I’ve been reading a lot of “best of 2012” book lists so far this month, and sadly, I don’t believe I’ve read a single book on these lists. I don’t seem to see movies when they’re still in theaters, and similarly, I guess I turn back to my want-to-read lists, rather than the Just Released tables, when I’m picking up new books. The only 2012 book I’ve read is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
It’s kind of late in the year to be sharing my review on the book, as it seems so many people have been buying and reading it, according to the top sellers lists. And to be honest, I’m probably going to say a couple of things here that will sound so super snobby that you’ll be apt to dislike me right off the bat, but I’ll share it all anyway.
Snob alert: I don’t often read the books that are bestsellers. I am not sure that’s necessarily a conscious effort, it’s just that my head tends to be in other things … or the things that interest my particular head don’t interest others in a way that connects to bestsellers. Gone Girl is the perfect example of a book that does make that connection.
I like the creepy, I like psychological studies, I like a mystery, I like the sudden twist that takes everything off the rails. Gone Girl has all of this. It has the bonus of having two first-person narrators so you get into two different heads, see the psychological workings of two people. As in many stories, the main event has already happened, and from one voice we are getting the story of what leads up to that event, and from the other we’re seeing the aftermath, people trying to unravel exactly what happened.
I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story at first, and I’m not sure if it’s because the Gone Girl herself and I share a first name … and who wants to be reminded that something bad happened to [insert your name here]? Or if it’s because I was simultaneously reading and much deeper into Summer of Night, by Dan Simmons—a completely different atmosphere and characters who were historically a time apart and so utterly naïve, despite the terrors they were experiencing as children.
Enough about me: will you like the story? Do you “hate all men”? Do you “hate” the way women act? Have you had to work at your marriage? Are you fed up with being a “cool girl” or you’re just tired of seeing friends fake being “cool girls”? How do you feel about TV personalities like Nancy Grace and television news coverage of missing wives and the scrutiny their husbands undergo?
It doesn’t really matter if you answer yes or no, love ‘em or hate ‘em to those questions. Those feelings, in yourself or what you see in others, will come in to play in this story. You’ll find something to identify with no matter how crazy things seem. And if you like a good mystery, all the better.
Like any good story, and as in Flynn’s earlier books, you know that what seems to be the obvious answer probably isn’t the answer at all. It’s not that easy. But (snob alert) in Flynn’s earlier books, Dark Places and Sharp Objects, I figured out what was going on in pretty short order, and it did slightly dampen my overall enjoyment of the read. In my opinion, there was a pretty sharp tell in Sharp Objects.
Don’t get me wrong, I l-o-v-e Flynn as a writer (I even marked the release date on my calendar and bought Gone Girl the first day it was out, while on vacation, even if I didn’t read it for a couple of months). I was sure I’d figured out the twist in Gone Girl … but I was so very, very wrong. And the kicker is, what was really going on was so much more gratifying that what I imagined.
I’m not going to go into any spoilers, but as a person who likes creepy and psychological, this book has it in spades. I am so happy to see Flynn in a bestseller position, and to see other folks I admire give her honors as well (see Brad Meltzer’s tweet in September: https://twitter.com/bradmeltzer Dear GONE GIRL, Thanks for living up to the hype. #blownaway). Having read her third effort, I’d say she is a writer coming into her own, refining her craft, and taking us on one of the most unnerving journeys you can imagine. I hope she continues, because I’m ready for the next freaky adventure.
Did you NaNoWriMo*? If so, then for about three days, you’ve had 50,000 words, give or take, of your novel to be. Congrats, and how do you feel?
If not, what held you back?
Maybe you’re not a writer, maybe you don’t buy into the concept, maybe you find November to be a terrible month to sequester yourself and write.
Me? I did my “own” NaNoWriMo in January 2012. I call it “my own” because I did it “off season,” so to speak. Doing NaNoWriMo was one of my resolutions for 2012 (I was disappointed I hadn’t tried that past November), and I was motivated to check that resolution off the list early.
January is a great month to shut yourself in and write, especially when you live in a wintry town like Pittsburgh: it’s cold, it gets dark early, and you’ve spent yourself silly with the holidays and don’t really feel like spending any more.
That experience with NaNoWriMo was a breeze, I thought. I had no problem getting those 1,667 words down each day. At first. And then I entered the “I don’t care anymore” phase and didn’t write for about a week. Then I sat back down in the chair and I met my word count by the end of the month.
In the end, I had what would pass for a novella. It had a story arc, it had characters and setting and dialogue and something a little weird going on that I could appreciate.
But I never want another living soul to see it.
Truth be told, I haven’t even been able to bring myself to reread it, to work with it. I truly embraced the “first drafts are crap” school of thought to keep myself going. And boy is it ever. I told my husband that, if anything should happen to me, he is to burn it. I couldn’t bear to think that anyone who knew I’d ever considered writing might think that was my lifelong story just waiting to break out.
I started off thinking I was writing one story, morphed into another, and let the story take me on its ride, just like the NaNoWriMo reading I’d done said it would. It was fun; it was also hell, and what I have to show for it I’m not even sure, but I did it.
So cut to November 2012 and the official NaNoWriMo month. I could only remember the bad of the first attempt—the mental blocks, the trudging, the making myself do it when I wanted to do something else. But this time I had a story in mind, so I was going to join in and enjoy the community aspect of NaNoWriMo—all the online posts and tips publishing sites offer during the month. I even registered on the website, and for two whole days I logged in my word counts.
And I never got any farther.
It was harder this time somehow. It took me much longer to write the required 1,667 words. And I liked the protagonist I was working with, and the setting, and the premise. I knew where it was going, but still, I walked away and never felt a moment’s regret.
So that was my NaNoWriMo experience for the year. What was yours? Did you do it? What pushed you on? Did you just think about it? What stopped you?
*National Novel Writing Month, if you don’t already know.
Do you listen to audio books? I know some people r
eally look down on the format, and actually, I never even used to give books on CD a thought. They just didn’t fill a need in my world.
That is, until the traffic on my commute really started to get to me. I started to realize that I was able to gauge how long it took me to creep, creep, creep along based on the average length of a song. And re-listening to the Howard Stern Show on the drive home, well, I was able to zone out and focus all my frustration on the drivers in front of me.
I turned to audio books as a means of distraction from all the irritating drivers around me around me (I’m not an irritating driver, I’m sure of it, no really…well maybe) as well as from the voices in my head reminding me what a massive waste of time it was to sit in traffic so much every day.
When I started listening, I wasn’t even sure I could include them in the “Books I’ve Read” list I keep every year. I mean, I didn’t actually read this book; someone read it to me. A friend reminded me that you’re still putting time into the book and you are still walking away with the knowledge. That put my mind at ease.
And I have to say, I’ve gotten a lot out of my drive-time books that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. I buy them used, so I have dollar limits I’m willing to spend, and that opens me up to authors I otherwise might have ignored.
I’m embarrassed to say Philip Roth is one of those authors. My husband had bought a copy of I Married a Communist when it first came out, but it sat on our shelves unread all those years. When I saw the audio version on a used shelf, I gave it a chance … and I fell in love.
I was captivated … by his words, by the story, by the settings, by the characters, young and old … it felt like a masterpiece. I felt like others around me on the commute might look over and see a wide-eyed girl, leaning forward expectantly, as though she were watching a film and not listening to words coming through the speakers. I was in his world.
And I was so happy to know we had the book in print too (why that matters is another story in itself).
I followed that up with Indignation, which sideswiped me in its jump from a normal memoir to a somewhat unearthly memoir, so to speak. I like to be sideswiped in a book.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten in my Roth reading, and now the word is out that he is retiring. And it saddens me. Perhaps because I know he’s a living man that seems to just be stopping … how can a writer stop writing? Perhaps because this means that there will be nothing new to come. And still, I have such a broad back catalog of his to explore (31 books!) that I shouldn’t be worried. But to know that that catalog now is finite (only 31 books!) is making me feel a loss.
Still, I have another Roth audio book in my car waiting its turn, so just another 28 books to go. (Just another 28 books to go?!)
Books are the love of my life, the air that I breathe, but music is my religion. Which is why this past Wednesday, I had to ask myself, “Which is more awesome? The time I saw PiL and the New York Dolls a month apart? Or the time I saw John Connolly and Neil Gaiman a month apart?” This question was posed while sitting in the audience at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, waiting for Neil Gaiman to take the stage. By the end of the evening, I had my answer. Books win every time.
John Connolly is known mainly for his series of crime fiction centered around his character Charlie Parker. He first blipped onto my radar, however, through his novel The Book of Lost Things. Easily one of my favorite books, The Book of Lost Things is a dash of Labyrinth, a hint of Alice in Wonderland and a swirl of fairy tales all mixed together and told with a dark slant that left me scared to be home alone during a thunderstorm. I remember reading the end of the first chapter and gasping out loud, knowing then and there that I was going to love this book. And I did. So much so, that I made several of my friends read it and it was my pick for the book club I was in at work.
About a year after I first read The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly came out with The Gates, a book, geared toward kids, about a young boy who fights demons that have escaped from Hell through a portal that was accidentally opened by the Large Hadron Collider. There is so much in that sentence that I love that when I found out John Connolly was going to be in Pittsburgh for a book signing, there was no question of going.
Armed with my two best Amys we went and heard John speak and then somehow got it into our heads that we should ask him to join us for a drink. He graciously accepted, and it turned into one of the best nights. (Considering that when we saw PiL months later we all agreed, “That was almost as awesome as having drinks with John Connolly,” my earlier question should have been more easily answered.)
Recently John has co-edited Books to Die For with Declan Burke, which brought him back to Pittsburgh for another book signing, this time at Mystery Lover’s Bookshop in Oakmont. I dragged along a friend whom I recently turned into a fan, fully certain that John would not remember me. In fact, I debated bringing up the last time he was in town and decided against it, assuming I would only end up embarrassing myself. Not only did he remember me, but he recognized me and invited me out for a drink again that night.
And that right there is the essence of John Connolly. He is incredibly humble, generous, and gracious. His books have given me nightmares, but I’ve never met a person so warm and friendly and just so genuinely nice. His books alone are reason enough to be a fan, but having met him and hung out with him, I’d read the back of a cereal box if he wrote it, just to show my support.
A month after hanging out with John Connolly for the second time, I found myself in a theater full of book nerds, listening to Neil Gaiman as he read first from Stardust (it happened to be the 15-year anniversary of it being published) and then from his not-yet-released novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
I like Neil Gaiman, but I don’t know that I’d categorize myself as a fan. I’m certainly not as die-hard as the majority of the audience there that night. Up to this point I’ve only read Coraline, American Gods, and Good Omens. I liked Coraline, loved Good Omens, and if I’m being honest, I wasn’t that impressed with American Gods.
I think Neil Gaiman as a person is charming, witty, and funny, and listening to him speak for an hour was a lovely way to spend an evening. His reading from Stardust convinced me to buy it the next day. And much like The Book of Lost Things, when he finished reading the excerpt of his new book, I gasped out loud.
Seeing Neil live certainly endeared him to me, from his telling of the backstory of Stardust to the fact that he writes his first drafts by hand in pen to the French accent he would occasionally slip into, I left there feeling like I had been turned into a fan.
And lest my earlier comparison of books and music go to waste, I feel the need to mention that Neil is married to Amanda Palmer, former lead singer of The Dresden Dolls, and John Connolly has an Internet radio show called ABC to XTC, in which he plays music from my favorite time in music history. There’s something to that, authors with rock star souls.
I was about 10 years old when the fatwa was placed on Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. I remember hearing about it and not quite grasping what was going on. I think at that point in my life I didn’t even realize there were religions other than Christianity and Judaism. I’m pretty sure I just heard “The Satanic Verses” and assumed some man wrote a book about devil worship and made a lot of people mad.
Joseph Anton was the first Salman Rushdie book I’ve read. As I got older, I understood the fatwa and his situation a little better, and I’d see his books on the shelf in the bookstore and think I should read one, but I never did. Honestly, I was intimidated. I think I believed he was too highbrow and intellectual for me. Anyone who could write something so powerful that his life was threatened because of it had to be out my league.
The synopsis of Joseph Anton is fairly simple and straightforward. Salman Rushdie tells what his life was like during the years when he was under police protection due to the fatwa. He tells the story in the third person, which I think helps keep the whole thing form becoming too “Woe is me!” It’s well written and while nonfiction runs the risk of being dry, that isn’t the case here.
My favorite thing about the book is the fact that it took me two weeks to read it. I know that sounds inane, but I’m a fast reader. Most books usually take me a week or less to finish and that’s only because work and life get in the way and keep me from reading continuously. Occasionally there’s a book that takes me a bit longer because it’s unbelievably tedious and boring and I find it hard to want to get back to it.
Not so with Joseph Anton. I read it on the bus to and from work, on my lunch break, at home before I’d go to bed. And when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it, anxious to get back. Mr. Rushdie’s talent as a writer and the story itself are compelling. But more than that, it gives you a lot to think about. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, a man’s freedom to live his life the way he chooses, in spite of a threat to his life. It also deals with friendship and love and family.
But what really struck me—the part that has stayed with me and I’m still trying to wrap my mind around—is the power of books. Salman Rushdie is not a political leader. He’s not a president or a prime minister or government official. He’s a novelist. He’s a man who wrote a book, a work of fiction, and it not only changed his life completely, but it also changed the lives of others as well as the whole world. A story that he created in his mind nearly cost him his life. Other people did die as a result of it. That’s a powerful thing.
I’m a person who loves books, who has lived her life around them, and even I struggle with the idea that a simple book, a story, could have that much impact on the world. It’s something that simultaneously scares me and fills me with hope.
I choose to focus more on the hope. I think that ultimately is the message of Joseph Anton. In spite of the anger and the violence of this world, there will always be hope.