Paper stories about paper towns

John Green's Paper Towns is the first really great book I've read in a long while. That's not to say, though, that it's the one I've liked the most.

In freshman year, I got hit with two whoppers of novels, two books that had a superb premise, and really delivered in terms of prose and ideological meatiness and story. They were Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, about a German girl living during World War II, and Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, about a biblical war over the antichrist. Now, near the end of my high school career, I meet Margo Roth Spiegelman in Paper Towns, and if you meet her, you won't forget her any more than I will.

What Paper Towns is about initially depends what you want to get out of it. The prologue implicates that we are in for a twisted story about a high schooler who goes mad. The ensuing nighttime car chase gets us pumped for a novel full of action. Clues left by Margo give us an aura of a mystery novel. Paper Towns is all of those and none of them. All, in that you will get those elements from it, if you see it. None, because the book eventually takes a surprising and somehow satisfying turn towards life philosophy near the end (though we should have seen that coming, since Whitman was involved).

I felt the book was slow at times, especially in the middle. Quentin (the main character) has an obsession with finding Margo, whether she's dead or not. He comes across as stupid at some points, though his friends will sometimes attempt to point out this flaw, and often succeed. And then there's the narrator's contributions; he'll ironically place a summary of Moby-Dick in the middle of Q's obsession, commenting on the character of Ahab while Q sits oblivious. I didn't find this stupid, but cleverly ironic. It must be the way it was presented.

The most interesting part about the story, though, is still Q's thought process. How right is he? How close has he come to Margo's actual thought processes as he continues his obsessive search? And when he gives up special moments at the close of his high school career to dedicate himself to finding her, is he making a mistake, or doing the right thing? The climactic scene (which also involves a car chase) didn't illuminate much more in the lives of the main characters, but John Green had had the entire book to do that by this point. And when Q finally reaches his goal, the result is incredibly satisfying.

The result is this: I don't know if I like the book, or if I like Margo's character, which I now understand much more fully than I or Q did for most of the novel. But it's going to stay with me for a long time, because it's an incredibly well-developed story. And I'm going to miss it.

Echoes of stories past

Whew! I finished The Lightning Thief with very little time to spare-- in an hour I'll be seeing the film version. I didn't want my views of the book tainted by the movie, so here we are. So, even reading through the last half at top speed, how was Rick Riordan's beloved book?

Pretty good, I'm surprised to say. Definitely not great, but satisfying.

Once again, I had a lot of anticipation going into this one, because my sister's been telling me to read it for months. And then when the movie came out, I glimpsed reviews that called the film a Harry Potter knockoff. Of course they would-- it's the same director, Chris Columbus, who did the first two Potter films.

And, yeah-- when you look at it, the book's a bit like Harry Potter in a mild American Gods setting, where the only gods transferred to the homeland are the Greek/Roman ones. Only it's not as good as Harry Potter. Several authors have tried the school formula before, with other series; Charlie Bone and Evil Genius come to mind. The problem that none of them have figured out yet is how to create believable characters in a well-rounded social setting. J.K. Rowling did this perfectly, but the Charlie Bone, Evil Genius, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians universes seeme empty by comparison. In this book, very few other campers are introduced to us.

So we spend most of the book questing. And that works out pretty well, because Percy's companions - a satyr and another demigod - are somewhere between friends and guides. It's a chemistry that, if you're not expecting Potter, just manages to work.

So now we get to our next problem: how do you update the Greek myths? It's not an easy thing to do, either, and at first Rick Riordan seems to be doing horribly. We get the impression that the gods, in two thousand years of existence, haven't progressed at all in their relationships. And here's the thing -- I can understand if their basic characters remain immortal (since they themselves cannot die). But when the best stories about them that you're citing happened two thousand years ago, that makes me feel like nothing's happened since the Greeks were writing down the myths, and it's difficult at best to believe that the gods harbor grudges that last for milennia.

