The Trunk-ated Version

I know they don't give the Johnny-Come-Lately Award until well after the fact, but, I think I'm in the running. In other words, I've finally gotten around to reading Water for Elephants.

Sara Gruen's Depression-era circus novel was on virtually every publications' top ten list . . . last year's top ten list. Last year very soon to be two years ago, aka, 2006.

I can see why everyone loved it so much. For starters, it was the little book that could. Published by Algonquin Press, it took a strong marketing and word-of-mouth campaign to turn it into a national best-seller. Where it still resides today.

And the story deserves attention. It is the story of Jacob, a veterinarian student who quits school during his final exams after the tragic death of his parents. With no aims, he ends up on a circus train and, as most things go with such tales, wackiness ensues.

The story becomes a sordid tale, the seedy underbelly of the circus world emerges, as the masters sucker both the rubes and the workers alike. The social strata of their world is symbolically represented by the train, where the different carriages separate the workers from the performers, the animals from the humans. Yet, as metaphors often do, in the end, everyone has to traverse the top of the trains to get from on car to the other – thus breaking down the barriers and exposing everyone to equal danger.

Jacob tells us this story from two perspectives: the time it's happening and from his slightly addled moments seventy years later. A rather pedestrian literary device, but done rather well. Both characters are very different and at the same time still always Jacob. Their love for Marlena and Rosie go undiminished no matter what time, and those stories are the threads the plot relies on for structural integrity. Marlena, the lovely woman who leads the horse act, is Jacob's instant object of infatuation. Of course, she's married to a psycho-path who is also Jacob's new boss. (Guess how it ends).

Rosie is an elephant. Who understands Polish. In order to challenge the much-hated Ringling Bros. Circus, the owner, Uncle Al, risks everything to acquire her, only to realize that he can't do anything with her. Marlena's husband, August, doesn't restrain his cruelty to just his wife – he goes to town on Rosie, earning Jacob's double-disgust. And that's the worst kind of disgust there is.

What Gruen does is give us Jacob's dual stories in a way that makes readers not normally inclined to literary pretensions feel like they are reading something beyond a commercial story. This is not a judgment – it would be a bit hypocritical for me to pooh-pooh something for being too commercial – but it is an important not to make. Why? Because this story isn't complex in the slightest. There really aren't too many surprises, there really aren't too many twists or turns – it's a straightforward tale with only the slightest pauses from Old Jacob. The setting might be a bit exotic, but it's not as if this is the grand Depression Novel -- I think a guy named Steinbeck did something to keep us covered there. Hell, The Wizard of Oz actually evokes the period with a bit more creativity. What Water lacks, though, is made up for in the very fact that the story isn't difficult.

It's a plot- and character-heavy novel, and as such, it appeals to a large audience, literary-inclined or not. It is a love story, an adventure story, a save-the-princess-from-the-monster story. Who couldn't get behind a tale like that?

One thing that does bother me, though – and this is a big something – is Jacob's character. A naïve greenhorn and unworldly lad, he is either the quickest learner (which doesn't tend to bear out, as his conversations with his bunkmate, Walter, tend to show), or he gains aspects to his character that simply has no basis in the writing. Sure, he is outraged at August's treatment of Marlena and Rosie, but his, well, his ballsy-ness, comes out of nowhere.

To be fair, though, this was a second impression -- I initially finished it thinking: I understand why this book is so well-received. I still do. It's a good story. It's just not “perfect.” It is a novel with flaws, but these “flaws” are overcome with Gruen's ability to tell a story. In the end, isn't that what we want in a book? Sure, it's great when one can make you think, when you feel Hey, I'm learning something here. But, mostly, we want to know our time isn't being wasted, and I think Gruen makes sure that our reading experience is an incredibly positive one. Water for Elephants, then, is good book that caught fire, not necessarily on its merits, but because of one of those things that, if you ever found out the reason, you'd be incredibly rich. I'd say, don't worry about whether it's "worthy" or not of all the accolades and sales -- enjoy the story and feel good that a little guy (or rather, gal) made it.

Moreover, you do learn something, too. Namely: don't fuck with elephants. After "Pink Elephants on Parade" in Dumbo, I was already on board with that (seriously, if you ever want to give a kid nightmares, show them that movie before bedtime), but it's been a while since that film came out, so we were about due for a refresher. So thank you, Ms. Gruen.

(By the way: worst post-title ever, right?)

We Are Highly Amused

It’s amazing how much more reading you can get done when your classes are finally over. The funny thing is, it’s not like I really did a whole lot of the reading for my classes, but I guess it was always in the back of my mind: if I do read, it should probably be something for class. Well, that’s done with for a month or so.

So what have I been reading, you ask? (Or not . . . I have only vague illusions about the numbers that make up my readership). Well, as it is the end of the year, most publications with some sort of literary connection/aspiration has gone out of its way to make sure everyone knows their opinions concerning which books were the best this year. In the spirit of the decimal system, many resorted to aping Letterman, and giving us top ten lists. Now, with so many books being produced each year, there’s rarely a consensus as to which books belong on the list, let alone where (although, to be fair, if there were only eleven books to choose from, I’m sure very few lists would actually match up). Still, it seems pretty clear that some books were more universally considered excellent compared to others. Interestingly enough, two such books, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, are two books that I read and reviewed when they first came out, and I was a little less-than-impressed than some of the other critics. But, hey, they got paid, and I didn’t, so maybe they’re onto something. I suggest you might try them for yourselves, but I personally can’t recommend them.

One other book that made a lot of lists I can whole-heartedly recommend: Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris. Clearly the most unique feature of this book is the gimmick: it is written in the first-person plural. For those of you not so grammatically inclined (okay, I had to look up “first-person plural,” too; English is hard!), the first-person plural is told from the point of view of a narrative “we.” So, for example: “We blog about things that nobody reads or cares about.” This is not to be confused with the royal “we,” as in “We are afraid someone at work will notice that we’re writing in our blog,” but the choral “we” (and don’t for a minute think I didn’t notice that royal and choral kind of rhyme!). So what you get is a story told from a group consciousness – a hive-mind, if you will, where individuality separates you from the pack and allows you a name. It’s both disconcerting and oddly liberating.

More to the point: it is perfectly suited for the story being told. Ferris is writing about advertising specifically, but the general office/corporate culture is certainly being commented on with the use of the first-person plural. The disconnection from personality, the mindless following, the addictive need for habit: this book is for the group what Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho was for the individual corporate drone. Except, of course, that it’s a lot funnier, and lot less gory (which isn’t to say I didn’t like American Psycho; just that these books are two slightly different beasts).

The story is of an advertising firm going through a hard turn during the economic stumble when the Internet bubble burst. As more and more people get laid off (“Walk Spanish”), the “we” jumps back and forth recounting those days, always through observations and heard conversations. Like the Greek choruses of old, what you get from the narrator is a communal news organization, reporting and commenting on the stories of the day. Ferris, then, makes sure to give us the news first, and then to go back and fill in the actual story. If you’ve ever worked in an office (or, really, ever been in any social situation where gossip and hearsay are the information disseminators), than you know this is how news gets spread: you get the pay-off first – or at least a reasonable facsimile – and then you get the parts that led up to startling revelation. So while various characters are going through very real and personal moments, we do not enter the story until much later, having to wait until the facts are in to make sense of the information we have received.

Which is probably one of the reasons that, despite the acknowledgment that Ferris is using a gimmick, the book still works. It simply feels true to the situation, and so you very quickly get absorbed into story, and forget that what you are reading is pretty much alien to the novel-consuming public. You get sucked into the “we,” and you follow along, hoping to find out if Lynn does have cancer, or how the pro-bono campaign is going, or who is going to be laid off, or if Tom is going to come back and shoot up the office, or what exactly Joe’s deal is. You are allowed into the offices, to gather in the little groups as you hear the first- or second-hand knowledge that propels the story forward. And that becomes highly enjoyable, because you’ve been accepted – you are on the inside, now.

Perhaps the only fault I really found in the book was the pseudo-meta-narrative that Ferris felt compelled to add. I guess part of the game is to figure out who the “I” might possibly be, but I rather liked the fact that, up until the end, there is no way to pinpoint one. At the end, though, the lines become a little less blurred, and I think it actually takes away from the impact of using the first-person plural. Yet, it is a minor moment, and one that only partially (and very partially) detracts from the overall brilliance of the book.

Please note: I was going to attempt to write this in the first-person plural, but I figured pretensions aside, I’m not sure I could actually do it. It’s pretty difficult, making me respect not only Ferris, but the editor who thought: Not only is this a good idea, but I think I will be able to edit it when the time comes. So, props to you, editor man or lady.

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And Juno Was Her Name-O

There's something to be said about pregnant, teenage girls with quick, dry wits:

They are awesome!

