I can tell you two things after reading Gillian Flynn’s “Sharp Objects.” First, if you say that a character is left handed, like all geniuses, I will flag that page. Second, Flynn remains someone I would not want to end up with in a dark room.
I can tell you two things after reading Gillian Flynn’s “Sharp Objects.” First, if you say that a character is left handed, like all geniuses, I will flag that page. Second, Flynn remains someone I would not want to end up with in a dark room.
Some of us have a much easier time growing up than others. That’s not a startling revelation, but it’s good to be reminded of that from time to time as we go through the world and encounter people whose experience with this world is very different from our own.
Knowledge is a weird thing. You can go your entire life completely oblivious to a fact, and then have it come up multiple times right in a row.
Somehow I only posted one time in March. Whoops. Expect much more from April, which technically could be like three posts, but hopefully many more.
One that I could have done last month was posting about Pierce Brown’s “Morning Star,” the third book in the fantastic Red Rising series. If you haven’t read any of them, I insist you immediately reevaluate your life choices and then start.
If I got kidnapped while doing my job, it would be pretty difficult for me to consider continuing in a position where that could happen again.
If I call you Sunny Jim in the near future, blame Nick Hornby.
When I was 14, the only manual labor I had to do was mow the lawn with a ride-on mower. I went to school with no fears of being sent home for being unable to pay. I spent afternoons doing homework, playing baseball and video games knowing a filling meal was coming for dinner every night.
In 2008, I needed a push to read more and set a goal of reading 20 books. I did. The next year I read 21, but haven’t completed more than 18 since. Until 2015. And by that I mean the final hours of 2015, but that very much counts.
With 19 books done and the chance to hit 20 for the year so close, my initial thought was to read one of the shorter Steinbecks on my bookshelf to close out the year. Then I looked at my spreadsheet and noticed I had already read two of his in 2015 and that option quickly soured.
So I asked for help:
@cjhannas Have you read Station Eleven? It looks like a good year-ender. ?
— Brooke Shelby (@txtingmrdarcy) December 25, 2015
This turned out to be an excellent cjhannas move. Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven” was a tremendous year-ender, which also happened to be about the near-end of the world. At least the human part of it.
I was a little annoyed at first with the way the story jumps around to different sets of characters in different places and different time periods, but as the book went on I found my reaction to a new chapter was more like, “OH! These people! Need to know what’s going on with them.”
The basic premise is that a ridiculously effective flu has wiped out most of the population and those who remain live in small groups in otherwise abandoned cities or as travelers. Or as a traveling group that performs Shakespeare plays when they stop in a town.
There’s an old actor and his bevy of ex-wives, a young actress and her comic book, a reformed paparazzo, a prophet, an artist, and a swimming pool with double moon light. Mandel drops hints and reminders about how they all connect that leave you saying, “Riiiiight, yes yes,” as the pieces fit together and all the players figure out more and more what the post-flu word is.
At times it’s a little depressing, but also made me think a lot about what would happen if the lights went off and never came back on. And yet, there’s an underlying hope in some of the characters about returning to what they once knew that is refreshing in such a setting.
It was also hard not to think about the Fox show “Last Man On Earth,” which doesn’t explain why many of the people in the world died, but has a similar focus on the small group that is left. That show is intentionally much more comedy focused but touches on similar ideas like the first task of figuring out if you’re the only one left, and if not, how do you find the others? In that case the main character spray paints “Alive in Tucson” on billboards and eventually some people show up.
In the book, people meet by accident in small travels, and then wonder and dream about the world beyond.
My favorite part of reading a book of short stories, like B.J. Novak’s “One More Thing,” is that unless you cheat and flip ahead to check, you have no idea if the particular story you’re reading is one page long or 10.
When you read a novel, you can sense by the dwindling number of pages on your right side that things are coming to an end and can make assumptions about what is getting wrapped up and when. You know when there’s time for a surprise and when it’s time to go.
Not so with short stories. A twist to relaunch in a new direction or another that brings a sudden end are equally possible.
I thoroughly enjoyed this read that is mixed with stories that are both insightful and funny and hit all the notes of stories we tell as humans. As a collection, they cover a lot of ground and feature occasional recall to earlier stories that make for delightful moments of recognizing something clever just happened.
There is the story of the guy who invented the calendar and had a plan for all months to be 40 days, but then had to adapt to his audience.
“Finally, I just told everyone that this would be the last day of January, and months would be just 30 days instead of 40. But there wasn’t enough time to get the word out. So to be safe, we have to make this month 31 days, and then we’ll make the rest 30. Not a big deal. Everyone is excited to see Febuary — including me!”
There’s also an elementary school principle who calls an assembly to tell the kids he’d like to eliminate math altogether. He asks them to consider the difference between themselves and a happy retirement community.
“The difference is ‘rithmetic! A retired person living by the ocean, just doing a little reading and writing till the end of their days — that’s the dream, right?’
In another favorite, a guy takes the adage “If I had a nickel…” for every time he spilled a cup of coffee and works out, in great detail, the economics behind making that a business.
And then there’s one of the shortest stories, which is brilliantly succint:
“I was sad that summer was over. But I was happy that it was over for my enemies, too.”
This was book number 19 of the year for me. I’ve long wanted to get back to 20, something I haven’t accomplished since 2009. Time to get reading.