Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen, 1813 (first published)
T. Egerton, Whitehall (original publisher), 272 pgs (Dover ed.) 

A classic romance novel that needs no introduction, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular classic novels of the 20th century. It's estimated to date that it as sold more than 20 million copies since the first publication in 1813. Has sparked many movies, numerous adaptations, and is the second most beloved book in the United Kingdom (first being Lord of the Rings). I had never read any of Jane Austen's works and wanted to pick a well-known and very well received romantic tale of self growth and courtship for my "good" Valentine's Day pick. The book also presented a challenge as I am unfamiliar with Early English Language (the oldest book I've ever read to date was A Moveable Feast, published in 1976 and written in the 1920's by some American dude named Hemingway.) I was determined to jump into a classic book with both feet, and see if I could wade through the language of early 19th Century English language. I mean, I've seen enough Downton Abbey. It couldn't be any more confusing, right? 

Well, funny you should mention that... 

As most of you are aware of the plot of this book, I will try to give it the shortest summary possible, since most of us already know what happens at the end, I will forgo my oath just this once and summarize the entire novel, that being said: THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. So if you haven't read the book, or, if you've read the book and just want to get to the good stuff, you may skip the next few paragraphs. 

The story focuses on the Bennett Family, who have 5 daughters (oldest to youngest) Jane, Elizabeth (protagonist, witty, smart, yet prejudiced), Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. They are all hoping to be wed soon as Mr. Bennett will die and of course this being pre-women's rights, will lose their inheritance/land if not passed to another married male. (Which, I mean, is such fucking bullshit, right?) Mr. Bingley (wealthy, handsome, charming) moves into the estate next door (Netherfield) with his sister Caroline and his friend, Mr Darcy (brooding, prideful, party pooper.) They invite the Bennett's to a dance, Mr Darcy is being a party pooper and won't dance with anyone, Mr Bingley falls for Jane, Jane secretly loves Mr Bingley but is playing hard to get, Elizabeth thinks Darcy a dickhole.
Jane rides over to Netherfield, catches cold and cannot come home, Elizabeth walks over there to care for her,  Caroline opens the door, sees Elizabeth looking less then refined in a muddy dress. Immediately despises her. Darcy sees Elizabeth, finds this incredibly hot. Is taken by her, Elizabeth still thinks Darcy is a dickhole. Caroline (who is in love with Darcy. Don't worry if this is getting too confusing, because I was wicked confused too.) despises Elizabeth even more.

Meanwhile, Mr. Collins (Clergyman, an idiot who says he despises books, the heir to the Bennett estate) comes to visit, finds his cousin Elizabeth attractive and proposes to her (ew ew ew ew ew) She refuses. the wounded Collins decides to bounce back and proposes to her best friend, Charlotte (kind, intelligent, but poor daughter of local Knight.) Meanwhile,The Bennett family entertains a militia stationed nearby, One of them is named Wickman, who tells Elizabeth about how Mr. Darcy is an ass to his servants and swindled him out of his rightful inheritance. Elizabeth further finds Darcy to be the ultimate dickhole.

Darcy and the Bingley's return to London after the summer, Jane becomes upset as he left without proposing or admitting his love to her. It's reviled later that Mr Darcy helped in convincing Mr Bingley to not marry her. So a few weeks later Jane decides to visit friends in London and hopes to run into Mr Bingley. She meets up with Caroline who acts like an ass to Jane (because Darcy is now in love with her sister Elizabeth and not herself. and the fact the the Bennets are on a lower class system than the Bingleys.) Tells Jane about Darcy's role in not proposing to her. Mr Bingley never sees her. Jane is tossed into depression. Elizabeth visits Collins and Charlotte at her aunts house (Lady Catherine de Bourgh.) Darcy visits her aunt and sees Elizabeth, both start spending more time together. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth in a not very kind manner ("I think you're rad, but your family is pretty poor and kinda awful. But I can try to look past that." PRIDE!) Elizabeth obviously refuses, calls him out on being a dickhole, tells him that he was responsible for breaking up Jane and Bingley, being an asshole to his servants, and swindling Wickman out of inheritance. Darcy responds telling Elizabeth that Wickman traded inheritance for cash payment, squandered all his money, ran off to war, then when couldn't get back into his inheritance tried to marry his sister. He foiled that plan and now Wickman hates him for it. As for Bingley and Jane, Darcy states that Jane showed no interest in Bingley,  as well as Elizabeth's parents acting very desperate, took to think they were golddiggers too and bro'd Bingley out on the info to prevent heartbreak. Elizabeth then sees the err of her ways by pre-judging him (PREJUDICE!) and has second thoughts about Darcy.

bah, this is getting too long, basically all you need to know at this point is that Wickman is a dickhead, Darcy was right, Elizabeth gets over herself and decides to marry dark and mysterious Darcy. Everyone is happy.

