kurtwombat's reviews
883 reviews

Reading Philip K. Dick is to gradually have the ground under you tilt away from you. As you keep reading, the ground feels the same, still solid and supportive, but before you know it the tilt is just enough that you slide off your feet and land someplace you don’t recognize. Just a moment before you thought you were in control but Dick has taken over. The stories in this collection do a nice job representing Dick’s strength as a writer. My favorite is THE VARIABLE MAN where decisions are not made based on a human intuition for what’s right but on the probability of success. A sudden unexpected variable throws everything out of whack. Next favorite would be THE DEFENDERS where the Earth has been destroyed by war and the remaining combatants strike at each other from societies underground. Both these stories and much of his work deal with mankind abdicating his responsibility toward other humans, toward his planet and even himself and the inescapable price to be paid. This particular collection I got free on my Nook and is not the best. A couple of the stories are clunkers like THE EYES HAVE IT and THE CRYSTAL CRYPT but the highs are very high.

The crux of this story intrigued me. The Marvel world of super heroes face government certification—a process that requires surrendering their “secret” identities. Some are willing, some are not. The ensuing clash is told with great energy and vibrant vivid art work. The framing of the scenes involving multiple heroes balanced the colors to great effect. Quite fun to look at with 200 pages of rippling muscles, arched backs and elegant elongated athletic limbs all in distinct colorful costumes but the ending seemed more like a teaser for a grander project than this supposedly self contained 7 issue collection. A reasonable case is made for each side of this conflict with the crisis of conscience of Captain America being the highlight for me. While I don’t require stories to be wrapped up with a nice little bow, so much weight was given the impending final conflict that to have an ambiguous ending was a bit of a jaw dropper. Still a nice ride even though I didn’t care for the destination.

The most interesting part of this book, and it afflicts many biographies, is the mythologizing of the mundane. This book is afflicted more than most because it is largely about a myth. Moonlight Graham, so the story goes, was only offered the briefest glimpse of his greatest desire--to play major league baseball--and the seed of this disappointment remained planted in his soul even beyond the day of his death. The movie FIELD OF DREAMS blew this myth up to full blown Americana. In reading this fairly well written and researched biography, the tone differs from the text. You realize that he would have actually preferred football if he were given the size and despite fits and spurts of quality play, his baseball numbers in the minors for the most part were pretty pedestrian. Despite this he is presented as a can't miss prospect who always just missed getting that break. The twists and turns of a given life can seem important, but few have a lasting impact. Here, extra import is given to the mundane to help drive the narrative. Too much of this leads to a hollow biography. And that's how I felt at the end. Not enough is known about what Archibald Graham actually thought about the key moments of his life...or even what he thought those moments were. That's the problem with becoming famous after you pass, the interior life was too little remarked upon, especially for a private person, so that much is left to speculation and just enough hyperbole to fill a couple hundred pages. Also, as with most biographies, the early parts are the best. Cool to find out that a town near me that I have seen the sign for for years is actually named after his family. Many members of his family were famous in their own right, and despite the saintliness of a small town doctor Archie Graham, actually deserving as much or more praise for serving their relative communities. Funny thing was, when Archie couldn't play because of school or injury and age, he really didn't seem to miss it. We are all myths waiting to happen.

Walt Longmire, the main character of Craig Johnson's THE DARK HORSE, is very much a native of the Wyoming environs where he serves as a county Sheriff but at the same time, it is gradually revealed at a Wyoming pace that he is emerging from a place of pain and isolation. Also emerging is that the sources of his strength are also the fountainheads of his pain--family, the land and his job. The book creates a beautiful sense of place..even now a couple weeks after finishing the book I can still see the mesas and valleys and the dusty timeworn trails that join them to a degree that I can feel the grit of the land on my teeth. While the land is permanent it is not unchanging and that applies to his family as well. His parents are gone, as is his wife and soon his daughter is getting married. He is powerless against those changes so he runs to his job that with age has it's own uncertainties. The mystery at the center of this book would be entertaining in it's own right without all the marvelous textures applied throughout. The story revolves around the wife of a murdered rancher who admits that she killed her husband--Longmire thinks she is innocent and they might both be right. The term "dark horse" is described in the book as an outside or at least an unknown character that comes on as a surprise. This applies to Walt who is kind of lazily undercover throughout the book, but also many other characters who are not what they seem including some horses that are depicted vividly without making them cute or almost human. The real "dark horse" though is likely death, which hovers over the characters often in the form of loss. Eventually we lose everything and the trick is finding out what we need most and how to hold onto it as long as we can. That search pervades the book as well for many of the characters but especially for Longmire. Among the well drawn characters, the most fun is Longmire's Deputy Victoria...but don't call her that. She is also one of the highlights of the A&E TV series LONGMIRE based on this and other books in Johnson's series. Quite well done, the show created my interest in the books. Both are definitely worth a look.

