Publisher: Little Brown and Company

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee

Posted March 6, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Dystopia, Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: On Such a Full Sea (Goodreads)
Author: Chang-rae Lee
Published: Little Brown and Company, 2014
Pages: 352
Genres: Dystopia, Literary Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Dystopian literary fiction is an often under-appreciated and underutilised literary tool. Chang-rae Lee steps away from the historical novels he normally writes to give us On Such a Full Sea, a dystopian novel set over a hundred years into the future. The novel tells the story of a teenage girl Fan who works in the high walled, self-contained labour colony know as B-Mor (formally the city of Baltimore) who goes searching for the man she loves as he has mysteriously disappeared.

I often enjoy a novel that disguises political discourse with the dystopian fiction genre. Think 1984’s message on totalitarianism, Fahrenheit 451 on censorship, Super Sad True Love Story on Globalisation. On Such a Full Sea also has a political message but it is far more subtle. The thing about literary criticism and political discourse is that you can often find differing opinions; was this novel on the harsh reality of immigration, slavery, human trafficking, removal of individuality or something more? I’m not going to go into too much detail on this; you can discover that on your own.

I want to have a quick look at the dystopian world that Lee has created as it follows a similar style to that of George Orwell’s 1984. These walled communities are more like labour camps, designed to keep people in rather than out. The workers are being watched and controlled by fear; rather than by governmental oversight, the labours are been monitored by The Charters, which to me feels like middle management. In this future most of the American cities have been abandoned due to crushing debts and disease and the Chinese cities are suffering from major air and water pollution. The solution, to relocate and occupy America; this is why Fan and the others are found working in B-Mor.

The harsh realities of this dystopian world are often drowned out by the beauty in Chang-rae Lee’s writing. You can spend so much time being swept away by the writing that the plot really does take a back seat. This works only because the plot isn’t really as strong as I would have liked it to be. There are times I found myself enjoying the writing and not really paying enough attention to the plot only to have something shocking happen that snaps me back to attention. I would have liked a stronger plot, it really was a big downfall for me, not that plotless books are bad it’s just the particular story called for it.

I picked up this book because Chang-rae Lee mentored my current literary obsession Gary Shteyngart and helped him get his first book published. My first thought was On Such a Full Sea sounds very similar to Super Sad True Love Story. I expected to read a similar book about the struggles of Chinese immigrants but I’m happy to see the two novels are very different. There are a few similarities but not enough to compare them; Shteyngart uses satire and humour where Lee takes a more serious approach.

The plot may sound basic but On Such a Full Sea is a stunning yet surprising novel. This is actually my first Chang-rae Lee novel and while I enjoyed this novel, I’m not in a hurry to read his back list. Lee joins the ever growing list of serious novelists trying their hand at genre fiction. I for one am happy to see an increase in literary genre fiction; you can do some interesting things with genre fiction and blend that with the discourse of literary fiction the results are often amazing.

Under a Silent Moon by Elizabeth Haynes

Posted December 20, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime / 1 Comment

Title: Under a Silent Moon (Goodreads)
Author: Elizabeth Haynes
Series: Detective Inspector Louisa Smith #1
Published: Sphere, 2013
Pages: 384
Genres: Crime
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

A suspected murder in a farm outside a small English village, a young woman was found dead with blood all over the cottage. At the same time the police are called in to investigate what looks like a suicide by driving into a quarry. DCI Louisa Smith and her team are assigned this case, they discover a link between the two deaths, a link that sealed the fate of these two woman. It all happened one dreadful cold night under a silent moon.

Elizabeth Haynes’s novel Into the Darkest Corner was one of the best books I read in 2011. I still have both Revenge of the Tide and Human Remains sitting on my shelf and I probably should read them soon. I decided to read Under a Silent Moon first because it is her latest offer and I was interested to read her take on the police procedural genre. This is a new direction for this author and I really wanted to see how her style translated.

What I loved about Into the Darkest Corner was how dark and disturbing that psychological thriller was. It was the type of book that I loved but couldn’t recommend to everyone because it might have contained triggers; it felt too realistic and unsettling. Some of her dark psychological style is definitely in this novel but there is something so different about Under a Silent Moon.

