Fiction: “The Gun Seller” by Hugh Laurie

The Gun Seller was one of the first novels I ever reviewed for this blog, way back when in the winter of – holy shit, 2009?! I’ve been doing this for five years? No one told me I’ve been doing this for five years.

This is the part where I’d normally say something like “I’ve done a lot of growing up since this site’s inception,” or, “Looking back, I was quite the neophyte at this whole reviewing thing,” but let’s be real: in many cases, I am still the same person I was five years ago. I still routinely have to bribe myself with ice cream as a reward for cleaning the bathroom, I still have problems waking up in the morning, and I still have not learned a damned thing when it comes to being a reviewer of books. I still enter into every single one of these reviews the same way Indiana Jones follows the Ark of the Covenant into Cairo: I’m basically making this up as I go.

Back in 2009, when I read this book for the first time, I loved it. And then I spent nearly the entirety of that first review talking about how much I loved Hugh Laurie and used only a single paragraph (or maybe two, tops) to discuss the plot of the book. Then I lent my copy of the book to my at-the-time supervisor, as she also loved to read. And I never saw it again. (Thank god I never lent her my copy of Gilligan’s Wake; I would have cried.)

Flash-forward to earlier this year, when I found a copy at Bull Moose, my local store of awesome (primarily a music store, some branches now sell books). The only thing that would have been even more amazing than finding a copy would have been if I had found my original copy, but sadly, it was not meant to be. (But imagine the movie that would be – a book who missed its owner so much it managed to find its way back to her … through her local bookstore.) But regardless, a copy of The Gun Seller had found its way back into my personal library.

I finally cracked it open about a month ago – because yes, I am again a month and three reviews behind. HAVE I MENTIONED I HAVE HAD NO GROWTH IN FIVE YEARS. This will be my attempt to do the book justice, as well as an introduction to this book for those of you who weren’t around this here site five years ago.

The narrator is Thomas Lang, an ex-British-military type, who has now joined the ranks of freelancedom. We meet Lang in the middle of a mission, ostensibly – he is trying to extricate himself from the hold of a particularly burly assassin. He manages to break free and prevent a murder from happening, but the next day gets called into the Ministry of Defense. See, there was a report that Lang was actually the assassin, hired to off one Alexander Woolf, an American tycoon.

Lang remembers being approached by a shadowy type in Amsterdam, who asked him to assassinate Woolf for a large sum of money. Lang also remembers turning the offer down flat. For our narrator is one who operates solely on the side of ‘good,’ and won’t take wetworks jobs, no matter how well in cigarettes and Scotch the job will keep him. Lang eventually figures out someone framed him – approached him in Amsterdam to make it look like he took the job, then when Lang tried to stop the attack on the very individual he was supposed to assassinate, it looked even worse. What really throws the whole situation into overdrive is that, at first sight, Lang fell in love with Woolf’s daughter, Sarah.

Lang tries to figure out who framed him and why, and stumbles into a plot that reaches as far across the Atlantic as New York City, and as far south as Casablanca. The framing of Lang, the assassination attempt on Woolf – they’ve all been put in place in a grandiose endeavor to sell a new weapon: the frontrunner of today’s drone.

(Keep in mind, this book was written in the late 1990s.)

He tries to get himself out of this plot, but instead, is forced to join a terrorist group in an effort to “save Sarah.”  (Spoiler alert: Sarah doesn’t really need saving. But when you cross James Bond with Philip Marlowe, you have to know the first femme you meet is going to end up on the fatale side of things.)

Here’s what I love about this book: Hugh Laurie has an amazing way with words. Amazing. I know in my first review of this book, I wrote about how I just wanted to be friends with Hugh Laurie, because he seemed like a really cool dude – someone you could hang in the pub and have a pint with. But now I want to be friends with Hugh Laurie because he is an amazing writer.

While I love that Hugh Laurie is currently touring the world with his Copper Bottom Band, I kind of want him to write a sequel to The Gun Seller. Because my earlier, five-years-ago point still stands: while I feel I learned a lot more about Thomas Lang this time around, and truly appreciated his ability to mask his innermost thoughts under an impressive veil of sarcasm, I really want to spend more time with him as a character; hang around in a pub and have a pint with Lang, not just Laurie.

Here are some examples of Thomas Lang’s personality:

But I’ve always prided myself on the froidness of my sang … [p. 44]

Another Diplomat was parked behind us, with whatever the collective noun for Carls is inside it. A neck of Carls, maybe. [p. 156]

(Lang is always figuring out creative ways to describe people. See my previous review and how he names one of his bodyguards (a.k.a., one of the Carls) Sunglasses and the other No Sunglasses.)

“Who pulls the trigger?”

