I’m not a great fan of Halloween, generally.

I do try to get in the mood though by renting a scary movie or reading a horror novel. So when I came across a discounted copy of Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter at a book store in September, I thought: “Oh! This will be a good book to read around Halloween!”

So I start it mid-October, and it takes me until the week of Thanksgiving to finish it! Honestly, the horror in this book was just getting through it.

I had never read a Straub novel, but this one appeared to have everything going for it, including praise from the likes of Stephen King, Michael Chabon and Booklist. And the author is a bestseller and an award-winner to boot!

In the novel, a 60-something writer in the present is moved to finally find out what really happened in a Madison, WI field in the 1960s. His wife and three of his friends were present at the event, where one person was slaughtered and another simply disappeared. The young high schoolers were seduced by a guru passing through town at the time—a guru who needed their help in lifting the veil from our perceived reality to discover what really lies underneath. A ceremony in the field was an attempt to discover the greater spiritual truth about our world.

That’s pretty much it. Except that at the beginning of the book, we already know the dead guy is dead, the vanished guy is gone, and the other people in the field are still alive. There. Is. Absolutely. No. Suspense. In. This. Book.

So why did I keep reading it? Well, to find out what happens, of course! I mean, there is a mystery. It’s not particularly interesting, but the thing about mysteries is you want to find out. And the thing about horror—unless just the thought of a monster face gives you the willies—is that it is successful or not based on the amount of suspense an author can make the reader feel.

Oh, there’s a sort-of-interesting side story about a serial killer, and a sort-of-interesting final revelation where a demon teaches us why we need evil in the world, but sort-of-interesting is the last thing you need a horror story to be. You want it to be a page turner. You want it to spark a chill or a shiver. You want it to make you feel alive. This book fails at all three.

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Any Peter Straub fans out there? Tell me what you think about this author. He certainly has a way with words, but I sure hope he has some better stories than this one on the shelf.

And while we’re at it, anybody have suggestions of really good horror novels?

Literary Kitty is happy that we’re getting back on track with our Okie Reads posts, but he has a problem with us.

He’s right, of course. (He always is.) Time Magazine’s 100 Best English Language Novels from 1923 to 2005 is a great list. (Why 1923, you ask? That’s the year Time magazine was born.) More than anything, the list is a great conversation starter. Is the list what you would come up with? What’s missing? Why did Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo come up with these titles? Well, you can find out on Time’s site, but you’ll have to navigate through the 100 one title at a time to read their commentary.

I don’t know whether to be happy or embarrassed by the fact that I’ve only read 12 titles on the list. Of those 12, I can give a thumbs up to:

• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
• A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (Okie Reads post on Lolita)
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (Okie Reads post on Watchmen)

As far as the other four titles, I can probably tell you I was too old to fully appreciate J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and that I was too young to fully appreciate Lord of the Flies, Portnoy’s Complaint and Rabbit Run. Or maybe I just wouldn’t have liked any of them, no matter what my age.

I suppose I should be a little ashamed that I haven’t read many of the classics on the list, such as Catch-22. (My friend Layla is re-reading that book right now.) But I’m really more perplexed why I’ve never cracked Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. I mean, what kind of a sci-fi fan am I, anyway!?

OK, it’s your turn! What do you think about the list? What’s missing? What shouldn’t be there?

Let’s talk!

From the Divine Pen fell the first drop of ink.
And from a drop, a river.”

Craig Thompson’s new graphic novel Habibi is like a gift from literary heaven. The two protagonists in this sprawling epic spend much of their time in hell, which makes the finale all the more precious.

It is a story that tells us cruelty knows no time. It is about a striving for the spiritual, even while we live in a crushing, corporeal world. It is about the sacrifices we make for our beloved (our habibi), or simply to survive.  It is about the power and beauty of words. And it is about the ultimate triumph of love.

In an unnamed Arab country, Dodola is sold into marriage at the age of nine. Her husband is a scribe who teaches the young girl how to read and write.

When her husband is murdered by thieves, 12-year-old Dodola is abducted and sold into slavery. It is through this ordeal that she meets a three-year-old boy who she takes under her wing and renames Zam. The two escape and set-up home in an abandoned ship in the middle of the desert.

