What Should Kester Read? July Edition

What Should Kester Read?

• A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley
• The Porcine Canticles by David Lee
• The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater
• So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
• Stoner by John Williams

What else is Kester reading?

• The Daily Bible: NIV Version (daily devotional)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Required Reading Revisited book club)
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (New and Noteworthy book club)

6-24-12

What Kester's reading

• The Daily Bible: NIV Version (daily devotional)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Required Reading Revisited book club)

Housekeeping

    Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille; about the grandfather who died with hundreds of other passengers aboard a train that slipped into a lake; about the mother, Helen, who drove her car into that same lake and drowned; about the grandmother who cared for them until she also died; about the befuddled great-aunts who stepped in for a brief time; about Helen's eccentric sister, Sylvie, who eventually takes charge of the girls. 
    Housekeeping is referenced throughout Housekeeping, both directly and indirectly, literally and figuratively. Robinson has said that her debut novel was initially nothing more than a series of metaphors that she had written. It was only after she gathered them together that she recognized some cohesion that developed into characters and plot. That plot is simple, the characters complex, and the metaphor hold up and is never heavy-handed. 
    This is a story about "home is where the heart is" and "getting your house in order" and "this world is not my home." This is a story about  the ways in which we make ourselves at home; the things said and done and stored up and collected and cast away and destroyed. This is a novel about those who cannot seem to make themselves at home or do not wish to. This is a novel about connections made and broken; about love and loss and loneliness.
    There is a passage towards the end of Robinson's novel that is less a concise summation of the plot so much as a clear expression of the theme. It is, perhaps, my favorite passage in a book full of stunning passages. It reads:
    Cain murdered Abel, and blood cried out from the earth; the house fell on Job's children, and a voice was induced or provoked into speaking from a whirlwind; and Rachel mourned for her children; and King David for Absalom. The force behind the movement of time is a mourning that will not be comforted. That is why the first event is known to have been an expulsion, and the last is hoped to be a reconciliation and return. So memory pulls us forward, so prophecy is only brilliant memory... 

6-18-12

What Should Kester Read?

• Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

What else is Kester reading?

• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• The Daily Bible: NIV Version (daily devotional)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Required Reading Revisited book club)
• Redshirts by John Scalzi
• A Stranger In Olondria by Sofia Samatar

Underworld

    Long before people referred to everything from a Taco Bell taco salad to the latest Katy Perry song as "epic" there were certain creations actually worthy of that description. Great works of art, masterfully crafted symphonies, challenging pieces of literature. Don DeLillo's Underworld can be rightfully described as epic.
    It's size alone is daunting. Weighing in at around five pounds (give or take) and at nearly 1000 pages, Underworld is a lot to take on. It's subject is equally grand, the latter half of the 20th century in the United States of America. This is "great American novel" kinds of stuff. It begins with baseball (and how American is that) and then expands itself from the 50s into the 90s, but in reverse; constantly looking back to yesteryear. The approach itself is just one more way that DeLillo brilliantly addresses the very 20th century American themes of nostalgia and regret.
    Nick Shay is our protagonist (of a sort) and his wife and brother and mother and lover all have their roles to play. But so do Frank Sinatra and Lenny Bruce and Jackie Gleason. So do the Dodgers and the Giants. So does the city of New York. This is about actors and artists and aspirations, it's about heartache and fallen heroes. It's about the Cold War and the American family. And it's about trash. Literal trash (Shay works in waste management) and trash as metaphor for all the waste that can pile up in our lives and all the wasted time and effort we can spend on acquiring it. This book is about so much, that it's a wonder that DeLillo could fit it all in. It is sweeping in its scope; a grand vision. It is one amazing piece of work.
    So, why (according to Goodreads) would I only give this book 4 stars instead of 5? Because this is also a long and rambling read. Make no mistake, it is intentionally done; DeLillo accomplishes exactly what he sets out to do. But that doesn't mean it doesn't bog down a bit. I've read big books before; Wallace's Infinite Jest and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov are among my favorites. But those books have a lot to say about a few things and a specific set of people, and so they draw me in with the details. DeLillo does that (most of the time) as well, but he also wants to talk about everything and in his attempt to leave nothing out, he occasionally makes you wish he had. In order to communicate the sheer mass of all their is, DeLillo often seems as if he's attempting to bury his readers in it. It can be a bit overwhelming.
    But, for the most part, this was well worth the work. DeLillo is a master at cutting to the heart of the American psyche and psychosis and much of his best work can be found in this book. When you have the time, I highly recommend spending it on this book. It will certainly not be time wasted.

Dragonbreath

    Danny Dragonbreath is, you guessed it, a dragon. Not a komodo dragon like Big Eddy, the bully. He's a real dragon, like the stuff of legends. But real dragons breathe fire. And Danny hasn't quite mastered that. In fact, Danny is a kid who has quite a bit left to master. His at the last minute written report on the ocean received a grade of F and his potato salad tried to stab him with a fork. If it weren't for the encouragement of his parents and best friend, Wendell (an iguana), he might just give up hope.
    Written as half comic strip and half straight prose, Dragonbreath is a funny enough little story, though that's about as much as I can say for it. The comic strip bits are sort of like a less funny Calvin & Hobbes and the undersea adventure that ends up being most of the story (Danny goes to visit his cousin Edward, a sea monster, when he's ordered to rewrite his report on the ocean) is like an educational episode of SpongeBob Squarepants.
    Harrison preferred the comic book parts of the book, as did I. The written parts feel like they were written by someone Harrison's age and not just for someone Harrison's age. Ursula Vernon would be better off writing a straight up Dragonbreath comic book or even comic strip. In fact, the jokes and storyline read very much like a weekly comic strip.
    Harrison's favorite character was the fun-loving and goofy Danny, while I thought the cautious and nerdy sidekick, Wendell, to be more interesting. Unfortunately, there's not enough done with either character, and the story has less plot development than most picture books. Still, it's a harmless bit of fun and an easy read for kids looking for something light. And a living potato salad is kind of funny, though not as funny as when Calvin makes his oatmeal into a monster. 
    Dragonbreath is the first in a series and a good way for early readers to get engaged with reading. Harrison thought it was kind of funny and finished it in about half an hour. I thought it was less funny and finished it in about 10 minutes. So, for the amount of effort it takes, the payoff is acceptable. Still, you get what you pay for. This one didn't cost us much in the way if effort and didn't get us much in the way of enjoyment. Neither Harrison nor I are particularly interested in reading further in this series ("Are you sure? I might want to read further in the series." says Harrison, looking over my shoulder as I write), but both of us "liked it pretty much" as Harrison says. If "liked it pretty much" seems like a less than thrilling endorsement, you're getting the picture. Your kid will like it, but probably not love it. They certainly won't remember it fondly years from now. But then, not every book needs to be that kind of memorable. Some books are just there to be enjoyed in the moment and then we move on to what's next. In this case, what's next is probably Shakespeare's Secret, a book Harrison and I are both enjoying far more.

What's Harrison (and Kester) Reading?: Harrison's Summer Reading Selections

What's Harrison reading?

• The Bible
• The Chronicles of Prydain, Book One: The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
• Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon
• Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach
• The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson