Category: books

Scott Pilgrim is a 23-year-old Canadian slacker living in Toronto who plays bass in a band called “Sex Bob-omb”. He is also dating a high school girl named Knives Chau, much to the derision of his friends and band mates. One day he begins having recurring dreams of a girl in rollerblades, whom he later sees in a library. Her name is Ramona Flowers, an American from New York who now works as an Amazon.ca messenger. Scott is mystified by her, and he ends up dating two girls. He later breaks up with Knives. However, in order to become Ramona’s boyfriend, he has to defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends.

I am writing this with the last few panels still humming in my head. Ramona stands in front of a door, and holds out a hand for Scott to take. “And so,” Scott says, taking her hand, “we try again.” Yes, the series is neurotic, and hyper, and self-reflexive, and funny, and inventive, but it is all about these two confused twentysomethings who have managed to hurt a lot of people because they cannot stay put, who cannot stay put because they still cannot find the reason to remain.

In the end, they do, and they take each other’s hands and step through the door.

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The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Catching Fire

Next: We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg, or Mockingjay

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!)

At a certain point, the plot trajectory becomes predictable. I’m sure this is the experience of most readers – there are moments of genuine surprise, but ever since the appearance of the mockingjay pin in Book 1 (and its multiplication in various forms in Book 2), you’ll know where everything is headed.

Only Katniss remains clueless, but then she’s an unwilling symbol for the rebellion, and she can’t seem to make up her mind as to which boy to love. A girl who for years has lived from hand to mouth, Katniss loves based on convenience: if Gale is there, she holds his hand; once the arena closes, she leans her head on Peeta’s shoulder.

She annoys me sometimes. But maybe I’m just too old. Maybe I should be more compassionate.

The story is compelling enough to hold my attention, so I suppose I’ll read Mockingjay, the last book in the trilogy, just to find out what happens next.

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The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Catching Fire

Next: We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg, or Mockingjay

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!)

How honest, this novel. And how brutal, how cruel, how unforgiving. Tim Farnsworth lives in a beautiful house in the suburbs with his wife and child, works in a top law firm, and earns enough money to support a lavish lifestyle. But he suffers from episodes that forces himself to walk. He gets up, he walks, and he cannot stop, no matter how much he wills it. What Tim suffers from is an undiagnosed condition with no precedent, so there is no cure. It doesn’t even have a name. He walks in the midst of a storm or a painful summer and on bloodied feet. He walks in winter with only a bathrobe and suffers from frostbite and feels his toe fall off and sees it crumble in his own hand. He calls his wife whenever the walk ends, and she picks him up. They call each other “banana” and they believe they are devoted to each other. Every now and then, however, she sees a perfectly healthy man in the grocery store or in the houses she shows as a real estate agent, and imagines a life she can create if she can only walk away. Every now and then, Tim thinks of suicide.

The writing is beautiful and the novel has its fine moments, but before long, it becomes redundant. Tim walks and returns, there are descriptions of places where he ends up, the suffering piles on top of one another. There is the intriguing question about the mind and the body – is the mind superior, is the mind and the soul one, or is the mind simply the brain, and therefore part of the body, part of the mechanism that makes us move and enslaves us? But then he just keeps on walking. His wife is dying, and he just keeps on walking, and the philosophical questions die away as his feet die away. I came to this book still with Ferris’s wit and humor in Then We Came To The End echoing in my ears, which was a mistake, because then the first page became a bit of a letdown. I knew from the first line that this was going to be a different journey.

If Ferris didn’t write with such a ferocious voice I would have stopped reading. There was a point in the book when I could have stopped reading, because it was frustrating and I was sure it was going nowhere because there was no more hope. But like Tim, I couldn’t stop, and I kept on reading, and I saw that there was no plot, really, just this intense exploration of a man’s despair. I was reminded of Synecdoche, New York, a film with no joy, a film featuring a man who grows old and watches the people he love die away. That’s why it hurt so much to watch that film, and to read this book – because it’s true, all of it is true, no matter how dark and disappointing. And what did I hope for anyway? There’s this man who can’t stop walking, and doesn’t know why he can’t stop walking, and the doctors don’t know why he can’t stop walking, and there is no cure in sight, and his wife is dying, so why was I hoping that in the end, he will find happiness?

I just wished Ferris gave the man a break.

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The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Next: We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!)

Katniss Everdeen lives in poverty in District 12 in the country of Panem, which was once North America. During a dark era in Panem’s history, all thirteen districts rebelled against the Capitol, Panem’s seat of power. District 13 was obliterated, and the 12 other districts were subdued. To remind the districts of the Capitol’s might, the Hunger Games is conducted every year. Every year, two tributes from each district -a boy and a girl – is sent to an undisclosed area to fight to the death.

That year, Katniss’s young sister’s name is called, and she steps forward to take her place. Thrown into the arena with her is Peeta, a baker’s boy, who has once done her a kindness. Will she be able to kill him? Will she be able to kill?

We’ve seen this televised, fight-to-the-death plot before. As I was reading the book, I was reminded of The Lottery, The Long Walk, The Running Man, Battle Royale. But I enjoyed the story, nonetheless. It is a fast read, at times as quick and as no-nonsense as a Hunger Games contestant. But it has insight, and heart. Plenty of action, but does not compromise character development. There was even a point in the book when I thought, If this character dies, I will be truly, truly upset.

Good read.

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The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

Next: The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!)