One Man Book Club

---

This is my way of documenting for public perusal my thoughts and ideas about every book I read from the beginning of 2006 onward. Because we all like to think that our opinions matter and that our taste in culture is important. Just consider me a slimer, whiter, lazier, more sarcastic Oprah for the Internet crowd.

---

[ current book | not current books ]

"Alphabet of Wit," by Voltaire

A short collection of definitions for various concepts, ranging from "Divorce" to "Justice," from the author of "Candide." Although the collection is rather superfluous (as all of this material is collected in Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary"), this is still an interesting entry into the world of made-up lexicography. While much of the work may feel dated to modern readers, Voltaire touches on more than enough universal truths to make this an quick and interesting read. A personal favorite, from the entry for "Ignorance": "Some there are who are so ashamed of all they do not know that they strive to disguise themselves either as wits or philosophers."

"Gods and Myths of the Viking Age," by H.R. Ellis Davidson

I've had a long-standing fascination with Norse mythology. This initially stemmed from my slim connection to my Scandinavian heritage, but has since become part of a wider interest in mythology in general. Reading the old tales of gods and heroes is like looking at the primordial ooze of our modern narratives. The themes of rebirth and individual accomplishment all begin in these sorts of tales.

The Nordic myths are particularly interesting, incorporating and refining the scattered Germanic myths into wider structure. The pantheon of Norse gods is somehow more human and interesting than some of the other ancient religions, driven by brash temperaments and wild personalities. The myths are more focused, less scattered and complex than the vast worlds of the ancient Egyptians or the Greeks. This lack of complexity probably has more to do with the sparse documentation of the myths than from any other factor.

Davidson's overview of this rich history is functional and readable, though that's about all that recommends it. It's a solid overview, somewhere in between a reference guide and a narrative, though tilting toward the former. At times it's overly dry, and whenever he gets into more abstract territory (such as the concept of the World Tree) Davidson retreats into vagueness. His irritating habit of assuming his readers come from a Christian background pops up occasionally, a "look how far we've come" stance that shows a surprising amount of disrespect to culture he so obviously wants to venerate (I was more than once reminded of Ambrose Bierce's definition of mythology as a collection of primitive peoples' beliefs regarding their origins, "as opposed to the true accounts it invents later").

But regardless of its faults, the book is still a good introductory text, better than attempting to glean the information from Icelandic sagas or the "Prose Edda" and more concise then attempting to tackle a mythological encyclopedia. Still, I can't help but look for perfection in a work that covers a topic of personal interest to myself.

"When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?" by George Carlin

I dilly dallied on writing this review and then Carlin up and dies on me and now I feel as if I can't write about his last-published collection without in some way dealing with his legacy. So let me get that aspect of this out of the way: Carlin was one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time. He was a superb stylist, combining the almost clockwork timing of an old-school traditionalist with the pointed social observations of a counter-culture maverick. He become more bitter and angry in his latter years and subsequently his work suffered. His later albums don't wear nearly as well as his early works, which is a shame since it gives newbies a false perception of his abilities while making purists overlook some of the great work he did accomplish in the last couple decades of his life.

The three books he published between the late 1990s and 2005 are indicative of his later era. They consist of almost equal parts new material and transcripts of his established comedy routines. The new material is generally in the form of lists, scattered thoughts and off-the-cuff observations, all of it material that Carlin noted down during his long career but couldn't use in his acts since they come off better on paper. Much of the material, old and new, is brilliant and very funny. Much of it is bland and too familiar to be of interest to anyone other than a neophyte. Much like his routines at the time.

"When Will Jesus..." is the last collection he published. The quota of original material is smaller this time around, and it feels as if much of the book is simple transcripts of acts that fans would already know. They make good reading (Carlin's later era routines were more spoken essays than a traditional stand-up act) but they're still just retreads. The original material here is still the highlight, showing off his obsessions with the English language and its various contortions (he continues his breakdown of euphemisms to their true meanings, a hobby he first displayed in "Brain Droppings"). It's a funny enough collection, but the work of a faded talent. And that's coming from a devoted fan.

Discussion Question:

When someone dies, do you resent the deceased a litte because everyone expects you to praise them and ignore all the bad things they did in their life?

"The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins

If you wanted to make an argument as to how popular entertainment can achieve artistic brilliance, this would be a good place to start. First published in serial form in 1859 (and published in book form a year later) the novel basically created the modern mystery genre, while also pulling in elements of gothic romance and ghost stories. The narration comes from different characters, with almost everyone in the book being given a shot at describing the action, often leaving the reader unsure of who to trust. It's a virtuoso performance, with a wheeling and highly intricate plot that rises and falls in grand crescendos of intrigue and betrayal. The story is impossible to summarize, yet it hardly matters as the tale is just a playland for Collins to employ every storytelling device he can muster in the grand goal of keeping you on the edge of your seat. His desire to thrill is unabashed, a product of the books serial origins. It's beautiful work, the product of one of the early masters of pop literature. If his output had been more prodigious, he might have rivaled Dickens. However, his relatively small collection of works stand as some of the best popular entertainment of their time, the support for much that would follow in the next century.

"Scaramouche" by Rafael Sabatini

Exemplifying a certain type of historical adventure that soon was dragged down into cliche and has since become, sadly, an anachronism, "Scaramouche" is one of the great adventure stories to come out of the 1920s. Its joys rest entirely on its central character, one Andre-Louis Moreau, who later becomes known as Scaramouche. The novel follows his life through the first rumblings of the French Revolution through its final explosion in the streets of Paris. Out to avenge the death of a friend in a duel, Andre leads a life that sees him becoming an actor, a swordsman, a politician and a revolutionary. As the society around him falls apart, he remains a cynical and brilliant personality, tempered in a strong sense of morality. The book is light, fast-paced reading, yet always intelligent and engaging. Everything a best-seller should be.

"Martian Time-Slip" by Philip K. Dick

Dick's novels tend to fall in to one of two categories. The first category consist of his recognized classics, the books that made his name ("The Man in the High Castle," "A Scanner Darkly" etc.). The second category holds the bulk of his fiction, the often dashed-off hack work that he did to meet the publishing deadlines of the cheap science fiction houses for which he wrote. These books often contain genius elements, but they marred by Dick's wooden characters and haphazard plotting. "Martian Time-Slip" falls somewhere in between these groups. It's not on the imaginative level of his classic works, but it's also one of his better-written pieces. Taking place on a colonized Mars that is besieged by supply shortages and political bickering, it tells the story of a professional repairman, and former schizophrenic, who is hired by a land speculator to build a device that will translate a mentally disturbed boy's gibberish into clairvoyant forecasts. The book takes some time to get going, but this gives Dick the chance to set up his world and his characters, giving more weight to the novel's climax than his books usually have.

Discussion Question:

Who do you think would win in a fight between Keanu Reeves and Ben Affleck?

Follow-up Question:

Wouldn't it be best if they just killed each other?

"The Inheritors" by William Golding

Golding is a one-shot wonder, the literary equivalent of a band that has one big hit and then toils in obscurity for the rest of their career. His "Lord of the Flies" was such a massive success that it has overshadowed everything else he did. Though he won a Nobel Prize and a Booker, most casual readers couldn't name anything outside of that one work. This is probably just as well. "Lord of the Flies" was the first and most lasting achievement of his career. While he wrote good books afterwards, his allegorical insights were less interesting despite their subtlety. "The Inheritors" is his immediate follow-up to his classic. It tells the story of a clan of Neanderthals who come into contact with, and are destroyed by, an early clan of Homo Sapiens. Golding tells the story through the eyes of Lok, a young Neanderthal male. While it takes some time to be acclimated to the prose (everything is filtered through Lok's limited understanding of the world around him) the book soon becomes a fascinating prose experiment.

That is, until the final confrontation between the two clans, which plays out in a confusing and dull series of action sequences, where Golding seems completely incapable of overcoming the limitations he has set for himself. His conclusion, detailing the rise of violent civilization over gentler life forms, is thoughtful enough not terribly interesting. The book then stands as a bold experiment that never really comes together.

