Pris' Book Blog

2004-02-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

Kirsten Bakis - Lives of the Monster Dogs
A surreal and melancholy first novel. Augustus Rank, a twisted young man, develops a taste for vivisection and disturbing surgeries on animals. Instead of being jailed as a sociopath, he is taken in by an 1870's doctor. His life's goal is to create a breed of super dogs to use as an army. Eventually he migrates to Canada, taking a group of fanatical scientists with him. They work on his project for four generations and he is long dead when they finally perfect intelligent dogs, with human hands and voice synthesizers grafted on to them. The dogs eventually revolt and kill their creators. They then travel to New York City, where they become celebrities. They build an elaborate castle in the city, move into it, go insane, and die. (This isn't spoiling the story, the main narrator makes most of this clear from very early on.)
In some ways, the book reminds me of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. The surreal and complex imagery, the themes of mental sickness and murder, evoke Perfume.
The Monster Dogs is a strange slide into oblivion for the dogs. One feels a sadness for them, but also a sense of removal from something so alien, and a tinge of relief that there is a 'solution' to them. Well worth reading.

2004-01-30T00:55:00.000-08:00

Anita Shreve - All He Ever Wanted
A superbly quiet and painful book. Our author makes moving and frightening the most unlikely creation, Nicholass Van Tassel, an unattractive professor of English and Rhetoric in the 1930's. It is a tale of his obsession - his determination to conquer and own the target of his interest, Etna Bliss, and her near escape. As readers, we can't forget her desperate situation - she is stripped of her inheritance and has the choices of being a nanny to her odious brother-in-law or continuing to overstay her welcome with her other relatives.
Shreve is a remarkable artist to invoke the male narrator with such surety; his honest dialogue damns him as the book progresses. He is completely believable, and is in some ways sympathetic. His desire moves his intended to pity enough to marry him. She tells him up front that she will never love him, and I as a reader began to hate them both - him for accepting pity in lieu of love, her for agreeing to be with someone she didn't love. A critic can jump in here and say, she had so few options, etc., but I would rather take care of my brother's children than embark on a relationship based on such different goals. He's an idiot she never should have married...and they self destruct in a manner that is painful but not surprising.
What is surprising to me is how well Shreve constructs an unsympathetic character, and explains the things he does. She makes it clear that Etna needed a way out, he provided one - but no progress is made.
I don't think I get all the things this book was trying to say. "If you let men push around, they will." "If you commit yourself to someone from pity rather than desire, you face disaster." Etna Bliss told Nicholas "I will never love you" and married him anyway. Is it her fault for doing it or his for taking it? This is a disturbing book on issues that have not changed much. Still it makes me want to say, don't expect true love and for god's sake never do anything out of pity.
I think of what I have done, and think that's good advice. But, in my world, if you are never going to love him, take pity on him and tell him so and don't worry about the money he might have (easy to say for me).

2004-01-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

Coming soon:
Richard Chizmar, Editor - Cemetary Dance, Issue #47

2004-01-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

Suzan-Lori Parks - Getting Mother's Body
This book is all about voices. Each chapter is narrated by a different character. Each has a unique voice and point of view. Love and money are the main themes. The characters are well drawn, by their own narrative, and what the other characters say about them. The titular mother speaks as well, in lyrics to blues songs she wrote before her death.
I don't want to say much more about this book, it's worth reading to have the story unfold for you instead of hearing it for me. It made me laugh several times and cry at least once.

2004-01-16T12:58:00.001-08:00

Nicholas Sparks - Nights in Rodanthe
This book is decently written, the characters are interesting and likable but it is so damned depressing I wouldn't want to read it again. If you like reading about finding true love late in life only to have it suddenly snatched away (and bawling your eyes out), this book is for you.

2004-01-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

Coming soon:
Philip K. Dick - Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick

2004-01-16T04:11:00.001-08:00

Eric Garcia - Anonymous Rex
This book was hard to work up the initial suspension of disbelief for. Every 10th person is a dinosaur in disguise? How the heck does a brontasaurus as big as a building dress up like a human? Eventually, Garcia reveals that about a dozen kinds of dinosaurs evolved into smaller frames and started faking their extinction and dressing up like humans. A very strange premise for a book! Garcia is very inventive, I found my favorite parts were the descriptions of the disguises, and the descriptions of each dinosaur's individual smell. ("He's got an antiseptic scent, almost grainy, with a touch of lavender riding the edges. Very accountant.") Even without the dinosaur aspect, the characters are interesting (with a similar lost partner motif as in Bankok 8, strangely enough) and strong. This is a funny book, I found myself laughing out loud several times. The twists and turns will keep you off balance, so pay attention to the many characters as you meet them.

2004-01-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

Altered Carbon - have to come back to this one

2004-01-16T03:58:00.000-08:00

John Burdett - Bangkok 8
This detective novel set in Thailand starts out with an odd plea from the author to the police of Bangkok to not be offended by the depictions of the corrupt cops in Bangkok. Afer all, it's only a fiction to amuse the farang. Perhaps the corruption is exaggerated to make the anomolous honesty of the main characters stand out more starkly.
The book riffs off of current news stories from Thailand, including trade in drugs, jade, sex, sex changes, dart bars, snakes, and death. Some reviews have misrepresented his main character, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, as a Buddhist monk. He is a detective and a Buddhist devotee but he is not a monk. One of the most interesting parts of this book is the one that is not overtly told. Sonchai's partner, Pichai, dies at the beginning of the book. He is called his soul brother, and most of Sonchai's actions are driven by his determination to avenge his partner. Burdett makes clear the low status of homosexuals in Krung Thep ("...we are happy to call it Bangkok if it helps to separate a farang from his money") and the intense relationship between the detectives simultaneously drives the plot and is kept undescribed. Burdett also deals sensitively with issues of age, cross-cultural heritage due to wars, and families, particularly mother-son relationships. An unusual and interesting take on the detective genre.

2004-01-16T03:25:00.000-08:00

Peter Lovesy - The Last Detective
Lovesy is a great detective writer from England. He is also an expert on pedestrianism (race-walking) and became friends with my Dad when Dad was working on his book on the history of running. Lovesy has an ongoing detective character, Peter Diamond, who quit playing rugby and kept getting thicker. In this book, he quits the police force in almost a fit of pique while investigating a murder with elements of sex, drugs, and tv soap operas. Diamond's physical presence is a large factor in how his life plays out over the books he is featured in. He's a big fat man with a bluff manner. In this story, a suspect pled guilty to a crime he didn't commit - that development was partly blamed on Diamond's physique and manner (although really the false confession was because the suspect was playing scapegoat for a major criminal). Diamond is a smart, funny, human, neo-luddite character. He gets in trouble from his own nature sometimes, but more often by way of unjustices from obnoxious breauracrats and wronged children alike. You always end up rooting for him.

2004-01-16T02:37:00.000-08:00

I was writing a lot in a different blog about books I am reading. I decided to make books a different blog. I'm going to copy the book related stuff from teeth dreams and then shut up about books over there. Wonder what I will talk about?