Time for round two! If you don't know how this works, check out the instructions in the first set of brainteasers.
1. A British Monarch goes insane, and his doctor has an unconventional treatment: abandoning him in the rain forest with a talking gorilla.
2. Technology has replaced emotion in this socially striated utopia, and it's up to one Alpha, one Beta, and one boy from a reservation to stop the zombie apocalypse.
3. A treatise on the need for the American people to declare independence and use their brains when picking a husband.
4. An explosive exposé on a notorious biker gang's coming to terms with homosexuality and AIDS in 1980's New York City.
5. Anna Leonowens and her son arrive in Bangkok to teach the Siamese royal children, all of whom exist inside a malevolent AI that keeps them alive for its sadistic pleasure.
Scroll down for the answers!
1. The Madness of King George of the Jungle (The Madness of King George (1994 film) and George of the Jungle (1997 film))
2. Brave New World War Z (Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) and World War Z by Max Brooks (2006))
3. Common Sense and Sensibility (Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776) and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)
4. Hell's Angels in America (Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson (1966) and Angels in America by Tony Kushner (1993))
5 The King and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (The King and I by Rogers and Hammerstein (1951 musical and 1956 film) and "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison (1967)
Friday, April 17, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
2007: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Author:
Khaled Hosseini (1965- ) was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father was a diplomat and his mother was a teacher. His family lived in Tehran, Iran, from 1970 to 1973, when his father was stationed at the Afghan embassy there. In 1976, his family left for a diplomatic position in Paris. They were in Paris during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and applied for political asylum in the United States, which was granted in 1980. The family settled in San Jose, California. Hosseini earned a Bachelor's in Biology from Santa Clara University in 1988, and got his medical degree from UC San Diego in 1993. He worked as an internist from 1996 to 2004. His first novel, The Kite Runner (2003), was a critical and commercial success, and received a film adaptation in 2007, the same year A Thousand Splendid Suns was released. He published his third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, in 2013. He lives in Northern California with his wife and two children.
The Book:
Length: 367 pages
Subject/Genre: Afghanistan/literary realism
A Thousand Splendid Suns takes its title from a description of Kabul in a poem by the 17th century Iranian poet Saib Tabrizi. The novel is split into four sections, the first focused on Mariam. Mariam's father was a wealthy business owner in Herat, and her mother was a maid in her father's household. Her father and his wives came to an arrangement whereby Mariam and her mother lived in a small isolated home outside of the city, and the father visits once a week. Mariam's mother is bitter and stubbornly superstitious, considering her epilepsy to be possession by a djinn, even though, as Mariam's points out, there are pills to treat her condition. Mariam leaves her mother for her father's family, only to discover how unwanted she is and is soon married off to an older man from Kabul. This man, Rasheed, is violent, overbearing, and religiously conservative.
The second section follows Mariam's neighbor's daughter, Laila. Her father was a teacher and both parents were forward thinking progressives. Her best friend, who she falls in love with, is a boy named Tariq, who lost his leg to a landmine. The wars in the area tear her family apart, first with the death of her older brothers who had been fighting with the mujaheddin, which leads to her mother's depression and nervous breakdown. The victory of the mujaheddin is only a brief respite from violence, as the different factions turn on each other. Tariq and his family flee Afghanistan, and Laila's family is about to do the same when a rocket hits their home, killing Laila's parents. Laila is rescued from the wreckage by Mariam and Rasheed, who decides to make Laila his second wife.
The rest of the novel deals with the relationship between Laila and Mariam and the continuing strife in Kabul.
I'd like to point out that the thirteen books preceding this on the list consisted exclusively of Grisham, Brown, Albom, Waller, and LaHaye/Jenkins. It's nice to read a bestseller that isn't pandering/pseudo-intellectual/boring/or mind-bogglingly stupid (Albom/Waller, Brown, Grisham, and LaHaye/Jenkins, respectively). A Thousand Splendid Suns can be didactic at times, especially early on with language and culture, the characters are rounded, the prose is clean, the history isn't made up, and Hosseini manages to be make moral statements without being heavy-handed. Well, generally. The first section is pretty in-your-face with its message, but it still manages to avoid being patronizing. The second section is less heavy-handed, but it often lapses into didacticism. This is often understandable though, as the history of modern Afghanistan is complex and Hosseini is writing to a mainstream American audience, an audience which he hopes to teach about his home country.
