rE-view: Neverwhere

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


As I was just about finished with this work, I hopped on over to the review section and found this little gem which sums up quite nicely how I feel about the book as a whole. As Frankie says, there are "cliche characters, cheesy narration and formulaic plot." Gaiman is quite good at setting up a story for what could be a good and entertaining read, (he is successful in some of his other works) but unfortunately he falls flat here. I could see all the mechanical cogs and gears in this story--the quartz bead from Anaesthesia, the Marquis' character, Richard's oddly-placed boar dreams--and because of that, when the big reveal happened for each of those events, I found I was... disappointed. There was a "well duh that was gonna happen..." kind of moment.

I also think that a lot of Gaiman's work have self-insertion type main characters (ever notice how a lot of them look a little similar to our scruffy, dark-haired author?) which completely takes me out of the story. I didn't sympathize with any of the characters, and when Richard first helps Door, which starts off this entire adventure, I couldn't really believe it. All of the characters were simple devices with the wires hanging out. The villians were overwhelmingly evil. The main characters (like Door and Richard) blatantly containing sob-stories as to be ultra-sympathetic. The story was too black and white. Too predictable. The big climax was especially...well, anti-climatic.

Overall, this book reeks of "anti-mainstream lookI'msopunk/goth/hipster/differentthanallofyoufucktardswhowanttobesuccessfulorliveinsociety graaaagh!!" Jesus Christ, give me a break. Tim Burton succeeded with Nightmare Before Christmas, but now everyone wants to be a Jack or Sally. It even reminds me of how my angsty ex-roommate writes. Amatuerish and self-important. So, I would say the book is a fairly entertaining and easy read, predictable and fantasmic, an attempt at seeming different, dark and edgy, but there's not a whole lot of depth to it. It's an alright introduction to "Urban Fantasy" fiction or "pseudo-science-fiction." Young teenagers who are in love with Tim Burton will probably like this book.

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rE-view: A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Novel by Khaled Hosseini

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



*This review does contain spoilers*

I want to begin my review by first stating that this was the first audiobook I had ever listened to, and I thought the medium was absolutely astounding. The reader was Atossa Leoni, who I thought did a wonderful job (she was also the female lead in the movie The Kite Runner) and truly brought me into the Afghan world. Her pronunciations of the names and sporadic Farsi (I think it’s Farsi) word were a nice touch that could have been lost in book form, due to my ignorance of the language. I have seen a few reviews in which they say the Farsi was distracting and annoying. Had I read this book in traditional form, I would agree. But Leoni seamlessly patches the English and Farsi together, and I thought it was a nice touch.

That being said, I can’t say I really enjoyed this book. First off, which I believe is a hot issue when discussing this book, is that it was overwhelmingly depressing. Yes, I understand that these sorts of things really did and do happen, but this is a work of fiction. Fiction writers need to understand their responsibility that they are creating works that are not real. To get a certain reaction, a fiction writer needs to take a different route than a non-fiction writer, or even a poet. Had this been a non-fiction account of two women’s lives, I would feel differently about it. But as fiction, A Thousand comes off as sentimental and manipulative. Crushing blow after crushing blow is given to the women and it becomes exhausting and repetitive. Near the end of Laila’s story, when her parents are killed just as they are about to leave, I was broken out of the illusion of the story and became frightfully aware of the work as fiction and a book.

The most of the characters are incredibly one-dimensional, and are simply there to fill certain niches: Laila as the beautiful protagonist, (let’s be honest, Mariam’s story was there to catapult Laila’s) Tariq as the beat-all-odds hero, and Rasheed as the abusive scumball husband. I do think Mariam was a little more than one-dimensional because we get a view of her from a young age, but as an adult she loses some characterization and simply becomes a symbol. Jahlil was at the beginning stages of being fleshed out, but he was only a minor character, and too, became a device to augment Laila’s Disney-style ending.

