summer of fiction

looking through the list of books i've recently read, i realized that i read a lot more fiction this summer than usual. i used to read one or two novels a year, but have taken to reading more fiction in the last couple of years. since i'm between ideas as to what to post on, i figured i'd do a quick rundown of the fiction i've read in the last few months.

1. most recently, i read Feed by M.T. Anderson. i read about Feed somewhere a few months back, and thought Jak would enjoy it, so i picked it up for him. of course, he had to go to work the next day, so i read it first. it's young adult fiction, so it just took a few hours to get through. it's based sometime in the relatively near future, when air is manufactured, steaks are grown on farms (not cows, just steaks), and everyone has an advanced version of the internet plugged into themselves called the 'feed.' the feed plays on the idea of personalized advertising and banner ads that we're getting more and more of these days, but taken to a whole new level as all of that goes straight into people's minds. advertising, education, instant messaging, and shopping all take place simply by interacting with this implanted device.

as someone who has rarely read YA fiction, i was somewhat surprised with the portrayal of the characters. Titus, the protagonist, is a portrayed as an immature and self-centered teenager, who has to wrestle with questions about life and death and reality that push him beyond his abilities to cope. while living in an era where even the adults sound like idiots (since they've received no true education and are also bombarded with the constant advertising) and a popular show is called "Oh? Wow! thing!" he is challenged to experience and imagine a life beyond the propaganda of the feed and figure out if the reality he's lived with is truly real.

2. On the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness: Adventure. Peril. Lost Jewels. And the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree. Andrew Peterson, a ccm musician, released a children's book in march. i read some rave reviews about it, and picked it up for Jak as he tends to like fantasy. he enjoyed it enough for me to read through it a few days later. i don't really read much fiction, and up until this summer, i haven't read many children's books as an adult - so maybe my opinion on this comes simply from the limitation of not having much to compare it to. but i loved this book. it was so much fun to read, filled with crazy creatures and great descriptions. between the plot moving at a fast enough pace, and the names of people and critters (like Podo, thwaps, and Gnag the Nameless) this would be a great story to read to school age kids.

3. i'd only read CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia once before, nearly a decade ago. i wanted to reread them (or at least the first one) before the movie came out, but never did (our copies have been packed away for a few years). so i decided i'd reread them before Prince Caspian came to theatres. i didn't do that either. but, i did snag a copy from a friend just afterwards and read the series earlier this summer. i was surprised with how little i remembered from any of the stories, most of them felt brand new to me.

having remembered so little, it was a blast to read them all and to be drawn into the magical world of narnia. i'd forgotten - and thoroughly enjoyed - Lewis' brilliant humor and fantastic descriptions throughout the stories. these books ought to belong in nearly every home.

4. i heard a local pastor bash The Shack by William Young, which of course drove me to buy it immediately. i didn't think i'd actually make it through the book once i started it. the absurdly excessive use of metaphors and weak editing at the beginning of the book made it hard to read more than a few paragraphs at a time. i don't know if the story eventually picked up enough to make it easier to ignore the glaring literary deficiencies, or if the writing improved later, but after the first few chapters, the book read much more fluidly.

of course, this book has been riddled with controversy, as some have accused Young of goddess worship and modalism, among other things. i felt it was a very bold move to dare to write a dialogue with God, which i give him props for. i didn't agree with everything he said or how he said it, but it's a novel - not a theological treatise. it's a story of grace, mercy, and forgiveness, written in the framework of one man's meeting with the Trinity for a weekend. it seems that those caught up in accusing Young of heresy are missing the fact that it is simply a story. though it definitely could have used more editing and a bit more clarity at times, it does pose an interesting read to challenge many of the assumptions about God, church, theology, and christian living that tend to exist in many circles.

Prince of Tennis

our friend Rilina got Jak into reading some manga back when we were living in boston. somewhere between boston and seattle, Jak got me to start watching the anime version of Naruto with him on occasion. now we watch it regularly.

after reading about Prince of Tennis on Rilina's blog, Jak picked up volume 1. last week he picked up vols 2 and 3. looking for something light and easy to read one night while i couldn't sleep, i read through them as well.

