Eschewed Obfuscation

A Wild Sheep Chase
by Haruki Murakami
353 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Fantasy

On first glance, this novel just seemed dang weird. Then I met a dear friend who adores Murakami and assured me that he was indeed dang weird, in a good way. Then I read A Wild Sheep Chase and personally confirmed that Murakami writes dang weird stuff--in a very good way.

The nameless narrator works in a small advertising agency, has a normal ex-wife and a strange girlfriend, and is one day sent upon a quest: to find the sheep with the black star on its back, as depicted upon a postcard from an old friend. What happens after that doesn't make much sense, but it's so glorious that I don't care. I mean, there's a picture of a sheep man. Murakami is at the epitome of both Japanese mainstream popularity and Japanese magic realism; I, of course, loved his existentialist themes.

That said, many of my friends are just bewildered by this book. Read it with an open mind; being familiar with magic realism conventions helps a lot. I am reminded of A Hundred Years of Solitude without the emphasis on folklore or family, or for that matter the sheer density.

The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
245 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary

Stevens is an English butler of highest repute and ability now serving a modern American employer, Mr. Farraday, who inherited Darlington Hall after Lord Darlington's (untimely?) death. The tale is structured, like Ishiguro prefers, as a rambling first-person narrative. Stevens reminisces at length, through convoluted verbal hedges and self-denials, about his long time in Lord Darlington's service and his complicated relationship with Miss Kenton, the housekeeper.

This was mandatory reading for me, and I had high expectations of Ishiguro. It's important to note that narrative structure is about the only similarity between Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go (his wonderful dystopic SF novel); still, I did enjoy Steven's distinct voice.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel García Márquez
448 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Historical/Fantasy

Nobel laureate Márquez founded magic realism with the publication of this novel, considered his masterpiece. It is at once Latin American social commentary, a fictional biography of the region and its culture, an epic chronicle of a South American village's rise and fall, and the family history of the Buendias. Plot: there really isn't one, aside from the conglomeration of the previously mentioned topics. This is such a wacky novel! My head hurts from trying to distinguish all of the Aurelianos (and José Arcadios, and Amarantas/Úrsulas/Remedioses). And can there be much more incest? Unfortunately, for me the book has one fatal flaw: I didn't once care about any of the characters. They were born and they died, but I only kept reading because I wanted to finish reading.

Nonetheless, if you are interested in magic realism, lit theory, or Latin America, I highly recommend One Hundred Years of Solitude. Character development is not a strong point, but in many ways, that is the point.

Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (eds.)
291 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Fantasy/SF

After only managing to skim a few stories back in 2007 when I borrowed it from a friend, I finally bought this "alternative" and obscurely-acclaimed anthology and read it for my monthly Book Club. I only found 3 favorite and 4 hated tales out of 19 total, but--surprisingly--my overall impression is quite positive. Interfictions has earned a place on my long-term bookshelf.

If you aren't familiar with the concept of interstitiality, I would recommend reading Heinz Insu Fenkl's laborious introduction; otherwise, it is probably best left to the academically inclined. In contrast, definitely read Sherman and Goss's conversational "Afterword: The Spaces between" (although you still should read the stories themselves first, for necessary context).

So let me begin with the favorites, first. Jon Singer's "Willow Pattern" is probably the shortest story in the collection, and to me also one of the most interstitial. As Goss says, there isn't another story out there that combines science fiction and china patterns. After my first read-through, my only thoughts were, "Oh, that was pretty." Two years later, I began to "get" the SF aspects; I still don't entirely grasp the point simmering deep beneath the surface, but this flash piece epitomizes what I love best about genre--the extra layer of depth waiting to be plumbed, a depth unique to alienation and surreality.

For pure story pleasure, the title goes to Csilla Kleinheincz's lyrical and poignant tale about a man and a lake: "A Drop of Raspberry." Translated from the Hungarian by Noémi Szelényi, it is interstitial in its superrealistic treatment of surreal/fantastical events (yet tonally different from magic realism). Kleinheincz also happens to hail from the same country as Goss, and she is Hungarian-Vietnamese--too cool!

Finally, "Queen of the Butterfly Kingdom" by Holly Phillips (also coincidentally a Canadian author) is a cross between mainstream and fantasy that seduced me into caring despite a seeming lack of originality. The protagonist is a writer, even, which typically repulses me. But I suffered along with her as she waited for news of her beloved, and the last scene made me stop for a moment to smile.

Then we have the have-nots, those stories that flatly did not work for me. However, of the four I would only label one terrible per se; the rest are a matter of conflicting tastes. For instance, I found Karen Jordan Allen's "Alternate Anxieties" a pretentious deconstruction of Story using the trite writer's-notes conceit; but another reader might think it a brilliant piece of experimental fiction (the experimental classification does tend to draw such extreme opinions). Similarly, I was confused by the mythological underpinnings of Joy Marchard's "Pallas at Noon"--another "writer" story--and I thought that Chloe's (Allen's) poem, once revealed to the reader, was frankly incomprehensible.

