Road trip across America, or stuck in a car with nothing but Narcissism?

When I finally realized how behind I am in my literary reports and reviews, I debated whether or not to go back and comment on each of the books that we've read or to just move forward with Killing Yourself to Live, which we just read. I decided to maybe tie all of the books together, because I would say, other than the Master and Margarita by:Mikhail Bugalov, all of the last several books have been entertaining but disappointingly shallow.

Without giving a summary of each book, including my own expectations and then utter letdown. In thinking about this pattern, definitely some of the books were much more disappointing than others. For example, Fingersmith had an active plot that kept me engaged and distracted from the fact that many of the characters were one-sided and lacked the necessary depth for me to really feel any connection to their problems and supposed intricacies. The same is true of The Island, although much more so, as Victoria Hislop's book is the written version of a Greek soap opera; selfish characters were seemingly selfish for no reason, other than the trait's necessity for the plot to advance.

Running with Scissors is almost certainly not shallow and packed-full of entertaining anecdotes from a terrible childhood. Augusten is surrounded by the most selfish characters possibly ever portrayed, in fact so selfish that they believe their selfishness is a selfless necessity for the betterment of society as a whole. While I'm sure based on real characters, Burroughs must be exaggerating them in order to make the book more entertaining. At some point the hyperbole of the characters becomes repugnant and Augusten, the character, becomes tainted by their behavior. I stopped rooting for him and became annoyed that he hadn't taken any action to rid his life of them. By the end I was glad the whole lot of them was out of my life as my reading time had become more stressful than entertaining. As to which character is the most hated, the jury is still out. (Sidenote: the movie in no way captures the characters that Burroughs created, save the mother.)

Along the same lines, Klosterman's account of his cross country road trip to visit sites where musicians became legendary through death, had such great potential but was ruined by Klosterman's focus on himself. It seems he used the book as an opportunity to sort through his own (pathetic) relationship problems. In this case, he is the obnoxious character. I was giddy with anticipation when I read the first chapter of the book, where Klosterman outlines the premise, but as I progressed, the author's disrespect for musicians and seeming nonchalance about the reasons that various events had such a profound impact was exhausting and enraging. Honestly, I think Klosterman has an amazing memory that he has saturated with musical trivia, which is nowhere near the same as feeling emotionally connected to music and the people that created it. This is coupled with long stories about women that I failed to see the relevance of. That said, there were a few moments of interesting analysis. I thought that what Klosterman wrote about Kurt Cobain's death was exactly what I was looking for after I read the first chapter. Sadly it was the last chapter and too little too late. Jane said she would have loved the book when she was 18 or so, and I wholeheartedly agree.

More like the Particular Incompleteness of Potential Plotlines

Thank you Jane for hosting a wonderful meeting and serving a delicious cake, filled with genuine care. It seems that Aimee Bender's novel left many of us with lots of feelings, which we really delved into (perhaps overdelved to a point of demonizing) and were able to explore.

First, I think that all of us agreed that there were moments of the book that we loved and that the conceptual basis of the book is fantastic. That excitement, unfortunately, was snuffed as the plotline veered into strange and, honestly, uninteresting territory. The idea that Bender's main character can taste the emotion with which a cook makes a meal is fantastic and opens the door to so many different plot possibilities. I, for one, was enthralled through the first part of the book, excited to see where such an unusual and phenomenal trait would land the character. The possibility that not just a child, but a woman, with real insight and emotional experience, would be given such a gift/curse is tremendous. Unfortunately for readers, this road is never explored. The character avoids food and becomes emotionally detached. Throughout the book, any moment that may, through deeper exploration, have proved to deepen any of the characters is abruptly shallowed. Her love interest, whom she kisses once, suddenly gets married, an event at which the narrator is completely detached. Any possible story lines when real depth, especially given the main character's insight, are simply never approached.

Further, the second half of the book focuses on the older brother, who also possesses a hidden talent: the ability to disappear into furniture. Unlike his sister's talent, this skill carries with it no possible emotional insight upon which to build a story. He simply vanishes and people look for him, the implications of which are dealt with in one or two pages at the end of the book: some people are able to utilize their talents, while others never use theirs or avoid them. Hmmm...right.

Thus, the only person that the main character's talent ever illuminates is her mother, whose desperation is turned to an affair that, again, is never explored. Perhaps the reason the book is ultimately so frustrating is that the questions existed, but were left unasked by the author, despite them looming large in the minds of readers.

Never a dull moment while Trout Fishing in America

Richard Brautigan's tale of a journey through the Northwest and the mind (although it is never clear which one is which) is one that I would put in the poetry category before I would label it as fiction. Trout Fishing in America toys with every literary device born of the beatnik generation, but perhaps is most beautiful and telling in it use of various images. Jane marked this delightful passage:
"The next morning I got up early and ate my breakfast. I took a slice of white bread to use for bait. I planned on making doughballs from the soft center of the bread and putting them on my vaudevillian hook. I left the place and walked down to the different street corner. How beautiful the field looked and the creek that came pouring down in a waterfall off the hill. But as I got closer to the creek I could see something was wrong. The creek did not act right. There was a strangeness to it. There was a thing about its motions that was wrong. Finally I got close enough to see what the trouble was. The waterfall was just a flight of white wooden stairs leading up to a house in the trees. I stood there for a long time, looking up and looking down, following the stairs with my eyes, having trouble believing. Then I knocked on my creek and heard the sound of wood. I ended up being my own trout and eating the slice of bread myself."

This passage certainly shows Brautigan's knack for images, but maybe is not overly representative of the book as a whole. This passage is much more of a narrative than the bulk of the book. Other passages are strings of images, seemingly unrelated.

The beauty of such images is that the book gives you feelings, without telling you stories, which is truly challenging. Initially, I found myself trying to follow a succession of events and only after forgetting this method entirely, was I truly able to be taken by the book, although not always somewhere that I wanted to go.

In discussing the book, it was great to be reminded of moments that others had loved that I had forgotten or not noticed. Please share if there are any images or passages that stuck with you!