The storm was monumentally devastating...but it needn't have been. Eric Larson's account of the hurricane that devastated the offshore Texas town of Galveston is well done and quite readable. Like any drama, it is most appealing when the rubber hits the road, or in this case during the actual destruction of Galveston. Larson's recreations of the first person experiences of the storm are done in riveting fashion. Some of the images planted in my mind's eye will stay with me always. The blow by blow descriptions of the storm, the inhabitants of Galveston and the swirling water and debris wrench the heart. The storm is tracked across the Atlantic though when the technical structure of the storm is discussed, it bogged down the narrative. I became frustrated that I didn't understand the mechanics as well as I wanted to--a lot of information was crammed into a small space and not allowed to breath. The unfolding of the politics of weather forecasting, however, was done quite well. The mixture of insight and misinformation that informs any new field of knowledge contributed to American forecasters leaving Galveston unprepared. The title of the book refers to a regional weather man almost swallowed by the storm who should have known better but allowed his superiors to hold sway over his common sense. Exactly why it is considered his storm is only driven home at the end. What should have been a stronger central theme was played with but never driven home until the end of the book. There were some secondary characters introduced unnecessarily to heighten the tragedy of the storm--they diluted and confused the action. On the whole, quite enjoyable as history and mass tragedy but a misstep in really delivering the person of Isaac behind the title.

Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson have fantastic names but are utterly believable as is every wonderful word of Chester Himes THE REAL COOL KILLERS. Their interplay based on mutual respect and a shared understanding of the world around them makes opening any of their stories worthwhile. The patois of the streets and the bitter resignation of those who patrol a world largely outside the dominant white culture (though often subject to it's whims and desires) gives this book and much of Himes writing a pulse to pop and lungs to breath with. Even characters that appear for only a few lines beg to be followed into their own lives. Amazing that I want to know more about everyone who comes into the light of the narrative. The action moves around Harlem in such a fashion that it becomes a character too. In fact so vividly, that I printed up a map of Harlem to follow the action. Even the shadows had as much substance as the keypad I'm typing on. Contained almost entirely in one evening, the story never stops moving and the pressure steadily increases until an explosive ending is unavoidable. But there is never really a resolution--no tidy ending. Johnson and Jones are doing their job. Often they come across people who deserve to be stood up and knocked down, but it never makes those people less tragic. So much is wasted in Harlem except for Himes words that describe the tragic beauty of it all.

Author Jean-Dominique Bauby died just two days after the publication of his book THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY. The reader is told this up front to erase any thoughts of a happy ending and to force the reader to appreciate the amazing achievements inherent in every carefully chosen word. Success is not calibrated by what we achieve or what we gain materially but by how much we retain of who we are when everything else is taken away. The author suffered a massive stroke that left his mind intact but took away most of his body. That body, the heavy leaden and lifeless diving bell, and his mind the beautiful butterfly in flight--one trapped inside the other and inseparable. Writing anything is difficult. Facing a blank white sheet is daunting. Imagine if your entire world was that blank sheet and you had to fill it every day with your own wit and imagination. The author's restless mind is writing all the time whether conjuring up the vivid details of meals he can no longer enjoy or recalling opportunities missed because he took so much of life for granted. Despite the awkward dictation tool of only being able to use one blinking eye, the swift beauty of his prose caresses the page like a gentle stream we know will dwindle to nothing all too soon. As I drifted with his thoughts, I remembered other books that gave me a similar feeling of beauty and isolation...John Baley's ELEGY FOR IRIS, Dalton Trumbo's JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN, Kate Chopin's THE AWAKENING, Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's THE YELLOW WALLPAPER, and Margaret Atwood's SURFACING. All worth your time.

