Yes, you read that correctly: as of today (March 20th, 2004), there’s also a section about books on this website. Why? Well, basically because literature was my first love and has taken up quite a large amount of my time the past fifteen years or so … and still makes me spend too much money on the non-essentials of life. Even though I messed around with literature and linguistics for a few years, it’s not my intention to provide you with detailed dissections of everything I read. I’ve ruined enough books by analysing them to death and with the full-time job, additional course, rehearsals with a band, listening to music and writing the album reviews, I thought it might be fun to track down my reading behaviour as well, by offering short pieces that may help you what to choose in the library or steal from the second-hand bookshop around the corner. I’ve come a long way since ten years ago, when I probably read 3-4 novels a week, but I try to waste as little time as possible (plus I don’t watch soccer), which enables me to consume more than average (that’s a guess). I used to be a glutton, reading everything in sight, from Dostojevsky to biographies on J. Edgar Hoover (it’s my love for ballet) to the label on the mustard jar, but nowadays it’s mostly novels (and I still have a soft spot for American crime fiction) or stuff on music and cinema … maybe some thin book on the Italian Cuisine once in a while. So, it won’t be too high brow (don’t get your hopes up high), it won’t be thorough (relax!), just a sort of “diary”. Maybe most of you aren’t interested (your prerogative), but since I’m the kind of person that wonders what gets other peopled excited (or turns them off), I thought it might be interesting for those of you who like my taste in music or tend to agree a lot with my opinions, to get an idea of what I digest. I’m well aware that rating books (on a scale of 1-5) is even more stupid than rating music, but I can only answer with “sorry, I’m a ratings-nut, I rate everything,” and admit it, it’s easier than explaining the degree to which you (dis-)like something. I hope it makes sense, and if you don’t care, if you think I’m a self-satisfied prick or a dim-witted Belgian with dreadful taste and/or immoral opinions, you shouldn’t have read this in the first place. There we go …
- George P. Pelecanos - Right as Rain
- George P. Pelecanos - Hell to Pay
- Tony Hillerman - People of Darkness
- Tony Hillerman – The Dark Wind
- Tony Hillerman - Skinwalkers
- J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace
- Ian Rankin (Jack Harvey) - Witch Hunt
- Ian Rankin (Jack Harvey) - Bleeding Hearts
- Bill Bryson - A Walk in the Woods : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
- T.C. Boyle - After the Plague
- William T. Vollmann - Whores for Gloria
- Bill Bryson - In a Sunburned Country
George P. Pelecanos – Right as Rain (2001)
If you’re into the no-nonsense, hard-boiled stories and hip lingo of fellow crime-writers Dennis Lehane, Michael Connolly and Robert B. Parker, then Pelecanos is your man. Right as Rain is a fierce, modern crime novel set against the grim background of contemporary Washington DC. It’s the first of his novels featuring the duo of Derek Strange (a black PI, principled, lover of 60’s soul and westerns) and Terry Quinn (young, white, a former cop with aviolent streak), who are, like that other couple Clay and Karras in King Suckerman, each other’s yin & yang. Standard stuff, indeed, but the author’s smart interweaving of (sub-) plots, colourful gallery of violent characters and eye for detail (for instance: you learn a lot about Strange, just on the basis on his ideas about music and his daily habits) certainly lifts him to a higher level than most of his contemporaries. Interesting is also how certain motives (there’s always a Greek working in a diner – often even related to the one in the next novel-, a vinyl store and the recurring discussions about pop music, the white trash father/son couple) seem to return in each of his novels, thereby creating an extra dimension for those who are caught in his web. With a knack for coming up with very rhythmic, highly stylised prose (opening sentence: “What Derek Strange was worried about, looking at Jimmy Simmons sitting there, spilling over a chair on the other side of the desk, was that Simmons was going to pick some of Strange’s personal shit up off the desktop in front of him and start winging it across the room.”), to-the-point dialogue and (often crude) humor, while also incorporating social critique that depicts DC as a haven for criminals and a barrel of racial tensions (mirrored in the initial relation between Strange and Quinn), Pelecanos has come up with a largely satisfying thriller, a good read that’s better than “just” entertainment. Granted, it ends in predictable Pelecanos-fashion (with a bloody shootout), but after a hard day’s work, it’s exactly the kind of stuff that I crave.
Recommended background music while reading it: Curtis, Superfly (Curtis Mayfield) or Isaac Hayes’ Shaft.
