Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Eighth

But I don't want the read-along to be over! I've had so much fun these last eight weeks reading and commenting and enjoying everyone's posts! Guys, let's all trade addresses and stuff so we can keep in touch when we have to go back home! Or URLs, I guess. I'm getting old. My point is, I like you guys. Thanks for hanging out with me. :)

I was sort of hoping that this book would go out on some amazing high note and that I would explode from the happiness of it all, but of course this is real life and so it didn't quite do that. But, I did add another story to my list of Awesomest Stories of the Collection, so it was certainly a good week. Let's see what else happened!

"The Day the Saucers Came"
Niiiice. I liked listening to this first, because I couldn't skip ahead and see how long it was or see how it would repeat itself, and so I was pleasantly surprised on both counts. It's a short poem-shaped story about a day when a lot of crazy stuff happened but you didn't notice. I liked that Gaiman just piles on the crazy stuff and that he makes it sound so good — I just want to say "the saucer day the zombie day / The Ragnarok and fairies day" over and over — and I like that the reason you miss out on it all is because you're hoping someone will call you. That is some serious hope, people, and I have certainly experienced it in my life! Did I miss Ragnarok? I'm gonna be so mad if I did, largely because I'm gonna have to go repopulate the world now, and that sounds like effort.

"Sunbird"
This is definitely on my top stories list. I loved listening to it and I loved reading it and I may go do both again because it just makes me so happy. I'm not quite sure why. Let's see. I like the Epicurean Club and how they're all, "But I am le tired of beetles and I've eaten everything else!" I like that no one takes Zebediah seriously until it's way too late. It tickles me pink that one should leave on a Sunday to go to Suntown to catch a Sunbird. I love the line, "I am an academic [...] and thus have no finely developed sense that would be comprehensible to anyone who has not ever needed to grade papers without actually reading the blessed things." And I would really like to try some beer-can phoenix. After I go eat some charcoal, of course.

"Inventing Aladdin"
Eh. This is definitely the weak story of the bunch. It's another poem thing, this time about Scheherazade and her thoughts on making up stories and stuff. So it's really about making up stories in general, and how you work with what you've got and hope for the best. It's not bad, but it's not especially excellent and I've not much to say about it.

"Monarch of the Glen"
Apparently I'm to end up reading through the American Gods universe backward, seeing as how I started with Anansi Boys and may someday get to American Gods proper. So I'm not quite sure what I'm missing in the background to this novella, is what I'm saying. But I still quite enjoyed it. You've got this fellow called Shadow and all he wants is a nice quiet holiday, but then he gets drawn into a very strange set-up perpetrated by our old friends Smith and Mr. Alice. There's a mysterious house and a mysterious party and a very mysterious tradition that I'm still not entirely clear on. But, there's also Norse mythology and Grendel and so who needs clarity? Well, no, I would have liked a bit more... I feel like I'm missing something very obvious (like when I couldn't recognize a vampire in The Graveyard Book) and if someone could just tell me what, exactly, Gaskell was lying about, that would be fantastic. The other thing that kept me from really appreciating the story isn't exactly the fault of the story, but is that after reading, what, thirty short stories in the rest of the book, I was not quite prepared for such a long story, with its description and sidebars and taking its sweet time and all. I think it'll probably be much better once I go get some American Gods in my brain and come back to this story on its own, yes?

So that's it! Thank you all for joining me in this delightful adventure; we really must do it again some time. And maybe this will be the start of a lovely short-story reading habit? I think that's a good idea!

Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King

So I was gonna say I haven't read much Stephen King lately, which is technically true, but then I realized that this is my third King book this year! Is it possible I'm coming around to King again, after many many years away? I think it might be.

I had heard of this book but wasn't interested in picking it up, because it's newer and I have this prejudice against "new King" that I picked up around the time I read and was greatly disappointed by Cell. I was like, King has stopped being creepy and spooky and interesting and is instead some crotchety old man and pfft whatever. This may not be a correct assumption on my part, but it's stuck, and so when I saw that this was next up for my book club, I was equal parts "ohhhhh this is going to suck" and "hey, maybe it won't be so bad."

And it wasn't so bad! In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is one of my favorite books out of King, and it is definitely my favorite of his collections (of which I have read not very many). There are four novellas included, though one is like forty pages and seems a little short for that category, and I found all of them to be awesome. And even better, I found all of them to fit in with each other in some way or other, which is a fun thing in a collection — I learned from this one that King has a thing against librarians, a thing for biting, a thing for people getting away with murder, and a thing for making me think a story will go one way and then totally not doing that. Fantastic.

I don't want to say too much about the stories proper, because they are short and I found that the descriptions I read after the fact just did not live up to the stories themselves and I don't want to fail you guys! But if you need something to get you started, I'd summarize the stories as follows: 1922 is a rambling confession letter, Big Driver is the story of an author's trip gone horribly terribly wrong (and then horribly terribly wronger), Fair Extension offers up an interesting way to deal with cancer, and A Good Marriage is about, well, a good marriage that's suddenly not.

Oh, I should also mention that there is rather a lot of violence and horribleness, especially in Big Driver, and so if you are not inclined to appreciate or tolerate such things, I would recommend against this collection. I have to admit I almost quit Big Driver more than once, and at least one person in my book club did give up on it. But in general I don't think it's too much worse than Misery, if that gives you a reference point.

Recommendation: For fans of awful things that aren't happening to themselves and awful people they hope they'll never meet.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

The Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson

So, in case you haven't been paying any attention to the blog lately, I just finished up a read-along of The Lantern (first week here). If you want my as-they-happened, totally-spoilerful thoughts, you should go check those posts out. If you don't, or if you want to know how I felt about the book as a whole, read on!

The Lantern is not really a story I'd have picked up on my own. It's one of them gothic novels, except set in the present-ish day, and I have not always been a fan of the melodrama and the sekrits and the falling-apart houses. But I think I've read enough of this type of novel to at least sort of know what to expect, and that certainly helps. But but, I have not read Rebecca, which is apparently the basis for this book. Sooooo I may be missing a lot of stuff here.

But but BUT, I still managed to really like this book. It has two narrators, which I love, and goes back and forth in time, which I love, and starts at the end, which I love, and has an entirely unreliable narrator, which I love. It's also got a sensory theme to it, which I am starting to like, and lots of spookyness, which I appreciate. Not terrible, right?

And the stories proper are quite interesting, too. The primary narrator, who is nameless but sort of goes by Eve, meets a guy and sets off on a romantically romantic adventure, moving to the French boonies and fixing up an old falling-apart house, and it's all delightful except that he won't talk about his ex-wife, like, at all. Not a whit. And Eve thinks that's all suspicious and stuff, and so does one of her new neighbors who has at one point met said ex-wife and... misses her? I guess, and then some even more suspicious stuff happens and Eve is like, oh boy. The other narrator, Bénédicte, is from the past and lived in the falling-apart house before it started falling apart. And her brother is insane and her sister is blind and her parents are not terribly good parents and Bénédicte does her best to take care of everyone but you know from early on that they're all haunting her in her old age and she's sure she deserves it.

Quite good, and as of the end of the fourth of five parts, I was like, greatest book ever? It was wonderfully compelling and spooky and interesting and things were quite exciting. But then things kind of derail as the slow build of the book turns into a lot of exposition and explanation, and I think if I had been prepared for this I might not have been so irked by it, so I am telling you now! And certainly with the book a few days in my past now, I'm feeling much better about the ending, but oh my goodness while it was happening... whatever! Moving on!

So I can't give it my endorsement of absolute awesomeness, but I can definitely say that it's worth a read, especially if you can talk about it with others who will pick up on all the things you didn't, like those darn Rebecca parallels. And it is totally perfect for a cool fall evening and a cup of hot cocoa. Mmm, hot cocoa. If you need an excuse to drink some, this is a good one!

Recommendation: For lovers of the Gothic, the spooky, ghosties, and hot cocoa.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

The Lantern Read-Along: Part V

Ehhhhh, I probably should have just kept reading last week like I meant to. This last part just doesn't have the same momentum as the rest, and while sheer interest in the story kept me going, it was not nearly as exciting as the previous sections. But hey, let's talk about that, shall we?

1. Now that it's all said and done; what did you think of the book? Did you see the ending coming? Um, well. Let's see. I called the dead bodies, I did not call Dom's secret, I called Sabine's over-interest if not the reason for it, and I did not manage to call Rachel's pathological lying though in retrospect it seems pretty obvious, I definitely did not call Bénédicte's recordings, I totally called the ghost. So, overall... no, I did not see the ending coming! I am actually fairly disappointed in the ending for being essentially a giant info-dump when Lawrenson did such a good job of weaving in details throughout the story — I would have been content to have fewer answers, better written, I think.

2. What do you think of the characters? Lawrenson took us on a twisty little ride there, I had trouble deciding who was good and who wasn't for a while there! What do you think of Dom? Of Sabine? Rachel? I can understand much better now why Dom was insistent on not sharing his deep dark secret and insistent that it had nothing to do with Our Narrator. I still don't really agree with it, but I understand it. Sabine, I have no idea why she was keeping herself a secret, and so I continue to be very irked with her especially with the insinuations and all. Rachel, I am much more intrigued by — I really didn't give much care to her throughout the book, but with the ending and all it might have been nice to see more of her in the story to take off some of that exposition in the end! Our Narrator, I'd like to see what happens to her the next time Dom tells a half-truth. I don't think she's as comfortable as she thinks she is.

3. Pierre was such a conflicted character. In the end, do you think he killed Marthe and Annette, or did the fall to their deaths because of their blindness? Oh, he totally killed them. He lied about them leaving and blaming Bénédicte, and the fact that he knew he could go get Marthe's stuff shows he knew she wasn't coming back for it. And it really fits in with his completely insane character that he would rather torture Bénédicte for the rest of her life than get any money out of Les Genevriers.

4. The book is being compared to Rebecca and Daphne du Maurier's writing. Do you think the book lives up to that description? I swear I will get around to reading Rebecca. Someday.

5. Did you have any problems with the book? Narration? Plot? The back and forth between two different characters and times? No, I generally liked the format of the book and the way Lawrenson brought the two stories slowly together. I'm just still quite miffed about the ending. In looking back through the book to make sure I'm remembering things correctly to answer these questions, I happened upon this line again: "All of which goes to show how dangerous it is [. . .] to want tidy storytelling when real life is not like that." And I just stared in the general direction of Lawrenson and thought, then why did you work so hard to answer all these darn questions?! Let me have some ambiguity, here. Though the more I think about the ending, the more I'm thinking that it's not really Lawrenson making answers for everything, but instead Our Narrator trying to rationalize everything that she has done and that has happened to her. Oh, this book, it is giving me a headache but largely in a good way.

6. Do you think Lawrenson tied both stories together well in the end? Is there anything she could/should have done differently? I do like the way the stories came together, and how Bénédicte's narrative has this sort of extra layer to it, not just of Lawrenson placing it within Our Narrator's narrative, but of Our Narrator placing it within her own narrative, and so suddenly all of those ghostly things that are happening to Our Narrator ring rather less true. [Insert thoughtful ooooooooooh here.]

7. One problem I had with the novel is the reliability of the narrators. Do you think any of them were telling the truth? Which ones? Oh, I don't trust any of them, which is really how it should be. I can't find a specific reason to doubt Bénédicte's story as told, but I still get the sense that she did a lot of lying to herself, at least, throughout her life. Our Narrator is more obviously doubt-able, with her constant reminders to herself that she's getting a bit hysterical and her own omissions to the other characters. And if that's what she's willing to admit to, I mean, there's probably more to it. And of course the other characters we only see through these two (possibly only through Our Narrator? What's she leaving out of Bénédicte's story?), so I declare them entirely unreliable!

So, true story, I'm way more excited about this book after going through and answering these questions. I stand by my statement about the momentum of this section, but I'm appreciating the results of this section rather more as I think about them. By the time I write up my regular review of this book, I may like the ending even more, but I make no promises! How about you guys?

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Seventh

We're closing in on the end of this book! It's been really nice reading this over the course of several weeks, because I feel like I'm really getting to spend time with the stories instead of just zooming through them to get to the end and move on to the next book. I will definitely have to try to try this with short story collections in the future! It's also nice because I'm finding favorite stories each week, rather than ending up with one favorite story of the whole book, as often happens, although I think this week's favorite story might be the winner of the latter crown, because, yes. Amazing. But let's get to that, shall we?

"In the End"
Ohhhhhh. I am so glad I am both listening to these stories and reading them, because when I listened to this, it was too short and I apparently missed the point entirely, which is that this is a reverse retelling of the Garden of Eden story. Reverse. Yes. Excellent. And intriguing. But also only half a page, so I'm not sure I have much else to say. Moving on!

"Goliath"
Yes. This. Fantastic. Best story. And it really reinforces my position that it shouldn't matter if you've done the homework to enjoy a story based in other stories. I managed to completely forget that this was supposed to be a story of The Matrix, even through the bits with the déjà vu, which are excellent, by the way, though I did finally remember once I got to the weird alien ship thing. But even then I was like, oh, right, and just moved on, because it's a story of The Matrix's world, not of its characters, and Gaiman's own character is fascinating in his own right. I love how he deals with the déjà vu, how he manages to get into the military, and how he deals with the harsh reality of his creators. And the last line, which is probably not too spoiler-ful: "But the last twenty minutes have been the best years of my life."

"Pages From a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky"
And... this is the opposite. I have no idea what's going on here. There's a chick, and she's travelling, and she's looking for Scarlet, and aside from being intrigued by Friday the 32nd, and being pretty sure that this chick is actually Scarlet, I've got nothing.

"How to Talk to Girls at Parties"
Well. I had the twist of this story called as soon as I saw the line "'They're just girls,' said Vic. 'They don't come from another planet.'" And I could really have done without the going on and on about alien things. But, otherwise, this was a pretty spot-on story about being a teenager and trying to talk to girls at parties. I love that Enn is just terrified of talking to the ladies, and that when he does he's so concerned about the actual talking part that he just completely forgets to listen and even when he's listening he's just like, whatever, must focus on chatting up this nice-looking girl. AND that he reads more than he talks and therefore mispronounces contradictory. I can't tell you how many times that has happened to me. I really must get out more!

The Unwritten Vol. 3, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Nooooo I forgot to pace myself and now I have to wait some unknown amount of time for the next volume! Nuts! But my husband got his hands on it and he's the type of person who accidentally spoils things on a regular basis, so really I had to read it. Had to.

And it is so fantastic. Even if you don't want to read this series, track down this volume at your library and find the page with the amusingly terrible rip-off of His Dark Materials. And then flip forward to the other page that looks like that one and that gets in a dig at George Lucas with a reference to "meta-condrians." Totally worth it.

Other things that are totally worth it: one of the issues that makes up this collection is a Choose Your Own Adventure. Did I mention FANTASTIC? My husband and I proved our perfectness for each other by choosing the exact same path through the story (we apparently are fans of evil evilness), but I also went back and read through a few other iterations and a) they were all interesting and b) some paths made sly winks at other paths that you wouldn't notice except if you read them all. Oh, AND, the whole point of the choosing of your own adventure is to make the point that you, you know, get to do that with your life. Hands-on morals? How intriguing.

Story, you say? There is one, but why aren't you just reading it? Seriously. Okay, fine.

Our friend Tom is presumed dead but still on the run from the Shadowy People. Someone has written a terrible fourteenth (yes, fourteenth) Tommy Taylor book and even though the publishing house knows that it wasn't Tom's dad, they're totes willing to make a jillionty-twelve dollars off of it. It includes the aforementioned scene with Lord Gabriel explaining Powder to Tommy Taylor. Oh, yes. It turns out that the SPs wrote it to bring Wilson Taylor out of hiding, which may or may not end up working. Also, we find out who Tom's mum is and we sort of find out what Lizzie Hexam's deal is ("sort of" because part of it is the CYOA). And if they're giving away all this information now, I am very interested in finding out what they aren't telling me!

I'll just wait here, impatiently, until I can find out.

Recommendation: For people who don't mind parodies of beloved children's fantasy series, people who like to choose their own adventures, and fans of the garrote.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson

So, I read this for RIP two years ago and found it pretty fantastic, if easily spoil-able. And then a while back I found it on OverDrive as an audiobook and plopped it on my "for future reference list" and then I had disappointing times with the audio for The Turn of the Screw and I put off listening to it for fear of a repeat.

But I should have feared not! For this audio version is everything that The Turn of the Screw was not, with the narrator all suspenseful and whispery and actually way more creepy than I had previously thought Merricat to be. Excellence!

And so, yes. There's a Merricat, and her family is about half dead, including one person who is basically half-dead himself, and her sister Constance doesn't leave the house on account of the town doesn't care if Constance was acquitted of murdering her family, they're still jerk-pantses who like to sing songs about murder. And they sing them at Merricat when she goes into town, but she just imagines them all falling dead and she feels better.

That's pretty much how the whole book goes. Also: the town is full of mean people, Merricat's house is a refuge, a relative comes to call who starts to combine the two, hell breaks loose. Don't let townies into your house, is the moral of this story. Also beware the power of people in large groups (this is from the woman who wrote The Lottery, after all), the power of very aggressive people, and the power of superstition. And arsenic. Arsenic is bad stuff, guys.

I would tell you more specific things, but part of the charm of the story is in how Jackson sets everything up to be revealed, although even knowing the "secrets" of the book I still found a lot to love in it. So you should just go ahead and read it twice in a row. It's a short book. No problem.

Recommendation: For people who are or like to be creeped out by children and/or mobs. Also people who like poisonous mushrooms.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)