The novel felt like a very technical police procedural, I have no idea how a detective investigates crimes, my knowledge comes from men like Philip Marlowe who are hard-boiled and so smart that you often miss the clues (sometimes I think the clues never existed in the novel). I’m not sure how accurate or researched this novel was, but I think it worked well; she got that balance between technical and plot right. I liked how this book had police reports, notes and other documents to help drive the plot and give the reader a deeper insight into the crimes.

The major problem I had was that I wanted something darker; this felt too much like a generic crime thriller but Elizabeth Haynes style was evident and I like how detailed the book was. It was a slightly different take on the police procedurals I’ve read but it also felt the same. I also didn’t think much of the characters, there could have been more to them and I know this is the start of a series so I suspect that will come in future books.

In turn, I want to like all the uniqueness of Under a Silent Moon; I definitely like Hayne’s style but I just think there are too many crime novels that are similar. Sure, they all sell well, I just like when I book stands above the rest. There are so many things that were great about this novel, and I will be reading the next chapter in the series when it gets released. I think I prefer the dark psychological thriller style found in Into the Darkest Corner and was secretly hoping for something like that. I probably should try Revenge of the Tide and Human Remains first but if you haven’t read Elizabeth Haynes before and are not afraid of something that will disturb you, then I recommend Into the Darkest Corner instead.

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

Posted October 28, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Romance, Young Adult / 2 Comments

Title: New Moon (Goodreads)
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Series: Twilight #2
Published: Little Brown and Company, 2006
Pages: 565
Genres: Romance, Young Adult
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

The most important thing in Bella Swan’s life is Edward Cullen (eye roll). So much so that college is plan B, but now he is gone, in an effort to keep her safe. But she is not safe, there are vampires out for revenge and since the Cullen’s are no longer around, Bella is their target. In comes Jacob Black; young, handsome and willing to protect Bella.

If you have read my review on Twilight, you must be wondering why I decided to read New Moon. Torture, joining the social commentary or most likely peer pressure. If you follow me on twitter or have read my post on reading Twilight then you know the fun I had with live tweeting the entire book in all its weirdness. This is what happened again with New Moon (see below for a full read of those tweets) and I think this was the only reason why I decided to continue, because truth be told, I hated the books but really enjoyed making sarcastic remarks about them.

Let’s have a quick look at the book. I’m not going to go into deep analysis of New Moon; I would have to read the book closer for that and really I only skimmed it to race through it. This is not to say I didn’t read the book, I am well aware of the plot and the key themes but this book had so much padding that skimming was the only real way to get through it. There was a paragraph dedicated to the voice of Edward Cullen and almost a full chapter where Bella and Alice flew to Europe (nothing else happened on the flight).

Bella is as always so co-dependent that it makes me sick; when Edward left she latched on to Jacob. She tells herself that she is not capable of falling in love again, like a whiny heartbroken teenager that thinks this is the end of her life and yet she is happy to lead Jacob on. There even was a time when it felt like she was going to be co-dependent on Alice; this would have made it more interesting.

Jacob started off as a whiny little lovesick puppy following Bella around everywhere. Then when it was revealed he was a werewolf he turned into a real asshole, too cool to hang out with a girl because he was in a gang. He went from one extreme to another and I just hated Jacob, there was a joke made by one of my Twitter followers of this being character development and it is sad to say this is the extent of development in the entire novel.

Apart from the constant angsty whining (and I normally love angst) this novel never really went anywhere, it was just 500 pages of treading water. The major problems I had with New Moon are (and I’m picking my top couple out of a long list), firstly the lack of consistency. Twilight and New Moon seem to contradict each other in so many ways; in book one Bella got sick at the smell of blood but in New Moon she was bleeding all over the place frequently and never seems to get sick. Then there was the fact that Stephenie Meyer, instead of doing a little research, ignored any mythology and just made up her own. This really annoyed me, some slight changes in the vampire/werewolf mythology is acceptable if you are going to use it but to make a vampire sparkle so you can spend pages on how much Edward is like diamonds is ridiculous.

I hate to say this but I will probably read Eclipse and Breaking Dawn just to live tweet them, I don’t expect to like the books but I can’t help reading them. Obviously I pay them out but I do try to analyse them to see if there is anything interesting there; wishful thinking. I will need long breaks in between the novels but you can look forward to reading my thoughts in the very distant future. I doubt I will ever like this series but at least I have evidence to back up my claims.

