Abandoning Books

I used to think that it’s unacceptable to abandon a book before you reach the end. If you started it, you must finish it. How can you call yourself a reader if you just give up when times are tough? Et cetera, et cetera.

I realize now how crazy the idea is, though. Of course it’s okay to abandon books partway through! Why wouldn’t it be?

To me, reading serves two purposes: Entertainment and/or Education. That said, though, since this blog is focused on fiction (in other words, mostly on Entertainment), I’m only going to discuss that side of things.

So then.

If I’m reading a book at all, it’s because, before going in to it, something about it seems like it’s going to interest me. Sure, you can’t really know until you start reading it. But I’m certainly not going to start reading a book that seems like it’s going to be boring, right? Who would do that?

And since reading is for Entertainment, why would I read a book that doesn’t entertain me? It’s not like I simply MUST finish this or that book, right?

Of course that’s all very simple to say. I may be making this sound easy. But for me personally, it can sometimes be a rather difficult decision to make. There are a lot of questions to consider:

• What about the book do I not like? Is it boring, poorly-written, unbelievable, offensive?
• Could there be something about the book that I’m just not understanding properly?
• If a lot of other people like the book, what do they see in it that I don’t?
• Why did I pick up the book in the first place? Was it on a whim? Is it an author I usually like? Was it given to me as a gift, recommended to me by a friend, etc.?
• How much of the book have I already read? Is it really worth throwing away all the time I’ve already put into it? Is there a threshold (say, by page count) that, if I pass, I can’t bring myself to give up on the book?

I haven’t given up on too many books along the way – maybe 50 or so (out of the hundreds I’ve actually finished reading). I’m certainly not quick to toss books aside. But sometimes, it’s just got to be done. And, as you might suspect, there are many times when I should have given up on a book, but saw it through to the end against my better judgment. (I’m looking at you, This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kent by Aidan Chambers – worst book I’ve ever finished. Seriously. Please never ever ever go near it.)

If you’d like a few examples of some of the more prominent books I’ve given up on:

• This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes (read about 100 out of 370 pages). Ridiculously absurd, even beyond the levels of Existential Absurdism. (Oh, and I literally only just now decided to abandon it – hence what inspired this post.)
• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood (read about 1/3^rd of it). Great form. Boring as heck content. Usually great form is enough for me to keep reading anyway, but this was really boring.
• Shogun by James Clavell (read about 100/800). Way too unnecessarily sexual – which is too bad, because I was liking it otherwise.
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (read about 1/4^th of it). Only tried it because it’s John Green, but it’s much more Levithan than Green.
• The Gunslinger by Stephen King (read about 1/5^th of it). Sorry, but it was just too weird for me.
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger (only read about 30 pages). Way too sexual.
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (read about 2/3^rds of it). Didn’t like the main character at all. Why is this book so legendary?
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (read about 700 out of 1300 pages – yeah, this one stung A LOT to finally set aside). Among other things, it was far too sexual – again, this is unfortunate, because there were some really great things about it.

Friends: How do you feel about abandoning books? What are some books that you’ve ultimately given up on (and why)?

Premise v. Story / REVIEW: Nod - Adrian Barnes

(A note: This is actually partly a book review, and also partly an exploration of another literary theme - hence why it's a bit long.)

• Year first released: 2017
• ISBN of the edition I read: 978-1785655814
• Publisher of the edition I read: Titan Books
• My rating (out of 5): 2

Nod is the perfect example of a literary conundrum that you come across from time-to-time. It begins on the back of the book. The first couple sentences of the back cover tell us:

Dawn breaks over Vancouver and no one in the world has slept the night before, or almost no one. A few people, perhaps one in ten thousand, can still sleep, and they’ve all shared the same golden dream.

Probably you'll agree that this is an interesting premise: a world in which (almost) no one can sleep anymore, ever?! Just all of a sudden? Whoa! What's going to happen next?!

What, indeed.

Let's say you were going to write a book with this exact premise. Imagine for a moment what that might look like. Who would your characters be? What sorts of situations would they end up in? How would it resolve?

Barnes takes this premise in a specific direction. You would probably take it a completely different direction.

