By Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
Reviewed by Rachel Stinde
The second joint offering from the authors of The NannDiaries, Citizen Girl is strident, personal, and…confused. McLaughlin and Kraus have produced a witty reading that keeps you focused and entertains, without offering any real substance or revelations any job hunter these days hasn’t encountered for herself. And it is a book for her by her, folks, unless there is a man somewhere interested in knowing what happens to women who try to take care of themselves when they don’t have a clue how.
Set in Sex and the City New York (versus Coming to America New York, for instance), the story follows Girl as she grapples with the crumbling old guard feminist brigade and the ascent of the neo-feminist chic, an inept boyfriend and his gaggle of inept ex college buds, and at the company where she finally ends up, her inept male bosses. But never fear, guys: many of the women she encounters are just as incapable. Girl can be a weak character at times—she can’t make a lot of decisions without leadership, flounders without friends and support—but at least she’s realistic and believable. Desperate for a job after an unfair firing, she takes a position without the first clue as to what duties she should perform, and waits expectantly for the people around her to rescue and guide her into wherever it is she thinks she belongs, doing something charitable and good for all.
The book has everything a young career woman thinks about: ethical responsibility, money, men all around, lesbians, and a Hollywood makeover. Girl really doesn’t act like she has a backbone or any dignity until the very last page, and perhaps readers are hoping to find someone with whom they can identify. And though not all of us know what the hell we’re doing all the time, we want to at least pretend we do-thus Girl’s weak showing. One sold soul later, her fate is still up in the air—but at least she made a choice for herself for once.
So if you’re a twenty-something female card-carrying member of Amnesty International who’s into New York chic, then this book is for you. If you spend a lot of time sunning at the beach thinking about your ethics and what’s wrong with the world, then this book is perfect for you. And it is funny, even downright hilarious at times; however, it’s lightweight fluff about things we all encounter—and some of us don’t like to be reminded that ineptness is a sickness that infects us all, and that many of us never, ever learn from our mistakes. Citizen Girl is cute, familiar, breezy, and disgusting all at once. If this sounds good to you, then go for it, but with a little more resolve than Girl.
Comments? Click here to let us know what you think.
By Kim Stanley Robinson
Reviewed by Malcolm Maclachlan
Kim Stanley Robinson is a big idea writer. He is probably best known for his Red/Green/Blue Mars series, which chronicle the exploits of a group of scientists who are able to make our neighboring planet habitable. His new book is about another group of scientists with a similar task—trying to keep our own planet from becoming uninhabitable.
Readers who are expecting a novelized version of The Day After Tomorrow might be disappointed. While both are about manmade climate change, Forty Signs of Rain is more science lesson than disaster movie, especially early on. It is also the first of an already-planned trilogy. Robinson rarely seems to bother with a subject unless he has at least a thousand pages worth of material to say about it. In this slender (for him) volume of a mere 368 pages, it largely sets up the situation that will play out in the next two books.
Forty Signs, however, does put two of Robinson’s main strengths on display—his ability to weave actual science into a novel, and his portrayal of scientists as believable people. In a trick borrowed from works of environmental journalism, each chapter is preceded by a few pages describing a particular element of global climate change, such as the potential shutdown of the Atlantic current due to the melting of freshwater ice from the poles. This phenomenon is what brought on the ice age in the recent disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow. When Robinson describes the thinning Arctic ice sheets and their effects on global weather, he makes sure readers understand that he is describing real events happening right now.
Trying to avert this outcome is a small group of researchers spread across a collection of government agencies, universities and private companies. These include National Science Foundation research administrator Anna Quibler; her colleague Frank Vanderwal; her husband, Charlie, who works on climate policy; and bio-mathematician Yann Pierzinski. Each holds the piece of a puzzle that comes together to forecast dire implications for humanity. Notice there’s not a professional treasure hunter or frustrated ex-special forces operative in the bunch.
While Robinson might not be Faulkner, he’s not Crichton either in that his characters feel like real people—and often painfully geeky ones at that. They may be looking for love with the awareness that their behavior was shaped by evolution on the African savannah tens of thousands of years ago, but the longing they feel is no less intense for it. Robinson’s books sometimes feel like soap operas for geniuses, but this is one of the factors that explains the extreme loyalty of his fan base.
The result is a dry but fun read, part thriller and part Discover Magazine article. For the right—read, geeky like me—audience, it will be compelling. But Forty Signs is not escapist. Unlike most page-turners, this is one you won’t have to live vicariously.
