Turtle Power

First things, first: I finished the book.

While reading the last quarter of the book, I couldn’t help but notice that turtle-like, elbow talking aliens played a, shall we say, featured role. And maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was a sort of unwritten rule of this blog that when turtles (or metaphysical turtle-like beings) play a featured role are we not at least marginally obligated to make at least a passing reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

I was waiting for you to say something like:

Jon: Boy, didn’t you think E’nememen Asfah was a literary antecedent to TMNT’s Raphael?
Justin: Please, E’nememen Asfah had the whimsicality of Michaelangelo, while demonstrating the pragmaticism of Donatello, and the deep spirituality of Splinter.
Jon: Splinter wasn’t a turtle, he was a rat.
Justin: Cowabunga!

Well, I couldn’t help but notice that your last few posts had failed make any mention at all to everyone’s favorite heros on a halfshell. Well consider that wrong, righted.

Actually, what really struck me about this book was that even though it’s 40 years old, a futuristic, dystopian novel written today could use many of these same elements. (Although, I can’t help but think that the internet and computers, in general, might play a larger role.) But the issues like climate change, population worries, etc. could be used almost wholesale.

In any case, I liked the book, but I am ready for something new. A change of pace, if you will, and I can’t help but think that if nothing else Emily Bronte’s Villette will be a change of pace from this alternate reality, alien-infested sci-fi romp.

Justin

 

Two Can Play At That Game

The Seven Samurai, eh? Oooo, someone is watching important movies, and making them relevant to this 1970s sci-fi classic. Well, Jonny, just like chess, checkers, Battleship, or Connect Four: Two can play at that game!

Why just the other night, after I slipped on leather slippers, tamped down the tobacco in my pipe, exchanged my tweed sportscoat with leathered elbows for my smoking jacket, and poured myself a snifter of brandy (now who’s cultured?), I popped a classic foreign film on DVD and couldn’t help but notice some startling parallels to Ursula K. LeGuin’s startling vision for the future!

Okay, so almost none of that is true. I mean I did watch a movie, but I was in a t-shirt and jeans, drinking Diet Coke, and I might have been watching Despicable Me (it was either that or The Last Song) and I didn’t so much “see parallels” as think: “Boy, I bet Heather LeLache and Orr would have loved to have that Gru’s shrink ray. That would have made short work of those Moon Aliens!”

Then I thought: “Ha! Short work-shrink ray! That’s hilarious! I didn’t even do that on purpose. I am writing that down. It’s going on the blog.”

And so it is.

Okay, so one game we can’t both play, is the “I Finished the Book Game.” It, like solitaire, sudoku, or the jumble must only be played by one. I’m working on it, though, and I am hoping to (maybe) finish Lathe this weekend. And now that you’ve enticed me some Bronte, well, just try and stop me.

There’s just one more thing that needs saying:

You sunk my battleship. (Sorry, can’t mention Battleship and not say it.)

Justin

The Dream Is Over

That’s right twinner…consider this book finished!  Let me tell you…those volcanoes, they emitted some fire.  I won’t go into detail…mostly because I’m so confused about what exactly happened. I hope you’ll have some insight about what exactly happened.  Help me.

To celebrate the end of the novel here’s a photo of Mount Hood:

Ah…makes me want to listen to some Beatles and talk to aliens about kitchenware.

Which reminds me of my favorite quotation from the book it came right near the end…

E’nememen Asfah stood immense in greenish armor, holding an egg whisk.

Also I’ve decided the next title on our reading odyssey…I’ve decided I want to get my Bronte on– let’s read some Villette.

Jon

P.S.  The image comes from misternaxal via Flickr.  CC.

The Code of the Samurai

**Spoiler Alert!** (I’ll just start every post that way from now on…I don’t want any surprises ruined for you.  Oh no mustn’t do that.  You know what’s another way to keep me from spoiling the story for you?  You actually picking up the book and reading a bit of the story every now and again.  That’s right Justin J. you’ve been served! (N.B.: I’m breaking dancing in my living room)).

I spent this afternoon watching Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai…this fact is important for two reasons…1.)  It’s gotten me thinking about the Code of the Samurai and 2.)  It shows how amazingly cultured I am–Day off from work?  I’ll spend it watching a 3-and-a-half-hour long Japanese movie from the 1950s. (Pretty cultured.  I’m sorry I mistyped that…pretty AND cultured).

