August 2015 – Page 2 – meghan rose allen

Review of The Monster and Other Stories by Stephen Crane

By meghan rose on Monday, August 17, 2015

Whenever I need to feed illiterate, I read stories from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. I’d like to think that earlier writers just really liked their thesauri, or maybe in the past people just really liked those Improve Your Vocabulary quizzes, but still, my goodness are there a lot of words I don’t know.

The Monster and Other Stories, fitting into that last nineteenth/early twentieth century category has words I don’t know. It has the word dude used in a non-surfer way. It has some insidious racism that was probably actually considered as progressive non-racist at the time. It has three stories, one of which I completely forgot after reading it (The Blue Hotel) and I had to open up my kobo last night because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. It’s a somewhat odd choice for the sandwich filling of this trio of stories. The first (The Monster) and the last (His New Mittens) are set in the same town, are about family, are about children and adults and family and expectations, while The Blue Hotel is all men, all adults, in a hotel out on the plain (Nebraska I think. I suppose I could look it up.). All three stories are like whirlpools though, or tornadoes, or something that spins and spins: we start in close and expand out, more and more people entering the narrative, then spiral back in. It’s the natural way that Crane does this, this spiraling, that makes these stories. The initial and final simplicity of them is deceptive; there is a lot happening in each one (even the one I forgot).

But it is a bit dated. And it’s very American in that way that it can’t seem to envisage anything but what’s important here being important. And it took me forever to read the eighty-six pages. But then I got to say Mineola a bunch of times though, since that’s where Dover, the publisher, is located. Mineola. Min-eeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ola. Mini-OH-la. It seems like the name of a place where a Stephen Crane story should be located.

I will try to steal Stephen Crane’s spiraling out for my own stories. A good piece of writing to help me improve my own.

The Monster and Other Stories by Stephen Crane went on sale February 18, 2015.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

fiction writing

didn’t miss it

By meghan rose on Monday, August 17, 2015

What would I do if I stopped writing?

I didn’t write last week. I was on vacation. I read three books I had to review. I watched some television. But I didn’t write and I didn’t feel bad about not writing. I didn’t feel the compulsion to write something down. I didn’t even open my dollar store notebook because I had an idea. I had no ideas, other than who the point-of-view should be for the last chapter of Wolf Children (You’re not actually going to call it that? Geoff says when it comes up in conversation, but I worry we’re past the point of calling it anything else.)

What if I stop writing? Is that really such a bad thing?

Who will I be then?

netgalley copy

Review of The Lotus and the Storm by Lan Cao

By meghan rose on Sunday, August 16, 2015

I really loathe the word resplendent. The Lotus and the Storm uses resplendent three times. That may be enough to tell you what I thought of the book.

There are spoilers below. Proceed warily.

The Lotus and the Storm is essentially the mirror of The Sympathizer, which I read a few months ago (also a Netgalley copy). Whereas The Sympathizer gave us the Viet-cong mole perspective, The Lotus and the Storm gives us the South Vietnamese military perspective. Okay. So we’re in and out of Vietnam, future in Virginia, back and forth. Typical immigrant/war narrative.

For me, this book had problems: Characters in the narrative seem to be talking to someone who isn’t there (one of my notes-in-the-margins is Who is he talking to?), giving lengthy explanations about background that they would already know themselves and would have no need to elaborate on for themselves. A letter detailing a death just so happens to have a lengthy and fortuitous amount of information required to advance the plot. A child uses the term “subcutaneous tissue” (although, growing up in a war zone, this might enter common parlance out of necessity). Someone is secretly a spy — revealed in as Dramatic A Way as possible.

So a whole suspension of disbelief is required from the reader throughout the entire novel. I think a lot of this story is based on the truth, but I don’t believe the story. If it’s true, if these things happened, but is written in such a way that obscures the truth, I think that’s a problem.

And the big problem (and a big spoiler here): The narrative jumps between different characters points-of-view. About two-thirds in, we are introduced to a new narrative voice, as we find out that one of the main characters has multiple personalities, and our additional narrator is one of these personalities!

Other people loved this book, the ostentatious writing style, the twists, the emotional wrenching. I did not. For me, it was a slog.

The Lotus and the Storm by Lan Cao went on sale August 14, 2014.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

fiction writing

when the only way up is up

By meghan rose on Friday, August 7, 2015

It is no secret that I have been feeling down about writing. Down to the extent of thinking maybe I should go retrain for something new. Because three degrees and a college diploma obviously isn’t enough for me. I need more degrees and diplomas after my name.

Writing is all uphill now. The only way to get better is hard work and I don’t know if I have any hard work left in me. I just want to be a good writer without having the slog to get there. Because it’s hard. It’s hard work and there are days when I’d rather have a nap. Every day. Every day I want to have a nap.

But even with hard work and trying to write every day, I don’t feel like I’m getting better. I feel like I’m treading water, just at that level of almost-good-enough. What do I do to get better?