Comments? Click here to let us know what you think.
Oblivion: Stories Little, Brown
By David Foster Wallace
Reviewed by Ross Simonini
If you have never read David Foster Wallace and are looking for a relatively brief but comprehensive glance into his work (and are rightfully intimidated by his 1,079 page opus Infinite Jest) then I would suggest his newest collection of short stories, Oblivion. However, if you have ever tried to read any of Mr. Wallace’s previous fiction (not his non-fiction, which seems to appeal to an entirely different aesthetic) and have felt unsatisfied or exhausted or frustrated, then I would recommend keeping a good distance from Oblivion. This book is certainly not going to change your mind. It is, like everything that he has written before, somewhat difficult. The prose is involved and if you are not the type of reader who enjoys a good, patient struggle, you will probably become irritated after the first page-long sentence or string of jumbled corporate acronyms. This “testing” of the reader is almost what Wallace’s fiction is about.
But I am not trying to say that Wallace’s work requires some high level of erudition; because the truth is that he is not an academic writer. In the last few years, he has actually developed a sizable underground following - not unlike Vonnegut or Burroughs - which has placed him in the ranks of the most effective writers of his generation. He has a voice that manages to wrap around and then effortlessly deliver concepts from graduate textbooks and philosophy polemics. Passages in Oblivion cover everything from Hegel to Quantum Physics to biological taxonomy without ever feeling snooty or didactic. It is because he always balances his heady rants with a little slapstick humor or absurd storytelling. It may be his greatest trait as a writer.
However, unlike Vonnegut and many of the quasi-science fiction authors, Wallace never confines himself to one style of storytelling or one brand of humor. He has a chameleon-like ability to navigate through multiple styles of writing and to always keep the reader desperate. Some people scoff at this sort of writing. They say that all of his inventive language and stylistic shifting is just a cover-up for weak ideas or thin storylines. But for me, each story in Oblivion is its own distinct world of ideas and narratives. It is true that most of Wallace’s themes are in one way or another linked to loneliness (Oblivion - the title story) or to entertainment (Mr. Squishy) or to the loneliness of entertainment (The Suffering Channel), but I don’t think this is any less true for any other writer. Throughout his six-book career, Wallace has touched on so many tones and styles, that any thematic repetition seems irrelevant. Oblivion in particular reads like a catalogue of modern writing.
But regardless of anything I have said thus far, this book is entirely worth the cover price on the sole basis of a single story. “Good Old Neon,” which appeared first in Conjunctions a year or so back, is David Foster Wallace’s definitive (and best) short fiction to date. While I will not admit that the piece is flawless, I can honestly say that it seems to pinpoint the exact tone Wallace was striving for throughout his entire last story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. It is his answer to psychoanalysis. My best suggestion is for you to head to your local bookstore, pick up a copy of Oblivion and read the first couple of pages of “Good Old Neon.” You may find it difficult, heavy-handed and purposely narcissistic, but he certainly speaks the truth.
Comments? Click here to let us know what you think.
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops H.B. Fenn & Company
By George Carlin
Reviewed by Deborah Beckers
“When it comes to God’s existence, I’m not an atheist and I’m not an agnostic. I’m an acrostic. The whole thing puzzles me.”
I really tried to love this book, but it wouldn’t let me. No matter how I pleaded and begged, it kept pushing me away like a virgin on prom night. That being said, I did like the book, but just as a friend. You know; the one you talk to once a year about absolutely everything. And really? I don’t think there is a subject he missed.
Caustic, witty and self-deprecating, Carlin covers everything from saving the trapped farts in seat cushions to the current situation in Iraq. His sense of the absurd makes the reader take another look at what they see and accept in their everyday lives.
It’s a book best read in short sittings as it is sometimes disjointed, kind of like a glimpse into George Carlin’s mind. It’s entertaining to say the least.
“A good motto to live by: Always Try Not To Get Killed.”
If you’re a fan of George Carlin, you’ll like the book. It reads like his stand-up act. In fact, one of the things that I found most disturbing was that as I was reading I kept hearing his voice in my head. If you don’t like him and he annoys you – don’t bother, he’s not getting any mellower with age and for that I’m thankful.
When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops? is George Carlin’s third book. It is also his third best seller. He has also released eighteen comedy albums, appeared in eleven feature films, made countless TV appearances and won several awards for his work. You should check out his official home page (http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html) – the timeline is my favourite.
Comments? Click here to let us know what you think.
Or, click below:
Visitors from the US:
Visitors from Canada:
