Dubliners (1914) by James Joyce

James Joyce isn’t scary.

At least, not in Dubliners. I was nervous to read Joyce, as I’m somewhat of a neophyte to classic literature, and Joyce’s reputation is that of a nearly impenetrable etymological, historical, and poetic genius. But, luckily for me, this is no Finnegans Wake (which I once peeked into to see what all the fuss was about and set down almost immediately, feeling like I was reading a different language). It’s no Ulysses, either. Hell, even A Portrait of the Young Man As An Artist is a measurably tougher read than Dubliners. I came to learn after beginning that Joyce purposely wrote it to be the most approachable of his works; the polar opposite of Finnegans Wake, which requires the footnotes and annotations of an almost post-graduate level of study to be rendered even somewhat coherent. No, Dubliners is Joyce at his most consumable, most easily digestible, and still provides as much soulful nourishment as any other work I’ve ever read—which is admittedly not very much, yet.

It’s not altogether correct to describe Joyce’s Dubliners as a short story collection. It may be technically accurate, sure. But while these can be read stand-alone–and indeed, I began reading Dubliners with the goal of reviewing each story individually on Goodreads – they’re better taken in as a singular work as each story elevates the others. It’s far greater than the sum of its parts when approached as a novel rather than a collection of short stories.

There were some chapters I deemed forgettable when I tried to analyze them in a vacuum. But reading Farrington’s despicable character in Counterparts prior to Maria’s sweet, independent loneliness in Clay before finally wading through Duffy’s regretful heartbreak in A Painful Case provides such a rollercoaster of emotions that consuming the three in one sitting is a far different experience than reading one of the trio by itself. Thus I’d recommend against approaching this like a typical short story collection and suggest reading it as a novel instead.

A number of the stories depict the more mundane aspects of Dublin life, but Joyce’s prose elevates everything to a higher level. From Joyce’s pen the mundane springs beautifully and the beautiful emerges jaw-droppingly. Joyce is at his best when he writes about love. I have yet to read any author from any country in any time period who is able to approach depicting the feeling of love as skillfully as Joyce does.

These are not all happy stories, though. This is realist literature, after all. And they’re not always coherent, either—modernist, too. Joyce assumes his readers’ intelligence and often leaves it to them to fill in the blanks. While this can be frustrating when attempted by a sub par writer, it works beautifully when done by Joyce, and adds another facet of quality to the stories rather than detracting from their impact with ambiguity.

Perhaps the only negative (albeit a subjective one) I experienced when reading this was my own lack of consistent understanding regarding the constant references to the city, its social norms, and its religion. This struck me particularly with the story Ivy Day in the Committee Room, which centers upon several men attempting to create a fire of Catholicism in their friend, a converted Protestant, who takes little interest in the religion and only converted in order to marry his Catholic wife. I’m too ignorant of Catholicism to dig deeper than the surface of what they were discussing and initially it seemed nothing more than a relatively dry story of a man’s friends striving to make him more religious. It was only after I referred to some analysis of the story online that I realized these friends, throughout the conversation, were blatantly wrong with many of their assertions and references to the history of the Catholic church. Another reference I missed was that the priest himself was named after a street in Dublin’s old red light district, and was surrounded by motifs of the color red through the entire final scene. With this added context, Ivy Day becomes much deeper; it morphs from a fairly bland story into a subtly scathing criticism of many of Dublin’s denizens in what Joyce depicts as a fair-weather form of Catholicism which saves nary a soul.

The fact that I’m not a Catholic and not from Dublin constantly detracted from my enjoyment of the book throughout, and caused me to regularly refer to the gratuitous endnotes my edition contained, along with exterior internet analysis, to get the most out of Dubliners. This is very much a subjective criticism, of course, but something to note nonetheless.

Perhaps due to this ignorance of so much of its subject matter, when I think of my time reading Dubliners, I think first about emotion: love, melancholy, relief, sorrow, regret. Joyce’s writing left such a specter roaming my brain that I recall the raw emotion I felt while reading Dubliners more than I recall any of its rumination upon Dublin’s character, religion, and politics. I’m not sure I’ve ever had the written word affect me so much as some of these stories have, and the fact that I’m neither from Dublin nor, obviously, a 100+ year old man who lived at the time in which Joyce was writing, is a testament to Joyce’s skill in conveying these ideas. Doing so with such mundane, everyday stories of regular people renders Dubliners even more impressive.

Even apart from their context, his words are powerful:

“One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”

“He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense.”

“Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

“I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.” 

“When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street.”

Despite this beauty, reading through Dubliners was up-and-down for me. Joyce's prose is clearly enrapturing and I always feel myself settle into the reverie that comes with reading a really, really good writer each time I sit down to continue reading. While all his short stories in this collection deal with some sort of epiphany or another, I find that not all of these epiphanies have hit me as hard as he probably intended. Perhaps some of this is the fact that I'm reading this 100 years after he had written it. Perhaps it's also due to the fact that I am not Irish, or that I've spent nowhere near long enough in Dublin to grasp its eccentricities. This has left me with the feeling more of reading some good word porn rather than being impacted by a great story, and I'm thankful my paperback copy has a healthy amount of annotations to help me grasp a bit of what Joyce is assuming is colloquial knowledge regarding Dublin's early 20th century neighborhoods, popular restaurants, streets, and buildings.

To add to this difficulty, I often have the feeling when experiencing sparse modernist work like this that the artist, rather than being purposefully ambiguous for greater impact, is being purposefully obtuse in an attempt to obscure the fact that the story is rather threadbare and create a facade of more depth than actually exists. I couldn't shake that feeling while reading the very first story in the collection, The Sisters, despite Joyce's reputation as a literary Titan.

Don't get me wrong; The Sisters is a beautifully atmospheric work by Joyce despite the fact that it leaves the reader to fill in the blanks and place their own suppositions. Though I enjoyed his skill at setting the tone and found some portions of his prose outright gorgeous, Sisters didn't do enough for me. Maybe I'm too old-fashioned, concrete, and objective; too much a philosophical Luddite to really get modernism? But that's unfortunately not a question I'm equipped to answer.

