No Fear Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)

The Much Ado About Nothing volume of the series is my first experience with the No Fear Shakespeare books.  For those unfamiliar with the concept, the “No Fear” books are aimed at students and readers who sometimes find reading Shakespeare to be a bit of a challenge.  In my own case, after reading one of Shakespeare’s plays, no matter how well I felt I understood it, I still wondered what I had missed.  These little books make sure that I do not miss a thing.

The concept is a simple one.  The play is presented in Shakespeare’s words on the book’s odd-numbered pages, and the even-numbered pages present the same material “translated” into everyday English.  I chose to read Shakespeare’s words first, and then read the translated version of the same section of the play before I moved on to the next odd-numbered page.  Within just a few pages, I found myself falling into Shakespeare’s rhythms and I needed the modern version less and less to understand the various comings and goings of all the characters. 

But even at that point, the No Fear Shakespeare book remains a useful tool to readers because it explains all the relatively obscure references that Shakespeare makes throughout his work to Greek and Roman mythology.  These little asides, almost throwaway references though they may seem, often add depth to characters that otherwise likely would have gone right over the heads of most readers.  Too, the book explains the slang terms used in the many risqué conversational back-and-forth jabs between characters that may have remained meaningless to those unfamiliar with the language of the day (language that would likely earn Much Ado About Nothing at least a PG rating if it were a modern movie).  The No Fear books also include a helpful listing of all the play’s main characters, complete with a description of each character’s background and how they all relate to each other.

Best of all, the books are a confidence-builders for readers who want to read Shakespeare but have often been disappointed with the results of their efforts.  They are training-wheels that can be discarded as soon as a reader feels comfortable doing so, or those who want to wring every little detail and nuance from their reading can continue to use them.  It is all up to the individual reader.

Khaled Hosseini on His 40-City Book Tour

This kind of thing, not nearly as common today as it was just a few years ago, has to be every author's dream.  These are interesting times for publishers and authors, so it is good to see that an author tour can still generate this level of excitement among the reading class.

Notable Nonfiction: 2nd Quarter 2013

I haven't read many new nonfiction titles yet this year, but I've been lucky enough to find and enjoy a few truly exceptional books that deserve special mention:

1.  The Spark - Kristine Barnett (story of an autistic little boy whose IQ is higher than Einstein's)

2.  Mr. Lincoln's Battle with God - Stephen Mansfield (definitely not your father's Abe Lincoln)

3.  Butterfly in the Typewriter - Cory MacLauchlin (intriguing biography of reclusive author John Kennedy Toole)

4.  Celebrating Pride and Prejudice - Susannah Fullerton (everything you ever wanted to know about the best loved novel ever written)

5.  A Chance to Win - Jonathan Schuppe  (a paralyzed drug dealer tries to turn his life around by helping the neighborhood kids form a baseball team)

6.  She Left Me the Gun - Emma  Brockes (a British woman learns the truth about her mother's first 30 years)

7.  Good Prose - Tracy Kidder, Richard Tood (part memoir, part writing manual - co-authored by Kidder and his longtime editor)

 8.  After Visiting Friends - Michael Hainey (a newspaper man uncovers the truth about his father's death on a Chicago street)

This is turning into a year during which I read even more fiction than normal, but I expect to have a nice Top Ten list by year-end.

Jazz

Toni Morrison’s 1992 novel Jazz is a book that I really enjoyed at times.  But, at the same time, there were portions of the novel I could barely force myself to endure.  It is that uneven.

Jazz, mostly set in 1926 New York City, is the story of Joe Trace, a 50-something-year-old man whose marriage is not what it used to be.  There is a general sense of optimism now in the city’s black community.  The Armistice ending World War I is already seven years old, and the future appears bright for everyone brave enough to have traded life in the rural South for what the City has to offer.  Joe, though, is not content. 

When his job as a door-to-door beauty product salesman for the Cleopatra company brings him into contact with Dorcas, an18-year-old neighborhood beauty, Joe makes his move.  But only three months later, when Dorcas unceremoniously dumps Joe for a younger man, he cannot accept it and shoots her dead in a crowded room.  Joe’s wife Violet, cheated of her chance for vengeance, brings a knife to the open-casket funeral where she does her best to disfigure the corpse.  But life goes on, and Violet will find herself almost inadvertently helping her husband through his grief.

Toni Morrison

Morrison’s mysterious narrator reveals most of this in the book’s first six pages (the book jacket reveals the rest), and uses the remainder of the book to fill in the details.  Through a series of flashbacks, the author tells the individual and joint stories of the central characters, going back one or two generations in some cases to remind the reader just how closely linked to the days of slavery the residents of 1920s Harlem still were.  But, as Morrison points out in the following passage, the City gave its residents hope for a better future:

         “The wave of black people running from want and violence created in the 1870s; the ‘80s’ the ‘90s but was a steady stream in 1906 when Joe and Violet joined it.  Like the others, they were country people, but how soon country people forget.  When they fall in love with a city, it is forever, and it is like forever.  As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it.”