You by Austin Grossman

Posted August 15, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

Title: You (Goodreads)
Author: Austin Grossman
Published: Mulholland Books, 2013
Pages: 383
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Russell was a nerd in high school but he seems to have left that part of his life behind. That is until he is employed by a games company called Black Arts. This company was the brainchild of two visionary game designers who once were Russell’s closest friends. Reunited with his former nerd crew, Russell soon finds himself in a race to save his job and the Black Arts legacy.

This book rang my nerd bells and I was excited to read this one; Austin Grossman has been working in the video gaming industry since the early 1990’s. A video game designer at Looking Glass Studios, he has contributed in the wiring and design of many games including System Shock, Deus Ex and Tomb Raider: Legend. I still consider myself a nerd, not so much a gamer anymore but I still enjoy playing my X-Box every now and then, so You seemed like a book for me.

Unfortunately there are parts of this book that worked really well but then the characters felt so underdeveloped and the plot nonsensical. This was recommended to me as something similar to Ready Player One which feels a little inaccurate. Ready Player One was almost like a love letter to the 1980’s and really played on the reader’s nostalgia. While You does try be nostalgic it only really works if you were a hard-core gamer in the 1980’s and 1990’s; there are games I recognised but there were also a lot I’ve never heard of or never played.

I’m not sure if You is meant to be a coming of age story of both Russell and the video gaming industry or if Grossman was going for the Hollywood hacker style plot. I felt at times that someone should have started yelling ‘Hack the planet’. Either way I don’t think the plot was developed enough and became lost in the geek talk. Then you have the characters, they seem to be completely underdeveloped. I never got a sense of any of the characters and that did feel like a letdown.

There are some interesting insights into gaming culture and the video game industry. So much so that if Austin Grossman abandoned the little plot he had and removed the characters, this would have made for a great non-fiction book. I’d be interested in getting insights into the gaming industry, especially in the 1990’s and 2000’s when I was a huge gamer. Maybe a memoir, or something similar to You but as non-fiction, would have been a better way to go; you’ll still get to talk about the industry and you can still gain that nostalgia Grossman was clearly after.

It’s hard to decide if I like You or not; there are some interesting elements but as far as plot and character development, it really fell short. You have to be a gamer or interested in gaming to really enjoy any parts of this novel. This really did limit him; at least with Ready Player One it mentioned music, movies and books from the 1980’s to help include the non-gamers. I’ve already said it but I really would have enjoyed this book more if it was non-fiction.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Posted August 9, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Romance / 0 Comments

Title: Twilight (Goodreads)
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Series: Twilight #1
Published: Little Brown and Company, 2005
Pages: 434
Genres: Romance, Young Adult
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

I don’t think I need to tell people what this book is about; rather I need to explain my actions,which I have done in a blog post called Reading Twilight, where you can read what made me pick this book up and just how crazy I was. Also you can read my live tweeting of the book which was the only way I was able to get through the story without rage quitting.

Twilight is an escapist book, plain and simple; I don’t fit in the demographic of this book so I’m reading it and looking at how this would translate in real life and not the fantasy. I want to take the time and look at the book as well as the difference between reality and the fantasy. I might be a little harsh and I’m not trying to make anyone that enjoys this book and the fantasy feel bad; this is just how I see the book.

First of all let’s look at Isabella Swan; the everywoman of the book but this is assuming that women are post-feminist, co-dependent, quick to fall in love women that are full of angst or have a morbid obsession with death. I’ve been told that women do fantasise about the post-feminist lifestyle but in reality most of them don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen. The little descriptions we do have about Bella has been made out to be a needy woman with no notion of independence and what she really wants; I hated her from the start. Apparently the lack of descriptions about Belle is so that female readers can put themselves in her shoes and live out this fantasy but really do people even like Bella, let alone be in her shoes?

Then you have the love interest, Edward Cullen who I tend to associate with Mr Rochester (whose name is also Edward) since I know there is this link to the Brontë sisters that tries to be made but really comparing the two feels futile, the only links I see have to do with sexuality and proto/post-feminism. I get the sense that Edward Cullen is supposed to be this Byronic hero but all I see is the type of man woman need to run away from; a jealous, controlling asshole that stalks his girlfriend. Now the Byronic hero is as Lord Macaulay describes it “a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection.” While there are similarities between Edward Cullen and the Byronic hero (to me anyway) he doesn’t really fit the mould.