George P. Pelecanos – Hell to Pay (2002)
Hell to Pay, the second of Pelecanos’ novels featuring black P.I. Derek Strange and his sidekick Terry Quinn, again confronts the reader with a generous dose of gratuitous crime and an impressive gallery of morally-bereft misfits sharing one or more traits with those in Right as Rain. However, this second novel is dictated by an entirely different set of rules. Whereas Right as Rain was basically a fictitious essay on race-related crime in Washington D.C., this new one takes a turn inward, focuses on the inner battles the main protagonists have to face. Pelecanos’ prose is of a different kind than James Ellroy’s feverish, often nauseating written terrorism, but like that author (one who is linked to L.A. like Pelecanos seems to have become the chronicler of Washington’s underbelly), he robs his main characters of their protective skin and lays them there struggling with their fears, frustrations and past while the blood is seeping from the open sores. There are two main story lines – Quinn’s evolves around underage prostitution, Strange’s focuses on drug-related reckonings – but the focus lies mainly on the latter, with Strange being confronted with his own inability to attain emotional commitment for the woman he loves. On top of that, his chances of inner quietness are totally annihilated when a brutal murder brings him eye to eye with his private ghosts and a bunch of youngster criminals on the rampage. It’s exactly this key moment – about 2/3rds in - that proves to be essential for the novel as well. Whereas the first two hundred pages alternated Strange’s with Quinn’s (slightly less captivating) quest, the last 150 pages are a lengthy, intense rush of action and adrenalin. Even more than its predecessor, Hell to Pay is a relentlessly violent and bleak novel (with some of the thugs’ deeds being described with an alarming lack of moral judgement), while no one is spared his/her misery. However, notwithstanding this atmosphere of desperation, the novel is an improvement upon the already excellent Right as Rain, and should be checked out by anyone interested in top-notch American crime fiction.
Recommended background music while reading it: same as the previous one (when there’s action), and add Al Green’s I’m Still in Love with You and an Isley Brothers-compilation (when there’s romance, which isn’t often).
Tony Hillerman – People of Darkness (1980)
Contrary to most other crime writers, who set their stories in the dark alleys, police stations and stakeouts of modern labyrinths like DC, NYC or LA, Hillerman (an Okie by birth) is famous because of his portrayal of Navajo culture and the Southwest reservations. A consequence of this is that his books aren’t as bleak, provocative and agitated as the urban horror stories of many of his contemporaries, but this it easily outweighed by his authentic treatment of Native American Culture and introduction of a successful protagonist. Jim Chee is a sergeant of the Tribal Police of New Mexico and is hired to repossess a mysterious box that once belonged to the state’s richest man. Nothing is what it seems of course, and over the course of 200 pages, Chee discovers an increasingly putrid string of motives that also involves a hired killer intending to exterminate everyone who gets in his way. The plot evolves with style, as Hillerman’s understated prose – with not one wasted sentence - is completely devoid of unnecessary self-importance. Instead, the focus seems to be on his depiction of Native culture, and how it relates to “ours”: “One defined himself by his family. How else? And then it occurred to him that white people didn’t. They identified themselves by what they had done as individuals.” Observations like that are common throughout Hillerman’s work that finds a nice balance between clarification and mystery, materialistic Western philosophy and the spirituality of Navajo culture. In the hands of a less gifted writer, this might’ve become a lazy exercise in hollow anthropology, but here it never gets in the way of the story, serving as a highly intriguing bonus instead. People of Darkness isn’t very likely to set anyone up, but its slightly wacky story twist and genuine character are exactly what you might be looking for after an overdose of the grim, urban violence that illustrates the work of most of the other big shots out there.
Tony Hillerman – The Dark Wind (1982)
Not much to say about this one. The key ingredients are the same: Jim Chee once again investigates a weird case (involving drug traffic and an unexplainable airplane crash) and reaches a comforting solution by grace of his intelligence. This time around, the stress has even shifted more towards the “Native American”-aspect, with several passages discussing the differences between Hopi Indians and Navajos, kachina dolls, Mesas and a lot of other stuff in general: “Lomatewa glanced at Tuvi. His face was inscrutable. Then he spoke directly to the boy again. “Very soon it will be time for the kachinas to leave this Earth Surface World and go back to their home in the San Francisco Peaks. When we deliver this spruce back to our kivas, it will be used to prepare for the Going Home Dances to honor them. For days it will be very busy in the kivas. The prayers to be planned. The pahos to be made. Everything to be done exactly in the proper way.”” Stuff like that is a bit confusing at first, but as usual Hillerman gradually unveils what it’s about, or partly so. Anyway, The Dark Wind is a fine book, with his minimalist style still going strong, but it lacked the excitement of People of Darkness, as I never got treated to the sudden acceleration I’d hoped for. On top of that, the final outcome is fairly predictable, so that leaves you with a rather underwhelming novel, but only when compared to his best work. In Hillerman’s work, strong writing’s rarely the problem.
Tony Hillerman - Skinwalkers (1986)
Another excellent merger of crime and culture, Skinwalkers’ best feature is the introduction of a new character, Joe Leaphorn, Even though Jim Chee, the young stubborn police officer of the previous few novels was already an interesting protagonists, Hillerman creates some nice contrasts by the appearance of experienced Lieutenant Leaphorn, who’s been through it all before and – not withstanding the fact he’s also a Navajo Indian – learned from the past to rely only on his own ratio. On top of that, he fears his sick wife has descending into all-out Alzheimer’s. There’s not only a generation gap between the men, which already causes an initial reaction of suspicion, but they also share nearly opposite view on witchcraft. While Chee has been trained to become a yataali (some sort of medicine man), Leaphorn’s developed a disgust towards that kinda “nonsense” because of traumatic earlier experiences. Anyway, this novel contains a string of unsolved murders that somehow seem to be connected to each other and an seemingly random (failed) assassination on Jim Chee. As with other duos (Spenser and Hawk in Robert Parker’s novels, Strange and Quinn in Pelecanos’, Rebus and Clarke in Ian Rankin’s), the two each go their own way, finally meting each other at the crossroads where their clues lead ‘em to a satisfying closure. In the meantime, Skinwalkers offers some balanced (man, that Hillerman is the King of Restraint, he never descends into sex, vulgar language or unnecessary frills – linguistically and structurally), well-crafted and elegant prose and – as usual – a keen sense of mystery that’s quite unique. At least, I’ve read very few crime novels that walk the thin line between factual research and enigmatic mysticism so expertly.
Recommended listening: John Trudell – AKA Graffiti Man
J.M. Coetzee - Disgrace (1999)
"Winner of the 1999 Booker Prize" is what the cover boasts, and while Coetzee certainly ranks among the great living writers (check out Waiting for the Barbarians for further proof), I didn't really know what to think about the novel. Like his other writing, it's usually pretty straightforward, devoid of bombast, yes almost clinically concise even. Even though he touches upon tough themes with an appropriate care, the novel left a bad taste in my mouth, perhaps for the merciless way in some of the characters are treated and for the bleak views it suggests. The central character David Lurie is a burnt-out professor who aggressively 'courts' one of his students, gets penalized (but in all his pride, he refuses to repent - "Repentance belongs to another world, to another universe of discourse") and leaves Cape Town for his daughter's smallholding. While still adjusting to the life there (mind how the language becomes much more basic, less prone to smart references), they get robbed, Lurie gets assaulted and his daughter raped. Soon, it becomes apparent that his daughter's neighbour was aware this was gonna happen, plus - to make it even worse - Lucy is pregnant and decides to keep the baby. The novel is relentless in both the harshness brought upon some of the characters as well as their ridiculous stubbornness. Yet, with all the questions it poses about morality, sexuality, animal rights (a pet theme), politics, freedom of choice, etc, it is perhaps a better take on South-Africa's current state of affairs than most other "similar" novels. Disgrace was a novel I just couldn't fully embrace, because of it being too detached I guess, but it was intriguing nevertheless.
Ian Rankin (Jack Harvey) - Witch Hunt (1993)
In the early/mid nineties, Rankin wrote a few novels using the pseudonym Jack Harvey. The only argument I could think of was that he wanted something else than writing another Rebus-novel, not again a grimy thriller set in the dark heart of Scotland. Witch Hunt IS something different, belonging more in the spy/conspiracy/thriller genre than the famous detective novels. This time around it's all about trying to find a solitary terrorist before she (yes, women's lib and all that) makes her hit. The problem is, no one really knows where and when it's gonna happen and that's where the various experts come in. This is also where the novel gets interesting, as Rankin serves up a few intriguing & contrasting characters, ranging from an obsessed veteran terrorist hunter, to two rookies looking for their big break and all kinds of bureaucratic ones. Both the way the parallel plot lines develop and the deeper insights into the people running around in this novel are developed, turn this into more than "just another" crime novel. Even though he's written more than twenty novels in less than two decades, Rankin manages to infuse his books with more excitement, tension, refinement and sparkling language than most other crime writers can only dream of. 451 pages that feel like 200. Splendid.
