I don't normally read scary books. I've read just enough to be able to feel I've done my official Readers' Advisory duty-- lots of Anne Rice, a smattering of Steven King, a few zombie books, a little Poppy Z. Brite....hold on. I have apparently read quite a few scary books, but my mind has enacted some selective amnesia to shield me from my choices. Scary books give me nightmares, and keep me up at night, imagining every bump and thump to be a bloody-toothed madman come to murder me in my sleep. Somehow I don't think my cats are going to come to my rescue, either.
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill scared the ever-lovin' be-jeebers out of me. I picked it up one evening, and actually put it down again because it seemed just too disturbing. But then I goaded myself on, with a whole "You can't read multiple books every month for the BAM Challenge, you indecisive weenie" line of logic. I started Heart-Shaped Box during the late afternoon on a Monday (because daylight keeps you safe, you know)and finished at 2 AM the same night. It seemed to make sense-- once you break the seal, you have to read the whole book straight through and then you will magically be protected from all spooky recriminations and nightmares that might ensue. No? I also have a signed pact with the monsters under my bed that if I keep my toes under the blanket, they will leave me be. No? Nobody else does this? Ah, well.
Joe Hill is determined to scare you stiff from the beginning. No slow build here-- Hill leaps right into the terrifying action within the first few chapters. Jude Coyne, a middle-aged rock star with a taste for macabre objects, buys a dead man's suit online. This suit is supposed to come with its own ghost-- the seller's step-father. Jude soon finds out that the item description was absolutely correct, but the ghost is only the tip of the horrifying iceberg. I won't say anymore about the plot, but I was pleased to discover that the first part of the book was scarier than the second half. My frayed nerves sang hallelujah, and I was actually able to go to sleep with the light off.
If you're a horror fan, or a devotee of films like The Ring and The Grudge, you should give Heart-Shaped Box a try. Hill's collection of short-stories, Twentieth-Century Ghosts, is also a good choice. I made it less than half-way through that one before I chickened out, so it's plenty scary. Now I am off to confront my obviously conflicted feelings about horror fiction-- I am sure that there will be therapy and possibly medication involved.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
From Russia, With Love
Mind-stretching. Depressing, enlightening, and somehow uplifting. That is how I would describe Russian literature.
My all time absolute favorite author-- no question, no competition-- is Dostoevsky. He gave us a crime story (Crime and Punishment) where we witness the murder, we know the who, what, when, where, why, and how, yet there is still suspense. The Devils (or The Possessed, depending on the translation) is a great work that left me completely confused until I was over halfway through the novel. Then things started coming together in a way that exhibited Dostoevsky’s mastery of storytelling. I’ve read the great five of his (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, The Devils, The Raw Youth aka The Adolescent) and loved four of them. I thought The Idiot was average. Most of Dostoevsky’s works have a deeply philosophical element, the “big idea” that Nabokov dismissed in literature. The Idiot lacked the big idea, or memorable characters. Because Dostoevsky suffered from epilepsy, and the main character of this novel did as well, it may have been his most personal work, but it was his weakest, I thought.
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is one of the funniest and most clever books I’ve ever read. Using the character of the Devil performing in Moscow as an artist of black magic to depict life in Soviet Russia was genius. The devil is presented as Professor Woland, and in his entourage are Behemoth, a human-sized black cat that talks, and Azazello, who has fangs and wears a bowler hat. There’s a great revenge scene where Margarita makes a deal with the devil and becomes a witch, and she terrorizes all those who have been oppressing her lover. There’s really too much to say about this book for me to do it any justice here. It was in this novel that Bulgakov wrote the phrase “manuscripts don’t burn”. The novel is said to have influenced The Rolling Stones to write “Sympathy for the Devil”. It’s just a great book, one of my all time favorites, and can be read at the narrative story level enjoyably, and also at the metaphorical level.
Gogol is very strange. He’s probably most famous for Dead Souls which I have not read. I read a collection of his short works, which included “The Overcoat” and “The Nose” and this introduced me to Russian absurdist literature. I don’t have the skill to adequately describe this, but it’s very strange (some might say absurd).
Even though it has nothing to do with Mother Russia, Nabokov’s Lolita must be mentioned, as he is certainly one of the Russian greats. Lyrical and unforgettable.
Tolstoy has a fine reputation and he deserves to be mentioned, although after reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina I think he is vastly overrated. In War and Peace, Tolstoy places a character in danger, everyone thinks the character is dead, but then the character is miraculously found to have survived. Not once, but twice – to the same character. This seems a cheap ploy, and not something a great master should use, let alone repeat. Also, he wrote a passage from the perspective of a dog. I understand the dog is supposed to be the voice of the Russian people… but really. A dog? It is interesting to note that he is the author of The Kingdom of God is Within You which argues for pacifism in the face of violence, which led Gandhi to pursue nonviolent resistance in India against the British Empire. In fact, Gandhi consulted Tolstoy about this, and they became friends, or at least pen pals.
It seems the tragic nature of Russian history and life comes through in every Russian author’s works. Somehow, in spite of being attacked from all sides throughout history (from the Mongols to the Swedes to Napoleon to the Germans) and suffering horrible disasters and brutal leadership, the spirit and loyalty of the people cannot be crushed. It’s also worth noting that many Russians consider Moscow to be the third Rome (which explains some of the ostentatious architecture).
If you want tragedy with a hint of hope, nobody does it better than the Russians!
-- Peter Sheehan, MCMLS Assistant Branch Manager
Titles Mentioned
By Fyodor M Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment
The Devils or The Possessed
The Brothers Karamazov
The Idiot
The Raw Youth or The Adolescent
By Mikhail Bulgakov
The Master and Margarita
By Nikolai Gogol
Dead Souls
The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil
By Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita
By Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina
War and Peace
The Kingdom of God is Within You
My all time absolute favorite author-- no question, no competition-- is Dostoevsky. He gave us a crime story (Crime and Punishment) where we witness the murder, we know the who, what, when, where, why, and how, yet there is still suspense. The Devils (or The Possessed, depending on the translation) is a great work that left me completely confused until I was over halfway through the novel. Then things started coming together in a way that exhibited Dostoevsky’s mastery of storytelling. I’ve read the great five of his (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, The Devils, The Raw Youth aka The Adolescent) and loved four of them. I thought The Idiot was average. Most of Dostoevsky’s works have a deeply philosophical element, the “big idea” that Nabokov dismissed in literature. The Idiot lacked the big idea, or memorable characters. Because Dostoevsky suffered from epilepsy, and the main character of this novel did as well, it may have been his most personal work, but it was his weakest, I thought.
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is one of the funniest and most clever books I’ve ever read. Using the character of the Devil performing in Moscow as an artist of black magic to depict life in Soviet Russia was genius. The devil is presented as Professor Woland, and in his entourage are Behemoth, a human-sized black cat that talks, and Azazello, who has fangs and wears a bowler hat. There’s a great revenge scene where Margarita makes a deal with the devil and becomes a witch, and she terrorizes all those who have been oppressing her lover. There’s really too much to say about this book for me to do it any justice here. It was in this novel that Bulgakov wrote the phrase “manuscripts don’t burn”. The novel is said to have influenced The Rolling Stones to write “Sympathy for the Devil”. It’s just a great book, one of my all time favorites, and can be read at the narrative story level enjoyably, and also at the metaphorical level.
Gogol is very strange. He’s probably most famous for Dead Souls which I have not read. I read a collection of his short works, which included “The Overcoat” and “The Nose” and this introduced me to Russian absurdist literature. I don’t have the skill to adequately describe this, but it’s very strange (some might say absurd).
Even though it has nothing to do with Mother Russia, Nabokov’s Lolita must be mentioned, as he is certainly one of the Russian greats. Lyrical and unforgettable.
Tolstoy has a fine reputation and he deserves to be mentioned, although after reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina I think he is vastly overrated. In War and Peace, Tolstoy places a character in danger, everyone thinks the character is dead, but then the character is miraculously found to have survived. Not once, but twice – to the same character. This seems a cheap ploy, and not something a great master should use, let alone repeat. Also, he wrote a passage from the perspective of a dog. I understand the dog is supposed to be the voice of the Russian people… but really. A dog? It is interesting to note that he is the author of The Kingdom of God is Within You which argues for pacifism in the face of violence, which led Gandhi to pursue nonviolent resistance in India against the British Empire. In fact, Gandhi consulted Tolstoy about this, and they became friends, or at least pen pals.
It seems the tragic nature of Russian history and life comes through in every Russian author’s works. Somehow, in spite of being attacked from all sides throughout history (from the Mongols to the Swedes to Napoleon to the Germans) and suffering horrible disasters and brutal leadership, the spirit and loyalty of the people cannot be crushed. It’s also worth noting that many Russians consider Moscow to be the third Rome (which explains some of the ostentatious architecture).
If you want tragedy with a hint of hope, nobody does it better than the Russians!
-- Peter Sheehan, MCMLS Assistant Branch Manager
Titles Mentioned
By Fyodor M Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment
The Devils or The Possessed
The Brothers Karamazov
The Idiot
The Raw Youth or The Adolescent
By Mikhail Bulgakov
The Master and Margarita
By Nikolai Gogol
Dead Souls
The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil
By Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita
By Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina
War and Peace
The Kingdom of God is Within You
Monday, February 4, 2008
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