Solomon had to wait for an answer.

In fact he had to wait for every answer, because I was on a skating-rink, skating, and he wasn’t. It took me roughly thirty seconds to complete a circuit and drop off a reply, so I had lots of scope to be irritating. Not that I need lots of scope, you understand. Give me just an eency-weency bit of scope, and I’ll madden you to death. [p. 228]

There’s a really interesting section around page 150 or so, where the Americans are working damned hard to convince Lang to join up with their team, and it speaks about democracy and what it is and what it’s really made up of, and I’d quote the whole thing here but it would be a lot of extra typing, and I feel I did that already last week at my real job where I transcribed a bunch of invoices into an Excel spreadsheet because, as far as I know, there’s no way to email a .pdf of an image to oneself and then parse the information into Excel without actually retyping it all.  (If there is, please, for the love of god, don’t tell me – I really don’t want to know at this point.) Basically you should read the book and enjoy that section, but I’ll give you at least one paragraph (I should clarify, this is from the perspective of the American character):

“The people don’t read books. The people don’t care a piece of blue shit about philosophy. All the people care about, all they want from their government, is a wage that keeps getting higher and higher. Year in, year out, they want that wage going up. It ever stops, they get themselves a new government. That’s what the people want. It’s all they’ve ever wanted. That, my friend, is democracy.” [p. 162]

Before I really get into Hugh Laurie and his Way With Words, let’s play the All About Alaina game for a second:

“Anything wrong with ringing my headmaster?” I said. “Or an ex-girlfriend?” I mean, that all seemed too dull, I supposed.

Woolf shook his head.

“Not at all,” he said. “I did all of that.”

That was a shock. A real shock. I still get hot flushes about having cheated in Chemistry O-Level and scoring an A when experienced teachers had anticipated an F. I know one day it’s going to come out. I just know it. [p. 83]

Seriously, I never cheated on an exam, but for some reason I have the guiltiest personality. For instance, I was at work and a coworker was looking for me while I was refilling my glass of water, and when my cubicle-mate told me, my first instinct was to say, “What did I do?” I can’t imagine the guilt Lang feels about a cheated exam.

Here’s one of the techniques one of the Americans uses in trying to convince Lang to help them sell their drone copter:

“If you are making a new mousetrap, then, as you say, you advertise it as a new mousetrap. If, on the other hand,” he held out his other hand, to show me what another hand looked like, “you are trying to sell a snake trap, then your first task is to demonstrate why snakes are bad things. Why they need to be trapped. Do you follow me? Then, much, much later, you come along with your product.” [p. 171]

THERE IS NO NEED FOR DEMONSTRATION. I DON’T CARE HOW MANY BUGS AND OTHER PARTS OF THE ECOSYSTEM SNAKES EAT, THEY ARE BAD AND THEY WILL ALWAYS BE BAD HOW MANY SNAKE TRAPS CAN I BUY EVEN THOUGH I HAVE NEVER SEEN A SNAKE OUTSIDE OF A ZOO

Finally, if you need some more proof that Hugh Laurie is a master wordsmith, I’d like to share the following three quotes:

There’s an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you’re climbing into a metaphor. [p. 133]

Okay, that one was just funny.

It was dark outside, cold and dark, and it was trying to rain in a feeble, oh-I-can’t-really-be-bothered-with-this sort of a way. [p. 217]

Admit it; you know exactly how it’s raining in that moment.

And finally:

People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it’s never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we’ve ever read a book that day doesn’t fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls.

In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over. [p. 279]

Grade for The Gun Seller: 5 stars

Fiction: “The Empire Striketh Back” by Ian Doescher

I’m writing this in the midst of playing an epic game of “Sophie’s Choice” with my TiVo and FXX over the Every Simpsons Ever marathon. Basically, my percentage has been hovering at 99% for the past 24 hours, and — hold up, is Thelma and Louise on my list of Movies Alaina’s Never Seen? Anyway, basically, I’ve been watching as many episodes as I can, both live and recorded, because all that I ever wanted is a big ol’ kick to the nostalgia feels.

YES I TAPED THE TRAMAMPOLINE – TRAMBOPOLINE EPISODE WOO HOO!

Holy shit, I never put Thelma and Louise on my list.  (Must be because the only people who ever teased me about never seeing movies were dudes.)

ANYWAY, the other night Erica and I did our Tweetversation for The Empire Striketh Back, and now I’m trying to write the review while perfecting my Homer Simpson impersonation. What I’m saying is, if a lot of Simpsons references make it into this review, then I apologize for nothing.

So let’s start off with the things I really liked about this version, and then I’ll get into the fight we had.