The book follows in Western ideals, which I found a little disconcerting. I will mention the issue of politics in a second, but I want to begin with the idea of morality. Now, I am certainly no expert on Islamic culture, but I felt there was a distinct aura of “westernization is great!” in the book, and a lack of insight in the ideals that an Islamic culture may have. All of the “good guys” in the book had western ideals: America is great! Education for everyone! Give women rights! Polygamy is bad! Now, personal views aside, I didn’t feel like I could take this book as an accurate account on what the people of this culture really thought. I almost felt like Hosseini was pandering to a western (American) audience, so he put in things he thought they could relate with and agree with.

This segues nicely into the idea of politics put into this story. I think, while being an interesting idea, it was not executed properly. Every section about politics, whether hearing it on the radio, by the narrating voice, or even by the characters themselves seems patchy and self-consciously shoved in. There was also a clear indication of who the “bad guys” were (the communists, the Taliban). Of course Rasheed sympathized with the “bad guys” throughout the story. There was also a lovely view of a America and Western nations, which I actually doubt was the case. Again, I’m no expert so I don’t actually know, but I don’t think Afghanistan ever really looked at America through rose-colored glasses in the way Hosseini portrayed it.

There is a bit more I could talk about, but I think this review is already long enough. Overall, I found the story clichéd, stilted and manipulative. I wouldn’t personally recommend it to anyone, but I can see why it appeals to middle-class Americans. I do commend Hosseini for trying to include so many things in one novel, but I do not think he executed it properly. Also: nearly three references to the title randomly planted in, looking like an eyesore? Yikes.

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Depends on William

So I joined the book-lover site GoodReads a while ago, and recently I discovered something called "groups" on there. On one of the threads there, someone posted an idea of a writing exercise called "dabbling," which is writing a story that is only 100 words long. I decided to try one out, and they are pretty fun for just a short little burst of writing, although that could have just been my self-regard in the fact that I made a William Carlos Williams reference in mine. Woop.

Here it is:



So much does depend on the red wheelbarrow; it depends on what I did with it last night, before it rained. It depends on what you’ll think of me, of what I did. Which I did. It’s early now; the sun is scrambling in through the windows and depending what I did last night, I’ll do today. It’s going to be a dry one. I hear the chickens outside, the horses and the pigs. They depend on me like I depend on you. And you depend on me, on what I did. Depending on if I did anything at all.

rE-view: Angela's Ashes

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Despite a lot of the hatred that seems to be around for this book, I found it quite humbling and powerful. Personally, I read it as a story of poverty, growing up and dealing with hardship instead of the "half-assed melodramatic Irish-American story" many other people define it as. It happened to take place in Ireland for most of it, yes, but the vehement rejection of this book as an "Irish book" seems to be missing the point.

McCourt deals with his father's alcoholism, and the odd complacency everyone seems to have for it, his own sense of manhood, identity, poor health, poverty, religion and sexual awakening (AKA: it's a book about growing up). There are times when I can see the dreariness of his life can be overwhelming--hell, there were times I had to put the book down myself because it was just so frustrating and depressing. But I found a sense of humility in the book, and it made me look at my own life through his lens; a lot of my "problems," I found, were quite trivial and didn't really matter in the long run. Isn't that what makes a book good and powerful, if it can affect you even through other veins of your life?

McCourt tells the story of his childhood in the delightful voice of a child, with run-on blabbling and hilariously naive logic, but he reflects on it like an old man, worn and weary with age through the passages he chooses to tell. Not all of this book is flattering to McCourt, and there are times when he deserves no pity, and yet he is still honest enough to include it. I also found the prominence and interpretation of religion interesting. I am not that religious myself, but I could almost feel the sense of hope and rejuvenation McCourt found from it, and near the end, when he recalls being broken down in one of his hometown churchs, I was nearly brought to tears. It was quite a powerful moment. I don't know if I would count this book as "one of the great classics of the last century" but it is definitely a worthwhile read and a great lesson in humility and appreciation of who you are and what you have. In the end, it's hopeful, youthful and uplifting and we all need reminders of that once in a while.

