The LaughingMaus

“If you’re the devil, then it’s not me telling this story.” is the first line of this beautiful novel about an orphan boy growing up in a bordello in Excellent, Idaho.

If you’re the devil then it’s not me writing this review. I loved this book like I haven’t loved a book in many years. I loved Out-In-The-Shed, Dellwood Barker, Ida Richilieu and her blue dress, her red dress and her white dress. I loved Damn Dave and his Damn Dog, Not-Really-A-Mountain, the human-being sex story and I loved the concept of killdeer, “If you act like you’re looking for killdeer, you’ll never find killdeer. You have to be killdeer.”

I was in awe of Tom Spanbauer’s writing and the way his name translated itself in my head to “bridgebuilder” every time I looked at the cover. It’s not an academic translation but one of metaphor – knowlege becoming understanding.

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon is body writing a human-being-story. Unfolding origami body, revealing heart truth. Pernicious.

Eeeeeeeeeeeee. This is my first read by T.C. Boyle and I had a great time although it took me two runs at it to get the whole thing down. I went into the bookstore with T.C. Boyle on my mind, having just listened to a podcast at NPR in which he talked about his newest book, The Women. It is a fictional account of architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the women in his life. A friend of mine recommended Water Music, the foreign language section of Wittwer had it, I bought it.

What struck me the most about the story was that the characters never came to rest. Four hundred thirty-seven pages and they were running flat out in every direction – either away from the consequences of their actions or directly towards the logical thing to do, even though it was obvious they had no chance to escape the aforementioned serious consequences. The story moves at a break-neck pace, Ned Rise, Mungo Park, and especially poor Johnson pay for every quiet moment with a chapter full of trouble.

The old man, nestled beneath his bush, sleeps on. Deathly still. His mouth hangs open, the pink bud of his gums and palate an hors d’oevre for the huge green flies that hover round the putrefact chicken. A column of ants has been using his foot as a highway, mosquitoes tatoo his cheeks and eyelids. Looking down at him so frail and motionless his bones in stark relief against the yellow muck, a terrible realization comes over the explorer. Old Eboe, last of the Jarrans, is dead.

Ah, but is he really dead, and what of that putrefactive chicken? What sort of a person comes up with this storyline? I jumped and squirmed. The language is not colorful, it is disgusting, stinky and delightful. Any author who makes a bushpig say: “snark snark” has a firm place on my Authors-To-Read-More-Of list.

From the back of the book:

The year is 1795: George III is dabbing the walls of Windsor Castle with spittle, Goya is deaf, De Quincey is a depraved prepubescent and young Ludwig van Beethoven is wowing them in Vienna with his second piano concerto. In London, Ned Rise, thief and whoremaster, is drinking Strip-Me-Naked with Nan Punt and Sally Sebum at the Pig and Pox Tavern in Maiden Lane. And, far from his native Edinburgh, the explorer Mungo Park is stranded in the Sahara, a prisoner of the Moors of Ludamar.

Water Music is the rambunctious account of two men’s wild adventures through the gutters of London and the Scottish Highlands to their unlikely meeting in darkest Africa, as they search for the source of the Niger, a river no European has ever laid eyes upon.

By: Paul Torday
Phoenix paperback 2007
321 pages

Dr. Alfred Jones, a fishery scientist who has spent most of his professional life studying the lifecycle of caddisflies as they pertain to salmon until the day an email arrived announcing

“We have been referred to you by Peter Sullivan at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (Directorate for Middle East and North Africa). We act on behalf of a client with access to very substantial funds, who has indicated his wish to sponsor a projet to introduce salmon, and the sport of salmon fishing, into the Yemen.”

A project which he immediately refuses as “unfeasible on a number of fundamental grounds.”

