Book Review: Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

            Lunar Park is, to use an overplayed term, deceptively complex.  At once an autobiography, a ghost story, and therapy, Ellis tells the story of an edgy writer named Bret Easton Ellis who was catapulted to fame at a young age with the publication of Less Than Zero, only to come crashing back to Earth in middle age.   Bret (the character; I’ll refer to the author as Ellis) gets married to the movie star mother of his 11 year old illegitimate child and a six year daughter and moves to the suburbs to try to escape his past.  But his past comes back to haunt him, quite literally.   

            Ellis maintains the sleek writing style of his previous novels, but the tone is very different.  In his first three novels (Less than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho (I have not read Glamorama, and so will not comment on it)), the lifestyles of the privileged youth are depicted as shallow and ultimately meaningless.  While certainly depressing, the characters are in no hurry to leave that lifestyle behind, leaving the reader with the sense of the directionlessness and ennui the protagonists experience.  But Bret finds meaning and stability.  This book is about his (Ellis and Bret’s) coming to terms with maturity and responsibility and acceptance of the past.

            A particularly emotional theme running through the book is Bret’s unresolved issues with his father, and how those issues manifest themselves in his relationship with his son.  If Less Than Zero gave us a glimpse into Ellis’s world, Lunar Park gives us a glimpse into his psyche.  Over the course of the book, we see Bret grow emotionally in a way that we don’t see with any of his earlier protagonists. 

            As far as the horror goes, it was not as solid as the other genres wound into the book.  While genuinely scary at points, the horror scenes were on many occasions too bizarre to be taken seriously.  Likewise, Ellis draws out the process of reaching conclusions the reader makes pretty quickly, which throws the pacing off. 

            Overall, I’d recommend Lunar Park, especially to Ellis fans.  Lunar Park draws from previous works, both explicitly and subtly (at one point, Bret has a meeting at one Dorseah Diner) and offers a peek at the man behind the book.

     Favorite Quote: When you give up life for fiction you become a character.

The Box: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson (book review)

            The Box: Uncanny Stories (originally titled Button, Button: Uncanny Stories) was released in 2008 and contains stories published between 1950 and 1970.  The name was changed to capitalize off the (then upcoming) film adaptation of the previously titular story, Button, Button. 

See The Box on Goodreads

            Button, Button is a good place to start when discussing Matheson’s short stories.  Most of his stories have a compelling “what if?” scenario behind them and end with a sort of poetic justice twist.  While reading this collection, I immediately made comparisons to The Twilight Zone.  A quick bit of research on Matheson turned up that he was a writer for The Twilight Zone.   Another comparison I’d like to mention is how some of his stories are reminiscent of the old radio program Suspense.  The stories Dying Room Only, No Such Thing as a Vampire, and Clothes Make the Man are very suited for a radio adaptation. 

            What follows is a brief (spoiler free) review of each of the twelve stories in the collection.

            Button, Button (originally published in 1970): A stranger offers a married couple $50,000 if they press a button.  However, pressing the button will kill someone they don’t know.  The real effect of this story is in the ending, which you can find for yourself.

            Girl of My Dreams (originally published in 1963): The story follows a woman who dreams future tragedies and her exploitative boyfriend.  Together, they sell the information the woman receives in her dreams to those that would be affected.  Like Button, Button, there is a definite Twilight Zone poetic justice air to this story.

            Dying Room Only (originally published in 1953):  A married couple stops at a diner in the middle of the desert, and the husband disappears.  This is more of a mystery/suspense story than a sci-fi/horror story.

            A Flourish of Strumpets (originally published in 1956): What if prostitution became a door-to-door business?  That’s the premise of this story, which leans toward the humorous.

            No Such Thing as a Vampire (originally published in 1959): A Romanian doctor’s wife starts to succumb to symptoms of vampiric assault.  The story’s prose is very melodramatic, the first sentence describing the how doctor’s wife “awoke one morning to a sense of utmost torpor.”

            Pattern for Survival (originally published in 1955): A very short story about the dreams of a writer.

            Mute (originally published in 1962): At nearly 50 pages, this is the longest story in the collection.  It follows the story of a child named Paal, who is adopted by the town’s sheriff and his wife after the boy’s parents die in a fire.  Paal cannot speak, but has some telepathic ability.

            The Creeping Terror (originally published in 1959):  Despite having the most cliché title of any story in the collection it is the most original.  It’s written as a college paper (with brief interludes of third person omniscient narration) about a historical event known as the L.A. Movement.  Not only is Los Angeles alive, but it’s spreading.  This is a humorous story, which pokes a bit of fun at Los Angeles (as an Angelino, I’m all for this).

            Shock Wave (originally published in 1963): A church organist is convinced that the organ has gained sentience.

            Clothes Make the Man (originally published in 1950): There is a man who cannot think without a hat, walk without shoes, use his hands without gloves, etc.

            The Jazz Machine (originally published in 1962):  This is the only story where the prose is worth mentioning.  Written in non-rhyming verse, The Jazz Machine is the first person narrative of a jazz musician who is approached by a man who claims that he has a machine that can translate jazz into the sentiments it is meant to express.  While I’m not a fan of beat poetry, this story is very well written.