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Swimming Lessons

Last Friday I was one of three people left in the College Relations office. My two other fellow-interns left the night before and earlier that day, and most of the other employees already ran out of here for the Fourth of July weekend. I asked my boss if I could take a half-day, seeing as I had already essentially completed the WCR except for the cover and a few submissions I'm still waiting for. However, I sent my prototype design to D, and she finally get back to me yesterday, on Tuesday. Through lots of arm waggling and apologetic stares she told me it was all wrong. All wrong. After I picked up the pieces of my pride and reformatted the review (tedious and a little time-consuming, but hell, at least I had something to do!) I got back to her and she was fairly pleased with the result.

As I handed her the latest printed-out pages, I couldn't help but feel a little... herded. Corralled. She would only give me half answers of "well, you should look at... more classic fonts and texts..." and "oh well, this size, 12 points, is a little bit big, but your earlier draft was a bit small...what was it, 10 points? Maybe try somewhere in between?" Jesus Christ, if you want the Review to look a very particular way, why didn't you just give me the requirements you need and let me do it? If you want 11 point font just fucking tell me you want 11 point font instead of dancing around the subject so much. My dad told me she was probably just trying to let me learn on my own and that was her style of teaching, but I simply felt manipulated. Working inDesign has been a learning experience, but it's terrifying to just be thrown into the water with no life preserver. Not to mention after you flounder around a bit, you're just told that what you've produced is not even near what they want. I suppose it is just a little aggravating. Drown better, dammit!

Now that I'm done reformatting, I've worked on the cover and come up with a prototype. I'll need to show that to D once she's done with all of her meetings, but until then I am as bored as a lax bro in an art gallery.

However, I've been making headway on the Essay of Disaster. The author is being uncooperative, so I emailed V, Editor-in-Chief, to see if I can get this ironed out somehow, so I'm meeting her in 45 minutes. Yes, I know that, as an editor, I am only making suggestions and the changes are ultimately up to the author, but these changes come not only from myself, but from the other editor I am working with to make this essay the best it can be. Besides, if you look back at earlier editions of the review, you would NEVER find something as disorganized as this essay inside. It seems to me that the quality of the work inside the Review had gone downhill since about 2003, maybe even a little earlier, in the late 90s? The only problem is that my co-editor really enjoyed the essay as it came in, and meeting with V is kind of stepping over his authority and going straight to the big boys (or girls, in this case). I'm not all that worried about it, though, because he tried overwhelming me with corporate talk and shunting me out of the copy-editing process to begin with, so maybe it's good I'm going over his head.

I just need to remember not to take the gesture personally (he's just a young professor trying to get tenure. It's not my fault he's overeager.) and to keep the meeting with V professional. Yeah, I think this essay is something the cat dragged in from a hailstorm, but that's not really going to help it get better if I say that now, will it? Overall, I'm not terribly sure what I'm expecting out of this meeting (V can't very well make the author listen to me, even if the poor girl desperately should) but I can't help but think some sort of improvement will come out of it...probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

I also seem to love italics today, jeezus!

As a side tidbit, the WC Magazine, in which I wrote an article for, has finally come in. My name is in teeny tiny print in the inside front page under "contributors" and it's spelled wrong. Doh! I think I would be less annoyed if my name was more exotic, but "Walburg" is no "Panagopolopolous"* or "Razakazajinski."* Oh well, at least I got my name in, no?

*These are not real names and are not intended to sound racist or prejudiced whatever you want to call me. It's a joke, and I am not racist. Some names that are foreign to native ears are hard to keep in the head and even harder to spell. It's a fact of life and true for all cultures (at least I think so. Maybe Americans really are dipshits and everyone else is smarter than us).

I was called racist for the first time in my life by a fellow intern after saying the Mexican groundworkers on campus probably wouldn't choose to have that job if they had other options. Does that say anything bad about Mexicans? No. Would anybody want a different job if they were working all day outside in 100 degree weather? Probably. Just because I acknowledge there are other nationalities out there other than "American" does not make me a racist. So fuck off and lighten up. kids.