Ian Rankin (Jack Harvey) - Bleeding Hearts (1994)
The second Jack Harvey novel is only marginally less exciting than Witch Hunt, mainly because it doesn't succeed in keeping the momentum going that successfully. The golden idea (every crime novel thrives on one kick-ass idea, doesn't it) this time around, is that that the "bad guy," a sniper in this case, is the novel's I-persona. So, instead about all these theories about the evilness of the character, he himself tells you about his plans ("She had just over three hours yo live, and I was sipping grapefruit juice and tonic in the hotel bar"), his toys ("The PM is a long rifle, its barrel nearly four inches longer than the Remington") and work ethic (one shot in the heart is all it takes). This time, however, things almost turn out wrong, when the sudden appearance of the police after the (succeeded) hit tells the sniper he's been tipped off. That's when the tale of retaliation starts, the killer trying to hunt down whoever set him up, joined by his favorite arms dealer's daughter, and followed by the grotesque presence of NY detective Hoffer, an obese, huffin', puffin' & swearin' bastard (certainly one of Rankin's most colourful characters ever) who's paid big bucks to catch the murderer. Most of the novel's pretty exciting, Weston's love of efficiency contrasting funnily with Hoffer's outrageous behaviour and rude/hilarious one-liners, but when things bring the couple (yes, there's a love affair), their targets and pursuer to the United States, the novel loses some of its hushed charm as it transforms into a kind of literary road movie/thriller. Still, it ends with a golden twist and never becomes dull. Blimey!
Bill Bryson - A Walk in the Woods : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (1999)
A Walk in the Woods is an ideally suited travel book for one of those lazy sunday afternoons. Admit it, is there anything better than to read about pain, turmoil, exhaust and suffering while you're lying on the sofa, a refreshing drink within reach and a cat on your lap? Actually, even though Bryson's plan - to hike the 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail from George to Maine - seems almost ridiculous (not even 10% of the contenders really get to the end of the trail, usually 4-5 months later), the book's a very swift and entertaining read. Bryson has a gift for deadpan humor and descriptions of the scenery and from the moment when his companion Katz enters the story, it only gets better. Even though the first 100 pages are an excellent read, the book starts losing its pace halfway, when Bryson interlaces his own adventures with a bit too much historical facts and anecdotes about the Trail, wildlife, politics, etc. It never really regains the initial momentum, but A Walk in the Woods remains an enjoyable-as-hell read for fans of travel literature/hiking and the occasional nasty remark about them Southern folks.
Recommended listening: the Deliverance-soundtrack.
T.C. Boyle - After the Plague (2001)
Boyle's fifth collection of short stories (most of which were previously published in magazines) entirely lives up to the expectations that his monumental Stories (that compiles the first four volumes Descent of Man, Greasy Lake, If the River Was Whiskey and Without a Hero), which proved that Boyle is easily among the very best writers of his generation, created. Alternately grotesque, ominous and poignant, Boyle's stories constantly walk the thin line between horror and comedy, with protagonists that find themselves getting out of touch with reality, caught up in an unavoidable downward spiral, or that become mere objects in the hands of fate. Modern-day obsessions & topics (abortion, mass-scale extermination, internet sex) and genre characteristics are employed to create expectations in order to be disrupted or turned inside-out. More than anything else, Boyle is the master of the eh?-reaction, as his sudden twists and turns - rarely for the better - turn him into Roald Dahl's postmodern kid brother. Literate and smart, but not inaccessible, his stories steer towards surprising, depressing, hilarious and unsettling conclusions that'll have you curse when you've reached them. This stuff is addictive, an awesome feast of language coupled to a boundless imagination. Personal favorites: "She Wasn't Soft," "The Love of My Life," "Rust," "The Undergound Gardens" and the title story.
Recommended listening: The Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
William T. Vollmann - Whores for Gloria (1991)
"We all know the story of the whore who, finding her China white to be less and less reliable a friend no matter how much of it she injected into her arm, recalled in desperation the phrase 'shooting the shit', and so she filled the needle with her own watery excrement and pumped it in, producing magnificent abscesses." The opening sequence to Vollmann's nauseatingly feverish gutter novel already gives away a lot. While it's certainly not an ambitious novel in terms of grand design/structure, capturing life's more interesting questions and wrapping 'em up in provoking riddles, Whores for Gloria's densely packed pages, filled with half-page sentences that are the word-drunk equivalent of the protagonist's chaotic, but seemingly never-ending quest, are driven by a passion that's immediate and profound. Jimmy is an ex-soldier and a regular in San Francisco's Tenderloin-district, an area where nighthawks and whore-lovers seek solace between the legs of prostitutes that serve as mother figures, satisfiers of bodily needs or - in Jimmy's case - providers of sex and good stories. The protagonist is looking for a certain Gloria, whose memory he tries to keep alive by feeding off of the stories that the whores are willing to tell him for a certain prize. The novel has its share of explicit acts and language - and Vollmann's expertise actually turns all of the novel's action (even the seediest) into something extremely visual - yet throughout it, it becomes never the core of the novel, which seems to center around this Gloria, who may be out there somewhere, dead, imaginary or - most likely - an idealized figure composed of stories, memories, lust and frustrations. As such, it's impossible not to regard Jimmy's search for Gloria on a metaphorical level - a search for love, inspiration, an ideal (unreachable) goal. Whatever it may be, I'm sure that Vollmann doesn't care about the possible meanings, as his bleak, often depressing portrayal of the whores' lives is undoubtedly genuine and uncensored, and he has succeeded in depicting this harsh reality in a powerful, dazzlingly intense English that'll get you the kind of kick most characters in the novel are looking for. It ain't pretty, but it'll stick to you like a nasty, venereal disease for sure.
Recommended listening: The Birthday Party - Drunk on the Pope's Blood
Bill Bryson - In a Sunburned Country (2000)
Before I started reading A Walk in the Woods, I'd already heard the name Bryson and one of his recent works - A Short History of Nearly Everything - in particular, but it was only recently that I discovered he's actually above everything else known as a writer of travel books - so that account of the trip on the Appalachian Trail wasn't a fluke. He's published African diaries, wrote a book about Britain (Notes from a Small Island), continental Europe (Neither Here Nor There), and, so I discovered last week, a travel book on Australia. Apparently, my girlfriend once bought a second hand copy of In a Sunburned Country as background material for her classes in school, and suddenly I find myself face to face with it. A signed copy even! I immediately took it with me, leapt onto the sofa and basically stayed there for half a day, devouring this marvellous collection of impressions of the unknown antipodean country. On the very last page of the book, Bryson writes "(…) once you leave Australia, Australia ceases to be" and on the basis of what preceded this statement - 300 pages filled with so much information that almost made me feel annoyed because of my ignorance - it can only be true. The book's cover purposely shows you one of the ultimate clichés, as the commonly known facts about Australia are quite limited. Its biggest cities are Sydney and Melbourne, they have koalas, kangaroos and crocodiles and there are still aboriginals… these facts are known, but I knew next to nothing about the remarkable nature about of the other cities (Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane), the incredible wildlife diversity and richness. Of course the country's merciless climate and size are responsible ("(…) there is such a lot to find in it, but such a lot of it to find it in," summarizes Bryson), but the writer adds a shocking load of facts that deserve to be known, but are not. Unlike A Walk in the Woods, this book is a facts-filled, dense read that never becomes tiresome, but Bryson is at his best when he a) unleashes the sardonic devil in himself to poke fun at strange habits, funny words or a pastime like cricket ("It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game"), or b) tries to grasp things he cannot (or hardly) fathom, like the ridiculous amount of nothingness, Uluru (Ayers Rock) or the world's deadliest animal, the box jellyfish. The book is swift, well-written, immensely entertaining and informative, making it an ideal introduction to Australia. Maybe one inconsistency: he occasionally hints at the tragic story and current situation of the aboriginals, so you'd expect him to at least devote a chapter (or two) on this theme, but he stays rather superficial on the matter with the excuse that shrugging once's shoulders seems to be everybody's attitude towards the problem. Still, In a Sunburned Country is recommended reading if you ever intend to visit the country, and required reading if you doubt you'll ever get there, yet wanna read about the most interesting bits, just so you know what you're gonna miss. Splendid!
Recommended listening: AC/DC - The complete oeuvre