In my review of Loghorrea, I have previously blasted Leslie What for her unthinking vilification of a chronic illness; her story here, "Post Hoc," thankfully commits no such sins, but I thought the story unoriginal, uninterstitial (save for the "liminal" post office conceit), and largely unengaging (the main character, anyway--I did like Joe the postman). It's not a bad story, though, just not a very good one. I would rank it above Rachel Pollack's "Burning Beard," an explicitly hip yet faithful retelling of the Biblical life of Joseph. Personally, I'm not a fan of Biblical allusions (even when written by a literary master like Milton); Pollack is considerably less skilled than Milton, and her retelling comes off as trite and silly rather than uniquely interstitial.

Some stories just did nothing for me. I don't understand Anna Tambour's story "The Shoes in SHOES' Window" at all--only that the world appears to be Communist-esque?--and unlike Singer's tale, it gave me no superficial pleasure. After praise heard through the grapevine about K. Tempest Bradford's "Black Feather," I was disappointed to read an unremarkable fairy-tale variant that didn't seem particularly interstitial. Veronica Schanoes's "Rats," a fictionalized biography -slash- Cinderella story about two depressed drug addicts destined for love, was too consciously grungy for me. Similarly, "Timothy" by Colin Greenland could be read as an eroticization of bestality if one were so inclined. And I was unconvinced by the m/m relationship in "A Map of the Everywhere" by Matthew Cheney, which is interstitial by virtue of sheer weirdness but failed as a tale first and foremost.

Some others, I enjoyed but did not love: I liked the collective narrator of "What We Know of the Lost Families of --- House" by Christopher Barzak, a horror tale that doesn't aim to scare. Mikal Trimm's "Climbing Redemption Mountain" wasn't as good as Kleinheincz's version of superrealistic surrealism, but it did emotionally satisfy. I likewise enjoyed reading Vandana Singh's "Hunger," especially the POC focus and all the foodie details, but found her sole fantastical element extraneous--the story is much better read as straight realism, which would not be interstitial. Two other translations also fail to live up to Kleinheincz: Léa Sihol's "Emblemata" from the French by Sarah Smith was interesting for its Buddhist philosophy but just missed the cut for favorites; Adrián Ferrero's "When It Rains, You'd Better Get out of Ulga" from the Spanish by Edo Mor had no plot and not enough theme or insight to make up for said lack. The anthology's closing piece, "A Dirge for Prester John," was typical of Catherynne M. Valente's style in its outlandish, monstrous imagery.

I applaud Sherman and Goss for their conscious shaping of geographic and cultural diversity, as well as their willingness to publish utterly unknown authors. I understand interstitiality a little more now, at least; I just wish that experimental fiction would constitute a smaller part of the (ironic) genre.

Worlds Apart?: Dualism and Transgression in Contemporary Female Dystopias
by Dunja M. Mohr
312 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Nonfiction/Literary/SF

Since I selectively read this for a research paper, I can't say I really finished it; and it wouldn't do me much good to finish reading it on my own because I'm not familiar with the works discussed other than Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. Kohr does extensive and interesting close readings of Suzette Hagen Elgin's Native Tongue trilogy, Suzy McKee Charnas's Holdfast tetrology, and of course Atwood's best-known novel. The dualism argument is fascinating but I'm not sure I understand the transgression aspect. In any case, I've added the Native Tongue books to my list because they deal with linguistics!--anyone with more knowledge of the series or Charnas's care to chime in?

The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
311 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/SF

In the Republic of Gilead, a religious fundamentalist government ruling the former United States of America, there awaits a woman called Offred. Offred is a Handmaid, a fertile woman given six years--three chances--to produce a child for one of the elite Commanders as a surrogate for his childless Wife. She lives every day and every night, waiting for a spiritual surrender she is too cowardly to accept. Once, Offred had her own non-patronymic name, and she was married to a man named Luke with a young daughter. But her daughter has been adopted by some nameless Commander's household; what else does she live for? Her fundamental uncertainty lies at the heart of The Handmaid's Tale.

I first read this novel, one of Atwood's most renowned, about two years ago. I picked it up on a whim at the library, attracted by the cover; it introduced me to the subgenre of literary dystopic fiction, after which I read its original inspiration 1984. As a simple story--that is, setting aside literary merit--the novel just works. I sympathized immediately with the narrator (whom I shall call June, although her name is only deducible after reading most of the book) and her world's tragedies, particularly the political demise of democracy and feminism. Atwood also sets her tale in the remnants of Harvard Yard, which I'm sure will be amusing to those of you more familiar than I am with the area.

Atwood's prose shines like a full moon through sheer white curtains: subtle, elegant, and veiled. She writes with sparse beauty, interleaving strange yet familiar images of flowers, eggs, night, and silence in a purposeful vignette structure framed by the epilogue (pseudo-commentary titled "Historical Notes"). And her world-building grows outward from June's narrative, pervading the reader's sense of setting without needless exposition. The setting qualifies this Atwood novel as firmly science fiction, even if the author would not categorize it as such, and its literary qualities recommend comparison to Kazuo Ichiguro's Never Let Me Go or Maureen McHugh's Nekropolis.

