|
|
By Sean Clark, on January 31st, 2013  Hey everyone. The January episode is now available. We decided to learn our lesson from the 12 Podcasts of Christmas, and get the mic thing solved once and for all. So, when you listen to this latest episode, you can actually hear us, like we’re (semi-)professional or something. We’ll do our best to hold that New Year’s audio quality resolution through 2013 and beyond.
For the 275 (yowza!) of you that have hung in with us through all the technical difficulties, thanks so much. (And if we’ve lost you, we promise it’s listenable now, give us another shot.) Somebody please send us an email to read on the air. Better yet, send in a request for a song you’d like Marc to sing during his drunk review of Newt Gingrich’s Victory at Yorktown next month!
This month, we talk about a whole lot of books, as well as get into some high brow discussions about the revamping of the National Book Award format, our 2013 reading resolutions, and Al Roker shitting his pants at the White House.
We’ve once again got a bonus B-side too, wherein I get intoxicated and attempt to explain just what sucks so much about Jason Elam’s Monday Night Jihad.
You can either stream The Page Count from the player below, or you can subscribe for free on iTunes or your favorite podcast player by searching for “Page Count.” Links and show notes can be found here.
By Sean Clark, on January 31st, 2013 One month in…
.
Sweet Tooth
Ian, you’re a dick
this is a really good book
Atonement part deux
.
Who Could That Be At This Hour?
Lemony Snicket
a great kids’ mystery book
but where’s the ending
.
Could You Be With Her Now
novella twofer
tales told by an idiot
then, aging lesbos
.
Flash Gordon: The Tyrant of Mongo
Sunday collections
the art here is beautiful
slight racism though
.
The Fifty-Year Sword
ebook only ed
Nico: it’s not very good
a confused mishmash
.
Instructions for My Mother’s Funeral
this one’s title’s great
though his mom’s not really dead
prolific Gladstone
.
The Tenth of December
stories hit or miss
at least one will hit you hard
pow! right in the jaw
.
Whatever Used to Grow Around Here
cadent and lyric
slim debut set of stories
sean was quite impressed
.
There Will Be No More Good Nights Without Good Nights
another slim set
but a great collection
less is always more
.
By Nico Vreeland, on January 30th, 2013 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
I went snowboarding last weekend and managed to break my wrist. Until I get/master a dictation program, my posts are going to be a bit short, especially this one and the upcoming January Book Radar. This typing with one hand business is for the birds.
 News from Heaven, by Jennifer Haigh. Reviewed by Janet Maslin in the New York Times.
When a writer repeatedly dips back into the same subject matter over the course of several books, it’s either a sign of obsession or a lack of imagination. Haigh, a coal miner’s daughter, “is drawn back to coal country over and over again.” Luckily, this has all the markings of a deep obsession, which is, I believe, where great writing comes from (with the possible exception of James Cameron and the Titanic).
The Best of Youth, by Michael Dahlie. Reviewed by Katherine A. Powers in the B&N Review.
Dalie’s first novel won a PEN award. This one, his second, has some overlap, but, like the Haigh book, it sounds legit. I could keep going, but do me a favor and just go read the review instead.
Other reviews I noticed but am too sick of typing to write up: Dirda reviews the reprinted 1964 satire, How to Live Like a Lord Without Really Trying. … A New Yorker humorist’s humorous novel. … A nonfiction book about Victorian-era crossdressers. … A memoir by an Anthony Bourdain-esque chef. … “A stunning attempt to reconcile boyhood memories of Auschwitz with historical scholarship” … Lastly, an excerpt from a book-length discussion of bad art, centering around a short, bad novel written more than a century ago. And you thought I was a tough critic.
By Eric Markowsky, on January 29th, 2013  Author: Laura van den Berg
2012, Origami Zoo Press
Filed Under: Literary, Short Stories, Short-Run
Find it on Goodreads
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
7 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
8 |
If I’m not careful, my review of Laura van den Berg’s recent collection of short shorts might end up being longer than the book itself. It’s not that I’m normally long-winded. It’s just that the whole thing is only thirty six pages long, and there’s a lot of good stuff in There Will Be No More Good Nights Without Good Nights. I’m tempted to summarize each of these little narrative gems–only one of its nine stories is longer than four pages–but by the time I finished that, you might as well have just read the book.