Oh but – feasibility may interest scientists, doctors and programmers all it likes, it leaves politicians and men of faith unfazed. Poor Dr. Jones is about to learn that there are not enough words in the dictionary to sway them from their course. He explains patiently: not enough water, too hot, wrong food and offers a few prohibitively expensive solutions and trusts that his logic and values are scientific – thus universal and that the forces behind the idea (the Sheik) will see the error of his ways and cancel all further plans. This is a common and incorrect assumption that science makes about the rest of humanity.

In fact, the Sheik is so impressed by Dr. Jones’ reasoning, that he wishes to meet him immediately. Dr. Jones is also about to learn that that feasibility is a fertile ground which only appears to reflect the values of science and common sense.

Thus begins the delightful journey from page thirteen where Dr. Jones writes:

“Last week I gave the third in a series of talks ‘Why God cannot exist’, and I like to think that these talks in some way provoke the audience to question the superstitions of earlier eras which still linger on in the religious teachings that regrettably persist in some of our schools”

to page three hundred fourteen where he writes in his diary:

“Others aver that what Tertullian wrote was not ‘Certum, impossibile est’ but ‘Credo, quia impossibile est.’ I believe in it, because it is impossible.’

I like that. Don’t you?

I believe in it, because it is impossible.”

I have also recently re-read the book Ecstasy – Understanding the Psychology of Joy by Robert A. Johnson. He puts forth the idea that ecstasy, in it’s most highest form is most easily found in absorption. Have you ever experienced the absorption of fishing a running river? This utter and complete loss of self and time while cold water flows over your waders and the sun shifts in the sky, while you you flick and cast, your eyes scanning the water, fingers holding the line gently, and you let go of everything but the rhythm of water, and cast, and float, and you disappear in the dappled light, and then it’s gone and you pack your rod to go home. If you have never experienced this then maybe you would have trouble understanding Sheik Muhammad’s point of view when he says:

“If God wills it, the summer rains will fill the wadis, and we will pump out water from the aquifer, and the salmon will run the river. And them my countrymen — sayyid, nuqqa, and jazhr and all classes and manner of men — will stand on the banks side by side and fish for the salmon. And their natures too will be changed. They will feel the enchantment of this silver fish, and the overwhelming love that you know, and I know, Dr. Alfred, for the fish and the river it swims in. And then when talk turns to what this tribe said or what that tribe did, or what to do with the Israelis or the Americans, and voices grow heated, then someone will say, ‘Let us arise , and go fishing.’ “

Maybe you even have trouble believing that fishing can change the natures of men. I don’t doubt it for a moment.

Ok, to get it out in the open first I want to say that the story David Safier put together in ‘Mieses Karma’ has, to my knowledge, about as much in common with the Buddist concept of Karma as a dog has with a tricycle, even considering that all things are connected. I should also mention before I continue that ‘Mieses Karma is written originally in German and to the best of my knowledge has not been translated to English,

“Why then am I reviewing it in English?” you ask.

Because not everything I do makes a whole lot of sense. Even to me.

Kim Lange is a television moderator who desperately wants to win the Deutschen Fernsehpreis (the German Emmy). With the help of both her elbows and some colloquial dead bodies to climb over she’ll get it too, and when that grand evening arrives, if you discount the non-appearance of her perfect designer dress, and it’s too-tight replacement, which splits wide open as she is accepting the prize, the evening is a glowing success. Never mind that it’s her daughter’s birthday, a person doesn’t win the Deutschen Fernsehpreis just every day. Besides, her husband, Alex is at home looking after all that birthday party stuff. And how often does a girl have the chance for a one night stand with the most dashing moderator (her “hottest” competitor) in all of German television?

Oh yes, dream after dream comes true on this magical evening until Kim Lange takes her teensy-tiny, little-itty-bitty but still gnawing guilt trip up to the roof of the hotel (presumably to throw it over the edge) and gets hammered by the glowing remains of a bathroom from a Russian spaceship just reentering the atmosphere. What a way to die.

Thanks to her goodness and sympathy, her kindness towards all mankind, Kim wakes up afterwards – as an ant. Yes, I knew all this when i bought the book. I thought it has a chance of being amusing or instructive. It’s on the bestseller list – it can’t be that bad.

