Sunday, October 30, 2011

Fragile Things Group Read Week 8

The Day the Saucers Came

Sunbird

Inventing Aladdin

The Monarch of the Glen

from: Gaiman, Neil. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. New York: William Morrow, 2006.

And then we came to the end. I've so enjoyed this R.I.P. group read, organized by Carl. It's been wonderful to read through a collection such as this so slowly, and it's also been wonderful to read all the different reactions to what's in it (when I could get the chance. The past couple of weeks have been difficult, as I've not been home with steady Internet access, but I've done my best and can't wait to catch up when I get home next week). These last four were a great way to end the read. I enjoyed all of them.

The Day the Saucers Came
A brilliant poem for anyone who's ever spent any time wishing the phone would ring and a certain someone would be on the other end of it. I love it all the more for the fact that I didn't see that coming at. all.

Sunbird
Okay, so this is not a story to hand to your vegetarian friends. However, if you love food, love the idea of belonging to an epicurean club, love the phoenix, and love the way Neil Gaiman can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary, then this is the tale for you (or, at least, it was for me, who loves all those things). He wrote this story as a birthday present for his oldest daughter, and one of the fun things about reading it for me was speculating on how many father-daughter in-jokes he might have included and what they might have been. A story that was great fun, all around and in every way.

Inventing Aladdin
You see, we all need to make up stories to survive. Only, Neil Gaiman says that much more eloquently in this little gem of a poem than I ever could. You see, also, some of us are better at putting the words together for our stories than others are.

The Monarch of the Glen
I really mustn't put off reading American Gods any longer. I loved this novella, featuring AG's Shadow, with its opening quote from Angela Carter (another one not to put off reading any longer,) from the get-go. The contemporary spin on Beowulf was done beautifully (of course. Would Gaiman do it any otherwise in a story? Although, full disclosure here, you can read what I thought about his movie version of same, here, if you'd like. I did, eventually come around to the wonderful graphic novel version by Gareth Hinds). Grendel and his mother are just perfect in this tale. The evil Mr. Alice shows up again here, but he's a bit less repellent than he was in Keepsakes and Treasures, probably only because we didn't get as many details about him in this tale. He's more of a mystery. This is the novella to give to a friend who's never read Gaiman to show off his brilliance and what sheer joy it is to read him.

And that's it. Overall, a fine, fine collection, with a few I didn't like as much as others, but none I could completely dismiss, that just makes me want to read more Gaiman. My final note is that I highly recommend doing what I do: read each piece first and then listen to Gaiman read it. You won't be disappointed, I promise.

Friday, October 28, 2011

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

Sjöwall, Maj and Wahlöö, Per. The Laughing Policeman. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
(The book was originally published in 1970.)

In typical American fashion (i.e. mostly clueless about authors in countries other than America and England), before this book was chosen for the Connecticut mystery book club, I'd never heard of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, who wrote ten Martin Beck mysteries together before Per died. Also, in typical American fashion, I'd never read any Swedish mysteries until The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo became impossible to ignore, and my curiosity got the best of me. I've now read two Swedish mysteries. Based on this completely unscientific sample, I'd say that Swedish mystery writers are a bit obsessed with sex, especially -- shall we say? -- abnormal sex.

Of course, many American mystery writers are obsessed with sex, as well, and this book did happen to have been written during the height of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s, so I can't fault it for its "adult" content, and I don't. I found that recent history part of the book fascinating (protests against the police, protests against the war in Vietnam), but there a. wasn't quite enough of it to satisfy me and b. what was there, was tossed about in a way that the authors figured their readers would know and understand. In other words, they didn't provide enough details for someone like me, reading the book 41 years after it was published who knows next to nothing about Stockholm today and even less about Stockholm 41 years ago.

Still, the purpose of this novel wasn't to provide Emily Barton with a detailed history of Stockholm circa 1968. It's a mystery, and as a mystery, it's quite good. The authors pulled me in very early on with a set-up that maybe someone smarter than I would have seen coming, but I didn't. I was immediately drawn to the main characters, especially poor Martin Beck, who suffered from a cold throughout the entire book. There were points at which I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, and I really empathized with the police who were stuck with, as the New York Times Book Review endorsement on the cover of my edition notes, "... an apparently clueless crime."