“I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.”

As I continued reading I found myself more and more invested in the sheer beauty of Joyce's words, even if I couldn't fully relate to the stories themselves. The third story, titled Araby, is a stunningly beautiful coming-of-age vignette in which a boy becomes aware of his unrealistic idealism. Joyce's style is subtle almost to a fault, but engulfing. He assumes the reader's intelligence and floods his prose with gorgeous personification and simile. Reading this was more like experiencing a painting than it was reading a short story. Wonderful.


However, it wasn't until the eighth story, titled A Little Cloud, that I found the first story I could truly relate to; one not centered upon examining Dublin, Irish Nationalist politics, Catholicism, or alcoholism.

Centered around Little Chandler, a 32-year old timid, introverted, married man with a child who, upon meeting an old friend Galleher, realizes the path his life has taken and begins to yearn for Galleher's more well-traveled, Bohemian lifestyle. Joyce's class as a writer allows him to impact the melancholy of the existential worry Chandler feels, even though as a single, childless, 30-something travel junky my own life is more similar to Galleher's than Chandler's.

A Little Cloud is particularly appealing to me because it explores an internal, subconscious conversation I've had with myself constantly: Am I missing something important by choosing to live this way? Is it a 'grass is always greener' situation? Am I making the right choice? These questions are asked of themselves by more Western adults in 2018 than in the preceding decades, given our economic and political climate—particularly in the United States—and thus I wouldn't be surprised if this story is similarly impactful to other millennials who might choose to break into reading Joyce with Dubliners.

In addition to the story's particular appeal to me, there are the usual nuggets of Joyce's poetic brilliance nestled into the prose that make it a complete joy to read:

"The glow of a late autumn sunset covered the grass plots and walks. It cast a shower of kindly golden dust on the untidy nurses and decrepit old men who drowsed on the benches; it flickered upon all the moving figures — on the children who ran screaming along the gravel paths and on everyone who passed through the gardens."

And then, finally, comes The Dead. Joyce saves his best for last. The Dead is a wonderfully written; a melancholy short story that encapsulates Dubliners very well. It touches on the same subject matter; Irish nationalism, the Catholic church, alcoholism, the city of Dublin. The closing lines are particularly moving and do a fantastic job to end Dubliners as a whole:

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

The Dead is considered a masterpiece of short fiction, and I feel it makes a perfect endcap to Dubliners, being literary while also remaining approachable enough to be easily recommended as the jumping-off point for anyone interested to read Joyce. It's the only story I believe truly works as a stand-alone within this collection.

Dubliners's impeccable craft is impossible to deny, but I couldn’t shake the fact while reading it that it wasn’t written for me. It encapsulates the city of its namesake and will resonate most with its denizens. For the rest of us, though, Dubliners's other strengths do more than enough to suggest a read—and even a re-read if you’ve already walked the streets of Dublin with Joyce once before.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson

Breezily paced and written in concise, direct prose, Hill House establishes many of the haunted house genre's mainstay cliches and tropes that are still replicated today. Jackson keeps the plot moving forward without riddling it with bombastic events. Instead, she feeds us bits of suggestive events, mostly through the narrator's unreliable account and inner thoughts. I grew not to be outright "scared", but had my foundation shaken by something continuously just... Off. It's like sitting in a silent room in the dead of Summer and swearing you can hear a mosquito buzzing around somewhere, but you can't find out where, and you've heard the damn buzzing on-and-off for so long and seen no mosquito that now you're no longer sure it isn't just your imagination.

Eleanor's actions are just out of place enough to tell you that something is seriously wrong with her; she laughs at the wrong times, her judgments of other characters are so inaccurate they make you wonder if you missed something. Later on, she begins to waffle in her feelings between her companions, often veering wildly from cold fury into outright obsession in the very next chapter.

It's a chilling read mostly due to Jackson's deft depiction of mental illness rather than any ghostly paranormal activity, which is mostly left up to the reader's interpretations. There are a few select shared experiences between multiple characters, but the majority of the disturbances in the house are felt by Eleanor, and Eleanor alone, leaving us to question: Is this really happening to her, or is it all in her head?

This may end up disappointing those expecting more of a pulpy horror read. But if you have an appreciation for subtle, character-driven narrative with a perfect ending, then I highly recommend this.

Bonus points for the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition I had, with the ethereal, elegiac artwork of Eleanor on the cover continuously serving to creep me out when I put this down each night to go to bed. This book reads like this cover looks; simple, pretty, but also subtly off-putting. And you're often not quite sure why.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1967) by Harlan Ellison

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream has an intriguing premise, but that's about all. That and torture porn, I guess.

There's not really any science fiction here beyond the premise of an artificial intelligence hating and torturing the final few remnants of humanity in ways that are viscerally horrifying to a human reader. There's no attempt at an explanation as to how it can do the things it does; materializing various objects, mending injuries through mid-air, and altering the humans genetically. Nothing really happens for any reason because there aren't any rules explained to the reader, which causes the climactic action to have little payoff. The characters are shallow and the unreliable narrator never really amounts to anything, but as I read I found I had most problems with the lack of worldbuilding and wanted some basic framework to what was happening and why.

There are quite a few holes, even for a short story. These people have been stuck in here for a hundred years, yet none have thought to commit suicide? The computer can wirelessly and instantly alter their DNA, can keep them from death... Except it can't at the climax of the story? 

Why? Because Ellison decided so?

I'm pretty disappointed with this read as I expected much more. Is it horrifying? Sure, but it lacks any real impact. It reads more like Ellison came up with an interesting premise but didn't know how to explore it, and resorted to shocking tortureporn in place of an actual, impactful narrative—horrifying or otherwise.