Oh, yes It can. I didn’t find it funny, I didn’t find it strange. I found the plot specious: barely surface credible and deceptively mean spirited, as though the concept of research is satisfied when the author reads the first few paragraphs of the wikipedia entry for Karma. Should a breathing audience be expected to buy into the idea that Cassanova is still (after 200 human years) being reborn as an ant? And if so, that he is the only creature of note the main character meets in all her (four or five) rebirths and he remembers having been a human? Cassanova?

SPOILER

In the end, Kim Lange is finally reborn as a human. Her soul slips into the fat body of an fast-food waitress (apparently fat fast food waitress’ depict a lower life form if one was once a slender television moderator – who knew?) from where she proceeds to get close to, and have an(other?) affair with the very same moderator she slept with the night she, as Kim Lange, died. Go figure.

END SPOILER

If you have the chance to read ‘Mieses Karma’ – go outside into the fresh air of the real world, take off your shoes and walk in the grass instead. Dance or sing a song. Pet a dog, laugh with your neighbor, call your mother, help a little old lady. I wish I had.

End Note: Wikipedia tells me that David Safir writes scripts for German television series. He has won the Adolf-Grimme-Preis, the Deutschen Fernsehpreis (the German Emmy), and an Emmy (for the sitcom “Berlin, Berlin”). At the time of this writing, 471 customer reviews have been written by amazon.de users, giving ‘Mieses Karma’ an average of four of five stars. What do I know?

Ok, all you people who aren’t out there yet – I’m in. I’ve committed myself here on the eve of the very last minute. This morning a mammoth book arrived in the post. The delivery man, a wimpy looking guy with skinny shoulders was ridiculously pleased to see me in the lobby. After carrying Infinite Jest upstairs, I understand his smile. Still I’m sure buying it was the right decision – it’s definitely cheaper than a fitness studio.

Another good suggestion floating around the internet, and brought to my attention by Moonrat .

I’m in for Saturday the 16th of May, especially for a book review or two. Since starting my hundred books, I’ve been reading, reading – but not much writing, writing. My “Review Me” pile is getting out of hand.

Short stories are bathtub work, and so this is a working post. I’ll add to it as I work my way through the book.

The Destructors

Dissect the word “destruct”, add one lonesome craftsman, a gang of twelve boys and the sentence:

“There’s only things Blackie,” and he looked around the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things.

and enter the author’s horrible, comic vision of unsocialized instinct running loose in the neighborhood.

Special Duties

William Ferraro foreshadows the latest financial crisis with his implicit assumption that a faulty execution does not necessarily mean The Plan is bad.

The Blue Film

A clever portrait of how the addition of one Spot of information changes an entire relationship.

The Hint of an Explanation

A complicated story which to my eyes only hinted at what the author might have been trying to say. In the end the character motivations were unclear for me.

When Greek Meets Greek

He had really only meant to make conversation, but as soon as he had spoken the old two crooked minds began to move in harmony.

Two old swindlers don’t see any harm in taking one another for a ride.

The stopped by mutual consent on the top step: they nosed towards each other like two old blind sharks who each believes that what stirs the water close to him is tasty meat.

Busily circling one another, they don’t notice the next generation of beast swimming in their waters…

I’m enchanted by Project “Filling In The Gaps” over at Moonrat’s blog and I’m totally impressed by people who can decide in advance which one hunderd books they will read over the next five years as a gap filling project. As if, at one hundred books in a measly five years, I will have any gaps! But, no risk, no fun as my best friend says so I have mustered my courage and declare myself “in” – but with heavily edited, (ahem. as in nearly totally re-written) rules.

Most of the books on the list today are ones that have been sitting in my bookshelves staring at me, sometimes for years. They have been dusted, they should be read. I will mark them with a * to make sure I remember which were originally among the chosen ones and which latecomers were read first in a desperate desert before my veggies action.