What does the Code of the Samurai have to do with Lathe of Heaven…nothing that I can see.  But Chapter Nine is a bit of dud.  Sure one character’s dead (maybe!–vague: your welcome).  I guess Orr does finally act (a little) by murmuring defiantly “‘Volcanoes emit fire.’” (at the end of a discussion with another character–once again vague–I don’t want to tell you who this character is that you may deduce the now missing character–I’m doing a lot of planning just for you, twin brother).  Way to end that fight with a cryptic non sequitur, Orr!

This saying is officially going to be my “go to” in arguments.  When I can’t justify leaving my dishes on the counter right above dish washer, instead of actually putting them in the dishwasher (I’ve tried, “I like to do all my bending at once”–it didn’t work)….I will now murmur with vehemence as I loudly clang each dish and glass into the plastic trays “Volcanoes emit fire.  Volcanoes emit fire.”

So my guess for the penultimate chapter is this…some volcanoes are going to emit some fire.

Wait!  I just got the meaning on another level…volcanoes often sit dormant for long periods of time (not unlike our Orr) until they unleash fiery destruction.  So maybe Orr is going to cause some mayhem…The Day the Milquetoast Went Sour!

See I was distracted by a very literal interpretation, because right before Orr murmurs this there’s some poetic waxing aboutt Mt. St. Helen’s.  (Is it Mt. St. Helens or Mt. St. Helen’s?–I’m too lazy to fact check)..or at least it gets mentioned.

See how useful this blog is for working out my thinking process!

****Spoiler Alert*******

Jon

The Fine Art of the Spoiler Alert

First of all, Twin Brother, perish the thought that I have lost interest in either a) this book and b) our blog-based conversation or c) all of the above. Because, of course I have lost interest only in d) none of the above.

Admittedly, I am not quite as far as you, but after getting through my Chapter 3 malaise of nothing really happening–and picking up a few other books that stole away my attention–I got back into the book, and you are correct things do pick up. The introduction of Lelache was like a well timed teaspoon of flour (or cornstarch–choose your own thickening agent) into a watery soup and really helped to thicken the plot.

(I was using a soup metaphor there. While it was mostly a tete-a-tete between Haber and Orr we were dealing with a bland consomme, but now with the introduction of Lelache we’ve got thick hearty stew! Sorry, I might be a little hungry as I write (for stew!) is that showing in this post?)

I feel like this is a topic we’ve discussed before, but as a reader who is perpetually behind you in books (until I speed past you at the end to finish before you) I think in a refresher in the basics of the “Spoiler Alert” works might be useful.

In your previous post you let tell of a rather significant plot point and follow it with the warning “Spoiler Alert.” That would be like me saying:

Rosebud’s a sled **Spoiler Alert**

or

The entire 7th season of Dallas was a nightmare that Pamela was having–**Spoiler Alert**

For a “Spoiler Alert” to be effective it should come prior to relating the event. So for example:

**Spoiler Alert** This is blog post is finished **Spoiler Alert**

Bye!

Justin

Alien: Reimagined

I imagine it must be hard when an author gets to that part in their sci-fi book when they have to come up with a description of an alien being.  How do you not sound derivative from the classical conception of the alien as the “little green man” (I’m looking at you, Great Gazoo!–who, by the way, was voiced by Harvey Korman!  I had no idea).  Le Guin takes the novel (ha ha…novel!), and I think brave, approach of making her alien an elbow talker:

It stood quite still, near Haber’s desk.  Very slowly it raised its left arm, pointing at him a metallic, nozzled instrument. … A flat, toneless voice came out of the elbow joint, “Do not do to others what you wish others not to do to you.”

Unexpected, right?  But it’s awkward that the alien bungled the Golden Rule.  If you’re going to invade a planet [peaceably--spoiler alert!] then you should probably at least do some research on their Golden Rule. As that sage of anti-dandruff shampoo, Head and Shoulders, so aptly put it, “You Never Get A Second Chance to Make A First Impression”

 

Exactamundo!

Well twin brother I’m getting into the final stretch of this book…I’m hoping to be done by the end of month (or at least early February). I have an idea for the next book!

Are you still reading this book? Are you still enjoying conversing with me via blog?

Until next time,
Jon

Stuff Happens

Oh you want some action huh?  Just wait until Chapter 7.  In Chapter 7 you can’t stop the action.

1st piece of action in Chapter 7:  We find out what year this story takes place.  It’s 2002.  My question, if it’s really 2002 where’s the Internet (plot holes!).

2nd piece of action in Chapter 7:  The world ends.  Or rather Orr tells us that the world actually ended in 1998 and the only “reality” they know now is a dream.  Once again this does not take into account the Internet.  Would someone please explain the Internet to me…I find it all very confusing.

