Male of the Species by Alex Mindt

If I was going to judge this book, not only for its cover (a bad photo of a tree with the sunlight filtering through its branches) but for its title, Male of the Species, I imagine that I usually wouldn't even consider picking it up. For the most part, I read books by women. I don't think I need an explanation for reading what I am drawn to. This book is written by a man, and as far as I can tell, it is about men, almost solely. Really, it appears to be centered around the theme, not necessarily of father hood, but fathers themselves (though after reading a bit of it, this theme does not stand for the whole book, but at least a portion of it). The one story in the collection that I have almost finished is about one son's quest to set his father up with the recently divorced neighbor. An uncle also features prominently in the story. Some of the dialogue is humorous, even witty. And it isn't a book to make you think, which is exactly what I was searching for the moment I picked it up. A few stories into the book, I'll probably get bored and stop reading. But my mood will most likely change and I might find myself on my couch this evening finishing the rest of the book.

After going home to read more of this book last night, I determined that it wasn't a pleasant read at all. The pervasive attitude of the stories disagrees with me. As expected, the book is very masculine. This is not always a negative thing. But in this case, I want to say that it is. The book is masculine in a broad-disrespect-for-life sort of way, an I see the world my way and my way is correct sort of way. This is the dark side of masculine--basically a fuck-you attitude to the world riddled with pervasive selfishness. A few stories into the book, I stopped, finding myself growing more and more disgusted with the characters. The one story I did appreciate, was titled The Artist At Work.

O.(h) Henry

Last week, my prize book find was an advance reader's edition of the O. Henry Prize Stories 2007. Thus far, it has certainly lived up to its promise. Though a few of the stories don't appeal to me, each one is particularly well crafted. The language is inventive. The plots are riveting. The stories are diverse and capture something about humanity and the essence of narrative. Among the stories featured in the collection is one by one of my favorite authors, Christine Schutt. I do have to say, though, that her style no longer seems as riveting as it did upon first discovering her work. Because her writing is driven by language over plot, it is easy to weary of. Alice Munro's story in this collection, as always, has a keen sense of place and of history. It is interesting, and pleasant to read. There are plenty of other stories that caught my attention as well.

Introducing Sasha Abramowitz

I don't often read novels written for children. Owing to their simplicity and the educational methods their writers slip into the pages, they are often boring. For example, last night I was reading a book called Introducing Sasha Abramowitz. It is filled with side-notes about certain words being on the protagonist's spelling list for school(i.e. the author's method of teaching her readers vocabulary). The plot is not particularly riveting. But it does have a certain charm to it that compelled me to continue reading. Now that I am almost to the end, I'll probably have to finish it before I find a child to pass it on to. The story is about a girl who lives at a college with her parents who are professors. The book is predominantly relationship based, but the quirk is that Sasha comes from a family of nerds and lives among college students who are her friends along side other children of faculty at the college. The story is superbly innocent hinting just barely at the beginnings of adolescence. This made it difficult to determine what age bracket the story is intended for. This book would have been one my mother approved of, meaning, it is probably not all that appealing to 11-year-old girls.

Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis

It would probably be more educational to read a sociological study, but reading this book is the next best thing as it is crafted with sociology and "scientific method" in mind. I never considered certain academic styles to be literary devices before, but Lydia Davis reveals that they can work as such (while providing a nice framework for an alternative plot-line). Breaking free of standard plot is the thing Davis does the best. The stories in this book of very short fiction range from a few sentences to several pages long. Style is elevated above character development. The stories often read like sociological or psychological studies. Some are like snipets of a conversation you might overhear on the bus. This is a highly unusual book.

I Think of You by Ahdaf Souief

These stories are about family, belonging, estrangement, and loneliness, and ultimately about being a woman and an expatriate. Souief conveys a sense of aloneness that can only come from someone who understand what it feels like to be a foreigner, not only in one's chosen country, but also in one's own family. The stories in this book are all about women, mostly mothers, living abroad. Some are Egyptian women living in England and others are English women living in Egypt. The words convey color, and sadness while remaining overtly simple.

