This critique may spoil a plot point. Read on at your own caution.
I finished reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and was not happy with the ending. The book went from a possible 'A' grade to a 'C' pretty quickly. I don't want to give away the ending so I'll be vague about it, but I think there should have been more consequences to the actions in the first half of the book. I think the mother's actions were too heroic and perfect. I think the narrator's reactions to his mother were out of character since he was set up as a logical thinker. He understood how most violent crimes are committed by someone known to the victim; using that logic he should have been afraid of his mother because he should have understood violence escalates. The hint at his mother's violence is a passing reference in the beginning of the book, but it's there nonetheless.
Too happy of an ending for a book that should have been about consequences. 'C.'
If you ever read this book you'll be saying I give away an important plot detail in this critique. It was spoiled for me just reading the summary from the publisher.
*******EVEN BIGGER SPOILER ALERT*******
The father tells the child his mother is dead. Since the summary I read says the narrator discovers his parents' broken marriage (the one I read actually says they 'are getting divorced') I knew as soon as I read about how his mother had died that his father had lied to him. I spent even the first half of the novel waiting for the narrator to discover the truth about it and it took all of the surprise out of the big reveal for me.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Curious
Right now I'm reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and it was my favorite book so far this year until last night. Last night I realized I don't sympathize anymore with the protagonist/narrator. You see, the narrator has autism and everything is told through his perspective which is interesting and that wasn't a problem until halfway through the book when something big was revealed.
And what I realized is I didn't feel the same about his situation as he feels. After two major revelations from his father, which were scary and horrible and all, the narrator becomes afraid of his father. And while a part of me completely understands, there is also a part of me that doesn't feel the same because I don't feel his father would ever really hurt him. He could in all plausible honesty, but I don't really feel the same fear that he would as the narrator.
The other problem - and I know this is going to sound really, really horrible - is that I don't feel like the narrator feels love. I don't feel a sense of loss other than a loss of feeling safe. I don't feel like he's being pulled between a fear of what his father is capable of and a sense of the father he's losing. I feel like he's losing a longtime roommate and not a father, and I feel like his father feels like he's losing his son. I know that the book is being true to the logical way autistic children approach life and I'm sure there is love underlying that logic but I don't feel it and so I'm only reading to see how the book concludes and not because I care what happens to the narrator. I feel at this point like no matter what happens I won't really care and I'm not rooting for a certain outcome. That's a problem because a lot of people would have put this book down by this point, I think.
I like the approach of giving a voice to autistic children and trying to understand how they navigate the world. But - but - it's really hard, and we've talked about this before, to read a whole novel where the main character isn't someone you can sympathize with. It's hard to explain because the things that happened in the part of the story I read last night are horrible and I do sympathize with his situation but (I'm a bad person) I just don't sympathize with him. He exhibits signs of loss, like when he vomits after one thing is revealed or screams after the second is revealed, but he's disconnected from those feelings and in fiction this causes me to be disconnected from them, too. If more than one person reads this blog, and I doubt it and that one person is probably going to be appalled at my reaction, but if more than one person reads this I'll probably get many angry comments about being unsympathetic to a person with a disability. But I can't help feeling frustrated.
Maybe that's the point. I'm sure often with autistic children the people around them become frustrated with the lack of emotion or the quirks or what seem like sudden outbursts. Maybe I'm meant to come out of this with more patience because I'll have learned something about how different minds think about or handle situations. And I will, and I feel like I have learned. But that doesn't make the story any more compelling. I think I'll really feel bad if more horrible things happen (I will feel bad) because he's just a kid no matter how detatched he seems to be from his emotions. But (sighhhhh) I think this could be any character and I would feel bad for him. Giving him autism wasn't enough to make him compelling.
I remember once in workshop a fellow student wrote about a character who had a stutter, and our professor asked what made this character special beyond having a stutter. And none of us could answer, because if we took away the stutter the character was bland and uninteresting. The narrator in Curious Incident is a little more fleshed out and just a tad more real but still not gripping.
Maybe I'll read the next page and all this will change. I don't know. I'm jumping the gun a little here, I do know that, but I just wanted to get out how I felt. I'll have a full report sometime this weekend.
And what I realized is I didn't feel the same about his situation as he feels. After two major revelations from his father, which were scary and horrible and all, the narrator becomes afraid of his father. And while a part of me completely understands, there is also a part of me that doesn't feel the same because I don't feel his father would ever really hurt him. He could in all plausible honesty, but I don't really feel the same fear that he would as the narrator.