We all take in life as we live, it's how we let it out again that shows who we are. For Christoph Niemann, his life comes out through his graphic design influenced art work. Much of the unique work that appears in his book ABSTRACT CITY originally appeared as part of his visual blog for the New York Times. Working like visual essays accompanied by modest text, each is a treat presenting relatable moments from everyday life in formats that recall catalogs or training manuals. Often silly but always creative, Niemann's art utilizes disparate art forms to convey his ideas the elements of which usually relate specifically to what he is talking about. For example, relating his personal history with coffee through a series of drawings on coffee stained napkins or lamenting how electrical cords complicate our lives through art using actual wires. Since much of my childhood involved creating my own world while playing with Legos, I particularly appreciated Niemann's using the multi colored plastic blocks to represent what it's like to life in New York, entitled--I LEGO NY. It's tempting to breeze through the book but I found myself dipping back into previous essays. As I experienced each new art format, I appreciated the ones before even more.

Contemplating the stirs and eddies of history, it's easy to assume inevitable the currents that carried events one way or another. That Hitler's reach exceeded his grasp seems obvious now but had he been afforded a little more time, advancements in his nuclear program and the implementation of his V-2 rockets might have dramatically changed the course of things. Time is largely why the D-Day landing at Normandy became the hinge upon which the history of the 20th century swung. Should it have failed, the Allied cause might have been stalled for years. Among the many factors that contributed to the ultimate success of the landings was the use of spies to pepper the German intelligence command with half-truths and outright deceit. Virtually every spy the Germans sent to England was either killed, captured or turned. It is those who were turned who are the focus Ben Macintyre's DOUBLE CROSS a very well done real life spy thriller that I enjoyed more for the spies than the thrills. The origins, motivations and dubious characters of the central group of spies is all unfolded quite well and captivated me for the first half of the book. Each uniquely skilled and monstrously flawed double agent was so self absorbed that the thought of actually being caught was unimaginable. Recreated here with a deft hand for detail, I was quite often surprised by the turns each spy's life took. The book balances the stories of the spies with their British MI5 handlers who on good days had to satisfy diva spies and on bad days had to worry about being triple crossed and all their work vanishing in a sudden flash. As much as I enjoyed the first half of the book, there is a significant portion just past midway where the book seems to be treading water--as if the author were determined to get every bit of research into the book at the expense of momentum. The pace picks up again once the D-Day landing is underway and all the double agent's efforts are aimed in the same direction. As with any spy story, it is often difficult to directly link cause A with effect B, which does make some of the payoff from the spies activities a tad tepid, but generally there seems to be enough justification to credit the double agents with at least making the D-Day landing easier and possibly with making the landing possible at all.

I was blessed to discover Harvey Pekar on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN back in the 1980’s. He shambled out on stage, plopped into the guest seat and would not sit still. Agitated and annoyed, his intense eyes would flare and his coarse tongue flame in response to Letterman’s show biz BS. I viewed Letterman differently after that. Pekar had a way during those interviews of cutting straight to life’s bone—refusing to play along with the game of shallow presentations that most of TV is. I loved Letterman back then and still like him today, but watching Pekar fight to remain himself amidst the high show biz gloss seemed to pull back the curtain and reveal that TV was not life but a puppet show instead. And Pekar would not have his strings pulled by anyone even at the risk of damaging his career.

This same battle can be seen on every page of AMERICAN SPLENDOR. It would be very easy to read a story or two of Pekar’s and come away unimpressed. Often sparsely worded and little action to speak of, most of the stories feel like overheard conversations or those thoughts that make us pause a moment before stepping back into the usual rhythms. These are moments that question who we are and what we really want or how much our day to day lives are costing us. There is humor in his work, not all irritated gloom. Though I can’t say I laughed, I did quite often smile recognizing the truth of the life sprawled out before me. Even when the stories are gloomy and seemingly lacking in hope, there is a tough minded perseverance by the author that rarely fails to inspire. During his career, Pekar’s work was illustrated by several different artists—most famously by R. Crumb. The switching up of artists from story to story adds to the power of the work, giving the sense of jumping around inside Pekar’s mind—denying any quality of linear thinking having a singular illustrator might imply. As I mentioned, one or two stories might not impress you but each story adds wattage to the bulb so that by the time you reach the end there is a bright light indeed.