Do I even want to try and get better?

books

startling gaps in pop-culture knowledge

By meghan rose on Wednesday, August 5, 2015

So what’s worse: me not knowing that Darth Vader dies at the end of the Star Wars movie with the Ewoks or Geoff not knowing that Ron and Hermione end up together?

books

Review of The Book of Names by Royce Leville

By meghan rose on Tuesday, August 4, 2015

By the logic of the second story in this book (“Ronald”), I need to give this book a bad review. It came without swag. It came without first class comped orgies. It came without packages, boxes or bags. It did come from Germany, so I got to put my basic German to good use reading the envelope’s customs declaration form (although I could have probably guessed what buch meant even without a German 101 course). But I’ve got to channel Ronald here — pull out an awful passage and compare the book to Kafka. Except there aren’t really any truly awful passages in this book, and I’ve never read Kafka, so I suppose I should just review The Book of Names properly.

The Book of Names is a collection of stories about horrible people doing horrible things to each other in absurdest fashions. Right up my alley. It was an amusing read, sometimes a bit spooky, sometimes a bit mirthful. We jump around, from Germany to the UK to Australia to Canada. Completely readable and the technique is more than fine. I would say the performance is wound very tightly. It’s a compelling group of stories and there’s the fun, at least in my copy, of matching up the people in the stories with the diagrams on the front and the alternative titles for the short stories on the back. And the stories aren’t all about men. There are stories about women, a little more than a third with female protagonists. But therein lies what about this collection makes me uncomfortable.

Now, it’s hardly as if the men here are pinnacles of virtuousness, but the woman all seem to be variations of bitches be crazy. Catfighting (“Sandra”). Promiscuity (“Barbara”). Delusional (“Emily”). Vindictive (“Shannon”). Man-hating career woman (“Marty”). They seem so much more one-note than those stories with male protagonists. Is it the stories? Or are my ovaries just more attuned to lousy feminine characterizations? I mean, realistically, does Marty, an educated, well-placed career woman really think that enslaving men forever and having women run everything is really a solution? And what’s wrong with Barbara, a senior, enjoying sex? I don’t see why I should be disgusted by that, like the man through whose eyes Barbara’s story is told.

So I can’t embrace The Book of Names completely. But I had an enjoyable two evenings reading it. Now off to sell my copy on ebay (the last Ronald reference since it’s the end of the review).

The Book of Names by Royce Leville went on sale January 13, 2015.

I received a copy free from Librarything in exchange for an honest review.

this month I ...

July 2015

By meghan rose on Saturday, August 1, 2015

I read:

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Thoughts:

Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Lynn Crosbie: Not that I ever met him but I miss Kurt Cobain and this book makes me miss him more. The intro says Crosbie started it as YA, first chapter is totally YA, then YA no more. My heart aches for this book. I hate that I didn’t come up with the idea and I hate that someone else wrote it much better than I ever could and I just hate hate hate hate hate it so much that I love it.I need a physical copy of this book. It was on sale on kobo earlier this month and I didn’t buy it there because I need to be able to hold it in my hands forever and ever and ever and ever.

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty: The best part of this book is that the cover is sort of shiny. I don’t even know how to describe it. Sort of shimmery, radiant. I spent a lot of time just looking at the shiny cover, like I was on drugs.

The Girl in Saskatoon by Sharon Butala: I can never truly love Sharon Butala, because one of her characters in The Garden of Eden was really disgusted by Ethiopia (I think she called it a hell hole or godforsaken or something) and even though it was a fictional character who said it, Butala still wrote it so we are not friends. This book has nothing to do with Ethiopia, but I can’t move past Butala’s fictional character in another book disagreeing with me.

The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger: Ah, rich people problems. More intelligent chick-lit than most, although the resolution is pat; what’s the point of all the animosity if it’s just going to fizzle out boringly? Also, why are personal emails included in the legal files? And is that really how lawyers memo each other — so irreverent? If you already think lawyers are kind of scummy, this book isn’t going to change your mind much.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper: Reviewed earlier this month.

The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton: Or, in the original language: Og og og-og-og.

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe: I always think the title of this book is Nip the Buds, Shoot the Leaves.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: Oh my, does the end drag. It’s a fine book until that point and avoids using WWII to draw cheap sympathy, but then the last bit just seems like it’s trying to hit a bunch of points before it ends, to remind us how awful war is. Maybe just stop reading around (in my copy, which is really my mother’s) page 480.

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski: I remembered how much I liked this novel, but I’d also forgotten how much I liked this novel.

Beneath the Silence by Charlene Carr: Reviewed earlier this month.

Day’s End by H. E. Bates: Reviewed earlier this month.

Favourite book:

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Don’t make me choose. I love them all so much.

Most promising book put on my wishlist:

I watched:

Thoughts:

The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That: This may be one of the worst shows ever made. Martin Short’s voice is like drill-bits being pushed into my ear.

I wrote:

Wolf Children story now has Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 completed. Taking a break before doing Chapter 5 (the end!). Some faerie story reworking. Started a new story about a girl named Dellarae.

Month: August 2015