Juno proves this for us. The story of a sixteen-year-old girl who gets pregnant and decides to put the baby up for adoption normally isn't the kind of topic you'd go: Hey, let's make a comedy out of this situation. And yet, the situation is inherently filled with humor, from the awkward teenage sex to the urinating on a stick to the growing huge and waddling through high school – there is an absurdity that calls for something beyond the dramatics. Juno delivers, big time.

A lot of it has to do with the stylized writing. The improbably named (and, let's face it, chances are, not her (yes, her (and yes, I'm doing parentheses inside of parentheses)) real name) Diablo Cody creates a Middle-American world where everyone is both impossibly stuck in the 80's and 90's, but speaks in a dialect that I can only describe as “white-ghetto.” It works brilliantly, in that it both provides a comedic element and adds a level of ironic sophistication. We know it's ridiculous that they speak this way, and it's pretty obvious that everyone in the movie is subtly winking along with us.

What really makes this work is, of course, the acting. I will consistently stand behind the opinion that comedic acting is the hardest thing to do, because it's not just about raw emotion, but about knowing how to connect with people. In other words, drama can drift towards overacting, and still be powerful, because crying and screaming can still evoke a response even if it doesn't seem, in hindsight, overly genuine. Comedy, though, either works or it doesn't. The jokes, especially in a dialogue-driven film, require more than good writing: it requires the actor to be able to deliver it. This isn't stand-up or sketch comedy; it's not even a sit-com. We are supposed to believe that these are things people would actually say in these situations. That means, the delivery has to be natural, there has to be great timing and inflection and expression. While a writer may pen the line, and a director may try to draw it out, it is ultimately the actor who has to make it happen.

Ellen Page, the eponymous character is a excellent. She takes “wry” and “sardonic” to levels of heretofore untold heights. She is at once charming and crude, lovable and distasteful. She can nonchalantly deliver lines about abortions or the process of birth and make us love her all the same. It certainly doesn't hurt that she's adorable, but it's also important to note that she is adorable. She's not gorgeous or a super-model – she is, despite her innate Canadian-ness – a typically pretty American teenager. She's also a superb actor, because she brings out the depth of her character. While Juno appears to be tough and cynical, you can tell that she also a frightened, confused little girl. What makes it so great is that throughout, she is an incredibly strong young woman, but not so over the top that it becomes unbelievable for the situation.

Then, the fact that she's surrounded by an excellent supporting cast makes the movie complete. Her parents, played by J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney (who, I'm convinced, should just be given every role that requires a middle-class Midwestern couple), are both bumbling and sophisticated, never quite the caricature you expect them to be. Janney, as the step-mom, is level-headed and loving, and one of the best scenes is when she berates the sonogram technician. Michael Cera, who plays the Y chromosome in this little passion zygote, establishes himself as the teenage nerd-hero for this decade. His nervous charm allows him to be the everyman high school persona, and he pulls it off without a hitch. Jason Bateman is great as the reluctant, hipster father-to-be, and relative newcomer Olivia Thirlby is a great comedic sidekick for Juno. Even Rainn Wilson, in his brief cameo as the corner store cashier, almost steals the show with his ridiculous commentary on Juno's situation.

In fact, even Jennifer Garner, who I find to be a rather wooden actress, does nothing to detract from the movie for me.

What you get, then, is a complete story. Yes, there are parts that are probably too much (Jason Bateman's role verges on the melodramatic), but on the whole, those little distractions are ancillary to the main story anyway – or, if they aren't, they do not detract from the overall movie. This is a movie that will make you laugh for an hour-and-a-half, even with the touching moments interspersed throughout.

More important, this is a movie that will make you wish you owned a hamburger phone.

And that's simply great cinema.

Designing a Lovely Story

Nancy Horan's Loving Frank is the historical fiction of Frank Lloyd Wright's life with his mistress, Mamah Cheney, told from her point of view. As one of the most recognized personalities of the Twentieth Century, Wright is probably the one name people could come up with if asked to give an example of an architect.

Horan's book goes beyond the architecture, it goes beyond the man himself. As the title implies, the novel is about loving Frank Lloyd Wright, and thus it is actually Mamah's story, a woman pretty impressive in her own right. Granted, this isn't a biography, being fiction extrapolated from what little writings we have left of Mamah's, but what we do get is a fairly convincing portrayal of a woman who gives up everything in order to be with the man she loves.

And I do mean everything. By having an affair with a married man, while being married herself, she entered into a scandal that was latched on by the newspapers in a way that would make our current paparazzi proud of the tradition they follow in. And, I won't say without reason.

