January 2009 – House of Leaves

Since the group heartily responded to last January’s lengthy, postmodern selection, we decided on yet another hefty title to kick off 2009. Here’s a review of Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves from Publisher’s Weekly:

Danielewski’s eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels, hooked together by the Nabokovian trick of running one narrative in footnotes to the other. One-the horror story-is a tour-de-force. Zampano, a blind Angelino recluse, dies, leaving behind the notes to a manuscript that’s an account of a film called The Navidson Report. In the Report, Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographer Will Navidson and his girlfriend move with their two children to a house in an unnamed Virginia town in an attempt to save their relationship. One day, Will discovers that the interior of the house measures more than its exterior. More ominously, a closet appears, then a hallway. Out of this intellectual paradox, Danielewski constructs a viscerally frightening experience. Will contacts a number of people, including explorer Holloway Roberts, who mounts an expedition with his two-man crew. They discover a vast stairway and countless halls. The whole structure occasionally groans, and the space reconfigures, driving Holloway into a murderous frenzy. The story of the house is stitched together from disparate accounts, until the experience becomes somewhat like stumbling into Borges’s Library of Babel. This potentially cumbersome device actually enhances the horror of the tale, rather than distracting from it. Less successful, however, is the second story unfolding in footnotes, that of the manuscript’s editor, (and the novel’s narrator), Johnny Truant. Johnny, who discovered Zampano’s body and took his papers, works in a tattoo parlor. He tracks down and beds most of the women who assisted Zampano in preparing his manuscript. But soon Johnny is crippled by panic attacks, bringing him close to psychosis. In the Truant sections, Danielewski attempts an Infinite Jest-like feat of ventriloquism, but where Wallace is a master of voices, Danielewski is not. His strength is parodying a certain academic tone and harnessing that to pop culture tropes. Nevertheless, the novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status.

If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, stop by the Oak Park Public Library’s Main Library second floor Adult and Teen Services desk with your OPPL library card to grab one. Or if you’ve already begun reading it and are anxious to share your thoughts, take a look at the discussion thats been sparked amongst our Goodreads group. Then come and join us for what is bound to be a lively discussion on Tuesday, January 27 at 8 pm at Molly Malone’s (the Snug) in Forest Park.

Loving: Doctor Who

On the heels of the season finale of LOST back in May, I sat down to watch a random episode of Doctor Who season two and instantly became hooked. The timing was perfect, as the inevitable LOST withdrawl that fanatical Losties like myself go through at the end of every season was heavily alleviated by my newfound Time Lord obsession. And in this case I had absolutely no need to worry about rounding out the next seven months of sci-fi TV watching until the 5th season of LOST begins in January 09, as Doctor Who is now listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest running sci-fi show.

For those of you who are completely unfamiliar with this wildly popular British series, basically Doctor Who follows the adventures of the Doctor, an alien time traveler who sails around time and space, inevitably managing to solve problems wherever he lands. His character is capable of regenerating when close to death, thus resulting in ten different incarnations of the Doctor over the show’s 45 year history. The Doctor almost always travels with at least one companion, and since the show’s inception in 1963 over 35 actors and actresses have fulfilled that role. All this crazy time travel is reliant upon the Doctor’s trusty time machine, the TARDIS. What appears to be a blue police box aka the streets of 1950′s England is actually a spacecraft that is infinitely bigger on the inside than it is on the outside (hmm does this concept sound familiar? Don’t worry, it very soon will…).

I have to admit, despite the fact that Doctor Who has been a television phenomenon for decades, I personally cannot seem to get into the earlier versions of the show. There are plenty of differences between the current series and Doctor Whos of the past, but as both a character driven reader and viewer, the biggest difference to me is the charismatic and endearing portrayals of the Doctor as played in the first season by Chris Eccelston and in the past three seasons by geekishly adorable David Tennant. Much to my dismay, the BBC recently announced that Tennant has turned down the opportunity to continue playing the Doctor when the series resumes in 2010.

Now the question on everyone’s minds is “Who will be the next Doctor Who”? Some are suggesting the eleventh Doctor Who should be played by a female. Or perhaps a black man? What about an American? I am personally unable to comment until I officially finish the fourth season and can quietly adjust to Tennant’s departure. All I can say is Long Live the Doctor!

Loving: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

I know what you’re thinking. What is a 20 year old Western that my Dad was really into doing on a list of things we love for 2008? And didn’t they make a miniseries starring Ricky Schroeder? Yes this book is from 1985. And YES this is a Western and YES my Dad was a huge fan – leaving me to virtually ignore this book for a better part of my reading life. And YES Ricky Schroeder is in the miniseries of the same name. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that. The fact is that, try as I might, I just can’t leave this off my list of things I’m loving right now because it had such a big impact on my year.

I was looking for something big and epic to read this summer when I came across Lonesome Dove in Entertainment Weekly’s New Classics List sitting at Number 24 in their list of the best books of the last 25 years. For some reason, I had just dismissed the book as some kind 80s popular phenomeon, and I was interested in this idea that it was actually good. Suddenly, Lonesome Dove started appearing everywhere. It was mentioned as being one of my favorite book critic’s (Jennifer Hubert of the fabulous teen book page Reading Rants) favorite books ever.  It had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 (really?!?). The splashy new DVD release of the miniseries had critics everywhere talking about the television event and the book all over again. I gave up and started reading.

Lonesome Dove is by Larry McMurtry, the Texas writer responsible for The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment, and many, many more novels. A sort of perfunctory plot analysis would tell you this is the story of two aging cowboys who decide to take a cattle drive across the country at the closing of the American frontier. And it is that, but it is also so much more. The whole book is written in first person – but the first person of dozens of separate characters, and a hundred more are fully fleshed out in technicolor. McMurtry’s gift is instant recognizability and empathy, even in characters who may have lots about them not worth liking. McMurtry embraces the limitations of the Western genre, stereotypes and themes included, but somehow crafts something that both subcribes and transcends, ultimately lending a gravity to one of the most romaticized periods in American history.

There was something so freeing about reading this book. Something that reminded me that reading is not only instructive or entertaining, but absolutely transporting. Even if you don’t have the time or inclination to take in all 900+ pages of Larry McMurtry’s classic (and I suggest you do!) I hope you find something as inspiring to your reading life as this was to mine.

Loving: Tim Walker

Word on the street, or at least on the pages of Domino magazine, is that London based photographer Tim Walker’s first photography book is THE photography book of the season. Not surprising since the images from it have been floating through my head since I first pored over it last weekend.

Tim Walker Pictures provides a lush overview of Walker’s dramatic photography, as seen in the pages of Vanity Fair, Vogue, W, and countless European fashion magazines.  He’s also the man behind the lens of Juicy Couture and Kate Spade’s high profile, playful ad campaigns – both characterized by their amazing use of saturated color.  Of his work, Walker has said that he loves turning “funny daydreams into funny photographs” which is evidenced by his elaborately whimsical scenes, equally stunning indoors and out. 

The extravagant nature of his sets can be illustrated by this checklist from a recent shoot in Essex: ”20 ballerinas, 17 ‘mirrored’ geese, 250 ostrich eggs (sprayed gold), a box of giant plastic hands, a room full of white umbrellas, 20 Christmas trees, a wolf’s head-and-feet costume, a giant pumpkin, fake silver armour, a horse (also sprayed gold), hundreds of ‘Arabian Nights’ oil lamps, and racks of dresses, costumes and ballerina tutus.”  With so much attention to detail, what’s not to love?    

I’ve included a few more of my favorite photos after the break, or you can view a lengthier portfolio of Tim Walker’s work here.

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