Fat Charlie Nancy is a very ordinary man. He goes to work, he is engaged to be married, he has his own flat - he should be happy and he thinks he is. Until his father dies and Charlie learns that his father was Anansi, the spider god, and that he has a long-lost god for a brother called Spider.
When Spider turns up and starts to take over Charlies life, Charlie taps into the unique magic of four slightly mad old ladies to drive his brother away. And then it gets a bit complicated. He makes a bargain with the bird god to rid himself of his brother, without realising that it means his brother is going die. Charlie’s framed by his boss for embezzlement, ditched by his fiancee, finds his life starting to spin out of control and realises that he has to call off his bargain with the Bird.
But it isn't that easy. He has to find the feather which sealed the bargain with the Bird. Charlie’s ex-fiancée is kidnapped by his murdering boss on St Andrews and Charlie bands together with copper Rosie to save his ex-fiancee and his brother.
I know it sounds like a Carl Hiaasen novel but it still has the darkness that I love about Neil Gaiman’s work. It’s not as dark, or as still, as American Gods but it’s very tight. The story moves quickly and it’s really enjoyable in a non-challenging way. I read it in two days but I didn’t lie awake at night thinking about it like I did with American Gods. Anansi Boys seems to have more mass appeal than American Gods – it’s more accessible and generally likeable but the characters didn’t stick in my head and talk amongst themselves.
I’d recommend this book but I felt a bit like one of those comic book (sorry, graphic novel) fans who bagged Spiderman for being commercial - I wanted pain, anguish and darkness in the soul and I was given fun. But these are my expectations not promises made by Mr Gaiman. Congratulations on a great book that I wasn't ashamed to read on the bus.
16 October 2005
10 October 2005
What book shall we read next?
Now that it is my turn to choose a book, I feel flooded by a curious mix of anxiety and raw power. I'm worried that I'll choose a book that turns out to be disappointing but the idea that I can choose anything makes me quite giddy with delight.
I was all set to pick an Australian author - a book which fairly reeked with the smell of rotting mangoes on a summers day, a book that was so gritty that you could feel the sand between your toes and hear the waves crashing around you, a book that would un-nerve us like a huntsman scuttling up the wall, a book that looked dry and dusty and was under water restrictions because of the drought.
But then I went to the book store and realised that I don't really have a choice at all. We have to read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.
I was all set to pick an Australian author - a book which fairly reeked with the smell of rotting mangoes on a summers day, a book that was so gritty that you could feel the sand between your toes and hear the waves crashing around you, a book that would un-nerve us like a huntsman scuttling up the wall, a book that looked dry and dusty and was under water restrictions because of the drought.
But then I went to the book store and realised that I don't really have a choice at all. We have to read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.
14 September 2005
So what next?
Just curious if we should move on or hang on. I've got a week-long seminar coming up, so now would be a good time to get something new to read. I'm all in favor of throwing in the F&F towel. CK, I know you said you were going to try, but you might be tied up with other things in the weeks to come, and Laziest, you just weren't able to get a copy. So shall we set a month (or so) time period per book and, having passed its due, lay F&F to rest?
31 July 2005
Freddy and Fredericka
Okay, I've already taken the plunge, but I'm far from through. I thought that I'd set a new example by posting (prolifically) the name of the latest book we're reading: Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin.
And, for those curious, here is the synopsis from the Penguin Group web site:
Our own opinions will follow in the comments section.
And, for those curious, here is the synopsis from the Penguin Group web site:
Helprin's latest work, an extraordinarily funny allegory of a most peculiar British royal family, is immensely mocking of contemporary monarchy and yet deeply sympathetic to the individuals caught in its lonely absurdities.
Freddy is the Prince of Wales, Fredericka his troublesome wife. An overeducated, bumbling anachronism, Freddy commits one glorious gaffe after another, for which he is massacred daily in the British press. Golden-haired Fredericka, frivolous and empty headed, is particularly fond of wearing spectacular clothing with revealing necklines. Because of the epic public relations disasters caused by these wayward heirs to the throne, they are sent, in a little-known ancient tradition, on a quest to colonize a strange and barbarous land: America.
In a tour (de force) of the United States, they are parachuted into the gleaming hell of industrial New Jersey and make their way across the country - —riding freight trains, washing dishes, stealing art, gliding down the Mississippi, impersonating dentists, fighting forest fires, and becoming ineluctably enmeshed in the madness of a presidential campaign. Amid the collisions of their royal assumptions with their life on the road, they rise to their full potential, gain the dignity and humility required of great monarchs and good people, and learn to love each other.
There is nothing quite like it. Helprin is a lyrical writer whose graceful prose is studded with profound truths and insights. Devoted readers know him for his deeply sad stories that are yet uplifting in their conviction of the goodness and resilience of the human spirit. In what seems like a radical departure of form (as if de Tocqueville had been rewritten by Mark Twain with a deep bow to Harpo Marx), this brilliantly refashioned fairy tale is a magnificently funny farce. But behind the laughter Helprin speaks of leaps of faith and second chances, courage and the primacy of love. He leaves us with the final impression that someone has shouted successfully past the cynicism of our postmodern age in behalf of honor, beauty, nobility, and dreams that come true.
