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

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov (3 stars)

Opinion seems to be divided on the relative merits of each of the foundation novels, but in my mind, this is definitely a weaker novel. The story is less fractured, but even though we have more time to get to know the characters, they turn out to be far less interesting than those of the first book, such as Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow. Bayta and Toran just bob along in the tide of history and the only interesting feature is the mysterious Mule. I hope he sticks around in the third book so we can get to know him better.

Honestly this book felt like a filler device: necessary to flesh out the historical details and introduce a great conflict between the Mule and the Second Foundation.

There were however a few pieces of dialogue that stuck with me. I liked the irony in Ebling Mis' swearing using the word unprintable

...taking care of every little piece of their unprintable lives.

and could just picture him busting out a frustrated:

Ga-LAX-y!

I also loved this characterisation of Mayor Indbur, it reminded me of a former manager of mine:

Mayor Indbur, third of his name, and second mayor of Foundation history to be so by right of birth, recovered his equilibrium, and lifted another sheet of paper from the neat stack at his left. It was a report on the saving of funds due to the reduction of the quantity of metal-foam edging on the uniforms of the police force. Mayor Indbur crossed out a superflous comma, corrected a misspelling, made three marginal notations, and placed it upon the neat stack at his right. He lifted another sheet of paper from the neat stack at his left...

3 stars.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov (3.5 stars)

The hugo for "best all-time series"? Seems a little prematurely awarded in 1966, given how young science fiction was, but hey it beat lord of the rings, so I had better read it.

Asimov creates a grand plot arc where 'psychohistorians' can make long and accurate predictions into the future about immensely complex systems - the political and economic interactions of millions of worlds populated by humans scattered throughout the galaxy. I was willing to suspend disbelief on that actually being possible and get into enjoying a plucky group of scientists defending the intelligence of the galaxy through an age of barbarism, but I found the writing style took some of the shine off what could have otherwise been brilliant.

The story is broken into a series of short stories along lines such as "The Encyclopedists", "The Mayors", "The Traders" etc. which has the effect of removing any meaningful character development and introducing fairly jarring shifts between time and groups. I think if I had known beforehand that it was originally published as a series of short story serials I would have been more forgiving.

The central problem seems to be trying to cover many centuries of time and events without digging into the real details. I think if you described the set-up, a futuristic fall of rome, and some of the ideas presented in this book such as: presenting technology as a religion to enable central control, and conquest through trade in trinkets, to another author, it could be re-written into a fantastic book.

As it stands I enjoyed the book, but I doubt the series will get my 'best of all time' award.

3.5 stars.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (3.5 stars)

This novel begins strongly - Schlink paints detailed pictures as they are frozen in the young Michael Berg's brain: Hannah pulling on her stocking, riding her bike. As Michael's interest in Hannah dwindles with his increasing interest in his peers, my interest also dwindled, where was this leading? Lots of spoilers ahead...

The story soon switches gears and Schlink places the contrast of Hannah's previous life as a SS guard in the concentration camps over Michael's image of her as a lover. In Michael's struggle to both understand and condemn Hannah's crime, Schlink raises the dilemma of the post-WWII German youth: wanting to point the finger in shame and anger at their parents' generation and yet understand and love them as family at the same time.

I wanted to pose myself both tasks - understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both.

Michael struggles with a new picture of someone he thought he knew well. Faced with the evidence of her having Jewish children read to her before sending them to the gas chambers he questions their entire relationship - what sort of person is she?

Would she have sent me to the gas chamber if she hadn't been able to leave me, but wanted to get rid of me?

And given he had chosen her, what sort of person did that make him?

But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her.

I found this section of the book intriguing as it was a subject I had wondered about myself after visiting Auschwitz and then Germany. However, while it was interesting I didn't find it particularly moving.

At the end of the novel we discover that Hannah has spent much of her time in prison first learning to read and write, then learning about the Holocaust. To me this felt a little disingenuous and a ploy to try and make the reader sympathise with Hannah. I also thought her suicide before Michael had to deal with the reality of interacting with her and caring for her was a huge cop out.

Thought provoking. This is also one of the rare instances where the movie is almost as good as the book.

3.5 stars.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (3.5 stars)

The Poisonwood Bible follows the Price family missionaries into the Belgian Congo jungle in 1959. The story is in two halves with the first being an amazing clash of cultures where neither understands the other, despite the best efforts of some of the locals to act as interpreters and cultural guides.

The Price's arrive wearing most of their clothes with boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix taped to their bodies to get around the weight restrictions on the flight. They soon find that converting the villagers to Christianity is a complex process - most of their congregation are the lower rungs of Congo society looking for an alternative god 'Tata Jesus' to try out. This half of the book was interesting, and despite the annoying malapropisms from Rachel, I enjoyed as a great 'clash of cultures' story and a transport into jungle life in the Congo.

The second half of the story after the family leaves the jungle is more problematic and less enjoyable. Leah brings what seems to be a very one-sided view of history to the struggle for independence, which made me doubt a lot of the historical accuracy of the rest of the novel. Basically her message was that the Congo was doing fine until America came and screwed it up. Real life is never that simple.

Rachel becomes an arrogant white-supremacist who doesn't leave the bar of her upscale hotel, and despite a short journey through what seemed to be a made-for-TV miracle cure, Adah barely features at all.

The picture of the Price family in the jungle will stay with me, but the rest of the book is fairly forgettable. I don't think it deserves its position on many top 100 lists.

3.5 stars.