This clueless crime was a mass murder on a double decker bus that took place late one rainy, mid-November night. The first two policemen to arrive on the scene bungle the investigation so much that, even if there had been clues, there are none left. The scene in which senior policeman Gunvald Larsson (a character I'd probably find obnoxious if I met him in real life, but whose sarcasm provides wonderful comic relief in this gritty tale) chews them out for their incompetence made me chuckle. At first, it seems as if the crime is just a random act committed by a lunatic, but Martin Beck, in a police briefing, soon notes,

'It seems far too well thought out. A mentally deranged mass murderer doesn't act with such careful planning.' (p. 49)
Eventually, the police, thanks mostly to Beck and his colleague and friend Lennart Kollberg, begin to make connections and to piece together an answer to the riddle of why someone they all knew (I'm trying to avoid a spoiler here for those of you who might want to read the book, but I'm not doing a very good job) was on that particular bus at that particular hour that night.

Sjöwall and Wahlöö's clipped writing style (definitely from the "no unnecessary words" school) were effective, and I loved the way they used dialogue to tell the story and to fill in gaps instead of providing long descriptions. One of my complaints about the book is that they broke one of the cardinal rules of mystery writing (oh, to hell with it. I'm going to have to include a spoiler, so don't read past this if you don't want one. However, it may not ruin the book for you. In fact, it might make the book better if you know this going into it): the murderer was someone we didn't meet until the last twenty or so pages of the book. There was no way we could suspect and nail the culprit before the police did. I was busy working on a huge, completely wrong theory for a while, because I'm used to reading mysteries in which part of the fun is trying to figure out whodunnit. If I'd known I was only supposed to be enjoying the riddle of how everything was connected and watching the police solve the crime, I might have read the book differently. In that sense, I would call this book more of a thriller than an actual mystery, a thriller disguised as a police procedural.

My other complaint is not really something I can blame on the authors, since they were writing in their place and time. Granted, it was, as I noted above, during the height of the sexual revolution, but since we all know that, long since that revolution has passed, the world is not in any way rid of its sexism (and especially not in Sweden, according to what Stiegg Larsson thought), I can't really be too upset with authors who weave sexism into their novels. That doesn't mean it doesn't bother me, though, and it does bother me that when a woman behaves the way a man does sexually (or the way, a "healthy," "normal" male is supposed to behave), she's labeled a nymphomaniac, whether she's a real life person or a character in a mystery. I was disturbed by the use of the term in this book and the way such woman were dismissed.

Finally, I have one question for the other members of the group. I didn't really get it: why, exactly, did Asa Torell go live with Kollberg and his wife for a while? Was that just some sort of red herring, or was there a real purpose in that plot detail? Or perhaps we were just meant to understand what a nice guy Kollberg was.

Overall, I'm glad to have read this one. It's nothing spectacular, but it's a perfectly fun way to spend a rainy afternoon and evening.



Sunday, October 23, 2011

Fragile Things Group Read Week 7


In the End

Goliath

Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky

How to Talk to Girls at Parties

from Gaiman, Neil. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. New York: William Morrow, 2006.

Week seven, already, for the group read of Fragile Things. Then again, it may seem like it's been forever for those of you who realize I've posted on nothing else in the past seven weeks. Oh well, only one more week to go, and then we'll get back to blogging about other things.

In the End
Being the wife of a minister, and being someone who, along with that minister, knows that humankind has a responsibility to care for creation, not to destroy it, I found this "going back to Eden" tale fascinating. What a wonderful, imaginative concept, the man and woman returning to the garden. The touch of man taking away each animal's name, as if he has no right to name them, is magnificent to those of us who know that the sacred (e.g. God) was never to be called by name.

