Flash Blog! Four Books! One Post!

My dear readers, thank you for waiting so long for a post! I love you!

I've got four great books for you that I've read over the month since we last talked!

The Blithedale Romance by: Nathaniel Hawthorne

If you've graduated high school you've read The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne's most renowned novel. But, if you've read other Hawthorne, you know he's so much more! TSL hardly taps into his dark creativity. You get glimmers of it, but nothing like his short stories. After reading Danielewski, you see where Hawthorne could have been his forefather and mentor. The Blithedale Romance gives you a little more of his creep. About three enigmatic people observed by a friend, the poet Coverdale, as they all try to begin a socialist based farming community. Hollingsworth and Prisiclla hover around mysterious Zenobia. Hawthorne mixes a simple love triangle with mysticism, death, and magic.

If you are short on time and want to get a hit of Hawthorne, pick a book of his short stories. My favorites are The Artist of the Beautiful, Young Goodman Brown, and Rappaccini's Daughter.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This book was this years winner of the Pulitzer for Fiction and for very good reasons! If you are familiar with McCarthy's books or just movies based from his books (All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men) you expect bloody gore. This book isn't short on suspense but on the gore. Beautifully written, you are sucked into a post apocalyptic America following a man and his son. They are continuously scrounging for food and safety when everything burned and scavenged. They refused to abide by the new law of the land: cannibalism, where men impregnate women to eat the baby, they are in constant fear for the boys life. It's a delicate balance for the man to give his son a safe place to be without worries and how to teach him to be safe in a world that would do horrible things to him before eating him.

Now don't think this is a zombie book, it's a beautiful story about survival and the depths of mankind. If I had a rating system, this one would get the highest rating.

Naked by: David Sedaris

This guy is hilarious. Do those things really happen? Is his family really like that? You betcha. Sedaris' books are usually written in short story format. This book is no different with it's fill of whores, Jesus freaks, quadriplegics, and crazy old ladies. I recommend listening to Sedaris' books on tape. Much funnier to hear him read you stories that you wouldn't believe.

The Cheese Monkeys by: Chip Kidd

This is the book for anyone who remembers their first year of college, especially if they were an art major. This is the story about guy who thinks that an art major at State University is the way to go. He has the craziest teachers, like the one who pours water on her angry cat so the class can do speed sketches. He makes the weirdest friends: the southern belle Maybelle Lee and the drawing, daring, and adventurous Himillsy. His life is as normal as any until he is stuck taking Intro to Graphic Design. This is no ordinary art class, no ordinary teacher, and no ordinary assignments. It pushes him to see his world like he never could and figure out where his life is going.

If you would like to be reminded of your first year of college in a way that makes you say, "Thank god that isn't me" or "It happen's just like that". This book is for you. The Cheese Monkeys is also got some interesting typography that makes the book even more fun to read. I give it a high score!

GUEST BLOG by FIONNEGAN MURPHY

When deciding to read Mark Z. Danielewski one must be prepared for a thought provoking, intense, and hopefully exciting read. It will not be a relaxing escape. Mr. Danielewski writes books so that his readers will learn how to read the world around them better. They are challenging works that break down the standard rules to which novels adhere. He uses unusual typography to break down the way words are placed upon the page, and even uses color. The effect is a new and exciting way of reading that gives important meaning and moves the story in a bold and adventurous way.

House of Leaves, for example, is a series of stories weaved amongst one another. Our narrator (whose voice we hear in footnotes) has stumbled upon a manuscript that is in pieces. He decides to put the story back together. The result is that we get the original manuscript, the narrator’s thoughts as he’s putting the book together, and the footnotes from the original author of the manuscript. The beauty of this piece is the complex way that each story intertwines. It can be argued that the narrator’s story is at the beginning of a similar right of passage to the main character in the manuscript.

The other wonderful thing is that in the end are letters from the narrator’s mother and a series of poems that inspired House of Leaves. The book is more frightening as I look back on what transpired that I felt as I read it, but I know people who were terrified as they went through. It is also beautifully romantic, in a strange and hidden way. I find this kind of romance to be really satisfying. It isn’t too saccharine or overplayed. The romance you find, however, is strong and smart. Also, upon reading it a second time (with a notebook nearby) I have found a lot of very smart historical and mythological research that is shown clearly AND disguised throughout.

His other books are Only Revolutions and The Fifty Year Sword (T50YS), Both of which are equally as interesting and well written as House of Leaves, but in different ways. Mr. Danielewski is continuing to search for new ways of telling stories by writing them down. T50YS is about revenge, hate, forgiveness, and love. It’s a great ghost story with delightful imagery. Only Revolutions is about two sixteen year old kids who are in love and immortal. They’re sent here to destroy the world. Can their love prevent the destruction of everything, or will the world collapse under the friction of their speed?