But I didn’t really find any of that compelling.  What I want to talk about is Orr talking.

First though I should apologize for my lax posting recently.  I just got over a French disease of the soul. (Ba dump bum bing!  That’s kind of an inside joke between me and Heather Lalache–you had to be there).  Actually I was reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen for another book club, and well that book is very, very long (and I procrastinated).

But excuses aside….let’s move onto the way Orr talks.   Let me quote a piece of Orr-ian dialogue:

I’m all right.  It’s just mumble mumble get sleepy.

Here’s another:

Mumble mumble Sunday.

Now my question is are these “mumble mumble”s supposed to denote Orr mumbling?  Or is he saying aloud the words “mumble mumble” each time?  In my experience when people mumble it rarely sounds like “mumble mumble” (It sounds more like “mmmrrrsmmigg”) and yet these “mumble mumble”s are definitely found within the quotation marks–so they are not stage directions but actual quotations.  Which then leads to the next question of whether Orr has a very onomatopoetic mumble or does he just say “mumble mumble” when he wants to play his hand close to the chest?

That’s what I’ve been puzzling over.  What I’m not puzzling over is what Heather Lelache’s last name means in French…it’s coward (she tells us)…so I wonder how that will play into the story.

I had a dream the other night that every time I tried to talk a ball of Silly Puddy or Play-doh came out of my mouth instead of words.  When I woke up I sure was happy that my dreams don’t alter reality.  Because that would have been gross.  It was pretty gross in the dream.

Off for more reading!

Until next time,

Jon

Is It Me Or Is There Something Missing Here?

Like a plot?

Fear not, Twin Brother, your dreams have not yet started changing the future. (Well, except your dream of becoming a librarian. That’s changing the future. For students. But in a positive way. And that was more of an aspirational dream as opposed to a sleeping dream, so it’s probably not applicable.) I’ve been meaning to read more of The Lathe, but I’ve been completely immersed in the late 1970s New York (as opposed to futuristic Oregon) reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids. It was a pretty amazing book, but now I am finished, and I’m back to reading about Mount Hood sized horse poops and crazy dream manipulation (also know as The Lathe of Heaven.)

Anyway, what was a saying…something about something being missing from this little novel of ideas…

That’s right: A Plot.

It seems so far that this book is made up episode after episode of Orr’s sessions with Dr. Haber. And while some interesting hints are being dropped about a futuristic Portland, I am still looking for the point. What’s the story? (By the way, I found your mentioned of aliens a promising development from a plot perspective, but quite frankly I had already gotten my dander up about a lack of a plot so, I decided to just run with it.)

So, while I hold out hope that things will be getting more interesting as the book progresses, right now I’m fighting the distraction of other more plot-driven reading.

Oh, by the way, congrats on the hundred books. Rather than being intimidated by it I am rather impressed. Well, enough back-patting. Time for more reading.

Justin

 

I Dreamed A Dream

Last night I had this crazy dream…CRAZY!!!!!!! (All those exclamation points…must be pretty crazy).

Anyhow…In my dream I’m sitting on my couch reading Lathe of Heaven and all of a sudden the phone rings (this is how I know its a dream– my real phone doesn’t ring so much as sound like a pinball machine).  I pick it up and on the other end of the line is you, my twin.  I get really excited (just like when you call in real life ohboyohboyohboy) and I start telling you about this exciting book I’m reading and you say, “Lathe of Heaven, huh?  Never heard of it.”

Did I change reality Justin?  Are you not posting because my dream made it so that you’ve never heard of this book???  Or is it because you were intimidated by my megalist of books read in calendar year 2010?

Whatever the reason…I just finished chapter six.  Chapter six opens up with a description of Orr’s pre-Haber living situation that I must draw your attention to.  Here goes…

He perfectly remembered his other flat, of course, the one-room 8 1/2 x 11 with the pullout stove and the balloonbed and co-op bathroom down the linoleum hall, on the eighteenth floor of the Corbett Condominium tower, which had never been built. (72).

That was pretty subtle…you may have missed what I wanted to highlight.  So let me zoom in on the pertinent part of that description:

balloonbed

I can’t decide whether to be delighted or terrified by the concept of a balloonbed…I’d say my gut instinct is to be equal parts both.  At once it sounds very comfy, but balloons can be dangerous and I’m an open-mouthed sleeper.

Also in chapter six we see the advent of the aliens (spoiler alert: they’ve colonized the moon)….we’re in full-tilt genre sci-fi now!

