Book review: The Divorce Party by Laura Dave

Reader # 519 wrote: I found this book to be very light reading and it didn't have me turning the pages in excitement like other books. The author does a pretty good job on her character development, but I just didn't find them all that interesting. There were some poignant moments in the book though, written with great sensitivity. Grade: C.

Book review: Duma Key by Stephen King

Reader #519 wrote: Very entertaining read and shows Stephen King at his best. I enjoyed seeing the protagonist's awakening as an artist, and the events that follow his new found talent. King always spins a great yarn and this is no exception. Read it with the lights on. If you see a tattered looking ship on the horizon at sunset - run! Grade: A.

Book review: Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche

Reader #82 wrote: SHINING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA by Stephen Marche is arguably science fiction, though I know of no one who reviewed it as such. (The cataloguing data calls it "experimental fiction". It purports to be an anthology of Sanjanian fiction and other writings, with a preface that provides the historical, sociological, and literary background necessary to understand them. Sanjania is an island nation in the North Atlantic, and was formerly part of the British Empire. It is a very literary culture: "Sanjanians are perhaps the most literary people on earth. Bookstalls are as common as fruit stands, the theatres around Saint Magdalene's Square dwarf the City Hall, and on Sanjair flights the stewards push small carts of books down the aisle after the beverages and pretzels."

Later, it says of Saint Magdalene's Square, "Seemingly endless bookstalls fill the square's edge and spill into the side streets in every direction. Bargain hunters and literature lovers cram
every nook and cranny from sunrise (more or less) to sundown (more or less)." (Sounds like Hay-on-Wye.) The only real drawback to this literary Shangri-La is that it does not exist. Oh, well, you can't have everything.

The earliest pieces--in terms of the internal chronology--are the most interesting, since Mache constructs a separate dialect for that era: "In his eighteenth year, Marlyebone oxchopped and mangled the other wolfheads, Goodfriday Martins, Samuel Baker Deloney, Abraham Crisp and Lover Gromes, and claimed the overward. In his nineteenth year, the Crown pursued him. Crownagent Keagan Poulter took a bulletsmash in the face and could not be regaliated. Agent Will Champion's moniker fibbed everafter his failure. Robert Strunk sunk. In Marlyebone's
twentieth year, his Scourge Sally Parkman, a Woman Crownagent, grabbed his pirate fleet, and yawled it against the waves of Portuguese Cove, ane Marlyebone scuppered overhill byland toward his homecove Restitution, flittering."

This dialect is characterized by many compound words, and I suppose Marche got tired of creating them, because after the first few pieces, they go away, alas.

Book review: Halting State by Charles Stross

From Reader #82: I had started HALTING STATE by Charles Stross earlier this year and gave it up as too difficult (the introduction of too many characters in rapid succession, too much jargon, etc.). But I read a review that said that after a somewhat confusing beginning, the book settled into a more understandable form. So I tried again, and read about a third before I concluded than it wasn't true for me. Stross has written a book with three point-of-view characters, and written it in the second person. Yes,that's right--in every chapter, the point-of-view character is "you", but you are a different person each time. One result is that you lose many of the reminders of who the point-of-view character is that you would have in a normal third-person narrative. (Even a first-person version might be easier.) And on top of that, the characters write in a combination of Scottish dialect, police jargon, and computer jargon. It is even worse than BRASYL (another Hugo nominee) in terms of the dialects, because there is no glossary at the back. (I checked this time.) It may be good for Scottish computer types, but not for me. Grade: C

Movie Review: Atonement

Reader #83 wrote:

Joe Wright adapts Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel ATONEMENT. What a thirteen-year-old sees happen at an English
country house is not really what happened. Her testimony when a crime is committed brings tragedy to two people. The film moves us from a posh country home to the war-ravaged shores of Dunkirk. The film tricks the viewer, but can only do that by blatantly cheating. The film is graced but not really enhanced by an impressively intricate tracking shot.