Hosseini uses Mariam and Laila to contrast the radically different social and ideological backgrounds in Afghanistan, without resorting to caricature. As opposed to someone like Michener or Uris, who would spend 367 pages covering a century of Afghan history via a family line acting as representative of an entire ethno-religious demographic, Hosseini views about fifty years of Afghan history through the lens of two individuals and their experiences, with much greater effect.
And Afghan history, for obvious reasons, was much on the minds of the American reading public in 2007. Middle Eastern politics is a massive can of worms and seemingly impenetrable to the layman. Tie this to the popularity and credibility Hosseini gained with The Kite Runner, and it's easy to see why A Thousand Splendid Suns was a smash hit.
While the beginning felt a bit heavy-handed, once I got past it I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.
Bestsellers of 2007:
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling*
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
4. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
5. Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich
6. Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich
7. The Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell
8. The Quickie by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
9. The 6th Target by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
10. The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz
Also Published in 2007:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
*Although Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold more copies, it was not included on the original Publisher's Weekly list, which is what my reading is based on.
Sources:
"Biography." KhaledHosseini.com. Khaled Hosseini, 2015. Web.
Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007. Print.
"Khaled Hosseini." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web.
Khaled Hosseini (1965- ) was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father was a diplomat and his mother was a teacher. His family lived in Tehran, Iran, from 1970 to 1973, when his father was stationed at the Afghan embassy there. In 1976, his family left for a diplomatic position in Paris. They were in Paris during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and applied for political asylum in the United States, which was granted in 1980. The family settled in San Jose, California. Hosseini earned a Bachelor's in Biology from Santa Clara University in 1988, and got his medical degree from UC San Diego in 1993. He worked as an internist from 1996 to 2004. His first novel, The Kite Runner (2003), was a critical and commercial success, and received a film adaptation in 2007, the same year A Thousand Splendid Suns was released. He published his third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, in 2013. He lives in Northern California with his wife and two children.
The Book:
 |
| 1st edition cover Jacket Design-Honi Werner/Jacket Photo-Andrew Testa |
Length: 367 pages
Subject/Genre: Afghanistan/literary realism
A Thousand Splendid Suns takes its title from a description of Kabul in a poem by the 17th century Iranian poet Saib Tabrizi. The novel is split into four sections, the first focused on Mariam. Mariam's father was a wealthy business owner in Herat, and her mother was a maid in her father's household. Her father and his wives came to an arrangement whereby Mariam and her mother lived in a small isolated home outside of the city, and the father visits once a week. Mariam's mother is bitter and stubbornly superstitious, considering her epilepsy to be possession by a djinn, even though, as Mariam's points out, there are pills to treat her condition. Mariam leaves her mother for her father's family, only to discover how unwanted she is and is soon married off to an older man from Kabul. This man, Rasheed, is violent, overbearing, and religiously conservative.
The second section follows Mariam's neighbor's daughter, Laila. Her father was a teacher and both parents were forward thinking progressives. Her best friend, who she falls in love with, is a boy named Tariq, who lost his leg to a landmine. The wars in the area tear her family apart, first with the death of her older brothers who had been fighting with the mujaheddin, which leads to her mother's depression and nervous breakdown. The victory of the mujaheddin is only a brief respite from violence, as the different factions turn on each other. Tariq and his family flee Afghanistan, and Laila's family is about to do the same when a rocket hits their home, killing Laila's parents. Laila is rescued from the wreckage by Mariam and Rasheed, who decides to make Laila his second wife.
The rest of the novel deals with the relationship between Laila and Mariam and the continuing strife in Kabul.
I'd like to point out that the thirteen books preceding this on the list consisted exclusively of Grisham, Brown, Albom, Waller, and LaHaye/Jenkins. It's nice to read a bestseller that isn't pandering/pseudo-intellectual/boring/or mind-bogglingly stupid (Albom/Waller, Brown, Grisham, and LaHaye/Jenkins, respectively). A Thousand Splendid Suns can be didactic at times, especially early on with language and culture, the characters are rounded, the prose is clean, the history isn't made up, and Hosseini manages to be make moral statements without being heavy-handed. Well, generally. The first section is pretty in-your-face with its message, but it still manages to avoid being patronizing. The second section is less heavy-handed, but it often lapses into didacticism. This is often understandable though, as the history of modern Afghanistan is complex and Hosseini is writing to a mainstream American audience, an audience which he hopes to teach about his home country.
