A Foray into Y/A (Part II): The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Like my other "foray into Y/A," The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley is a mystery, and a delightful one at that.

(Note: I hesitate to call it Y/A because it is quite intricate and very adult-friendly, but when I was working at a bookshop, we were to always put it there so let's run with that.)

When I first picked this up in the Mysterious Bookshop on a lunch break from the NYU Summer Publishing Institute, I was rather unimpressed by the blurb but absolutely captivated by the cover. It had no jacket and that brilliantly beautiful (while also disturbing) illustration of a dead bird with a stamp on its beak.

And thank the mystery gods for that one... Bradley's Flavia de Luce is a most unlikely heroine (and similar to Larsson's Lisbeth Salander in that unlikeliness only). She is merely 11, the youngest of three daughters (like moi), and has an obsessive penchant for chemistry (which leads her into pranks on items like her sister's lipstick).

In The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the first installment of this now series, Flavia (and her trusted bike Gladys) zoom around Bishop's Lacey (a blissfully British sounding town) in order to solve two mysteries. First, a man dies in her backyard, gasping out his very last words to Flavia herself. This mystery and the caricatured clues that surround it (a Norwegian bird, a rare stamp, a pie) lead her to poke the murder of her father's old professor at Greyminster, which dear old Mr. de Luce may be involved with himself. Naturally, in true mystery fashion, the two are connected and will be neatly sorted out.

Admittedly, the mystery is a bit contrived, but aren't all great mysteries so? It is the classic elements of this story that liken Flavia far more to the impeccable Sherlock Holmes than to the now-kitschy (but formerly wonderful) Nancy Drew. The mystery is precisely laid out, and is almost more realistic in its oft-criticized predictability. The reader is given the same clues Flavia is so that the reader can solve it at the same speed that Flavia does. Refreshing to be sure in an era of mysteries where absurd twists come out of just about nowhere.

I can't wait to meet up with Miss Flavia yet again in The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, due out March 8, 2010. (She even has her own fan club after just one novel!)

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

My posting history for the past month has been absymal. I'll chock it up to all of the craziness that decided to settle into my life for now, but enough about that. Back to books.

Truth be told, my reading has severely decreased because of my internships but I've managed to squeeze in some gems here and there. I'm going to keep these next few posts brief, partly because I read the books a bit ago and partly because I simply want to.

Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire, is, for those of you who live under a rock, his follow-up to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

I admittedly had a lot of qualms with Dragon Tattoo, mainly with its rattling on and on about the economic scandal, which I frankly did not care about. A chapter or so would have been enough, but nevertheless I still enjoyed it greatly.

The Girl Who Played With Fire (thankfully) does not delve into economics and rather explores more deeply the fascinating character of Lisbeth Salander. Her background is (almost) fully divulged in the course of a murder investigation.

The parts that I did love about Dragon Tattoo stayed around for Played With Fire, but not in the boring way that Carlos Ruiz Zafon did with The Angel's Game. Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, and all the other main players stuck around for round 2. At the center of the novel was still an expose executed by Millenium magazine and a book counterpart to boot (which a publishing nut like myself has got to love).

Instead of the mystery taking Blomkvist & Co. to the depths of snowy Sweden, this murder investigation takes place in Stockholm itself with only a brief (but powerful) hiatus to the familiar countryside we came to know in the first installment. Also, instead of the mystery centering on one psychopath, it concentrates on the rather large exploitation of human trafficking which does share one thing with original mystery: Eastern European immigrant girls as victims.

But of course, despite any differences, there were still men who hate women and the woman who hates men who hate women. Larsson's chilling look into how the sexes have yet to become equal and how women still have much to overcome is like a blast of frigid cold into our cozy ideas of Sweden as a socialist safe haven for all. (Don't worry, there are plenty of men who love/respect women to ensure that it isn't just a man-bashing mystery.)

While The Girl Who Played With Fire is hardly polemical and not likely to change much in the way of how things are, it still is worth reading not only for the entertainment value of an SVU episode on steroids but also for its (disturbingly) deep questions it raises.

A Foray into Y/A (Part I): The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

I am a very difficult person to buy a book for. I'm very picky, I have strong opinions, and I'm also just plain old stubborn and independent. All of this has remained true since I first started reading. I determined that the covers had to be beautiful, the protagonist had to be a girl, and a mystery had to be involved.

Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society fits two of these criteria (fantastic cover and a mystery) while downright disregarding the other two (my mother bought it for me for Christmas and the lead is a boy). Nevertheless, this novel about 11-year-olds far surpassed most of the books I read as an 11-year-old, and I dare say I enjoyed it more as a 22-year-old than I would have at half that age.

So why should an adult bother picking it up? Well, the best way to put it is if you happen to watch Fringe, you will surely enjoy it. Mr. Benedict (whose namesake is in the title) is quite like our dear Walter, plus he has a comedic case of narcolepsy and only wears green plaid. Kate, one of the society members, resembles our fearless Olivia Dunham. And Mr. Curtain (yes, a lovely allusion to the man behind the curtain from Oz) is an evil genius intent on mind control who'd I'd imagine could be quite chummy with William Bell.