As Habibi unfolds, we see Dodola and Zam’s relationship evolve as they grow-up together, are torn apart, suffer alone, and are reunited. At different points in the narrative they serve different roles for each other: parent, child, companion, object of desire, inspiration, caregiver, savior, partner, lover. Whatever the fates deal these characters, they each have a constant in their heart—for Dodola it is Zam, for Zam it is Dodola.

Habibi is also stories within stories. Dodola tells Zam stories from the Quran, and it was fascinating for this westerner to see how the stories differ from their biblical counterparts. I don’t know if other readers come to the same conclusion, but I can see the story of these two innocents fitting easily into a book of holy scripture. Their story would teach about the power of love and loyalty, and the nature of evil and its place on the human plane.

Thompson’s artwork is masterful, his writing almost mythological. Together, word and picture make for a thrilling and important work of literature.

Thompson has received great acclaim for his latest, but not everyone agrees. There are complaints about the stereotypical depictions of Arabs, and criticism of gratuitous nudity. The many drawings of a nude Dodola may titillate at times, but they are also a commentary on the objectification of women:

When the world is on its last breath… the masses will need something to distract them from the destruction—and my body will still be a commodity. This is the world of men.”

Any perusal of the many reviews of this book—whether the critics adore the work or have issues with it— will only illustrate the depth that lies within Habibi.

It is the best book I’ve read this year.

As professional consumers, Americans know that few things are as advertised.

Better to call it a “rapture-like” event, or simply the “sudden departure.”

The unknown quality of the tragedy only adds to the author’s exploration of how people deal with loss. How many of us have cried “Why?!” to heaven in Job-like despair? It’s horrible, but there are no answers, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

And so… we go on living, searching for something that will help us put all these pieces back into some comprehensible shape.  And that is what The Leftovers is all about.

It’s the story of the Garvey family of Mapleton, Massachusetts. None of the Garveys have departed, but they must now survive in this strange, new world:

• Father Kevin is serving as the town’s new mayor, trying to speed the healing process in his community.

• Mother Laurie abandons her family to join a cult called the Guilty Remnant, whose members take a vow of silence, wear white robes, and follow people around and stare at them so as to be a constant reminder that the world is ending and we better be ready. (Oh, and they are required to always be smoking when they’re out in public, to emphasize the fact that the end is near, so, like, “why worry about lung cancer?”)

• Teenage daughter Jill, a witness to the disappearance of a friend, is reeling from the departure.

• Son Tom is following the prophet Holy Wayne, who apparently has the ability to absorb the pain of others for a brief time.

It’s also the story of Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family to the departure. Her pain and guilt are palpable.

As I followed these characters on their journey, I was treated to an inside look into the Guilty Remnant, the fall of Holy Wayne, the cruelty of fanaticism, the odd and surprising connections that operate around us, and—ultimately—the harvest of hope that I immediately recognized as grounded and true, for it’s the harvest that has kept mankind going since our beginnings. It’s the one that says, “Here. Look what I’ve found.” There is a reason to go on. There is a reason to live.

Perrotta has a way with words. Beyond the story of these lost souls, readers are treated to a dose of writing that rings as true as that final harvest.

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If you haven’t read Perrotta before, you may be familiar with two movies adapted from his novels: Election, a dark and hilarious work about an ambitious and insufferable high school girl and the male teacher who tries to get in her way; and Little Children, a trip through suburbia accompanied by pedophilia, infidelity, and redemption.

It was just the facts, please, when it came to reading for my father.

I wish I had had something like Mario Vargas Llosa‘s glorious 2010 Nobel Lecture on hand at the time to provide a much better defense of my reading tastes and habits.