The question is: Would either of you be wrong? Is there a right direction for this book to evolve?

Of course not, right? An author can write a book however s/he pleases.

And yet, while reading Nod, many times throughout I couldn't help but think, This really isn't the direction I want to see this go. This doesn't feel right. Why is it playing out like this?

There are many reasons for this. And certainly I'm not going to propose a "better" way for the plot to have developed. Obviously this is entirely subjective. Despite this acknowledgment of subjectivity, though, somehow Nod still feels like it broke its promise.

On the surface, there isn't that much wrong with Nod. In fact, Barnes' writing is actually a little above average. I'd be happy to check out another of his books in the future. His play with words and phrases and their etymologies was much more interesting than I would have expected from such a book - this was a highly pleasant surprise. The pacing was fine. And our hero, Paul (who, as you no doubt guessed, is one of the few people left in the world who can still sleep), ended up being a worthwhile character to follow. I appreciated his motivations and his choices.

So how was the promise broken?

I can only theorize, but I believe it is something like this:

The description of Nod which I shared above only informs us of the book's premise. It tells us almost nothing of the book's story.

Sure, it's nice to not be told too much of the plot before you even open the cover. No one wants spoilers on the back covers of books. (A lesson that Jose Saramago's publisher could stand to learn, hint hint.)

And yet, when you only read the premise of a book - without a clue about the story itself - the book takes on an entirely new feeling. You can almost imagine the book as blank slate. The story can go anywhere at all...

...except that it can't. If you're holding a book in your hands, it's already been written and published. It turns out the story is already a very specific, narrow thing, and - more importantly - it can no longer be anything else.

For the most part, it wouldn't be fair to blame this on Barnes - most probably he had nothing to do with the back cover text; usually the publisher or editor decide that.

Yet no matter whose fault it is (even if it's mine, which I admit it could be), I was left with a book that just felt like it was something that it should't have been. If you, the reader, begin to question why a book plays out like it does - and you ultimately can't come up with a plausible, literary answer for it - then whose fault is this? - the reader's or the author's?

(Hint: I think it's the author's fault, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.)


What is your take on this? Premise v. story, "broken promises," and all of that? 


(By the way, I'll say one more thing about the "broken promise" of Nod: I don't mean for this to be much of a spoiler, but one promise that was more "objectively" broken - if I might be so bold - is in the mention of the "golden dream." This dream comes up very few times in the book, and never in any meaningful way. We never find out more about the dream, what it could mean, why it is that all the sleepers share this dream, or anything else of the sort. I can only wonder: why was it included at all? - or, if nothing else, why was it mentioned on the back cover?)

REVIEW: The Martian - Andy Weir

• Year first released: 2011
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9781101903582
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Crown/Archetype
• My rating (out of 5): 2.5

The chronology of my experience with The Martian went something like this:

1. By the end of the first page, my impression was “Andy Weir likes his f-bombs.”
2. Around page 10, I was thinking, “I kind of wish Weir would dial back the non-stop jokes.”
3. 20 pages in, I was already telling my wife all the horrible things about Weir’s writing style.
4. …then somewhere around page 100 or so (which was not long at all later), I…got something in my eye…ahem…
5. …then, coincidentally, I kept getting things in my eye here and there throughout the rest of the book, and for some reason my heart was beating a little extra fast…
6. …and, finally, once I finished the book, in between sniffles (I mean: things in my eyes), I thought “Oh, thank goodness! 
7. …but Andy Weir sure likes his f-bombs.”

So then.

Ultimately, The Martian is a very exciting, suspenseful story – about our hero, Mark, trying to survive alone on Mars for a year and a half until rescue can finally come – mixed with a really off-putting style of writing. Oh, and lots of f-bombs* (have I mentioned those yet?) and exclamation marks.

Yes, on the whole, Mark’s incessant humor was a good counterbalance to the reality of the story. Without it, the book would have been a hopeless slog of grimness. On a more page-to-page level, though, the individual jokes definitely overstayed their welcome. 

