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2chuckzak
1. McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales edited by Michael Chabon
3chuckzak
2. Confessions of a Crap Artist Philip K. Dick
Odd family drama from Dick told from different viewpoints. With domestic abuse, UFO cultists, weird obsessive behavior and such.
Odd family drama from Dick told from different viewpoints. With domestic abuse, UFO cultists, weird obsessive behavior and such.
4chuckzak
3. Valis Philip K. Dick
Deep thinking weirdness full of human emotions and theological obsessions. Overheats by the end, but tons of interesting ruminations on religion in general and Gnosticism in particular by a disintegrating narrator.
Deep thinking weirdness full of human emotions and theological obsessions. Overheats by the end, but tons of interesting ruminations on religion in general and Gnosticism in particular by a disintegrating narrator.
5chuckzak
4. World War Z - Max Brooks
Fun apocalyptic horror with of-the-moment political savvy and plenty of vivid nightmare images. Told in a reportorial style from the view of various survivors.
Fun apocalyptic horror with of-the-moment political savvy and plenty of vivid nightmare images. Told in a reportorial style from the view of various survivors.
6chuckzak
5. The Aztecs of Mexico - George Clapp Vaillant
A gentlemanly primer on the Aztecs, which hints at the shocking extent of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica, but spares many details.
A gentlemanly primer on the Aztecs, which hints at the shocking extent of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica, but spares many details.
7chuckzak
6. City of Sacrifice - David Carrasco
Still looking for the book to blow the lid off of the untold story of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica. I thought this book would be the one, but although it details some of these rituals in depth, it does so in oft-incoherent academic language.
Still plenty of live-heart removal and sundry brutality.
Still looking for the book to blow the lid off of the untold story of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica. I thought this book would be the one, but although it details some of these rituals in depth, it does so in oft-incoherent academic language.
Still plenty of live-heart removal and sundry brutality.
8billiejean
You are off to a great start! What kind of book is Valis? I have never read anything by Philip K. Dick before. I looked at some reviews, but could not really figure it out. Is this mainly a philosophy book? Thanks.
--BJ
--BJ
9chuckzak
Valis is the story of a man who thinks he has been contacted by a superior intelligence that may or may not be God. Along the way to unraveling his epiphany there are long and fascinating digressions into the nature of religion and quite a bit about the Gnostic Christians. It is however a very 'human' book and the characters are driven by loneliness and guilt and such. kinda goes overboard at the end but a fascinating book.
10chuckzak
7. a wild sheep chase - Haruki Murakami
Not sure I can put every detail of this book in place, but a nagging (in a good way) story of a lost soul on a seemingly loopy quest to find a magic sheep and the uncertain self-awareness it triggers in him.
Not sure I can put every detail of this book in place, but a nagging (in a good way) story of a lost soul on a seemingly loopy quest to find a magic sheep and the uncertain self-awareness it triggers in him.
11chuckzak
8. the Stand - Stephen King
The battle between good and evil in this book is mirrored in the battle between good and evil in King's writing. I've read a decent amount of his other stuff and it's always fun but is usually undercut by a persistent corniness evident in a lot of the dialog and a general slackness of imagination. The Stand is no exception, unfortunately, although I had always thought this might be the King book that really brought the thrills.
The whole 'superflu' epidemic that wipes out the population is only tangentially explored and of course the culprit is military experimentation gone horribly awry (see "the Mist" from Skeleton Crew for at least one more example of this). But this epidemic merely serves as the catalyst to the showdown between forces of light and dark, a showdown that unravels in the most unsatisfactorily way 800 pages later. The religious implications of divine intervention are accepted far too glibly by the characters and frankly, the apocalyptic disease itself doesn't really leave a particularly apocalyptic landscape behind. In fact, much of the action post-disaster takes place in a kind of Edenic environment that is at odds with the mood the book tries to establish.
And the lovey-dovey dialog between male and female characters is often cringe-inducing, as is the gentle teasing between friends that comes out as cloying and annoying not-very-funny repartee. His female characters are generally annoying, too, but I'll stop there. Piling on King is been done plenty and I have enjoyed other stuff of his (more so the short stories), but this book, along with a recently read story of his from his Gunslinger series, have pretty much finished off my interest in King nearly as much as the 'superflu' finished off the population of Ogunquit, Maine.
The battle between good and evil in this book is mirrored in the battle between good and evil in King's writing. I've read a decent amount of his other stuff and it's always fun but is usually undercut by a persistent corniness evident in a lot of the dialog and a general slackness of imagination. The Stand is no exception, unfortunately, although I had always thought this might be the King book that really brought the thrills.
The whole 'superflu' epidemic that wipes out the population is only tangentially explored and of course the culprit is military experimentation gone horribly awry (see "the Mist" from Skeleton Crew for at least one more example of this). But this epidemic merely serves as the catalyst to the showdown between forces of light and dark, a showdown that unravels in the most unsatisfactorily way 800 pages later. The religious implications of divine intervention are accepted far too glibly by the characters and frankly, the apocalyptic disease itself doesn't really leave a particularly apocalyptic landscape behind. In fact, much of the action post-disaster takes place in a kind of Edenic environment that is at odds with the mood the book tries to establish.
And the lovey-dovey dialog between male and female characters is often cringe-inducing, as is the gentle teasing between friends that comes out as cloying and annoying not-very-funny repartee. His female characters are generally annoying, too, but I'll stop there. Piling on King is been done plenty and I have enjoyed other stuff of his (more so the short stories), but this book, along with a recently read story of his from his Gunslinger series, have pretty much finished off my interest in King nearly as much as the 'superflu' finished off the population of Ogunquit, Maine.
12billiejean
I am about to read this book. Not sure what to think now.
--BJ
--BJ
13chuckzak
9. the Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer
I'm not doing my 50-book goal any favors by reading these 700 page books, but at least this one was good. Realistic (I assume reality was like this back then) and tense soap opera set in the rugged Pacific front of WWII. The epic journey of heroic futility in the book pits impossibly stressed soldiers against everything around them, and it's a pretty visceral read despite the slightly dated feel of some of the dialog.
I'm not doing my 50-book goal any favors by reading these 700 page books, but at least this one was good. Realistic (I assume reality was like this back then) and tense soap opera set in the rugged Pacific front of WWII. The epic journey of heroic futility in the book pits impossibly stressed soldiers against everything around them, and it's a pretty visceral read despite the slightly dated feel of some of the dialog.
14chuckzak
10. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Had a feeling I wasn't going to like this, the old masters of sci-fi don't always deliver and this is one of those duds. Heinlein is more boisterous than his peers and the free-love angle adds an unexpected randiness not always evident in this kind of stuff, but it's still filled with corny dialog and unsatisfying characters. I don't know if the book makes any great case for the libertarian/libertine philosophy espoused by it's central characters (including the flat titular 'martian'). It's colorful and some fun, but also preachy about its dated hippie code in a way, and very, very sexist, too.
It does have a good ending (after an interminable bit of soapboxing), one that is probably better than I appreciated after rushing through the last 50 pages. Some real sour notes too, especially the "rape" line three-quarters in. There's a smugness to it, too, kind of a Libertarian thing I would guess. Very little sci-fi though, mostly just political and religious satirization of a mild variety, set for some reason in a near-future one-world government - which doesn't draw the author's ire as much as one would expect in light of the book's plea for individual freedom. The writing is very humorous, not necessarily amusing, though. Still, it did have some spark - and plenty grok of course.
Had a feeling I wasn't going to like this, the old masters of sci-fi don't always deliver and this is one of those duds. Heinlein is more boisterous than his peers and the free-love angle adds an unexpected randiness not always evident in this kind of stuff, but it's still filled with corny dialog and unsatisfying characters. I don't know if the book makes any great case for the libertarian/libertine philosophy espoused by it's central characters (including the flat titular 'martian'). It's colorful and some fun, but also preachy about its dated hippie code in a way, and very, very sexist, too.
It does have a good ending (after an interminable bit of soapboxing), one that is probably better than I appreciated after rushing through the last 50 pages. Some real sour notes too, especially the "rape" line three-quarters in. There's a smugness to it, too, kind of a Libertarian thing I would guess. Very little sci-fi though, mostly just political and religious satirization of a mild variety, set for some reason in a near-future one-world government - which doesn't draw the author's ire as much as one would expect in light of the book's plea for individual freedom. The writing is very humorous, not necessarily amusing, though. Still, it did have some spark - and plenty grok of course.
15chuckzak
11. A Coffin for Dimitrios - Eric Ambler
A slim 1939 novel of intrigue, crime and mysterious identities following a too-curious American author who gets involved with real life murder and betrayal in Eastern Europe. Good characters and dialog, with sharp writing, a fun read with a dash of pleasantly Byzantine pre-war regional politics; the ending is a bit plain but no big deal, it was a good story nonetheless. Bonus points: my 1943 Pocket Book paperback has great (though uncredited) cover art depicting a shadowy figure peeking over jagged rocks at a pool of water below into which something has just been dropped, all washed in an awesome shade of pea-green that screams vintage cool.
A slim 1939 novel of intrigue, crime and mysterious identities following a too-curious American author who gets involved with real life murder and betrayal in Eastern Europe. Good characters and dialog, with sharp writing, a fun read with a dash of pleasantly Byzantine pre-war regional politics; the ending is a bit plain but no big deal, it was a good story nonetheless. Bonus points: my 1943 Pocket Book paperback has great (though uncredited) cover art depicting a shadowy figure peeking over jagged rocks at a pool of water below into which something has just been dropped, all washed in an awesome shade of pea-green that screams vintage cool.
16chuckzak
12. Crash - J. G. Ballard
Ballard has a knack for setting a mysterious and menacing tone that I enjoyed in books like The Crystal World and Memories of the Space Age and that effectively creeps out the highways that circle the "London airport" where these characters hunt for victims of their strange sexual desires. The story of this group of pitiless fetishists unfolds in a slightly unreal environment with plenty of sex, mucus, and blood but so little identifiably human emotion that it becomes hard to believe in these characters. I'm not sure I'm buying their exploits as some sort of radical new sexuality either, and Ballard tries too hard to convince me, in shocking similes and extensive description of the perverse sex acts.
Sometimes the shock works, though, and the book has more than a few quick descriptions that had me shaking my head in appalled surprise. Though the inhumanity of the characters kept me at a distance, their cold amorality had its own sociopathic allure. Ultimately it left me colder than it should have, but there was still a lot to like. RIP to Ballard who passed away a couple of days ago, probably just as I was rolling my eyes at yet another bizarre fetish of one of the death-obsessed, impossible characters of this book.
Ballard has a knack for setting a mysterious and menacing tone that I enjoyed in books like The Crystal World and Memories of the Space Age and that effectively creeps out the highways that circle the "London airport" where these characters hunt for victims of their strange sexual desires. The story of this group of pitiless fetishists unfolds in a slightly unreal environment with plenty of sex, mucus, and blood but so little identifiably human emotion that it becomes hard to believe in these characters. I'm not sure I'm buying their exploits as some sort of radical new sexuality either, and Ballard tries too hard to convince me, in shocking similes and extensive description of the perverse sex acts.
Sometimes the shock works, though, and the book has more than a few quick descriptions that had me shaking my head in appalled surprise. Though the inhumanity of the characters kept me at a distance, their cold amorality had its own sociopathic allure. Ultimately it left me colder than it should have, but there was still a lot to like. RIP to Ballard who passed away a couple of days ago, probably just as I was rolling my eyes at yet another bizarre fetish of one of the death-obsessed, impossible characters of this book.
17chuckzak
13. Excession - Iain M. Banks
Sci-fi intrigue in a distant future as various human and otherwise characters (including sentient space-ships, lots of them) try to unravel the mystery of an apparently trillion-year old star and it's enigmatic, synthetic satellite. The plot gets a bit hard to follow, with conspiracies and love-affairs and tons of sci-fi jargon and unpronounceable alien names, but the interstellar society Banks' creates is colorful and the drama is compelling enough to carry through the dense plot. Some of it reminded me of Vernor Vinge's two 'deepness' novels, which I thought were overall better on most levels, but the Banks was smart and had its own imaginative spin on what a nearly ideal future for humanity might look like.
Unless I missed something, the mystery of the star itself (as opposed to the artifact) goes completely unaddressed at the story's end. I also thought it was a bit cheap to pull the rug out from under the reader regarding one particular element of the plot, which is set up as a central element and then tossed aside near the very end. This is the first of Banks' "Culture" series I've read; I'm not in any rush to read another, but for a epic space-adventure, even with its flaws, this book holds up pretty well.
Sci-fi intrigue in a distant future as various human and otherwise characters (including sentient space-ships, lots of them) try to unravel the mystery of an apparently trillion-year old star and it's enigmatic, synthetic satellite. The plot gets a bit hard to follow, with conspiracies and love-affairs and tons of sci-fi jargon and unpronounceable alien names, but the interstellar society Banks' creates is colorful and the drama is compelling enough to carry through the dense plot. Some of it reminded me of Vernor Vinge's two 'deepness' novels, which I thought were overall better on most levels, but the Banks was smart and had its own imaginative spin on what a nearly ideal future for humanity might look like.
Unless I missed something, the mystery of the star itself (as opposed to the artifact) goes completely unaddressed at the story's end. I also thought it was a bit cheap to pull the rug out from under the reader regarding one particular element of the plot, which is set up as a central element and then tossed aside near the very end. This is the first of Banks' "Culture" series I've read; I'm not in any rush to read another, but for a epic space-adventure, even with its flaws, this book holds up pretty well.
18chuckzak
14. Glamorama - Bret Easton Ellis
More of the yuppie creepfest that was American Psycho and Lunar Park, this time with a sublimely vacuous model staggering into a strange intrigue with flashes of morbid violence. The hallucinatory brandscape of Victor Ward's unsteady world hides the same brutality in its hyper-manicured environment as those other two books; I'm not sure if this is the only vibe Ellis does, but it is equally unsettling in each of the three, and given a great foil in Victor, who spouts some of the best nonsense ever on his way through a slowly unfolding drama.
I don't know what deep importance is going on in BEE's writing that might be lost on me, but I appreciate his weird horror and his humor, too. This one took a while but it was worth it.
More of the yuppie creepfest that was American Psycho and Lunar Park, this time with a sublimely vacuous model staggering into a strange intrigue with flashes of morbid violence. The hallucinatory brandscape of Victor Ward's unsteady world hides the same brutality in its hyper-manicured environment as those other two books; I'm not sure if this is the only vibe Ellis does, but it is equally unsettling in each of the three, and given a great foil in Victor, who spouts some of the best nonsense ever on his way through a slowly unfolding drama.
I don't know what deep importance is going on in BEE's writing that might be lost on me, but I appreciate his weird horror and his humor, too. This one took a while but it was worth it.
20chuckzak
16. The Tenant - Roland Topor
22rocketjk
#9> I agree about The Naked and the Dead. A gripping read. I remember reading somewhere that Mailer enlisted to fight in World War II because he knew he wanted to be a novelist and he knew he wanted his first novel to be about the war. Don't know if that's true, though. But as a first novel, this book is pretty astounding.
#10> I liked Stranger in a Strange Land when I read it in college, but my guess is that I would share your sentiments is I were to read it now. I never did like anything Heinlein wrote after this one, although I'd been a fierce devotee of everything prior.
#11> This the cover? I just bought this exact edition last week at a garage sale!
#12> Excellent review!
#10> I liked Stranger in a Strange Land when I read it in college, but my guess is that I would share your sentiments is I were to read it now. I never did like anything Heinlein wrote after this one, although I'd been a fierce devotee of everything prior.
#11> This the cover? I just bought this exact edition last week at a garage sale!
#12> Excellent review!
23chuckzak
Hey, JK, thanks for the feedback.
Yes that is the cover, i love that cover. In fact, paperback covers make up some of my favorite pieces of 'art' or whatever it's fair to call them.
Yes that is the cover, i love that cover. In fact, paperback covers make up some of my favorite pieces of 'art' or whatever it's fair to call them.
25chuckzak
18. Claudius the God - Robert Graves
I, Claudius and this book are the greatest additions to the ancient histories of Tacitus and Suetonius, at least until we hopefully - someday - discover the lost chapters of Tacitus' history of the early emperors. Wouldn't that be a great day? This is fiction, of course, but presented in similar, matter-of-fact style and filled with the same barrage of murderous intrigue and tyranny. What percentage of this is fact, I am not sure, though I imagine quite a lot of it is. But it's overall "factiness" just adds to the fascination of the story. How did they do it, those crazy Romans?
As sympathetic as Claudius is, he is a product of the barbarity of his age as well, but it's a fascinating barbarity that coexists with complex bureaucracies and philosophies untainted by the intervening era of Christianity. Ultimately, it's a tragedy for the uniquely brave Emperor, God or not, especially knowing what was to follow. Great read, though, and very entertaining, informative and bloody soap opera.
I, Claudius and this book are the greatest additions to the ancient histories of Tacitus and Suetonius, at least until we hopefully - someday - discover the lost chapters of Tacitus' history of the early emperors. Wouldn't that be a great day? This is fiction, of course, but presented in similar, matter-of-fact style and filled with the same barrage of murderous intrigue and tyranny. What percentage of this is fact, I am not sure, though I imagine quite a lot of it is. But it's overall "factiness" just adds to the fascination of the story. How did they do it, those crazy Romans?
As sympathetic as Claudius is, he is a product of the barbarity of his age as well, but it's a fascinating barbarity that coexists with complex bureaucracies and philosophies untainted by the intervening era of Christianity. Ultimately, it's a tragedy for the uniquely brave Emperor, God or not, especially knowing what was to follow. Great read, though, and very entertaining, informative and bloody soap opera.
26chuckzak
19. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
Meta weirdness that uses frame-within-frame narrative and textual trickery to to explore various estrangements through an eerie central story that was for me, the most interesting part.
That story, of a exurban house that baffles its new owners by containing an implied infinity of barren corridors, rooms and gargantuan staircases, is almost too Borgesian in its central metaphor and in its academic treatment by the enigmatic-ish Zampano, author of the fictitious writings that reveal this story. How this mirrors the outer narrative, told through rambling footnotes, of a rootless punk-tramp tattoo shop employee with his own tragic history, is not yet clear to me but I didn't mind the confusion. Enough of the desolation of those endless empty halls and cavernous rooms infused the entire book, so that resolving the three narratives isn't necessary, nor is determining the intent of the gimmicky stuff like mirrored text and fractured page layout. By the end of the book, points had been made about alienation and loneliness one way or another, against the backdrop of a narrative that threatens to dissolve like the various items left too long in the labyrinth of the innocent looking Virginia home; the cold otherness implied by that impossible house is balanced out by the slowly emerging story of familial regret, as are the aforementioned meta-weirdnesses.
Tough to read with a booklight, but well worth the effort.
ps. I read the generous review by Bret Easton Ellis on the inside cover of HOL and had to wonder ruefully how good this book would have been if he had written it.
Meta weirdness that uses frame-within-frame narrative and textual trickery to to explore various estrangements through an eerie central story that was for me, the most interesting part.
That story, of a exurban house that baffles its new owners by containing an implied infinity of barren corridors, rooms and gargantuan staircases, is almost too Borgesian in its central metaphor and in its academic treatment by the enigmatic-ish Zampano, author of the fictitious writings that reveal this story. How this mirrors the outer narrative, told through rambling footnotes, of a rootless punk-tramp tattoo shop employee with his own tragic history, is not yet clear to me but I didn't mind the confusion. Enough of the desolation of those endless empty halls and cavernous rooms infused the entire book, so that resolving the three narratives isn't necessary, nor is determining the intent of the gimmicky stuff like mirrored text and fractured page layout. By the end of the book, points had been made about alienation and loneliness one way or another, against the backdrop of a narrative that threatens to dissolve like the various items left too long in the labyrinth of the innocent looking Virginia home; the cold otherness implied by that impossible house is balanced out by the slowly emerging story of familial regret, as are the aforementioned meta-weirdnesses.
Tough to read with a booklight, but well worth the effort.
ps. I read the generous review by Bret Easton Ellis on the inside cover of HOL and had to wonder ruefully how good this book would have been if he had written it.
27chuckzak
20. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
The violence and lyricism of this western proved pretty effective I'd say, The violence is delivered by black-hearted cowboys and indians on a bloody trail across the southwest and thereabouts, beautifully described as are the immense spaces these sociopaths drag themselves through, in agonies of pain, bloodlust and extreme cruelty. The power of the language, even in its stylization, forces you to consider the mighty wills of such driven men, even as their atrocities repel.
The job of rationalizing all this beautifully-rendered inhumanity falls to 'the judge': huge, perfectly hairless, and embroiled in his own war with creation, which he seeks to subdue with guile, violence and a bit of Darwinesque specimen-collecting and journal-keeping - except the judge is more likely to chuck whatever specimen he's collected into a river to drown.
His rationale for the murderous cowboy band's behavior and for his own quietly tyrannical desires lie in some artful digressions on war and morality in general, but mostly it's reflected in his bald declaration that "whatever exists in creation without my knowledge, exists without my consent." In a country where law is nonexistent and weaponry readily available, such a man would be counterable only by an equal will and his bloody philosophy would be ultimately irrefutable.
The judge is the only character who bothers to place his will in such context, but the wonder is partly at what is unspoken in the wrathfulness of the others. They may lack the judge's erudition, but not his drive. Whether the brutality is an honest reflection of most men at that or any other time is for you to decide, but the lingering fascination comes from the characters' moral remoteness and from the cold rationality that lies behind it all. They are too cunning to be insane and too cruel to be withstood, and their kind probably isn't so uncommon as we'd like to think.
The violence and lyricism of this western proved pretty effective I'd say, The violence is delivered by black-hearted cowboys and indians on a bloody trail across the southwest and thereabouts, beautifully described as are the immense spaces these sociopaths drag themselves through, in agonies of pain, bloodlust and extreme cruelty. The power of the language, even in its stylization, forces you to consider the mighty wills of such driven men, even as their atrocities repel.
The job of rationalizing all this beautifully-rendered inhumanity falls to 'the judge': huge, perfectly hairless, and embroiled in his own war with creation, which he seeks to subdue with guile, violence and a bit of Darwinesque specimen-collecting and journal-keeping - except the judge is more likely to chuck whatever specimen he's collected into a river to drown.
His rationale for the murderous cowboy band's behavior and for his own quietly tyrannical desires lie in some artful digressions on war and morality in general, but mostly it's reflected in his bald declaration that "whatever exists in creation without my knowledge, exists without my consent." In a country where law is nonexistent and weaponry readily available, such a man would be counterable only by an equal will and his bloody philosophy would be ultimately irrefutable.
The judge is the only character who bothers to place his will in such context, but the wonder is partly at what is unspoken in the wrathfulness of the others. They may lack the judge's erudition, but not his drive. Whether the brutality is an honest reflection of most men at that or any other time is for you to decide, but the lingering fascination comes from the characters' moral remoteness and from the cold rationality that lies behind it all. They are too cunning to be insane and too cruel to be withstood, and their kind probably isn't so uncommon as we'd like to think.
29chuckzak
I'm going to post a bunch of books I've been reading for some classes I'm taking. These aren't textbooks, and I did finish, comprehend and enjoy them so they count.
37chuckzak
29. Changes in the Land - William Cronon
More interesting than would've thought study of environmental effects of colonization in New England.
More interesting than would've thought study of environmental effects of colonization in New England.
38jintster
Nice reviews Chuckzak. I found Blood Meridian a very difficult book to read - I admired it but didn't enjoy it. I can't think of many novels which fall into that category.
What did you think of the ending of Claudius the God, where he is judged? It seemed to me that Graves was highlighting the subjectivity of Claudius' account of his reign and undermining his own history, but it's been years since I read it so woudl be interested in what you think.
What did you think of the ending of Claudius the God, where he is judged? It seemed to me that Graves was highlighting the subjectivity of Claudius' account of his reign and undermining his own history, but it's been years since I read it so woudl be interested in what you think.