There is a literary sort of film we see coming from England. It is the Merchant-Ivory-Masterpiece-Theater sort of thing with the English upper crust and all their social graces. Another sort of film more frequently seems to come more from the United States. These are puzzle films that are more than just mysteries. They play with the medium itself. For example, MEMENTO tells its story backward in time and the viewer has to guess how the story began. These two story types have been combined in prose, as in Saki's short story "The Open Window," but one rarely sees them combined in film. They sit uneasily together in ATONEMENT. This is a film all about misunderstanding what one sees. Just as young Briony Tallis (played at age thirteen by Saoirse Ronan) gets the wrong ideas about something she sees at her country house, the viewer also sees things that are not really as they seem. But director Joe Wright does not actually play fairly with the viewer. In one case, for example, one character recognizes another in a crowd only to get up close and find it was not really that person. The mistake is understandable since Wright quite noticeably used one actor at a distance and another one close up. Scenes shown from two different people's perspectives have large differences. Perhaps Wright is going for a RASHOMON effect. Still other places, the viewer quite intentionally is shown one thing happening and then is later told that is not what happened at all. There is more deception than meets the eye.

Later in the film we see the British on the beach at Dunkirk waiting to be evacuated. We move among them in a tracking shot just a little short of five minutes in length. The staging of this scene is a tour de force in logistics and coordination requiring great effort to make sure the
hundreds of actors are in place just as the camera reaches them. It goes beyond impressive all the way to being jaw-dropping. But there is a difference between a jaw-dropping achievement and a jaw-dropping stunt. If it really makes the film more effective it is an achievement. Here I did not see what it really added. Perhaps it may add some immediacy, but more likely it will be just a distraction.

Briony Tallis is fascinated by the relationship between her sister Cecilia (played by Keira Knightley) and Robbie (James McAvoy). Robbie is the son of a servant who has become almost one of the family. When Briony sees her sister act in a provocative way in front of Robbie and later sees them making love, she jumps to a wrong conclusion. This combines with her
testimony about a genuine crime to create long-lasting problems for the three. Later we see what they are each doing near the time of the Dunkirk evacuation. They have come by different routes. We see how their relationship has been forever altered by what Briony did years before. The plot is a little contrived with Robbie making a mistake necessary to make the plot work but otherwise very unlikely. His error is a mix-up almost worthy of a Shakespeare comedy. And for me there were unfortunate associations with the character of Ada Doom from Stella Gibbon's COLD COMFORT FARM. Ada Doom destroyed her whole life because as a little girl
she "saw something nasty in the woodshed." Briony too saw something nasty with bad repercussions.

Undeniably there is an interesting story here of guilt without redemption, something that we rarely see in films and have not seen since HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG. But there is a lot that is contrived and does not work. I will probably be in a minority, but the little things wrong with the film add up to too much. Note: this film has one of the longest tracking shots
in an English-language film, but it is dwarfed by the tracking shot in RUSSIAN ARK. That is a 99-minute film which except for the titles and credits is one long tracking shot filmed inside the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. There is really does enhance the surrealism of the film. But I am not sure the long shot did much for ATONEMENT. Grade: B

Book Review: Janet Evanovich's Plum Lovin'

Reader # 444 wrote: I have to admit that these books are my guilty pleasure. When I want a lighter read, I love to listen to or read her books. This is the 2nd of an in between series of her numbered one. In this book it takes place right before Valentine's Day and Stephanie Plum the bounty hunter has to play Cupid to make the holiday special for strangers and her sister. The characters in all Janet Evanovich's books are larger than life but I relate living in the Garden State . This is the perfect beach book but I suggest reading Visions of Sugar Plums first. You will not be disappointed. Grade: A.

Book review: Pigeon Wants A Puppy! by Mo Willems

Reader #68 wrote: If you are not familiar with the Pigeon stories, you need to get acquainted. ( Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Pigeon Finds A Hotdog, Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, just to name a few) The Pigeon Wants a Puppy is the newest one out. In the story Pigeon is talking to you, the reader, about his dream to have a puppy. My daughter is 5 and just loves the Pigeon, and why not... he speaks just like they do when they want something. The author, Mo Willems, has put together another book showing the art of persuasion that most children just seem to have built into their young minds. Any parent that has had to say no to a child will love these books because it has all the pleas in there. My daughter made me read it twice in one sitting. She read it to her grandmother the next day using the same emphasis on the words that the book demands with the larger print and exclamation points. Mo Willems has created a character that makes not only our children laugh, but we end up laughing, too.