Someone told me that the blood in Twilight is a metaphor of adolescent sexuality which is interesting and explains why Stephenie Meyer went to all that effort in explaining why Belle got nauseous at the sight and smell of blood. This brings up another fantasy; the older more experienced man. While I don’t really want to compare this book to other novels (I’m sorry Brontë’s and the whole Romantic era) but this is almost like a polar opposite to Tampa. One explores the fantasy of a younger partner; getting them before they have been tainted by the world which is problematic because that person ends up being the one to corrupt and break that young man. Twilight looks at the older partner; but not in the same in-depth way. this plays out the fantasy and it’s up to the reader to look for the problems with a naive woman dating an older man (hint reverse the roles in Tampa or read Lolita). I’m not saying it doesn’t work, because it does work; I’m just looking at Twilight critically and wanted to look at fantasy verses reality.

I’m sure there are positive themes within this novel that you can explore like, sacrifices you make for the one you love, true love conquers all and even overcoming the bad within you to be a better person or vampire. I think those themes are in the book but for me they feel problematic, firstly Edward continues to tell Bella that she should run away but they never do and I got frustrated with them repeating the same conversation over and over and never making the sacrifice for the good of the other. Then I don’t believe this is a good example of true love, they hardly knew each other and they were madly in love, they never sacrifice for the good of the other and they are co-dependant, jealous, stalkers; to me this is not true love, this is a teenage relationship or something creepy. Finally overcoming the bad within to be a better person, the only example of that is the vampires eat animals rather than humans.

I’m going to overlook the obvious problem with the vampire mythology because it’s been done to death but I want to leave you with one thought (which you can answer in the comments if you like). Stephenie Meyer obviously has an interest in the romantic era and the Brontë sisters but is Twilight reflecting the ideas made by the romantic poets or has it missed the point completely? As you can see I didn’t like this book at all and I read it too fast to try and pull any more critical thoughts from the novel, but I think I have enough ammunition against Twilight. I hope I didn’t offend the people that enjoy this book, it’s escapism and I’m reading it critically so that might be my problem.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Posted July 12, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Young Adult / 0 Comments

Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Goodreads)
Author: Sherman Alexie
Published: Little Brown and Company, 2009
Pages: 230
Genres: Young Adult
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tells the story of Arnold ‘Junior’ Spirit, a 14 year old cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation who has hydrocephalus (an excess of cerebrospinal fluid in his skull). Junior leaves his school on the ‘rez’ to attend an all-white high school in a nearby farm town in the hopes to gain a better education. The only other Indian at the school is the mascot and Junior finds himself in a whole new world.

I’m really not sure why Sherman Alexie wrote Junior with hydrocephalus, or why he was given poor eyesight, experiences frequent seizures, stutters, and a lisp. It all felt pretty excessive and only really played a factor in the first couple of chapters of this novel. We establish the fact he is different and then it’s a non-issue for the rest of the book. Going to an all-white school was enough to make him different to the rest, so the point really felt redundant. I had a feeling this was a semi-autobiographical novel so I did seem research on Alexie and found out he too was born with hydrocephalus. Alexie underwent brain surgery at six months old. The surgeons expected that he would not survive and if he did he would have a permanent mental disability. So that explains why it was in the story but that lead me wondering at what point does this book remain a novel if the plot is the same. I don’t know enough about Sherman Alexie’s life to know but it was something to consider.

I picked up this novel because I heard it being compared to The Perks of Being a Wallflower one too many times. A similarity that feels stretched; the books follow a similar plot, a realistic teenage life for a protagonist on the outside looking in. There are the same reasons the books were banned in schools, a tragic death of character, alcohol and bullying. That’s where the similarities seem to stop (unless you count first person narrative a similarity but then that would cover a lot of books), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was also banned due to content referencing racism, poverty and masturbation. These are a majority of issues teenagers face and I’m often confused at why people don’t want teenagers to read about the issues they are going through. I’m not a parent so I can’t really judge.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian not only looks at the normal teenage issues but really wants to focus on the cultural differences. Junior’s daring move to a new school for a better education may seem to be the right choice for him but there are different obstacles he has never faced before. He has to try and bridge the two cultures, but neither side fully understands the other. This inevitably leads to fights and confrontations and eventually they start to understand each other a little better. The friends he eventually makes at the school are middle class and he isn’t; they expect him to have money due to the casinos on the reservation but in reality the mismanagement and location means no one on the reservation is making money. Arnold is ashamed of this fact and tries to hide it as best as he can, which leads to an economical clash as well as a cultural one.