Goliath
I'm pretty sure this one wouldn't have made any sense to me at all had I not seen the movie The Matrix. As it was, I saw the movie so long ago that I had to do a bit of thinking and piecing together to make it make sense. A bit of work, but I came away from it really liking it. I can't help making the connection to Corporate America. After all, doesn't the following quote sound like someone who's just retired from a cushy, corner-office job at G.E., say, a company that took good care of him, allowing him to support a family and send two kids off to good colleges?

They may be heartless, unfeeling, computerized bastards, leeching off the minds of what's left of humanity. But I can't help feeling grateful to them. (p. 248)
Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky
Meh. I loved the title, but this one just did nothing for me. I did, however, like the fact that one of the journal entries is dated "Friday the 32nd."

How to Talk to Girls at Parties
If his children's books make us realize Gaiman certainly remembers what it was like to be a child, this story makes us realize he also remembers what it was like to be a teenager. His sense of humor shines brightly in this wonderful tale of teenage insecurity in which one boy (our narrator) attends a party with his friend Vic. Vic is the sort of guy who has success with all the prettiest girls at parties while our narrator Enn gets stuck talking to mothers in kitchens. Although I was a girl, that's a very familiar story from my own teenage years. Anyway, Enn tells Vic that he doesn't know how to talk to girls, and Vic chides him, telling him they're just girls. But are they? I love the girls in the story and the conversations Gaiman dreams up for them. I also love wondering, what, exactly happened to Vic in that upstairs room.

I may or may not get around to posting about the last week's stories next Sunday. If not, I promise to write about them as soon as I can.





Thursday, October 20, 2011

Fragile Things Group Read Week 6

My Life

Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot

Feeders and Eaters

Diseasemaker's Croup

from: Gaiman, Neil. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. New York: William Morrow, 2006.

Here I am in lovely Maine, but it's a rainy day today, so I brought the computer over to the Southwest Harbor Public Library in order to weigh in late on the four stories in the R.I.P. Group Read of Fragile Things. I haven't had the chance to read what anyone else had to say, but here are my thoughts.

My Life
I've never been a fan of sock monkeys, thinking they're ugly. I guess I want my stuffed animals to be cute. I absolutely love this monologue, though. Gaiman explains in his Introduction that it was written to accompany the photo of a sock monkey who looked to Gaiman like his life had been hard. He certainly gave the heavy-drinking narrator of this monologue a hard, unbelievable life. Just like the stories in The Weekly World News, which Gaiman says were an inspiration, you don't know whether or not to believe the guy. Yet, you keep listening to him because he's extremely entertaining and you love wondering if anyone really could live such a life. Pass him another drink. He's someone I don't mind sitting next to in a bar (as long as he doesn't try to hit on me. He probably will. Only the weirdos ever hit on me in bars).

Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot
I don't know that much about tarot cards, but I absolutely loved this one anyway, probably because I so love vampires. In each of these vignettes, based on various tarot cards, like "Priestess" and "Magician," the vampires act the way vampires are supposed to act, that is, in monstrous ways. No Twilight-y, kind, falling-sweetly-in-love vampires here. These vampires are scary, and obsessive, and dangerous, which is exactly how I like my vampires.

Feeders and Eaters
If you love cats the way I do, this is not going to be your favorite Neil Gaiman story. I know it's a very effective horror device, but I hate it when harm comes to innocent animals. Still, I can't say I completely disliked this odd story that sort of merges the zombie-like with the vampiric. Anyone want to fry up some shaggy inkcaps, butter, and garlic with me? I promise we won't eat any sort of meat with them.

Diseasemaker's Croup
You would think that I, someone who suffers from a touch of hypochondria, would've appreciated this one. Instead, I found it a bit tedious. Gaiman, who usually seems to be so effortlessly clever was trying a bit too hard or something here. Then again, maybe I just didn't like it because I'm someone who suffers from a touch of hypochondria.

Now, if all goes as plans, my thoughts on the next four stories will post all by themselves this Sunday. A little bit of magic for you (or a little bit of telling Blogger when to post it, whichever you choose to believe).




