Reality Hunger

Read this Book:

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto.
David Shields, UW

then let's talk

Does It Get Better than THIS? The Question of the Month

A beautiful Visit with a Free Man

A Dead Hand

A dead hand is an expression for writer's block, but in Paul Theroux's new novel of the same name it becomes a real object handed to him by a former hotel maid - the hand of a young boy.  Theroux's novel is set in India, primarily Calcutta, and like much of his work can be somewhat ponderous and self-absorbed, but rich in ambiance and detail.  The plot involves a writer, Jerry Delfont, who is in Calcutta to give lectures, and is contacted by a mysterious and beautiful humanitarian, Merrill Unger, who wants him to do her a favor.  As a mistress in the Tantric Arts she sucks him into her world, which is not what the somewhat naive Jerry Delfont expects.  Playing off Hindu mythology (Unger is the perfect Kali), Theroux takes us into the duality that is India -- Spiritual, harmonic, enlightened and equally impoverished, brutal and materialistic.  No one can deconstruct a utopia like Theroux.  One of the funnier moments in the book is when Paul Theroux himself shows up and has a brief encounter with the narrator Delfont, whom he considers a hack.  A decent read, but I still rely on John Burdett for my Southeast Asian mysteries.

More El More

I just read Elmore Leonard's Be Cool which is a sequel to the fabulous Get Shorty.  Near the beginning Chili Palmer, talking about the movie sequel to Get Leo (Get Lost) says that the sequels are never as good as the original.  Unfortunately, it sets the tone for this book, which is a meandering novel about using and manipulating life to make a movie (kind of like writing a novel about using life and manipulating life to make a movie).  Along the way we meet US mobsters, bad-assed rappers, a gay Samoan body guard, Russian mobsters, star-starved women, and any number of LA entertainment industry characters.  It's a fun romp, if not a bit depressing, because the realization that talent doesn't really matter all that much is probably true. (A top music business CEO tells Chili that most of the women who do toothpaste ads can sing better than the stars.)  Anyway, the end result is that Chili hands the whole thing to a screenwriter and hopes that he/she can turn it into something.  Elmore Leonard did not.  He published it as is.  But of course because it's Elmore, and he's even cooler than Chili Palmer, it's worth the time.

Over or Under?

Ever wonder what the characteristics of people who take their toilet paper from under rather than over were?
I thought not, but here they are anyway, courtesy of Hunch.com.

Olives, Anyone?

Olive Kitteridge is a stunning book.  Simply and beautifully written; complex in its simplicity, the novel is a collection of interwoven short stories, a form that if not birthed, was certainly given identity by Louis Erdich with Love Medicine.  Olive is not a likeable woman.  She is intolerant and speaks her intolerance, alienating her son and many others.  As Olive states, “And I am essentially a peasant.  I have the strong passions and prejudices of a peasant.”  But she is far richer in character than this, and to paraphrase a New York Times book reviewer commented, the gravitational pull that anchors the various stories in the novel.  The novel will shock you, amuse you, stun, marvel  and nearly devastate you, often within a few pages.  Set in contemporary Maine, Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer for this work.  And she damn well deserves it.