The big message I got out of this novel and I think it is an important one, is the desire Junior has to be a better person. He couldn’t accept using textbooks that are over thirty years old and he put himself into the world and into the deep end (so to speak) just so he can get a better education. The idea of taking a risk to reap the rewards are often never really discussed in Young Adult literature and it was great to see such a positive message been told.

I personally didn’t think too much of this novel, I wanted it to be more like The Perks of Being a Wallflower or maybe a John Green novel and I never really got over the fact it wasn’t. There were so many interesting themes and messages within this book but I never felt like the narrative worked. It felt more like a book aimed at younger teenagers but this novel is definitely not suitable for a twelve year old. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time seems well received by the masses and for a good reason, I’m just the odd person out which seems to be a regular occurrence.

Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Posted June 15, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime / 15 Comments

Title: Winter's Bone (Goodreads)
Author: Daniel Woodrell
Published: Back Bay Books, 2006
Pages: 193
Genres: Crime
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Ree Dolly’s father has just skipped bail for Crystal meth charges. They will lose their house if he doesn’t show for his next court date. With two little brothers depending on her, Ree knows she must find and bring back her father dead or alive. But life in the Ozarks is harsh and she learns quickly that asking questions could be fatal.

I really wanted to read something dark and gritty like The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock and I was recommended Winter’s Bone. Daniel Woodrell describes this style as country noir and that was enough to sell me on the book, I knew nothing about the novel except there was an adaptation recently starring Jennifer Lawrence but I’ve still not seen it. The novel takes place just outside a fictional town in Missouri Ozarks where the Dolly’s have been known to be involved in the manufacturing of methamphetamine. This bleak landscape full of terrifying people makes for a dark southern novel that should satisfy most noir fans.

The plot is pretty straight forward but the continual helplessness of 16 year old Ree Dolly’s situation is what makes this book deliciously bleak. As many noir fans know, the dark and unforgiving landscape mixed with the bleakness of the plot can only strengthen a novel like this. For such a simple story line, I was presently surprised just how well Daniel Woodrell executed this novel; blurring the lines of morality and motivating the protagonist to protect her two unruly brothers and her catatonic mother from the bail bondsman and the sins of her father.

The rest of the world seems to have a negative opinion of Ree and her family, some often hostile and violent. While I understand why people hate the Dolly’s because of the meth they are selling to their community, I found it interesting to experience this from Ree’s perspective. I use to live across the road from a meth lab and while I didn’t know about it, the reactions of the people when they hear this story is really interesting, my experience was the increase in police patrols seemed to be a positive. So while we don’t know just how innocent Ree is and how involved she was in her father’s entrepreneurial ventures, I was more interested in the stigma that came with her name.

I’m not sure if we can call Ree the hero of this novel, most of the time she is just walking around and getting assaulted but she isn’t a villain or anti-hero either. So I have to wonder what role does she play in this novel. She was strong, stubborn and takes a lot of physical punishment without complaining, so this is more of a survival story.

I’m sure this book might be considered as controversial in the Ozarks; I don’t think Daniel Woodrell is suggesting these people are all like the people in his book but I have to wonder if maybe he was a little too harsh. I accept this harshness as part of the country noir style and not a true representation of the people of Missouri so I hope they do as well.

I was really surprised how well this simple little story worked with all the dark and noirish themes. Granted it wasn’t as dark or as enjoyable as The Devil All the Time but it was still worth reading. If people have recommendations of novels that are like The Devil All the Time I would love to hear them (or I could just reread that novel). I was impressed with Daniel Woodrell and will venture to read some more of his novels. Country Noir is a great style and I am fast becoming a fan of the style.

The Monsters by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler

Posted May 18, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Non-Fiction / 2 Comments

Title: The Monsters (Goodreads)
Author: Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler
Published: Back Bay Books, 2006
Pages: 400
Genres: Non-Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

It was a dark and stormy night on the shores of Lake Geneva, 1816. You’ve heard the story beforbe; Lord Byron challenges his friends to see who can come up with the best ghost story. Among the people include Percy Bysshe Shelley, his lover Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Mary’s stepsister Claire Claremont and Byron’s physician, John William Polidori. Two novels were born that very night; Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s (née Godwin) Frankenstein and John William Polidori’s The Vampyre. The evening begat a curse, too. Within a few years of Frankenstein’s publication, nearly all of those involved met untimely deaths.