Of course this begs the question: was Mark’s character just really consistent, or can we expect this style of humor in all of Weir’s novels? (Since this is his first, we can’t know the answer to this yet.) If this humor was designed specifically for Mark's character, I can accept that. It wasn't ideal, but we certainly don't have to like every aspect of a persona for it to be a well-crafted character. But if this style of humor is actually more Weir than Mark, I’m, frankly, going to shy away from Weir’s forthcoming books.

And speaking of characters: the protagonist is the only especially strong one (his humor aside). The others all seem to blend together a bit; I found the population of Mission Control especially hard to keep apart.

That said, there are a few things that Weir does right, and I don't want to ignore those. For example:

• The book is highly thrilling and very well paced. I was rooting for Mark all along, desperately wanting this to end well for him. 
• It's clear that Andy Weir is a literal genius, which is fun to be around (even if only vicariously, via a book). The situations he creates - and the solutions to them - are sheer pleasure for the intellect. This might have been my favorite aspect of the book, in fact.
• Some of the jokes are legitimately quite funny. Probably no more than half, but they're there. 
• And, importantly, it's incredibly rare that sci-fi is handled this realistically, which makes me appreciate The Martian that much more. (Not that sci-fi needs to be realistic, of course, but it's certainly a nice change-up to have on occasion.)

That said, it wasn't all bad. It was a fast read (because of its well-played tension) and kept me glued to the page all throughout. I'm glad I read it. If I'm going to check out any of Weir's future books, though, it'll definitely be from the library, or else in a nice comfy chair at the bookstore (before putting any money on the line). 

*By the way, apparently there's a "classroom version" of the book which features "classroom-appropriate language." I can't vouch for it (since I read the regular version), but that might at least take away the sting of Weir's over-the-top use of profanity.

Mental Maps

At some point as I was reading Memoirs of a Geisha, I noticed something about myself:

Whenever I’m reading a book, as the book progresses, I form a sort of mental map about the setting – where all the locations are in relation to each other, the route the characters walk when they go from one place to the next, etc. I suspect you kind of have to do something like this to get a good visual of fiction.

That said, here’s a rough estimate of my mental map of Geisha:

1. the Nitta Okiya (where Sayuri lives)
2. ??? I just feel like there’s an important building here, but I can’t say what it is. I guess I just figure Sayuri’s house isn’t right on the street corner.
3. Pumpkin’s Okiya (after WWII)
4. the hairdresser’s shop
5. the kimono shop
6. the artist Uchida's house – as you can see, he lives on a small patch of land completely surrounded by a moat. …except that he doesn’t in the book.
7. Dr. Crab’s office
8. the Ichiriki Teahouse
9. the brothel where Satsu works
10. the geisha school / registry office / theatre – which sounds fine, except that none of these three are in the same building in the book
11. Mameha’s apartment
12. ??? again, no clue what this is, but there was definitely a building here on my mental map
13. the sumo arena

A couple other notes:

• The green squares are various other teahouses which are either unnamed in the book, or else which I’ve forgotten the name of. (I think one of them starts with a 'K' - let's just say that's the one to the right of the brothel.)
• As you can see, the road leading up to the sumo arena turns to dirt a little ways beyond the last unnamed teahouse. …except that, once again, there’s no reason from the text to assume this is the case. My brain just decided that it's a dirt road, for some reason.

If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, you’ll have no way of knowing how accurate or inaccurate this map is. I’ll be the first to tell you: it’s ludicrously wrong. I mean…it couldn’t be more wrong. Truly. Wow. Just...wow.

In my defense, Sayuri had to cross a bridge to get to the artist’s house, so I guess that’s where the idea for the moat came from. Although I think it's actually a river in the book, so...

And the fact that the registry AND the geisha school AND the theatre are in the same building - yikes. I think what happened here is that my mental map was already pretty full, so my subconscious just said, Meh - they can share a building. Why not? It's not like Sayuri is ever in two places at the same time. 

Also, I have no clue why my brain decided that the entire district is about the size of a single city block. All of these buildings should be much, much more spread out.

The moment I became conscious of the fact that I was creating this mental map, I realized it was horribly inaccurate. I was already over halfway into the book, though; there wasn’t really any going back. I think it’s a part of me now. This is, for better or worse, how I picture the Gion district in the world of Geisha.

Tell me, friends: Is this just me? Or do you do this too? And, if you do, are your maps as laughably inaccurate as mine?

