John Kennedy Toole- A Confederacy of Dunces

The most notable thing about this book is that I enjoyed it most when I wasn't reading it. I'd put it down and reflect happily on Toole's base, onanistic, and utterly absurd characters, dreaming of how I could incorporate more of their attributes into my own life in a vague attempt at self-improvement. That was my favorite part. Perhaps part of this is due to the fact that I read the first 200 pages in a darkened room lying in bed next to a very sick and hungover boyfriend. This book is extremely appropriate for such times.

In short, A Confederacy of Dunces is set in New Orleans in the early sixties. It's about the bizarre escapades of a certain questionably sane, morbidly obese, highly educated (Medieval studies major) Ignatius C Reilly, who had peacefully coexisted with his mother until she drunkenly drives into a building and suddenly owes a thousand dollars. They aren't financially well-off, so Ignatius finds himself faced with the challenge of getting a job. Hilarity ensues.

Lurking beneath the hilarity are some very well-drawn characters who embody various issues present in the sixties: the red scare, civil rights, various liberations, etc. Despite the setback of being a Pulitzer-prizewinner, the book doesn't preach, and it doesn't really say anything about the human condition. It was initially rejected by Simon and Schuster for "not being about anything." If you read the forward, you'll get a sense of how autobiographical the story probably was. At the very least, it's like viewing New Orleans forty-five years ago through a window that selectively magnifies absurdity.

Some people have protested the book on the basis that the characters are not likable, but if you ban books containing dislikable characters, you'd lose a lot of good stories. And, in a way, the characters are actually quite likable, once you decide to give them a chance.

A Defense of Fantasy Fiction

There's a time at every social event where a new acquaintance asks me, "So what do you do for fun?" It's not always this exact phrase, but inevitably a question of its ilk shows up in casual conversation. When I choose to respond honestly, I mention that I like to read, and I almost always get the same response: "Really? I hate reading." It's not like this is an unusual feeling - newest reports say that only 46% of Americans have read a book in the last year. Though it doesn't count nonfiction or memoir as having read a book, the point remains that many Americans don't read books. Perhaps they read the newspaper, or biographies, or gossip magazines, but they aren't reading fiction.

This isn't intended to be a defense of reading where I stridently declare that the decline of civilization is caused by the decline in readers and rise of television watchers. Instead, I intend to explain why fantasy fiction in particular is undeserving of the oblique mockery and borderline social suicide status it has somehow obtained. In fact, I hope to show why reading fantasy fiction is beneficial, both to the reader and to the greater press of humanity with which we all interact.

Of course, the most obvious hallmark of fantasy fiction is its eponymous characteristic - that the world and characters are fantasy and do not exist. Setting aside the point that all fiction is fantasy, fantasy fiction employs settings, worlds, plot devices, and events that do not exist in our own world. More importantly, they CANNOT exist in our world. While many fantasy novels are set in worlds that closely resemble the Medieval period in our own history, urban fantasy inserts elements of the unreal into our everyday existence. Whether in castles or high-rises, though, reading about things that don't exist revives our hope that there are wondrous things in the world, and that great acts of heroism are possible. Every day people go to work and watch the news about murders and car crashes, and while these things can happen in fantasy, they're usually caused by the forces of evil. In a world where very little happens to make people laugh and clap their hands in delight, it's a distinct relief to read about it and to believe, just for a little while, that it could be possible for the evil overlord to be overthrown and for the deliriously happy new king and queen live happily ever after - it's all too rare in our own lives.