First of all I want to point out that authors of this book Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler don’t actually believe this was a curse. Well at least I hope they don’t, this is a little gimmick to help sell the book and I think they just wanted to explore the interesting fact that they did all die young. This book is purely a biography on Mary Shelley that focuses on the night in 1816 and the novel Frankenstein. I was hoping for something about struggling to write something as great as Frankenstein or how the novel has been destroyed by pop culture.

The book starts out with the life of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous philosopher and feminist parents of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. The two had very different personalities and they seemed like a very odd couple but I think they really complemented each other. Sure, they had their problems but nothing like their daughter.

This brings us to the bulk of the book, Mary Shelley and the young romantics. These were the original rock stars and their lives, no soap opera will ever come close to the drama and complexity as the real lives of the romantics. I picked up this book to learn about these poets after reading A Treacherous Likeness and I wanted to know more about them. This was a very accessible biography, which focuses primarily on Mary Shelley but it gives you a great insight into her life. I don’t pretend to fully understand the Romantics, they are way to complex but I feel I have a better knowledge into their lives.

My interest in the Romantics has gotten stronger thanks to The Monsters by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler. I have a few other books I plan to finish off in on the topic and I doubt I’ll stop there. I love the quotes and the referencing in this biography; I’ve often found that I wonder about the source of information in biographies that don’t reference so it was so handy to have that reference.

While this book does primary focus on Mary, it was nice to learn a little more of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Claremont and John William Polidori. I didn’t previously know the story of the original publication of The Vampyre; I found it fascinating and heart breaking for John William Polidori. It is always great to find new stories about these amazing talented people.

One thing I liked about this biography, especially after reading A Treacherous Likeness, is the fact that it didn’t try to sway the reader’s opinions; it stuck to facts and left it to the readers to make up their own mind. This was a refreshing change from the opinionated A Treacherous Likeness and I really enjoyed the experience of learning more about these poets. I’m sure there are better biographies on Mary Shelley out there but The Monsters is worth checking out as well.

What it Was by George Pelecanos

Posted April 17, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Pulp / 0 Comments

Title: What it Was (Goodreads)
Author: George Pelecanos
Series: Derek Strange and Terry Quinn #5
Published: Back Bay Books, 2012
Pages: 243
Genres: Pulp
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Derek Strange left the police department to set up shop as a private investigator while his old partner Frank “Hound Dog” Vaughn remained. When a young woman comes to Strange to help find a costume ring, it leads him right to Vaughn’s active homicide case. Now both of them are working together trying to find a ruthless killer known as Red Fury.

George Pelecanos is best known as a writer for The Wire; I will admit I’ve not watched the show in its entirety but I thought I will try one of his books. I picked up this book because it was accessible but soon found out it was book five in a series about Derek Strange & Frank Vaughn. Luckily enough this read like a standalone and still felt like I learnt enough about the two to enjoy this book.

This book reminds me of those 1970’s pulp movies, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel with that same feel. You have the typical cool, badass African American who goes around kicking ass and then you have his former partner who is as hard-boiled as they come but since he is a cop he does things by the book. This is almost like a buddy cop situation but because they are not working together it doesn’t turn into anything formulaic.

Pelecanos packs a lot of detail into this novel; the cars, the clothes and the action packed plot but most of all the music. I cannot help but wonder if George Pelecanos was obsessed with music at the time of writing this book, because it really came through. Not only does he mention songs, albums and artists but who was playing what instrument and a little review of the song according to the character. Never have I read such an obsession with music since American Psycho.

I’m not sure if Strange had an afro but I can’t imagine him any other way with his bellbottom pants; it really was an image driven novel. I think with all the work George Pelecanos did with TV helped him world build and paint a picture. There were some clunky parts of the book but nothing really that would detract from the enjoyment of Pelecanos hard-boiled style.

I want to read more books in this series, as well as try out some of his other standalone novels. While this was book five, it was enough to convince me to explore more of this author’s catalogue, but I can’t help but wonder if reading this series out of order was one of my major problems with the book. I hear many people talking about The Night Gardener, so maybe that will be my next step into George Pelecanos style.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Posted April 12, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: Infinite Jest (Goodreads)
Author: David Foster Wallace
Published: Back Bay Books, 1996
Pages: 1079
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy

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In the not so distant future, the residents of a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts and the students of the Enfield Tennis Academy both search for the master copy of a bizarre movie that is so entertaining the viewers die in a state of catatonic bliss. That movie is called Infinite Jest and it is said that anyone who watches it will lose all desire to do anything but watch it. This semi-parodic novel questions what entertainment is and why it dominates our lives.

