Our Tragic Universe

I just finished Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas.  She's one of my favorite authors and I'd been anticipating this book for awhile (since February, in fact).  It didn't come out until September 1st, not May like I'd previously heard.  I ordered it right away, but didn't start reading it immediately - I was almost nervous to begin.

And now I'm through it.  And it was good, though I don't know if I like it more or less than her other books.  It's very similar to them: the main character is an intelligent, rather unhappy young woman, and different topics are explored (like code breaking in PopCo) and discussed by the characters.  But it's less eventful, less action-y.  I liked it.

She talks a lot about the plotting of novels, and how we have an idea of what a typical narrative should be, and we try to fit that narrative onto real life, to the detriment of real life.  I like that.  It's easy to see yourself as part of a movie or novel - depending on your worldview, maybe it's a tragic novel, maybe it's one where you triumph, whatever - and see events as all fitting into a story somehow.  It's more interesting to consider life as what Thomas calls a storyless story, where there aren't the traditional three acts, there aren't heroes and villains, etc.  This sounds like a way of saying everything is meaningless, but I don't intend for it to.  It's more that things are richer and more complex than we can even realize.

Summaries

So I was reading little magazine insert from the paper yesterday (called Book World, I believe) and they had a review of A Gate at the Stairs.  I just finished this.  I wasn't crazy about it - I felt like there were too many tonal shifts, too many upsetting things happening that somehow didn't really make me feel anything.  But that's not the point.  The point is the review: it's like they didn't even read the book!  The reviewer made it sound like the biggest focus of the book is the mysterious Reynaldo that the main character, Tassie, is dating.  And he really isn't.  And the mystery is resolved like halfway through.  The review also talks about all the different birth mothers that Tassie and Sarah, woman she'll be nannying for - but she only meets one before they meet the little girl Sarah adopts.  It was WEIRD.

So I finished it, and I also finished listening to Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott, which was great.  Then I read Rosie, also by Anne Lamott.  Now I'm reading Crooked Little Heart, my third Anne Lamott novel in a row.  And the description on the back of Crooked Little Heart is totally wrong!  It makes it sound almost like a mystery, all about this guy stalking the main character's daughter, when that's really just a subplot. 

How does this happen?

Two books done, two ready to go

I finished listening to The Ice Queen this morning.  It just went ON and ON, bashing me over the head with its symbolism, continuing about an hour and a half past when I thought I'd reached the climax, and then tacking on a surprise revelation that felt totally unearned to me.  Should you read it/listen to it? Noooo.

I finished reading Just Kids, though, and that was just great.  My only complaint, if it is one, is that it ended too soon.  I think the book could've covered many more years of Patti and Robert's friendship.  Her choice for when to end the detailed account of their lives together in New York seemed a little arbitrary, and since I was just eating up all her detail about the scene there, I would've enjoyed more. 

I've started A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore.  It takes place in the fictional college town of Troy, Wisconsin, which I understand is pretty much Madison. (Perhaps a small clue: Moore is an English professor at UW Madison.)  The main character is a college student, freshly arrived from a small Midwest farm town.  So far her description of life in her hometown seems a little unrealistically unsophisticated.  Maybe I'm taking a little issue with it since I'm from a small Midwestern town, albeit one only an hour and fifteen minutes from Chicago (that could make a difference). 

I also checked Plastic Fantastic by Eugenie Samuel Reich out of the library.  It's nonfiction about Jan Hendrik Schon, a physicist, fooling the scientific community by faking results on experiments to easily produce transistors.  I vaguely remember when this happened, back in 2002.  I'm intrigued - not just by the tale, but by the examining of scientific culture and how such a thing can happen.

Coincidence

I saw Scissor Sisters play in Milwaukee on Friday night, and they were great.  They're touring to support their new album, Night Work.  I'm also reading Just Kids, that book about Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, as I mentioned.  Well, I just discovered that the cover of Night Work is a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph.  It's weird when these coincidences turn up.

A few new books

I'm commuting to my new job, so I got a book on CD from the library to make the trip pass more quickly.  Unfortunately, I can only listen to it for so long before I need to switch to music or talk on the phone - otherwise I end up, as I did two days ago, taking a nap at a Subway parking lot in Barneveld, WI.  But it does help the time pass.

I'm listening to The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman.  I read her Practical Magic a couple years ago and found it enjoyable, so I thought I'd give this one a try.  Whoa, I just realized that the protagonist is never named.  Well, anyway, she is a lightning strike survivor.  Her brother Ned is a meteorologist who studies lightening strike victims.  She's moved to Florida to be near him after their grandmother, who she was caring for, dies.

I'm enjoying it, but there's really a bit too much symbolism for me.  She's still hiding from her emotions and getting involved with people since her mom died when the protagonist was eight years old.  She's also, as a consequence of the strike, always physically cold, and drinks steaming hot tea even in summer.  Another side effect is her loss of the ability to see the color red.  All red things now appear white or gray, icy. So red, passion, has turned to ice.  Okay, I get it.  She meets a man who was also struck by lightning, Seth
Lazarus" Jones, who was dead and came back to life.  Now he's always hot: his breathe sets paper on fire, his touch leaves heat blisters on people's skin.  They're opposites, and they are powerfully attracted to each other.  It's the first time the main character has allowed herself to feel passion for someone.

Yeah, yeah.  It's a bit much for me.  I'm also feeling cranky about it because the main character's scientist brother, observing the moon, mentions that there is zero gravity there.  Not true! A scientist in particular wouldn't make that mistake.  Gravity is 1/6th as strong on the moon as on Earth, but it's not ZERO.  Come on.

And yet I want to know what happens.

I'm reading Just Kids, Patti Smith's account of her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe.  It's a great window into life in New York City in the 1970s.  It reminds me of Please Kill Me, which details the history of NYC punk through a series of interviews with the people who were there (I can't recommend Please Kill Me enough, by the way).

Soon I will go to Borders and buy the new Scarlett Thomas book, Our Tragic Universe.  It's a pretty depressing title, but I'm excited regardless.