Hosseini uses Mariam and Laila to contrast the radically different social and ideological backgrounds in Afghanistan, without resorting to caricature. As opposed to someone like Michener or Uris, who would spend 367 pages covering a century of Afghan history via a family line acting as representative of an entire ethno-religious demographic, Hosseini views about fifty years of Afghan history through the lens of two individuals and their experiences, with much greater effect.
And Afghan history, for obvious reasons, was much on the minds of the American reading public in 2007. Middle Eastern politics is a massive can of worms and seemingly impenetrable to the layman. Tie this to the popularity and credibility Hosseini gained with The Kite Runner, and it's easy to see why A Thousand Splendid Suns was a smash hit.
While the beginning felt a bit heavy-handed, once I got past it I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.
Bestsellers of 2007:
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling*
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
4. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
5. Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich
6. Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich
7. The Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell
8. The Quickie by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
9. The 6th Target by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
10. The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz
Also Published in 2007:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
*Although Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold more copies, it was not included on the original Publisher's Weekly list, which is what my reading is based on.
Sources:
"Biography." KhaledHosseini.com. Khaled Hosseini, 2015. Web.
Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007. Print.
"Khaled Hosseini." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Friday Before & After Quiz #1
Time for the first weekly brainteaser installment! Here's how the game works: You get a synopsis of a story, and you have to figure out the title. The title will be a combination of the two sources (books, plays, movies, tv shows) that are combined to form the synopsis. For example:
After the Union Army ends her idyllic antebellum lifestyle, Scarlett O'Hara works to devise an unbreakable code based on the Navajo language.
The solution is: Gone with the Windtalkers. (A combination of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind and the 2002 film Windtalkers.) Some leeway will be taken with articles at the beginning of titles, but all answers can be determined from just the information provided. Here are your five for this Friday:
1. Ernest Hemingway describes his early days in the South of Westeros.
2. Frodo and Sam take a walking tour of Suffolk.
3. A middle-aged black chauffeur is hired to drive a white young American girl on her fateful Roman holiday.
4. Three French sinners must spend eternity locked in Banksy's first art gallery exhibition.
5. A group of Prague-based intellectuals and free thinkers struggle to deal with Soviet oppression, the fleetingness of life, and a portal that lets them enter the consciousness of an American actor.
Scroll down for solutions!
1. A Moveable Feast for Crows (A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (1964) and A Feast for Crows by G. R. R. Martin (2005))
2. The Lord of the Rings of Saturn or The Fellowship of the Rings of Saturn (The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien (1955) and The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald (1995))
3. Driving Miss Daisy Miller (Driving Miss Daisy (1989 film) and Daisy Miller by Henry James (1879)
4. No Exit through the Gift Shop (No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre (1944 play) and Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010 film))
5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being John Malkovich (The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (1984) and Being John Malkovich (1999))
Monday, April 6, 2015
2006: For One More Day by Mitch Albom
The Author:
Mitch Albom (1958- ) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the son of Ira Albom, a corporate executive, and Rhoda Albom, an interior designer. He attended Brandeis university, receiving a B.A. in 1979, and an M.B.A. from Columbia University in 1982. Albom embarked on a popular and critically successful career as a sportswriter and broadcaster in Detroit, winning numerous awards for his sports columns. In fact, his first six books include four anthologies of his sportswriting (The Live Albom (1988), and Live Albom II-IV (1990, 1992, 1995)) and two long-form non-fiction sports books. His major breakthrough as a popular writer came in 1997 with the publication of Tuesdays with Morrie, documenting his conversations with terminally ill Morrie Schwartz, a former professor of his from Brandeis University. The book was promoted by Oprah, who also produced a made-for-TV movie of the book in 1999 starring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon. Albom's first novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003), which was a huge commercial success. He penned two plays, Duck Hunter Shoots Angel (2004) and And the Winner Is (2005). His 2006 novel, For One More Day, was the bestseller of that year. Since then, Albom has written one non-fiction book, Have a Little Faith (2009), and two 'inspirational' novels, The Time Keeper (2012) and The First Phone Call from Heaven (2013). Albom currently hosts a nationally aired general talk show, and a weekly sports show.