It must have been a unique premise back in 1967, and it certainly features some inventive ways of shocking the audience, but its lack of depth renders its attempt at a shocking conclusion ultimately unsatisfying.

⭐

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

An odd experience reading this considering how great the story is and the intriguing ideas it explores while being an awfully overwritten mess that was a slog to trudge through.

Shelley explores what seems like postpartum depression via the lens of a horror novel and works in ruminations upon free will, human socialization, existentialism, and prejudice. However sandwiched between her exploration of these themes is both a lengthy travelogue an extensive periods of time in which Frankenstein does nothing but describe to the audience how hopelessly miserable he is. I would not be surprised to find that nearly a third of the pages of this novel are one of the two of these. I'd read for pages at a time of Frankenstein describing the layout of Swiss towns and mountains only to have absolutely nothing happen aside from him passing through them without event. I know Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary were all traveling through Switzerland prior to her writing this and she was surely inspired to write about the wonderful vistas they witnessed, but this is sheer, worthless fat; an indulgence on the author's part that doesn't serve the story and bores the reader to the point of forcing skimming or putting the book down. It's also hurt by the chapter-long instances of Frankenstein moaning directly to us just how woefully miserable he is, breaking the cardinal rule of show-don't-tell and causing the reader to shout "Oh just get on with it then, Victor, damn it, we haven't got all day".

I strongly considered putting the book down through the middle portion at the height of Shelley's dithering, put upon reflection it is my opinion that it presents novel questions and, more importantly, ends superbly enough to make it worth a read. I just can't help but suspect a more experienced writer than Shelley was at the time of writing Frankenstein could have turned in a far tighter story and shorn off a fair chunk of this bloated mess into the true masterpiece it's reputed to be.

⭐⭐⭐

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) (Dupin, #1) by Edgar Allan Poe

Poe's Dupin blazes a trail and sets the standard for the mystery genre. The main character is a memorable one and Poe keeps us guessing, but the reveal stretches belief a bit and the story in general lacks some of the refinement we see later in Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes novels that Poe inspires here.

Poe deserves recognition for the pioneering quality of Murders in the Rue Morgue, but the Dupin stories are unfortunately overshadowed by the later, greater works which evolve and refine the genre.

⭐⭐⭐

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe

Contrasting to meandering, overwritten horror classics such as Shelley's Frankenstein, Poe proves with The Tell-Tale Heart that length-requiring plot and character development is unnecessary when you have the capacity to unsettle your audience by atmosphere creation and the building of tension delivered with exceptionally tight and stylized prose. Brilliantly constructed and viscerally unsettling, Heart represents the strength of the short story as a medium and lives on as one of the foremost examples of the unreliable narrator in horror fiction.

One of Poe's best. I'll probably re-read this one each October until I die.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Old Man and the Sea (1951) by Ernest Hemingway

Lots of people say this whole story is symbolic. The used copy I read was marked up with constant indicators of Christ allegory by some Brianna Unger character who apparently had possession of the copy prior to me and marked her name inside the cover.

I didn’t have that reading of the story at all, despite suggestions of the contrary literally staring me in the face on nearly every other page. To my reading, it’s exactly what it appears to be: An old, spent man trying to catch a giant marlin.

I don’t think the story needs anything more to have value. Santiago is not a Christ-like figure. He’s not suffering for the sins of others. He’s not sacrificing himself for anything other than the catch. I was inspired by that by itself and I was preoccupied during my reading with why the story—so simple and tersely written in Hemingway’s trademark style—was so affecting.

It’s a story about human perseverance, determination, and endurance in pursuit of a goal, often in competition with nature itself, a common theme in Hemingway’s work. I can’t help but to scoff at the top review on Goodreads, which reads “just throw the effing fish back,” or some nonsense. The context of the titular Old Man being the one pursuing the catch is important. He’s not trying to feed his family; his family is dead and gone. He’s not trying to make money or garner fame. Throughout his extensive internal monologue—which is sufficiently constructed and interesting enough to carry a narrative that would otherwise have been dreadfully boring—his thoughts are dominated by the task at hand, the wonderful setting in which he finds himself (the Sea), his love for fish, the moon, and everything around him. The Old Man is in constant pain, his will is being tested, and he’s facing death upon failure. Yet he chooses to persevere, not because he has to, or for a reward, but because he’s a fisherman. This is what he does, what he feels he was born to be, and what he enjoys. His wife dead and his only friend a village boy. This is all he has left. And he’s okay with that. In fact, he enjoys it. There's no existential crisis here, just a man who knows his purpose and revels in it. He’s content.

It’s easy to feel the Old Man’s struggle against the fish empathetically and apply our own fears of death and failure to the Old Man like we would do while shouting at somebody in a horror movie who’s fallen down when attempting to evade a murderer. But to do so would be failing to note that the Old Man probably expects to die on the open sea one day very soon. His days are all but spent. He has lived his life and feels he’s lived it well. He’s satisfied. His focus when battling wills with the marlin is so complete that the only thing he wishes for outside of the minutiae of the catch itself is that the boy was there to see the epic struggle, to assist him, and presumably to learn more about their trade in doing so.

I think it’s just a simple novel about a man at the end of his days trying to catch a fish, trying to do what he feels he’s meant to do to the best of his ability, and recognizing and embracing the fact that he will one day die doing it. But it doesn’t lack depth because of it. I think it's inspiring as-is.

It seems to have come into vogue to rail against Hemingway’s work as simplistic, masculine to a fault, or even misogynistic. I suppose I can understand the first two criticisms. But I can’t help but enjoy almost everything he’s written as it agrees so well with my personal tastes in terms of prose, theme, and subject matter.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut

I'm not sure this book is so much about war as it is going with the flow and finding the beauty in your fate, inexorable as it is. Billy Pilgrim embodies this philosophy; he rolls with the punches, liking (or at least not disliking) and wanting to please everyone he comes across, even those who don't deserve such treatment. Billy stoically absorbs the disturbing things he's witnessed until they fester within him and lead to the decay of his mental health. Or perhaps he really was abducted by aliens and traveling through time. Vonnegut leaves it open to our interpretation and humorless, skeptical bore that I am, I choose the more concrete explanation.

