I Meant To Go To Sleep an Hour Ago. . .

. . .but alas, I found myself a scant hundred or so pages from the end of Scott Lynch's Red Skies Under Red Seas.

And given that the new semester doesn't start until Monday, and seeing as how I had the new New Pornographers album to keep me company, it seems that completion was the better part of valor.

Now, I can't really say much about the novel now in terms of a full-blown review, because Mary hasn't read it yet and the merest suggestion of plot points or spoilers will land me in marital stocks, so to speak, like a Pilgrim who mooned Plymouth Rock. But I can say the following:

A) I laughed aloud (p. 534, 2nd paragraph from the subheading break).
B) I teared up (the paragraph that spans p. 509-510).
C) The Lies of Locke Lamora (the preceding novel in this series) was great fun, but this one does what Lies did and then some. The beats of the former novel were quite inventive, but in the long run somewhat familiar. This one found me - someone used to the usual plot twists in novels like this - wholly adrift and wondering what the heck could happen next at several points, and when it did tread familiar ground, it did so with perhaps a page and a half of warning in a manner that, in retrospect, I realize was set up chapters and chapters before.
D) This is, to pull a wholly lame reviewing trick, the Pulp Fiction to the previous novel's Reservoir Dogs. (I use this particular analogy because the author has a rather Tarantino-esque facility with jumping around temporally inside of a story.)

Sure, I'm gushing. It's late, I put Red Seas down about fifteen minutes ago, and I'll admit that my credibility as a reviewer is thus somewhat suspect. Even worse, I may be guilty of the kind of reviewing that sets up future readers for inevitable disappointment. If the latter is the case, let me say the following about my tastes and critical acumen: I sincerely and unironically love Neil Diamond, the laziest and most phoned-in of Dash Hammett's writing, the Star Trek episode where Kirk and company meet Abraham Lincoln, and certain tracks on the Gin Blossom's second album. I am, as it turns out, a cheap date at times.

Still, in closing:

Dang.

Then It Became Abominable.*

Behold, constant readers, this transcript of Stephen King's acceptance speech to the National Book Foundation upon receiving the Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award in 2003. His speech is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a rather thoughtful little chat about the whole literary fiction vs. genre/popular fiction deathmatch. Certainly worth a look, even if you don't agree with him.

King also scores pretty high on the cool-o-meter for invoking the spirit of Frank Norris, whose best-known novel is like a naturalist Cujo but with a dentist, thusly:

"Frank Norris, the author of McTeague, said something like this: "What should I care if they, i.e., the critics, single me out for sneers and laughter? I never truckled, I never lied. I told the truth." And that's always been the bottom line for me."

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*The title of this post, of course, has nothing to do with Stephen King. It is my favorite sentence from McTeague. It might even be my favorite sentence from the 1800s, beating out such popular favorites as "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" or "Done because we are too menny".

The Devil and Henry Walker: Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace

I'm wracking my brain, but when it comes to U.S. writers of magical realism, I can only think of one: Daniel Wallace.

There's something about the fact that his books are set in the American South that makes the appearance of circus freaks, witches, and fertility rites almost entirely believable. If Robert Johnson can sell his soul to the Devil at the crossroads, it makes sense that a 10-year-old boy can sell his in exchange for magic.

Like Wallace's first novel, Big Fish, Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician is about the mysterious life of a complicated man, and the struggle to tease out the truth from the tall tale. Though it's a less successful novel than Big Fish, Wallace sets up an irresistible premise here.

The book begins on May 20, 1954, when Henry Walker the Negro Magician, is led away from the circus where he performs by three violent teens who mean him no good, and disappears.

Well no, actually, the book begins with a letter to an unknown party from someone named James, explaining how he tracked down Henry's friends to learn about his final years.

But really, the book begins with a young boy who lives in a grand hotel with his sister and his father, the hotel janitor. And then, one day, he meets the Devil in Room 702 and sells his soul in order to become a great magician. But the Devil takes something else, too. One day while performing a magic show for his father, Henry makes his sister, Hannah, vanish. Only he can't make her reappear again.

And the book also begins when Henry Walker becomes a Negro Magician who isn't actually black.

So, what's the real story? Wallace gradually unfolds Henry's life through journal entries, stories told by circus folk, newspaper clippings, and the investigations of a private detective. Each one brings the reader a little closer to the truth, but in the end, many questions go unanswered. In fact, the last chapter slams to a halt so abrupt that I paged past the acknowledgments, not quite believing that there wasn't a conclusion lurking around somewhere between them and the author bio.

That's not a completely bad thing. In fact, I suppose it's the whole point.

Henry Walker is a man who walks along the boundaries of life and death, black and white, illusion and reality, magic, the Devil, and hard, ugly, truth. What it makes him, however, is a bit of a void. And while Wallace makes it clear that he's done this purposefully, Henry isn't an easy character to deal with as a reader. And while I understand the necessity of leaving some questions unresolved, the manner in which Wallace chooses to do so is not entirely satisfactory.

Still, I wonder if I'd still feel this way if I read the book over again. Which, despite my criticisms, I may actually do.