To Riordan's credit, he addresses the problem of the gods' immortality towards the end of the book, and it makes me feel like the series might go in a very interesting direction come book 2. Then again, it might not; why fix what isn't broke, right? Percy's quest is largely made up of meeting old monsters that have updated themselves for the 21st century, to varying degrees; while Medusa and the Minotaur are largely unchanged, the Lotus Eaters have been given an interesting twist. He meets a few of the gods (I would have liked to meet Hephaestus myself), and blunders into various traps. After a few Potter-like episodes where his friends do all the work for him, he figures out that the best way to get past monsters and gods is to feed their egos. It's at about this point -- two-thirds of the way through the book -- that the novel really begins to find its voice. It's also here when Percy starts using his god-given powers. It made the book more unique, which is why I started to enjoy it.

So I give The Lightning Thief, in the end, a hesitant recommendation. It has millennia-old stories to rise above, and it just manages to do it by the end. It's not the best book I've read recently, but it's not as bad as Charlie Bone, and it really could improve. Because what makes the book -- and could make the series -- is when it starts creating stories worthy of the myths. A stolen lightning bolt, a camp of demigods, powers based off of mental disorders, and a beach battle with Areas are good starting points. Let's hope that Rick Riordan can make something of himself.

The movie that might revolutionize filmmaking

It's not Avatar.

No, the movie I'm thinking of is Cloverfield, which I saw last night.

First, please bear in mind (once again) that this is a book blog, and that I (and the blog) will focus mostly on story, and the telling thereof. It's the aspect of films, books, and theater that interests me the most.

Cloverfield, for those unlucky humans who have not seen it, is a standard monster movie filmed through a shaky video camera. Remember when I said that Naughts and Crosses had essentially one gimmick going for it? A lot of pieces of media are like that. This is one of them.

I defended 9 on this blog before because, despite the fairly standard plot and animation, I loved the storytelling. Augment that feeling on this movie. The acting is standard B-movie fare, the script-- well, the script's pretty good, having been modernized for the times; but actually, the plot is nothing new. The creature is a pretty standard monster, just with enormous modern visual effects that lets it blow up NYC a little more.

The one thing that's great about this movie is the cinematography. It uses the same shaky-cam style as The Blair Witch Project. I haven't seen that film, but I think Cloverfield would be superior to it. Blair Witch takes a relatively original story in a barren setting and follows characters in an unfamiliar area for a couple of hours. Meanwhile, Cloverfield is a monster movie from the same perspective.

But still, monster movies have almost always focused on the human element. Ignore the hype that Cloverfield is unusual for that. No, what makes this movie so thrilling is its framing.

In a standard monster movie, there are certain shots you look for. Reaction shots. Destruction shots. Glimpses of the monster in the distance. In a tunnel, maybe there's a closeup of debris falling from the ceiling as explosions rumble overhead. In this one, you can't look for them. They're all there, in the shot, but only because they've been captured (seemingly by chance) in the hands of a very amateur filmmaker.

And the result is that nothing is framed. It's the same story you always knew-- but by framing it seamlessly in a home video camera style, J.J. Abrams has managed to make the whole thing feel more real and spontaneous. It's much more immersive than any big disaster movie that's come out in the last decade, because while you could expect basic plot beats (as in real life), you can't expect how you're going to see them.

Sometimes the story you tell matters just as much as the way you tell it.

Another library run!

So, observant readers will notice that I've now finished all the books that I got for Christmas. Which has to be a first for me in years. And it's all thanks to this blog!

I've made another library run. These won't be the next books I read, but they'll be among them. Here's the list:

Paper Towns (by John Green)

V for Vendetta (by Alan Moore and David Lloyd)

2001: A Space Odyssey (by Arthur C. Clarke)

Pendragon Book Two: The Lost City of Faar (by D. J. MacHale)

Shadowmancer (by G. P. Taylor)

Kira-Kira (by Cynthia Kadohata)

East (by Edith Patton)

(I'm not on my normal blogging computer. I feel like such a traitor!)