And you should read the book. Van den Berg’s very short stories are self-contained parables of modern life and love gone stale and the ways people sometimes try to rescue themselves from themselves. Her characters’s efforts run the gamut of realism and fantasy, from a struggling couple who rents a house by a lake for a summer to a family who adopt a couple of cannibals to help out with childcare. Whatever the mode, these stories are astutely observed and precisely composed portraits of life’s disappointments, large and small. …
Continue reading »
By Sean Clark, on January 28th, 2013 Author: Lauren Belski
2012, Crumpled Press
Filed Under: Literary, Short Stories, Short-Run
Check out The Crumpled Press‘s site.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
Immediately apparent once you dig into this slim little book of stories is a great sense of pacing. The sentences seem to move with a sort of poetic effluency that is enviable, especially when we’re talking about a short-run debut collection of eleven stories.
I’m a sucker for austere paragraphs like this, from “Everything to Remember”:
Now here is a speck in the multiverse–a day in the Met. Pay what you wish, but we wish you’d pay this. Mankind in a series of hieroglyphs and paint strokes. Pigeons eating the buns of hotdogs on the front stairs.
or this, from the same story:
Japanese calligraphy is like a dance of the hand. I am in love with the sky, it says. I will sing my fingers on silk until it reflects the mysteries of every blade of whatever is wild in this world. I will memorialize, memorialize. memorialize until everything to remember is sacred.
Sentence-level stuff aside, there are some stand out stories here. My favorite, “Reasons to Run,” tells of an underclassman cross-country runner who tells herself she needs to run as far from her life as she can as she takes off for a jog. After a while, her crush pulls up and offers her a ride. They drive around and talk awkwardly before she decides to take off running again. Perhaps it doesn’t sound like much but the narration for this story is its strength, with a complexity of emotion showing through an at-first mundane exchange.
“A Postcard From the Side of the Road” is another great story, with a much more aggressive, almost manic narrator:
God I am so in love with everything, I thought. Even the concrete slabs and abandoned construction sites of New Jersey. Even Allen Ginsberg even though I haven’t got a chance, because, you know, he’s dead and he’s gay.
It’s only a couple pages, and definitely worth your time.
The rest aren’t particularly remarkable for any particular thing they do, but reading all these stories in a row results in a real sense of pleasure. The sentences roll together into a sort of cadence. Pulling that off in a collection, no matter the length, is a task many writers aren’t up to; here’s hoping Belski gets to try her chops at a novel. I’d read it.
Similar Reads: The Outlaw Album (Woodrell), What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (van den Berg)
[A review copy was provided.]
By Nico Vreeland, on January 25th, 2013 The latest Saunders is a C4 Great Read.
 Author: George Saunders
2013, Random House
Filed under: Literary, Short Stories
Find it at Goodreads
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
9 |
| Depth..... |
10 |
I have no idea how George Saunders does it. His stories have some kind of alchemy that I can’t figure out. As many as half rub me the wrong way, but the good ones are exceptional. This collection is no different.
While reading Tenth of December I jotted down notes, as I usually do, trying to come up with an explanation—or at least a theory—for my shifting reactions to George Saunders. After thousands of words’ worth of contradicting notes, I still can’t figure it out.
For certain, some of his old tricks are turning stale. There are two stories (“Escape from Spiderhead” and “My Chivalric Fiasco”) in which characters take satirically named drugs (Docilryde™, KnightLyfe™) administered by a sinister institutional overlord personified by a dumpy middle manager. Both take place in typical Saundersian locales (prison/drug trial facility, amusement park). Both offer decent prose but disappointing endings.
But another quintessentially Saundersian story blew my doors off. …
Continue reading »
By Sean Clark, on January 23rd, 2013 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
.
The Antagonist, by Lynn Coady. Reviewed by Ron Charles (Washington Post).
Oh man, the term “e-pistolary” rubs me the wrong way. Despite Ron Charles not-so-great idea (which he even acknowledges) to write this review in the form of a letter to the author, this books doesn’t sound half bad. Done well, epistolary novels can do a great job of character building in fun ways, and this seems to be fun at the very least. Add it to my maybe pile.
Find it on Goodreads.
.
The Tenth of December, by George Saunders. Reviewed by David Duhr (Dallas Morning News).
Along with 99% of the people who at one point in their life think getting an MFA is a good idea, I love Saunders’s stories. Our buddy Dave down in Texas is pretty high on the Syracuse professor’s latest, and his reviews are always astute so give it a look. I believe Nico’s giving this book a go currently too, so look for a C4 review sometime soon.
Find it on Goodreads.
.
Quickly: This teacher had the bright idea to use this arty indie game as a writing prompt with his young students. Feeling “depraved?” Fight it out with France over this (sorta) forgotten de Sade text.