"Go for Beginners" by Kaoru Iwamoto

Go is one of those brilliantly simple games that only grow in complexity the more you understand it. It's a game of territory control, in which you place your pieces down on an open board, attempting to control space and occasionally capturing your opponent's pieces. "Go for Beginners" is about as simple of an introduction as one could hope to have. While it helps to have some basic understanding of the game (or at least strategy games in general) Iwamoto does an excellent job of laying out the rules for Go, which while fairly simple, are so foreign to any other style of gaming common in the West that it takes a little time to get acclimatized. He also gives a break down of the basic strategies, including examples from games between top players. Iwamoto was a world class player when he wrote this back in the 1970s, so this is somewhat akin to having Bobby Fischer give you pointers in chess. This has its advantages, but it's best to keep in mind that you need to play at least a 100 games before you will even begin to appreciate some of what he is saying.

Discussion Question:

Do you know a nerdy computer science major who is obsessed with this game? Cite examples.

"Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D.H. Lawrence

It can be said right out that if it were not for the controversy surrounding this book's depictions of sexuality, no one would have heard of it or cared about it. It's a mid-range Lawrence novel, interesting but hardly his best work. The prose is poetic yet often overwrought, Lawrence's attempts to copy lower-class British dialect are painful, the characters are fairly static and not a whole lot actually happens that is worth reading about. However, the book somehow manages to rise above these faults to somehow actually be a good read. There are flashes of brilliance and beauty scattered throughout, allow this to rise above the romance novel mediocrity and occasionally reach the transcendence Lawrence was capable of in his best work.

Discussion Question:

With which of your servants would you be most likely to have a torrid affair?

"Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ" by Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche is a lot like the Grateful Dead. Now hear me out:

When you think of the Grateful Dead, the first thing that generally comes to mind is a swirling mass of unwashed hippies trying to convince you, in hushed, medicated tones, that "Dark Star" will reveal the universe to you. Subsequently, you hate the Grateful Dead in reaction to the brain dead societal rejects who have tried to make you like them through the years. What you will notice is that the source of your hatred is not the group itself or their music, but the fans. The same with Nietzsche. The popular perception of him is largely founded in his fans rather than his works, e.g. Nazis and goth kids, both equally despised and both with remarkably twisted views about the man's work.

But much in the way that the Grateful Dead wrote some great songs, Nietzsche wrote some brilliant works of philosophy. "Twilight of the Idols" is probably the best introduction to his work (it was written as a condensed overview of his thinking, right before he went crazy). Examining issues of free will, morality, cultural decay and religion (all closely tied together in his work), the book is as concise a piece of thinking as Nietzsche, or any German philosopher of his period, ever produced. His idea that free will is a false construct, intended to imply guilt and hence a concept founded in persecution, might not sit to well with some readers. Nietzsche didn't believe in equality among humanity, even as an ideal (though he was not a racist or anti-Semite, as some have claimed. He cared more about individuals than ethnic groups and any criticism lobed at Judaism was part of his overall critic of religion). He fits as well into a revolutionary conservative approach as he does into the more liberal Western philosophical tradition. That his ideas are often as shocking and disruptive today as they were when he was alive is a testament to his importance. He was a serious thinker, and he deserves to be taken seriously. Listen to "Workingman's Dead" with an open mind, while you're at it.

"The Anti-Christ," which is attached to most editions of this book currently in print, is more of an extended essay than a book in its own right. It's an often engaging and interesting attack on Christianity, and one of the last works Nietzsche completed before his breakdown. Not one of his better pieces, employing a hyperbolic and discursive diatribe on a topic which he had formally spoken of with more lucidity. Interesting, but not necessary.

Discussion Question:

Was Friedrich Nietzsche emotastic? Discuss.

Follow Up Question:

Cut, cut, cut.

"I, Claudius" by Robert Graves

This is everything historical fiction is supposed to offer. Immersive, engaging and endlessly inventive, the novel tells the story of the Roman royal family from the reign of Augustus through Caligula. The narrator is none other then Caligula's successor, Claudius, whom history has passed down to us as a stuttering incompetent, but who Graves depicts as an intelligent, trustworthy man whose life is unfortunately wrapped up in the political machinations of his family (one of Graves' most interesting additions to the history is that Claudius is wise enough to use the general perception of him as a fool to his own advantage, surviving the conspiracies surrounding him simply because he is considered too much of a dolt to be worth assassinating). Through Claudius we learn the tale of the Roman ruling class, where the most common cause of death is to be poisoned by your grandmother. Where historical facts are absent, Graves gets inventive, making the history flow in a seamless narrative. It makes the volatile period come alive, giving it a pleasant, likable voice.

Discussion Questions:

1. Who did you have to murder to rise to your position of power?
2. If you were Caligula, what inanimate object would you have carnal relations with, and why?

Suggested Activity.

Plot to kill a member of your family whose death will bring you some financial or social gain. Failing that, ostracize this person with the rest of your family and send them into exile.

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

How do you even begin? One of the most highly praised novels in American literature, still read by half of all high school students, the novel that probably first comes to most American's minds when they think of a "great novel." In a way, it's somehow moved beyond literary criticism, to ubiquitous to analyze with any sense of objectivity. Yet having managed to avoid the book for 24 years of my life, I can probably make a stab at reviewing it, or at least give a few of my own impressions.

"Gatsby" has the sort of lyrical beauty that is so rare in Western literature. It's a poem of a novel, full of bold personalities drawn in broad strokes (yet containing subtle touches around the edges). In Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald created one of the most fascinating character in literature, a man who aimed as high as life would take him, yet was aware he could never have all that he wanted and who crashed gloriously and tragically back to earth. Robert Penn Warren aimed for this sort of grandeur in "All the King's Men" (and failed, though in an interesting way). "Gatsby" hence stands alone in what it achieved. It's a rarity; a classic more than deserving of the praise it has received.

"Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond

At some point in our intellectual history, "determinism" became an insult, a byword for being the work of an anti-human, godless leftist. The general complaint is that if something is determinist, it assumes that natural forces rather than free will condition human actions and history, and that this denies human achievement as all of our actions are preprogrammed. But much like "moral relativism," "determinism" is a word that has lost a lot of its meaning.

When placed against Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel," the disparaging view of determinism crumbles. The book is an extended argument for one basic point: that certain civilizations had distinct geographical and environmental advantages over others, and that this is why they were able to conquer less advantaged civilizations. Diamond's point is well made. A simple litany of the plants and animals that European and Asian civilizations were able to draw from goes a long way to showing the disparities. Guess which landmass ended up with most of the large, domesticatable animals. If you guessed Africa, Australia or either of the Americas than you guessed wrong.

Aside from his research, Diamond's book is entertaining simply for the passion he has for the subjects. Reading the book is to get wrapped up in a new way of thinking about the world. Though it often feels like a highly in-depth magazine article, Diamond is a solid enough communicator to keep the often dry recording of crop distributions and language evolution seem downright enthralling.

"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius

The most interesting and clearly stated expression of stoic philosophy, this collection of thoughts from the Roman emperor were written between 170 and 180 AD but have not lost any of their clarity. Basically a personal treatise on how to inhibit and control one's emotions, the book is thought-provoking, though not necessarily a complete or consistent work of philosophy. Stoicism has been given a poor reputation through the ages, generally by works of art that laud the spontaneous and exuberant outbursts of emotion over the controlled and detached, with stoics portrayed as stuffy and out of touch with their humanity. Yet stoicism was not about disconnecting from emotions, rather about not allowing them to override your judgment. How we feel about our existence and surroundings has much to do with how well we live our lives. If we can control our feelings, we can bear the suffering of life better while also taking joy in the small pleasures it has to offer.

Discussion Questions:

1. How does Mr. Spock from "Star Trek" work as a symbol for the stoic philosophical stance?
2. Do you notice how in movies when a outgoing, emotional character comes to a dreary town and manages to create a revolution among the townsfolk, the last person to be converted is always the tight-lipped town leader who is portrayed as some kind of stoic figure who is out of touch with his or her emotions?
3. Do you like to imagine that after everyone has gotten all wild and free and in touch with their inner child, they all die in a fire because no one was paying attention all off the things that can go wrong?

"Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category"

The comedy that makes us laugh the most never has a universal appeal. Nothing makes everyone laugh and it seems the more specific the humor is, the more effective it is. We laugh hardest at inside jokes, so long as we are in on them. "Created in Darkness" is like a collection of inside jokes. You have to be attuned to the specific wavelength of the authors to really laugh at the humor involved in such pieces as "Unused Audio Commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, Recorded Summer 2002, for 'The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings' DVD (Platinum Series Extended Version)." But if you are on that wavelength, you will find this collection a treasure trove. Not everything will work of course, but none of the pieces are exceptionally weak and the net is cast so wide that if your sense of humor is offbeat in any way, more than likely you will find more than enough here to make giggle.

Suggested Activity: Write a funny list for the McSweeney's website and submit it (I'm serious. Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks).

"Thud!" by Terry Pratchett

Of the seemingly hundreds of characters Pratchett has populated his satirical fantasy planet of Discworld with, none are more enduring or well-realized than the police force of Discworld's largest city, Ankh-Morpork. Lead by Commander Sam Vimes (a hero to rival the best of any classic mystery series) and containing wide range of fantasy-inspired species (trolls, dwarves, werewolves and the like) the books about the City Watch are fan favorites and generally the better entries in the Discworld series. Borrowing key elements from "The Da Vinci Code" and using them for his own comic purposes, Pratchett here has crafted a likable enough entry that introduces nothing new, but sticks with the general formula h laid down some time ago and makes it work.

"Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett

Just as Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" concept started to feel as if it were being (excuse the pun) stretched a little thin, British fantasy's premier satirist finds a way to add just a little more depth. As with Pratchett's other Discworld novels, "Going Postal" takes a general concept (the postal service, in this case) and uses it as a jumping board for wild flights of fancy and wonderfully absurd characterizations. On that last point, Pratchett has come up with one of his best new characters in years, in the form of Moist von Lipwig, a conman who is given the choice between death and a government service job (a difficult choice). His job is to take over the dilapidated postal system of Discworld's largest city and turn it into something workable. Hilarity ensues as Pratchett fires on all cylinders, twisting cliches with abandon. One of Pratchett's best recent entries.

"Beyond Freedom & Dignity" by B.F. Skinner

We like to live under the impression that we are autonomous; that our actions are based on our own feelings and judgments and that our lives are our own making (or under the power of a higher authority that guides us to a specific destiny). This impression rests on the idea that there is some part of us that is not a part of the temporal world, a personality that represents what is uniquely us. Commonly though of as the soul ("autonomous man" as Skinner refers to it), this element is neither scientifically observable nor necessary to our understanding of human actions.

It is the goal of eliminating this conception that Skinner pursues during the course of "Beyond Freedom & Dignity." Skinner's view is that personalities are formed by a combination of environmental and social controls (genetics plays a role as well, though this can be thought of as an environmental factor). A person is hardwired from birth onward by a series of rewards and punishments, either intentional or incidental to being alive. All actions that people take are a product of their "training" through life up to that point.

This view has been criticized as determinism by some (it is, though that is hardly a criticism), morally relativistic by others (possibly, but viewing crime as being caused by social forces rather than the inherent evil of criminals is not a new observation and is actually open to scientific testing, which is a positive step), and fascist by Skinner's most ardent critics (mostly for Skinner's recommendations that we use environmental conditioning to improve society, though "fascist" is a little harsh considering that even the most open and free societies already do this, consciously or unconsciously. Skinner is just asking that we go about it more scientifically).

In the end the book works as a breakdown of our preconceived notions about talent, free will and the way societies operate. That Skinner is a fluid and engaging writer makes this an important and readable piece of pop psychology.

"Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell

Political assassination has a long, unsung history in the United States. We've lost four presidents to assassination, yet these days Kennedy is the only one who gets any ink, being the freshest in everyone's minds (Lincoln gets his share, being the first and one of the most interesting).

Vowell's funny, morbid trip through history is a pleasant corrective to this situation, covering the various miscellanea surrounding the deaths of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Traveling to such scattered locations as Garfield's residence and the prison a few of the Lincoln assassination conspirators were held, Vowell is as funny and erudite a travel guide as ever. Engaging, incredibly knowledgeable and very witty, this is one of Vowell's best performances as a comic writer so far.

Discussion Question:

Excepting the current administrator, which U.S. president would you most want to bump off? And don't you all say Andrew Jackson because that fucker is mine.

"Snow White" by Donald Barthelme

Many of the tricks, gimmicks and quirks of post-modernism are hardly as novel as most of their practitioners seem to think. The fact that most everything these mass-produced literary units from the MFA programs of America use to add that edgy post-modern flair to their otherwise bland prose can be traced back to Donald Barthelme. Retelling fairy tales as tales of modern alienation; breaking the narrative flow to include such self-referential material as quizzes and discussion questions; surreal narratives marked by absurd dialog and actions; all of these things that are still considered hip by some were perfected by Barthelme more than 30 years ago in his scattered short stories and novels.

"Snow White" is one of his more cohesive extended fictions, though like its companion piece, "The Dead Father," it's really only for those already attuned to Barthelme's sometimes difficult style. Telling the Snow White tale in a disjointed manner, Barthelme strips the characters of any fairy tale purity, giving them modern human emotional instability. The legend basically stalls because no one knows how to fulfill their role. Snow White becomes an alabaster sex goddess, killing time with the dwarves while waiting for Prince Charming to take action. Unfortunately, Charming seems content to spy on her and imagine taking her away than he does to actually do anything. The dwarves are stuck in a love/hate relationship with Snow White, alternately obsessed with her every action and sickened by her vanity, feeling miffed whenever their pleas for attention go unnoticed. The fractured storytelling can wear you down over time (Barthelme is always better in small doses), but as an example of post-modern recontextualization, this is a dozy.

Discussion Questions:

1. Snow White: You would totally hit that, wouldn't you?
2. It is a very nice shower curtain, isn't it?

"The Green Brain" by Frank Herbert

Herbert was one of the few truly brilliant writers to grace genre fiction. A world-maker by trade, his "Dune" series redefined what science fiction could do. But then of course, there was everything else he wrote, none of which rose to such heights. While his ideas were always interesting, his execution often failed him. "The Green Brain" is a perfect example. It tells the story of a near future Earth were insects have been eliminated to save farm crops, having been replaced by genetically engineered substitutes. Areas where real insects still exist are quarantined and groups of exterminators work on destroying them. But strange things are happening in the jungles of South America and only some political machinations and intrigue and action sequences can find out what. The characters are a little wooden and the plot goes through some painful convolutions. Still, Herbert is good for his engaging imagery and the book is a pleasant enough distraction.

Discussion Question:

Who do you favor in the upcoming Human/Insect war?

"Ape and Essence," by Aldous Huxley

Basically, this is the dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley that isn't "Brave New World." The bulk of the novel is told in the form of a screenplay saved from the incinerator by a writer and his producer. It tells the tale of a future world where nuclear war has claimed most of the planet. In 2108, an expedition from New Zealand (the only country spared destruction, basically because no one cared enough to bomb it) lands on the Southern Californian coast to do scientific research. One of the members is taken captive by a tribe of mutated survivors who worship a devil-like figure named Belial. His life basically goes downhill from there.

From this somewhat meager plot, Huxley is able to extract thoughts on the nature of human progress ("the theory that Utopia lies just ahead and that, since ideal ends justify the abominable means, it is your privilege and duty to rob, swindle, torture, enslave and murder all those who, in your opinion (which is, by definition, infallible), obstruct the onward march to the earthly paradise.") and human knowledge ("what we call knowledge is merely another form of Ignorance--highly organized, of course, and eminently scientific, but for that very reason all the more complete, all the more productive of angry apes.") all very thought provoking and all very cynical. While the story is somewhat slim (there's a reason "Brave New World" is the classic rather than this) the imagery and ideas are compelling enough to make it worth the time of anyone who wants to look deeper into the Huxley's fascinating back catalog.

Discussion Question

Would you let someone chop off you genitals if it meant you could enter the priest class?

Suggested Activities:

1. Get some friends together and go grave robbing to get some new clothing.
2. Take a bunch of mescaline and see if you can come up with a horrifying vision of the downfall of man.

"The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear" by Edward Lear

Edward Lear is one of those often overlooked heroes of literature, a man so in touch with a primal part of himself that he was able to craft lines of pure inane beauty almost at will. Best known today for his timeless poem "The Owl and the Pussycat," he had that rare ability to create an entire world on the page, with its own mythology and reference points. This collection brings together his four "Nonsense" books, complete with the whimsical illustrations (Lear's own) that are as much a part of the works as the words themselves. While adult reader might find an extended reading of Lear's work a little taxing (they have always been intended for children), an occasional dip into this strange lyrical universe will certainly prove beneficial.

Discussion Quesions:

1. Has anyone seen my beard?
2. No, really. Where is it?

"The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy" by Stanislaw Lem

A twisted, looping, funhouse mirror of a novel, "The Futurological Congress" tells the tale of a future society where psychosomatic chemicals are used to control the populous. After a rebellion interrupts the proceedings of the title group, astronaut Ijon Tichy and others take refuge in the sewers, but end up getting sprayed with the chemicals the government is using to quell the riots. Ijon passes through continuous delusions and alternate realities before waking up in a future society where pharmaceuticals are now a way of life. But is this just another delusion? It takes some time to sort out. Funny, frenzied and a tad-bit mind altering, the book often comes off like Philip K. Dick on overdrive. A necessary read for anyone interested in Lem, or just looking to expand their science fiction palate.

Discussion Quesions:

1. If you woke up as a middle-aged black woman, what would your reaction be?
2. This is of course assuming you aren't a middle-aged black woman already, in which case I suppose you would not be too surprised to wake up as one.

Suggested Activity:

Try taking a bunch of random medication and seeing if any of it gives you a greater understanding of Western civilization.

"Eight Plays by Moliere"

One of the great playwrights in the Western canon, Moliere is occasionally looked over by the general public in favor of the more obvious English choices. Yet his work, though steeped very much in the politics of his era, has a timeless quality akin to Shakespeare or Ibsen, or any other classic playwright you would like to name. A satirist of the first order, his "Tartuffe" is a classic assault on religious hypocrisy, while his romantic farces are the pinnacle of that genre.

This is not to say that Moliere is a straightforward dramatist, even by today's standards. He experimented with form and style, writing plays about his own plays (his "Critique of The School for Wives" addresses the criticism leveled at that play, and works as a examination of criticism as a form) and performing other experiments that today would have been called post-modern.

Anyone interested in comedy as a form, or drama in general, will get to Moliere eventually. He is one of the touchstones of classic drama, and still a delight to this day.

"The Napoleon of Notting Hill," by G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton is one of those entities of pure creative invention that occasionally pops up in English literature. A writer with a singular vision and a seemingly endless source of inspiration, his varied works range from the comic to the philisophical, most falling in between. While his work is not widely read today, he remains in print simply because it would be inconceivable for him not to be.

"The Napoleon of Notting Hill" tells the tale of a future world were political and social revolutions have ceased (in fact, technology has stopped progressing and things are still essentially the same as they were in 1904). With the citizens no longer interested in democracy, England is now ruled by a series of kings chosen at random. The system works until Auberon Quin is appointed to the position. An irreverent joker, he decides to add a little prestige to London's neighborhoods by turning them into medieval fiefdoms. Problems arise when the provost of Notting Hill takes his role a little more seriously than intended. An attempt to rout a thoroughfare through his neighborhood, instead of causing civil protest, leads to open urban warfare.

The novel works both as a comic fantasy and as a novel of ideas. Alternately ribald and thrilling (though the balance is not always kept), it's one of Chesterton's better novels.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A strange, occult tale of ghostly ships and terrifying curses, written by a laudanum addict; whoever said the classics were boring? Coleridge's strange poem of a man who kills a mighty bird at sea and ends up cursed (or something, it's thick going without footnotes) is a favorite of English teachers who like to punish their students by making them write term papers about literature they might have otherwise enjoyed. While it induces a lot of groans from people, this is a beautiful piece of work.

Discussion Questions:

1. Have you ever killed an albatross?
2. Did it really piss of the other people on the boat?

"Time Out of Joint" by Philip K. Dick

One of Dick's early attempts at pure paranoia, this tells the story of Ragle Gumm, a man who lives with his sister and her family, and who makes a living by winning a newspaper contest with an incredible accuracy. His idle suburban 1950s existence soon begins to slip away from him as he begins to realize that it might not, in fact, be real.

Nobody could rip aside the facade of reality quite like Dick, and this novel shows that talent distilled to its purest form: A man who notices the holes in the way things work and nearly kills himself trying to see through them. With its building sense of discomfort and dread, this is one of the best of Dick's early novels. Not a necessary read, but an entertaining one.

Discussion Questions:

1. Wouldn't it be weird if you discovered it was actually the 1990s?
2. Would you consider it more a totalitarian dystopia or just a time when we all listened to way too much Alanis Morissette?

"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," by Harlan Ellison

One in a long series of out-of-print Harlan Ellison collections, this contains not only some of his best stories (in particular the title piece, a disturbing work of existentialist horror) but one of the best titles in science fiction. Ellison is always a little hit-and-miss in these collections, particularly when he starts to move away from science fiction territory into standard fiction (when the stories start sounding like "Twilight Zone" rejects). But a few powerful stories carrying the thing through, putting this up with the must reads for sci-fi freaks.

Discussion Questions:

1. If you had no mouth, would you want to scream?
2. Do you ever get the feeling that a giant computer system is trying to torture you until you yearn for death?
3. Do you know of any good medications for that feeling?

"Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut

Science fiction is at its best when it has as much to say about the today's world as it does about the far off planets and future societies it so often depicts. The simply endless barrage of "Star Wars"/"Star Trek" knock offs don't exactly provide the kind of brain food one looks for in the best of the genre, which is why Kurt Vonnegut was such a refreshing development. Working with the tropes of pulp science fiction but with the insight of a true satirist, he often resembles something akin to a modern Jonathan Swift or G.K. Chesterton, using the fantastic as a way to comment on the temporal.

"Player Piano" is Vonnegut's first novel and shows both the promise of a brilliant writer and the faults of a still-developing talent. Depicting a future America in which machines run nearly every imaginable service and the culture is slowly outmoding itself out of existence, the novel touches on a broad range of topics. Class warfare, business culture, marketing and others all get the nice little shakedown, though it often feels like Vonnegut is pushing to cover too much ground in too little time. The novel's climax, a largely ineffective revolution against the engineer class and the machines, doesn't really come off in any kind of satisfying way. But this is still Vonnegut, and his broad-yet-incisive touch is still there. Dated at times, but still a funny and relevant read.

Suggested Activity:

Try existing in a world dominated entirely by technology for a couple of days and see if it makes you a souless, empty shell of what once could have been called a human being.

"Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," by T.S. Eliot

Written for his friends and godchildren in the 1930s, this slim collection of free verse would actually make an excellent addition to a children's book library if you where aiming to raise exceptionally well-read children. A series of poems telling the stories of the title creatures, the collection is pleasant, fanciful and brief (all qualities lacking from the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical it inspired), marred only by being a little dated (and the inclusion of a couple of racist terms that have since fallen from fashion). But it's a light work that was never meant to be taken seriously, and on that level can provide enjoyment for you and the young ones.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you have more pictures of your cats posted on the Internet than you have of your children?
2. Don't you just want to kick Andrew Lloyd Weber in the nuts sometimes?
3. I mean really, why do people like him?

