Pantheon Books -- hc
New York -- ©2010 -- 234pp
ISBN: 978-0-307-37920-7
Charles Yu, time travel technician - part counselor, part gadget repair man - helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished.
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I don't remember the recommended list that I came across that had this book on it, but it sounded fascinating. And it was. But it wasn't...well...it wasn't great.
For those who have read plenty of science fiction, the idea of time travel and time loops and the dizzying headaches that accompany both, is really nothing new. I can think of a few novels of this nature (David Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself comes first to mind). What makes this novel slightly unique is that the narrator appears to be the author himself and that the book that we hold in our hands is the book that the narrator is both reading and writing at the same time (confusing?).
I had high hopes for a truly original sci-fi novel, but found, instead, a book that was actually pretty conventional with a main character who was generally pretty boring and not immediately like-able.
For those who've only been reading SF for the past decade or so, then this is probably an outstanding, original book. For those of us who've been reading the genre for four decades or more, than this isn't all that spectacular.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
SOLAR -- Ian McEwan
Doubleday -- hc
New York -- ©2010 -- 287pp
ISBN: 978-0-385-53341-6
Michael Beard is a Nobel prize–winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity?
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This book was recommended to me twice, first through a listing of books that I've generally liked, and then by our local librarian who has very similar tastes as I do. Unfortunately, this book completely failed to capture my attention.
Michael Beard was an unsympathetic character. Somehow, this nerdy scientist, who is never described as particularly attractive, has women falling all over him and each time he gets married, he's off having an affair. His latest wife has an affair of her own, and of course he seems to want her back to himself, but it never happens. And... we don't care.
Beard has all but given up actually doing any hard work once he's received the Nobel Prize, and ... again we don't care. It's a wonder he was ever successful enough to actually have received the Nobel, based on what we see of him in the book.
Bits and pieces of the book were interesting, if not completely transparent. The section of the book when he was exploring the Arctic was interesting, though I'm still not sure what it had to do with any other section of the novel.
I waited and waited for the section as described in the tag lines on Goodreads and the dustjacket: "Here is a chance for him to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and very possibly save the world from environmental disaster. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity?" Do I need to answer the question that's posted?
This was a colossal waste of time. I waited for something to happen. Anything. The few things that did happen came as no surprise.
I hope this isn't McEwan at his best, it sure doesn't make me eager to read any of his other works.
New York -- ©2010 -- 287pp
ISBN: 978-0-385-53341-6
Michael Beard is a Nobel prize–winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity?
#####
This book was recommended to me twice, first through a listing of books that I've generally liked, and then by our local librarian who has very similar tastes as I do. Unfortunately, this book completely failed to capture my attention.
Michael Beard was an unsympathetic character. Somehow, this nerdy scientist, who is never described as particularly attractive, has women falling all over him and each time he gets married, he's off having an affair. His latest wife has an affair of her own, and of course he seems to want her back to himself, but it never happens. And... we don't care.
Beard has all but given up actually doing any hard work once he's received the Nobel Prize, and ... again we don't care. It's a wonder he was ever successful enough to actually have received the Nobel, based on what we see of him in the book.
Bits and pieces of the book were interesting, if not completely transparent. The section of the book when he was exploring the Arctic was interesting, though I'm still not sure what it had to do with any other section of the novel.
I waited and waited for the section as described in the tag lines on Goodreads and the dustjacket: "Here is a chance for him to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and very possibly save the world from environmental disaster. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity?" Do I need to answer the question that's posted?
This was a colossal waste of time. I waited for something to happen. Anything. The few things that did happen came as no surprise.
I hope this isn't McEwan at his best, it sure doesn't make me eager to read any of his other works.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
MAN FROM NEBRASKA -- Tracy Letts
Northwestern University Press -- tpb
Evanston, IL -- ©2006 -- 89pp
ISBN: 0-8101-2347-9
Two act play.