By Roman Gladstone, on January 22nd, 2013 Author: Laura Read
2012, University of Pittsburgh Press
Filed Under: Poetry
Find it on Goodreads.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
10 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
9 |
What a terrific title for a collection of poems. But does Laura Read’s Donald Hall Prize-winning collection live up to the promise of the title? The collection is dedicated to Read’s mother – who is still alive – and the three-part sequence is prefaced by a poem entitled “The Pearl,” which serves almost as an epigraph (there are two real epigraphs, by the way).
“The Pearl” is written for the memory of Bridie Halpin, an Irish female activist of the early 20th century, matriarch of her clan, and together with the dedication Read signals that this is a collection about the strength of women, how they endure. (The poem “Cefalu” from part one perhaps implicitly identifies both women: “When he married my mother/Irish girl fromLong Island…”) This is not unlike my own mother and mother-in-law, both of whom were strong females who died within the last year – and which was why I was drawn to this collection in the first place; the title resonates. …
Continue reading »
By Nico Vreeland, on January 18th, 2013  Author: Mark Z. Danielewski
2012, Pantheon
Filed under: Literary, Other
Find it at Goodreads
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
5 |
| Entertainment..... |
6 |
| Depth..... |
2 |
I’m inclined to tell you that I’m not the audience for this, to brush off my dislike of it as a case of subjectivity, and shrug. But I’m not sure that’s true. Danielewski’s latest (though it was first published in 2005, more on that below) is a bizarre, experimental work, a semi-metafictional fable whose appeal lies as much in its presentation as its content.
And the thing is, I’m a pretty good audience for that. (I won’t say a “perfect” audience, since I didn’t like it at all, but a pretty good audience.) I love Nabokov’s Pale Fire, I love Robert Coover, I love John Barth (his “Lost in the Funhouse,” a quintessential metafictional work, remains my favorite story of all time), I even like knockoffs of these classics, like Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects.
Compared to those works of genuine, intelligent experimentation, The Fifty Year Sword reads like a children’s book. Its experimentation is often forced, unnecessary, and/or redundant, serving to obfuscate the story being told more often than illuminate it.
Sometimes brilliant eccentrics come up with works of stunning genius, and sometimes they come up with works of overcooked nonsense. You might get an idea of which this is if I quote from a short note regarding the history of this story: …
Continue reading »
By Aaron Block, on January 17th, 2013  Author: Alex Raymond
2012 (anthologized), Titan Books
Filed Under: Graphic Novel, Sci-Fi, Other
Find it on Goodreads.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
5 |
| Art...... |
10 |
The only newspaper comic strips I read regularly or cared about were funny strips, like Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts, or one-panel gag comics like The Far Side. I hated the soap opera and adventure strips. In fact, the only adventure strip I read consistently was The Amazing Spider-Man, and then only because it featured a character I already knew from the comics. And still I hated it.
Funny comic strips began and ended within the span of those three to five panels. They’re like a fractal storytelling – part of the whole, and yet the entire concept exists within a single unit. The dramatic strips offered only the briefest fragment of a story, and never enough information to usher new readers into the plot. I never felt guilty skipping Prince Valiant, Apartment 3-G, or any of the others. But Flash Gordon: The Tyrant of Mongo, the second volume of Titan Books’ reprints of the original strips, has me reconsidering my clean conscience.
The Tyrant of Mongo collects the color Sunday strips drawn by Alex Raymond and co-written by Raymond and Don Moore from 1937 to 1941, each fully restored by Peter Maresca. The restoration is stunning – the palette shifts effectively between the muted earth tones of the planet Mongo and Flash’s bright costumes, and Raymond’s careful line work and shading are preserved. A disclaimer on the edition page asks for the reader’s patience with variations in quality considering the condition of some of the original art, but any differences I noticed were minor, and never distracted from the reading. And as each strip takes up a full page, the panels blossom to reveal the fine detail and control of Raymond’s art.
Raymond earned his place in the cartoonists and illustrators pantheon, along with Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, and Will Eisner, with his work on Gordon (not to mention Jungle Jim and the detective strip, Rip Kirby) and his influence on Golden Age comic book artists, most notably Jack Kirby, is evident in every strip. And the intricately designed machinery, fantastic clothes and costumes, and use of dynamic close-ups and panel composition on display in the Flash Gordon strips continues to define the look of comic books. And while Raymond’s art could be considered stiff, particularly in contrast to that of Kirby or any number of contemporary cartoonists, it’s just as compelling. Consider that Raymond was producing strips of this caliber on a weekly basis for close to a decade, and the resulting quality is all the more impressive. …
Continue reading »
|
|