How Genres Work (And How They Don't)

These days, it seems like there are almost as many fiction sub-genres as there are books.

Me: What type of book is this that you wrote?

Indie Author Who Is Too Hipster To Be Confined By Labels: It’s sort of like a mind-bending, urban fantasy thriller with elements of eastern philosophy, all wrapped up in a Dr Seuss-meets-Kafka package, but if it were written by Stephen King pre-Dark Tower.

Me: Uh-huh. I see…well, what sorts of readers might enjoy this?

IAWITHTBCBL: People who like books. And people who like reading. And everyone else. I mean, it’s a story everyone can relate to. So it’s for everyone. Also: aliens.

…so…you don’t really know what you wrote, then.

Or if you did actually write that book, then God help you.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all about bending genres. I love when authors successfully marry disparate elements in their books. This is, for example, one thing that makes Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges so wonderful.

But, genres are real things. They exist for a reason. And we have to label our books somehow, right? How else would you know where to find a book when you walk into a bookstore?

I admit, genres can be a little hard to define sometimes. Sometimes books legitimately cross into a couple genres.

Let’s look at The Hunger Games, for example:

• It’s too violent to be a drama/general literary fiction.
• There is a romance in it, yes, but the book as a whole isn’t a romance. (And really, what book doesn't have romance in it? It's probably the most universal element in books.) 
• It’s got its unsettling elements, but we’re certainly not talking about horror here.
• Some things about it will surprise you, and crimes are committed left and right, but that doesn’t make it a mystery.
• It’s not really a fantasy. Sure, it has a few fantastical elements in it, but not enough magic.
• It definitely can't be historical fiction, if for not reason other than that it takes place in the future.

All of that that is a good start, I suppose. Here’s where it gets tricky, though…

It has some heavy sci-fi elements: it’s in the future, and they have some technology that we don’t have. Can you imagine walking through your favorite bookstore and finding it in the sci-fi section, though? Sure, some of the important pieces are there (though not all of them), but it’s not really intended for people who love sci-fi, is it?

It looks like the basic genres aren’t enough, then. Now we have to start looking at sub-genres. (Sub-genres of sci-fi, that is, since that seems to be the closest parent genre.)

Though The Hunger Games has a bit of technology that we don’t, it’s not a high-tech sci-fi. Certainly it’s not Neuromancer or Blade Runner or the Matrix. No AI, no virtual reality worlds, etc.

And there aren’t any aliens or space travel, so that rules out space-based sci-fi.

It’s certainly speculative, though. (“What would happen in this scenario…”) And it’s definitely dystopian. (One-world order which is – shocker! – actually really bad for everyone.)

So it’s speculative and dystopian. Great! So we've basically figured out where The Hunger Games goes. (Oh, but don't forget that it's a young adult novel, which doesn't really say anything about the content itself, but there you have it.)

Interestingly, speculative fiction and dystopian fiction very very often go hand-in-hand, but they don’t always have to.

1984 (Orwell), Brave New World (Huxley), The Giver (Lowry)…these are all both speculative and dystopian.

But then we have The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which is speculative, but not dystopian. That’s fine. Rather, it’s speculative and post-apocalyptic.

…which, come to think of it, brings up another problem, though: I identified speculative as being a sub-genre of sci-fi. Yet The Road is certainly not sci-fi. It’s very realistic. No AI, no futuristic technology, no aliens, etc. So can speculative fiction actually be a sub-genre of both sci-fi and something else (in this case, literary fiction, I suppose)?

Further, if something can be the sub-genre of two parent genres, then doesn’t that mean it’s not really a sub-genre at all, but rather its own parent genre? What is a parent genre, if not that?

And don’t even get me started on horror. (I only say this because you don’t have to get me started on horror: I've already got plans for making that its very own post in the near future.)

My my. How all very confusing. Maybe IAWITHTBCBL wasn’t that crazy after all.*

What are your favorite genres?

And what are some books you love that are hard to pin down into just one genre?

*False. He’s definitely still crazy.

