Elephants, Wallflowers and the End of the World
In the past few weeks I have read “The Perks of being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky, “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,” by Haruki Murakami and “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen. As I have mentioned before, I am not very comfortable offering any kind of critical review of authors that are so talented. I want to memorialize my reading them, though, so here are my impressions.
I read “Water for Elephants” first and had been looking forward to it for longer than any other book in my reading list. When I started school, I realized I had to set aside reading for pleasure since I had so much other reading already. When my wife talked me into dropping my environmental science class (I didn’t really need it anyway), a lot of time opened up for me and this was the first book I chose. Amazon had it at 4.4 stars and it came up as a “recommended” book when I bought “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger, a book I really, really liked from last year.
Anyway, so I was looking forward to it. It was told from perspective of a 90 plus year old man. That was kind of new….and I like new. It was told in a flashback from the time he worked on a circus in the depression. Well, I don’t think I’ve read about life in a circus before either…though I enjoyed Carnivale on HBO. Anyway, also new! Aside from the two time frames that flip back and forth, the book has a further “envelope” of foreshadowing that leads the book off. A tragedy or disaster that happens that you know is going to be coming for the rest of the book, creating tension as you think you see it coming. Anyway, couple the cleverness of the time shifts and the foreshadowing with learning about the very interesting life in a small time circus and that would have been enough for me. The relationships were just ok – perhaps a little simple, but there are a couple of very clever turns at the end of the book that made it all quite satisfying. It lived up to the hype.
Next I turned to the “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by Haruki Murakami. I read another of his books last year called “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” and I was looking forward to seeing what else he had done. He’s apparently HUGE in Japan and I’m becoming a pretty big fan as well. “The Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” is really two stories. The stories flip back and forth each chapter (odd and even). You would think it would make them hard to follow, but they are very different stories, so it wasn’t. Ultimately, it’s a bit of cleverness that makes you realize that these two stories and worlds are connected and that was cool. You figure this out about 3/4 of the way through the book…and then the last 1/4 of the book is, upon reflection, kind of a mess. Stylistically, though, Murakami creates such an interesting world and populates it with such unique characters that it’s hard to mind too much that you just don’t see the point of a lot of it – the ride is so much fun. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was largely the same – there were some very interesting and compelling plot-lines….for a while…and then they almost become de-emphasized as they become increasingly arcane and subservient to the characters and the world and the tone of it all….and all of those are brilliant, but the plot? If I tried to explain it, (either of the two Murakami books I read) it would make it seem like less of a work than I thought it to be.
Finally, I read a short book entitled “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky. Amazon readers have it at 4.5 stars which is quite good. I can’t remember what led me to this book, but I’m awfully glad I read it. A little bit like “The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight” as it’s told from the perspective of someone that seems just a little affected. He may not always understand some of the things that are happening, but we as readers do. He’s a freshman just starting high school and he’s a pretty isolated guy, though since it’s from his perspective, it’s hard to be sure of why. The story as it unfolds is told in the form of letters that he writes recounting his freshman year in high school. The things he learns about himself and we learn about him made this a facinating read. You grow to care very deeply for Charley and you feel his pain and his small joys even while you realize that you cannot entirely identify with him. By the end of the story you understand. Everything. Charley still feels very real to me and I’m a little sad that I don’t get to read how his sophomore year went. I’m definitely going to see if Chbosky was able to do anything else interesting.
I’m trying to decide what’s next for me. I have ”A Spot of Bother” on my bedstand but have heard good things about “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” We’ll see.
I am always surprised at how similar our reading lists are. I just finished “Water for Elephants” on Wednesday. I really enjoyed it. I usually don’t like the flipping back and forth from one story line to the other but in this case the end of the old mans story nicely complimented the beginning of his story. Parts of the story were very familiar. I read in the authors notes that she intentionally reference the story of Jacob from the bible. I have never read the bible but I did read (and loved, loved, loved) Sophie’s Choice by William Styron. The love triangle in Sophie’s Choice is very similar to the one in Water for Elephants but without the happily ever after. I wondered if Gruen had read Sophie’s Choice and was reimagining it with a more joyful ending.
On your recommendation I will read the Time Travelers Wife. I had considered it and then discarded it after some poor reviews. I am always a little leery of books that have been made into movies. Sophie’s Choice was obviously made into a movie and it is fantastic.
You saw that they’re making time traveler’s wife into a movie, then. I have no idea how they’re going to do that. I picked up Into the Wild and Atonement too, but saw them on dvd, so am less anxious to read them now that I know the stories.
Anyway, I digress, but I think you’ll really like like it.
LOL Only two likes? Maybe I should hold out for something more compelling.
whoops!
Oh, was that a typo? I thought you were reflecting my loved loved loved comment back to me. Darn, internet typeface completely lacking ironic inflection.