4 M, 5 W
A luxury sedan, a church pew and visits to a nursing home form the comfortable round of Ken Carpenter s daily life. And then one night, he awakens to find that he no longer believes in God. This crisis of faith propels an ordinary middle-aged man into an extraordinary journey of self-discovery. This wickedly funny and spiritually complex play examines the effects of one man s awakening on himself and his family. [from goodreads.com]
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I started out NOT enjoying this play very much, but as I got through it, it grew on me a bit.
Tracy Letts has a bit of a theme running here with this play and his much more successful AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, and that would be a theme of late-middle-aged men trying to understand their lives. In many ways, one could almost see this as a pre-cursor to AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY.
Both plays (and I will try, of course, to speak more to this play directly) deal with an older man who has some interest or experience in the arts. In A:OC it's a poet and here it's a man who thinks he no longer believes in god, leaves his family to discover himself, and finds art in the form of sculpture. He's not very good, of course, but it brings him to a better understanding of himself AND a creator.
As a middle-aged artist who has let his art slide, I could identify mightily with our lonesome hero, Ken Carpenter (and yes, the name Carpenter is a wonderful symbol in so many ways as the Christian god-in-flesh was a carpenter, and as a sculptor, an artist uses many of the same or similar tools as a carpenter). His desire to find passion in life is probably understood by many men, and that passion is not necessarily a sensual or sexual passion. That passion is relayed here as sexual, artistic, and religious.
What did not ring true for me was how quickly and easily Carpenter seemed to make his break. Certainly some (if not all) of this would be made up for by the actor portraying the character.
The only other part that bothered me was how many short scenes there were. We jumped quickly and loosely and it made it difficult to keep a thread of the story together, even though the scenes really revolved around Ken. The scenes with Ken's wife, Nancy, just didn't work as well. It seemed too late to try to make the audience care about what Nancy was going through and how stalwart she was toward Ken.
Still...Letts has a great sense of theme and plot and subplot and uses his imagery very well. This is a play that takes a little getting used to, but could work on many levels.
Evanston, IL -- ©2006 -- 89pp
ISBN: 0-8101-2347-9
Two act play.
4 M, 5 W
A luxury sedan, a church pew and visits to a nursing home form the comfortable round of Ken Carpenter s daily life. And then one night, he awakens to find that he no longer believes in God. This crisis of faith propels an ordinary middle-aged man into an extraordinary journey of self-discovery. This wickedly funny and spiritually complex play examines the effects of one man s awakening on himself and his family. [from goodreads.com]
#####
I started out NOT enjoying this play very much, but as I got through it, it grew on me a bit.
Tracy Letts has a bit of a theme running here with this play and his much more successful AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, and that would be a theme of late-middle-aged men trying to understand their lives. In many ways, one could almost see this as a pre-cursor to AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY.
Both plays (and I will try, of course, to speak more to this play directly) deal with an older man who has some interest or experience in the arts. In A:OC it's a poet and here it's a man who thinks he no longer believes in god, leaves his family to discover himself, and finds art in the form of sculpture. He's not very good, of course, but it brings him to a better understanding of himself AND a creator.
As a middle-aged artist who has let his art slide, I could identify mightily with our lonesome hero, Ken Carpenter (and yes, the name Carpenter is a wonderful symbol in so many ways as the Christian god-in-flesh was a carpenter, and as a sculptor, an artist uses many of the same or similar tools as a carpenter). His desire to find passion in life is probably understood by many men, and that passion is not necessarily a sensual or sexual passion. That passion is relayed here as sexual, artistic, and religious.
What did not ring true for me was how quickly and easily Carpenter seemed to make his break. Certainly some (if not all) of this would be made up for by the actor portraying the character.
The only other part that bothered me was how many short scenes there were. We jumped quickly and loosely and it made it difficult to keep a thread of the story together, even though the scenes really revolved around Ken. The scenes with Ken's wife, Nancy, just didn't work as well. It seemed too late to try to make the audience care about what Nancy was going through and how stalwart she was toward Ken.
Still...Letts has a great sense of theme and plot and subplot and uses his imagery very well. This is a play that takes a little getting used to, but could work on many levels.
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