Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Street scene, Somerset, Ohio. Ben Shahn, 1938.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

... especially for lazy NY Times columnists. "I might as well tell you upfront that this column is a book report," writes Mr. Brooks. Not a book review, mind you, since that might require exercising some critical faculties, which can be so taxing. A reviewer might feel obliged, for example, to question the book's claim (according to the book report) that with secularization "Common action... gives way to mutual display." True? A consequence of secularism, or mere correlate? Oh nevermind. At least he's getting some reading done.

Breakfast at Wimbledon

I tuned in this morning to catch some of the men's final. All I saw was the very last point of the match! So much for breakfast. I made up for it with lunch: a falafel wrap from Mediterranean Wraps (don't forget the hot sauce), accompanied by a refreshing salted mint yogurt drink. Followed by an organic Santa Rosa plum from our fantastic California Avenue farmers' market. Congrats, Andy Murray!

Qingdao algae bloom

I wonder if the brewery could use this stuff instead of hops?

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexico. Russell Lee, 1940.

Oil and gas drilling near Mesa Verde!

Seems like a win-win opportunity to me: Valuable oil and gas, and ready-made accommodations for the roughnecks, with only a few renovations needed...

Photo source.

The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is one of the best novels I have ever read. It lives up to the kind of hyperbole you might read in the blurbs: exquisite, profound, devastating.

Up to now I had not read his equally acclaimed earlier book, The Remains of the Day, although I had seen the fine Merchant Ivory screen adaptation some years ago. I have mixed feelings about the novel. There is no question about the craft: Ishiguro is a master. The story uses a clever construction: our protagonist and narrator Stevens recounts episodes from his life while driving through the English countryside on his way to meet his former colleague of many years ago, the housekeeper Miss Kenton. The plot's momentum builds as his memories, expectations, and physical journey converge on his destination, and his destiny.

The central theme is a mainstay of the English novel: self-delusion. Like a character from Austen or Eliot, Stevens appears not to be in touch with his true feelings, and the consequences are both comical and sad. I say "appears," because Stevens is an unreliable narrator. He occasionally admits that his memories of some key incidents may have been faulty, and then offers an alternative account. He does not lie directly, but sometimes allows the misapprehensions of others to persist. Can we trust him to be honest with us... or himself?

This ambiguity fuels the psychological mystery that lies at the heart of the book: Is Stevens a monster, incapable of deep human emotions and attachments; or has he so repressed his feelings that only rarely do they bubble up to the surface of his consciousness; or is he in fact a tortured soul, perpetually struggling to suppress any outward display of emotion in the name of his misguided butler's code of "dignity"? Ishiguro allows Stevens to let himself off the hook near the end:

I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton. Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed--why should I not admit it?--at that moment, my heart was breaking.

Perhaps so. And I wish I could sympathize, but I can't. I never much liked this fellow, and I sense that Ishiguro didn't either. There's no reason that the reader should have to love a novel's main character.  But if the author does not, can the character, or the book, come to life?

Reading roundup

At last I've had some time to work my way through part of the pile of books on the nightstand.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell was one of the Pulitzer finalists snubbed this year. I'm not sure it's a prize winner, but it's certainly a very good read. Our protagonist is 13-year-old alligator-wrestler Ava Bigtree, whose journey to hell and back is the novel's triumph--creepy, harrowing, and lovely all at the same time. The parallel tale of her big brother Kiwi at work in a hell-themed theme park... less compelling. I suppose the contrived ending is permitted because of the novel's flirtation with magic realism, but things wrap up a bit too tidily, and quickly. I doubt that hell exists, but if it does, I'm sure Russell got one thing right: there will be lots of mosquitoes. Definitely a good book for your next vacation in Florida.

Harry Hole, the hero of Jo Nesbø's crime novels, is cast from the same mold as other brainy but taciturn and depressive detectives, like fellow Scandinavian Kurt Wallander and of course the greatest of them all, Adam Dalgliesh. I was not fond of the first Harry Hole thriller I read, but desperation at a lousy airport bookstore drove me to a second, The Snowman. (I know what you are thinking: buy yourself a Kindle, dumb-ass!) As one after another implausible suspect turned out not to be the twisted serial killer (surprise!), it soon became apparent that this novel violated my rule number one of suspense: Harry Hole should never make mistakes that any reader of a Harry Hole thriller would know not to make. Most unforgivable is that the true (but equally unlikely) culprit revealed himself to Harry and the reader by the halfway point, but apparently only the reader noticed. A life or two and many pages could have been spared.

From the very start, Colson Whitehead's first novel, The Intuitionist, reads like something new, all crazy rhythms, sentence fragments, off-kilter adjectives jumping off the page-- it takes some getting used to. Alas, by the end of this short novel, the whole contraption almost shudders to a halt under the burden of its unlikely premise and overreaching metaphors. What it's about: in a parallel but familiar universe, elevator inspectors and manufacturers are vying for power in New York City. What it's really about: political corruption, identity, matter-of-fact racism, and just maybe spirituality. Promising, ambitious, disappointing... I'll give Mr. Whitehead another chance.

Some grown-ups seem to like The Hunger Games, and I've read and enjoyed a few kid novels in my day (several Potters, The Golden Compass), so why not? I doubt I'll be reading the sequels of this one. For me the writing falls pretty flat, and the book seems aimed at a different demographic than mine (duh, ya think)? That said, there is a pleasingly subversive feminist message behind the story arc (and no, I don't just mean the fact that the female protagonist can shoot an arrow and generally kicks ass). Keep on reading, kids!

Speaking of sequels, digging any deeper into my stack of unread novels is on hold until I finish Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel's sequel to Wolf Hall, my favorite book in years. After reading a few pages I am pretty confident that I will not be disappointed...