Oh and one more thing…in chapter six Orr justifies continuing to go see Haber, although he knows Haber is manipulating and wielding his dreams as a weapon to shape the present, because if he doesn’t continue the sessions he’ll have to go to jail.  But if he did get sent to jail wouldn’t he be likely to dream of his days of freedom and then bam! there he is back enjoying all that futuristic Portland has to offer.

Just a thought.

Anyhow, it’s late so I’m signing off….to sleep, perchance to dream.

Jon

BookIt Achieved, Or Happy New Year!

At around 5:30 yesterday afternoon, December 31, 2010 I finished Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan and officially achieved my Adult BookIt Goal of reading 100 books in 2010.  In case you’re interested (I can’t imagine how you couldn’t be interested) here’s the list:

Jon’s 2010 Reading List

1. Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
2. The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles
3. Salvage (Coast of Utopia, Pt. 3.)by Tom Stoppard
4. A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-first Century by Christina Nehring
5. Far Arden by Kevin Cannon
6. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
7. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
8. For the Time Being by Annie Dillard
9. Far North by Marcel Theroux
10. Digital Literacy for Technical Communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice by Rachel Spika
11. Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire
12. The Broken Teaglassby Emily Arsenault
13. Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
14. Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsessionby Julie Powell
15. Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott
16. Bryant and May on the Loose by Christopher Fowler
17. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos, and Annie Di Donna
18. The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
19. Invisible by Paul Auster
20. Point Omega by Don Delillo
21. Still Life by Louise Penny
22. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
23. Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
24. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
25. About a Mountain by John D’Agata
26. Love Is a Four-Letter Word: True Stories of Breakups, Bad Relationships, and Broken Hearts edited by Michael Taeckens
27. A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
28. The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw
29. Eating Animalsby Jonathan Safran Foer
30. The Bronte Projectby Jennifer Vandever
31. White Noise by Don Delillo
32. Lincoln by Gore Vidal
33. A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
34. A View from the Bridgeby Arthur Miller
35. The Spellmans Strike Againby Lisa Lutz
36. The Americansby Robert Frank
37. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
38. Learning to Communicate in Science and Engineering by Mya Poe, Neal Lerner, Jennifer Craig, and James Paradis
39. Sonata Mulattica: Poems by Rita Dove
40. Ford County by John Grisham
41. The Vintage Caperby Peter Mayle
42. I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton
43. Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro
44. Stitches by David Small
45. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
46. 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson and James Kwak
47. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
48. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
49. Effective Blogging for Libraries by Connie Crosby
50. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
51. The Humbling by Philip Roth
52. Missing by Karin Alvtegen
53. Schrodinger’s Ball by Adam Felber
54. Snapshots in History’s Glare by Gore Vidal
55. Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
56. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
57. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
58. Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
59. The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno
60. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
61. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields
62. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
63. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
64. Death in the Fifth Position by Gore Vidal
65. Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution edited by Wally Lamb
66. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
67. The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the Worldby David Kirkpatrick
68. The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time by Judith Shulevitz
69. This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
70. The Uses of Digital Literacy by John Hartley
71. Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade by Justin Spring
72. Room by Emma Donoghue
73. Speak Low: Poems by Carl Phillips
74. The Danger Box by Blue Balliett
75. The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
76. C by Tom McCarthy
77. Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
78. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brainsby Nicholas Carr
79. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley
80. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
81. Big Machine by Victor LaValle
82. Service for Two by Kate Kingsbury
83. Exley by Brock Clarke
84. So Much for That by Lionel Shriver
85. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
86. Scott Pilgrim vs. The Worldby Bryan Lee O’Malley
87. The House of Blue Leaves by John Guare
88. Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
89. The 39 Steps by John Buchan
90. Ruined by Lynn Nottage
91. Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
92. Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews
93. The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley
94. The Housekeeper and the Professorby Yoko Ogawa
95. The Fever by Wallace Shawn
96. Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading From Home by Susan Hill
97. Homage to Mistress Bradstreet by John Berryman
98. The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
99. The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
100. Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan

 

If I had to pick my favorites, which I don’t, but which I’ll do anyway I’d say Logicomix (#17), A Single Man (#27), Lincoln (#32), Contested Will (#43), The Age of Wonder (#47), C (#76), Exley (#83), The 39 Steps (89), and The Housekeeper and the Professor (#94)

Three cheers for goals attained!

This year’s reading goal:  Catch up on New Yorkers.  Actual date, Jan, 1, 2011…New Yorker date April 2010.  Off to read some “Talk of the Town”!

Jon