The Book:
Length: 197 pages
Subject/Genre: Family/'Inspirational' Fiction
For One More Day starts with a prologue in which an unnamed narrator shows up in the small town of Pepperville Beach, and meets Charles "Chick" Benetto, a washed up major league baseball player who had tried to kill himself. The majority of the novel is Benetto telling his story. In broad strokes: His parents got divorced when he was a kid, and the dad, who was a jerk and the reason Chick became a baseball player, moved away. He dropped out of college to play major league baseball, made it to the world series, lost, got injured, his marriage fell apart, his mom died, he became an alcoholic, and now, after finding out he wasn't invited to his daughter's wedding, he decided to kill himself. His attempt to kill himself is unintentionally bizarre. He gets drunk and drives back to Pepperville Beach, only to crash into a truck on the offramp and he gets thrown clear of the car. That he survives is believable, that he survives and is then able to walk to a water tower, climb it, and throw himself off, and survive that, seems more like a gag from the Simpsons. Anyway, after he throws himself off the water tower he walks to (or hallucinates himself walking to) his childhood home where —Surprise!— his dead mother is there and acting like nothing happened. Chick gets to talk about how much he missed her while his mother goes around comforting a few people who are soon to die.
There is a significant difference between sentimental and saccharine, and this novel is exclusively the latter. It's also unashamedly pandering to a specific demographic, namely mothers. I realize that sounds weird, but let me explain. The vast majority of the novel is Chick lamenting not appreciating his mother more. He even fills up a journal listing every time his mother stood up for him and every time he didn't stand up for his mother. The former includes times when his mother really shouldn't have taken his side (e.g. Chick wanted to invest in a sports bar after his career ended. His wife points out that Chick shouldn't, as he knows nothing about running a sports bar. His mother backs him up. The sports bar is financially disastrous.) and the latter includes a middle-aged Chick regretting every instance of rudeness from his childhood. I started writing what platitude we were supposed to learn from each of these in my copy. One example, taking up two pages of a less than 200 page novel, tells us about when Chick was six years old, and his mother made him a rag and toilet paper mummy costume for the school Halloween parade. It starts raining during the parade, and the costume is ruined, causing Chick no end of embarrassment. "When we reach the schoolyard, where the parents are waiting with cameras, I am a wet, sagging mess of rags and toilet paper fragments....I burst into tears. 'You ruined my life!' I yell." So remember, if your six year old child is ever upset at you, he'll regret it deeply when he grows up. In fact, this entire novel seems to be an extrapolation of "You'll miss me when I'm gone."
Look, I have a good relationship with my parents (Hi, Mom!), and, like any child who ever existed, there were times when I was a real brat. But I think everyone in my family is well-adjusted enough to not obsess over every temper tantrum I had when I when I was still using training wheels. Family is important, and I don't mean any disrespect to people who dedicate their lives to their family, but the mother in this novel has absolutely no interests besides her kids. They are her entire life. If she did or thought anything that wasn't about them, it didn't make it into the novel. And this novel panders to this personality.
While I generally try to avoid giving away endings, I want to break that rule here. After the monologue that makes up the majority of the book, there's an epilogue where the unnamed narrator from the prologue talks about Chick's death natural causes a few years later. I only mention the epilogue because the last paragraph reveals that the unnamed narrator was Chick's daughter the whole time! What a twist! Except, it doesn't change anything. At all. Nothing is resolved by this, nothing is changed or reinterpreted. I guess Albom thought books should end with a twist, so he decided to hide an irrelevant piece of information and reveal it at the end. Is it a surprise? Yes, in the sense that no one was expecting it. But no one was expecting it because it was completely beside the point. It doesn't strengthen the novel in anyway, it just confuses being unpredictable with being original. So, standard formulaic bull.
Beyond pandering to a specific demographic, Albom had a lot going for him with this book. Beyond having his own show, there was the Oprah connection. Her TV movie version of For One More Day, starring Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) and Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist, Requiem for a Dream) came out in 2007.
But more than that, For One More Day was the first novel Starbucks selected for its Book Break program. According to the linked New York Times article, "Starbucks [was] selling “For One More Day” in about 5,400 stores in the United States..."
So, its success isn't that surprising. A lot of people bought it, but I don't think you should, unless you fall into the particular demographic Albom is writing for and want to be pandered to.
Bestsellers of 2006:
1. For One More Day by Mitch Albom
2. Cross by James Patterson
3. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
4. Next by Michael Crichton
5. Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
6. Lisey's Story by Stephen King
7. Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
8. Cell by Stephen King
9. Beach Road by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge
10. The Fifth Horseman by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Also Published in 2006:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski
What Is the What by Dave Eggers
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Everyman by Philip Roth
Sources:
Albom, Mitch. For One More Day. New York: Hyperion, 2006. Print.