"The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham

This is the book Wyndham is best known for, if he is known at all. An often chilling, occasionally dated end of the world tale, "Triffids" begins with most of the world being struck blind by a strange cosmic event, then moves on from there. While the idea of most of the planet being blinded is creepy, it's short story level at best. Wyndham's best invention is the triffids themselves, a form of walking plant created through secret Cold War genetic experiments. Growing ten feet in height and expressing a strange level of intelligence (as well as sharp stingers capable of impaling a human torso) these carnivorous plants have grown around the world before the story begins. Now with most of humankind unable to see the plants, the triffids quickly become the dominant species on Earth while the survivors work to fight them off (as well as each other, as is dictated by the standards of this particular subgenre).

While often clichéd and more than a little forced in its morality plays, the novel is still a classic for its many chilling scenes of society collapsing in on itself. A flawed classic, but a classic nonetheless.

Discussion Question:

Who knew that botany could be such an exciting field?

"The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. Le Guin

When people talk about all of their dreams coming true, they don't mean that in the literal sense. They are generally referring to their hopes, fantasies or desires. If their dreams came true, there would be a lot more naked people. And really weird sex.

Snide commentary aside, "The Lathe of Heaven" tells, on the surface, the story of a man whose dreams actually change the reality of his waking life. It's an imperceptible change, visible to no one but himself until he is recommended to a doctor after overdosing on the drugs he uses to keep this power in check. His psychiatrist has plans for this ability, attempting to craft a better world by subliminal suggestion. As you can imagine, things don't work out as planned.

"Lathe" has become a classic of science fiction, and deservedly so. It deals with complex issues in a fantastic, imaginative way. Le Guin weaves the text and various subtexts of her story with a master's touch, letting the tale come to its own conclusions rather than forcing analogies and meaning. Reality bends and is reformed, the very nature of the characters change with each new dream, yet it all unfolds so simply and with such grace that you never get lost. This is speculative fiction at its intellectual and spiritual high point.

Discussion Questions:

1. If your dreams could control reality, would you shy away from your abilities or go mad with power?
2. Have you ever listened to someone describe a dream? Isn't it the most boring fucking thing imaginable?

"The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood," by Algernon Blackwood

There is something I find endlessly fascinating about a good ghost story. Reliant entirely on atmosphere and tension (as well as the well-timed release of that tension), the best ghost stories are case studies in sustained mood. Blackwood was simultaneously a master of the form and one of its pioneers. He pushed the limits of what qualifies as a "ghost story" while always remaining true to the basic feeling behind them. By no means a literary virtuoso (and like many genre writers of his era, he was prone to some pretty hackney plots), he was often a brilliant craftsman. This collection, while uneven, contains many of his masterpieces, in particular "The Willows," which stands as one of the best short stories to come out of the horror genre. The book could have done without the inclusion of "Max Hensig," an interesting though ill-placed crime thriller that feels more like a place holder than a legitimate entry, rising to comic absurdity when it is supposed to be at its most suspenseful. The popular "John Silence" stories, a couple of which are included here, feature Blackwood's reoccurring psychic detective character in barely more than bit parts, his inclusion a distracting afterthought.

Suggested Activity:

BOO!

[ not current books | current book ]

"What is Literature?" by Jean-Paul Sartre

First published in 1947 and dealing mostly with French literature, it's surprising how relevant many of Sartre's ideas here still are. Basically a phenomenology of reading and writing, the book covers, in Sartre's typically dense prose, the purpose of writing, writing for political ends, why people read and just about any other topic Sartre can possibly link to these concepts. It's tough going at times for philosophical neophytes (such as myself) but there are enough engaging concepts revealed here to keep the attention of anyone with an interest in literary criticism enthralled.

"Endgame" by Samuel Beckett

The bleakest and strangest of plays from a bleak, strange writer, "Endgame" concerns the relationship between a blind master and his servant, who are locked away in a sanctuary, surrounded by a world that seems lifeless. Much like its companion piece, "Waiting for Godot," not much happens that makes literal sense. The examination of despair and existentialist dread is the sole purpose, and once you are able to appreciate the work on this level it becomes engaging, even funny at times. As with all of Beckett's works, those attuned to the mindset will find a form of catharsis within the tragedy.

"Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts" by Samuel Beckett

How many people absolutely hate this play? I imagine the numbers are quite high. It's a divisive piece of literature, certainly. The fact that it inspired a vast, seething cesspool of imitators that has collectively solidified into the millstone of experimental drama gives one more than enough reason for resentment. Basically plotless, sometimes senseless, a tad bit irritating at times, the play concerns two men who are waiting for the title character to arrive. The characters are basically just two halves of the same personality that split so it would have someone to talk to. If you can stand the confusion and inane conversations for two acts (I can) then it might be possible to get to the existentialist tragedy that is the heart of the play, and reap its many intellectual rewards.

Discussion Quesions:

1. Who do you think is hotter, Estragon or Vladimir?
2. Have you ever written a crappy experimental play about the inherent emptiness of existence?

Suggested Activity:

Do something futile, meaningless and depressing for about an hour.

"The Dead Father" by Donald Barthelme

Better known for his brilliant, perversely funny short stories, Barthelme wrote few novels in his lifetime. This is the one that stays in print, if that tells you anything. A strange, often senseless journey through a dreamscape land of mythology and unconscious desires, it tells the story of the Dead Father, a gargantuan creature that once engaged in godlike feats, but who now has withered and is reduced to impotent acts of meaningless violence as a group of his followers drag him across the land on a final quest. Along the way, Barthelme examines, mocks and satirizes the myth of fatherhood, using a variety of stylistic tricks to achieve his often arcane points. At times the book can be tough going, feeling long at only a 150 pages. But there are many flashes of brilliance here and the book would make an interesting read for anyone, provided they were at least familiar with Barthelme's unique fictional world.

"Bawdy Language: Everything You Always Wanted To Do But Were Afraid To Say" by Lawrence Paros

Nearly everything you say is, or once was considered, offensive. This is the primary lesson I took from reading "Bawdy Language," a funny little reference guide that details the history, usage and mutable nature of offensive language. Full of the sort of historical tidbits crossword fiends love reading about, the book covers a lot of ground, from the wide range of sexual phrases to the language used to describe various forms of human waste expulsion. Referring to somebody's "legs" was once considered offensive. The terms "white and dark meat" developed because some people were uncomfortable with asking for breasts and thighs. "Shat," from which the word "shit" derives, was once as inoffensive as saying "feces." Some references to current sexual politics are thrown in as well. The commonly used word "vagina" stems from the Latin word for "sheath" (i.e. the thing you use to hold your sword. Wonderful imagery there), whereas the despised "cunt" actually has respectable origins.

What one gets the most from the book is the idea that "offensive" is entirely arbitrary, stemming from the proclivities of the listener. In actuality, it's all just part of our language, and a vital part at that. The only truly offensive part of the book is the lack of an adequate index and the author's rather heinous punning.

Discussion Questions:

1. What's the worst word you have ever used while talking to your mom?
2. How many euphemisms for masturbation can you come up with in 30 seconds?

"The Zap Gun" by Philip K. Dick

Another great example of why Phil Dick is considered only a science fiction genius rather than a literary genius, i.e. because he often wrote confused, rambling books such as this one. The book is a futuristic cold war tale in which weapons designers come up with their ideas by entering a trance state. The secret is that the weapons are never really used, just shown to the public to make it look like the governments of the world are actually defending them. The technology is incorporated into mass marketed consumer goods. Like many of Dick's plots, it's a clever satire that suggests much more that it reveals. Unfortunately, this one never really goes anywhere and it often feels as if Dick is just throwing ideas onto the page to see what sticks. The ending has a satisfying finality (rare for any of his novels) but on whole the work is more distracting than entertaining.

Discussion Question:

How many of your home appliances do you think have their origins in long range missile technology?

Suggested Activity:

Do a lot of drugs and come up with interesting ways to kill people.

"Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris

David Sedaris is one of the funniest writers in English alive today. He's a keen observer, a clear thinker and a solid literary composer. Known best for his memoirs about his family, his many jobs and other aspects of his convoluted life, Sedaris weaves narratives that are as funny as they are smart. This collection displays what he does best, mining his existence for every ounce of humor value. While it might seem that he would eventually scrape the bottom of the experience barrel, Sedaris has a gift for turning even the most mundane event into something worth reading, and laughing, about.