It does, admittedly, have the trappings of a young adult novel, as it well should. The names of the characters are quite colorful: Number Two, Reynard "Reynie" Muldoon, Kate Wetherall, George "Sticky" Washington, and Constance Contraire (my personal favorite). All are in some way estranged from their parents or orphaned (as in any good Disney movie) and all in some way are geniuses.

It also has the quintessential hallmark of a kids' book: pictures. Carson Ellis, who drew the cover image, also draws images for each and every short chapter's first page, making the reading experience even more delightful.

Unlike its adult counterparts, this mystery does not get bogged down in sex scandals, financial schemes, or sensationalism. Rather, it stays true to the mystery form as would a Sherlock Holmes story (can't wait for the film!) or a Nancy Drew book. Which, of course, leaves its reader feeling quite refreshed. And its secret society aspect brings to mind The Secret History, minus the creepy parts.

And in true young adult fashion, there is a happy ending you wouldn't get from most mysteries or thrillers or even adult books in general. All is well in the world when you close the back cover after the quickest 500 pages you've ever read.

The Invention of Lying

To be honest, I absolutely love dirty, obnoxious, sarcastic comedies. Case in point, JAB and I watch Superbad or Forgetting Sarah Marshall nearly every time we pop in a DVD. Our day's communications often include some reference to said movies, with "No, Jeremy, I can't sell you any weed because I am at my place of work. You would know that because you called me at my place of work... MAHALO" as our favorite.

But every once in awhile, some good, clean (well, cleaner) fun is just what you needed. Enter The Invention of Lying. Written, directed, and starring Ricky Gervais, this comedy has his fingerprint all over it. Its comedy is wholly honest and everyday, just like The Office.

In The Invention of Lying, Gervais imagines a world where no one has ever lied. You would think, initially, that this would equate to a utopia of sorts, but no such luck. People are crude and just too honest. I would like to think that if we really couldn't lie, we would have a couple nicer of things to say. Nonetheless, the negativity works well against the earnestness of Gervais' character, Mark Bellison.

Mark, a screenplay writer of 1300s historical event films, first "invents" the lie when he is evicted from his home, and desperately needs money, which he easily swindles out of the teller. He tests his new found talent over and over, until he decides to uses it on Anna (Jennifer Garner), with whom he is hopelessly in love.

But the true pinnacle of the lie comes when he comforts his mother, who is dying and desperately afraid. He makes up a story about the afterlife so captivating that by the next afternoon the entire world awaits his insights. Mark then concocts a worldwide phenomenon of a pseudo-religion involving commandments on pizza boxes and "A Quiet Place to Think About the Man in the Sky." This aspect of the film lightly glosses over tough religious questions just enough to spark your interest but not enough to bog you down.

The lies catch up to Mark eventually, but not in a way that is as catastrophic as I imagined and not before he amasses fortune and fame. Along the way, hilarious guest stars make the movie even better: Jonah Hill is a depressed neighbor of Mark's who becomes his buddy, Edward Norton is a cop who gets off on getting people in trouble (literally). Jason Bateman is an aloof doctor who cares most about the cafeteria's special, and Rob Lowe is a narcissistic rival screenplay writer.

The only thing that bothered me a little bit was how shallow Anna was. Mark, a considerate, caring man, pines away for Anna, who proves herself to be consistently shallow. I wish she was more likable and perhaps less actress-pretty and more normal-pretty (a la Pam from The Office).

Bottom line? You'll laugh (and maybe cry a little), and it will make you remember why you love going to the movies in the first place.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Like a lot of the books I've read recently, People of the Book grabbed my attention because of the possibility of finding a story like The Shadow of the Wind. Some disappointed (351 Books of Irma Arcuri) and some provided similar entertainment, like People of the Book.

The premise of the story is nothing short of amazing, especially when you consider that it is based on a true story. A Jewish haggadah--a religious book that sets the order of the Seder--makes its way from Spain to Italy to Bosnia to Israel, with mishaps and large chunks of its history missing. It is illuminated--that is, it has illustrations--which is unheard of for Jewish texts. Also, it is saved multiple times not only by its Jewish owners but also by Muslims who recognize its beauty and importance.

Brooks tells it in a reverse order, with the Bosnia scene first and then working back to Spain. Interspersed in all of these histories is the story of Hanna Heath, an Australian book conservator who is called to Sarajevo to restore the newly rediscovered text. Five trace clues (a butterfly wing, a white hair, wine stains, silver clasps, and salt crystals) drive Hanna's multicontintenal investigation into the history aspect of the book. For Hanna, what ensues is a pretty predictable, rather unimaginative love story and finding of herself.

