The Lovely Bones

The Author: Alice Sebold

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2002

Length: 372 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

The Preface: A few weeks ago I ordered some Indian take-out from Abaruchi in Beaverton and had to kill about 20 minutes before the order was ready. Not wanting to sit in the restaurant and stare at six-armed figurines and a poster of what I assumed to be a Bollywood action star, I headed next door to K-Mart and attempted to kill some time. After quick tours of aisles filled with...um...well...CRAP...I found solace in the books and magazines section and picked up "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. I had heard that it was being made into a film by Peter Jackson and I knew the book had a lot of success - both commercial and critical - so I picked it up and read through the first few pages. A few days later, in Fred Meyer, I bought a copy.


My Review: The premise is thus: a fourteen year-old girl is brutally raped, murdered, and dismembered by a neighbor in a small Pennsylvania town in 1973. Yikes - right out the gate that's enough to send the squeamish running for a copy of something more banal and safe. Yet - the book is never gory or detail-driven about the grisly death of young Susie Salmon. She states it all so very matter-of-factly. Yes, "she" states it as the book is written from Susie's perspective. She is in heaven (or some near-version of heaven) called "The InBetween" where she watches her family deal (or fail to deal) with the aftermath of her murder and also manages to interweave the back-stories of her family throughout the book. This is a unique narrative because Susie is dead on page one and we know who did it on page two: Mr. Harvey.

As Susie tells her story, the book focuses on the first days, weeks, and months after her murder. While Susie tells us in painful prose about how her mother, Abagail, and her father, Jack, are dealing with the loss of their oldest child, the story, at first, drives the subplot of Mr. Harvey and whether or not he will get caught and how Lindsey (her sister) will help bring the truth to light.

Meanwhile, Susie is adjusting to her new surroundings in heaven. She has some control over her world and finds a modicum of genuine happiness there. Yet, she is still drawn to Earth and to her family and all the friends she's left behind. While she (obviously) knows the truth about Mr. Harvey and the final resting place of her remains, everyone else has only vague suspicions about either. Although her friends and family can still feel her presence every once in a while - Susie can not communicate directly with them and tell them what she desperately wants them to know: where her body lays and who killed her.

However, the police-search/whodunit angle slowly dissolves and the story changes into one that follows the lives of the many people that were touched by Susie. Many in bold and profound ways - and others in more subtle or intimate ways. Her mother, father, sister and brother (Buckley) and Grandmother are left to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives - some doing it more successfully than others.

The book then begins to move more quickly in time, with years going by and her still-unsolved murder becoming less and less of a storyline and more of an afterthought. And this is where the book reveals it's true purpose, and I believe, it's true genius.

The book is not really about Susie Salmon's murder or about how Mr. Harvey does or doesn't get caught. The book is about growing up and growing old and Susie's denial of being allowed to do either. All of Susie's friends move on in school, meet new people, graduate and most importantly - experience love. All of these were denied to her and that's what makes the book so intimately heartbreaking.

I found myself wanting the story to get back to Mr. Harvey and the still-secret location of Susie's remains. Eventually, there is a payoff to this storyline, although it wasn't what I was expected and certainly not what I was "wanting." At least at first. But the more I think about it - the more justice that does to the theme of the book: that life isn't always what you want, nor do you rarely get what you want.

This is the first work I have ever read by Alice Sebold - and that isn't too much of a surprise as she only had one other work printed before TLB. However, I wholy appreciate her sincere, yet subtle way she gives Susie her voice. She never waxes poetic on life nor engages in vitriolic screeds about the man who murdered her. She resorts neither to rhetorical flourish nor the cliche and trite. All characters are real and all are flawed in some way or another. Some more than others.

My main criticism of the book I can't really discuss without revealing certain details of the end of the book. I will surmise it to say that I think it to be a fair criticism by readers who might say, "Why didn't ___________ say __________ to _________" at the end? It would have only taken a second!" I suppose Sebold could argue that "That isn't what the book was about" but that really is immaterial. It feels that Sebold was so wrapped up in making a point about life, love, and youth that she failed to be true to the story - but only for a moment.