What amazes me about the writing is how Horan somehow makes Mamah a sympathetic character. Sure, she's unhappy in her marriage, but it's not like her husband, Edwin Cheney, was abusive or an alcoholic or anything really negative. If anything, it's mostly because he's basically boring, while Frank is exciting. For that reason, she leaves her children behind with a friend (who subsequently dies, which must have been delightfully traumatic for the kids), and goes off to Europe to meet up with Frank.

Still, despite her selfishness, you never see her as cold-hearted. She agonizes about leaving her children – and her guilt is a constant throughout. She also has to deal with her sister being left in a rather untenable situation, living in the house with her husband and children, who are now being harassed by the press and berated from the pulpit. And, perhaps most troubling, is that she has to deal with the fact that Frank Lloyd Wright is, well, kind of a self-absorbed asshole.

I think what's so surprising is the time period. Because Frank Lloyd Wright was so ahead of his time, and because of the misnomer that is “Modernism,” I've always felt he was working much later in the century, certainly beyond World War II. But, apparently I'm a moron, because this is turn-of-the-century America, and as such, the depiction of the social situation – concerning divorce and women's rights in particular – is crafted in such a way that it is revelatory without shocking. Again, I think it's Horan's work, creating the lovely voice of Mamah,

This is not a happy story. The affair, while comprised of touching moments, never gets to culminate in a happily-ever-after manner. In fact, if it could have ended in a less satisfactory way (at least from Mamah or Frank's perspective), I'd be glad to hear it. Unfortunately for the story, Horan was dealing with history, and history, although mold-able, is comprised of facts (with the obvious caveats applied about the factual nature of history). But even in the sadness, there is beauty. Shifting in the end from Mamah to Frank, Horan writes:

“Frank opens his eyes. All around his bed, he sees crippled salvage from the fire—a rolled-up carpet reeking of smoke, the two chairs they used for sitting in front of the fireplace, both now missing legs. When he closes his eyes again, the memory is gone. What he does not know is that he will not be able to retrieve her again like that. He will try. He will say to himself, She loved to joke. She had a wonderful laugh. But he won't be able to hear it, not for a very long time.”

Behind every famous man is a remarkable woman, and Mamah, with Horan's help, gets her due.

I highly recommend.

I also want to note that the cover, a Frank Lloyd Wright stained-glass design in yellows, was a fantastic choice. In case you're interested, it was done by Archie Ferguson.

Ashes to Ashes . . .

When you are building something out of wood, you will inevitably produce waste-product. It is a part of the process, a you-need-to-break-some-eggs-to-make-an-omelet situation for sure. But, instead of eggshells, with wood you get scraps and, more to the point of this review, sawdust.

The Killers, a band I love and think produce some of the best rock albums of my generation, gave us Sawdust, and the title was incredibly apt. This is not an album in the traditional sense of the word, because it is not songs that were chosen specifically for the purpose of making a cohesive whole. Rather, Sawdust are the remnants of The Killers previous attempts: Hot Fuss and Sam's Town, two albums I think are strong entries into our musical catalog.

Sawdust is not.

In an interview in Maxim, Brandon Flowers, lead singer of The Killers, was asked point-blank if this was simply a way to keep the brand in the public consciousness until a new album can be released. Flowers denied this, and said that these are songs the band really loved, but they simply had to make editorial choices when putting together the other albums.

The thing is, as someone who makes editorial decisions myself, Flowers is forgetting something: you never see books made up of chapters excised from first drafts.

Granted, music and novels are two different mediums, but these songs were left off because they were chapters that didn't make sense in the albums. Moreover, they were left off because they weren't great songs. They aren't bad songs, really, but they don't do anything for me. I'm simply underwhelmed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the song I liked the best was a remix of their song I like the best, “Mr. Brightside” (the song is the “Jacques LuCont's Thin White Duke Remix”).

Of course, just as Maxim asked the highly critical question, they in turn gave the “album” a fairly positive review. It makes me wonder what they were listening to. And, even if it wasn't as subjective as I'm making it out to be (I don't think Maxim ever gives bad reviews to albums guys are “supposed” to like), there is still the fact that we are being asked to buy what is amounts to refuse. It's not like this a director's cut of a movie – these are not the missing tracks that “complete” Sam's Town. Instead, it's a CD of songs that a die-hard fan might buy so that they have everything from their favorite artist.

I never thought I'd be disappointed by the ethical practices of a band called The Killers, but they fooled me out ten dollars, and for that, I am ashamed.