Since I'm the personification of a cardboard box, Slaughterhouse-Five is not really my style. Vonnegut's whimsical and zany work is popular with the irony-obsessed hipster crowd of the 21st century, and it's no wonder considering Slaughterhouse-Five is the Wes Anderson version of the anti-war novel. There's a lot of oddballery in these pages despite it being set during the most devastating war in the history of human civilization. The incongruence of its simultaneous focus on zany sci-fi humor and the horrors of total war along with Slaughterhouse-Five's constant shifting of time period and setting could have been a pretty jarring, difficult read if penned by a more uptight writer (cough Pynchon cough), yet this is one of the easier reads I've had this year. I was surprised to realize I hadn't noticed how disjointed the narrative was until after I finished and thought back on the book to write this review. It's pretty impressive.

Classics don't get much more likable or approachable than this. Not really to my taste but appreciable nonetheless.

⭐⭐⭐

Revelation Space (2000) by Alastair Reynolds

Woeful storytelling, glacial pacing, and absent characterization plague a novel otherwise full of intriguing, fresh science fiction ideas.

There were a number of out-of-the-blue character developments that left me scratching my head to the point of wondering if I'd actually skipped a chapter. Sylveste somehow falls in love with and marries his captor, yet we never hear a single smitten thought in his head or see a sole romantic action expressed. It just sort of... Happens. Similarly, Khouri is coerced into a course of action with the potential reward of being reunited with her long lost husband, and throughout the entire rest of the book she thinks about their history, her feelings for him, and how rewarding it will be to be reunited precisely zero times.

These characters almost wholly lack depth, and thus they lack any agency with which to impact the story. They are shuttled along from event to event by Reynolds as if they're cardboard cutouts being placed on stage by his hands. Because of this I found the book dreadfully bland despite some legitimately interesting worldbuilding such as the melding plague, strong transhumanist themes (of which I've been a fan for as long as I can remember), and the simple, satisfying, enticing solution Reynolds provides for the Fermi Paradox.

Suitable for hard science fiction fans, but passable for those interested in even a basic standard of storytelling or mildly interesting characters.

⭐⭐

My Hero Academia (2014) by Kohei Horikoshi

Earlier this year I began experimenting with the medium of weekly Japanese manga. Though Western comics have always seemed a bore to me, I'm a fan of both art, and novels, so why not try some Japanese graphic novels? I ended up exploring a classic of the medium (Berserk), a contemporary favorite (My Hero Academia), and a genre favorite (The Enigma of Amigara Fault by horror savant Junji Ito).

One can't traverse much of the anime-watching and manga-reading corners of the internet without hearing regular mention of My Hero Academia. Aside from the given that is the omnipresent One Piece—a staple of manga for decades—Academia sits atop the throne of most universally popular new series.

I found Horikoshi's characters to be charming, and the setting, premise, and action clearly paying homage to the Western comic book series X-Men. Many of the characters' charm lies in their vulnerability and the determination and effort they exert to overcome them; indeed, the series posterboy, All-Might, would be far less interesting without the context of the ebbing of his powers contrasting with the surging of his desire to be a hero people can rely on.

I'm typically more a fan of dark, cynical, joyless forms of fiction, but I have to say I liked this quite a bit better than Berserk, one of the other long-running series of manga I experimented with this year. Though Berserk does put some care into the construction of its characters, the constant outpouring of effort it made to be edgy and violent wore me down to the point of which I was no longer enjoying myself. This didn't occur with Academia, which stays fresh despite the length the series is beginning to approach.

Charming, funny characters and great artwork make this easily recommendable to manga newbies such as me—especially in today's superhero-dominated popular culture. Though I can't say it did much to change my opinion on the medium as a whole.

⭐⭐

A Feast for Crows (2005) (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4) by George R.R. Martin

I recently completed a re-read of this book and came away with such a hugely differing opinion from my first time through that I thought it important to encapsulate my thoughts here before they fade away with time.

On my first read I was struck with a similar feeling to those critical of the book; namely that I didn't care about these new (or previously secondary) characters, and that the plot moved too slowly and "nothing happens". Clearly, my expectations coming into the book during both of my reads served to enhance my reaction. The first time through I had just finished A Storm Of Swords, in which nearly 1,300 pages flash by in an instant thanks to the plot moving at the speed of light. So much happens in that book. And AFFC is its polar opposite in terms of pacing and what it's focused on. ASOS is hurtling you through the climax of the War of the Five Kings, the instability of the Night's Watch and the Battle at the Wall, and Daenerys's aggressive escapades in the East. Even the more slowly paced chapters, such as the Arya chapters, are highlighted with some great, pulse-pounding moments, such as Sandor Clegane's trial in Hollow Hill. The book is full of climactic moments; I almost consider it to be the conclusion of A Song Of Ice And Fire's first arc. It's fantastic.

A Feast For Crows, then, is not so much Martin beginning to pick up the pieces the first three novels have tossed around and establishing the beginning of the plot arcs for coming books (though he is certainly doing that), but Martin giving us a middle chapter in which we take a breath, look around, and survey all the chaos that has been wrought by the characters we've been following up until this point. Up until now, the focus has remained very deep and detailed; we're watching these characters' actions from the inside of their heads, primarily concerned with how they're going to attempt to accomplish their goals. AFFC sharply changes that.

