Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

First, would you look at that cover? Look at it. Just look at the pretty colors and that glorious nebula in the background.

And, then there’s the two people about to kiss, too.

Anddd, that about sums it up even with one look at the book’s cover. Across the Universe appears to be a genre-bending young adult novel with scifi mixed into a token teenage romance. 

Thankfully, my initial impressions were somewhat upended, making my experience reading this book much more enjoyable than the common YA riffraff on store shelves. For one, Across the Universe has science fiction and dystopian themes rather than a simple puppy love affair driving its plot. Amy is a seventeen-year-old girl who makes the huge decision to accompany her parents, undergo cryogenics procedures and ride the starship, Godspeed, bound for a distant planet ~300 light-years away. Fast forward many, many decades, and you have Elder—an aspiring leader who must learn the ropes of controlling the few thousand people living on Godspeed, which is now a self-sustaining spaceship with a lot of lies and juicy secrets. 

I enjoyed guessing Revis’s possible plot twists the most. Across the Universe also hints at some deep and thought-provoking insight on subjects as diverse as individualism, control, nature vs. nurture, and the ethics of scientific study. I was even able to overlook the rather bland characters (Amy is yet another fiery redhead with a tough exterior and a soft heart…blahblah) and language (there’s this one scene where the gruff leader, Eldest, gets drunk and starts spewing slang that a kid born in the 90’s would use…can someone say awkward?). 

But, really, I don’t mean to end on a sour note. I think plenty of readers would enjoy this book. And, I’d like to get my hands on the rest of the series. 

Rating: Stellar, I’d say

The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester

Genre: General Biographical Nonfiction

From the start, The Man Who Loved China was fashioned as an ambitious, sweeping biography of a singular British scholar named Joseph Needham. Needham, a very romanticized figure throughout (refer to the opening scene of the tall Brit descending upon a barren desert from a fighter plane), was a renowned biochemist at Cambridge before falling deeply in love with a visiting Chinese researcher. This lifelong affair became the pivot for a Needham’s new fascination—the study of Chinese culture, history, and science. 

Needham’s scholarly contributions to collecting and producing the most comprehensive encyclopedia of Chinese sciences and technologies are still amazing and valuable. His multi-volume masterpiece—Science and Civilisation in China—detailed numerous examples that demonstrated China’s prescience and innovation and posed an intriguing question of China’s apparent stagnation in the sciences and the sudden switch of technological advancement from the East to the West in the sixteenth century. 

Winchester does a fine job of paring information and keeping the biography moving at a manageable pace. Unfortunately (and whether this is due to the disjointed cobbling of some sections or to the subject matter itself), I found myself much more interested in the treacherous expeditions, the discoveries, the people met on the way rather than Needham’s own life and eccentricities. The book could have benefited from more exposition, especially on the life events that shaped Needham into an inquisitive, knowledge-seeking scientist (it’s a little too unlikely and glamorous to have Needham’s love of women be a catalyst for a lifelong foray into Chinese culture). 

All in all, this book just goes to show that—just like Needham’s own monstrous encyclopedia—writing on topics relating to a culture as vast and varied as China’s is more than simply an ambitious affair. 

Rating: The Book that Tried 

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaajte

Genre: General Fiction

The book is a fictionalized account based on the life of a brilliant New Orleans jazz musician, Buddy Bolden. Using scant biographical details, Ondaatje paints a mesmerizing story of a city, a man, his music, and the dementia praecox psychosis that ended his career.  

Those familiar with Ondaajte’s style will be glad to see his signature poetic prose in play. Coming Through Slaughter was written and published before his well-known The English Patient. While the novella contains the elegance and eloquence that betrays the author’s penchant for making more out of words and language than mere narration, Coming Through Slaughter is also noticeably experimental. At times it appears that Ondaajte is more concerned with capturing the sights, smells, and sounds of the place and the people than pushing a story forward. However, the rare moments when sentence fragments and rambling paragraphs distract the reader aside, Coming Through Slaughter tells a true tragedy in riveting and sensuous detail. My only regret is that I read this novel too quickly. It takes more than thirty minutes to savor writing such as this. 

Rating: An Artful Novel

Forgive me my absence—studying has taken its toll on me. But..soon!, I will make up for lost time and update with more reviews. 

Happy reading, everyone~

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Books I’d Like to See Made into Movies

1) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern— I can kinda foresee this film being as artful as Hugo, the movie adaptation of Selznick’s children’s novel. I want to see the visual effects!

2) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak— The story itself is so moving, and I bet filmmakers and screenwriters will have a blast working in the novel’s surreal elements, including a personified Death as narrator.

3) 1001 Arabian Nights— There’s already an old cartoon movie made in 1959, but it looks like it’s only about Aladdin. I think Studio Ghibli could do a fine adaptation of this. 

4) The Guest by Hwang Sok-Yong— Pretty much the best historical fiction novel I read last year, The Guest would most likely be a somber, gory, and heart-wrenching Oscar-nominated film. 

5) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke— Strange is attractive, and that is all I have to say. 

6) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman— Gaiman’s novels could be neat, fantastical movies. Neverwhere would probably be an animated and live-action crossover with CGI effects galore. 

7) The Eight by Katherine Neville— I’m a real sucker for thriller films. Give me adrenaline over cheesiness any day. I can see The Eight being a smart, almost Dan Brown-esque movie in the vein of the Bourne trilogy. 

8) Divergent by Veronica Roth— If some company wanted to capitalize on the young adult dystopian craze (*coughcough* I will not mention names), Divergent is a good choice for some action and adolescent angst.

Argh :(, I can’t finish this list because most of the books I keep thinking about already have film adaptations. 

This Won’t Hurt a Bit (and Other White Lies) by Michelle Au

Genre: General Memoir Nonfiction (medicine)

This Won’t Hurt a Bit starts off with a rather…painful…scene. Michelle Au, as a lowly medical student, is burdened with the task of manually obtaining a stool sample for a Guaiac test from a squirming, obese patient. Yes, we’re talking about poop here. 

Like other books written by doctors about the process of becoming a doctor (House of God comes most readily to mind), This Won’t Hurt a Bit is both a memoir and exposition on the various and myriad challenges, miseries, and triumphs that physicians-in-training encounter.

At first glance, these books really make one wonder: who the hell would want to be a doctor? Grueling exams and late-night cramming continue for another four years after most people leave behind their undergraduate years and gilded college walls to enter the employment arena and workplace—in other words, the “real world.” And, graduation from medical school only marks the beginning of the learning process. As an undergraduate, I’ve already heard much about the residency years—the sleepless nights, the hospital hierarchy, the uncooperative patients, the induced insanity from moments when interns and residents are reduced to nibbling half a granola bar—their only meal in about 11 hours—by the water cooler…not to mention the weighty responsibility of personally handling somebody’s health and life. This is some sweaty stuff, indeed. 

Au has a humorous and light self-deprecating tone I appreciate. Even after her long training through two residencies (pediatrics and anesthesiology) and the difficulty of adjusting to life as both a new physician and new mother, she has not given in any crippling cynicism. I especially liked the interludes capturing her internal debates in a mock Greek drama form. The patient stories she selects to include in her book are also relevant and expressively communicated; I gained a good idea of the patients’ and scenarios’ significance for her as a physician-in-training. For a memoir, there is actually a fairly good balance between description of external experiences and Au’s introspection. At times, though, I wished for more elaboration of her thoughts about and insights into this frightening but rewarding journey. 

For Michelle Au’s Scutmonkey comics: http://theunderweardrawer.blogspot.com/p/scutmonkey-comics.html

Rating: A Good Read; This Won’t Hurt at All 

Enough About You: Notes Towards the New Autobiography by David Shields

Genre: General Nonfiction (anthology)

What’s the difference between these two Davids—Sedaris and Shields? There may be two types of people who stutter. Those who accept their speech impediment with humor, and those who treat it with ill-concealed bitterness. For both writers, their experiences growing up with stutters incidentally led them to pursue careers in writing. But, while Sedaris spins his life story into endearingly self-deprecating vignettes, Shields likens this part of his life as “return[ing] to the scene of the crime and convert[ing] the bloody fingerprints into abstract expressionism.”

This particular quotation is pulled from the final essay in this anthology, and it characterizes the alienating stance and tone of Shields as an author. Beyond calling this book a ‘collection’ simply by name, there is scarcely anything binding and linking the included essays. 

Apparently, these pieces are derived from scraps pasted together from journals Shields kept as an undergraduate at Brown University. They certainly read like stuff a 20-something in search of his evolving identity and of life’s big questions at one of the most liberal colleges in the US would think about (Figure 1: refer to my personal journals as well…).

