Cloud Splitter

So I'm reading this book called Cloud Splitter, by Russell Baker. By the looks of it, it was written and published about the time that Don Delillo produced Underworld and Thomas Pynchon came out with Mason Dixon. For that matter, I think all three came out just after David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Infinite Jest is the longest of the four, but all three are long, clocking in at over 800 pags. Cloud Splitter is the shortest at just under 800 pages. It's like these three writers saw Infinite Jest and decided "Hey, let's all write really long books."

I've only read Underworld, which I liked a lot.

I picked up Cloud Splitter late into last summer. I picked up where I left off this week and probably won't finish it until after the Thanksgiving break.

It's about John Brown, told by his son Owen--the only Brown to survive the attack on Harper's Ferry just before the Civil War.

It's pretty good, though sometimes slow moving.

My only problem is that he makes a few changes in the actual story, which I know many writers do. One in particular involves the suicide of a key character who in real life lived to a ripe old age.

A million little pieces and I feel bad about my neck

I know, I know it's been months since I wrote in this blog. Me bad. But never fear I've been reading all that time just not posting. It got to be too difficult to do 2 blogs on a regular basis.

So recently I was reading 2 books concurrently. What a contrast in differences! I started A Million Little Pieces (Paperback)
by James Frey and then began this one mid-first book. I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman (Hardcover)
by Nora Ephron

James Frey is pretty much living down in the gutter and Nora doesn't. One is consumed with shit and one is consumed with looking like shit. I preferred Nora.

Nora makes me laugh, Nora says what I think about some things. Ok, so I didn't go thru the same cooking/recipe/dinner party love affair thing but overall I felt a kinship that crosses all socio-economonic barriers. It's a girl thing, ya'll. I swear I want to do a blog post about what I think about purses, personal maintenance, parenting in 2 stages since I haven't gotten to the 3rd, etc. I don't fool myself I know mine won't be as funny (to you maybe) but it will be to me. And afterall it's me that is responsible for entertaining myself yeah?

It took me a week to read Million Little Pieces and a day to read I hate my Neck. Nora's book is much smaller (and much larger font) but if I loved every minute of Million I could have finished that in a day and an evening. But it was tedious. Oh don't get me wrong, I liked the book a lot. It should be required reading for HS kids. With a caveat, but more on that later.

My teen years were filled with people like James. I saw junkies and drug addicts using/being high from the time I was in 8th grade until I was well into my adult years. Most of my pals from HS days are either dead or in jail, mostly on charges related to drugs. My best friend in HS lived in a drug house, her boyfriend was a dealer. Her sister's new husband was murdered in his bathtub: reportedly a drug deal gone bad. Her sister has never been the same since, lots and lots of psych problems.

I was never a drug addict, I was (for some reason) able to extrapolate cause and effect as a person in their late teens. So while I have never had the gnawing force (nor the anger that Frey calls the Fury) I can totally remember the edges of drug/alcohol insanity.

Freys stay at a drug rehabilitation facility was only 6 wks. It seemed longer in the book. He was able to make huge leaps regarding his addictions without the help of any 12 step program. He thought it was all basically BS. He did have a copy of The Art of Zen which he quoted from but didn't go deep enough as a path to salvation using the book. He conquered his addiction thru sheer will. He did not accept genetic predisposition either. In a very quick overview of one session with his parents and a psychologist they figured his Fury might be from when he was a baby and had a terrible ear infection that lasted a year and a half. That his pain and suffering were ignored by his parents (not on purpose, they'd been to many doctors who'd never dx'd him correctly) were the basis of his frustration and anger against his parents and subsequently at the world. He drank/did drugs to dull the pain of the Fury.

Ok, cool but since I do believe in genetic predispostion, that the 12 step program does help some people (if they choose to go the God route) it would be irresponsible of me to tell my kids to read it as the bible for why you shouldn't be using because if they have any genetic predisposition and become addicted I wouldn't want them to decide they can only do it via sheer will vs doing whatever works. BUT the book is clearly a great illustration of what addiction can do to you.

As far as Frey embellishing. I don't care. It isn't a big deal to me. Why? Because A. I don't believe one person who has EVER written his/her life story has every memory right, has every conversation quoted verbatim or hasn't embellished one thing or another. Often those books are written years after many of the main players are dead so who's to say otherwise? And B. What he lied about made absolutely no difference to the story. It didn't make it more sad, more pathetic, more anything. So someone says: "That's not the point, the point is that he lied." I defy anyone to tell me that they have never lied to make a story better. Little embellishments or big embellishments are lies - how much difference does that little or big lie make is the question. Did it hurt someone? Or does it hurt you to know someone lied and you were duped? Sheesh, we're duped every day by those little things and we don't go all ballistic over it. Just watch any tv ad for any product or political issue.

So, yeah, pick up Nora's book for a good laugh or two. Pick up James' book if you want to spend some time in the gutter and see how one man picks himself up.

Eat Pray Love - finished reading the book

Scroll down to July 25th to see the completed review of Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.

Book Club is Monday night so I figured I'd better finish the book!