More than half of this book takes place in the eyes of Brienne (8/46 chapters), Cersei (10/46 chapters), and Jaime (7/46 chapters). Instead of each chapter taking place with characters across the globe from one another, we're now centered in Westeros' very core, with Cersei ruling King's Landing, Jaime spending time in King's Landing and the neighboring Riverlands, and Brienne wandering the Crownlands and the Riverlands. These areas have been hard hit by the war. The common people of the Westerlands, the Riverlands, and the Crownlands bore the brunt of the war, as you might expect. Entire villages are gone, burned lumps of ash sacked and looted, their people executed and raped for no real reason other than a Lannister, Stark, Frey, or whomever patrol had come through. But it's been bad for the "haves" of this society as well. Landed knights, minor lords, and even some great and storied Westerosi noble houses have had their holdings burned around them and their granaries cleaned out by passing armies leaving them to starve in the coming winter. Entire great houses that have been around for thousands of years are extinguished. One of the major points of this novel is that things are bad amongst everyone in Westeros, even the victors. Well, except maybe the crows. Hence the title.

The plot does progress, albeit far more slowly than in any of the previous novels. The war is winding down, the climactic moments have occurred, and the victors are cleaning up what little resistance remains. So why did I enjoy this book so much? What fills the hole that all of these awesome, climactic moments have left?

A Feast For Crows is the most atmospheric of all the novels in the series up to this point. Martin's writing has clearly improved from the initial novel in the series, and he lets it shine here. This series features some of best character and dialogue writing in all genre fiction, and it's on full display in this book. There are several instances in this book in which the dialogue was so excellent, I had to set it down and remark aloud:

• Aemon Targaryen, 102-years old and dying, waking from a fitful sleep to address his long-dead brother; "Egg? I dreamed I was old."

• Septon Meribald's "broken man" speech putting into perspective how hellish the prospect of war actually is for Westeros' serf class.

• Thoros of Myr lamenting upon what war has done to the brotherhood; "We were king’s men, knights, and heroes... but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all."

• Mya Stone describing her memories of Robert Baratheon's love for her prior to his abandonment, and how she was raised by the mountains of the Eyrie after he left.

This book is Martin's rumination upon why war is so terrible, why it's a net-negative for all of those involved. Nobody has come out of the War of the Five Kings in a better place than when they've started. The losers, obviously not. But even the victors. Their granaries are empty. Family members have died in the war or are marrying people they hate to bury the hatchet with previously rival houses. Vast swaths of lands and holdings have been destroyed. And while all of this death and destruction could have made a book like this a bleak slog of a read, Martin's consistently excellent mise en scène alleviates that problem, as does his inclusion of many minor characters who serve to heighten the story past what it could have been. The moments of beauty and hopefulness present in this novel contrast more sharply given their context.

I understand that Martin's decision to split the narrative between this and A Dance With Dragons was a difficult one, but I really enjoy that A Feast For Crows stands on its own as his treatise on why war is such a terrible thing. It's a well-written, atmospheric treat for anyone who's a fan of this world, and coming into this novel a second time while knowing what to expect allowed me to enjoy it far more than I did the first time. The more I read, the more I found myself melting into its world, passively experiencing its characters and its setting, and becoming wholly immersed in what Martin has created. I didn't need the bombastic foolishness of the HBO series, or the climactic battles of the previous novel, or pulse-quickening episodes of single combat. I was too busy being enveloped in the pine trees gently rustling in the wind as Brienne, Pod, and Dick Crabb slowly meandered their way through the woods of Crackclaw Point. I was skipping alongside Arya as she explored the quiet canals of Braavos at night under a full moon. Or with Jaime and his pensiveness in Castle Darry as a fire crackles in the corner and the Autumn wind howls against the shutters. Reading A Feast For Crows is like watching one of those 10-hour long YouTube ambiance videos and sipping on hot wine while thinking about something as profound and serious as what total war says about humanity as a whole and does to humans as individuals, and I love that about it. What it lacks in explosiveness, it makes up for in subtlety and its impeccable craft. If that sounds boring to you, then you probably won't like this. But if you love Westeros as much as I do, you'll probably enjoy this book for what it is.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Berserk (1990) by Kentaro Miura

Earlier this year I began experimenting with the medium of weekly Japanese manga. Though Western comics have always seemed a bore to me, I'm a fan of both art, and novels, so why not graphic novels? I ended up exploring a classic of the medium (Berserk), a contemporary favorite (Boku no Hero Academia), and a genre favorite (a graphic novella by horror savant Junji Ito).

I read almost universal praise for Berserk but was greeted with the first volume, which I promptly hated. It read like a 16-year old boy's etching done while in high school math class. Flat characters, rough artwork, and terrible dialogue. Upon further internet trawling I discovered that, in fact, Miura was no more than a teenager when he had written and illustrated the material in this first volume from the late '80s, and is still working on the series today — Now in his 50s.

His fans suggested I keep reading, and so I obliged them and continued to give the series a shot.

It wasn't until around Volume 15 that I actually put the series down for good, recognizing that it did, in fact, improve drastically; both in the areas of art and characterization. The dialogue remained universally awful, though whether that was due to its original construction or shoddy translation, I'm not sure. The series peaked for me around volume 9, when the characters were further humanized and experienced an emotional, existential breakthrough.

Miura is at his best when he's building his characters and utilizing the plot to challenge them. I once had a creative writing professor suggest cruelty towards your characters as the best way to challenge them and force them to grow and change, and Miura certainly pulls no punches in the Martin-esque way that he punishes the poor souls in Berserk. It leads to unexpected depth in the characterization that I've been referring to, something I was not expecting when I picked up manga for the first time.

The art grows in leaps and bounds through just the volumes that I read, and I've peeked ahead at some of the art in the volume that released just this past year and was blown away. The art Miura is producing currently is genre-defying, in my estimation. He's drawing inspiration from Western artists such as Bosch and Escher, and producing some art completely unique to his medium. It's something that deserves recognition and provides a significant boost to the quality of Berserk in general.