Our own opinions will follow in the comments section.
05 July 2005
My dear and unfortunate successor...Review of The Historian
A warning to all who have not yet completed The Historian, this review will contain revealing information about the book. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I was first attracted to Elizabeth Kostova's novel The Historian when I heard that it had been purchased for just over two million dollars, a record for a first novel. I needed to know what made publishing companies feel it was worth that. I assumed that, like most of the over-hyped works gaining media recognition, it would turn out to be written by a slightly less intelligent than average baboon with an over-inflated sense of self-importance...but I'm not a cynic. Happily, it was not the next Da Vinci Code as many had promised, but rather an intricate weaving of story with history, of lives with life.
Our story is told to us by a nameless narrator, the sixteen year old daughter of an American diplomat living in Amsterdam. As she recounts the story, she pulls from not only her own experience but also from the letters of her father, her mother and her father's mentor Bartholomew Rossi. Using these letter and this perspective, the story unfolds in three separate timelines: Rossi's initial discovery (1930), the story of her mother and father (1950's), and her own quest to discover the truth (1972). She finds a strange book in her father's library; it is blank save for a woodcut in the center depicting a dragon holding a banner with a single word: Drakulya. Inside the book, she finds a letter dated 1930 that begins..."My dear and unfortunate successor."
If you have not yet completed the book, you may wish to skip the following section.
Begin Spoilers:
Once she begins to question her father about the book and letters, the story begins in earnest. Her father tells her of Professor Rossi's disappearance, how he met our heroine's mother Helen who died not long after the birth of her child, and of the search he and Helen conducted to find Rossi. The more he tells, the more obsessed with the search for Dracula he becomes again, eventually leaving his daughter with a series of letters continuing the story and the cryptic message, "If you are reading this, forgive me. I have gone to look for your mother." The story he tells explains how he and Helen went searching for the grave of Vlad Tepes in the hopes that they would also find Professor Rossi, mentor to Paul and father to Helen. Their journey takes them to Istanbul, to Hungary and finally to Bulgaria and the resting place of Dracula himself. During their travels, Helen is attacked and bitten by one of Dracula's minions, leaving both Paul and Helen with the fear that she will become undead. When they finally locate the grave of Dracula, they find Rossi, who explains to them that he was being kept there to catalog the great library of the undead Vlad. While they are too late to find Dracula or to save Rossi from death, they provide him with salvation from an eternity of undeath.
When we return to 1972, our fearless narrator is reading the letters her father had written and trying to catch up with him in his search for her mother. She chases him to a monastery in France where he believed (until recently) that Helen had jumped to her death 15 years before. This same monastery was also the origin of the secrets which helped transform Vlad, the ruler of Wallachia, into Dracula, undead, undying evil. It was now also the resting place for Dracula's sarcophagus. Rather than finding Helen, Paul and his daughter find the vampire who is still looking for a scholar to be his eternal assistant. During a struggle Dracula is shot from behind by Helen, who pierces his heart with a silver bullet (CK note: I thought that was just for werewolves). Dracula is slain and his body turns to dust. The threat is over, until the present day when our narrator, now a grown woman, visits a museum in Philadelphia. As she leaves someone runs to her with the things she has forgotten, the notebook she was sure she had just put away and a small book that was empty save for an image in the center.
While Kostova's writing did not reveal the meaning of life or give greater depth to any particular topic, the writing was done well, especially for a first novel. Each character was given a distinct personality and a purpose behind his or her actions. The story was intricately detailed, but still easily understood. I enjoyed the book and feel that it was more than worth my time and was certainly better than most popular fiction...though I'm not sure about $2,000,000 though.
While on the surface, it is a novel about Dracula, in the end we are left with the story of a young girl examining the forces that shaped her life. Over the years, her grandfather, father and mother have all been engulfed by the same obsession, an obsession that took away her mother and grandfather before she ever had a chance to know them. In the end, they overcome the obsession and she, her mother and father are reunited, then years later with the simple gift of a book, the obsession becomes hers as well.
Some things that I would like to examine a little more:
What was the purpose of kidnapping Rossi? Did Dracula really need a librarian that badly? Was he lonely? He makes note of how the library shows that the nature of man is evil and that only evil can ever be perfected. Was he simply looking for someone to assist in his research and help him perfect evil so that he could be a ruler not of a small region, but of the world?
How difficult would it be to have to put a stake through the heart of a friend or loved one? Whether they were dead, like Helen or still alive and talking to you like Rossi?
Who left the narrator the book in the library in Philadelphia? A minion of Vlad or the Impaler himself?
What about the fact that both Helen and the narrator were descendants of Vlad? Did this have some bearing on why they became involved and how things turned out or were they merely coincidental?
End Spoilers
Hopefully, I've covered all the main points. Feel free to chime in with anything I missed. Argue, discuss and comment below.
