SHADOW TICKET (i)

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Opened with excitement - NEW PYNCHON! - slogged through the first hundred pages feeling as though I was reading someone trying to write like Pynchon without any of the joyous perplexity and thrill of being lost in his worlds. Considered putting it down, thinking that maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind, visions of Cormac McCarthy's last being a slog and hoping this wouldn't be Pynchon's last fictional offering though time is a cruel mistress but, by triple digit page numbers, the story started moving, the characters started clicking and it felt like Pynchon. Lesser Pynchon, certainly, but his brain was there. And so was mine. Hoping it holds for the rest of it (another hundred pages or so). Not recommended for anyone wanting to give Pynchon a first go: guaranteed you won't get the appeal. I've read everything he's written and I barely made it to solid footing here.

SIX FOUR (I)

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Nearing the 400 page mark of Hideo Yokoyama’s much-lauded crime novel and I'm a.) pretty sure that I like it and b.) not quite sure what I was expecting. It certainly wasn't an INSIDER-esque look at the relationship between the Japanese police and the media; perhaps something more along the lines of DRAGON TATTOO or even HIGH AND LOW (a favorite film; mem: still need to watch Spike Lee's HIGHEST 2 LOWEST). Expectations aside, I know like it well enough to have picked up Yokoyama’s other books in English translation (SEVENTEEN and THE NORTH LIGHT) – I'll just be sure to never read the back or anything about any of his work before diving in. Marketing copy expectations are a cruel temptress and, now that I'm over waiting for the kidnapping part to take over, I realize that I should've known better. Even though I did write my own copy for my own book all those years ago but hey, whatever works.

KARLA'S CHOICE

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Had to give up on Nick Harkaway's debut under his dad's John Le Carré name, KARLA'S CHOICE. Liked what I read of it (and I adore Harkaway's work, GNOMON especially; his turning of phrase and rhythm is spectacular) and Harkaway made an honest go of it, but it lacked the authenticity of his dad's work. Not in the spycraft sort of way, but in the human voice behind it. Felt too much like reading a really good novelization of a really good film adapt of a Le Carré classic: I'd rather read the original. Had a similar feeling watching Mangold's INDIANA JONES flick: the characters are there but the absence of the heart behind is acutely felt. Time to let Le Carré rest. Solid go, but no.

12 favorite books, currently

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  • STONER (John Williams, 1965)

  • THE BLACK DAHLIA (James Ellroy, 1995)

  • RED HARVEST (Dashiell Hammett, 1929)

  • WAR AND PEACE (Leo Tolstoy, 1869)

  • THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (Ursula K Le Guin, 1969)

  • MIDDLEMARCH (George Eliot, 1872)

  • FRANKENSTEIN (Mary Shelley, 1818)

  • THE BODY ARTIST (Don DeLillo, 2001)

  • BLINDNESS (José Saramago, 1995)

  • SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (Ray Bradbury, 1962)

  • KINDRED (Octavia Butler, 1979)

  • THE MEMORY POLICE (Yoko Ogawa, 1994)