Bottom Line:  Jazz is a highly atmospheric novel filled with many truths about the human condition – a novel that vividly brings 1920s Harlem to life.  Some of the generational flashbacks, however, poignant as they may be, are overwritten and heavy-handed enough to obscure, rather than reinforce, Morrison’s overall theme.  Jazz is still worth a look, but it is not one of Toni Morrison’s best efforts.  

Fiction Top Ten - Mid-Year 2013

Here we are at mid-year and fully half of of the titles on my Fiction Top Ten from just three months ago have dropped off this updated list.  I take that as a good omen, one reminding me that there are always more great books on the horizon.  Say what you will about avid readers, we are seldom bored for long.

Fiction Top Ten

Second Quarter Update

1.   Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - by Therese Anne Fowler (a fictional look at the Fitzgerald marriage that leaves the reader wondering which of the partners was the most reckless)

2.   Light of the World - by James Lee Burke (book number twenty in the Dave Robicheaux series, it proves the author is still at the peak of his writing skills)

3.   The Dinner - by Herman Koch (Dutch novel proving that boys will be boys - and so will their parents)

4.   The Heat of the Sun - by David Rain (Madam Butterfly: The Rest of the Story)

 5.   Tenth of December - by George Saunders (The New York Times called this the "best book you will read in 2013" almost before the year started.  Agree?)

6.   Dear Life - by Alice Munro (Munro officially announced her retirement last week, so unless she has something still in the vault, this will be her last new short story collection) 

7.   Blood Drama - by Christopher Meeks - (the author hits a home run on his first venture into the crime thriller genre)

8.   Havana Lost - by Libby Fischer Hellmann (wonderfully atmospheric novel about Castro, the mob, and generations of family greed)

9.   The Broken Places - by Ace Atkins (third in the author's Quinn Collins series, this is Southern noir at its finest)

10.  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - by Robin Sloan (a mysterious bookstore with no customers hires a curious new manager) 

Manila Noir

Manila Noir is my fourth experience with the intriguing noir short story series published by Akashic Books (following Boston Noir, Mexico City Noir, and Long Island Noir), a series now numbering something like fifty-six titles.  Much like the first three collections I read, Manila Noir is a bit of a mixed bag.  When it is good it is very, very good.  The good news is that when it is "bad," the stories only sink to the level of mediocrity, not to awfulness.

The fourteen stories in the collection were written (in English) by writers, several of which now live in the United States, who were born in the Philippines.  It also includes an excellent introduction to set the mood for what is to follow, one that clearly defines the elements of Manila-style noir that give the Filipino version of the genre a special edge.  Also from the introduction, I particularly like editor Jessica Hagedorn's list of what she calls “the noir essentials:”   

"…alienated and desperate characters, terse dialogue, sudden violence, betrayals left and right.  And of course, there's plenty of mordant humor.  And of course, there are no happy endings."

Editor Jessica Hagedorn

Three of the short stories particularly stand out in my memory.  The first of these, by Rosario Cruz-Lucero, is an atmospheric gem entitled "A Human Right" that involves Manila death squads, childhood friends, and family loyalty that will stay with me for a long time because it considers so many questions in only seventeen pages.  This is the stuff of the best coming-of-age novels.    

"Comforter of the Afflicted," by F.H. Batacan (a woman who worked for  Philippine intelligence for several years) is the tragic story of a woman who died, almost anonymously, in the service of others.  I am particularly taken with the story's central character, an elderly priest who lends his investigative skills to an overburdened police department that depends greatly on Father Saenz's help.  I believe that this priest is one of two Jesuits featured in the author's 2002 novel, Smaller and Smaller Circles, a book I am now looking to add to my To-Be-Read stack. 

The third story I want to mention is Sabina Murry's (yes, if you are wondering, the collection does include stories by male authors) "Broken Glass."  This is the story of a little girl who, while visiting her rich aunt, makes a grisly discovery in the walled home's lush garden.  It is a highly atmospheric story that explores the relationship between Manila's rich and those who depend on them for their own survival.  It is also a coming-of-age story of sorts in which a bright little girl learns a lot about the world she lives in.

Bottom Line:  This is a worthy addition to a thriving series that seems to have no end (the publisher already has announced an additional fifteen titles in the works).  I will, I hope, be reading more of them.  If noir-styled fiction is to your liking, this just might be the series you were hoping to find.

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)