Published in book form now, In Praise of Reading and Fiction is Llosa’s tribute to fiction’s power to inspire individuals and whole societies, and to bridge the imaginary distances between different cultures:

Good literature erects bridges between different peoples, and by having us enjoy, suffer, or feel surprise, unites us beneath the languages, beliefs, habits, customs and prejudices that separate us. When the great white whale buries Captain Ahab in the sea, the hearts of readers take fright in exactly the same way in Tokyo, Lima, or Timbuctu. …the shudder is the same in the reader who worships Buddha, Confucius, Christ, Allah, or is an agnostic, wears a jacket and tie, a jalaba, a kimono, or bombachas.”

Just as importantly, the worlds writers and readers imagine in the realm of fiction speak to our aspirations for a better reality:

When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute—the foundation of the human condition—and should be better.”

From the earliest tales our ancestors spun in firelit caves to the grand epics of literature, Llosa knows we and our world are better because of the stories we tell each other.

Llosa’s Nobel Lecture is available online for your reading pleasure.

It’s the final Young Bill Young’s Summer Reads post for the year, and I can’t tell you how happy I am that the current temperature in OKC is a sweet 83 degrees! Labor Day really was the end of summer this year!

Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero by John Barnes

Barnes’s Daybreak series is part end-of-the-world horror story, part post-apocalyptic adventure, and part political speculation. The collapse of civilization in Directive 51 is caused by a movement known as “Daybreak”—an Internet-connected group of diverse people (ranging from eco-crazies to stewardship Christians to disgruntled techno-geeks) who have only one thing in common: they all want to bring the Big System down. The release of nanoswarm and biotes destroy rubber, plastics and oil products, and the destruction spreads rapidly around the planet, causing a dramatic and quick end to modern civilization. Following the initial collapse of modernity, Daybreak rears its head with additional poxes that are aimed at making sure Earth stays primitive, including radiation bombs that are set off in strategic locations.

While the reader is given some of the gore that follows America’s collapse, Barnes is more interested in what happens to America following such a scenario. Enter National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51 (it actually exists), the plan that “claims power to execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a catastrophic emergency.” Despite the directive, it doesn’t take long for the two political parties to flex their muscle, with opposing governments set up in Athens, GA and Olympia, WA. Meanwhile, an informational and research arm of the “federal government” is operating out of Pueblo, CO, charged with disseminating information via steam train to pockets of people around the country. (Are you old enough to remember those Federal Citizen Information Center ads asking you to write to Pueblo for free federal government brochures? Turns out they still have all of that information!)

As the first novel nears its close, the two governments are actually contemplating war with each other, as if Daybreak wasn’t bad enough. It will take the wisdom of protagonist Heather O’Grainne (administrator of the Pueblo operation), the skills of a surviving reporter, and the Socratic Method to try to spare what’s left of America.

The sequel Daybreak Zero opens only two months after the final events of Directive 51, and one year since the first catastrophic events known as Daybreak. In this second installment, we learn that tribes have formed across the country to battle any re-emergence of civilization. We learn that a new Post-Raptural church has emerged that is preparing for the tribulation. More importantly, we learn that Daybreak must be the deadliest meme ever. Those who have incorporated the ideas of Daybreak actually have seizures when trying to go against the meme. And Daybreak is infiltrating the governments of Olympia and Athens, and the research institute in Pueblo.

Some reviewers criticize the “one-dimensional” aspect of Barnes’s characters, but I didn’t find them to be so. No, you will not read pages and pages of philosophical, social and psychological ruminating by the individual characters. But you do get enough insight into the characters to give a damn about what happens to them. And, anyway, this is a story about people who are trying to stay alive while they attempt to bring back some kind of stability to their crumbling world. The meaning of life for these characters, is the meaning of survival.

Fables Vol. 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham

The Gist: If you’re following Fables–the best darn comic book out there right now–get ready for an epic  battle between Mr. Dark and Frau Totenkinder. Meanwhile, Rose Red must put aside her grieving over the death of Boy Blue and pull herself together in order to organize the Fables for the coming conflict with the dark master. We learn about Snow White and Rose Red’s past, more is implied about Ghost (Snow White and Bigby’s invisible child),  and Beauty finally births Beast’s baby! If you haven’t been following Fables, you don’t know what you’re missing!

Status: Devoured! Volume 15 includes the wonderful 100th issue of the comic book with lots of fun extras.