I think a most specific, make-or-break facet in the estimation of whether or not a reader would enjoy Berserk is how well they like camp. Berserk is full of camp. Whether it's intentional, or Miura is just trying to too hard to be edgy is anybody's guess. But this series is chock full of gratuitous, over-the-top nudity and violence. I really can't stress this enough. I'm all for realism (I love Martin's ASOIAF, which toes the line between realism and outright camp fairly well, in my opinion), but the levels of explicit sexual content and violence are so over-the-top in this work that they're impossible to take seriously. I'd be shocked if Miura wasn't inspired by a wave of ultraviolent '80s slasher B-movies. If this is your thing, then you'll probably like Berserk, but too often I felt Miura was overly ham-handed in his presentation of this camp, and it contrasted poorly with some of the more serious character work he was clearly putting full effort into producing. When I think about Berserk, I feel a clash between outright ridiculousness, and earnest exploration of existentialism through well-rounded characters. It's an odd juxtaposition that could have been more interesting had it been balanced more skillfully.

The one objective complaint I have about Berserk is that the dialogue is bad. As I mentioned before, this may be due to the translation, as I don't envy the Japanese-to-English translators job in any circumstance, much less when they're trying to fit kanji-to-English into tiny speech bubbles. I'm sure sacrifices needed to be made to get Miura's ideas across, and they serve Berserk very badly. There are numerous instances of awful dialogue that tear you right out of the experience and pile on top of the already troubled mash of campiness and serious attempts at character development.

The best thing I can say about the series is that, coming from a background of Western fiction, it was almost wholly unique to me. The plotting was a rollercoaster -- each time I suspected what was going to happen next, I was wrong. Similarly, the increase in quality of the character writing and art was unexpected. Fans of the series where definitely correct in urging me to stick with it past the first few volumes, and I'm glad I did. However, this just falls solidly into the category of "not for me": I recognize the special things that the series does within its medium, but as somebody who isn't a fan of the medium, has nary a campy bone in his body, and doesn't care much for fantasy, this falls flatly outside the boxes I typically tick when examining what my favorite pieces of fiction are.

Berserk does some things so well, but its flaws — along with the fact that it's simply not my thing — kept dragging it back down for me.

This is likely much more enjoyable to fans of manga, camp, and dark fantasy. but for people like me coming from outside those realms, much less so. For example, I chuckle to think about my grandmother picking up and reading one of these. But its reputation is, in my layman's opinion, well-deserved among manga fans.

I am certainly not an expert in this subgenre, but hopefully I've nailed a general outline well-enough to help somebody make an informed decision.

⭐

A Study in Scarlet (1887) (Sherlock Holmes, #1) by Arthur Conan Doyle

My introductory Holmes experience courtesy of Arthur Conan Doyle. What begins on the strength of character interplay between our two protagonists eventually grows into a shocking sprawl, but the story is better for it. Conan Doyle keeps you guessing and prevents this from falling into the predictable trap occupied by Poe's Dupin stories which inspired it.

The setting is unbeatable. Victorian London is one of the deepest, most enthralling locales in which to set a story, and one I'm endlessly entranced by. But I also found myself hooked immediately by Watson's narrative. Although the story is a competent detective novel, it's consistently elevated by Watson's framing and its willingness to divert on tangents that always end up adding to the story rather than detracting from it.

A fantastic introduction to Conan Doyle's brilliance and one of the most memorable characters of fiction.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Heroes (2011) (The First Law, #5) by Joe Abercrombie

I hate giving this book five stars because I hate fantasy in general. I can't help but turn my nose up at it because I've disliked so much of it yet recommendations for fantasy are ubiquitous on the internet. Every new post asking for book suggestions on any website is met with the same five fucking fantasy novels suggested to the original poster, no matter what they say they're looking for.

Looking for romance? Read Brandon Sanderson! Mistborn has a "love story" in it!

Looking for deep characters? Read Pat Rothfuss! Kvothe is the man!

Looking for a tight plot with witty dialogue? Read Locke Lamora!

Mind-bending? Dark Tower! Dark and gritty? ASOIAF!

It's gotten to the point where you have to actively specify: "Hey guys, I don't really dig fantasy. I know beggars shouldn't try and choose but please suggest something else for me if possible," And then you're met with crickets.

So I'm really sick of fantasy. I'm sick of hearing about it and I'm sick of seeing it everywhere I go. Fantasy and YA have been very much in vogue since Game of Thrones hit HBO and Hunger Games hit theaters and seeing as I already spend way more time than is healthy on places like Goodreads and /r/books, I'm constantly oversaturated with it. So I tend to grab my coffee and put on my scowl and stand on my front lawn and wait for those stupid kids to hit their wiffle ball into my driveway because you know they're going to, the annoying little pissants and I can't wait to yell at them for it, because I'm a bitter sonofabitch who wants everyone to like the same things I do.

Then along comes Joe Abercrombie and ruins all of my snobbery by writing books like this that I absolutely adore. I don't love all of his stuff: His original First Law trilogy is just okay, but his three stand-alone novels are really good. Especially this one, which is my favorite of the lot.

There are so many colorful characters in this book. So many hilarious (Tunny), smart (Finree), lovable (Craw), bad-ass (Whirrun), annoying (Meed), naive (Beck), deeply disturbing (Gorst) characters populate its pages. They're introduced very quickly but they stick with you because they're memorable. They say witty and amusing things, they say funny and stupid things, they defile themselves and they redeem themselves. Sometimes they're killed and it's sad, other times they do really cool things and it's awesome but it never feels contrived or corny the way most talked-about fantasy scenes do.

This book is also absolutely hilarious. It's seriously funny, easily the funniest fantasy novel I've ever read. Admittedly, this isn't a difficult feat to manage, since fantasy is often stuffy and takes itself way too seriously to begin with. But Abercrombie has a quick, dry, dark sense of humor that permeates his work and it's a breath of fresh air for the genre. The setting also particularly suits it; what better place for gallows humor than in war?

Abercrombie doesn't really say anything new about the futility of war, but The Heroes is such a pulpy joy that it doesn't really matter. It's tightly plotted with great characters and great humor. I love this book so much I can't even pretend to turn my nose up at it. I love it so much it might actually just be my single favorite book.

Me. A guy who hates fantasy. And this fantasy-ass fantasy book is maybe my favorite book, ever.

Damn you, Joe Abercrombie.

Brb, I have to go recommend The Heroes to some guy on Reddit who's asking for a good war novel.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

NOTABLE HIGHLIGHTS

The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.

He is dead and I, the self serving coward that I am, still live. Life is not fair. There is no pattern. People die at random. Something everyone knows, but no one truly believes. They think that when it comes to them there will be a lesson, a meaning, a story worth telling. That death will come to them as a dread scholar, a fell knight, a terrible emperor. Death is a bored clerk, with too many orders to fill. There is no reckoning. No profound moment. It creeps up on us from behind, and snatches us away while we shit.

Savor the little moments, son, that's my advice. They're what life is. All the little things that happen while you're waiting for something else.

"I'm a fucking coward."
"Maybe." Craw jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Whirrun's corpse. "There's a hero. Tell me who's better off.”

Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter.

The Alchemist (1988) by Paulo Coelho

Thinly-plotted, characterless, eye-rolling fare. Overly preachy at its best, nonsensical drivel at its worst. A bad self-help book masquerading as a high-minded literary classic full to the brim of weak fables to be spoonfed to guileless idiots. 

I can't say enough negative about The Alchemist. I hated every moment of it and I'll never understand why folks love it so much. To each his own, I suppose.

⭐

The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story (1990) (The Gap Cycle, #1) by Stephen R. Donaldson

I came into this one pretty free of any prior expectations, going only off of a set of solid recommendations from Redditors who praised the series as a well-written space opera. I was pleasantly surprised with a relatively straightforward story, propelled forward by Donaldson's strong prose and excellent characterization. After a few of the early chapters I peeked at the top reviews on Goodreads and was surprised to see that several reviewers indicated shock and disgust at where Donaldson went with the story.

I continued. It's true that Donaldson doesn't hold much back in his characterization of a sociopathic, sadistic protagonist whose qualities as a survivor don't come so much from innate intelligence as they do from instincts honed by years of survival via selfish cowardice. Angus is a weakling who happens to be good at surviving and when handed power he uses it without conscience. This is certainly not a book for children. Or teenagers. Or even adults with sensitive stomachs. I was glad to have steeled myself beforehand.

I've seen some claims of misogyny targeted at the character of Angus Thermopyle but I tend not to agree with them. Angus strikes me as more of a sadist; an insecure, weak man who assures himself of his own superiority by hurting and humiliating his adversaries... And anyone else unfortunate enough to find themselves in his way. That the particular person this barrage of misery happens to fall upon is female seems inconsequential. Angus doesn't hate her because of her gender, he simply uses her gender as an opportunity to inflict more pain upon her. In this case it seems the severe physical and sexual abuse depicted in the novel is more about the offender than the victim. Angus, though obviously a reprehensible human being, is not less interesting to read for all his despicable actions in The Real Story. I imagine my fascination with his character is not unlike those who can't get enough of the numerous works written examining the psychology of a Manson or a Dahmer, or a Hitler or Pol Pot.

This could be a difficult read for those not well-briefed on what type of book they're about to read. There are no bright lights at the end of this tunnel, but there is excellent writing and a superbly interesting character study if that's your type of thing.

I found it well worth the read, if a bit lacking in meat. At just over 200 pages this felt more like a novella (which I later learned it actually is), and though I enjoyed it, I felt a bit disappointed that there wasn't more to chew on. I came into this expecting a space opera but was pleasantly surprised at the limited scope and more narrow focus. I look forward to continuing the series just to see where Donaldson takes these characters. There's real potential for some great growth and development.

Further note: I've since learned that there exist editions of this novella that are combined with the second book to form a single novel. If you can find it, go for that one.

⭐⭐⭐

Use of Weapons (1990) (The Culture, #3) by Iain M. Banks

Banks' books don't always hit on all cylinders for me, but his sheer creativity and brainpower make this series so enticing. I get the sense, whenever reading him, that he's a dude who's way smarter than me. And his mind is capable of going into spaces so dark I couldn't possibly come up with them myself. Yet, even so, what's so appealing about this series is it's one of the first true utopias I've read that actually manages to still feature compelling conflict.

The ending of this book is phenomenal, and its main character turned out to be a poignant and sympathetic anti-hero for me even after the reveal contained in its conclusion. But its strange structure made it a chore to read when compared to other Culture novels.

Still a worthwhile read. I love being made to feel dumb by Banks.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Notable Highlights:

“He lay, often, looking at her sleeping face in the new light that fell in through the open walls of the strange house, and he stared at her skin and hair with his mouth open, transfixed by the quick stillness of her, struck dumb with the physical fact of her existence as though she was some careless star-thing that slept on quite unaware of its incandescent power; the casualness and ease with which she slept there amazed him; he couldn't believe that such beauty could survive without some superhumanly intense conscious effort.”

—

"In all human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.”

—

“The bomb lives only as it is falling.”

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

I really don't read too much stuff like this so I'm not sure how great I'm going to be at reviewing it.

'Twist' books like this are always highly recommendable before they're too talked about and the twist is inevitably ruined by its presence in pop culture, which spoils it for people by sheer existential osmosis (looking at you, A Game of Thrones). I feel like I could recommend Dark Matter to my mom, a teenager, a hooker, a priest; you name it. It might be a little bit too mind-bending for idiots, I suppose. But it's pretty consumable, which is a testament to Crouch's talent as a writer.

I consider myself a pretty adept truffle pig when it comes to sniffing out twists and curveballs, and I thought I had this book totally figured out very early on. From the first scene in the car, in fact. I want to try really hard not to spoil anything, so I'll just say that this book did not at all go where I thought it was going. Crouch turns it up to eleven and he completely blew me away. It finishes spectacularly and I found it incredibly satisfying to carve through its climax.

