Book Reviews

Current Readings
  Myra Breckinridge / Myron
by Gore Vidal
Disturbing sequential novels. Named after colorful, yet sexually deranged protagonist obsessed with 1940s movies. Cleverly written plots that are completely irreverant and upturn sex roles, often with sodomy and castration. The sequel, Myron, has increasing surreal elements of strange movie warp and multiple personality disorder. These satires - although with masterfully developed main character/narrator who is of self-inflated Hollywood glam - is not recommended for most sensibilities, which will no doubt be offended by the graphic portrayals. I prefer the first novel, Myra Breckinridge, over the second, Myron.
4 Jan 2004
  White Noise
by Don DeLillo
Am I reading this book? What is reading? Why am I reading this book? Why does everyone in the story talk like this?... This story revolves around the narrator and his family in a small town where he is the professor of Hitler studies. The story delves into his preoccupation with death and the family's hypochondria. Although not without intellectual insights set in quirky tones, the rhetoric gets at times annoying to trudge through.
17 Jan 2004
*

Rashomon and Other Stories
by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Stark portrait of feudal Japan captured in these 6 short stories which often read like fables. One will recognize Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon film. The pronounced theme of character actions ruled by rigid societal honor contrast with conflicting human emotions. Wish I could read it in the original Japanese to appreciate the author's (no doubt) sophisticated nuances.
05 Feb 2004
 

Duluth
by Gore Vidal
More of Vidal's comedic zaniness focusing on a town called Duluth where the police, mayor, social elite, and minority criminal lords tangle with fictive realities. Colorful and often perverse. His play on racial stereotypes, meant most likely to mock them, are still offensive. The story ends with the same sweeping facetious tone.
05 Feb 2004

Recommended Titles
Fiction
Wit: A Play by Margaret Edson
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Homo Zapiens by Victor Pelevin
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Sudden Fiction by Robert Shapard, ed.
The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Gift
Little Monsters (Minipops) by Jan Pienkowski
Non-Fiction
Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women by Alexa Albert
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks
Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science by Londa Schiebinger
Instructional
The Non-Designer's Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollet

Overrated
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer