I can’t dislike a novel with this first sentence: “We were fractious and overpaid.” I can’t ignore a theme that seems ripped right from my own experience. Did Mr. Ferris follow me around in 2001 and watch my youthful tech entitlement fall disillusioned around me as the economy floundered and the world changed forever? Or–I hope this is closer to reality–is my experience part of a broader sadness that can be captured perfectly in a riotous novel written, to capture our togetherness on this sinking ship, in the first person plural?

Ferris captures the churlish, back-biting and smug hubris of the late 90s boom perfectly. Office workers aren’t just the obvious constructs of water-cooler herds signing TPS reports, but those who think they’re different and invincible: spurting forced absurdity and juvenile cleverness in that assertive way that means “nothing could possibly go wrong.” Of course it did go wrong and we all got numbed, lonely and old very fast.

What Ferris does here that other satirical novels do not is spotlight the panicky futility that crept up on us very quickly. His characters aren’t whimsical pastiches of quirks (although they are certainly quirky in ways that you’d both expect and not expect), but deeply faulted, tormented individuals. Office politics take on the ominous feeling of life-or-death struggles. In some ways they are; characters spin dark fantasies about how when they get laid off they’ll slowly lose all of their possessions, their family, their dignity until they are forgotten, desitute.

In between anecdotes about clicking and dragging and billable hours, Ferris gives us glimpses of the dark underbelly of the American professional psyche. It’s terrifying and hilarious.

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Book #54 of 2008.

Tags: Books, fiction, humor, novel, reading, review

I’ve read this twice now, and twice I have thought it amazing that there are people who have not heard about this book. I suppose this is because I am buried in my own perspective: former college graphic design major and current amateur letterpress printer.

The re-read was prompted by my recent work of rehabilitating my old Chandler & Price press, and trying to learn everything about this elegant art. Bringhurst’s brilliant book is both reference and narrative, something to keep at hand when setting type and trying to remember average letters per 20-pica line in 10-point fonts, but also something to curl up with. What a peculiar balance!

Bringhurst isn’t just a type expert; he’s also a poet. As such, the tone is master-crafted and evocative. He speaks of motion and negative space and the moods of the printed word. All this while dosing you with history and the occasional barbed interjection (Mr. Bringhurst is not a fan of Helvetica or Cheltenham, for example).

The first half a dozen chapters focus on type in a pan-technological study. The foundations laid here are relevant both to setting type by hand as well as kerning in Adobe Illustrator. Then there are a few chapters on layout–which manage to integrate proportion, mathematics, musical harmonies, the Golden Mean and a certain amount of mysticism and reverence. Toward the end of the book, there is more detail on digital typography (which I must admit I skimmed because of my current focus).

If you do anything with type, read this book. It is required.

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Tags: Books, font, graphic design, layout, nonfiction, reading, reference, review, type

After Tana French’s first novel, In the Woods, I was left breathless and absolutely committed to buying her sophomore effort. It’s not that I regret it, but it didn’t show the same care and craft. While still displaying some of her hallmark subtleties and qualities, it felt rushed, and lacked both in believability and polish. But she is still addictive, and there were a few late nights spent racing through this compelling tale.

Irish detective Cassie Maddox no longer investigates murders–her experiences in In The Woods caused her to switch departments to the definitely-less-awesome Domestic Violence unit–but a young woman is murdered in the countryside outside Dublin who is physically identical to her. Maddox gets sucked into on a risky but fascinating undercover operation in which she pretends to be the deceased, living with the victim’s four weird-but-extraordinary housemates in a ramshackle Georgian mansion. As an effectively eerie twist, the dead girl had been using an alias and character invented by Maddox and her erstwhile mentor, Frank, for an extended undercover drug investigation.

The elements that bugged me stick with me more than the good bits; I think I take for granted French’s general skill with writing and storytelling. I was annoyed that I couldn’t believe in the premise of someone being so identical to someone else. I was bothered that she could pull it off–fooling this girl’s closest friends. I was jarred by how hyperbolic Maddox’s reaction seemed to be to every minor epiphany. I was bored to nausea by her boyfriend, Sam O’Neill, another detective. I found the four housemates’ supposed profundity and closeness forced. They are always “beautiful” or “angelic.”

And yet I would read it again. It’s not a masterpiece, but it has a pull, like gravity.

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Tags: Books, fiction, ireland, mystery, novel, reading, review

Dozens of short essays from prominent scientists about what they “know” but cannot, scientifically, “prove,” at least yet. What could have been an energizing look at possibilities by the sharpest minds in science more often comes off as individual posturing, pessimism and promotion of pet ideas, sadly.

There were patterns in the tones of the pieces:

One, the “I have to take some time to backpedal and wryly point out that, since I am a scientist, I believe nothing–NOTHING–it is all about hypothesis and vigorous scientific method.” OK, but that sure takes the magic right out of it, and I got tired of it by the third time I saw it.

Two, the “I am academic and I have a world-altering idea and I can’t seem to get my boneheaded colleagues to just agree that this unproved idea of mine is bloody genius so I’m going to use this opportunity as a soapbox.” Jared Diamond’s essay comes off like this, for one, with him sounding wounded and unheeded, whereas I would argue that Mr. Diamond’s conjectures get a lot of publicity.

Three, the “I didn’t really understand the assignment” scribbles that are kind of awkward to read.

Within the jumble are some gems, and some fascinating conflicting predicitions. My personal favorite is Rudy Rucker’s suggestion of a modified “Many Universes” theory. Only a page long, it packs in so much dense imagery and ideas that it took me half an hour to read. Also compelling: David Buss’ assertion of the scientific existence of true love, John H. McWhorter’s out-there-but-wow theory that some Indonesian languages were actually spoken cross-species (i.e. simultaneously by humans and another higher-order primate), and Bruce Sterling’s hair-raising five-word downer about climate change.

With some more hard-line editing and less cleverness, this collection could have been a stunner. The concept is adrenalizing and full of potential, but the self-consciousness of the scientists–granted, they are not, most of them, writers–got in the way.

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Book #49 of 2008

Tags: Books, collection, essays, reading, review, science

The first time I tried reading this novel–thrust upon me with great exaltation by a writer-friend–I flipped through a dozen pages and then gave up. The time wasn’t right.

This time I read it in its entirety in two sittings. Grady Tripp is such a colossal plane crash of humanity that it’s impossible to look away, even as Chabon continues to pull charred limbs and dismembered teddy bears out of his past. Tripp, bluntly, is unlikeable: a philandering, hopeless pothead with minor literary genius long since spent.

His sidekick-cum-editor, Terry Crabtree, is barely better, an opportunistic hedonist wreckless with the psyches of others. Not that hedonism is a given evil, but in “Wonder Boys” Chabon makes it flinch-worthy; Tripp doesn’t even bother keeping an eye on his libido. Anything just kind of goes.

“Wonder Boys” is a yarn of Tripp and Crabtree’s weekend at a literary festival at Tripp’s college (he is, somewhat inexplicably, a professor, based on a long-ago string of novels–he can’t write anything now to save his life). The narrative spins out in a blur of molested youth, drugs, the combination of the two, and their mostly unpleasant after-effects. It’s enough to make the reader feel hungover and queasy.

In between these groggy episodes are some good reading. Tripp’s run-ins (they don’t end well) with pets are slapsticky hijinx, but ultimately hilarious. His perhaps ill-advised impulse trip to his in-laws’ homestead at Passover to (maybe?) try to save his imploding, farcical marriage (his mistress is pregnant) is a tapestry of misfit individuals and neuroses–perhaps the highlight of the novel.

Chabon leaves me feeling sticky and confused at the end. It’s like sitting in a bar during daylight hours: I can only see the stench and the dirtiness and feel the throbbing headache, while the characters are the ones who got to have all the fun.

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Book #48 read in 2008.

Tags: Books, fiction, novel, reading, review