The Rules

First Rule #1: Because I am so afraid of failing, that I can’t bear to start without having already started, I hereby roll the dates around a bit from 1 January, 2009 to 31 December 2014. Ok, that’s dumb. I know it is; fudging in four months like that. Courage, right?

Hmmm.

Second Rule #1: Because it’s my last and only chance to improve my grammar without actually studying the rules (let’s avoid that, why don’t we?), I need to read more German. At least 10% will be books with either original language German, or German translations of some other language I can’t read (French, anyone?).

Third Rule #1: I’ll write and post a review for each book I read. Gulp.

The Rest of the Rules

Rule #2: Because I am a writing writer, and I am writing a novel, and (new) writers writing novels should be reading novels recently published by new writers, at least 15% will be post-2005 debut novels.

Rule #3: Because I am a writer, and there are other writers I cannot bear to think of breathing in and out again, five long years without reading anything they have written, I’ll take 30 previously unread novels by previously read authors.

Rule #4: Because I am a writer and I am writing a novel, and all work and no play makes for dull mauses I will read 10% short story collections, and 5% poetry collections in their entirety. That sounds serious doesn’t it? Well, lacking in a collection, I reserve the right to choose 10-15 stories by a writer and read those. This applies to V.S. Pritchett

Rule #5: Because there are a multitude of authors I have never read, 30% of my list will attempt to whittle down that list a bit.

Rule #6: Because I am unable to even consider choosing all these books now, this moment, I will leave spaces for additions.

Rule #7: Because of the empty spaces on the list, made necessary by my ongoing inability to see into the future, or to make up my mind, I am allowed to move a book from one category to another as long as the move represents the truth. For instance: Isabel Allende’s The House Of Spirits – I have not read any Isabel Allende, and therefore she is a Previously Unread Author, The House of Spirits is her debut… (She remains a PUA for me because 1984 (when The House of Spirits was published) is clearly outside the realm of “recent debut” as is stipulated in Rule #2.) But – if it were published after 2005, I would be allowed to move it if the going gets tough, and I find – years from today that I have too many PUA’s. Ok? Ok.

And Finally, the Final Rule

Because I have made all these rules, and twisted the odds, left doors and windows standing wide open and generally done everything in my power today to ensure my own success in this venture, I must be fair and reduce the dropout rate from 25% to 5%. No more than 5 books will be left tried and unfinished by midnight 31 December, 2014.

The Books

30 Authors Previously Read

1. I Am The Messenger * – Markus Zusak => My Review
2. A Long Way Down * – Nick Hornby
3. The House of Spirits * – Isabel Allende => No review yet
4. The Ground Beneath Her Feet * – Salman Rushdie
5. Far From The Madding Crowd * – Thomas Hardy
6. Alias Grace * – Margret Atwood
7. The End of the Affair * – Graham Greene
8. The Hotel New Hampshire * – John Irving
9. The Brothers Karamazov * – Fydor Dostoyevsky
10. The Pickwick Papers * – Charles Dickens
11. A Handfull of Dust * – Evelyn Waugh
12. 1x * – Haruki Murakami
13. 1x * – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
14. 1x * – Richard Russo
15. Divisadero – Michael Ondaatje
16. 1x Iris Murdoch
17. True Notebooks – Mark Salzman
18. Rum Diary – Hunter S. Thompson
19. 1x Tom Robbins

10 Short Story Collections

1. 10 Short Stories * – V.S. Pritchett
2. The Stories of John Cheever * – John Cheever
3. Collected Short Stories * – Graham Greene
4. A Belfast Woman * – Mary Beckett
5. The Lost Stories * – Louisa May Alcott
6. Heat * – Joyce Carroll Oats
7. Interpreter of Maladies * – Jhumpa Lahiri
8. St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves * – Karen Russell
9. Difficult Loves * – Italo Calvino

