Tag Archives: fiction

BOOK REVIEW: Fanny Hill by John Cleland

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Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of PleasureFanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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Many people know this as the first English-language pornographic novel. It remains one of the most widely banned books in English (thus, my need to read it), though by today’s standards its 1740’s style isn’t exactly explicit in language—avoiding vulgar terms in favor of neutral terms used in double entendre. It is graphic, however, and sex is central throughout. (Fun Fact: As with many of the works of the Marquis de Sade, this book was written while the author was in prison–though in Cleland’s case it was debtor’s prison.) It’s the story of a young woman of “loose morals”—both professionally and as an amateur, if you will. The story is told through letters to another woman in which Frances Hill explains how she ended up leading the life she did.

As with de Sade’s “Justine,” the inciting incident is that Hill becomes an orphan—though in this case her parents succumb to small-pox. Also, like Justine, Hill starts out naïve, and is taken advantage of by unsavory characters. This shouldn’t suggest that the character and story are completely the same. [Note: this book was written several decades before de Sade’s.] Hill is neither as relentlessly virtuous nor as relentlessly victimized as is Justine. At various points, she has agency in her decisions, while agency is at best an illusion for Justine. Hill even develops a love interest in the book in the form of a young lawyer named Charles who is soon separated from her (providing an engine for the continuation of the story.) Furthermore, she ultimately finds herself in the hands of a man who does her a fair turn, rather than twisting her misfortune to his desires (as all the men and many of the women do in Justine’s life.)

As one might expect of a novel written in the middle of the 18th century, the prose is purple. Also, as mentioned, it’s not for those with delicate sensibilities as sex is a fixture throughout. It’s interesting to read what the state of erotic literature was in the 18th century. If you’re curious about what that first porn novel was like, I’d recommend this book—as long as you are neither a prude nor incapable of deciphering the purple prose of that era.

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BOOK REVIEW: Justine by Marquis de Sade

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Justine (Harper Perennial Forbidden Classics)Justine by Marquis de Sade
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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This is the story of a virtuous, and pretty, young woman who repeatedly falls prey to lecherous libertines. Over the course of the story, she is victimized by aristocrats, monks, and outlaws. The lead goes by the name Therese, though her given name was Justine. She is one of two sisters orphaned after their father ran afoul of a man by having an affair with said man’s wife. The story is set in France immediately before the Revolution, as it was written while de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille in 1787.

As Therese is telling her tale of woe on the eve of her trial for murder and arson, one might question whether she is an unreliable narrator. In other words, was she as morally upright and steadfastly pious as she portrays, and were her sufferings truly through no fault of her own [beyond naïveté.] That level of complexity is beyond de Sade’s simple formulation. The lesson of his amorality tale is that Therese ends up in such a mess precisely because (by being so virtuous and pious) she fails to comply with what de Sade saw as the law of nature. His version of the law of nature is defined by the strong lording over the weak, and the ideal of “do unto others, before they can do unto you.”

What is the evidence for de Sade’s twisted amoral moral to the story? First, he includes a sister, Juliette, who follows the path of least resistance (accepting a life of vice) and ends up much better off. Second, all of the “villains” (though de Sade didn’t see them that way, I’m certain) are prone to Bond Villainesque exposition on this philosophy as justification for the vile acts they are perpetrating. This ham-handed approach can make for an annoying read. [However, if one is interested in the minutiae of the philosophy of libertinage, one may find some of the arguments interesting. While de Sade’s philosophy is rank and vile, it may have just been a wild pendulum swing from what was going on in the mainstream world at the time.]

While I certainly wouldn’t recommend the book as a treatise on ethics, morality, or philosophy, it’s an interesting story. I’ve only read one other book by this author (i.e. “120 Days of Sodom”) and can say that “Justine” is vastly better than that one.

I’d recommend it for those intrigued by the occasional amorality tale. It can’t be said to lack tension. Needless to say, it’s graphic in places, and not for readers of delicate sensibilities.

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BOOK REVIEW: King Solomon’s Mines by Henry Rider Haggard

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King Solomon's Mines (Allan Quatermain, #1)King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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A wealthy aristocrat (Sir Henry Curtis) seeks out legendary hunter, Allan Quatermain, to help him find a brother who went missing while in search of the diamond mines of King Solomon. That’s the premise that propels this story. Quatermain leads an expedition that will strike out into in the dark heart of Africa where lives will be repeated put on the line.

This novel was written at a time when lost world stories seized the imagination. With exploration still in progress, it wasn’t fantastic beyond imagination that a new civilization would be stumbled into that was unlike any known. The stories of real life explorers (e.g. Livingston, Burton, Speke, and Stanley) engrossed the public, and people were captivated by the myriad ways to die in Africa. Haggard’s novel echoes the terrors of those real world works, but with emphasis on the more visceral (e.g. warring tribes and wild animals) and less emphasis on the more blasé paths to one’s demise (e.g. being abandoned by one’s porters / supply theft, or contracting a severe case of the shits.)

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It’s readable, particularly for a work of the 19th century. It has enough adventure to maintain tension and keep one reading. That said, it’s not a flawless execution.

The biggest twist is toward the middle, and the ending resolves itself in a disappointing manner. [Remainder of paragraph is vaguely spoilery.] However, one may not notice this on the first read, if one becomes engrossed in the immediate details. To elaborate: the protagonists are put in a dire situation, and to get through it they have to pass through a scary environment. If you are caught up in the feeling of being in that environment, you may not notice the deus ex machina of being there in the first place. Also, the issue of Sir Curtis’s brother feels like it’s handled as an afterthought. If the book was written today, I’d suspect that the author had forgotten all about his inciting incident altogether until an editor told him it was too big of a loose-end to ignore.

I’d recommend this book for readers of adventure and lost world stories.

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BOOK REVIEW: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

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Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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[Spoilers for the previous books. If you haven’t read “The Hunger Games” or “Catching Fire” you might want to before reading this review.]

This book concludes “The Hunger Games” trilogy. A rebellion has been stoked in Panem, and its architects need Katniss Everdeen to keep the fires burning. But there are two problems. Problem one is that she’s healing, disoriented, and—in a manner of speaking—mourning Peeta (who is alive but in the hands of the Capitol.) The second problem is that they want her as a celebrity spokes-model, a position at which she stinks. Once she gets her feet under her, she has other ideas, ideas that will put the Mockingjay—beloved symbol of the rebellion—in mortal peril. The reluctant heroine who refuses to play on the terms of others is a recurring theme, but it unfolds on a much different field.

Where “Catching Fire” repeated and expanded upon the “gladiatorial combat and a love triangle” theme of the first book, here the games aren’t in the arena but in rebel strongholds in the Districts and in the Capitol, itself. While the love triangle angle seems moot at the book’s beginning, it does continue to play out in an intriguingly twisted fashion. The gladiatorial combat is replaced by actual war, but the gamemakers are still around to put their diabolical stamp on the proceedings.

As an ending, “Mockingjay” is satisfying in that it ties up loose ends and leaves the story at a clear conclusion. Readers will have varying feelings about how these loose ends were resolved, the pacing of those resolutions, and the emotional tone with which one is left. (War story happy endings only get so happy.) When I read “Mockingjay” I found it a tad less enjoyable than the other books, but for reasons that I’ll admit are hard to explain. Collins presents a bitter-sweet, realist conclusion, but in the shell-shocked miasma in which the reader is left, it’s hard to tell if one is satisfied or just done. I suppose the fact that it triggers an emotional response at all makes it a good ending.

I’d recommend this book, and the rest of the trilogy as well.

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BOOK REVIEW: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

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Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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[Spoiler Note: While I intend—as usual–to keep the spoilers minimal (insignificant) for the book under review, it’s hard to review it without major spoilers of the first book in the series—“The Hunger Games.” If you haven’t read that book, you may want to before you read this review.]

As a surviving / winning tribute, life should have been cake for Katniss Everdeen. She returned to her family and friends in District 12, but instead of subsistence living she has a beautiful house and more money than she can spend. Of course, winning tributes are celebrities and have to serve as mentors to future tributes—most of whom will die. Still, the rest of the year she could be happy, except that the gambit by which she managed to save Peeta (one-third of her love triangle) as well as herself in the first book (one of them should have died, per the rules of the Hunger Games), has riled President Snow. Snow intends to do everything in his power to make sure she doesn’t live out her days in fame and comfort. The President might have found it strategic to let matters lie, but each Games brings Katniss back into the spotlight. As the 75th anniversary games approach, she will be back in the public eye, both during a victory tour and the Hunger Games.

At this point, one might be wondering whether a major criticism of this book will be the same as was leveled against “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”—i.e. that it’s a fine story but essentially a repeat of the original with a bigger death star. There’s an argument that that’s an apt description, but there are also counterpoints. The first retort is “What does it matter as long as the story is enjoyable and the tension is ratcheted up?”

The other major justification is that this part is a necessary bridge between the first and the last books in two regards. For one thing, we have to see the dawn of the revolution and Katniss’s—unwitting, but significant–role in it. A couple of the most emotionally intense moments of the book involve the first sparks of rebellion before the Games even begin to be replayed. For another, the love triangle is re-intensified. The survival of Katniss and Peeta hinges on their ability to continue to act out the star-crossed lover card that saved them in the first book—obviously straining the other edge of the triangle.

I enjoyed this installment, and think Collins did a good job of giving readers enough new tension to make the story gripping despite the fact that replaying the Games is at the heart of the story. I’d recommend the book for anybody who finds dystopian fiction appealing—whether a YA or not.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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At the risk of mortally offending fans of Lois Lowry’s “The Giver,” I’m going to introduce “The Hunger Games” as the book that launched a thousand young adult (YA) dystopias. Yes, I’m aware that Lowry’s book came out much earlier and was both a commercial and literary success. However, it came out so much earlier (i.e. 15 years earlier), and without noteworthy copycats. “Hunger Games” was immediately followed by a dystopian YA book and movie blitzkrieg. This might be a trick of timing, but I don’t think one can dismiss the Collin’s story and characters as features that spawned copies meh, bad, and ugly. (Which is to say, those who started their dystopian YA projects after reading “Hunger Games” were probably too late, but similar projects in the pipeline probably benefited enormously.)

I’m not holding all the horrible works of copycats against Collins. I think she made a tight and engaging story of a love triangle meets “The Running Man.” That’s my best summation, but to elaborate: A girl in a burgeoning relationship with a young man from her district is forced into a kill-or-be-killed futuristic version of gladiatorial games, during which she becomes attached to her fellow district tribute under the crucible of combat.

The main characters are suitably likable and flawed. Each of the main characters is in some regards a font of virtue with a tragic weakness. The lead, Katniss Everdeen, sacrifices by volunteering take her little sister’s place in the games, but she also strings along the two love interests and isn’t above the cold calculation that survival requires. Her boyfriend from back home, Gale, turns out to be even more willing to do whatever it takes. The most virtuous of the leading characters, Peeta, may lack a dark side, but he’s also comparatively milquetoast–surviving only through charisma and the kindness of others.

If the leading characters feel true in their complexity, Collins takes a calculated risk by making a host of Capitol characters that are caricatures of humanity. They are over-the-top in their shallowness and narcissism. There are exceptions, but many of these characters seem like the worst of pre-teens trapped in the lives of adults. They are obsessed with meaningless things and are numb to consequences felt by others. I’m not sure why that would appeal to readers of YA fiction, but maybe kids who read look around at the kids that don’t and see people who look a lot like these Capitol caricatures. Mere speculation.

I held off reading this series for a while, but I must admit that I enjoyed all three of the books in the series (to varying degrees.) I’d recommend “The Hunger Games” for anyone who doesn’t get too bummed out by reading dystopian fiction. It’s fast-paced and highly readable.

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BOOK REVIEW: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

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Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, WitchGood Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Nature or nurture? That’s the question at the core of this funny take on the coming of the apocalypse, written by two masters of humorous speculative fiction—the late Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The end of days is coming. What if the Antichrist responsible for seeing it through had been switched at the hospital and was raised as a normal kid? Would he be evil enough? If not, how would the apocalypse play out? After a chapter that shows the reader the mix up at the hospital, the bulk of the book takes place over a few days that are supposed to be the last few days of humanity.