House of Leaves

This is not for you.


House of Leaves
Zampanò 
intro by Johnny Truant
Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000
Randomhouse (Pantheon), 707 pgs.

This book and myself go way back. I believe it's best to start off this blog truthfully. I did not finish this book. I have tried to read this book 7 or 8 times, and it creeps me out so much that I cannot will myself to finish it completely. It changes your perspective of thinking, it takes you in and will not let you go. 

The house will swallow you (w)hole.

I cannot describe this book, so this review will be the most lackluster thing you will ever read from me. It's a maze, and a love story, and a horror story. Both fake and real (so real) at the same time. The best way I can describe it?  It's a book with 3 narrators (4 if you count the editors) The first narration is from Johnny Truant, who comes across the now diseased Zampano's in progress paperwork about a nonexistent movie called The Navidson Record. Within this, The Navidson Record is a documentary about a family who purchases a house in Virginia to try and save their flailing marriage and family. After a weekend away, they come back to the house and realize something is off. There is a door where there wasn't one before. 

Gradually- and frankly- weird shit starts to happen. The 2 most well known things (without giving too much of the book away) is that the interior of the house is slowly, slowly growing bigger and bigger while the exterior stays the same size and shape. The first of these changes is a doorway that is bigger than the exterior of the house by 5/16'', then becomes the "Five and a Half Minute Hallway" whereas a long, deeply inky dark, cold, and silent hallway opens up where there should logically be a wall. As there's no protrusions on the exterior. 

Between what's going on with the actual pseudo analysis, our unreliable narrators Johnny (as showcased by his Courier New font) and the editors (showcased by Times New Roman font.) the book becomes scattered, confusing, claustrophobic. Thus making the book one of the most popular types of New Media/Ergodic Literature in the last 10 years.

At its core, I believe this book is a love story. Do not ask me why, but I became obsessed with House of Leaves. I would stay up late into the hours of the night, feign sickness in order to spend a whole day in it's company. This lasted 15 days until I started to become ill while - and for a few hours after - reading this book. I cannot explain why, but I felt like the world was closing in on me, or I could actually FEEL Johnny's pain and suffering while he was reading the same text. Needless to say, it all got too creepy for me, and I had a life to work on. So I only got to 300 pages before I put the book down. I feel like a failure. House is still sitting on my bookshelf, with the half full notebook with all the notes and things highlighted in it so I could decipher some pages. She sits there and stares at me, knowing I will eventually return and start all over again. I will be continuously stuck in her labyrinth until the end of time.
In short, this is a book not to be messed with or taken lightly. It will eat you up and spit you out. It will feel real (Even though it's a work of extremely awesome fiction, a la Blair Witch Project scale.) but you have to keep telling yourself "It's only a book....It's only a book.....It's only a book...."



Book Haiku

                             

                                             

                         

Night Film

Night Film

Marisha Pessl, 2013

Random House, 602 pgs.


This book is the reason why you should never underestimate the artists who make book covers. If the cover wasn't intriguing to me when I was glancing over the New Releases" in my local bookstore, I would have never picked it up and read the dust jacket synopsis.

It was love at first sight, after immediately purchasing it, I raced home to read it. It took me 1 week to finish the book, and 2 weeks to prepare a haiku and write the review. After careful consideration and many drafts, I decided to re-read the book again. Just to be sure I had everything I wanted to say written down. I hardly ever re-read a book.

Seriously people, it was that good.

The book starts out with a questionable suicide of a 24 year old piano prodigy named Ashley Cordova, who is the only daughter of very famous cult cinema giant Stanislas Cordova; An incredibly well known recluse who is legendary for his explicit and terrifyingly realistic horror films. Our hero is Scott McGrath, a well known investigative journalist whose career took a severe burn by trying to uncover the true nature of the Cordova family. Scott believes with all this heart that Ashley was murdered by Cordova and/or his associates, and- with the help of two young, offbeat, questionable cohorts- thus starts a thrilling, chilling, spellbinding mystery though NY state where we are thrown somewhere between suspension of disbelief, and absolute reality.

It's hard to really discuss this book without spoiling some of what happens. As it is my supreme objective to not ruin a book, nor give any sort of spoilers, I will only give broad, confusing, mysterious reasons as to why I enjoyed this book.

This is a book about finding the truth, as you see it. At least that's what I took away from it. You are tossed about on this journey of false leads and dead ends, but if you read between the lines you will eventually understand the beauty that was the end of this book. A read a lot of reviews and the general consensus is that the ending fell short. But, if reading deeper into it, it was the perfect way to end it. (I know, confusing right? You'll understand if you pick it up and read it.) This book is a ride, a hell of a ride. There were only a few instances where it was getting slow or something became unbelievable to me, but at that point(s) in the story is where the fun part comes in. It's a tale. A fiction. You are supposed to suspend disbelief for a while and just enjoy where this book takes you. If you don't then you're not reading it correctly. It's meant to frighten, to excite, to humiliate the reader. It tricks you in the best way possible.

Pessl is a wonderful writer, she crafted a dark, richly detailed, elaborate literary mystery novel. I love her use of multi-media and unconventional ways to write a book. It was very "House of Leaves". Astounding, I cannot get enough of her. The book instructs you to download the free "Night Film" App in order to discover more clues or go in depth about the clues in the book. The app could still use some work and I believe she or the publisher could have taken it further but it's a great little addendum to an already excellent book. That being said, this is the way a mystery novel should be written in this digital age.

Other than some complications with the app, the only thing I didn't enjoy is her overuse of italics. Most seemed unnecessary. Especially when every other word is italicized. It started to feel hokey. But please don't let this stop you from enjoying this book. If you're a film fan, a mystery fan, a horror buff, or some hipster who is sick and tired of talking about House of Leaves or Ayn Rand novels, go read this book. 





Book Haiku (for the people who have read the book)

Do I dare disturb?

To go where the mermaids lie. 

To find the real truth?



Book Haiku (for the people who haven't read the book)

Go ingest this book.

No. Seriously. Take heed.

And go read this book.

Neverwhere

Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman, 1996

 Harper Prennial, 370 pgs.

Gaiman never caught my attention before, even when I was in high school while everyone was busy reading his impressively exhausting but incredibly well written comic "Sandman" I was still  getting into Bukowski (cause I thought I was so tragically cool) But recently-after much prodding from several people to get into the "Science Fiction" genre post NaNoWriMo-a fan requested me to give his novels a try. And, after swiping "Bad Omens" from a former lover, (and enjoying the everloving shit out of it. Review to come.) I decided to give it the ol' college try.
After much thought and consideration, I tried him out.
Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that Gaiman's still not for me. Sorry folks!

Neverwhere is Gaiman's first novel about a Scottish man named Richard Meyhew (which hearkens me back to another famous protoganist aptly named Meyhew) who travels to London in order to make a life for himself, he finds himself in a less then amazing job at some sort of white tie law/executive firm, a flat in a normal part of town, and a beautiful, but vain fiancee named Jessica, who only truly cares about her career and image. Meanwhile, a pixie-ish little woman named Door (who can open imaginary and real doors with her magical powers.) is on the run from assassins who killed her family, she ends up trying desperately to search for help.
Worlds collide when Richard and Jessica, en route to a dinner they are running late for, finds bloody little Door lying in the middle of the street. Ever the good man that he is, he essentially tells Jessica to fuck off and brings Door back to his flat to help her. No good deed goes unpunished, however, when Richard is now tossed into the magical underworld of London Below, a place where London's homeless and vagrants reside, and nothing is what it truly seems. Now, they are in a desparite attempt to find out who is truly behind Door's family's death, and why.

Sounds like a fantastic plot. And it is! The first 50 pages really grabbed my attention and I kept reading further to find out more about London Below and the magical cast of supporting characters who are heavily sprinkled throughout. However, about halfway through the story, I started to lose interest. I felt like the story was getting stale and we were dragging our feet towards the end. Which felt a little lackluster and predictible to me. But don't let my bah-humbugness steer you away from this book. Word around the block is that this was Gaiman's first novel, so maybe not the best way to introduce me to his writing style, as his craft was more polished and professional by the time I got to Anansi Boys (Which I also recommend). Also, this book feels like it should be grouped into "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" genre because of the simplistic plot line and incrdibly detailed words and characters. Neverwhere and Hitchiker's are both firmly planted into Young Adult Sci-Fi. Where if you didn't read them when you were in your teens, it won't impact you as much when you're an adult.
Another thing I found disenteresting is the humor; I personally- as the case is with me and most British Enterainment- kept feeling like I'm missing a key part of the puzzle, or that I'm not 'in' on an inside joke the entire time. I even had to look up the “Mind the Gap” explaination to actually see if it was truly realistic or if Gaiman wrote it into the book for fun (The anouncemnt, not the creature). Maybe it's because I grew up American and enjoy things handed to me instead of – you know – thinking about it. Maybe it's because I have a Swedish and New England type of dark humor (It's all the snow and the dark, it gets to you after a while.) but I found the humor highbrow and generally dry.

All in all, if you have teens/young adults in your house and you want them to get interested into the world of fantasy and science fiction, you needent look much further than Gaiman's work (although this book is not for children as there is a shit ton of murder, some sexual content very rare, like 2 scenes, and the occasional swear peppered in.)

Postscript - I was just now informed that Gaiman has written some shows for the rebranded Dr. Who series (sigificant other is a Whovian) MIND, FCUKING, BLOWN! So If you needed one more good reason to go read this book, let this nugget of trivia be it.  

Book Haiku:

Main character lost

In magical underworld

Flat British humor

H.P. LOVECRAFT HALLOWEEN SPECTACULAR! A (very late!) PART II: Herbert West, Reanimator

Herbert West - Reanimator. (pgs. 50 - 80)

from: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
            by H.P. Lovecraft, 1927

              Penguin Classics, 1999, Editor: S.T Joshi

Herbert West is a series of 6 short stories within a short story (very Inception of you Lovecraft!) That focus around one man's plan to reanimate the dead (Read: Zombies) Hilarity ensures when plans go tragically, horribly, laughably wrong. All told by Dr. West's unnamed colleague.

Oh. My. Christ. Those fucking scientists, again.

Will they ever learn? Will they ever just, fucking, STOP? 

Dr West is crazy, just straight up cray. He will stop at nothing to get a fresh body and try out his lifelong experiments on them. Another thing to keep in mind is that his obsession spans from the time he is a college student at Miskatonic University (Actually Lovecraft's first story to mention it, also his first published work for a trashy rag called “Home Brew”.) up until he is a well-established doctor living in Boston a few years after The Great War. This Frankenstienen love affair has been going on his entire adult life. The story gets repetitive the first few paragraphs of very “chapter”, since this was originally a series of monthly stories spanning 6 months. So there was a lot of backstory and summarizing for people who jumped into the middle of the series, but it does take on a unified, loose single plot. Which I enjoyed, since I could put it down between busy times at work/home/life and pick right back up a few hours/days later and know exactly what was going on. (Hey, when you have kids and a stressful full time job, it takes a lot to try and find time to read 30 pages! Be grateful I can produce a book a month. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't have children, but I'm really digressing here..)

I also found pleasure in how grotesque yet funny the stories were, It was refreshing to read something that wasn't trying to scare you shitless. However, what I found truly disturbing is how Lovecraft described a recently deceased African American man as a tom-tom pounding, gorilla (pg. 63 “Buck Robinson... ...many ugly things.”) I later found out that Lovecraft was an incredibly racist, chauvinistic man who was mostly bedridden his entire life. Also, this was the 1920's where race equality wasn't a big topic of the day, I mean, we barely got women to vote at this point. So I shouldn't really expect much from him. Herbert does get his comeuppance in the end, when the reanimated dead come back in the last chapter, which is really quite funny and I will not to repeat the ending here, but oh man. Go read this story for some ghoulish laffs!

 Book Haiku:

Dead folks are funny

Goddamn Scientists again!

Seriously, Sthap.

update

Apologies to fans and family (who are pretty much my only fan base right now, thanks for reading mom!) Who have been patiently waiting for the next reviews. I had been participating in NaNoWriMo all last month. On top of this, Thanksgiving, and my birthday, I had to let my blog simmer for a bit.

However, this doesn't mean I haven't stopped reading. I got through the last of my Lovecraft Spactular, but 2 other books as well. "Neverwhere" will post tomorrow morning, along with "Herbert West: Reanimator" to follow in the afternoon.

Upcoming books include:
NH Pulp Fiction's LIVE FREE OR SCI FI
Marisha Pressel's NIGHT FILM
Mark Z. Danielewki's HOUSE OF LEAVES
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's BAD OMENS

Stay Tuned.

PS - Not only did I finish Neverwhere, but I finally got through the entire Harry Potter book series in less than a year (A personal goal for me). If you are interested in me reviewing the series as a whole (7 posts for 7 books) please let me know in the comments section, my personal Facebook page, or via email.

H.P. LOVECRAFT HALLOWEEN SPECTACULAR PART I: The Colour Out of Space

The Colour Out of Space (pgs. 170-200)

from: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
            by H.P. Lovecraft, 1927

              Penguin Classics, 1999, Editor: S.T Joshi

Before we get to the review, I a little background on the Lovecraft Halloween Spectacular:

I wanted to get into the spirit of Halloween for quite some time, because my day job sucks the life out of you, days run together, etc. October was flying by and I needed to get into the mood fast. I decided to try to find a great horror story to pick out and review this month. But what would I choose? I had no place to start. I consulted my ever loving, amazing idea-having significant other. Who came up with this idea of a Halloween Short Story Triple Feature on the granddaddy master of everything Horror/Sci-Fi. It didn't take long to convince me, as I have never read a Lovecraft story and I am game to read anything new.
Now, after I had agreed to this Spectacular, I suddenly learned that my significant other is a closeted, RABID LOVECRAFT FAN. This Mofo handed me 2 collections and-when asked what 3 stories to pick-replied “Kelso, That's like you telling me to pick my favorite child.” We finally decided on one I vaguely knew (“Herbert West- Reanimator”) the most popular (“The Call of Cthulhu”) and his favorite (“The Colour Out of Space”) So here we are.

Colour Out of Space is primarily about an asteroid falling next to a well on a farmer's property, then strange shit starts to happen to this family over the course of a year. Like, REAL FUCKING STRANGE SHIT. The story is told by an old man named Ammi Pierce to a much younger unnamed surveyor. Who is scouting the Blasted Heath out in order to put the town's reservoir there in the coming months. Yes. Like, this is the town's drinking and bathing water.
I don't want to go into too many details about what specifically happened to the Nahum family, but they either disappeared or died because of this liquid like magma that oozed out of the asteroid when the incredibly short sighted scientists at Miskatonic University broke open the asteroid that FELL FROM FUCKING SPACE. And just FUCKING LEFT IT ON THIS POOR MAN'S PROPERTY. You will come to understand in later reviews why I believe Miskatonic University should be considered questionable in their studies and practices.

What I really enjoyed about this story is how incredibly atmospheric it feels. From the trees swaying without any wind to the description of the pail and lantern that was found next to the well where a Nahum boy disappeared. It immerses you into this story which makes you want to slow down and take your time with it. Yet the scenes are so intense-like what happens to poor Mrs. Nahum (“...Threw open the low white door.”....”the faint yet unmistakable luminosity of all the woodwork in sight; steps, sides, exposed laths and beams alike!” pg 178-179)  for example-that you want to speed read through it as fast as you can. The very well written and supremely detailed and comprehensive notes the Mr Joshi leaves at the end of the chapter states that this is one of the first examples of Horror and Science Fiction working hand in hand together via the unknown properties of the asteroid and space in general while not having to explain anything about them thus making this story as realistic as possible.

However, I was not prepared for how difficult Lovecraft can be. I knew he was early nineteenth century literature, but I wasn't prepared for such lush language such as grambel, aerolite, foetor, and tungsten contrivances (all of which I highlighted and looked up later). Pair that with paragraphs about how creepy dead trees can be (4 paragraphs in this entire 30 page story) then it becomes pretty muddy if you're not used to it. After re reading several paragraphs and about 5 pages in, I was getting used to the style and started to enjoy the story. I do not recommend Lovecraft for someone who's not a strong reader or if English is not their first language. Have someone else try to describe the scenes for you if you're seriously interested in reading this story. (I had to ask Significant Other about certain scenes to make sure I had the plot right in the very beginning. I know, I'm pretty stupid, but I'm writing a review, I had to get it right!) Bottom line, after re-reading the story a second time, it was a pretty immerse, intense ride. Maybe not the scariest story I've read. But pretty damn creepy.
(WARNING: Don't click that link unless you have headphones on and 20 minutes of free time, it's pretty NSFW) 

Book Haiku:

Creepy atmosphere

Asteroid, pretty colors.

Fucking Scientists.