15 Debut Novels

1. The Girl She Used to Be * – David Christifano
2. The Jewel of Medina * – Sherry Jones
3. The Spanish Bow * – Andromeda Romano-Lax => No review yet.
4. The Crash of Hennington – Patrick Ness
5. The Twelve – Stuart Neville
6. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen * – Paul Torday => My Review

5 Poetry Collections

1. Collected Poems * – Wendall Berry
2. The Book of Longing * – Leonard Cohen
3. Liebesgedichte * – Erich Fried

30 Novels – Never-Before-Read Authors

1. 1x * – Philip Roth
2. Beauty and Sadness * – Yasunari Kawabata
3. The Brief and Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao * – Junot Díaz => No review yet.
4. An American Dream * – Norman Mailer
5. On Beauty * – Zadie Smith => No review yet.
6. The Hive * – Camilo Jose Cela
7. The Republic of Wine * – Mo Yan
8. Lolita * – Vladimir Nabukov
9. The Orange Tree * – Carlos Fuentes
10. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love * – Oscar Hijuelos
11. The Velvet Bubble * – Alice Winter
12. The House of Seven Gables * – Nathaniel Hawthorne
13. A Short History of Tractors in Ukranianian* – Marina Lewycka => No review yet.
14. The Vatican Cellars * – Andre Gide
15. Water Music * – T.C. Boyle => Read: Dec. 2009 – My Review
16. Mason & Dixon * – Thomas Pynchon
17. The God of Small Things * – Arundhati Roy
18. The Labyrinth of Solitude * – Octavio Paz
19. The Bostonians * – Henry James
20. Accordion Crimes * – Annie Proulx
21. Soul Mountain * – Gao Xingjian
22. One Hot Summer in St. Petersburg * – Duncan Fallowell
23. 1x * – Michael Chabon (because he is, after all Moonrat’s secret boyfriend)
24. The Flying Troutmans – Miriam Toews (recommending review)
25. 1x Ian McEwan
26. Irisches Tagebuch – Heinrich Böll, who landed too late on my radar to fit in the German category.
27. The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon – Tom Spanbauer => Read: Jan, 2010 – My Review

10 Roman (auf Deutsch)

1. Mieses Karma * – David Safir (Original: Deutsch) => My Review
   English Title: as yet untranslated
2. wie der Soldat das Gramaphone repariert * – Sasa Stanisic (Original: Deutsch )
   English Title: How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
3. Die Insel der Linkshänder * – Alexandre Jardin (Original: French) => No review yet.
   English Title: as yet untranslated
   French Title: L’Ile des Gauchers
4. Der Vorleser – Bernhard Schlink (Original: Deutsch)
   English Title: The Reader
5. Maria, Ihm schmeck’s nicht – Jan Weiler (Original: Deutsch)
   English Title: as yet untranslated
6. Die 13 1/2 Leben des Käpt’n Blaubär – Walter Moers (Original: Deutsch)
   English Title: The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
7. Das Parfum – Die Geschichte eines Mörders – Patrick Süskind
   English Title: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
8. Katz und Maus – Günter Grass
   English Title: Cat and Mouse
9. 1x – Irmgard Keun
10. 1x Christa Wolf

After I finished reading The Book Thief by the Australian novelist Markus Zusak in the bathtub one cold winter afternoon, I lay there and absorbed the depth of his story as the water got colder and colder. My leaky peepers offset, or maybe accentuated my amazement and the impression that I had been privy to a moment of raw beauty.

I ordered “I Am The Messenger” and “Getting The Girl” from Amazon post haste. I loved “Getting The Girl” and sent it as a gift to my friend Zavier whom I thought might love it too. I was loathe to start “I Am The Messenger” after I read the first twenty-three pages aloud to my husband one night after dinner for the same reason I own but have not read “You Shall Know Our Velocity” by Dave Eggers. It takes years for an author to lovingly craft a book length story, and mere hours for me to devour it. I try to extend my pleasure with anticipation.