Discussion Quesions:

1. How many quirky relatives do you have?
2. Don't you sometimes wish you had led a funnier life so you could write about it?

"The Partly Cloudy Patriot," by Sarah Vowell

My first, and so far only, trip to the largest mall in the United States was marked by a number of events: sore feet, exhaustion, caffeine overindulgence, crappy mall food and the impulse purchase and subsequent reading of "The Partly Cloudy Patriot." A smart, witty trip through a variety of different topics, the book is part historical travelogue, part family memoir and part cultural study. Vowell writes with wit and insight about such scattered issues as Tom Cruise, The French Revolution and the 2000 presidential inauguration. Her best work comes from her various forays into history, particularly her visits to different historical locations, tackling both the history of the place and its current state as a tourist stop. One of the best humorists out there.

Discussion Quesions:

1. How many comical shot glasses do you own?
2. Have you ever looked deep into Tom Cruise's eyes and been shocked to find that there is nothing human looking back at you?

"The Mating Season," by P.G. Wodehouse

There is this ability to create and entire, logical, enclosed world that British writers seem to be so very good at. Tolkein, Lewis, Pratchett, Doyle, even Douglas Adams to an extent all created a universe within their imaginations that follows no laws but their own and feel all-encompassing to those who enter it. P.G. Wodehouse, in his own way, created one of the most pleasurable of these worlds. Within his books (particularly his Jeeves/Wooster books) he has formed a timeless comic landscape that will allow for such outrageous characters as the ones found in "The Mating Season." The plot here is too convoluted to really sum up. But that's one of the pleasures. Reading the book is like watching a rope unravel into chaos then watching it be thread right back together. By the end it has become apparent that Wodehouse could do basically anything to a plot and have it all fall right into place as if it were meant to be.

"The Sirens of Titan," by Kurt Vonnegut

I've run out of good things to say about Kurt Vonnegut. It's fortunate for me that he was a prolific writer with a long career, since there always seems to be something left that I haven't read, and there are few greater pleasures for me as a reader than reading a Vonnegut for the first time. "Sirens of Titan" is a heady combination of science fiction, humor and honest literary ambition that details the story of the richest man on Earth and his strange trip to different planets and through different identities. Vonnegut is an anomaly, a writer who ostensibly wrote science fiction but who always seemed to have bigger ideas in mind and was subsequently taken seriously as a writer of great literature. Though not as appreciated today as some of his other works, this is still a landmark novel; the one that set forth everything he would accomplish later.

"Tales of Gooseflesh and Laughter" by John Wyndham

Science fiction is a genre in which the obscurities can be as much fun as the classics. There has been a lot of science fiction written in the past century, much of it crap but more than a handful of it worth taking a glance at. As with all things, a book's classic status has as much to do with its initial popularity as it does with its actually quality. "Tales of Gooseflesh and Laughter" is no classic, but it isn't any worse than your average Harlan Ellison or Isaac Asimov collection and probably deserves better than the out-of-print-and-long-forgotten status that it now holds. Best known for his classic end-of-the-world novel "Day of the Triffids," Wyndham here shows a talent for various types of science fiction stories, from the social satire of "The Wheel" to more fantastic fair. While not an out and out success, the collection contains enough of interest to be worth seeking out.

Discusion Quesion:

If two dragons got into a fight, would you give a shit?

Suggested Activity:

Try to live your life without using anything that resembles a wheel. Burn to death anyone who does use them.

"Holidays on Ice" by David Sedaris

Though the book feels like a quick holiday cash grab, collecting Sedaris's Christmas related works (the best of which has already been published) in a slim volume that hardly feels worth the asking price, "Holidays" actually transcends its packaging and is one of Sedaris's most consistent collections. Pulling together eight short stories, satires and his brilliant memoirs, the book takes a cranky, cynical aim at the holiday, gleefully mocking everything from school plays to shopping for presents to holiday charity. The prime slab here is Sedaris's name-making work, "The SantaLand Diaries," in which he describes his experience working as an elf at Macy's. The genius of the piece is the way Sedaris so accurately pinpoints all the annoyances of Christmas, the bland materialism, the rote yet obsessive attempt by families to create a holiday experience and the unironic witlessness of shoppers who take themselves much too seriously. The rest of the collection follows suit, pounding on the same points, though with enough variation to keep it interesting. Despite its brevity, the collection is still a nice addition to the Sedaris catalog.

Discussion Questions:

1. Did the Santa at the mall scare the crap out of you as a kid? Why?
2. If you could give any organ to charity, which would you give?

"Portnoy's Complaint" by Phillip Roth

One of the defining works of Jewish literature, and just modern literature in general. Funny, bawdy, disgusting, twisted and brilliantly pathetic, the book takes place on a psychoanalyst's couch as the title character delivers a book-length monologue about his life and obsessions. Alexander Portnoy is a man of talent and ambition who is suffocated by his sexual obsessions. Harboring a lust for seemingly any woman with a pulse, Portnoy rambles about his endless sexual complaints and how they are tied to his suffocating upbringing with his overbearing mother and his high-strung father. All through it Portnoy becomes alternately someone to be pitied, hated, reviled and finally understood (if never really liked). Through Roth's mile-a-minute narration, Portnoy is one of the great characters of modern literature. Great, funny stuff.

Discussion Quesions:

1. Do you think masturbating into a slab of liver adds any flavor to it?
2. So, jacking off is funny? Why wasn't I told?

Suggested Activity:

Try to act like a total sex pervert for a few weeks. I mean more than usual.

"Code of the Woosters" by P.G. Wodehouse

There is no author I treasure more in the English language than P.G. Wodehouse. His comic world is so simple, so pleasant, that entering it is like entering a warm pool of water, like being wrapped up in bed on a rainy morning, comfortable in the knowledge that you do not have to go to work. The plots of his Jeeves/Wooster books are complex jumbles of twists and surprises, everything coming together in the end like dominos falling exactly where they need to land. That said, the plots are also indistinct (so much so that it is often difficult for me to remember which of the Jeeves/Wooster books I've actually read), the twists are highly unlikely and the plotting moves at a speed that is predictably rhythmic. Yet it works. It always works. "Code of the Woosters" is as good as any of his books to start with. If you love it, you'll love Wodehouse's writing. If you don't, you won't. And nuts to you.

"Aspects of the Novel" by E.M. Forster

I'm always impressed by anything that can change the way I think yet can be read in one sitting. "Aspects" is one of those brilliant little pieces of literary criticism that seems so obvious, so simple, that if Forster hadn't created it, it would have generated itself onto bookshelves. It's just that necessary of a book. Basically a series of Cambridge lectures gathered together, the book has a straightforward style unencumbered by the mass of useless intellectual extravagance that weighs down so much of literary criticism. Forster doesn't offer some vast overview of the novel as a form, but keeps things simple and workable, dealing with the nuts and bolts of concepts like "Characters" and "The Plot," drawing examples from both classic and relatively recent novels. Some of the things he says (such as the difference between what he calls "flat" and "round" characters) are so simple they could have come from anyone, but Forster expresses the ideas about as well as they are ever likely to be expressed in English. Overall, an easygoing, pleasant and thoughtful book for readers and writers alike.

Discussion Questions:

1. Are you a flat or round character?
2. When was the last time you thought really, really hard about Henry James?
3. If Charles Dickens and Jane Austen got into a fight, who would win?

"Labyrinth" by Jorge Luis Borges

Hands down the best single collection of Borges' work and one that belongs in every home. This basically introduced the English-speaking world to the mind of a man who changed how people thought about short stories. Reading it for the first time is somewhat akin to discovering the world is round after a lifetime of believing it to be flat. Each story is a wealth of ideas, like the mass consciousness of a lifelong bibliophile distilled into perfect concepts. No serious reader, regardless of his or her literary preferences, should go without reading it. Whether you enjoy Borges or not, his work is important. And if you do like it, it will open up worlds for you.