The other problem - and I know this is going to sound really, really horrible - is that I don't feel like the narrator feels love. I don't feel a sense of loss other than a loss of feeling safe. I don't feel like he's being pulled between a fear of what his father is capable of and a sense of the father he's losing. I feel like he's losing a longtime roommate and not a father, and I feel like his father feels like he's losing his son. I know that the book is being true to the logical way autistic children approach life and I'm sure there is love underlying that logic but I don't feel it and so I'm only reading to see how the book concludes and not because I care what happens to the narrator. I feel at this point like no matter what happens I won't really care and I'm not rooting for a certain outcome. That's a problem because a lot of people would have put this book down by this point, I think.
I like the approach of giving a voice to autistic children and trying to understand how they navigate the world. But - but - it's really hard, and we've talked about this before, to read a whole novel where the main character isn't someone you can sympathize with. It's hard to explain because the things that happened in the part of the story I read last night are horrible and I do sympathize with his situation but (I'm a bad person) I just don't sympathize with him. He exhibits signs of loss, like when he vomits after one thing is revealed or screams after the second is revealed, but he's disconnected from those feelings and in fiction this causes me to be disconnected from them, too. If more than one person reads this blog, and I doubt it and that one person is probably going to be appalled at my reaction, but if more than one person reads this I'll probably get many angry comments about being unsympathetic to a person with a disability. But I can't help feeling frustrated.
Maybe that's the point. I'm sure often with autistic children the people around them become frustrated with the lack of emotion or the quirks or what seem like sudden outbursts. Maybe I'm meant to come out of this with more patience because I'll have learned something about how different minds think about or handle situations. And I will, and I feel like I have learned. But that doesn't make the story any more compelling. I think I'll really feel bad if more horrible things happen (I will feel bad) because he's just a kid no matter how detatched he seems to be from his emotions. But (sighhhhh) I think this could be any character and I would feel bad for him. Giving him autism wasn't enough to make him compelling.
I remember once in workshop a fellow student wrote about a character who had a stutter, and our professor asked what made this character special beyond having a stutter. And none of us could answer, because if we took away the stutter the character was bland and uninteresting. The narrator in Curious Incident is a little more fleshed out and just a tad more real but still not gripping.
Maybe I'll read the next page and all this will change. I don't know. I'm jumping the gun a little here, I do know that, but I just wanted to get out how I felt. I'll have a full report sometime this weekend.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Two Books
1) Understanding Comcis by Scott McCloud. I would give this book a B. There was a part of me that was put off by the fact it was written as a comic book, and I don't know why but maybe because it made it feel choppy and underdevolped. But I really liked some of the things I learned, like "closure" and how the readers of any book fill in gaps between panels (for comic books) or paragraphs or sections or chapters. I like leaps of logic, remember, and McCloud makes the argument that comic book creators must, by simple definition of time and space and the juxtaposition of words and visual art, expect their readers to be able to make leaps and bounds. I really liked how McCloud made me feel like he knew he didn't need to talk down to his audience and he could expect a certain level of intelligence out of it.
2) The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein. Eh. It was good. It was interesting. It was reminscent of the original and of writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It had an older world feel to it. I liked how it reminded me how spooky something only hinted at can be, as opposed to full out monster descriptions dripping with blood and guts. It reminded me of why I find Stephen King's vampire stories so bland and his more subtle stories, like That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French, haunt me long afterwards. It's why I'm scared shitless by video games like Silent Hill but not scared in any way shape or form by games like Resident Evil. Anyway, back to Frankenstein. Eh. High C. I was turned off by all the politics. And I kept wanting to pronounce Frank-en-stine as Fraunk-en-steen. Love that movie.
2) The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein. Eh. It was good. It was interesting. It was reminscent of the original and of writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It had an older world feel to it. I liked how it reminded me how spooky something only hinted at can be, as opposed to full out monster descriptions dripping with blood and guts. It reminded me of why I find Stephen King's vampire stories so bland and his more subtle stories, like That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French, haunt me long afterwards. It's why I'm scared shitless by video games like Silent Hill but not scared in any way shape or form by games like Resident Evil. Anyway, back to Frankenstein. Eh. High C. I was turned off by all the politics. And I kept wanting to pronounce Frank-en-stine as Fraunk-en-steen. Love that movie.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Three Books
A) The Green Child by Herbert Read. High 'C'. It was poetic and interesting enough but not quite a page turner. Worthy enough of my time.
B) Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac. Ugh, low 'C'. It's something about literature written during that time period (the 1800s, I think). The book was soooo long and I just didn't care about anyone in it. I also felt, pardon the pun, lost for a good deal of the story. It was something like $.89 on the Kindle, though, so not much was lost.
C) Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. 'A-'. I loved it. Unlike The Magic Mountain, this story involved philosophy in small chunks, with accompanying scenes where said philosophy applied, and was written poetically, and followed generations of a family, which is one of my favorite kinds of stories. I was really excited by this as my first read of the new year. It and Lost Illusions were really long, but this week's are really short, so I feel it is being balanced well. Angel was a library book, so I'll have to purchase a copy of my own for my bookshelf.
And yes, I mean a paper copy. There's still something about possessing a material copy of the books we love that isn't going to die.
B) Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac. Ugh, low 'C'. It's something about literature written during that time period (the 1800s, I think). The book was soooo long and I just didn't care about anyone in it. I also felt, pardon the pun, lost for a good deal of the story. It was something like $.89 on the Kindle, though, so not much was lost.
C) Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. 'A-'. I loved it. Unlike The Magic Mountain, this story involved philosophy in small chunks, with accompanying scenes where said philosophy applied, and was written poetically, and followed generations of a family, which is one of my favorite kinds of stories. I was really excited by this as my first read of the new year. It and Lost Illusions were really long, but this week's are really short, so I feel it is being balanced well. Angel was a library book, so I'll have to purchase a copy of my own for my bookshelf.
And yes, I mean a paper copy. There's still something about possessing a material copy of the books we love that isn't going to die.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Magic Mountain
I'm done!
Okay, whew, that was a duesey. I'm not even going to pretend - it was a bit of a rough go. I'm not disputing Thomas Mann deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature or anything, but as with most books written by Nobel-winning authors, The Magic Mountain is so long and so dense with philosophy I can't remember a good deal of it. It's hands-down beautiful, and the details in it are insanely precise, and Mann must have been a genius with knowledge to beat the band, but I just can't do it. I can't follow along with an academic debate disguised as a story. Me little brain.
However - HOWEVER - I began reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel today and after the first page - the first page mind you - I almost orgasmed. Holy shit. It bears repeating: holy shit. Page one and I could tell Wolfe is everything I've ever wanted to be as a writer. And he's philosophical. But let me explain how his philosophy differs from Mann's.
Wolfe is poetic. He isn't trying to cram grandiose ideas down my throat. He's trying to create an image that will make me - yes ME - think. And immediately, I do. I get the image and what it means, and - AND - associate it with ideas I've read/heard/had before. ORGASMIC. I had to stop reading at work because I thought I was going to bawl with happiness.
Needless to say....
So I won't. Hate that phrase.
What grade to give The Magic Mountain? Back to some incessant Tony Doerr speak: Tony was always impressed with my "meticulous attention to details." I've held onto that like you wouldn't believe. I believe it's one of my greatest strengths. Mann made (ha!) me ashamed of myself with his attention to said details. Good lord - there isn't as much knowledge in my entire head as he poured into this book. But was it lost in all of the vast proselytizing ($3 word)? Yes. And no. But mostly yes. I wish I fully understood what Mann was trying to tell me - yes ME - but I don't. I'm okay with that, I don't need to fully understand everything in the universe. I just need to enjoy the universe while I'm in it. Did I? Eh. 79.5%. I'll round up, you know, since the kid won the Nobel Prize. Very low B-.
Okay, whew, that was a duesey. I'm not even going to pretend - it was a bit of a rough go. I'm not disputing Thomas Mann deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature or anything, but as with most books written by Nobel-winning authors, The Magic Mountain is so long and so dense with philosophy I can't remember a good deal of it. It's hands-down beautiful, and the details in it are insanely precise, and Mann must have been a genius with knowledge to beat the band, but I just can't do it. I can't follow along with an academic debate disguised as a story. Me little brain.
However - HOWEVER - I began reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel today and after the first page - the first page mind you - I almost orgasmed. Holy shit. It bears repeating: holy shit. Page one and I could tell Wolfe is everything I've ever wanted to be as a writer. And he's philosophical. But let me explain how his philosophy differs from Mann's.
Wolfe is poetic. He isn't trying to cram grandiose ideas down my throat. He's trying to create an image that will make me - yes ME - think. And immediately, I do. I get the image and what it means, and - AND - associate it with ideas I've read/heard/had before. ORGASMIC. I had to stop reading at work because I thought I was going to bawl with happiness.
Needless to say....
So I won't. Hate that phrase.
What grade to give The Magic Mountain? Back to some incessant Tony Doerr speak: Tony was always impressed with my "meticulous attention to details." I've held onto that like you wouldn't believe. I believe it's one of my greatest strengths. Mann made (ha!) me ashamed of myself with his attention to said details. Good lord - there isn't as much knowledge in my entire head as he poured into this book. But was it lost in all of the vast proselytizing ($3 word)? Yes. And no. But mostly yes. I wish I fully understood what Mann was trying to tell me - yes ME - but I don't. I'm okay with that, I don't need to fully understand everything in the universe. I just need to enjoy the universe while I'm in it. Did I? Eh. 79.5%. I'll round up, you know, since the kid won the Nobel Prize. Very low B-.
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