Wolfskin by Juliet Marillier

If you like viking tales this is a pretty good one. Two blood brothers swear as children to forever hold each other as brothers. Eyvind expects to be a viking, his soon to be blood brother Sommerled expects to be a king. The two boys are as different as night and day, Eyvind straighforward in his thoughts and deeds, he holds norse decorum as a faith he follows to a tee. To illustrate Eyvind, he kills cleanly, even his enemies. Sommerled, is more cerebral, cunning and has a streak of cruelty in him. Eyvind teaches him how to hunt and play but Sommerled feels he is made of finer stuff. He learns what Eyvind teaches him but his way leads toward politics, manipulation and blind ambition.To illustrate Sommerled he prefers to torture and draw out suffering before he kills. They made the blood pact before Eyvind really understood the differences between the two of them.

As they grow into young adulthood they find themselves sailing to an island (The Orkneys) to settle, peacefully if possible with any existing people. They do find people there and Sommerleds brother Ulf, the leader of the expedition offers up a truce to the King of the Isle. For a short time the two peoples lived in harmony.

Ulf is murdered and the vikings blame the Islanders. The Islanders believe Sommerled murdered his own brother. Eyvind in denial does not accept what he knows until he masacres young boys and old men as ordered by Sommerled who has taken his brothers place. Eyvind runs, his mind is gone, he is out of his mind.

Nessa, a young priestess of the Island folk finds him and nurses him back to health over many months. She knows he is a viking but does it anyway.

The rest of the book deals with how a viking and a priestess unite the two peoples and eek out justice for murder, both for Ulf and for the people of the isles.

About a quarter thru the book I wondered why this was in the fantasy section. It was more of a historical piece and yes, eventually romance happens. The fantasy part really entails Nessa communing with the dead of her people, the island itself and the author adding in a myth about fashioning a harp from a dead person so that dead person can have a voice ~ to tell his story.

A detailed good book with some berserker info, lots of historic references, both of the people and the geography of Okney. Also, Christianity living side by side with Thor and the Islands priestess based religion. Not strictly fantasy tho.

A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke

A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke


I finished Covenant this afternoon and settled in to read A Year in the Merde. As you can see I finished it. A few hours read, and yes, enjoyable.

It's an almost true story. ;-) About Paul, an englishman who moves to Paris to work in a food industry full of whatelse: Parisians. The divide is wide when it comes to Parisians and a Brit. Clarke is pretty funny and much of what he writes reminds me of the week I spent in Paris.

Not that I had a terrible time in Paris, I had a great time, but his descriptions of the areas (many that we visited) and the people in lines were exactamundo, spot on.

This is an easy read, it was lent to me and thats probably the best course of action in obtaining the book.

Covenants: A Borderlands Novel by Lorna Freeman

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451459806/103-7107803-4288653?v=glance&n=283155
A summary review here


Great book. I loved this one. Like the guy who wrote the review on Amazon, I thought for sure the author had many published books. Turns out this is her first and a second was just published in Feb.'06.

No romance in this one, yay. Just great characters (some are female btw), the main chararacters life in the military, meeting up w/ a magical being and many political court politics. Standard fantasy fare but the delivery is good. I loved how the main character thinks asides in parens. A writer after my own heart.

Rabbit, the main character has run away from the Border to join the army. He's been in the army for 5 yrs. Just a farmer boy is his line. He doesn't really let on about his past growing up in the Border towns. The Border towns are thought to be half myth, half backwards hicks out there. The myths are that there are magicals living there. Talking trees, talking animals, elves, fairies, the works. Well, there are. The denizens don't really believe it tho and Rabbit doesn't force the issue ever. He's the youngest son of a family of 8 kids, he is the 7th child. His parents left court to become farmers and yes, he is in line for the throne but has been raised to be just a farmers kid. His parents left court to live a simple life and so he feels the same.

Rabbit is found by a Magical (a large talking cat) who makes a convenent with him for food. Simple eh? Not so, as all of a sudden Rabbit is thrust into a role he's never wanted, attention from the court. Compounding his unwillingness to be anything more than a simple farm boy is his mage powers beginning to manifest. He is feared by his old company because of his new found Cat friend and his new powers that appear willy-nilly. He is bewildered and uncomfortable with all of the court intrigue and also finds himself the target of a number of assinations. All fail.

The band finds plots within plots and must travel back to the Borders to treaty with yet another king...an elvin king.

Yes, Rabbit survives all of the intrigue and find out many answers to his past as well as the countries past.

Young Miles by Mcmaster Bujold

The Warrior's Apprentice, Mountains of Mourning, and The Vor Game: all three books in one volume. I was going to wait til I didn't have anything else to read and that came faster than I thought.

The three books work pretty well together. From Miles trying to enter military school to commanding his own fleet in the first book to a educating the masses of their ignorance (Miles must investigate an infants murder. Infant ws deformed) to Miles graduating from military school: earning his stripes not from nepotism but by deed. He again meets up with the fleet he commandeered back in the Warriors Apprentice.

Swashbuckling once again, liked this better than Cordlia's Honor. Less love relationships, more adventure. The only issue is that Miles never fails ever. He can turn any situation to his side no matter how large the situation, how much experience another might have (which is sizable when a 17 yr old beats out a 50 yr old vet on a regular basis) or working around an intelligence organization, of which there are many.

These are simple books, I'd probably put them in the young adult section. Too adult for young teens but older teens would like them. Miles is a good character, independent with a will-do attitude.

Get this line of books thru a used book store rather than paying full price. Although I must say for 838 pages, you can't beat the price.