Summer Escapism: Yeah, baby!

Strength of Writing: A

Stimulation of the Little Grey Cells: B (I get totally immersed in this world when reading a Fables volume.)

Social Relevance: B (Yes, we’re talking about good versus evil, but Willingham’s Fable characters are too complicated and rich to be relegated to simple black and white.)

General Reaction: The best Fables story arc of the last couple of years. Can this comic get any better?!

Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not) by Jason Shiga

The Gist: Hapless geek Jimmy is a mama’s boy and librarian in Oakland who thinks he knows more than he actually does about computers and the Internet. When he loses his best friend Sara to an internship in New York, he realizes that he has romantic feelings for her. So… it’s off to New York!

Status: Read cover to cover

Summer Escapism: Meh…

Strength of Writing: C (Yes, it was satisfactory.)

Social Relevance: B (Jimmy has a job but he’s still a step or two away from being a self-actualized adult. He represents the Emerging Adult, an increasing trend in our country.)

Generation Reaction: Reading this made me feel as empty as Jimmy must feel. Oh yeah, I chuckled in a few of places, but it was generally a solemn read for me. Following Jimmy’s trip to New York and his last interaction with Sara, the reader is left with no idea if the protagonist will begin to gain confidence and take charge of his life.  In reading a book, at the very least, I want to know that something has changed for a character, that some revelation about life has been earned. You won’t get that reading Empire State. (Jimmy is a continuing character for Shiga, so maybe we’ll be rewarded in future books.) I’m a great believer that every read does not have to leave you feeling good, and I suppose this story has something to tell us about the state of twenty-somethings in the world today. Maybe I’m just becoming an old fuddy-duddy!

By the way, Shiga continues to have great promise, despite my lukewarm review of Empire State. After all, he did create this! It features Jimmy, too.

Visit ShigaBooks to find out more about this talented artist and writer.

The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

The Gist: Harriett and David Lovatt see themselves above the fray when it comes to the sexual revolution in 1960s England. They want a simpler, more traditional life surrounded by a large family. While there are problems pursuing their path—the expenses of a large home, multiple pregnancies, and the need for day-to-day help from Harriett’s increasingly resentful mother—they remain committed to their goals. When their fifth child Ben is born following a nightmare pregnancy, the Lovatts are visited by an unthinkable horror. Ben is alien, violent, almost inhuman in appearance, and inexplicable in his responses to normal human interactions. The family’s world begins to tear apart.

Status: This was my second read of Lessing’s modern day horror story. I came across it in a Texas bookstore with my sister earlier this summer and remembered how good it was. I bought her a copy and ended up reading it again over the weekend before leaving it with her.

Summer Escapism: The best! (A real “there but for the grace of God go I” kind of escapism.)

Strength of Writing: A (It’s Lessing. What do you expect?)

Stimulation of the Little Grey Cells: B

Social Relevance: B (Beyond the horror story, there are underlying themes of dreams broken and plans destroyed, maternal love vs. fraternal love, and the inability to control what life brings.)

General Reaction: I loved it the first time I read it 20 years ago, and I loved it when I read it again this summer. The Fifth Child works so well because the horror is not from the outside. Ben is not possessed by a demon. There are no supernatural reasons for why Ben is so alien and dangerous. Although Harriet believes Ben is a punishment visited on them for their “selfish” plans to live an idyllic life, both she and David begin to see this child as a throwback to a previous hominid form. This is nature at work. And it means the horror is in us.

Lessing talks about writing The Fifth Child.

Ben in the World by Doris Lessing

The Gist: In this sequel to The Fifth Child, we see how Ben perceives the world around him. He knows he is different, and he pines for a place where he is accepted and understood. As he makes his way across the globe, he is sometimes treated to kindness; but more often he is used and manipulated by the unscrupulous. The monster in The Fifth Child becomes the protagonist of a modern fable.

Status: Completed

Summer Escapism: C (Not much, but that’s OK. While it is easy to relish a horror story, this fable was sometimes painful to get through. The reader is asked to sympathize with Ben, but his alien nature makes that a difficult process. That, in itself, could be considered either a flaw or an accomplishment, depending on what Lessing intended.)