Sunday, October 09, 2011

R.I.P. Group Read: Fragile Things 5

Locks

The Problem of Susan

Instructions

How Do You Think It Feels?

from: Gaiman, Neil. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. New York: William Morrow.

First of all, before I discuss the four selections for this week's R.I.P. group read, I have to tell you what a dolt I am. You see, I completely forgot, when I signed on for this challenge (and the whole R.I.P. challenge) that I would be spending most of the month of October in Maine without easy Internet access. I can get it at the library, but when you are in Maine in October, you don't tend to want to spend most of your time at the library. And the library in Maine is closed on Sundays, so this will be my last official post on Fragile Things. Have no fear, though, if you are still interested in what I have to say about it, because I'm going to continue to read it and will post my thoughts when I can (along with the other books I'm reading for the R.I.P. Challenge). It just may be that you have to wait till November for me to finish up.

Now, onto my thoughts about this week's four:

Locks
Another poem. This one is absolutely charming, all about Gaiman telling "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" to his young daughter. First of all, can you imagine getting to be Neil Gaiman's daughter and having him read you bedtime stories? It's charming, but it's also poignant, as Gaiman remarks on the changes he knows will be inevitable as his daughter ages. It's also a commentary on the importance of story telling (you won't get any argument from me on that point). Finally, it's a commentary on the protectiveness a parent feels for a child. It's beautiful, really. Again, I wish I had a whole collection of his poetry.

The Problem of Susan
I've mentioned over the years, in other blog posts, that I was not the fan of Narnia that it seems all the other kids I knew were. I liked The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but not anywhere near as much E. Nesbit's fantasies or the Oz books. I read some of the other Narnia books, but basically just to see what all the fuss was about, and I don't think I even bothered to finish out the series. I was surprised, then, to find, that I absolutely loved this story. It doesn't matter that I had no idea what Susan's fate had been. Gaiman explains that both in the Introduction and in the story itself. What I love about this story is that he answers the question the reader wants answered, the one he or she has been asking, even after multiple readings of a favorite novel, and because he's a writer he can. It's like reading Little Women for the hundredth time and thinking, "Why couldn't Jo just have married Laurie?" The question, in this case, happened to be, "But what about poor Susan? Just because she liked to do things like wear lipstick?" It's the sort of thing that seems so unfair, her being denied her family's great reward. Gaiman does a superb job of imagining what happened to Susan. It's not blissfully happy, but it's probably not nearly the punishment C. S. Lewis probably had in mind for the child who was more fond of worldly things than she was of godly things (I like to think that even as a child I couldn't handle the Christian allegory in the Narnia tales, the way Lewis hits the reader over the head with it, which is what I discovered when I reread The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe a few years ago. But, I suspect, it had more to do with not really liking any of the characters).

Instructions
Heavenly, heavenly poem. I can't even begin to describe it. You must read it for yourself.

How Do You Think It Feels?
This is a melancholic love story. When I was young and went through my fair share of breakups, I used to wish that I could just, somehow, cut out the part of my brain that remembered the person, that remembered both all the lovely times we'd had together and all the heartache at the end. I felt I'd be better off if I could just throw out all the memories. Now that I'm older, of course, I'm glad I couldn't (and not only because I'd probably have less than half a brain at this point). All those experiences are very important for making us who we become, and they do make us wiser, and they do harden our hearts -- a little, at least. Luckily, most of us do not harden our hearts the way the heart is hardened in this story. Or do we? If Gaiman gave us hope in Harlequin Valentine, he sort of takes it away here. Nonetheless, I liked the story. If nothing else, it's always a comfort to those who've had to glue their hearts back together time and again, fearful that next time they might break beyond repair, to read a new theme on "'Tis better to have loved and lost..." even if it's an extremely bleak one.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

R.I.P. Group Read: Fragile Things 4

Good Boys Deserve Favors

The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch

Strange Little Girls

Harlequin Valentine

from: Gaiman, Neil. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. New York: William Morrow, 1006.

(Before I begin, I must say that you-all are a polite bunch for not pointing out to me that, in my previous Fragile Things post, I'd magically turned Kingsley Amis into a Pennsylvania Dutchman by adding an "h" to the end of his last name.)