Book review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Reader # 62 wrote: There's been a lot of talk about this book lately, and it's well deserved. Diaz's story of a geeky, overweight Dominican-American is tragic and compelling. The language, though often coarse, is poetic, and his pen paints a vivid picture of this doomed young man through a telling of his family history. The fact that a large chunk of the book takes place in New Brunswick makes the book all the more intriguing for this New Jerseyan. Well worth the read. Grade: A+

Book Review: Three Cups of Tea By Greg Mortenson

Reader #83 wrote: THREE CUPS OF TEA is the story of Greg Mortenson, apparently as told by Mortenson to David Oliver Relin. So to begin with, who is Greg Mortenson and why should the reader be interested in his life story?

Mortenson was a nurse whose hobby was mountaineering. He attempted to
climb K2, the world's second tallest and most ferocious mountain. But that is not what the book is about. He failed in his climb and nearly died. (Nearly dying seems to have become a recurrent experience of his life.) Trying to save his life his two Balti porters took him to Korphe, their isolated mountain village there in the Karakoram mountain range of northern Pakistan. Grateful for the hospitality that saved his life he promised the villagers that he would return one day and build them a school so that the children and especially the girls of the village could be educated.

A big chunk of the book is how he got funding, how he got materials, and how he built that first school, first having to build a bridge. He became a local hero and soon other villages were begging him to build schools. It was just one thing sort of leading to another. He soon became the centerpiece of the Central Asia Institute, a charitable organization founded by a rich American. Its aim is to bring education and literacy to the youth of the region and especially to the girls.

Along the way he was arrested, kidnapped, and had fatwas declared against him. He stood up to more than a few self-serving religious leaders and gangsters wanting a share of the money going to the school. His adventures make fascinating reading but even more so do his observations of local life throughout the Karakoram Mountain range.

Mortenson and Relin give us a good feel for the texture of life in Pakistan and in neighboring Afghanistan. The book is enthralling. Most of the people he meets are opposed to the power of the Wahhabis and the Taliban and their best weapon against them are the schools. The schools that Mortenson builds are an alternative to the madrassas that so often teach extremism and hatred.

Everything changed for the United States with the September 11 attacks, and this book is one of the things that changes. Late in the book Mortenson comes to the belief that the schools he is building, and more if they could be built, are an answer to terrorism. (Note the book has two subtitles indifferent editions, one aggressive and one not.) It should be only a very faint criticism of Mortenson to say that he probably does not really have the answer to terrorism. But it is the message that he is spreading in talks and in publicity for his work. And by the account in the book it seems that people are being convinced.

Why do I feel he does not really have the answer? (And here I admit I am expressing just expressing my own opinions.) First extremist Islam does not need huge numbers of recruits for its goals. Even if Mortenson won over all the people of the Karakoram, an impossible task, the extremist elements would still have no problem getting the numbers they need to wage their conflict. Consider how few people it actually took to execute the September 11 operation. How widespread a system of schools would be needed to starve the extremists of the numbers needed for such projects? Certainly more than could possibly be feasible.

That raises the question of the costs of this number of schools. Mortenson is able to build his schools at minimal costs. It is something on the order of ten to twenty thousand dollars per school. That is a bargain price, but it is still too high. The school-building project works on charitable donations. It is in competition for donations with Doctors without Borders, Oxfam, and just about every other charitable organization. Certainly in a just world there would be sufficient funds, but it is by no means clear there is. In the book we here about large spikes in the inflow of money when there is publicity for the work in magazines like Parade. The book itself is really one such plea for funding. Eventually that money will run out and he will need to get more still publicity. If Mortenson's organization is not self-sustaining it will be very limited.