Take a look around at the female characters in most literary fiction these days, and you'll find the four women from Sex & the City scattered in a myriad of incarnations and splashed around the pages of contemporary fiction like the unimaginative, 2-dimensional characters they are. Leave off Hemingway's refusal to grant agency to his female characters (itself a matter of debate) and look at contemporary authors. Many authors treats their female characters as stereotypes - even the female authors. While fantasy fiction has its share of male-heavy series, my experience has been that the great majority of fantasy writers employ strong, well-imagined and well-characterized female characters. Often, they (and their male counterparts) struggle with the same dilemmas of character and human condition as their more well-respected brethren in the 'literary fiction' world. For example, Lynn Flewelling's series about a girl who is put into a boy's body by dark magic to save her life is not so dissimilar to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex. Though the stories are of course different, the two main characters struggle with their identities and societal expectations in much the same way, and both authors allow the reader to experience how they imagine the character would react to such circumstances. The difference is that with Middlesex I KNOW that I'm suppose to learn something about the human condition, whereas Flewelling prefers to allow her readers to take in that aspect of the story as such, without bludgeoning them to death with the 'significance' of her work.

In that same vein, I have come to regard the authors of fantasy fiction as people who stubbornly cling to the hope that people are, at their most basic, equal-minded and able to judge others based on character rather than gender, race, or sexual orientation. I have a hard time calling to mind any fantasy novel that I have read (and lord, I've read a lot) that did not either have strong homosexual characters (both male and female) or make it clear that in that world, homosexuality was unusual but not looked down upon. Perhaps this acceptance is the most blatant indulgence of unreality by fantasy authors, beyond even the presence of magic - I for one find it easier to believe in dragons, werewolves, vampires and wizards than in a world that doesn't judge people for who they want to sleep with. But that's the point, in my view: literary fiction shows us the world as it is, but fantasy fiction shows us the world as it could be.

Fantasy as a genre is seen as simplistic and more suitable for young adults than serious grown-ups with houses and careers and kids (or at least pets) of their own. That couldn't be further from the truth. Okay, some fantasy fiction is simple in plot or message, but that's ok. A whole lot of contemporary literary fiction is too. Despite the almost universal plot device of 'good vs evil' employed by the genre, it's rarely that simple, in real life or in fantasy fiction. The shades of gray a reader sees on an everyday basis are there in the genre, too, but the difference is that in fantasy fiction, you get to read about the characters unraveling the evil plot and saving the righteous ruler of the realm and suchlike. The issues of modern life are there, but disguised, and maybe a little softened, and the best part is that at the end of the book there's resolution. The one thing that we can't get in real life is the sense that all the little loose ends are tied up neatly and tucked away in satisfying little bundles, and as such, that aspect of fantasy fiction is immensely reassuring to the modern reader. We spend all day struggling through continously evolving problems and dilemmas - why should we have to wade through it in our entertainment, too?

Fantasy fiction for me is intellectual cotton candy - it's light and generally unchallenging and allows me to escape the uncertainty of my everyday life. If I wanted to learn explicitly about the human condition, I'd do it by looking into the nooks and crannies of my own character, or watching the news, or reading a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Instead, I'll learn about it unwittingly, in a satisfyingly innocuous fashion - and I'll get to have unicorns and dragons, too.

Christopher Moore - The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

Despite the mythical lust lizard (which I’m guessing explains why I found this book in a fantasy bookstore), The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is more of a muddled romantic comedy with suspense elements mixed in for extra confusion than a fantasy novel. Basic premise: a small-town psychiatrist takes all her patients off their anti-depressants and gives them placebos without telling them Simultaneously, an ancient shape-changing prehistoric lizard comes to the town, causing an outbreak of horniness and the complete mental breakdown of an already unstable former B-movie actress. With a pothead constable and meth-lab thrown in.

Christopher Moore writes an entertaining enough novel, but from the cover endorsements I expected to be laughing the way I do at David Sedaris or Tom Robbins. Instead, the plot seemed farcical and forced. Though the dialogue had some spark, the problem with the novel, at its most basic, is that it was a funny idea that was poorly executed. It could have been done better, and it showed.

Michel Houellebecq- The Elementary Particles (UK version: Atomised)

Let me start out by saying that this book is admirably ambitious in its attempt to draft a "tribute to humanity." The reviews on the cover were nothing but raves (of course). It is also unique in that it was written by a French guy--relatively rare for a fairly mainstream novel. Supposedly, it was written for intelligent people.