Dream Whip, no. 14

When I read zines like this, I want to go on an adventure so that I can write all about it and provide others with vicarious adventures like the one I received from reading this zine. It's wonderful--this small book/zine published by Microcosm Press out of Portland. The fact that it is hand written makes it all the more precious (it's completely legible, don't worry). The book itself details a series of adventures all over the United States, into a little bit of Canada, then across the Atlantic by ship and into Europe. I haven't actually finished reading. Currently, I'm reading about the author's adventures in the Netherlands hanging out in Turkish bars and such. The sea voyage was a great segment. But I have to say my favorite stories are about road-tripping around the Southwest (and the South). He buys bicycles, rides through Texas alley ways, and eats breakfasts in Arizona and L.A. It's hard to describe why this book is so wonderful. It's simple and espouses a punk sense of adventure. And it makes me want to travel

8 by Amy Fusselman

I couldn't determine whether this author is a writer, or an obsessive journaler who got lucky. Maybe she's a little of both because her style's rather strange. Half daily life and half thought, this short memoir detailing everything from motorcycle lessons to adventures in alternative therapies. I couldn't help wonder if this author is in cahoots with Dave Eggers and co.. Really, she just has a very simple, honest voice, that details something that isn't simple at all--thoughts and memories and quite a bit of philosophy. While raising two young boys in New York, she grapples with her own childhood sexual assault. Amid the tumult of both child-rearing and the healing process, she reminisces about ice skating, monster trucks, and a few alternative therapy methods.. Figure eights are a recurring theme that tie the bits and pieces of this book together.

Like the author of 8, I am going to go back into this post and let you know that I am making additions after the fact. This was one of the most charmingly unusual parts of the book--the fact that the author let you in on parts of her editing process. Usually, I would think this was highly annoying and pretentious in that artsy sort of way. But somehow it worked. I couldn't help getting slightly annoyed at her transparency and intentional failure to shroud the writing process in the usual element of mystery. But in the end, I found it refreshing (how cliche does that sound!).

The other thing that I failed to mention when first writing about this book was her tendency to philosophize in a remarkably simple yet profound way. Amy Fusselman writes a lay person's phenomenology. I couldn't help but catch hints of Heidegger's unusual style, marked by the odd use of verbs. But rather than conjure up abstract and confusing metaphors, she uses simple ones that are easy to digest. The book is filled with musings on time. Time, is not particularly linear for Fusselman, nor is it purely a counting methodology to organize our lives. Time is space. Time dictates how we live in (and in front of and behind and outside of) our bodies. Without getting all woo-woo on us, she describes alternative perceptions of time, and healing. The best part is, she has a problem with the esoteric when it can't be explained. She grills biodinamic craneosacral therapists about the theories behind their practice to no avail, then goes on to explain it in her own way, based on her own understanding of how we occupy time.

Despite the fact that this book is not organized according to the usual narrative curve, or even according to the usual chapter-format, it doesn't seem overly chaotic. It lends to the feeling that this book is a journal made public. And who doesn't want to read somebody's journal. The format might be a commentary on the memoir genre itself. Or else, someone's lazy and knows how to justify it with all sorts of post modern literary theories. We never know what to do with the unexpected, so we just jam it into any pre-existing box we have. Or we deem it commentary on one of the boxes. I'd love to say this is the case with 8, but part of me thinks that this is just what the book is: one woman's musing on time, healing, and motherhood, rendered in no particular order except vaguely chronological.

Self Storage by Gayle Brandeis, part 2

I took a break from reading this book because it wasn't really that riveting and I acquired a stack of quite appealing reads while I was trying to get through this one. But after I finished The Accidental, I decided to take Self Storage up again. The more I read, the more disappointing I became in both the writing and the plot. This is ostensibly a plot-driven book. It's not really about the beauty of language or the construction of interesting sentences, despite the author's attempts to draw Walt Whitman into the book to serve as a common thread throughout the story. I am curious about this aspect of the book because I have no idea if she is going to draw the story together somehow with Whitman or center the main character's epiphany around it. But I stopped reading it again. The book became too annoying. It was reading like a bad movie plot, and it was a bit boring despite the author's attempts to spice up the story by making the neighbor run over the main character's daughter. I have no intention of picking up the book again. There are too many other things to read.

Urban Hipster Dufus Yawn

Earlier, I mentioned the poem "Urban Hipster Dufus Yawn" on a blog post and thought I'd re-post since it relates to literature in some fashion. The poem appeared in the literary journal Swivel, which is definitely worth checking out. They publish writing by women that is suffused with wit. This poem epitomized the essence of the journal.