(inspired by the song "From Above," from the album Lonely Avenue by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby)
]]>I don't typically write about or recommed books before I've finished reading them. I'm a little less than a third of the way through John Jeremiah Sullivan's earth-shatteringly good Pulphead, but I probably started telling people to read it after about three paragraphs.
Sullivan's sense of narrative in nonfiction is among the best I've encountered. Most reviews I've read say Pulphead is reminiscent of David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. The comparison with DFW is fair, but I'm also comfortable putting Sullivan on par with other nonfiction heroes of mine like Joseph Mitchell and John McPhee--which is to say I think Sullivan is an historically significant journalist.
At any rate, I'm fully convinced at this point that I need not wait any longer to officially state that you should buy, read, and love this book at your earliest opportunity. Since I started reading it on Christmas day, I can say it was among the best books I (partially) read in 2011. Since I'll finish it in 2012, I can confidently say it sets an obscenely high bar for anything else I read this year.
]]>The room was small, and the bookshelf was full. Old favorites, unread classics, hidden gems. Yes, he thought, this will do.
]]>More Collateral Damage From the 9/11 Attacks (excerpt):
The Wall Street Journal now reports on a most unlikely unintended consequence of the attacks and the ensuing hunt for Osama bin Laden:
The United Nations says a reportedly fake vaccination campaign conducted to help hunt down Osama bin Laden has caused a backlash against international health workers in some parts of Pakistan and has impeded efforts to wipe out polio in the country. A number of families across Pakistan refused vaccinations from July, when news of the reportedly fake campaign broke, to September, said Dennis King, chief of polio vaccinations in Pakistan for Unicef. “Following the early reports, some families in the provinces did refuse to have their children vaccinated citing the fake campaign as the cause,” Mr. King said. … The issue has given fresh ammunition to Islamist preachers who for years have claimed foreign health workers are spies and urged people to shun vaccination campaigns.
(Via Freakonomics)
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BOUGHT
READ
David Foster Wallace Syllabus:
The Harry Ransom Center has scanned and uploaded the syllabus from David Foster Wallace‘s Fall 1994 section of English 102: Literary Analysis.
(Via The Millions)
Also, the Ransom Center makes me wish I lived in Texas (a part of it from which Austin is easily accessed).
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The figure of Osama Bin Laden and the havoc he wreaked on the United States of America on September 11, 2001 will loom large in our collective consciousness for ages. The raid that killed Bin Laden almost a decade after 9/11 will have a similarly lasting place in U.S. History; that raid unearthed a myriad of emotions among Americans of all ages and stripes. I was fascinated when the news of Bin Laden’s death struck. I read as many articles as I could find on the operation, on SEAL Team 6, and on the intelligence that led to the raid. All of those things being highly classified, there wasn’t a great deal available to read.
With that in mind, the first thing that struck me about KBL: Kill Bin Laden John Weisman’s “novel based on true events,” I was equally invigorated at the prospect of reading this book and reluctant to put a great deal of faith in the book’s ability to shed light on the truth of what actually occurred. More than either of those things, though, I was impressed with Weisman’s gall. Truth, fiction, or somewhere in between, this topic was a tall order, and whether he liked it or not, Weisman must have expected that readers would be tempted to treat his book as gospel. The book itself seemed a dangerous proposition.
Weisman handles the potential dangers with a few key tactical moves: first, he puts an important disclaimer in the foreword to indicate that although he did research this book as if it were a journalistic piece, that it is a work of fiction and any error in fact is attributable to him and not to his sources. Second, he gives the key political, military, and intelligence personnel fictitious names. The Secretary of State closely resembles Hillary Clinton, but her name is Kate Semerad. Leon Panetta becomes Vince Mercaldi, and Barack Obama is known only as “the President,” or other epithets suggestive of his office (POTUS, etc.). Characters who resemble the real-life players but whose names are not the same are a constant and overt reminder that this is a work of fiction, not history.
Despite the very clear indicators that this is a work of fiction, Weisman’s voice is authoritative, and the book generally reads with the weight of fact. In most cases, this is a great strength of the novel, and it’s a clear reflection of the depth of research the author must have conducted and the dedication to the truth he clearly held when putting this book together.
At times, however, I wondered whether Weisman was using the veil of the “novel” status as a license to question the character of certain players, most notably the president. The president of KBL holds nothing dear but politics. He is neither decisive nor brave, and he is mostly despite him that the operation ever gets a green light. This is not to say that Weisman is being unfaithful or unkind. It’s entirely possible that Weisman has sources who were party to some of the actual conversations that took place in the White House when evidence was presented and decisions were made. If, however, those conversations in the novel came more from Weisman’s imagination than any source material, it’s safe to say that his portrayal of the character who resembles Barack Obama is less than charitable.