The book glosses over the question of what sort of security his schools will have. The book shows over and over the power the Islamic extremists have in that part of the world. I suspect it still understates the problem. The people of the villages seem in the book to be very committed to keeping out the extremist forces. But these schools are a tempting prize for the Taliban. They are ready-built potential madrassas. The schools are too vulnerable to being taken by force and converted to the precisely the purposes that Mortenson is opposing. Mortenson and his organization will die one day, but the buildings and extremist Islam will go on. The schools are particularly tempting targets because of Mortenson's avowed (and fully-justified) mission to educate the girls. The girls certainly have never had any other opportunity for an education. But nothing makes the Islamic extremists so uncomfortable as the threat that women will become Westernized and liberated. (Consider how angry the Saudis were in the first Gulf War that American women were in the military and driving Jeeps. Saudi women's rights fall far short of the right to drive.) That belief alone on the part of the Islamists makes the Mortenson schools prime targets that will remain so long after the fickle West loses interest in them. If the Mortenson schools do not receive long-term military support from a government that has always ignored this region, the schools will eventually become more of a liability than an asset. One feels that the greatest challenges to Mortenson's program lie in the future.

Certainly there are any number of very good reasons to support the work of Greg Mortenson, but as a long-term strategy to combat terrorism it is questionable, regardless of the good the schools do in the short term. His book is an excellent view of that region of the world, a region of which we in the United States have little knowledge. Grade A.

Movie review: Juno

Reader #83 wrote: Grade B JUNO is a pleasant as light as possible comedy on the serious subject, teenage pregnancy. What happens to Juno after she becomes pregnant seems to cover a wide range of possibilities of the situation. We see what her alternatives are and how she reacts. It is a little disquieting that the film takes things as lightly as it does and the ending just does not feel sufficient to the situation.

High school student Juno MacGuff (played by Ellen Page) has a big problem. At the beginning of the film she is just discovering from her third pregnancy test of the day that she really is pregnant. This changes everything for her. Now what? Does she tell her boyfriend? Does she tell her parents? Does she want to terminate the pregnancy? What are her options? A surprisingly wide variety of those options are covered in this story and the approach is kept breezy even if the subject matter is not. Among the alternatives that Juno considers is allowing the child to be adopted by a local infertile couple, Vanessa and Mark Loring (action-hero actress Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman). They seem like a perfect couple and Juno particularly likes Mark, but in this course in Life 101 the viewer expects there are some problems that Juno does not see. Speaking of not seeing the problems ahead, I had the feeling that writer Diablo Cody did not give sufficient thought to the emotional impact of what has happens in the story and what comes after. Juno remains flippant, but I wonder how long that will last. The end of the film is by no means the end of the story. At least the film does not give all the good lines to Page. There are several witty characters to keep the dialog witty if not always believable. Director Jason Reitman, who previously gave us THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, plays the situation for as much comedy as he can muster. The dialog is kept whimsical and breezy.

Halifax-born Ellen Page has a sort of light bubbly personality that reminds one of a younger Parker Posey. The personality is attractive, but perhaps not quite so appropriate considering the gravity of her situation and the fact she is playing with lives. She seems not quite right, but that could be just the style of the film. J. K. Simmons really shines as Juno's father. He usually seems to play abrasive personalities like J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man films. Surprise: He is just about an ideal father figure. He has humor and generates genuine warmth. I had mixed emotions about his daughter but a genuine affection for his character. And Allison Janney as Juno's stepmother is nearly as genial. I had just seen her in HAIRSPRAY when I saw this film. She had a very visible role in "The West Wing" and she seems to be in demand. I had the feeling that the film was aiming in a large part for a teenage audience and it is ironic that the parents of the main character are so much more likable than the character herself. Most of the other performances are also pretty much on target.

The original music is by Matt Messina, but the music seems to be mostly songs with words that occasionally distract from the action. Overall this is a reasonable teen comedy, a cut above most teen films, but perhaps sending mixed signals. Sidenote: If "Diablo Cody" seems a slightly over-the-top name for the screenwriter, she has gone by many names. Her biography in the Internet Movie Database says that her real name is Brook Busey and that she has been a stripper under the names Bonbon, Roxanne, and Cherish. She has also been a phone sex operator. This is a somewhat atypical background for a screenwriter, but I suppose she should know something about life. Grade: B.