, to be online imminently
Comment by altehaggen — 7/25/2009 @ 3:10 pm
Wow, I just heard the podcast of your NPR show on Shelf Discovery and it brought back so many memories! I’m in my 40s and like several of the listeners have fond memories of spending my summers reading voraciously. Although I’m not a boy (!!) the series that most influenced me was Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles.” I wanted to be an extraterrestrial archaeologist when I grew up so I could go to Mars and find those golden buzzing people. Today I really AM an archaeologist and although I don’t work on Mars (obviously), I do work in the redrock desert! Anyway, I have another dimly remembered, yet highly influential tome to ask you about. All I remember is that there were 2-3 kids visiting relatives of some sort in the country when they decided to put on a fake seance in order to scare one of the other (mean?) relatives or kids. The story contained very explicit instructions about how to go about this…which I subsequently replicated many times in my bedroom, with the smaller neighbor kids as audience. They made a head appear with glowing eyes, but it was actually a cardboard cutout with red plastic over the eye slits. Wish I could remember a title or author or even more of the plot, but I can’t! Any ideas?
I plan to pick up Shelf Discovery next time I’m at the bookstore — looks great!
Comment by Ruth — 7/25/2009 @ 6:22 pm
I *love* the Martian Chronicles and all the Mars books with a passion — maybe I can get to it in my column. “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”!
I’m not sure of the one above but if you can email it to jezziefinelines@gmail.com I’ll put it in the archive, which should be public soon.
Comment by altehaggen — 7/25/2009 @ 9:19 pm