For me, the portrayal of politicians is not so important to the reading experience (and less so the author’s opinion of the actual people his characters portray). But it did make me wonder, how much of this novel—how much of the dialogue, which of the plot details—actually occurred? Just how good were Weisman’s sources? How much could he actually know?
Unless a lot of classified records become unclassified, I’m unlikely to ever find out the answers to those questions. I’m inclined, though, to give Weisman the benefit of the doubt. This much I know for sure: he knows a lot more about how this went down (even if he only generally knows how these types of things go down) than I do, and I think I know a lot more about it now than I did before. Despite my lingering questions, KBL feels true. The characters think, talk, and act like real people. The plot is well-paced, and the background descriptions provide enough context to support the development of both the characters and the plot. For any reader who appreciates a thriller, this book is a good bet; but for any reader who relished the few details made public about the actual raid that killed Bin Laden and the people who executed it, Weisman’s novel is a must read.
Disclosure: This review is based on a copy of the novel I received from the publisher.
]]>Over the last six Tours, I've seen spectacular sprints and breakaways, mountaintop finishes and timetrials, near scrapes and death-defying crashes. I've seen unimaginable feats of individual strength and unmatched execution of team tactics--not to mention unlikely alliances among disparate riders and teams. Every Tour de France exhibits these elements, and together they conspire to make each Tour memorable in its own right.
But I've never seen a Tour more memorable than this year's. With time trials just inside the first and last day of the Tour--Stage 2 as teams and Stage 20 as individuals, the race route was almost flawless. Every stage mattered, and despite the disappointment of the riders and teams who fell just short, no one should bedgrudge Cadel Evans the yellow jersey in the end. He rode an almost perfect, if understated, Tour.
And, although Evans entered this year's Tour a twice-second place finisher and one of the pre-race favorites, it took him until the penultimate day--in truth, the last possible stage--to break through to the leader's time. Until the individual time trial, Evans suffered through the mountains, at times having to claw himself up the highest and hardest climbs with little help from the peloton. On top of his own mechanical problems, Cadel overcame the heroic efforts of Andy Schleck, the steady challenge of Frank Schleck, the final desparate throes of Alberto Contador, and the unlikely hanging on of Thomas Voeckler.
Voeckler took yellow on the crash-filled ninth stage of the Tour and mounted a fearless defense through the Pyrenees, and finally relinquished the yellow jersey on the last Alpine stage. Had he been able to hold on, it would have been an historically heroic Tour victory--not least because Voeckler would have been the first French champion since 1985. It was Andy Schleck who took the yellow jersey from Voeckler, after two days of attacking strongly in the Alps, and had he been able to outdo himself for one more day in the final time trial, he would have deserved to be wearing yellow today as much as Cadel does. Even thrice-champion Alberto Contador, more than four minutes behind the leader with only two stages left to race--had a chance. And while he rode strongly over the last two mountain stages, and made up some time; but the other contenders were too strong, and Contador was too far behind.
But neither Contador, nor Schleck, nor Voeckler, nor any of the other contenders who entered the final week of the Tour thinking they might be able to snatch a victory, ultimately were able to hold onto the yellow jersey.
The beauty of this year's Tour de France was how many riders were still in with a shout as the world's greatest bike race wound to a close. After three weeks and 2,000 miles of racing, only one rider walks away wearing the yellow jersey--and Cadel Evans is deservedly that man. But for a race that can only have one winner, this Tour had more heroes than any other I can recall.
]]>If you've lingered around here for a while, you may recall that I've sung the praises of Simon van Booy as an editor of an excellent trio of books of philosophy. I had a lot of good things to say both about van Booy's project in the abstract, and his execution in particular.
I've never read van Booy's short fiction, but I'm not surprised it's been successful; he has a knack for putting a whole lot of story in only a few words. I knew this from his introductions to the Why... books, but now know it even more from the first seven pages of his debut novel. Hell, you could throw out the Prologue and only consider the first two pages, and you'd still know what I'm talking about.
Andre Dubus called van Booy a cross between Fitzgerald and Duras, and I don't think this is far off. His writing reminds you of the types of authors you know placed every word on the page with the delicacy and purposefulness of a groom sliding a ring onto his bride's finger.
So do this: go download the sample of the e-book. Read the prologue and the first two pages of the first chapter. If you're not sold on this book after that, you've got twenty more pages to give it a chance.
But I don't think you'll need them. I didn't.
FTC Disclosure: This is based on a copy of the book I received from the publisher.
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