The story follows the parallel lives of two men who share the same irresponsible, perpetually absent, hippie mother. They grow up ignorant of each other's existence, but meet in adulthood and encounter each other throughout the book. Like two particles in an entangled state, they are both dysfunctional but in opposite ways. One is an obsessive scientist and the other is a compulsive hedonist. Through their experiences and the experiences of the people they affect, we are supposedly given a portrait of troubled humanity, culminating in the conflict of love versus innate selfishness and isolation. That's the tribute.

Unfortunately, the book fails to live up to its ambitions. Either Houellebecq's reality is supremely different from the average American's (mine), or he is careful to select aspects of humanity that are narrow to the point of absurdity. Like many of his ancestral existentialists, his thesis is sensational and unrealistic. His world is one of constant orgies, sadism, emotional isolation, and hippies (only the nymphomaniac hippies though). He sort of attributes these scourges to the rapid breakdown of Judeo-Christian values over the course of the 20th century. Paradoxically, the author appears intelligent: he knows his physics well enough to throw around names, and I completely agree with him that physics and biology need to communicate better. I couldn't find any inaccuracies in the book, just lots of inconsistencies:

1. Houellebecq portrays religion as a champion of morals and integrity. He ignores its support of child molestation, oppression, and warmongering.

2. I was unaware of the orgies that Houellebecq likes to describe. Apparently they are these New Age getaways where people have sex with each other to relieve the stress of their hellish day jobs. He seems to think a majority of people attend these things; however, from my surveys, it would appear that it's more of a clear minority bordering on imaginary. Maybe it's different in France--I didn't check there.

3. Houellebecq hints time and again that only women are capable of love, and that men are horrid go-getters who repeatedly trash the world. I appreciate his efforts to champion the females, but I would appreciate it more if he didn't assume all and only good women are characterized by a soft, servile persona and driving need to love and be loved. The distribution of these traits is scattered across many individuals, not all of whom are good or of a specific gender.

I didn't want to judge a book based on how its opinions clashed with mine, but I just did. Had the book been a smidgen less sensational, and more realistic (since the author is trying to send a message, I expect he would try to be realistic) it could have been carried into my good graces on the smoothness and honesty of the writing. I read 98% of it in one day. It's not a bad read, just don't expect to agree with anything.

The only valid take-home message in the book is that people should be less cruel to each other. Ignore his ideas as to why people are cruel to each other; if you're interested in that sort of thing, read "Obedience to Authority" by Stanley Milgram, or the works of Konrad Lorenz.

Rudolfo Anaya - Bless Me, Ultima

I've been reading a lot of foreign books lately. Rudolfo Anaya's acclaimed book Bless Me, Ultima, culturally replete and unapologetically rambling, reminds me of a long story told by one's grandparent or older relative. You may be interested in the beginning, and even at intervals throughout, but the book, like the stories it recalls, failed to hold my attention.

Bless Me, Ultima is the story of Antonio's loss of innocence over the course of roughly two years - he witnesses murder and the magic of the curandera while trying to determine his path in life: priest or farmer. Ultima, the title character, is an old curandera who helps shape Antonio's life. In keeping with the movement of magical realism, particularly as it has been seen in Latin American literature, Antonio witnesses both the magical power of good and evil, and must choose between them. For all that magical realism sounds exciting, it really involves nothing more titillating than what you'd see if you bothered to re-watch The Crucible.

For all that Anaya's prose conjures the restless winds of the llano and the peaceful land of the Lunas, his story reads like the dullest of memoirs. Antonio relates everyday details at great length, dwelling on minutiae to the point that the reader has no sense of the narrative thrust of the novel. All of Antonio's struggles to stay faithful, innocent, and good lead us nowhere but to muddled emotions and the sense that the novel has been left unfinished.

I say more magic might help.

new contributor!!

Interwebs, let me me introduce Alana, the newest member of Your Next Favorite Book. She, like Adam and I, reads books and has opinions about them. Enjoy!