            ‘Tis the Season to be Jelly (originally published in 1963): A slice-of-life story about mutants living in a (presumably) post-apocalyptic world.  This is probably the strangest story of the lot.

Book Review: House of Leaves

            Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is proof that there are still unexplored avenues in horror and experimental literature.  Danielewski takes the old mantra of “show, don’t tell” to its extreme, sculpting the layout of the pages to show the characters’ mental states and even, occasionally, their physical location.  Alternating between agoraphobic (a single paragraph at the bottom of a page) and labyrinthine (footnotes running through the text in multiple directions), House of Leaves is an exercise in form as an integral part of story-telling. 

            It was no coincidence that I used the term labyrinthine in the previous paragraph.  Both the story and the form it takes are like a labyrinth (an analogy the author (but not the narrator) of the novel within the novel also makes); getting lost in the branching corridors of the lives of Will Navidson, Zampanó, and Johnny Truant is easy, but you will be greatly rewarded if you can find the right path. 

            If you have not read House of Leaves, you’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about with novels within novels and sideways footnotes.  There are three main stories in House of Leaves.  That of Johnny Truant, who found a manuscript among the belongings of the deceased blind man known only as Zampanó, the story within the novel itself, and the story of Zampanó.  The bulk of House of Leaves is comprised of Zampanó’s novel, The Navidson Record, which is written to look like a non-fiction exegesis on a fictional documentary of the same name.  It follows the story of an acclaimed photojournalist, Will Navidson, his children, and their mother, as they move into a house in Virginia and try to settle down (Navidson was never around, always documenting wars or disasters).  Navidson got grant money to make a documentary about putting down roots and becoming close as a family.  Things take a turn for the strange as they discover that the house is slightly larger on the inside than on the outside.  Then things become downright spooky as rooms start appearing including mile-long hallways and below-freezing chambers. 

In some editions, the dust-jacket is smaller than the book.

            Because The Navidson Record has taken the form of a scholarly pursuit, footnotes abound.  While not a typical manner of comedic relief (although House of Leaves is anything but typical), the criticism of film (and perhaps literary) criticism is clever, albeit a bit repetitive.  Consider the idea that scholars wrote hundreds, or even thousands, of books and articles were about the physics, symbolism, and nature of the House on Ash Tree Lane, but were either unable or unwilling to go to the house itself.  (If it seems like I’m reaching, Karen, the love of Will Navidson’s life, gets opinions on a clip from the documentary from a number of real-life authors, filmmakers, architects, critics, etc., including Derrida, the father of deconstructionism.  While all the people asked provide different answers, only Derrida is portrayed as spouting incomprehensible nonsense.)

            Among the footnotes Johnny Truant will occasionally interrupt, his life having descended, slowly, gradually, into madness.  His history and his present are mirrored and affected by The Navidson Record and those acquainted with the enigmatic Zampanó. 

            Zampanó doesn’t have his own story, so much as he informs the other stories.  We learn about him through his acquaintances, through the information Johnny digs up, and through what he puts in his novel, or more importantly, what he tries to leaves out.   Sections of crossed out material (including the previously mentioned labyrinth analogy) that Johnny included in his transcription of the novel tell us about its author.  In this way, the book examines the relationship between the author and his work. 

            The way all the storylines interact with each other can be confusing, but creates something greater than the sum of its parts.  It’s not an easy read, but House of Leaves is worth the effort.

           

Breif Book Review: Dune

Frank Herbert’s Dune can be read two ways.  The first is as a story:

            With a few twists, the story behind Dune is an old one.  A noble family travels to another fief, only to fall victim to treachery resulting in the death of the father and forced exile of the son; the son must get his revenge and reclaim the throne.  Make the fief a planet named Arrakis, and add in prophecy, mystic abilities, and futuristic tech, and you’ve got the story of Paul Atreides.

The second (and I believe better) way to read this novel is as a portrait:

            Like I said, the story throughout Dune is an old one, one that will not surprise the reader too much.  But the point isn’t the plot, it’s the planet.  What Herbert attempts and (I believe) succeeds in doing, is giving us enough of an understanding of an entire world and population to be able to extrapolate and comprehend their present, past, and future.  He covers topics ranging from ecology, to theology, to military strategy, to Xenobiology.  The scope (and, I presume, intent) of this novel gives the readers more than just a window into another world: It gives them a guided tour.

            In creating a world, some things get more attention than others.  The simplicity of the characters is my biggest complaint (followed closely by the hundreds of times I had to skim through the glossary).  But the people are not the point.  They, like their culture and environs, exist to bring Arrakis to life.  Perhaps there’s something to be learned from the amount of work and detail put into bringing to life a nearly lifeless planet.

            At almost 800 pages (not including the appendices which cover ecology, history of noble families, the intent of a sacred order, and a glossary), Dune may require a bit of work.  Picking up on the lexicon of Arrakis may take some time at first, but is rewarding as you go along.  Dune also asks the reader to accept the mysticism as well as the superscience.  I am, admittedly, not a big fan of the fantasy genre, with many exceptions.  So take it with a grain of salt when I say that the mystic abilities are somewhat confusing in their limitations and uses.

            But at its heart, Dune isn’t any more about magic than it is about any one aspect of the Arrakeen society.  This novel is a portrait of an entire planet.  And it paints that portrait spectacularly.