I’m not going to lie, this book is both lengthy and difficult to read but in the end it is worth the effort. You will need three bookmarks for this book, one for where you are up to, another for the endnotes and the third for the timeline that sits around page 80. You do need to read the endnotes, this book relies heavily on them; they include definitions, side thoughts, in depth details and even a filmology. You will also need to know the timeline because David Foster Wallace likes to jump around a bit, so it helps to keep up. This is where it gets tricky; in the book’s future each year has a corporate sponsorship, so you have Year of the Whopper, Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad, Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar and so on. It helps to know in what order the years are in so you can piece it all together. While all this might help you keep track of what’s going on there is still the fact that this book is piled with subplot after subplot and you will have to keep track of more characters than A Game of Thrones novel. You will need to keep notes and it might even be a good idea to get a study guide because this book will take you on a very interesting ride.

As I said before, this book is not easy; I took my time with it and slowly chipped away at this book for two months but I still think I’ve missed a lot. While there are some tangents that happen in the endnotes, this book jumps around so much that sometimes you get lost and have to go back. There shouldn’t be any shame in doing this as Wallace’s writing voice is a postmodern mixture of high- and low-brow linguistic traits which is very difficult to become familiar with. He also uses juxtaposes, colloquialisms and polysyllabic and highly esoteric words so you will need to spend some time researching.

Now that I’ve talked about the difficulties of reading the book, I should probably talk about my thoughts on it. Infinite Jest starts off rather dense, you really need to push through the first few hundred pages before things start to make any real sense. So why is this book considered a masterpiece, magnum opus or anything else it has been referred to? It’s not to read; rather it is a book that will challenge us, to rattle us out of complacency. For me I think David Foster Wallace has the ability to take something like substance addiction, recovery programs, depression, abuse, death, relationships, popular entertainment and even tennis and look at it in a very careful way. The way Wallace explores each topic may make you feel uncomfortable and it is confronting but you do gain a deeper understanding. Yet the book doesn’t remain dry and depressing; Wallace has a very unique way of using humour to basically satirise the issues without making fun of them.

This book is a parody and comment on American culture, yet this is also a semi-autobiographical novel of the issues facing the author. Creating this funny but bitter sweet novel that I found difficult not to associate with the life of David Foster Wallace; his depression that lead to his suicide. There is a lot going on in this novel and to go through all the major themes within this novel would probably turn this review into something too long to read so if you want to talk about themes I’ll leave that for the comments. So just a brief overview; the main character Hal Incandenza is an intelligent tennis prodigy dealing with the intense pressure put on him to succeed in a junior Tennis Academy, dealing with a drug addiction and the ongoing strain (both physical and emotional) to reach his full potential. While that is an understated summary, all the subplots makes it hard to cover, this is just the basis of the book.

Addiction and depression would be the two major themes in the most brutally confronting depiction of the struggles I’ve ever read. No other book has given me the insight like this one. I feel like the depiction of depression is often wrong in books and movies; depression is a complex thing, it’s not a state, it’s an overall feeling that can’t be shaked. One of the characters in the book; Kate tried to commit suicide because “[she] just didn’t want to feel this way anymore” and “[she’d] rather feel nothing than this”. This tragically honest view on depression really opened my eyes on the state of mind and the struggles that people dealing with depression go through, and for this only, Infinite Jest was worth reading.

The futuristic America created in Infinite Jest feels very much like western society now, just with the increased corporate involvement but that is the way the world is heading. I am reminded of dystopian classics with his satire of society and the social/cultural commentary. It really covers a lot of interesting topics and, while it is difficult, well worth reading.

This is one of those books I plan to re-read once I have a degree in Literature behind me; while I got a lot out of this novel, I am hit with the feeling that I’ve only scratched the surface. This is rather impressive novel overall, never have I seen a novel with over 60% of Goodreads users rating the book five stars and for good reason, the book covers a lot of topics and does it really well. Blending serious topics with an awkward sense of humour is balanced perfectly, and I highly recommend reading Infinite Jest; even if it is only to increase your pretentious levels.