"Mitch Albom." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web.
Motoko, Rich. "Starbucks Picks Novel to Start Its Book-Sale Program." The New York Times. New
York Times, August 8, 2006. Web,
Mitch Albom (1958- ) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the son of Ira Albom, a corporate executive, and Rhoda Albom, an interior designer. He attended Brandeis university, receiving a B.A. in 1979, and an M.B.A. from Columbia University in 1982. Albom embarked on a popular and critically successful career as a sportswriter and broadcaster in Detroit, winning numerous awards for his sports columns. In fact, his first six books include four anthologies of his sportswriting (The Live Albom (1988), and Live Albom II-IV (1990, 1992, 1995)) and two long-form non-fiction sports books. His major breakthrough as a popular writer came in 1997 with the publication of Tuesdays with Morrie, documenting his conversations with terminally ill Morrie Schwartz, a former professor of his from Brandeis University. The book was promoted by Oprah, who also produced a made-for-TV movie of the book in 1999 starring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon. Albom's first novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003), which was a huge commercial success. He penned two plays, Duck Hunter Shoots Angel (2004) and And the Winner Is (2005). His 2006 novel, For One More Day, was the bestseller of that year. Since then, Albom has written one non-fiction book, Have a Little Faith (2009), and two 'inspirational' novels, The Time Keeper (2012) and The First Phone Call from Heaven (2013). Albom currently hosts a nationally aired general talk show, and a weekly sports show.
The Book:
 |
| 1st Edition Cover/Cover art by Phil Rose |
Length: 197 pages
Subject/Genre: Family/'Inspirational' Fiction
For One More Day starts with a prologue in which an unnamed narrator shows up in the small town of Pepperville Beach, and meets Charles "Chick" Benetto, a washed up major league baseball player who had tried to kill himself. The majority of the novel is Benetto telling his story. In broad strokes: His parents got divorced when he was a kid, and the dad, who was a jerk and the reason Chick became a baseball player, moved away. He dropped out of college to play major league baseball, made it to the world series, lost, got injured, his marriage fell apart, his mom died, he became an alcoholic, and now, after finding out he wasn't invited to his daughter's wedding, he decided to kill himself. His attempt to kill himself is unintentionally bizarre. He gets drunk and drives back to Pepperville Beach, only to crash into a truck on the offramp and he gets thrown clear of the car. That he survives is believable, that he survives and is then able to walk to a water tower, climb it, and throw himself off, and survive that, seems more like a gag from the Simpsons. Anyway, after he throws himself off the water tower he walks to (or hallucinates himself walking to) his childhood home where —Surprise!— his dead mother is there and acting like nothing happened. Chick gets to talk about how much he missed her while his mother goes around comforting a few people who are soon to die.
There is a significant difference between sentimental and saccharine, and this novel is exclusively the latter. It's also unashamedly pandering to a specific demographic, namely mothers. I realize that sounds weird, but let me explain. The vast majority of the novel is Chick lamenting not appreciating his mother more. He even fills up a journal listing every time his mother stood up for him and every time he didn't stand up for his mother. The former includes times when his mother really shouldn't have taken his side (e.g. Chick wanted to invest in a sports bar after his career ended. His wife points out that Chick shouldn't, as he knows nothing about running a sports bar. His mother backs him up. The sports bar is financially disastrous.) and the latter includes a middle-aged Chick regretting every instance of rudeness from his childhood. I started writing what platitude we were supposed to learn from each of these in my copy. One example, taking up two pages of a less than 200 page novel, tells us about when Chick was six years old, and his mother made him a rag and toilet paper mummy costume for the school Halloween parade. It starts raining during the parade, and the costume is ruined, causing Chick no end of embarrassment. "When we reach the schoolyard, where the parents are waiting with cameras, I am a wet, sagging mess of rags and toilet paper fragments....I burst into tears. 'You ruined my life!' I yell." So remember, if your six year old child is ever upset at you, he'll regret it deeply when he grows up. In fact, this entire novel seems to be an extrapolation of "You'll miss me when I'm gone."