Sitting at my kitchen table with a glass of wine, I wandered along with Ed Kennedy, an underage taxi driver and his argumentative friend Marv as they get drawn into a hilariously snarky quarrel about the use and abuse of Marv’s ancient blue Falcon. The car in question is illegally parked outside the same bank where Ed and Marv, and Ed’s best friend (with whom he is hopelessly in love) Audrey are lying face down on the floor. The robber is pretty small time: “useless” is, I believe the word that Ed uses in the first sentence, and that turns out to be his doom.

Ed Kennedy, no matter what he thinks of himself, is orders of magnitude more useful than than this bank robber. The author spends the rest of this charming book proving that to both the reader and to Ed himself.

Some days later, an envelope containing three addresses written on the back of a playing card is delivered. No instructions. Just three addresses and the Ace of Diamonds. What would you do if this happened to you? Right-oh, that’s what Ed did too. He didn’t sleep at all that night, and after a lot of thinking about it no one he knew seemed a likely suspect. In the morning he got up and went out on foot with The Doorman and a street map to find the addresses on the card.

Favorite Character: The Doorman What’s not to love about a bleary-eyed, coffee drinking, ice cream begging, hound dog well and comfortably settled into his retirement? They have a special charm that you can smell a mile away, and if you have ever lived with such a creature yourself, you will love The Doorman too.

I’ll leave the rest of the copies here on the shelf at your local book seller just in case you want one too. Suffice it to say that by the end of the story, Ed is carrying four aces and plenty to think about.

Favorite Sentence: “I’ll give you ten bucks for the dog and the card.” I loved the pure Ed-ness of this sentence. He is a scrappy problem solver and he is stubborn. Two admirable qualities in a man.

Favorite Assignment: The Barefoot Girl This is only the second of Ed’s twelve assignments, but it is the one where I began to see the outlines of The Real Ed. The one even he doesn’t know exists.

As for the ending? At first, I found it satisfying if a bit fuzzy. After I thought about it awhile though, I began to see Ed Kennedy and his assignments as forerunner. I thought it was the perfect ending for the book an author might write, before he settles in to write a story as full of grace as The Book Thief. There, I imagine Ed Kennedy was working on his thirteenth assignment; encouraging Markus Zusak from behind the scenes.

All in all – two thumbs up, five stars and I’ll read it again someday.

And this is all I could achieve in a prince's court. For either I would think different thoughts from the rest, and that would be as if I had no thoughts, or else I would agree with them and thus (as Terence's Mitio says) be an accessory to their madness. I do not understand what you mean by saying that a man should guide policy indirectly and strive to make the best of things, so that what is bad will at least be made as good as possible. In councils there is no place for silent and unwilling acquiescence. A man must openly approve of the worst plans and the most pernicious resolutions. One would pass for a spy or even a traitor, if he approved of such plans ony grudgingly. A man has no chance to do good when his colleagues are more likely to corrupt the best of men than be corrected themselves. He will either be corrupted himself by his collegues, or if he remains sound and innocent, he will be blamed for the folly and knavery of others. He is far from being able to mend matters by guiding policy indirectly!

-- Thomas More (Utopia)

He was vastly more inclined to learn than to be taught, ...

-- Page 260

"Hour after hour the world pours itself into his deafness like a high waterfall that turns to mist before it can strike and make a sound."

Page 65

That was possibly the most beautiful book I have ever read.

"Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being, between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality."

-- Thomas Merton

"For a short time after that, I lived in a state of nearly perfect calm. My apartment was bare now, but rather than discourage me as I had thought it would, this emptiness seemed to give me comfort.

"I would never again work to make people smile inanely and would take on the responsibility of making them think." (p. 50)

"Guy and I travelled to San Francisco. I needed to see my mother. I needed to be told just one more time that life was what you make it, and that every tub ought to sit on its own bottom. I had to hear her say, 'They spell my name W-O-M-A-N, 'cause the difference between a female and a woman is the difference between shit and shinola.'" (p. 249)