Graphically different

How does one qualify Shaun Tan's book, Tales from Outer Suburbia? I could call it a graphic novel, since it so often intersperses text with words. But much like The Invention of Hugo Cabret, I'm inclined to call this one simply a very sophisticated picture book. If you read it to your kids, there wouldn't be as many pictures for them to look at... but the ones there are so powerful and beautiful that they'll stick with 'em.

I guess I'm most happy to see that this isn't Tan's only work. His credit for The Arrival, another graphic novel / picture book, is touted all over this one. I'll seek it out, but the publishers aren't giving Tan enough credit here. This is a book that more than stands up on its own.

It's not a book. It's a passport. Tan presents us with fifteen short stories -- some of them more situation then story, much like the great Louis Borges. The surreality of any story is provided in varying qualities either by the art, the writing, or both. A lot of them start out ordinary -- why does the map end at #168, for example? Why is the foreign exchange student so strange? These quickly transition to delightful weirdness, though.

I'd rather not spoil much of this book, because it is a marvel. Every single vignette, or nearly, is thought-provoking or heartwarming or both. Tan occasionally delves into the world of politics; these are hit-and-miss, but never bad.

Should I have to choose, my absolute favorites were "Wake", the opening story "The Water Buffalo", and the standout "Distant Rain". Really, though, everyone will find many things to like and some things to love about this book. I will be lending it to friends in the coming weeks-- ask me if you would like to borrow it. And if you don't know me, seek this out. It's unlike anything else you'll read this year.

Shades of black, and shades of white

Well, once again, I'm reading a book several years after what I imagine to be the age of the target audience. In my mind, this shouldn't significantly diminish the quality of a book. While I accepted that Lois Lowry's The Giver and Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember had their faults, I realized that these faults would be acceptable to most younger readers, who hadn't been introduced to the likes of Ray Bradbury or Stephen King. So those books get a pass-- but how did this one do?

Naughts and Crosses, by Majorie Blackman, is a self-proclaimed thriller, set in a world where black is white and white is black. Literally-- the positions of European and African Americans have switched places, due to some overenthusiastic Dutch traders in the early 20th century. This is the most unique thing going for it. That means the book's going to have to work extra hard to stand out, because the reversal of blacks and whites in our society is not a novel concept. Ray Bradbury framed the concept brilliantly in his short story, "The Other Foot", in which blacks (having migrated to Mars) welcome a white into their society after he flees Earth.

I think the main reason that story worked is that it didn't exist solely for the concept of reversing racial positions. Bradbury framed the idea within science fiction phenomenons that he already worked well with-- nuclear holocaust, fantastic societies on other planets, etc. Meanwhile, the standout feature of Naughts and Crosses is that it's a romance book.

Oh, not too much. This is for young teenagers, mind you. Blackman doesn't go too far, barely taking her characters past first base. But the author seems to quickly realize that this is the only thing she has going for her. After a brief mention of twisted history, where black scientists have overshadowed white ones in every field, Blackman doesn't speak much about the world outside that of her protagonists.

Instead, we get another glorified Romeo and Juliet ripoff. Because, you know, we don't get nearly enough of those. Callum is a white naught, while Sephy is a black Cross, and their two families (previously close) have been ripped apart by a chance event three years prior to the beginning of the narrative proper. They do everything they can to see each other; we get all the paragraphs we want of them brooding over the nature of hate and love and prejudice; but other than that, not a lot happens.

But! You say. The novel is a thriller! Surely there must be something thrilling about it! And admittedly, things do happen. There is a terrorist plot, a hostage situation, an explosion, some shady politics, and a pregnancy.

Those are things, yes. And they keep the story moving, but only barely. You see, despite all these "events," Naughts and Crosses had a very hard time dragging me in. I went kicking and screaming, trying to find other better things to read in the meantime, like Spider-Man.