Look, I have a good relationship with my parents (Hi, Mom!), and, like any child who ever existed, there were times when I was a real brat. But I think everyone in my family is well-adjusted enough to not obsess over every temper tantrum I had when I when I was still using training wheels. Family is important, and I don't mean any disrespect to people who dedicate their lives to their family, but the mother in this novel has absolutely no interests besides her kids. They are her entire life. If she did or thought anything that wasn't about them, it didn't make it into the novel. And this novel panders to this personality.
While I generally try to avoid giving away endings, I want to break that rule here. After the monologue that makes up the majority of the book, there's an epilogue where the unnamed narrator from the prologue talks about Chick's death natural causes a few years later. I only mention the epilogue because the last paragraph reveals that the unnamed narrator was Chick's daughter the whole time! What a twist! Except, it doesn't change anything. At all. Nothing is resolved by this, nothing is changed or reinterpreted. I guess Albom thought books should end with a twist, so he decided to hide an irrelevant piece of information and reveal it at the end. Is it a surprise? Yes, in the sense that no one was expecting it. But no one was expecting it because it was completely beside the point. It doesn't strengthen the novel in anyway, it just confuses being unpredictable with being original. So, standard formulaic bull.
Beyond pandering to a specific demographic, Albom had a lot going for him with this book. Beyond having his own show, there was the Oprah connection. Her TV movie version of For One More Day, starring Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) and Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist, Requiem for a Dream) came out in 2007.
But more than that, For One More Day was the first novel Starbucks selected for its Book Break program. According to the linked New York Times article, "Starbucks [was] selling “For One More Day” in about 5,400 stores in the United States..."
So, its success isn't that surprising. A lot of people bought it, but I don't think you should, unless you fall into the particular demographic Albom is writing for and want to be pandered to.
Bestsellers of 2006:
1. For One More Day by Mitch Albom
2. Cross by James Patterson
3. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
4. Next by Michael Crichton
5. Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
6. Lisey's Story by Stephen King
7. Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
8. Cell by Stephen King
9. Beach Road by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge
10. The Fifth Horseman by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Also Published in 2006:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski
What Is the What by Dave Eggers
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Everyman by Philip Roth
Sources:
Albom, Mitch. For One More Day. New York: Hyperion, 2006. Print.
"Mitch Albom." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web.
Motoko, Rich. "Starbucks Picks Novel to Start Its Book-Sale Program." The New York Times. New
York Times, August 8, 2006. Web,
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Reality Television and the Modern Human Oddities
One of the bestselling books of the nineteenth century, and one I heartily recommend, is Struggles and Triumphs, or Forty Years' Recollections of P.T. Barnum written by Himself. As the aptly grandiose title indicates, this is the autobiography of P.T. Barnum, or rather one of them. He wrote three main versions, the first in 1855, the second in 1869 with an update in 1872, and the third in 1882. If you're wondering why you should read the second edition (available free in facsimile from archive.org), it's because Barnum expurgated hundreds of pages from the final edition. Barnum, in true picaresque fashion, goes from a rascally youth to a man of the world, collecting the strangest specimens on the planet for the American Museum in New York, appearing before the crowned heads of state, and himself becoming an icon in the process. But of these strange specimens, which include everything from elephants and angelfish to tribal relics to the infamous Feejee Mermaid, none are as memorable, or controversial, as his human oddities, oddities like Charles Stratton, better known as General Tom Thumb, who by the time he was ten years old had performed for Queen Victoria and other European nobility. Also notable are Joice Heth, who he claimed was 161 years old and George Washington's 'mammy,' and Chang and Eng Bunker, better known as the Siamese Twins. Not to mention the time he tricked a group of Native American chiefs (none of whom spoke English) to appear on stage every night while they were in New York on a diplomatic mission by claiming that the crowds had assembled to pay them respect.
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| Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren - 1863 |
Anyone writing of Barnum today has to take a defensive stance on the exploitation of the deformed or disabled, although Barnum himself feels no need to do so. This is not because Barnum was a vile man, but rather that it was not thought of as manipulation. I bring this up only to point out that we live in a culture that would find freak shows morally wrong, but this attitude, for good or bad, is cultural. We accept that this ogling of the strange is wrong, yet the underlying desire that led to the popularity of freakshows still exists. Whether this desire is merely morbid curiosity, a ritualistic attempt to keep the grotesque or unfortunate at a distance, or something altogether different, is beyond me. But I remembered something when I was thinking about the Barnum autobiography. About two years ago, I was walking down the Venice Beach, and passed the Venice Beach Freakshow, one of the few extant freakshows in the nation. The barker, an unusually tall, thin, and pale man, clad in all black with lanky white hair, was calling out his spiel: "Come See the Venice Freak Show, We have a show on AMC, Same station as Breaking Bad." Obviously, I paraphrase, but the salient details of his spiel, that they had a show on AMC and that this was the same station as Breaking Bad, are completely accurate. Another detail: Everyone kept walking past.
