War, Freak Shows, and other First Date Ideas.

It's nice being in a foreign country and having nothing to do. I'm almost caught up on my book reviews. Or actually, not really at all. Because I also keep reading. But whatever. I'm probably not going to review the book I'm currently reading because it's written by my Grandmother and it's not yet published, but when it hits the shelves I'll tell you allll about it (it's freaking amazing). Still while I read that I've been listening to audio books (not simultaneously), which is something I've never liked but am working on. Anyway... moving on.

Geek Love
By Katherine Dunn

Oh the mysterious pleasures of the freak show! I know about Katherine Dunn because she wrote a non-fiction collection of essays about boxing that I used in my oral exam. That book and this book could not be more different in every way except to say that they are both supremely well written and they never flinch or shy away from the nitty gritty.

This book is not about gamers or computer nerds who fall in love and experience ennui because they can only really interact through their much more attractive avatars. I'm sure that book is out there somewhere; maybe it's "Nerd Love." This book is about a carnival worker/owner and his wife who experiment with all kinds of drugs and chemicals in order to breed their own traveling freak show. If that doesn't sound at least a little bit interesting to you, we have nothing further to talk about. The story is then mostly about the family and their crazy bodies and minds and their interactions with the "norms" around them, including the cult that follows Binewski's Carnival Fabulon all over the country.

A great deal of the power and appeal of this book is in its dreamy and fantastical language. For instance Chapter 8, "Educating the Chick," begins,

"A carnival in daylight is an unfinished beast, anyway. Rain makes it a ghost. The wheezing music from the empty motionless rides in a soggy, rained-out afternoon midway almost hits my chest with a sweet ache. The colored dance of the lights in the seeping air flashed the puddles in the sawdust with an oily glamor."

I love a book with a saucy dash of magical realism and with interesting characters who can be unusual and mundane at the same time.

I would recommend this book to: Kacie,  Jessica R. and Jessica D. I'm sure my mom would like it too.


Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
By Karl Marlantes

I cannot say for sure, but I imagine that this book is a fairly accurate representation of the Vietnam war. At least the sensation of reading it, or the first half of it, is. You sort of slog around in it doing nothing for a while, and then things are hectic and violent and scary and gory and then they're kind of boring again for awhile until things start blowing up again, when it's both exhilarating and frustrating.  Like war itself there's not really a plot and it goes on for a very, very long time.

That doesn't sound very good does it?  In truth, it was actually a pretty good book and I generally can't focus on books or shows about war for more than ten minutes at a stretch.

The book follows a portion of Sgt. Waino Melas' first tour of duty in Vietnam and is taken in part from the real-life experiences of the author, a decorated veteran. The book takes the time to explore in-depth the issues that plagued the marines in Vietnam: politics, bureaucracy, racial tension, grotesque health problems, fear, insecurity, hunger, lonliness, and on and on and on and on. Marlantes does a great job putting a human face on these issues and explaining to hippies like me why someone--lots of someones--would persist in such a seemingly godawful job.

I would recommend this book to: Tim and other people who like history, war, and books that have no female characters.


The Daughter of Time
By Josephine Tey

Ok, actually, I don't have a lot to say about this book. It's a historical murder mystery. An injured man looking for something to do stumbles on the idea that Richard III did not actually murder his two nephews in the tower of London and sets out (metaphorically speaking, because he's immobilized in a hospital bed) to find the truth. It looks as though Tey has written a history book with a plot wrapped around it, but the editors haven't taken the time to include an afterword that explains if this is so. And the book wasn't heart-racing enough to inspire me to go to Google and look it up and find out. For all the times this book has been recommended to me it's mostly Meh.

I would recommend this book to: people who like historical fiction? And mysteries? Those are the kind of people who recommended it to me.