In the end, the book is well-written, well-crafted, and has had me thinking about it for several days now. I think it is a thousand times better than "The Shack" - which was little more than philosophical junk-food. This book is meat-and-potatoes.

I now must wonder how Peter Jackson will make this into a movie and still stay true to the story - for it does not suit Hollywood well. But fear not - I'll write a review of that in my movie blog sometime soon!

Amazon page: The Lovely Bones

The Lost Symbol

The Author: Dan Brown

Publisher: Doubleday 2009

Length: 509

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Review: If you didn't already know this - "The Lost Symbol" is the long awaited sequel to "The DaVinci Code" which was itself a sequel to "Angels & Demons." If you didn't know this - then you have likely been living in a cave. On Mars. With your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears.

Okay — I suppose the media push was not that pervasive. Nevertheless, Dan Brown and the publishers spared no expense to alert the media and the readers that this book was finally, finally, ready to be released.

To that end - my review of this book can be summed up as thus: if you've read Angels & Demons or The Davinci Code (and especially if you've read both of them), you'll say, "Haven't I already read this book? Twice in fact?"

The story opens with the protaganist, Robert Langdon, in Washington D.C. to deliver a lecture on the Masons. Instead, he becomes embroiled in a race against time to save the life of an old friend whose hand has been severed and tattooed as the first of many clues to uncovering and revealing ancient and long-kept secrets of Freemasonry.

Brown does a nice job of shifting the setting of the story away from Europe this time and using the vast history of the nation's capitol to tell the story. Nevertheless, the story is formulaic and borders on predictability. The cast of characters includes a female counterpart to Langdon, Katherine Solomon, who has spent her life studying the field on Noetic science and has evidence that "thoughts have mass" and can physically affect the world around us. However, she seems a bit too much of an obligatory Sophie/Vittoria clone. The main antagonist is "the tattooed man" - who is very much of a Hassasin/Albino Monk clone. Indeed, this book feels so much like the first two it seems as though Brown simply went to his computer, brought up the text of his last two novels, pressed "Save As..." and changed the names, places, and organizations - but left everything else in place.

Additionally, the book feels although every last fact and tidbit of research that Dan Brown unearthed during his research on the book was shoehorned into the book - whether it fit or not. The dialog that Brown creates to allow for this is stilted and forced and written in such a way that the readers most likely reaction is "Come on...no one talks like that."

Throughout the novel, characters could be in throws of mortal danger - yet attempting wry, but droll humor. They delivery homilies and screeds aplenty about the history of a particular artifact - but at the most inopportune times and locations. Moreover, none of the characters ever slowly figure things out. It comes to them each and every time in flashes of lighting and bolts of insight and they are amazed each time at what they've discovered. Each. And. Every. Time.

However, my biggest critcism of the book is in what Brown sets up as the secret that is hidden and why it is hidden. In the DaVinci Code - you could understand why the church might want to keep "that" secret under wraps (read the book if you don't know the hook). However, despite all the forebodings and dire predictions about the "secret" of the Freemasons - it simply isn't remotely plausible for anything close to the consequences that are warned. About half-way through the book I realized that it was playing out like a novelization of the tv show "24." Only, on the show - there is usually a payoff at the end and believable ramifications.

Now - the book isn't a total train wreck. As always, Dan Brown does a phenomenal job of doing his homework and laying out Washington D.C.'s rich history and subtext. There are lots of "Wow, I didn't know that moments in the book" and the expected treat of crytic messages and puzzles do not disappoint.

Yet, despite all this, Brown does a tremendous disservice to the reader by (for the first time) engaging in a little literary dishonesty. While I don't want to reveal a major plot point if you haven't read the book and still plan to - I'll leave it say that once you throw your hat over the wall on a plot point - it's no fair going back and changing the story later. 'Nuff said...