Ahh, this week, for the R.I.P. group read of Fragile Things, we returned to Neil Gaiman stories that I can honestly say I loved, nothing in this week's readings repulsing or disgusting me. Instead of searching for redeeming qualities in stories that unsettled me, I could just sink into my chair and enjoy the brilliance of Gaiman's imagination.

Good Boys Deserve Favors
Okay, so now I know why this one was paired with The Flints of Memory Lane in Gaiman's Introduction. Like that one, it appears to be based on something that happened to Gaiman when he was a kid. Apparently, he chose to play the double bass in school. Read this story if you want to discover what a brilliant writer Gaiman is without having to worry about being spooked or disturbed. He does a masterful job of weaving the ways in which a love affair might manifest itself in a boy before he's old enough to have a love affair with a girl (or a boy, if that's the way he happens to be made). It's not the sort of thing one would expect from a story about a boy learning to play a musical instrument, which is exactly what makes it so magical and endearing. Nonetheless, there it is, a pre-adolescent love story, in its full glory: the fact that his teacher refers to the instrument as "she;" his not realizing, at first, how attached he is to his Object of Affection; his OoA helping him reach new heights in a dizzying performance; and his losing his OoA through his own clumsiness, never to find another who could replace her. I loved it; I could gush about it forever, but then it might be overwhelmed by my clumsy affection and dump me, so I'll stop here and try to keep it guessing, for a little while longer, how I feel about it.

The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch
I love any story that uses a circus, a carnival, or an amusement park as a setting for the weird, fantastic, and the supernatural. Such human forms of entertainment are, to me, the most likely places for dark magic to hide and manifest itself. I love the humor in this story. I laughed out loud when we encountered the man dressed as a giant fish riding his bicycle. The idea of the hunchback and the topless nun racing to rescue him is priceless, punctuated by the girl asking if that was meant to happen. Even more than the humor, though, I like the mystery that surrounds Gaiman's very dark circus (hidden, of course, underground). Miss Finch is a flawless character, exactly what she should be, in every way. Oh, and wouldn't that stocky woman be the one you'd want to scare to death? It's all so perfect.

Strange Little Girls
I suppose I liked this one so much because I'm a huge fan of characterization. This little collection of character sketches proves that, in the right hands, merely describing key elements of a character can tell an extremely powerful story. I also loved the way it ended, basically telling us to change our points of view, see things from different angles.

Harlequin Valentine
Okay, so I should be disturbed by a "human" heart being nailed to someone's door, but I'm not. I should also be disturbed by what ultimately happens to that heart (yes, I'm still attempting to avoid spoilers, although I know I haven't always done a very good job in writing my posts for this group read). I'm not, though, and I absolutely loved this story about love and trickery and broken hearts and power in relationships. Again, we had a great ending: a little ray of hope to prove what a romantic Gaiman actually is.

I'm realizing, as I write this, that one of the key factors in this week's collection is that all the stories provided learning opportunities for me as a writer. The first one is all about including the unexpected, using what might be nothing more than a mere fact (e.g. for a time, as a boy, I played the double bass) and giving it meaning. The second one was all about setting, although I also learned from it ways that details can be omitted, encouraging the brain to come up with its own details. The third one was a study in characterization. The last one demonstrates the way hope can keep romance alive in a story. Were I teaching a creative writing class, I think I'd have my students read these four stories.



Saturday, October 01, 2011

An October 1 "Gift": Whose Story? by Emily Barton

Happy October 1st, everyone! In honor of my favorite month of the year, I give you a short ghost story I've written. Any feedback you'd like to share will be gratefully received.

Whose Story?

Emily Barton

March 18, 1978

This isn't my story to tell. My creative writing teacher would write "cliché" above that, but, then again, it's a cliché for a sixteen-year-old girl to keep a diary. Besides, who else is going to tell it? Jenny and Van don't want to talk about it. Tony’ll forgive me for telling. He was that kind of guy. The thing is, I'm just not sure who to tell, who would believe me.