REVIEW: Six Four - Hideo Yokoyama

• Year first released: 2012 (Japan), 2016 (UK), 2017 (US)
• ISBN of the edition I read: 978-1848665286 (I actually read the UK edition. The US edition is available here)
• Publisher of the edition I read: riverrun
• My rating (out of 5): 4

I have a small fear about trying to review Six Four: if I tell you what the book is, say, elementally, I worry that it won’t sound interesting to you. But considering that Six Four is actually great, I hope you’ll bear with me while I try to make this make sense to you…

Fourteen years ago, there was a kidnapping/ransom/murder (in that order, unfortunately). Still unsolved, you might have guessed. And, since the statute of limitations on this sort of crime ends at 15 years in Japan, the police force is giving it one final push before the perpetrator gets away, scotch-free, forever.

So it sounds like we have a crime drama, right? A mystery? Maybe a psychological thriller?

Well…not really, no.

More accurately, Six Four is a psychodrama masquerading as a crime drama. It is certainly mysterious. But, in a move that is wholly unique for the genre, the story isn’t really about trying to solve the crime.

Rather, our protagonist, Mikami, was recently transferred out of the Investigations Department and into Media Relations. Anymore, his job is to act as a liaison between the press and the police force. So it is that he’s running his own investigation, but, rather than trying to solve the crime on its own, he’s more interested in trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together, the role everyone played it the investigation 14 years ago, the elements that have gone unnoticed or unreported.

At its heart, we might say that Six Four is more about the office politics of the Japanese police department than it is about the solving of a crime.

Sounds boring, doesn’t it?

It’s not. It really isn’t.

This 632-page behemoth of a novel is a slow-burn, unfolding methodically, piece by piece, until its final exposé. Yes, there is a powerful twist at the ending – which certainly ratcheted up the tension for the final 100 or so pages – but the novel isn’t merely about the ending. It’s about the unfolding, the psychological drama that Mikami is desperately trying to navigate. There are betrayed loyalties everywhere we look, manipulations of the highest caliber, agents going rogue, and every other element that you could hope for in such a mystery.

It’s hard to comment on the pacing effectively. I admit, there are moments where the book can feel a bit slow. Despite this, though – and despite the fact that the book is over 600 pages – there really isn’t much in the book that isn’t worthwhile. Once we come to the end, we see that more of it mattered along the way than we could have realized all throughout. Yes, parts of the book are slow, but it is always succinct – a very unique, effective blend.

I’d also like to point out: I’ve read a fair amount of literature coming out of Asia. It can be quite hit-and-miss, of course, – particularly in translation, when it’s difficult to maintain the author’s original voice. That said, Six Four is easily the best-translated, and – to whatever extent this can be determined around the translation – the best-written book I’ve read from Japan. It is succinct and suspenseful without ever feeling formulaic or gimmicky. The prose is fluid, and – something that is highly important to me personally – the POV is never once betrayed.

If you have a fear of novels that run a bit long, I can understand your hesitation in Six Four. I can’t promise it’s for everyone. I’m pleased with the time I spent with it, though – in fact, more so than I had thought I would be going into it (which is saying more than it sounds like, since I sometimes shy away from books of the length). The slow-brood and the unique focus of the plot are fantastic additions to a genre that all too often falls stale.

Tsundoku (As Categorized by Italo Calvino)

It's an art, I think. Tsundoku, that is. It's the Japanese term for acquiring a large collection of books but not actually reading them. (Leave it to Japanese to have a word for everything. Just another way in which English is sorely lacking.)

I've gone through phases in my life when I've been good about this. And I've gone through phases when I've been bad about this. Of course, the real question is, which phase is which?

Italo Calvino explored this idea incredibly well in the first chapter of his book If on a winter's night a traveler (which you - yes you - should absolutely read if you haven't).

I'll let him take it from here:

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Before You Even Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you came up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out: 

the Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages,
the Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified. 

Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an army that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.  

With a zigzag dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Authors Or Subjects Appeal To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Not New (for you or in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and the for the not new you seek in the new).

(No doubt you can see now why Italo Calvino stands in the highest echelon of authors, in my estimation.)

So let's be real, friends: Which of these categories of books do you still fall for? 

I think I have literally fallen for every single category in this list at least once, though I'm particularly weak against the attacks of Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified and Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.