There’s an extensive cast of characters including the “gang” of Adam the anti-Christ, the four horse-persons of the apocalypse, angels and demons, witches and witch-hunters, and other sundry characters. However, the characters that most carry the tone and message of the book are Crowley (a demon) and Aziraphale (an angel.) With these two, the authors inject some Taoism into an otherwise Biblical world. That is to say, pure evil and pure good are rarities; there’s always a bit of good amid the bad, and vice versa. Aziraphale can be grumpy, and Crowley’s proclivity to be mischievous has its limits. Being in similar positions, the two bond as low-level managers working for Coke and Pepsi might get on because they face similar demands and have similar complaints about management.

Running through the book are mentions of a book called, “The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.” This witch’s prophecies are quite unusual in that they are invariably correct, and yet are specific. That is, the prophecies aren’t “right” in the sense that astrologers are often “right” by making vague statements that offer no disprovable propositions. This might lead one to believe that the book would be a marvelous guide for making predictions. However, there is still the issue of having been written centuries ago. Items like automobiles and cellphones, that play a major role in life today, were unfathomable. Furthermore, it’s usually not clear who, exactly, a given prophecy applies to. In short, the medieval writing style results in the fact that the prophecies usually only make sense after the fact.

I’d recommend this book for readers of humorous speculative fiction.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Yoga of Max’s Discontent by Karan Bajaj

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The Yoga of Max's DiscontentThe Yoga of Max’s Discontent by Karan Bajaj
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Max is a making a good living in New York City, but feels an inexplicable void that leads him to give it all up to travel to India in search of wisdom. This novel is a hero’s journey in which the quest isn’t for adventure (not in the usual sense) but for insight into his mind and a path to bliss. Along the way he finds a teacher and is assisted by others, but must ultimately find his own path. As is appropriate to such a quest, he faces hurdles within and without and it’s not always clear whether he will find what he’s searching for—or even whether it exists.

This book kept me reading. It had humor (particularly in the first part) and maintained awareness that it was a novel throughout. What I mean by the latter statement is that there is temptation for books that deal in spirituality to devolve into a muddle between story and self-help book. However, I think the author avoids that error and keeps advancing the story in a readable fashion. The descriptions of yogic practices don’t bog down the story. Those experienced with yoga will breeze right through said descriptions and know what’s happening, and those without such knowledge won’t lose much by grazing over such segments.

The book consists of 38 chapters divided into three parts. The first part covers the period during which Max moves from the US to India and seeks out a teacher. The second part describes his time studying yoga in a south Indian ashram. The final part is the period after which he’s achieved enlightenment, which he spends in the Himalayas.

I found the first two parts to the most interesting and enjoyable. The first part has all the humor and emotional turmoil one would expect from a well-developed and relatable human character. The descriptions of an austere life amid the harsh landscape of a south Indian ashram that comprise the second part make for a visceral read. Where the third part falls flat for me is that supernatural abilities are introduced, and that makes it more difficult to care about Max anymore. It’s a problem inherent in writing this type of story. While Max becomes wiser in the second section, that part doesn’t fall so flat because the life he’s living is so challenging. It’s certainly not that Max’s life is easy when he moves to the Himalayas, but by then he can speak languages he never learned and create sparks with his mind and as far as the reader knows he may be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and other superman type magic. I suspect the author was aware of the risk of this because he backs away from having Max start a fire with his mind early in the third part and the last part unfolds much more quickly.

I’d recommend this book for anyone who’s interested in a story about personal transformation. Those who’ve spent time in India will find much that resonates and those who are considering (or curious about) such a quest will glean many insights from this book.

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BOOK REVIEWS: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

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The Things They CarriedThe Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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It’s called a novel, but it reads like a collection of war stories and essays about being an American soldier in the Vietnam War. That’s not a criticism. In fact, it’s part of the brilliance of this book. If it were thoroughly plotted, it might not feel so authentic. As war is disjointed, so is O’Brien’s book. Some of the chapters are tiny and some are lengthy. Some read more like essays than fiction, and others are clearly fictitious.

When I say that “some are clearly fictitious,” there’s always a doubt that it might just be a true story–because war is just that absurd. An example that springs to mind is one of the most engaging pieces in the work. It’s called “Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong,” and it’s about a wholesome, young girlfriend to one of the soldiers who [improbably] comes to live in the camp. The girl acclimates to the war, and soon she is going out on patrol–not with the ordinary infantry soldiers, but during the night with the Green Berets. Perhaps the moral is that some people are made for war, and it’s never who you’d suspect. As I describe it, the premise may sound ridiculous, but the way O’Brien presents it as a story told by a Rat Kiley–a fellow infantryman known to exaggerate—it feels as though there is something true, no matter how fictitious the story might be. Before one reads “Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” one has been primed by a chapter entitled “How to Tell a True War Story,” which tells one that truth and falsehood aren’t so clear in the bizarre world of war.

There are a couple of chapters outside the period during which O’Brien (the character, who may or may not be the same as the author) is actively in an infantry unit. One early chapter describes his near attempt at draft dodging, and another talks of his time stationed at the rear after being injured. Both of these chapters offer an interesting twist in the scheme of the book overall. We find O’Brien to be a fairly typical infantry soldier, and it seems hard to reconcile this with his floating in a canoe and narrowly deciding not to make a swim for the Canadian shoreline. However, what is odder still is realizing how distraught he is to be pulled out of his unit, particularly when he realizes that he has become an outsider and the [then rookie] medic who botched his treatment is now in the in-group. This is one of the many unusual aspects of combatant psychology that comes into play in the book, along with O’Brien’s description of how devastating it was to kill.

There are 21 chapters to the book. As I said, they run a gamut, but at all times keep one reading. It’s the shortest of the Vietnam novels I’ve read—I think. When I think of works like “Matterhorn” and “The 13th Valley,” there seems to be something hard to convey concisely about the Vietnam War, but O’Brien nails it with his unconventional novel. O’Brien also uses repetition masterfully. This can be seen in the title chapter “The Things They Carried,” which describes the many things carried by an infantry soldier—both the physical items they carried on patrol and the psychological and emotional things they carried after the war. It’s a risky approach that pays off well.

I’d recommend this book for anyone—at least anyone who can stomach war stories.

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BOOK REVIEW: Burmese Days by George Orwell

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Burmese DaysBurmese Days by George Orwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Orwell’s novel is about the ugly face of empire. It takes place in a Burma that was administered by the British as part of their Indian colony—but it’s in the waning days of the Empire, much to the chagrin of the entitled and chauvinistic European characters of the book. Most of the characters are shockingly racist and life abroad hasn’t broadened their thinking in any discernible way. The notable exception is the lead character, John Flory, whose best friend is Dr. Veraswami (an Indian medical doctor and government official) and who is unique among the British for being able to see the native ways as anything other than primitive and preposterous.

However, the hero is deeply flawed. Flory is a coward, and in the early pages of the novel is unwilling to support the nomination of his good friend Dr. Veraswami for membership to the expat’s club because many of its more vociferous members will be damned before they admit a brown person. Flory is also a bit morally loose for the taste of his early post-Victorian comrades. He has a birthmark that he’s constantly trying to conceal, and whose presence we are led to believe is crucial to his lack of confidence. While the main intrigue is provided by a plot by an unsavory Burmese official named U Po Kyin to undermine Dr. Veraswami and bolster his own stock among the whites, it’s Flory’s story that we are following. The reader hopes that Flory will develop the confidence needed to rise to the occasion—he being the only likable person in the cast (except perhaps Dr. Veraswami, depending upon how put off one is by the Indian doctor’s borderline Uncle Tom-ish obsequiousness.) Flory’s relationship with a young woman plays an important role in his story and sometimes it seems she may spur him to heights while at other times she looks to be his downfall. Flory’s conundrum is that the more virtuously he behaves, the more a target is painted on his back.

While the book is set almost a century ago, I found that it has something to say today. While the times have changed and the Empire is long dead, there are times that the long shadow of this period can still be seen in the current era.

I’d recommend this book for readers of historical fiction and particularly those interested in the past and present of areas under colonial rule. Orwell builds interesting (if often despicable) characters and the book has a well-developed and interesting narrative arc.

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