All in all, People of the Book is a good story that had great possibility. The telling of the story and the language used in that telling just fall short. Hanna's voice is just fine; it is straight and to the point, much how you would imagine Brooks' own journalistic voice. Unfortunately, that voice carries over to all of the historical parts too so that a story that is supposed to be told in the 1500s sounds like it is told today. Thus it loses a lot of the magic it could have held. That voice worked when Brooks was writing her article for the New Yorker on this very subject, but it doesn't work for the novel. While I don't expect her to change language or change her writing style, some sort of differential writing would have made the book a lot stronger.

Books I've Forgotten to Read

The statement every English major will inevitably encounter:

You must have read [insert so-called classic here]!

Well, I hate to disappoint you folks, but there is a good chance that I have never read that one for two reasons:

1. Let's do the math. Even though I have a degree in it, my schooling still stopped at 22 (so far). So let's say I read 10 required books per year in middle school and high school. Add to that those I've read in college. I probably took an average of two English classes a semester, averaging about 7 books per class. That's 112. Plus 40 is 152, and I have a feeling that's a generous number. Regardless, there are hundreds upon hundreds of classics I have yet to have the pleasure of enjoying.

2. And now for that word classic. Some classics are undisputed: Shakespeare's works, Paradise Lost, The Divine Comedy, and so on. But as you get to later time periods, you encounter more and more discord among the (intellectual) masses. Besides, English profs love to make an academic name for themselves by developing some theory on some completely unknown author. They then proceed to teach this author to students, thinking they are teaching something new when half of the time students haven't encountered the old.

That being said, I put together a little list of books I probably should have read (and probably should get around to reading):

- 1984, George Orwell
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
- Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
- Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
- For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
- Ulysses, James Joyce
- Sula, Toni Morrison
- Moby Dick, Herman Melville
- Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

The Convalescent, by Jessica Anthony

To be quite honest, my recent foray into the book publishing world via social networks (mainly Twitter) has left me disillusioned. Every book I pick up I seem to have heard 1001 things about, leaving my judgment altered. I enjoy a little glory every once in awhile: I like to be the one who finds the gem.

And finally, I have. The Convalescent, by Jessica Anthony.

When I scooped it up in Barnes & Noble (don’t judge me), I was drawn mostly to the cover. The book is a brilliant golden yellow. Its undersized jacket has the most arresting cover, simulating a woman of sorts within a web of multi-colored veins. The cover in itself was well worth the purchase, but it was admittedly quite deceiving.

What I would have guessed to be a twisted self-discovery story of some quirkily beautiful girl turned out to be the story (and history) of a deformed, diseased, and all together unpleasant little butcher named Mr. Rovar Pfliegman.

Rovar is a mute midget. He sells (stolen) meat from his inoperable school bus in the middle of a field in Virginia and falls victim to his own “benevolent erections.” His skin peels off and he can’t quite shake a hacking cough.

But despite these shortcomings, Rovar proves quite endearing through the skilled pen of Jessica Anthony. While he may defecate in a bucket, a portion of his bus is set aside for his “Reading Center.” Though he grunts instead of speaks, he eloquently writes the secondary narrative of The Convalescent as a letter to the object of his affection.

In fact, in regard to his love of reading and keen assessment of the absurd social world, Rovar is not dissimilar to another character with whom I’ve recently fallen in love: Madame Michel of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (though she is arguably lovelier and, frankly, cleaner).

Those around Rovar prove equally as intriguing. Marjorie taps his window each morning just to say hi and slices those who threaten Rovar. (She is a tall blade of grass.) Mrs. Kipner will never leave his bus. (She is a beetle who grew fat from eating a can of tomatoes and then grew too fat from said tomatoes. Thus, she is stuck in the can.)

Beneath this odd telling of Rovar's world, Ms. Anthony weaves an intricate history of Rovar's ancestors in eastern Europe. It may be more aptly described as a mythology, with its fantastical details, sordid twists, and stunning nature imagery. Case in point: Ms. Anthony manipulates the motif of the river so that it strays from the Disney/Pochahantas convention and rather becomes a powerful force of magical birth coupled with fantastical destruction.

She transforms the cliché image of the butterfly into something wholly new and imaginative, even stretching it to include the beetle, Mrs. Kipner. This butterly image, along with others such as that of the bird, is used to pull together otherwise unconnected events into a fate that is both firmly planted and frustratingly elusive.

Thus the teeniest things in this world (the butterfly, the bird and Rovar among them) get reinvented and exalted in Ms. Anthony’s work. She writes, “Only the gravitational force, by far the weakest force of all, guides the destinies of the universe” (116). Which is of course just an imaginative way of saying, “Good things come in small packages.”

In addition to this use of common motifs, she openly pulls from some of the most established traditions in literature (namely, Kafka). However, Ms. Anthony does so in a way that is not only skillfully executed but is also entirely her own.

Keep a lookout for this author… I’m expecting (and hoping for) further greatness from her in the near future.