Word of the Day

Sporran: a large purse or pouch made of leather or animal fur to be worn at the front of the kilt from a chain or leather strap, as part of the traditional dress of Scottish Highlanders

The sporran is the man-purse of Scotland, and is an incredibly useful place for a kilt-wearer to stash a wallet or keys.

This weekend, I was a bridesmaid at my childhood best friend's wedding. Since her new husband is from Scotland, the groom, the men in the wedding party, and a fair number of the men in attendance rented kilts instead of tuxes.

My fella also joined in on the fun, and did the Scots one better.

You see, during World War II, some soldiers from my hometown served with a regimen from Scotland. They all became great friends, and after returning home, the Western Pennsylvanian soldiers formed a Highland marching band using the tartan of their war buddies.

My dad would later join this band, and so bagpipes at cookouts, knives worn in socks, parades, and men in skirts with dead animals around their waists were a big part of my childhood.

Dad offered Brady the use of his regalia for the wedding, and with some trepidation, Brady accepted. A small part of that trepidation probably involved worries about spending a day in Chicago in a kilt, but I suspect that that some of it centered around my dad's somewhat eccentric sporran.*

One traditional sporran style is the animal mask, which uses the taxidermied head of the animal as the flap. The sporran for my dad's kilt looks something like this.

To any animal lovers reading, I know this is cruel and wrong, but Dad's sporran is about 30 years old, and far more tasteful looking than the one pictured here.

And Roscoe, as Brady dubbed his taxidermied sidekick, was a huge hit at the wedding. The Scots in attendance loved the sporran, and Brady was cornered by the wedding photographer at several points during the evening so that Roscoe could be documented in the wedding album. Regarding this, Potts had only the following to say: "Kind of weird to have people taking pictures of your groin all night, but what the hey."
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* Brady, looking over my shoulder, insists that this is not the case. For evidence, he submits the following toast, delivered at our wedding by his uncle Charlie:
So, a guy from Pennsylvania finds himself in a bar in Alabama. The locals, rightfully suspicious, ask what he does for a living. He says, "I'm a taxidermist."
"What the heck's that mean?" is the reply.
"Well," he says, "I mount dead animals."
And after a quick huddle, the assembled slap the visiting Yankee on the back and say, "It's all right, boys; he's one of us!"
And Mary, that's how we feel about you.

Who's Yer Daddy?

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson doesn't exactly have the makings of a hero. He's ADHD, dyslexic, and has never lasted an entire year at any school. He's not bad - chaos just seems to erupt around him.

But at his most recent school, a boarding facility for troubled youth, things are a little weirder than usual. Any school year when your math teacher tries to kill you on a class field trip qualifies as a little out of the ordinary. Then, Percy discovers that his best friend, Grover, is a satyr, that his Latin teacher is a centaur, and that he has to leave school immediately for the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood.

Because Percy is a demigod, the bastard son of Poseidon, and not a few Furies, hell hounds, and major deities want him dead.

At Camp Half-Blood, Percy meets the children of Dionysus, Athena, and all of Ares's horrible, violent little brats. But his time there is fairly short, because bad things are stirring on Mount Olympus that could lead to all-out celestial warfare. And though he's only just come into his powers, and barely understands them, Percy is sent out with Grover and Annabeth, one of Athena's daughters, to save humanity and the heavens.

The story of a young chosen hero, his two best friends, a brainy girl and a doofy boy, sent off on a quest to save the world and defeat great evil may sound a little familiar. However, The Lightning Thief owes more to Neil Gaiman than to J.K. Rowling, kind of an American Gods for the preteen set. But while it's a bit derivative, it's very funny, very exciting, and very well-written. The Lightning Thief has a distinctive, fresh voice that will appeal to Rowling fans, and never feels like a rip-off.

This is the first in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The second and third titles, The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse were released in 2006 and this May, respectively.

If You're Looking for Victorian Pornography...

I love to track the Google searches that lead here, but I feel that I'm leaving some folks disappointed.

To everyone looking for Victorian pornography, all I have here is a review of All Will Be Revealed by Robert Anthony Siegel. Titillating, to be sure, but probably not what you're looking for.

And all that talk about "survivalist compounds" was just me blowing off steam over my stupid cable company.

And to the people looking for the "narwhal skeleton," um, sorry.

Seriously, that last one comes up, like, a lot more often than you would think.

Yes

Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy

Despite its sensationalist title, Murphy's book provides a surprisingly level-headed look at the similarities and differences between the Roman Empire and the United States. More importantly, it is a highly accessible point of entry to those whose knowledge of said Empire is limited to Caligula, Hadrian's Wall, lead poisoning, vomitoriums (a myth!), and gladiators.

Sadly, I am one of those people. I blame my high school teachers, who started every school year with an obligatory week on Native Americans, followed by Jamestown, and petering out around World War II in mid-May. In 11th grade, we made it all the way to Vietnam, and that was pretty cool.

But as much as I enjoyed Are We Rome?, it's possible that I appreciated Murphy's extensive bibliography even more. I know what I'm reading next to fill in the shameful gaps in my education.

More knowledgeable reviews by people with a better classics background than I are available at Salon, The New York Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. Murphy was a managing editor of the Atlantic for many years, but almost more impressive is his 25-year stint as writer of Prince Valiant. How's that for a resume?