Peanuts

When I wrote about graphic novels earlier this month, I should have also mentioned comic strips. Although strips initially appear in newspapers, they are often compiled and released in book form. In my late teens and early 20s, I remember The Far Side and Bloom County being popular. I have to admit that I don't pay much attention to contemporary comic strips, and neither do my children. This is too bad as I imagine there must be some well drawn and imaginative strips being produced these days.

The other day I read that licensing rights for the Peanuts gang was sold to a company that manufactures Joe Boxers (among other things) for $175 million. This reminded me how much I used to love Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Shroeder, Pig Pen and Snoopy. When I was in early elementary school, my mother bought me a number of Peanuts-related books. I still own them. I pulled then off the shelf and read through some of them for the first time in decades. They still make me chuckle. The strips aren't as lacerating as Doonsbury or as clever as The Far Side, but Charles Shultz perfectly captured the innocense of childhood. These characters relate to each other without any of the worries of the adult world. In fact, there are no adults featured at all. Yet, their observations display a wisdom that is both believable and unexpected.

A friend of mine recently told me that the early Peanuts strips were drawn differently that the later ones. He mentioned that Linus was drawn as a toddler. I went to my bookshelf and found that the earliest of my books, The Wonderful World of Peanuts, was published in 1952. Sure enough, the characters look younger and, yes, Linus is a toddler. One of the central characters is those days was Shermy. Does anyone remember Shermy? I do because I played him in 4th grade in a school play. These strips are a joy to read and they totally hold up.

Roberto Bolano - Chilean Fiction Writer

I first heard about Roberto Bolano a year or two ago when his novel 2666 was first published in English. The book received tremendous critical acclaim. However, any thoughts I had of reading this novel were scuttled when I realized that the book is about 1,000 pages in length. I don't mind long stories, but 1,000 pages!!! Bolano, who died at the age of 50 in 2003, was a poet, who turned to writing fiction in his 40s. 2666, which was originally published in Spanish in 2004, was heralded by some as the first great novel of the 21st century. I figured this was one of those novels that people were buying as a result of the buzz, but not actually reading.

Recently, a couple of Bolano's short stories appeared in The New Yorker. (I keep mentioning this magazine, but it is a great source of short fiction). I don't remember the name of the first story I read, but it was a taut crime/mystery story. The more recent story is called the Prefiguration of Lalo Cura. It is about a man who grew up with his mother and aunt while these ladies were involved in the Columbian porn industry. They worked exclusively with this German director who strove to make "art porn". The story was strange, but I can't get it out of my head (and not because of the subject matter). There is something hypnotic in his writing that I can't quite put my finger on. Below is the link to the story. I hope you check it out. I may have to bite the bullet and commit to his 1,000 page magnum opus after all.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/04/19/100419fi_fiction_bolano

Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard

There is nothing better than a truly funny book. I am not talking about the snarky, ultra-hip observations of Chelsea Handler or the suburban travails of Erma Bombeck. What I love is when a writer brings the funny in the context of a novel (with plot, character development, dialogue, etc). I love the Wooster and Jeeves stories by P.G. Wodehouse. Wooster is a young man of upper class Brittan living in the 1920s. Jeeves is his valet (manservant). Wooster doesn't work and spends his days and nights socializing with other idlers of the British ruling class. He gets into all kinds of tight situations and relies on Jeeves to rescue him. The series is a scathing indictment of the British class structure and is very, very funny.

I think my favorite comedic novel is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The sad truth about this book is that the author committed suicide. His mother found the novel manuscript after his death and hounded the writer Walker Percy to read the manuscript. Percy was blown away with the story and through his efforts the book was published in 1980. The story takes place in New Orleans and revolves around the central character, Ignatius J. Reilly, an overfed 30-year-old still living with his mother in the city's Uptown neighborhood. This is one of those timelessly funny novels that will make you howl with laughter. It is pee in your pants funny. Before you die, read this book.

Fire in Cairo

I just finished The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany. My book club will be discussing it this Saturday night. Back in January, The New Yorker ran a piece on the contemporary Arabic novel and this book was mentioned. The description of the novel appealed to me because I wanted to read a book that shed light on Arab culture and lifestyle but that did not focus on the Israel/Palestine conflict. The novel is good (but not great), and reads like a latin "telenovela." The story centers around a cast of characters that live and work in an apartment building in Cairo in the early 1990s. Every conceivable strata of Egyptian society is represented in this novel, from the impoverished and uneducated rabble that live on the building's roof to the wealthy westernized residents of the larger apartments. The book provides a vivid portrait of various elements of Egyptian society: the political corruption, the brutality by police, the tension between the secular authority and the Islamists, the treatment of women, homosexuality in an Arab country. I come away from this book with a real appreciation of the complexities of that society. It should spark a good discussion.

Science Fiction Versus Fantasy

Many of my friends are readers of science fiction ("SF") stories. I have been reading SF since I learned to read, and as I get extremely enthusiastic about a great SF story, I love being able to talk to people about it. SF books generally don't make the book club rounds, even though many of these books explore the themes that are the hallmark of a great discussion. Perhaps this is because of a perception that the writing isn't literary or the character development takes a backseat to plot and technological conceits. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of SF is crap. However, to paraphrase the late SF writer Theodore Sturgeon: 90% of all writing is crap. I believe that much of readers' reluctance regarding SF has to do with a misunderstanding regarding the nature of the genre. People reflexively think that SF is all about spaceships and aliens. Yes, many SF stories do include these far flung plot points. However, SF should be thought of as a broad category that includes books like Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and even Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. Some of these books involve an imagined future or an alternative past. The writers are speculating as to how these changed/imagined circumstances affect the course of society and how they impact human behavior. The point of 1984 is not how cool it is to conjure up Big Brother, but rather, to explore what brutality people are capable of and what people are willing to do to survive. SF writers like to use the label "speculative fiction" to denote a broad category.

Personally, I really enjoy the space stories. I love getting lost in the drama of exploration and confronting the unknown. When you stand outside at night (away from the city) and you see the plethora of stars, you can't help but marvel at the vastness of the universe and wonder what's out there. I personally will never get to explore this vastness, but I can read other people's fanciful tales.

If you have not read much SF and are curious, my recommendations are as follows:

"Literary" SF - Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Classic SF - The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury; The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester; Foundation by Isaac Asimov
"Hard" SF - Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead/Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

I have not included fantasy (or horror) in the discussion above. To be sure, speculative fiction writers would include fantasy as part of the broad spectrum of stories. Personally, I don't care for fantasy all that much. Harry Potter is well and good, as are the Lord of the Rings books, but I am not drawn to the idea of magic existing in the universe. SF stories often deal with technologies that do not exist and alien species that have not been discovered, but there is, at least, a theoretical possibility of these things coming to pass. A story about flying dragons and ancient spells doesn't capture my imagination in the same way as a story about the first expedition to Pluto. Maybe I haven't read enough in the fantasy genre or maybe I haven't found the right stories unlock my inner Muggle. I would love some recommendations.

Reading Multiple Books at Once

Approximately 17 years ago I went though a period of time where I started around 15 books, but didn't finish any of them. The odd thing is that for many of these books, I would read over half of the book and then I would abandon it. I was enjoying each of these books and I simply put each one down with the intent to continue. I would go on to another book before too long without circling back to the prior books. I am sure there was some psychological reason for this behavior, but quite frankly, I am not inclined to explore it. Many years later, I made an attempt to finish the books into which I had made significant inroads. For the remaining unfinished books, I removed the bookmarks so that if I picked them up again, I would start from the beginning.

Since then, I have made a point of not reading more than two books at once. I have held fast to this rule. However, today I realized that I am in the middle of 4 books: 1) The Yacoubian Building by Alaa-Al-Aswany. This is a fascinating novel about modern Egyptian life that I am reading for my book club; 2) Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. This is truly one of the greatest "hard" science fiction stories ever. It borrows from Chaucer in that a group of pilgrims (in space) tell each other their life stories. It includes elements of action, noir mystery, political intrigue, religious mysticism, and psychohistory. It is a mind blowing portrait of humanity's imagined future. 3) The Cuban Reader is a collection of essays, stories, poems, and histories of Cuba from Columbus through the present. I am learning a great deal about my roots (the brutality of the Spanish, the long history of slavery, the origins of the Revolution). 4) Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth by Terrence Dicks. This is a novelization of an early episode of this beloved series. To be clear, I am reading the book to one of my daughters. However, I have to admit that I bought the book about 20 years ago for my own reading. Yes, I was a fanboy in my younger days, and yes, my daughter is a beard in this situation.

I am not worried that I am heading back down the road of not being able to finish any books. That was a long time ago and in the interim, I have picked up and finished upwards of 200 books. There are a few books that I have dropped, but that was because the books sucked; and that is a good reason for not finishing.

Daniel Clowes - Graphic Novelist

There are two general types of graphic novels. First, there is the superhero variety. These are comic books that have been published in book-length format. Comic books have always gotten a bad rap for being silly, pulpy drivel. This reputation is often deserved. Most comic books are badly drawn and badly written. However, beginning in the 1980's, a number of comic book writers emerged who used the comic book/superhero/fantasy format, but addressed the larger issues of the day. Writers such as Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Frank Miller (The Dark Night Returns, Sin City) and Neil Gaiman (Sandman) tackled issues such as terrorism, government repression, and the morality of the use of force. The Dark Night Returns potrays Batman as a heavy drinker that has doubts about his crime fighting abilities. These stories are a little more complex that the comics of the 1970's and prior.

The other general category is the "literary" graphic novel. These are often stories that could have been told in a conventional text format, but the writers chose to represent the stories graphically. If you are wondering whether a graphic novel can have any literary merit, you have to go no further that Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman. These books deal with WWII and the holocaust. Spiegelman confronts the horror of the camps and the guilt of the survivors as effectively as any novel I have read. I put it up there with Night by Elie Wiesel as a seminal work dealing with the holocaust. Spiegelman potrays the Jews as mice, the Germans as cats and the Americans as dogs. It may sound silly at first, but it is a very effective device. Another literary graphic novel that I recommend is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This one deals with the Iranian Revolution.

If these historical/biographical tales are not to your liking, let me tell you about Daniel Clowes. He is a fabulous graphic artist and writer. He is best known for his work Ghost World, and I wholeheartedly recommend this book as a starting point. His characters tend to be of the urban, arty, nerdy, cranky variety that may be familiar to many of you. He has a new book coming out later this month called Wilson. The quote I read from the publisher is as follows:

Meet Wilson, an opinionated middle-aged loner who loves his dog and quite possibly no one else. In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friend and stranger alike into a series of one-sided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor.

You get the picture. Other graphic writers of note include Ivan Brunetti, Chris Ware and R. Crumb (he just published the Book of Genesis in graphic form and it is sitting on my shelf awaiting its turn).

Stories about Jesus on Holy Saturday

I wasn't sure what to call the Saturday in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I Googled it and learned it it called Holy Saturday. I probably should have known that. Anyway, I was thinking about the various stories I have read about the life of Jesus. Of course, many people are familiar with the 4 Gospels of the New Testament. But there are other stories. The Jefferson Bible comes to mind. Apparently, our third president had trouble with the "supernatural" elements of the Jesus story. He cut and paste (literally) the portions of the Gospels that related to the morals and teaching of Jesus. He left out the virgin birth, the miracles and the resurrection. For sure, it is a different way to look at Jesus. In this version, Jesus' message is front and center.

A number of years ago, Martin Scorsese adapted Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, The Last Temptation of Christ. I did not read this novel, but I did see the film. The story was controversial because as Jesus was dying on the cross, he has a moment where he imagines his life taking a different turn. He fantasizes that he married Mary Magdalene and they have children. Ultimately, Jesus does not succumb to these fantasies and dies on the cross for humanity. Some people felt that Jesus, being free from sin, would never have such fantasies. What, I think, the story attempts to deal with is the tension in the Christian perspective of Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus is God, but Jesus was also a man. It is a fascinating point that bears further reflection.

My favorite novel that deals with the Jesus story is Quarantine by Jim Crace. Yes, the title of that novel inspired the name of this blog. Quarantine tells the story of Jesus' 40 days in the Judean wilderness. Those of you that have read the Gospels are familiar with this story. However, Crace severely departs from the traditional texts. It is a re-imagining of the story with a very different outcome. Many Christians will undoubtedly be greatly offended by this tale. However, the reason I love this story is because Crace is able to delve into that very human yearning of faith in a fresh way. Yes, he turned a sacred story on its head, but I think that Crace's deviations from the Gospels were not simply to rile the Christian faithful. Rather, he was attempting to depict real truths of the human spirit. I think he succeeded.