(for the unitiated, manga is a Japanese style of comic books or graphic novels, and anime refers to animation originating in Japan.)

Prince of Tennis is about the tennis team of a middle/high school, and the prince is this little 7th grader who can basically play like a pro. i'm not into tennis, so it took me a bit to catch on to some of what was going on.

but it's cute and entertaining (though i prefer Naruto) and i like the little guy's attitude.

Joe Jones

i first read Anne Lamott during a writing class in my undergrad, where we read her book on writing, Bird by Bird (hated the class, loved the book). i fell in love with her style instantly, and proceeded to read her other nonfiction works (Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, and Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year). at some point, i also read one of her novels, Blue Shoe. i felt let down. i so enjoyed her nonfiction, and i don't remember much about the book, except that i ended up disappointed.

since the growing stack of books on my "to-read" shelf currently consists of a bunch of psych books and one or two theology books, i started craving something a bit lighter to read. so when we went to barnes & noble last week, i abandoned my typical perusal of the psych section to wander into the realm of fiction. i don't buy a lot of fiction, but with so many books already stacked on my shelf for me to read soon, i couldn't bring myself to purchase another psych book quite yet (especially after two mini book buying sprees on amazon in the last few weeks). so i bought another Lamott novel, hoping to not be so disappointed in this one.

i felt rushed by the time i decided to look at her books, so i didn't really take time to read the backs of any of them, i just grabbed the first one that wasn't Blue Shoe, and it happened to be Joe Jones.

i took my time reading it over a few days this past week, though i think it's style also lends to a slower reading. it's a book about the characters, not really about a plot. there really isn't much happening throughout the book, mostly dialogue and time spent in the characters' heads listening to their thoughts.

i was going to say the book revolves around the characters in a diner, but really, the book is the characters in the diner. not much happens, except for conversations, thoughts about the past, and building of relationships (and the strains and pains that come with them).

sometimes the characters are annoying, but i think that is part of what makes them seem human, real, and true. they are broken people, and they hurt each other and yet their honesty makes them desirable. i think they main difference between them and us (as non-characters, but real people), is that while we are equally broken and searching for relationships, we lie and hide and pretend to be something other than we are. i guess that's what makes us most like the title character, Joe Jones, who is part of this group, but never really completely. he's hurt them out of fear, he's troubled by his own reality, he craves what they have but is himself the one at fault for the distance between him and the others. he refuses to step into the relationship as authentically as the others, so when he hurts them or they hurt him, relationships aren't mended as readily as when those same hurts happen among the others.

wow, that was vague. i got lazy and didn't feel like describing each of the characters. so all you get is this vague description.

so i guess, if you like a book with action or a fast-paced storyline, don't read this. but for something different than others, something that is about the characters more than the story, it makes for an interesting read.

Christ the Lord Out of Egypt

if you haven't heard, Anne Rice, famed author of vampire novels, has converted back into her childhood faith of Catholicism. with this conversion, she has felt called to consecrate all her future work to God. her book, Christ the Lord Out of Egypt, is the first since this decision.

i haven't read any of Rice's previous works, so i can't take a comparative stance between this and her previous works. and as i've mentioned before, i don't spend much time reading fiction, so i tend to enjoy what i do read, and i have a harder time critiquing it than the non-fiction i read. that said, i did enjoy this book and found the way she treated the subject matter fascinating in many ways.

the time period covered in the book is about one year of Jesus's young life, starting when he's seven years old. we don't have much history about Jesus's childhood in the bible, so she fills in the gaps with a ton of historical research of the cultural milieu of the time as well as through apocryphal sources.

what i found most interesting is the journey that the young Jesus takes in her book from a point of unknowing to knowing, the novel is a movement towards clarity. Jesus sees there's something different, and something he doesn't know that his family that surrounds him is aware of, but he can't ask what it is while he's desperate to know. the process of his coming to knowledge and awareness is painfully slow at times, but at the same time i see that as mirroring our own progress in life. how often do we realize we are blind, but have not the power to give ourselves sight? how often do we see our own ignorance, but are unable to move past it in our own time?

her Catholicism shines through so many parts of the book, as she holds onto Catholic tenets through her descriptions and explanations in the novel. for example, the Catholic church holds that Mary remained a virgin, yet the Bible refers to James as a brother of Jesus. Rice places James as a son of Joseph from a previous marriage so as to hold onto the tension of Jesus having a brother while Mary remains a virgin. i found it beautiful how she held onto these tenets, many of which i have struggled with (enough to push me away from Catholicism), in such a simple and faithful way. i mean, when i don't understand something, it drives me away. yet Rice manages - even after years of atheism - to hold a simple, childlike faith even on disputed matters. i envy that simplicity.

i believe Rice plans on continuing with a series of books about the life of Jesus, and after reading this one, i look forward to the rest.

The Lovely Bones

i read the The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold yesterday. my first impression, that lasted for most of the book, was that she managed tackling a difficult subject without as much sentimentality as i would have expected. by the end i'd changed my mind. while i found her understanding of heaven and the relationship between the dead and the living interesting, i found the ending too syrupy and perfect, in such a way that i felt it ruined the reality she was trying to get to throughout most of the book. it all just ended too neatly for me, life, especially the worst tragedies in life - like the rape and murder of a fourteen-year-old, just isn't so neat and clean. i guess Sebold was trying to leave the audience with a sense of hope, but instead i found it sad that she gave up on reality for those last few pages.

any thoughts by anyone else who's read it?

Life of Pi

i read a book this weekend, and must say that i found it to be quite odd. i just finished Yann Martel's Life of Pi. anyone else read it? what are your thoughts?

i don't quite know what to say about it without spoilers. i guess i can ignore the ending, and the confusion i found there, and talk about other parts. you see, i tend to read a staggeringly small amount of fiction, so i find it harder to critique and figure out my thoughts of a fictional work than of the genres i normally spend my time reading.

i read this book mostly because of an upcoming paper for my hermeneutics class. we have to write an intertextual paper, meaning that we find some "secular" text and find a biblical text that can relate to it. then, after putting the two together, we're to write about how this text influences our view of scripture. i figured that since i have no idea what to use, a good place to start would be by picking books that are the NYT top ten list, to see if it helps me learn how to engage culture a bit. so i just read this, and have The Lovely Bones awaiting. of course, i might change my mind altogether and use a movie or a song, which would probably be easier for me to do.

as far as Life of Pi, i must say that i absolutely loved his descriptions of how Pi found christianity and islam. when he spoke of why the story of Jesus was so unbelievable to him as a Hindu, it made me realize the frailty of my view of the incarnation. it was a fascinating telling of the positive aspects of christianity, islam, and hinduism as he described his religiosity. and the best scene of all is when he and his parents come across the "three wise men," as he refers to them, the priest, the imam, and the pandit all at the same time. i laughed all the way through that scene.

Good Omens

while - to me - that sounds like a great title for a post, it's really a stolen title from the book i just read by that title (by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett) that Rilina lent to me about 23,321 days ago. though i must consider myself a novice to reading fiction, i'll say that it was a really enjoyable read. very funny. it was like reading monty python, but with a little more sense blended in. it's an end of the world novel in which nothing goes as plans by either the forces above or those below. i must say my favorite paragraph is the book is as follows:

Most of the members of the convent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They'd been brought up to it and weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.

though, if i particularly believed in omens, i'd say that we have a few good omens that have come our way lately. i just found out that the apartment that Jak and i have been living in got rented for september 1st, which means, since we're breaking our lease, that we don't have to pay a penalty or keep paying rent. now, hopefully, i'll be able to find us a new place in Seattle during the week i'm spending there to find one.