"Inside Outside" by Philip Jose Farmer

A strange science fiction look at the afterlife that envisions a world that might be Hell, or something very close. Those who die are brought back within hours, demons work as the slaves to man and a mysterious entity called X acts as a Christ-like point of hope for those insane few who are still capable of possessing it. Farmer was one of those rare writers who managed to turn hackwork into nearly surrealistic pieces of pop art. Outside of his "Riverworld" series, this is one of his more mature works, an entertaining and thrilling look at a world that rises and collapses before your eyes. With an uncanny ability to take an idea and stretch it to its logical extremes, Farmer takes a world with limited resources and shows what can be done within it. While he lacks the intellectual ambition to really pull off the idea, the book is still a thrilling read and a nice change of pace from the usual science fiction claptrap.

Discussion Questions:

1. Hell would bite, wouldn't it?
2. If you had nothing to make paper of, how long would it take you to come up with the idea to use human skin?
3. So Jesus is a sunglass-wearing automaton? Cool.

"The Rising Gorge" by S.J. Perelman

I've almost run out of words to describe how much I enjoy Perelman's work. His writing is so clear yet so loopy. He took the culture of his time, both the high art and the detritus of pop culture and filtered it all through his irreverent worldview. His writing represents a strain of American humor writing that is only slowly being rediscovered, one based on fast-paced satire and wordplay. His short satirical plays and tales were the predecessor to the Onion and McSweeney's. The way he weaved and looped around the clichés of the English language showed a sophistication and intelligence that few have ever been able to match. For me, his works serve the same purpose as P.G. Wodhouse novels or the works of Terry Pratchett. It's a familiar world always open to me, a way to step away from myself for a while. "Gorge," like most of his collections, is literary escapism at its best.

Discussion Question:

Does the idea of Perelman hooking Ernest Hemingway up with obsessive literary groupies as a form of revenge strike you as sort of weird?

"Clans of the Alphane Moon," by Phillip K. Dick

Big time Dick enthusiasts (I can't believe I just wrote that) seem to have this little theory going on in their heads that the only reason PKD isn't take seriously as literature is that he wrote science fiction, and if the literary community would just look beyond their genre prejudice they would see how wonderful his books are. Other than being stupid, it's a pretty good theory. The reason Dick isn't taken seriously as literature is that he was often a hack. A hack with great ideas, to be sure, but still a hack. For every great book that he wrote, he wrote a slew of second-rate works that only get remembered today because of 1) hardcore fans and 2) because Vintage is indiscriminately republishing his entire available catalog. While even his lesser works are decent science fiction, they are only in flashes ever more than that, and you have to sift through a lot of hackneyed plotting to get to the occasional genius idea. That Dick could rarely ever pull off a decent ending doesn't help the case much either. His best can stand up with the best science fiction has to offer, but his collected works have to be taken with a grain of salt.

"Clans" is the perfect example of a second-tier Dick novel. The idea behind it is a wonderful piece of social satire, but the follow-through is somewhat lacking. On a distant moon, the former residents of a mental hospital have organized a new society for themselves, splitting into different city-states based on their individual mental illnesses. There are the warlike and angry manic-depressives, the isolated paranoids, and so forth. The uneasy peace they have developed is shattered when the moon becomes embroiled in interstellar politics. Dick interweaves this with the life of a lowly CIA agent going through a painful divorce, whose plans to murder his wife are connected with the Earth's involvement with the lunatic moon. All of these interesting elements lead basically nowhere (and the idea of a planet of lunatics being mined for experimental weapons is somewhat shamelessly cribbed from a Harlan Ellison story, "The Crackpots") and the rising paranoia Dick had a genius for has no real payoff. The ride itself is interesting enough to keep sci-fi fans reading, but if Dick hadn't written "The Man in the High Castle" and a handful of other classics, no one would even remember it.

Discussion Question:

To what lunatic fringe do you think you belong?

Suggested Activity:

Separate all of your friends based on their individual neurosis and make them duke it out. Laugh at your godlike control over humanity.

"Master of Space and Time" by Rudy Rucker

Rucker is one of those science fiction writers who swiftly and quietly changed the entire genre, paving the way for cyberpunk with his highly technical near-future comedies. While his prose is nothing much to speak of (it is clean and efficient, which is about all you can ask for), his ideas are mind-bending. A mathematician by day, Rucker has mastered the art of taking complex theoretical concepts and translating them into understandable allegories. He does it often in his numerous non-fiction works, and he does it here in one of his better novels. "Master" deals with two men who find a way to control reality for a limited period of time. The device they invent allows one person to make whatever they want with the world. The concept would seem trite if Rucker were not both very imaginative and very good at making such outlandish things seem not only possible, but downright commonplace.

The result is an inventive, comedic novel that gets better with each twist, leading up to a near-perfect climax. While no classic, still an entertaining read.

Discussion Questions:

1. You read this book because the Michael Gondry adaptation was announced and you wanted to sound hip, didn't you?
2. What sort of sicko things would you do if you could control reality, you cretin?

"The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco

So books this intelligent were once best sellers? Eco's name-making work takes place in an Italian abbey during the 14th century, as an English monk and his German apprentice and scribe try to solve a bizarre series of murders by using logical deduction and a wide knowledge of biblical history. Eco is adept at creating a complete world within the walls of the abbey and surrounding it with the politics and philosophical debates of the past. Finding a perfect balance between the scholarly and the entertaining, Eco here creates one of the finest works of popular fiction of the past 50 years. As much a book for bibliophiles and history buffs as it is for mystery lovers.

Discussion Questions:

1. What's your favorite way to murder clerics?
2. Can you use "scriptorium" in a sentence?

Suggested Activity:

Play "The Name of the Rose" game at home. Kill a bunch of monks in gruesome, significant ways and have your friends try to find out who did it.

"Chicken Inspector No. 23" by S.J. Perelman

Let me try to get it across to you how much I like S.J. Perelman. Imagine me screaming in your ear, "S.J. Perelman blows my friggin' mind, man! Can you dig it? My friggin'... mind... is... blown!"

Imagine me doing it until your ear hurts. That I would go through the trouble of alienating you in that way just to express my love for S.J. Perelman should give you an idea of my level of devotion. His cliche twisting prose is an endless pleasure for me, his light, almost fanciful humor and outlook like a separate world I can entire at my leisure. This out-of-print collection is as good as any other, since the basic idea is to just read as much as possible.

Discussion Question:

Can you say something funny on command?

Suggested Activity:

Be more funny.

"The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases," edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts

The basic idea behind this book is one of brilliance: Take a group of scattered science fiction writers and have them come up with absurd, funny diseases and then tie the whole thing together with a history and personal accounts about the titular disease-obsessed doctor. For the most part it works. The main chunk of the texts, the various entries concerning diseases such as "Ballistic Organ Syndrome" and "Razornail Bone Rot," has some great comedy writing from Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, China Mieville and other modern sci-fi luminaries. While the entries can be hit and miss, they contain enough brilliant descriptions and clever metafictional games to make the whole a highly entertaining read. The editors' biographical and historical notes are dryly witty and set the book on the write tone. However, the various accounts of the doctor's life from different writers, which brings the book to a close, are almost uniformly dull and could have been lopped off without much loss to the whole. Still, a solid collection for fans of great humor writing and science fiction alike.

Discussion Questions:

1. If you exploded, how far do you think you could get your left kidney to go?
2. Are you itchy?

Suggested Activity:

Your skin is actually a parasite and it is trying to eat you. Get it off of you as soon as possible.

"Lost in the Funhouse" by John Barth

Barth is one of those writers who seems like he can do anything. He's a dangerous one for beginning writers to get into since his work comes off as so effortless. He makes writing an 800+ page historical comedy about an obscure poet seem like it just poured out of his head onto the page. Imitators eventually learn how hard it is to be another John Barth, but usually not without going through a lot of pain and self-abasement (and plenty of tortured prose) that could have otherwise been avoided. "Funhouse" is as fine a short story collection, one of the finest in fact, but it's a hard drug to kick.