But Freakshow isn't the only freak show on reality tv, just the only one that admits to it. The old standbys are there. We have dwarfs (Little People, Big World) and the fat man (The Biggest Loser) as well as any other number of human oddities from people who eat toilet paper (My Strange Addiction) to people who live in squalor (Hoarders) to unique communities (Breaking Amish) to women who have unusually many children (Jon & Kate Plus Eight; 19 Kids and Counting). But why does a society that finds freakshows morally indefensible not have a problem indulging in what is essentially the same form of entertainment? Here's a hint: Many of the shows on the above list are on TLC.
TLC, for those of you that don't know, stands for The Learning Channel. Their viewers don't watch My Strange Addiction to ogle the freaks, no, of course not, they're there to learn about these conditions, they watch Breaking Amish to try to understand. People who would never go to the Venice Beach Freak Show, or any freak show, are still willing to watch a reality program about a freak show. It's a way to indulge in whatever curiosity satisfying/catharsis inducing element provided by freakshows, without the attendant guilt.
Monday, March 30, 2015
2005: The Broker by John Grisham
The Author:
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John Grisham (1955- ) was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the son of a construction worker. At the age of twelve, his family moved to Southaven, Mississippi. He graduated with a B.S. from Mississippi State University in 1979. He passed the Mississippi Bar exam in 1981, and received his J.D. from the University of Mississippi. In 1981, he married Renee Jones, with whom he had two children.
Grisham began a successful law practice in 1981, starting in criminal law, and moving to more lucrative civil law. In 1984, he was elected to the Mississippi State House of Representatives, a position he held in addition to running his law practice. A case he witnessed while in the state legislature led him to write his first novel, A Time to Kill (1989). He had trouble finding an agent and publisher. He eventually found both, and a limited run of 5,000 copies was printed of his first novel. In 1990, Grisham resigned from his position on state legislature and retired his practice. In 1991, Doubleday published his second novel, The Firm. It was a massive commercial success, as were his third and fourth novels, The Pelican Brief (1992) and The Client (1993). His fourth book, The Chamber (1994) is the first of eleven novels to become the number one annual bestselling novel in the U.S.
The Book:
Length:
Subject/Genre: espionage/legal 'thriller
The Broker begins with the outgoing president doling out last minute pardons when the CIA director shows up insisting he pardon Joel Backman, a high powered DC attorney and power broker in prison for conspiring to sell access to a cutting edge satellite system. No one knows who the system belongs to, so the CIA director's plan is to use Backman as bait. Whoever's system he has the keys to will want him dead. This is point, only a couple dozen pages in, where the novel stops making sense. Backman is smuggled out of the country, first to a military hospital in Italy. That the CIA planned to 'interrogate' him there is made abundantly clear, but he won't let them give him any medication, nor will he eat or drink anything they give him for fear he'll be drugged. To clarify, the CIA is willing to ship him halfway across the world and plan to have others kill him, but they ditch their plans to torture him because he won't willingly ingest any drugged food. The CIA murder a former white house official in the middle of London to keep Backman's location secret, but they are unwilling to even touch a hair on Backman's head.
Backman is sent to a small city in Italy, and later Milan, where he is told he is given a fake identity. He's told that he's being relocated and is given an intensive language course and taught local customs, ostensibly so he can live off the grid for the rest of his life. All of which is at direct cross-purposes to the CIA's plans. There's absolutely no benefit to teaching him any of this, except that it allows him to escape their grasp. There's passage after passage about Milanese art, culture, geography, history, food, etc. etc., none of which Backman needs to know if the plan is to leak his location to any foreign governments who'd want him dead. My assumption is that somewhere in Grisham's tax returns is a month long Italian vacation written off as a work expense.
While I was a bit bored by most of his early novels, they at least had internal logic. The characters and organizations had reasons to do what they did, reasons that made sense rather than just providing the opportunity for something else to happen later. I spent the whole novel wondering why the CIA did any of the things they did, which would have been tolerable if Backman had at least been interesting. But he's just a stock character, the same late-middle-age high-price high-power workaholic attorney that we see in nearly every Grisham novel. String of divorces? Check. Estranged children? Check. History of avarice and ostentation that he now regrets? Check. He's a boring character in an unnecessary situation.