I won’t waste time with long, descriptive passages. The story's plot is this: Tony didn't kill himself. I know he didn't. He never would've killed himself. He loved life too much, everything about it. Well, almost everything. He hated school. Not the classes. He was always reading ahead in his textbooks. He liked most of the teachers, too. What he hated were the other kids, the cliques, their mob mentality, their cruelty.

He was tall and thin and awkward and nonathletic. In other words, he was a prime target for bullies, but he could fight back when pushed too hard, because he was passionate. Those morons didn't understand passion. They'd have bullied Byron and Wordsworth, too, probably did in some past life.

Yeah, he was bullied and picked on, and everyone thinks that’s why he killed himself, but he didn't, not after eleven years of this, when he only had a year and half to go. That would've been letting the bullies win just when he was almost done. He told me, "Another year and a half of these assholes, and then I'm free." And he would've been free. He was gonna apply everywhere in New York, just in case he didn’t get into Columbia, but who are we kidding? He would’ve gotten into Columbia. He just wanted to be in New York, though.

I know it looked like a suicide. His father's gun, his body up in the tree house they'd built together. How come no one gets that he never would've killed himself there? The tree house always made him happy. A guy like Tony would've chosen somewhere significant, the boys' bathroom at school, the baseball field at the park, not the tree house.

Something else killed Tony. His house is a weird one. He used to tell me about the strange scratching noises, locked doors unlocking themselves, things like glasses going missing and then reappearing. I used to think he was teasing, that he made up the crazy old guy who'd committed suicide in the basement back in the 1920s just to spook me when we were alone at night. He swore he wasn't making it up, but he always seemed to think it was funny, not scary. He'd laugh when I got jumpy.

When he stopped laughing, though, a few months before he died, I stopped wanting to go over there. He'd come to my house and tell me he'd felt an eerie, evil presence, something more than unlocking doors or glasses disappearing. He swore he was being watched, both inside the house and outside, in the woods around the house. One night, when his parents were out of town, he came over and told me he just couldn't go home. He was so shaken, so different. We asked Mom if he could spend the night in our guest room…

They stared at the sort of scene they’d both hoped they wouldn’t find. The young girl's body was pale and naked in the bathtub full of crimson water. Soon, they’d move her arms to find the angry slashes on her wrists. Razor blades found in the bottom of such tubs, once drained, shouldn’t be allowed to shine so insultingly.

"I never thought we'd have to worry about teenage suicide pacts in this town," the taller, heavier one said, sadly, to his partner.

"No," she admitted. "Funny, though. Don't they usually do it together? Did you read the note?"

"Yes. Her mom says it’s her handwriting.”

"We'd better keep a close eye on any other friends they had."

The journal tucked beneath the loose floor boards at the back of the bedroom closet wouldn't be found for thirty years. By then, the four suicides that had rocked the small New England town had become the stuff of late-night storytelling at slumber parties all over the country. It often morphed into a staged crime, the work of school bullies, or of a one-armed asylum escapee whose ghostly missing arm came knocking at doors of future victims, or even of Bigfoot. The town itself, however, had chosen to forget. No one ever talked about it.

The house had stood empty for so long, at least ten years. No one could remember exactly when Cassandra's parents had moved down to Florida, leaving it to the care of their two older children, who rarely came to town. It was such a shock when that doctor from Boston decided to move up here, taking over old Dr. Hartman's patients at Town Hall Medical Center and buying the house. The renovations took a few months, but the family came that summer.

The doctor's daughter found the diary, along with a small water pipe and some condoms, the loose floorboards in such an out-of-the-way place having been missed by the carpenters. No one had told her about the girl killing herself in the bathtub.

The diary of another teenager thirty years ago was fascinating, stories of four friends, young love, heartbreak, rebellion.... But then she came to the final entry, and a cold chill ran through her body. The entry began, "This isn't my story to tell." It continued "We asked Mom if he could spend the night in our guest room..." It ended right after that. The handwriting was different, much darker, almost menacing, mesmerizing. She couldn't stop reading it,

"This was not her story to tell."