Reading this is like reading Murakami if he were a humorless theoretical physicist rather than a hopeless romantic dreamer. Dark Matter is very concrete and it lacks any poetry or ambiguity. There's nothing too profound going on here. When you whittle away the bells and whistles it's basically just a mind-bending thriller. But sometimes that's enough. It's so tightly plotted and it surprises you so effectively that I'd feel comfortable recommending it to just about anybody.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

READING PROGRESS

September 18, 2016 – Started Reading

September 18, 2016 – 

page 312

  

  91.23%

September 18, 2016 – Finished Reading

Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune fits pretty standardly into the realm of modern day science fiction despite being crafted more than fifty years ago. I suppose that's an achievement in and of itself.

It's impressive that Herbert created this world in an absolute vacuum. That is, there was simply nothing like it when it was written, and it's inspired almost all of the genre media that's come after it. Star Wars, of course, is the obvious one. But there are others, too; perhaps even some you wouldn't consider. George R.R. Martin's fiercely popular A Song of Ice and Fire series shares a lot of its root DNA with Dune. It's a fantastic accomplishment in the history of literature because it's one of the rare examples of the creation of something so completely unique that it shifts the entire paradigm of everything that comes afterwards.

But I can't say I really enjoyed reading it all that much. I'm not a huge fan of genre fiction to begin with, so take this review with a grain of salt. I know plenty of fantasy and science fiction fans who have gobbled up Herbert's stuff and loved it. But to me, it features much of the same drawbacks to other genre fiction I've consumed and felt so-so about. Awkward, droning exposition and shallow characterization—specifically regarding Paul Atreides—are my chief complaints. However, just like other genre fiction that keeps drawing me back in, it features spectacular worldbuilding and an immersive factor that's hard to find outside of good historical fiction, science fiction, and fantasy.

My suspicion is that there's a real "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope going on with this book for me. Perhaps I'm not equipped to recognize its value since I didn't first experience it in its contemporary atmosphere; the one in which nothing quite like this was produced. But reading it in the 21st century, in my personal opinion, leaves a lot to be desired. In my judgment it fits squarely into the pack of other genre fiction being produced.

Sacrilege, I know.

⭐⭐

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I feel like I need to preface this review by confirming up front that I don't hate Rand's philosophy or political leanings. I don't even really dislike them. Hell, Bastiat's The Law is one of my favorite works on non-fiction ever. You could call me a filthy capitalist pig and you probably would not be too far off the mark.

What I do hate, however, is Rand's writing.

I've always been turned off by the inherent disingenuousness behind grinding your idealistic axe through the medium of fiction. When you're approaching fiction with the goal of displaying (and possibly trying to convince the reader of) your worldview, it seldom leaves room for the creation of compelling, human characters and letting them react to the intriguing situations that you're placing them in. You're talking through the characters' mouths and manipulating events to display what confirms your worldview and ideological beliefs rather than letting the story unfold organically in a way that's satisfying and reasonable.

I've read plenty of writers whose political and religious views I outright detest in other settings and loved their work. I've read plenty of writers who are verifiable human scum and loved their work. I'd bet that we all have. If a writer is doing their job then their character shouldn't much affect their storytelling. But when you're so obviously attempting said axe-grinding like Rand is with Atlas, it often falls apart into contrived plotting and bland characters, and that's exactly what happens here.

Any book that includes and endless stream of pages worth of a character literally preaching to you in the middle of the narrative, in my opinion, should be non-fiction. In terms of fictional aspects: I related to none of the characters, was not moved by the plot, and was significantly bored as I continued through the book. Rand's prose is flat and unengaging, just like her characters. All that's really here is her philosophy, with all its strengths and faults, and I think that's why most of the hardcore fans of this novel are those who find themselves agreeing with it, while the rest are simply doomed to trudge through and deal with her unlikable characters and predictable plot. If you know Rand's worldview then you can see each turn coming from a mile away and you can guess at the story about halfway through (or sooner).

I do think there's a good story somewhere in here, but sadly Rand wasn't able to separate herself from her beliefs and chisel one out of the block. I've got Sinclair's The Jungle on the reading list for next year, and I'm expecting it to be the other side of the same coin on which Atlas lives, so I'm not much looking forward to that read. But I'll do my best to come into it with a clear head and give ole Upton as fair a shot as I gave Ms. Rand.

I find the philosophy behind Marx and Engel's The Communist Manifesto utterly misled and viscerally repulsive. The history it inspired is a horrifying black mark upon Western civilization, the results of which we're still feeling today. And yet I still have a copy of it sitting on my shelf. At least Manifesto makes for an engaging, thought-provoking read. Had it been a lame attempt at fiction, perhaps I'd have found it as valueless as Atlas, which no longer occupies shelfspace as I donated it to my local library after finishing.

Too much of this feels like a Trojan Horse for Randian philosophy and the fiction falls apart around it.

⭐

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

American Psycho occupies a peculiar place on my bookshelf: It's the only book I've ever read that I liked but was not able to finish.

I'm really not a squeamish guy. I know squeamish people often say that and they're just full of shit, but really; I'm not. I've got a pretty strong stomach. I grew up in the early '90s playing violent video games and watching gory '80s action and horror films. So, really, gore and violence don't typically bother me. But American Psycho makes its film adaptation look like a Care Bears episode. It is, by a wide margin, the most violent piece of media I've ever experienced.

I really appreciate what Bret Easton Ellis is doing in American Psycho. I appreciate how satirical and hilarious and ridiculous it all is, and I looked up a synopsis after putting it down so I know the ending and I'm sure I'd appreciate its ambiguity if I were able to have made it there. But I just couldn't finish this. It's very good—brilliant, even—but the level of creative debauchery, murder, and rape was just too much for me. I got to the gerbil scene and I just couldn't take it anymore.

I don't blame the author for this. It's not you, Bret—it's me. So I'll leave this unrated and leave this review up here as a warning for folks. If you're squeamish, this is probably gonna be a tough one for ya.

❔