All in all - the book was interesting enough to keep me going. However, at the end, I felt like I had just eaten a whole plate of brownies that weren't all that good in the first place. It wasn't really worth it and it wasn't all that good anyhow.

I suppose there will be another incantation of Robert in a few years and more symbols to interpret, secret organizations to be explained, and relics to be chased after. My greatest hope is that any new characters will not be one-dimensional caricatures and that Brown might actually expand on Robert Langdon and let us know something new about his psyche other than the trite Mickey Mouse watch and claustraphobia attacks. Time will tell.

Amazon page: The Lost Symbol

"The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World"

The Author: A.J. Jacobs

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004

Length: 369 pages

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Review: This book was handed to me by my Dad's partner, Roddy, who read and enjoyed it and thought that I would enjoy it equally. It sat on my shelf and it was suppose to be next in line after I finished "The Amber Spyglass." However, I just wasn't up for more Sci-Fi and, after reading the Introduction and being intriguied, I moved its order ahead.

The premise is thus: The true story of a man who works as an editor at Esquire magazine decides to attempt to read the entirety of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. No easy tasks as the EB (to which it is referred) clocks in at a hefty 33,000 pages. The immediate question of "why?!?!" he choose to do this is never made quite clear - however, I think that stems mostly from his own reluctance to address why he is doing this. He talks at length throughout the book about how he often aspires to "outdo" his Dad, who is no academic slouch himself. He also recalls the halcyon days of his youth when he aspired to be the smartest person on earth. But mostly, I think the reason he attempts this feat is the same logic that drives men to hike the Appalachian Trail or climb the proverbial mountain: because it is there.

The book lays out like a mini-EB. Offering his thoughts on the various topics he's reading and his inner monologue about the apparent insanity of his quest. Present throughout the book is his long-suffering wife, Julie, who supports him in this endeavor, but seems to be a bit of a caricature of herself. The bulk of the writing about the life of A.J. and Julie surrounds their desperate attempt to get pregnant. Sometimes this works as a literary device - but often it simply sounds like whining.

It is clear from his writing - and Jacobs is openly frank about it, it seems - that he is in constant search of approval from his peers, friends and family for his quest - and he rarely achieves it. I found it odd that he would continue to write (read: harp) about how many people don't share his vision - almost to the point whining.

What is more of an obstruction to enjoying the book is that I found it increasingly harder to empathize with Jacobs. While his own perspective is that he's a humble, average guy whose driven to complete an arduous, seemingly impossible task - it becomes more clear that this isn't quite the case. Indeed, in the book he describes his many interviews with celebrities for Esquire, his vacations to Italy and a spur-of-the-moment dash to Seattle from New York, his apartment in Manhattan, his numerous relatives of wealth and privilege, his own childhood in a private school, and moreover - the lengths to which he and his wife are able to go in order to try and get pregnant. Many people would love to have these problems, least of all to have the ability to curl up on the couch each night and read anything they like. My heart really bled for him. The, the coup-de-gras was his admission that he really didn't read the whole EB. He confessed that he would often open to a page and just let his eyes go fuzzy and try to "soak in" the information on the page. Hmmm...not sure how that qualifies, but I digress.

One literary tool he employs makes the book more enjoyable than it otherwise might have been. It reads much like a mini-EB as the book comprises several vignettes and "chunks" of information.It often isn't clear exactly how what he writes under any given heading is relevant - but there is always a hook that connects them at some point. Reading through the book in this manner is probably similar to how Jacobs read the EB: "Well - I just finished the 'H' section. Let's dive headfirst into 'I' now."

Jacobs is a good writer and that is made very clear throughout the book. I suspect I would be lost half the time in the EB - but I never lost the flow of this book. From time to time it feels that he tries a bit too hard to be clever and adroit - but it can be overlooked. I'm a big fan of Bill Bryson, and his wit and sense of self-deprecating humor is simliar.

All in all, the book is a fun read - even if I did roll my eyes a few times. It's easy to pick up and put down, even if there's lots of time between sessions.

Amazon page: The Know-It-All