I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. If you like legal thrillers, it's not for you, and if you like espionage thrillers, this is a poor example. I could only recommend this to Grisham completists.
Bestsellers of 2005:
1. The Broker by John Grisham
2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
3. Mary, Mary by James Patterson
4. At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks
5. Predator by Patricia Cornwell
6. True Believer by Nicholas Sparks
7. Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
8. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
9. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
10. Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich
Also Published in 2005:
The Sea by John Banville
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
John Grisham (1955- ) was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the son of a construction worker. At the age of twelve, his family moved to Southaven, Mississippi. He graduated with a B.S. from Mississippi State University in 1979. He passed the Mississippi Bar exam in 1981, and received his J.D. from the University of Mississippi. In 1981, he married Renee Jones, with whom he had two children.
Grisham began a successful law practice in 1981, starting in criminal law, and moving to more lucrative civil law. In 1984, he was elected to the Mississippi State House of Representatives, a position he held in addition to running his law practice. A case he witnessed while in the state legislature led him to write his first novel, A Time to Kill (1989). He had trouble finding an agent and publisher. He eventually found both, and a limited run of 5,000 copies was printed of his first novel. In 1990, Grisham resigned from his position on state legislature and retired his practice. In 1991, Doubleday published his second novel, The Firm. It was a massive commercial success, as were his third and fourth novels, The Pelican Brief (1992) and The Client (1993). His fourth book, The Chamber (1994) is the first of eleven novels to become the number one annual bestselling novel in the U.S.
Since 1989, Grisham has published a total of 29 novels, five children's books, and a work of non-fiction. His family splits its time between homes in Oxford, Mississippi, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Grisham also serves as a board member on the Innocence Project.
The Book:
Length:
Subject/Genre: espionage/legal 'thriller
The Broker begins with the outgoing president doling out last minute pardons when the CIA director shows up insisting he pardon Joel Backman, a high powered DC attorney and power broker in prison for conspiring to sell access to a cutting edge satellite system. No one knows who the system belongs to, so the CIA director's plan is to use Backman as bait. Whoever's system he has the keys to will want him dead. This is point, only a couple dozen pages in, where the novel stops making sense. Backman is smuggled out of the country, first to a military hospital in Italy. That the CIA planned to 'interrogate' him there is made abundantly clear, but he won't let them give him any medication, nor will he eat or drink anything they give him for fear he'll be drugged. To clarify, the CIA is willing to ship him halfway across the world and plan to have others kill him, but they ditch their plans to torture him because he won't willingly ingest any drugged food. The CIA murder a former white house official in the middle of London to keep Backman's location secret, but they are unwilling to even touch a hair on Backman's head.
Backman is sent to a small city in Italy, and later Milan, where he is told he is given a fake identity. He's told that he's being relocated and is given an intensive language course and taught local customs, ostensibly so he can live off the grid for the rest of his life. All of which is at direct cross-purposes to the CIA's plans. There's absolutely no benefit to teaching him any of this, except that it allows him to escape their grasp. There's passage after passage about Milanese art, culture, geography, history, food, etc. etc., none of which Backman needs to know if the plan is to leak his location to any foreign governments who'd want him dead. My assumption is that somewhere in Grisham's tax returns is a month long Italian vacation written off as a work expense.
While I was a bit bored by most of his early novels, they at least had internal logic. The characters and organizations had reasons to do what they did, reasons that made sense rather than just providing the opportunity for something else to happen later. I spent the whole novel wondering why the CIA did any of the things they did, which would have been tolerable if Backman had at least been interesting. But he's just a stock character, the same late-middle-age high-price high-power workaholic attorney that we see in nearly every Grisham novel. String of divorces? Check. Estranged children? Check. History of avarice and ostentation that he now regrets? Check. He's a boring character in an unnecessary situation.
I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. If you like legal thrillers, it's not for you, and if you like espionage thrillers, this is a poor example. I could only recommend this to Grisham completists.
Bestsellers of 2005:
1. The Broker by John Grisham
2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
3. Mary, Mary by James Patterson
4. At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks
5. Predator by Patricia Cornwell
6. True Believer by Nicholas Sparks
7. Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
8. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
9. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
10. Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich
Also Published in 2005:
The Sea by John Banville
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
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