It's a tedious read. On the one hand, I admire Blackman for regularly switching between her two protagonists. It ensures that there are at least two characters who are not completely flat. (Only mostly flat.) On the other hand, that switching makes for very choppy storytelling, and it totally screws with the pacing.

Oh, the pacing. I'm not sure where to begin on this issue. Like most pulp fiction, Naughts and Crosses has arbitrary sections, broken up with dramatic title pages. "THE CONFESSION..." says one (although I'm not sure what that confession was). "THE WAY IT IS..." shouts another, though that says nothing of what the section is about. (And by the way-- yes, a lot of things in this book are punctuated with the annoying three-dot pause. Particularly the protagonists' names, when they're thinking about each other.)

Thing is, though, these sections don't have any bearing on the timeline of the story. Blackman rudely pulls us through half a year going to one chapter, and then the next five chapters will stay in the same ten-minute period-- and then the next three chapters will each jump forward a month. I had to work hard to figure out when each section of the book was taking place.

It's no secret, then, that I was disappointed by this book, because I had high hopes for it. Everyone in my class loved it in eighth grade. I shouldn't go into a book with such high expectations; but the thing is, it could have been a lot better. If we had heard more about the society outside of the bubble, and cut down on the lovemaking and faceslapping scenes with the families, maybe the story would have improved. Unfortunately, it's already obvious that what Blackman loves the most are the steamy scenes between Callum and Sephy.

The problem with writing a Romeo and Juliet rip-off is that there's not that much more to say about that kind of relationship. While it wasn't Shakespeare's best play, no one else has written it better! In any event, it's unrealistic to write a story where the world literally revolves around two characters. Life isn't like that-- just TV soap dramas, and bad pulp fiction like this one.

I'd be obliged

Despite the regularity with which I post on this blog, I've just had a decent reminder that reading is not a job.

After Westerfeld's debacle (I refuse to call Leviathan anything but negative), I carried around in my backpack for a while George Berkeley's Principles on Human Understanding. Since I'd finally got my hands on it, I felt like I should read it, considering that he is my namesake.

But Berkeley does not make for good light reading. I still like his ideas -- that objects and ideas are only what we perceive, or what is perceived by an omniscient Spirit -- but it's very dense, and you have to be really involved to read it. I'd even say you need some background in other philosophy before delving into it; Berkeley often references Locke. I never had this much trouble reading Plato or Aristophanes, who come at the beginning of the philosophical timeline.

It's snowing out. It's a good day for reading... a fun book. I'd forgotten what I said earlier -- reading is a pasttime. It is also a means of exchanging information, but that pertains more to one's career than one's hobbies. I am personally interested in gathering knowledge about the classics of literature, which run in a fairly dialectical manner from the ancient Greeks up to the modern existentialists. I'm still interested in Berkeley, but should I ever decide to specialize, I would still need an extensive philosophical background.

So I'll be back to Berkeley, every now and then. But that's not going to be the subject of my blog any time soon.

The second reminder I got that reading is not a job is when I tried to read Rand & Robyn Miller's Myst: The Book of Atrus. Consider it background for the game I'm now playing, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, which I've resolved to finish this time. However, like a romantic relationship, it's not always (or often) helpful to go back and try to read a book a second time -- and I've often tried to read this book. Mythology it has (and the merits of that are questionable, if not related directly to the story), but good writing quality it does not have. Most of the book is (as TVtropes.org calls it) scenery porn -- we're here to learn about the origin of an ancient world-building culture, and explore their worlds.

A lot of my posts have been negative recently. If you're a regular reader, you know that I'm not always complaining about books -- only half of the time, or maybe a third. No worries -- I'll find books I like soon. I just have to remember that I don't need to be reading certain books to be happy, and nor does anyone else.

(I don't even need to be writing about them on this blog, actually. I like to, as a document to my reading experiences, and as a matter of interest to readers.)