I am intrigued by the themes of isolation, waiting, and illusion, three different but not dissimilar concepts that Atwood intertwines. The story remains inherently untrustworthy and unverified, unverifiable; June even states more than once that "I don't want to be telling this story," or that she is not reconstructing her memories in truth. And then I am struck by passages like this one, a snippet of narration that occurs while June prepares for the monthly Ceremony:

I wait, for the household to assemble. Household; that is what we are. The Commander is the head of the household. The house is what he holds. To have and to hold, till death do us part. The hold of a ship. Hollow.

Hollow feels like an apt description of Gileadean society, ironic given its emphasis on fertility; hollow is also an apt description of June until her illicit affair with Nick. This tale is obviously a story warning against the dangers of fundamentalism, but what does Gilead do right (if anything)? Like any totalitarian government, it wrought terrible cruelties. And like any structure of power, it left an indelible impact. Maryann Crescent Moon, Professor of Caucasian Anthropology, claimed that Gilead redrew the map of the world. In the end, this is perhaps what I love most about The Handmaid's Tale--the clichéd but oh-so-possible sense of DOOM.

The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
371 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary

"Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul," reads the knife-carved inscription on the pomegranate tree atop a hill in an old cemetery. The Kite Runner is a fictional memoir narrated by Amir, a boy born into privilege but desperate for paternal affection; it is a novel about Hassan, the simultaneously brave and weak "kite runner" of the title; it is a story chronicling Afghanistan's effect on one fragile family unit fraught with secrets and tragedy. It is at first a bildungsroman, a beautiful portrayal of Amir's growth through the years from his friendship with Hassan, the son of a devoted servant and a Hazara (a racial minority), to his marriage to a girl with similar past regrets in her life and to acceptance of Hassan's legacy. It is a tremendous novel--a work of literature--with all the perfectly-pitched prose, symbolic imagery, elegant motifs, mirroring and framing that "literary" implies.

Of course, I still prefer Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, for perhaps selfish gender reasons. And it's interesting to read my thoughts on that book at the time, a bit over a year and a month ago; I still remember its emotional impact, but I also appreciated Hosseini's prose in Kite Runner where I apparently didn't in Suns. I'm richer for reading both and I'll keep this on my bookshelf for its skill with language; I will also be interested in any of Hosseini's future works, although I hope he'll consider a setting other than war-torn Afghanistan. There are some plot holes in the debut novel--What are the chances of Hassan's mother randomly returning? Why did Rahim Khan keep the secret for so long, and then trick Amir even as he revealed the secret, so manipulatively?--that he mostly hid through prose and characterization. Moreover, I did not sympathize with Sohrab as much as I wanted to, as much as I expected to based on my emotional connection to the other characters. The Kite Runner reads very much like memoir, so stark and poignant in places that I wonder how much of it was inspired by reality--I am reminded of Tim O'Brien's The Things We Carried, which is also memoir-like but incorporates a meta aspect.

Overall not a disappointment in the least, and it bore great fruits for book club discussion.

My Name Is Sei Shōnagon
by Jan Blensdorf
152 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Literary

This book makes me so happy. Deliriously happy.

Look, ma--people of color! Mixed colors, even! "Sei," the unnamed protagonist, was born to a Japanese mother and American father. She lives in the United States at first, but when her father dies, she and her mother move back to Japan to live in the household of her dominating uncle. Her inability to assimilate into either culture is something with which I identify very, very much. I don't think the narrator/protagonist is ever named except for her pseudonym--Sei Shōnagon, tenth-century author of The Pillow Book--she is lying in a coma in the hospital, and the novel consists of her reminisces; it is slowly evocative of real life, like the best of literary fiction. Mainly set in Japan, the story stays true to that culture (at least as I understand it). Japan is still a patriarchal society, though constantly and gradually progressing. Blensdorf doesn't shied away from racism and abuse both physical and emotional.

Regarding technique, it's written in gorgeous prose, comparable to GGK but in a totally different style. Also nominally second-person narration that works, oh so well, with a wonderful twist of perspective at the end. The length fits the tale, for I don't think the structure could be maintained over a longer novel.

Everyone should read this. Really. It's not something that I would necessarily reread, but rather something that I can't imagine not having the pleasure to experience.

Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
219 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Historical/Literary

Like Into Thin Air, this was assigned reading. I had heard horror stories about the dialect, but I found the novel surprisingly readable and reasonably interesting. (By the way, the cover of my edition, with a foreword by Mary Helen Washington and an afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is just gorgeous.) This is a great book to analyze, perhaps not as great a book to read for pleasure, at least for this reader. There are definitely feminist undertones--Janie accepts and endures abuse by the men in her life, and even Tea Cake, who gives her the most self-agency, is controlling and jealous. Race, of course, also plays an important role.

I appreciate Hurston's work on a literary level, but I find the plot lacking--it serves only to drive the development of Janie as the all-important main character, which is a noble purpose and sufficient for mainstream fiction. I'm used to reading genre, I guess.