I was first attracted to Elizabeth Kostova's novel The Historian when I heard that it had been purchased for just over two million dollars, a record for a first novel. I needed to know what made publishing companies feel it was worth that. I assumed that, like most of the over-hyped works gaining media recognition, it would turn out to be written by a slightly less intelligent than average baboon with an over-inflated sense of self-importance...but I'm not a cynic. Happily, it was not the next Da Vinci Code as many had promised, but rather an intricate weaving of story with history, of lives with life.
Our story is told to us by a nameless narrator, the sixteen year old daughter of an American diplomat living in Amsterdam. As she recounts the story, she pulls from not only her own experience but also from the letters of her father, her mother and her father's mentor Bartholomew Rossi. Using these letter and this perspective, the story unfolds in three separate timelines: Rossi's initial discovery (1930), the story of her mother and father (1950's), and her own quest to discover the truth (1972). She finds a strange book in her father's library; it is blank save for a woodcut in the center depicting a dragon holding a banner with a single word: Drakulya. Inside the book, she finds a letter dated 1930 that begins..."My dear and unfortunate successor."
If you have not yet completed the book, you may wish to skip the following section.
Begin Spoilers:
Once she begins to question her father about the book and letters, the story begins in earnest. Her father tells her of Professor Rossi's disappearance, how he met our heroine's mother Helen who died not long after the birth of her child, and of the search he and Helen conducted to find Rossi. The more he tells, the more obsessed with the search for Dracula he becomes again, eventually leaving his daughter with a series of letters continuing the story and the cryptic message, "If you are reading this, forgive me. I have gone to look for your mother." The story he tells explains how he and Helen went searching for the grave of Vlad Tepes in the hopes that they would also find Professor Rossi, mentor to Paul and father to Helen. Their journey takes them to Istanbul, to Hungary and finally to Bulgaria and the resting place of Dracula himself. During their travels, Helen is attacked and bitten by one of Dracula's minions, leaving both Paul and Helen with the fear that she will become undead. When they finally locate the grave of Dracula, they find Rossi, who explains to them that he was being kept there to catalog the great library of the undead Vlad. While they are too late to find Dracula or to save Rossi from death, they provide him with salvation from an eternity of undeath.
When we return to 1972, our fearless narrator is reading the letters her father had written and trying to catch up with him in his search for her mother. She chases him to a monastery in France where he believed (until recently) that Helen had jumped to her death 15 years before. This same monastery was also the origin of the secrets which helped transform Vlad, the ruler of Wallachia, into Dracula, undead, undying evil. It was now also the resting place for Dracula's sarcophagus. Rather than finding Helen, Paul and his daughter find the vampire who is still looking for a scholar to be his eternal assistant. During a struggle Dracula is shot from behind by Helen, who pierces his heart with a silver bullet (CK note: I thought that was just for werewolves). Dracula is slain and his body turns to dust. The threat is over, until the present day when our narrator, now a grown woman, visits a museum in Philadelphia. As she leaves someone runs to her with the things she has forgotten, the notebook she was sure she had just put away and a small book that was empty save for an image in the center.
While Kostova's writing did not reveal the meaning of life or give greater depth to any particular topic, the writing was done well, especially for a first novel. Each character was given a distinct personality and a purpose behind his or her actions. The story was intricately detailed, but still easily understood. I enjoyed the book and feel that it was more than worth my time and was certainly better than most popular fiction...though I'm not sure about $2,000,000 though.
While on the surface, it is a novel about Dracula, in the end we are left with the story of a young girl examining the forces that shaped her life. Over the years, her grandfather, father and mother have all been engulfed by the same obsession, an obsession that took away her mother and grandfather before she ever had a chance to know them. In the end, they overcome the obsession and she, her mother and father are reunited, then years later with the simple gift of a book, the obsession becomes hers as well.
Some things that I would like to examine a little more:
What was the purpose of kidnapping Rossi? Did Dracula really need a librarian that badly? Was he lonely? He makes note of how the library shows that the nature of man is evil and that only evil can ever be perfected. Was he simply looking for someone to assist in his research and help him perfect evil so that he could be a ruler not of a small region, but of the world?
How difficult would it be to have to put a stake through the heart of a friend or loved one? Whether they were dead, like Helen or still alive and talking to you like Rossi?
Who left the narrator the book in the library in Philadelphia? A minion of Vlad or the Impaler himself?
What about the fact that both Helen and the narrator were descendants of Vlad? Did this have some bearing on why they became involved and how things turned out or were they merely coincidental?
End Spoilers
Hopefully, I've covered all the main points. Feel free to chime in with anything I missed. Argue, discuss and comment below.
04 July 2005
The Waiting Game
While we are waiting for more people to finish the book, we should probably think about what to read next.
We need something to which all members (American or Australian...we don't have any other nationalities yet do we?) have access.
Anyone have any suggestions?
We need something to which all members (American or Australian...we don't have any other nationalities yet do we?) have access.
Anyone have any suggestions?
30 June 2005
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