Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell (4 stars)

Woodrell is a talented writer. He paints for us the bleak world of the rural poor in the Missouri Ozarks. The main character, Ree Dolly, at 16 is left in an incredibly tough situation by the disappearance of her meth-cook father, who vanishes, leaving her with a mentally ill mother and two younger siblings to look after. Ree attempts to navigate a sinister and violent world to find out what happened to her father.

The Dolly clan is characterised by violence, drugs, and hate of outsiders and the police. In many exchanges the violence simmering underneath the words is palpable:

I said shut up once already, with my mouth

Woodrell captures a heartbreaking acceptance of this existence in, at times, brilliant lyrical prose that reminded me of Cormac McCarthy:

Love and hate hold hands always so it made natural sense that they'd get confused by upset married folk in the wee hours once in a while and a nosebleed or bruised breast might result. But it just seemed proof that a great foulness was afoot in the world when a no-strings roll in the hay with a stranger led to chipped teeth or cigarette burns on the wrist.

If there is a weakness in this book, it is the plot. I kept waiting for the impending disaster to happen, and the climax when it finally came, was just not climactic. It seems Woodrell was more interested in writing the rough sketches of a story to hang some brilliant characters on, than producing a gripping plot line. His characters certainly were impressive: the steely determination of Ree (reminiscent of Mattie), and the contradictions in violence and love from Uncle Teardrop were well presented.

I'd read more Woodrell, and now I need to see the movie.

4 stars.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (4 stars)

This story is told in a series of flashbacks or dream sequences by Jacob Jankowski, a 93 year old man living in a nursing home. Usually with this style of narration I find the present-day a boring, cardboard prop for narration of the story, however this book is different. Jacob's character gives us a real insight into the trials of growing old, losing independence, and having any sign of independent thought be interpreted as the complaining of a cantankerous SOB.

But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm - you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but your're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.

I saw some of Jacob in my own grandmother as she aged: the difficulty she had in recognising her own family members, and the increasing need to supply more of the conversation as her days became less active and provided less fuel for conversation.

My platitudes don't hold their interest and I can hardly blame them for that. My real stories are all out of date. So what if I can speak firsthand about the Spanish flu, the advent of the automobile, world wars, cold wars, guerilla wars, and Sputnik - that's all ancient history now. But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet.

But old Jacob is really only a small part of the story. Most is taken with his time spent in the circus after a final year exam freakout due to the death of his parents. It is a rocking read, with plenty of colourful desperate characters set against Depression era poverty and exploitation. Larger circuses mop up smaller bankrupt ones in a ruthless manner: cherry-picking the best animals and 'freaks', as Uncle Al calls them, and disposing of unwanted employees by throwing them from the moving circus train during the night.

Some reviewers have complained of lack of character depth, but I don't think this was a huge problem. I thought August's character was interesting with his ability to be completely charming and completely ruthless, and Jacob's noble-sounding love of animals, that he frequently compromised to keep his job and avoid conflict with August, rang true for me.

I'll leave you with another poignant quote:

With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.

4 stars.

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov (3.5 stars)

The final book in the original trilogy. I enjoyed this one more than the other books since there were more elements of suspense: who are the Second Foundationers, and where is their home base? My money was on the Second Foundation being distributed across many planets to enable maximum control, but I won't tell you if I was right. I picked some of the surprises, but I think it suffered from trying to be too clever in twist after twist.

There were some great technology predictions in this 1950s novel. I liked this one:

Actually, it was a complicated computer which could throw on a screen a reproduction of the night sky as seen from any given point of the Galaxy.

In today's world we don't really have a need for that since we're not trying to navigate through deep space using star references, but I think asimov would be amazed at seeing google sky on a mobile phone. It's funny that another prediction he makes, the death of the keyboard as an input device in favour of voice recognition:

Nobody but some old drips would use key machines

just hasn't happened to any significant extent. In the same example he has Arcadia dictating a complete document from a printed first draft, which is something that has changed significantly. Being able to jump back and forth in a document and make continual improvements is very different from running through a series of complete drafts, typewriter style.

There are some logic puzzles presented in the text that I loved:

"Have you a defense in case I am [calling you a traitor]?"
"Only the one I presented to the general. If I were a traitor and knew the whereabouts of the Second Foundation, you could Convert me and learn the knowledge directly. If you felt it necessary to trace me, then I hadn't the knowledge beforehand and wasn't a traitor. So I answer your paradox with another."
"Then your conclusion?"
"That I am not a traitor"
"To which I must agree, since your argument is irrefutable."

Hardly best all-time series, but a good read. Not sure if I'll continue with the later sequels and prequels.

3.5 stars