Strength of Writing: A

Stimulation of the Little Grey Cells: C (I struggled through this book for the reason given above.)

Social Relevance: B (How do you apply the Golden Rule to a monster, even if the monster is part of us?)

General Reaction: A frustrating experience (and I wasn’t the only frustrated reader), but that may be because I harbored expectations based on the earlier novel. Here’s what’s ultimately interesting about this book: Ben’s monstrous behavior can be explained by his true nature; but what can we say about the monstrous behavior of the humans in the book? Is that our nature? The answer is not what we would prefer to hear, but we know it to be true too well.

Lessing chats about Ben in the World

So those are two of the title I read recently. Your turn! What have you been reading lately?

It is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Is it another landmark book and film on the civil rights movement, or (as one writer put it) is it “just another example of Hollywood’s interest in black stories, but only if they are told from a white protagonist’s viewpoint?”

The Help is about three women in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi: two black maids and child caregivers (Aibileen and Minny), and a white college graduate who has returned to the south (Skeeter). Skeeter aspires to be a writer, and she has been told by a professor to write about what bothers her. What bothers Skeeter is the racism and hypocrisy in her community, and she convinces Aibileen and Minny to spill their stories about life as black maids in Jackson.

Since Aibileen and Minny are major players in the story, it’s not tokinism that is causing the controversy. Much of the controversy revolves around the fact Stockett is a white writer, which immediately provokes many readers to first question the authenticity of such a story. Is it honest? Is this just going to be another story of a liberal white person standing up for the rights of black people? What does she know about the experience of black maids during that era? (Stockett’s family was cared for by a black maid until she was 16, when the maid died.)

Similar questions were raised when Rilla Askew’s novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, Fire in Beulah, was published in 2001. But leaders in Tulsa’s black community were quick to see the honesty and authenticity of Askew’s work and her five years of research into the clouded event. More than anything, there was an appreciation that the truth about the slaughter of people and the destruction of America’s Black Wall Street was finally seeing the light of day.

Stockett is finding it harder to win positive reviews from many critics and readers, despite the book’s phenomenal success. She is criticized for the dialogue she writes for Aibileen and other black characters (“You a kind girl”). She is criticized for the dialogue she writes for the white characters (Where is the southern accent?).

She is accused of making Aibileen an Uncle Tom, a “good” minority, a person who absolves the white people around her. The archetypes of Uncle Tom and Mammy are invoked by the characters and setting of The Help. Those archetypes add to the criticism that The Help ignores real history about the state of Black America in the 60s.

I suspect it is mostly a good thing when a book is the subject of debate in America. If nothing else, maybe more people will read it to find out for themselves, or read the reviews and discussions going on surrounding the work to understand the cultural, historical and social issues that are being debated.

Just take a look at what people are reading, writing and watching on the web about The Help:

A Critical Review of the novel The Help: This anonymous blogger has so many issues with The Help you could spend all day on her site. Tons of entries and comments. Honest-to-gosh fascinating!

The Queen’s Castle: Excerpts from Jet magazine and other items on The Help.

NPR: The Help Draws Audiences, and Ire

CBS News: Katie Courie interviews Kathryn Stockett

Check out this article on NewsOK about women who have cleaned homes, past and present.

New Link 8/23/11: MSNBC The Last Word: Melissa Harris-Perry on why The Help is not artistic and ahistorical.

Google reviews of  The Help and you’ll get takes on both the book and the film adaption, from the glowing thumbs up, to the disappointed thumbs down.

Okay, it’s your turn: Have you read The Help, or seen the movie, or both? What’s your reaction? Are you staying away from the book and movie for some reason? Tell me, tell me, please…

It’s 110 in the shade! You need something to cool your body and your head!

Nordic Noir Book Club is just the ticket. I just finished reading Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman (review to come later this week), and I have to tell you that one of the things I enjoyed most about the book was its cold, icy setting. Summer really is the perfect time to pick up a mystery from the Nordic countries. Brrrr! Happy reading!