Unfortunately, Shields does not create a unifying theme and significance for, really, any of his essays. I would be able to overlook this missing piece, but I still did not particularly enjoy reading his writing as stand-alone, individual pieces either. There is a vein of arrogance that permeates throughout. Additionally, the reader cannot be entirely sure at any point whether the details and events he mentions are actually autobiographical and relevant or not. Then again, though, this is Shields’ whole point—he believes in the blurring between fiction and nonfiction, for, just as the human memory cannot remember all exact details, an autobiography should not need to adhere to all truthful details. I appreciate his philosophy of nonfiction writing but cannot stand his writing. 

Rating: A Book or a Paperweight?

Illness as Narrative by Ann Jurecic

Genre: Adult Educational Nonfiction (medical humanities)

I’m reading this book as background research for my English thesis on illness narratives, creativity, and mental health. Jurecic offers insightful analysis on the history and the significance of illness and risk narratives as legitimate genres, but I found her angle a bit too obtuse for my interests. 

Many famous essays and novels that defined the genre are discussed in the body of the book. One chapter is entirely devoted to the great writer Susan Sontag and her battles with cancer. Jurecic parses the evolution of Sontag from a rational essayist to a full-fledged novelist and highlights memorial texts by Sontag’s son and her lover Annie Leibovitz—American portrait photographer—in terms of coping with pain and loss of a loved one. I speak at length about Sontag’s interlude because her section grasps the true importance of illness narratives and stories about health and suffering. It is the expressive potential and power of literature and writing that interests me in investigating how patients come to terms with their illnesses. 

The rest of the book is heavy on literary theory and criticism. It’s all a bit over my head, to be honest. The back-cover summary states that Illness as Narrative aims to explain “why writers compose stories of illness, how readers receive them, and how both use these narratives to make meaning of human fragility and mortality.” I’m personally most interested in the last out of the three, and I didn’t feel like I gained much specifically about how illness narratives shed light on life and death. 

Rating: Could be better

Room by Emma Donoghue 

Genre:  General Fiction

I remember when this book first came out, causing quite a bit of buzz as it wandered its way up national bestseller lists. Donoghue definitely took a risk writing this book. Room is about a woman held captive by a sexual predator, “Old Nick”, for years in a sealed cell (hence, the book’s title). In the middle of her imprisonment, she gives birth to Jack, who narrates the entirety of the book in a child’s characteristic wide-eyed and innocent voice. 

When I started reading, I wasn’t sure whether Donoghue’s method was going to work. How much can a five-year-old kid tell anyone about a disturbing and distressing crime taking place in the basement of some pervert’s house? The first thing I noticed was how certain techniques, such as noun capitalization and inanimate object personification, I’d seen in Roy’s The God of Small Things—another novel with children acting as the central viewpoints— were used in Room as well (almost to a point of gag-inducing frequency). 

The book comes to a narrative peak and judicial standpoint when Ma devises an elaborate escape plan for herself and her son. And, it’s pretty predictable that they would be rescued and Old Nick thrown into the slammer. Otherwise, I don’t think even Donoghue herself could stand writing another hundred pages about Bendy Spoon and Rug and Sundaytreat. 

And, just like that, the rest of the novel kind of erodes away quickly. There is the customary tearful and awkward family reunions and the strange transition back into normalcy. Donoghue attempts to imbue this section with heavy psychological implications, but, like I had feared, there’s only so much a five-year-old can divulge. In the end, it appears that Jack’s voice was simply used and abused as an attention-grabbing and fanciful literary device to get people to read a rather poorly-written story about a harrowing crime. 

Rating: Not so Good. Well, this might be an unpopular opinion. 

Thank You for Not Reading by Dubravka Ugrešić

Genre: General Nonfiction (anthology)

Can I just start off by saying how great this cover is? It’s not flashy Photoshop goodness, but it certainly gets its point across.

First and foremost, Thank You for Not Reading jabs at anyone and anything sanctified and glorified in the publishing industry and market. Coming from a writer with a less dignified and self-aware tone, this collection of little, biting essays might go down the wrong way. But, in the hands of Yugoslavian writer Dubravka Ugresic, these pieces tantalize readers with her insight, packaged with wit and kick.

Some of my favorites in the book include her observations about the marketability of “sexy” books, where the subject matter of stories pander to the public in order to sell. In one, Ugresic rags on Ivana Trump, the Czechoslavian former model, ex-wife of the Trump, and a total sell-out. She also writes about the process of writing itself as well as socialist realism and other criticism of the post-Yugoslavian breakup period.

I just wish there were some more balance in the analyses of her more lighthearted material and the political topics. Towards the end, the book seemed to lack a cohesive trajectory even though Ugresic manages to maintain her strong voice throughout.

Rating: Smart and Snappy