The stories run about as wide a gamete as possible, from the various stories about the birth and development of the child Ambrose (two of them fairly straightforward, one of them a postmodern masterpiece) to the various stories about the mechanics of telling a story, along with a few scattered odds and ends, particularly the opening story, a single line spread over two pages that reads "Once upon a time there was a story that began..." The insidious implication being that the next line will be the first one repeated and so on for infinity. Despite its disparate nature, the book is more of a piece than a scattered collection. Barth's themes of life, growth, development and the need to tell stories are slowly brought together into a single idea: that life is a story, and living is the telling. Telling stories is hence an affirmation of life.

Discussion Questions:

1. If you were a sperm, whom would you want to impregnate?
2. The need to ask a question presupposes the need for some form of answer, the accumulation of answers being a way of bringing order to the chaotic universe, yet questions are a grammatical trick of inflection caused by a hooked line ending in a dot at the lower end, thus through the proliferation of question marks we merely add to the confusion, meaning we should choose our questions wisely, thus to instill clarity in our rhetoric and bring illumination to the world rather than further meaningless statements?

Suggested Activities:

1. Dress up like a sperm and crawl up some woman's uterus and see if you can come up with a working description of the experience.
2. Stop reading this in public with the cover clearly visible despite the fact that it would be more comfortable to put it down on the table. Everybody know what you are trying to do and no one is impressed.

"Civilwarland In Bad Decline" by George Saunders

"Dystopia" is one of those impossibly cool words that can become irritating really quick. There's a stench of intellectual hipsterism about it, as if at any moment in can cross the bounds of sufferablility and becomes the pretentious little creative writing bastard who looks down on you for not being as up-to-date on modern literature as he is because you've never read, well, George Saunders. This book is basically non-stop dystopia, to the point where its bleak comic outlook can get a little depressing. While bleakness by itself is hardly a fault, Saunders tends to have one voice in this collection with little sense of variation. It tends to get a little difficult to sit through.

But when he's at his best, Saunders can be one of the funniest writers around, a modern Vonnegut (Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House" collection could be seen as a predecessor of this collection) whose flights of science fiction comic fantasy make some of the best reading around, despite the hopelessness.

Discussion Questions:

1. If the ghosts of those you wronged came back to haunt you, wouldn't that just suck monkey balls?
2. In the novella "Bounty," deformed mutant humans are slaves to normal human beings. If you had a mutant slave, how much of your crap do you think it would take before it cut your through it your sleep?

"40 Stories" by Donald Barthelme

I drool over every word I've read that Barthelme has written, even when I have no idea what he's talking about. When I first read "60 Stories" (the superior companion piece to this collection) I felt like someone had taken all the things I wanted to do as a writer, ran them over with a Buick and then turned back me and said "It's been done and done so much better than you could ever do" as they sped off into the sunset. Barthelme's short stories are like a drug for creative writing wonks, and moving away from his influence is something some writers never accomplish. While this collection isn't as consistently profound as "60 Stories," it still contains so much of worth as to be required reading for anyone who wants to write short stories (or just loves short stories).

Discussion Questions:

1. Anyone know any good jokes about Goethe?
2. How about Tolstoy?
3. You were that guy in creative writing class, weren't you? You know the one I mean. The one who kept slipping in that he had read "Gravity's Rainbow" or "Giles Goat-Boy" or "Infinite Jest." Did you realize what a dick you sounded like to everyone else?

Suggested Activity:

Write a really long sentence. I mean really long. Do it.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" by Jorge Luis Borges

What is there left to say about Borges that hasn't already been said? Well, I could say that Jorge Luis Borges was not in fact an Argentinean short story writer, essayist and poet as so many people suspect, but in fact a species of mollusk indigenous to tidal pools on the coastline of the American Pacific Northwest, but that would just be silly.

Anywho, this a fine collection of Borges' work, hampered only by the fact that Penguin's current English edition uses the same translations by Andrew Hurley that they used in their "Collected Fictions" release, in which all these stories also appear. Nothing against Hurley (unlike what most people claim, there is very little wrong with his translations of Borges. They simply trade in the poetry of earlier translations for some verbal conciseness. Whether you like it or not is just a matter of taste) but it makes this collection a little useless. You would be better off picking up an earlier translation of the collection (which can often make reading the stories a new experience in any case).

As for the collection itself, it contains some of Borges' best work. The title story in particular contains one of his more interesting ideas, the point through which all other points can be seen and through which an individual can view the universe.

Discussion Question:

If you found a point through which you could view all other points in existence, you would spend all your time looking at women undressing and spying on unsuspecting couples getting it on, wouldn't you? You're a pervert and you make me sick.

"Paingod and Other Delusions," by Harlan Ellison

Like Philip K. Dick, Ellison is one of those sci-fi (okay, "speculative fiction." Christ, like anyone gives a shit Harlan) writers that comes in and out of style as the years go by. Also like Dick, Ellison was one of the big shakers and movers that helped move science fiction out of the 1950s "Golden Age" (no one has ever been able to explain to me how a group of stodgy old fascists, such as Robert Heinlein, constituted a "golden age." And how exactly does L. Ron Hubbard, who never bothered to master basic verb agreement so much as learn to write a decent story, fit into the whole "golden age" concept? You know, if you add a colon before a closing parentheses it makes a smiley face. Smiley time. :)

So anyway, this is a pretty solid collection of Ellison's slowly-going-out-of-print stories. The title piece is an interesting concept that doesn't quite come off, but "The Discarded" is a perfect combination of science fiction and the fierce social commentary Ellison made his name by. Overall there are more hits than misses, making the collection a good introduction to Ellison's work for people not partial to tackling the "Essential Ellison" anthology right off the bat.

Discussion Quesions:

1. If it was your job to distribute pain across the universe, whom would you hurt?
2. If some weird disease turned you and a bunch of other people into some kind of deformed freaks and then the healthy people forced you all to leave Earth and float through space for all eternity, never knowing peace or security again, wouldn't that just suck? I mean really?

"Demonology: Stories" by Rick Moody

Rick Moody basically sums up everything that works and doesn't work in most of modern American fiction. He's ambitious, has a deadeye shot when it comes to phrasing and he finds a satisfying middle ground between the traditional and the experimental. He's also full of himself, ingratiatingly clever in all the wrong ways and not nearly as profound as he seems to think he is. This collection contains some of his best work as well as some of his worst. "The Mansion on the Hill" has a certain pathos to it but really ends up going nowhere with characters that have no recognizable psychology while "The Carnival Tradition" is about as perfect a short story as has been written in the past decade or so. "Boys" comes close to heartbreaking while "Ineluctable Modality of the Vaginal" is a meaningless intellectual pain parade. Thus is the central problem with Rick Moody. If this collection had been half as short and it would have been twice as good.

Discussion Quesions:

1. How did you feel the last time your girlfriend made you examine her vagina?
2. Isn't "Pan's Fair Throng" the most self-indulgent, pointless piece of crap you have read in some time, by God?

Suggested Activity:

The story "Wilkie Fahnstock: The Boxed Set" tells the story of a man's life through the liner notes of a CD box set compiled from his music library. Make a musical autobiography of yourself that shows the changes in your life through the music that is important to you. Then go find out how little of a shit everyone else gives in regards to this project.

"Getting Even" by Woody Allen

Before he became a semi-pedophile Ingmar Bergman-wannabee, Woody Allen was one hell of a comedic writer. Working in a sort of S.J. Perelman mode, only a little more fantastic and not quite as repetitive, Allen wrote near brilliant magazine pieces that sketched a wide variety culture detritus and filtered it through Allen's worldview, from the memoirs of Hitler's barber to articles about organized crime. While much of the material in this collection seems dated, Allen's pure comedic form shines through. Timeless pieces, such as the hilarious mounting comedy of "The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers," make this collection a must for fans of Allen or classic humor writing in general.

Discussion Quesions:

1. How would you feel if you were Hitler's barber?
2. If Woody Allen got into a fight with David Cronenberg and they were both wielding polo mallets, how hard would you laugh?
3. Did you see that statue of Allen they put up in Oviedo, Spain? Don't you think that it's a little bit strange to make a statue of Woody Allen?

---

This page is part of www.zombieunderground.net. If you're not seeing a menu on the left, please click here to reload.
Everything on this site is the © author (please see the "About" section).