I’m actually going to start with the afterword, because as I was reading it, I honestly thought I was being Punk’d. Back when we read Verily, a New Hope, I had three critiques: 1) I felt that Mr. Doescher over-used the Chorus; 2) he used the word sans too much to make the lines scan properly; and while 3) wasn’t really a criticism, I did mention the fact that everyone in Verily, a New Hope spoke in iambic pentameter and no one spoke in prose.

God bless Mr. Doescher, but he tackled all three. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who discussed the Chorus, and in this book, he used the Chorus very smartly, and instead made the characters let the audience know what just happened (as an example, he reminded us of how Gertrude informed Hamlet of Ophelia’s drowning).

Erica and I both agreed that his iambic pentameter flowed better in this book – not that it didn’t flow in the first book, but I didn’t see any use of sans in this volume.

And in this book, Boba Fett speaks in prose:

Shakespeare often used prose to separate the lower classes from the elite – kings spoke in iambic pentameter while porters and gravediggers spoke in prose. In writing William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, I did not want to be accused of being lazy about writing iambic pentameter, but with this book it was time to introduce some prose. Who better to speak in base prose than the basest of bounty hunters? [p. 167]

Seems legit.

So if Boba Fett speaks in prose, and everyone else speaks in iambic pentameter … how does Yoda speak?

DUDES. YODA SPEAKS IN HAIKU. AND IT IS GLORIOUS.

O, great warrior!
A great warrior you seek!
Wars not make one great.
[II.vii.78-80]

And my favorite line, in all the world:

Nay, nay! Try thou not.
But do thou or do thou not,
For there is no “try.”
[III.vii.29-31]

The other thing I absolutely loved wholeheartedly was the following line, after the Wampa runs off with Luke:

Alas, is this th’adventure I am due,
To die upon a vicious monster’s whim?
I am attackèd by this awful beast!
O fate most wretched — shall I be his feast?
[Exit, pursued by a wampa.]
[I.i.48-51]

EXIT, PURSUED BY A WAMPA. OH MY GOD. First of all, one of the most famous stage directions in Shakespearean history is “Exeunt, pursued by a bear.” To bring that into Star Wars was brilliant. But then there’s the added bonus that the original line was from The Winter’s Tale.  THE WINTER’S TALE, CARL! BECAUSE THIS SCENE TAKES PLACE ON HOTH! OH MY GOD, this line was just perfect on all levels.

My last favorite line also leads me into the fight Erica and I had on twitter. I was very very pleased that there were no extra words added to Han Solo’ classic line, “I know.” This lead to this:

@NYCBookWorm84 #TheCollaborators wwhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaat? How do you not like Leia??

— Alaina Patterson (@WillBeFunOrElse) August 22, 2014

@NYCBookWorm84 #TheCollaborators LEIA IS NOT A DAMSEL She is leading a rebel army and making tough decisions in the midst of war

— Alaina Patterson (@WillBeFunOrElse) August 22, 2014

I just scanned through some of Leia’s speeches, and I do not know how that impression came from either the text or the movie. In her conversations with Han, she is trying to declare that she doesn’t have feelings for him because he’s beneath her, or a scruffy nerf herder, or that she’d rather kiss a Wookiee. In her monologues, she admits that she has feelings for him, but she can’t voice her feelings aloud because they’re in the middle of fighting a war and she can’t take the time to focus on her love life because it’s not the appropriate time to do so.

Leia is not a damsel. In fact, the damsel that needed rescuing from the big monster villain on Hoth was Luke from the Wampa. In this book/episode, Leia and the entire rebel army have to escape Hoth after being attacked by the Empire. When they get to Cloud City, they get captured by Darth Vader and Han gets carbon-frozen for Boba Fett, but Leia rescues herself with the help of Lando Calrissian. But it’s not like Lando has to break her out of a prison cell or something.

(And if you want to talk about Episode IV: A New Hope, I would like to remind you that Leia was the character that took over the half-assed rescue mission and actually got them out of Vader’s starship.)

@willbefunorelse Yeah then practically pass out from palpitations when he's out of sight! He brings out the GIRL in her. How gross! lol

— E.L. Drayton (@NYCBookWorm84) August 22, 2014

As I said on twitter, it may look like Leia’s being wishy-washy in her emotions, but that is a trope of Shakespearean romances, not Leia’s character. If you go back to the classic Benedick and Beatrice, they will have moments of fighting and banter, and then as soon as they split up, they have to have those monologues and soliloquies where they explain to the audience that their feelings are conflicted. Remember, Shakespearean actors were playing to the balcony, and facial expressions didn’t carry to the balcony, so words had to do the job.

So when it comes to The Jedi Doth Return, please, I ask you: please re-watch the original trilogy first.  I feel that many of the disagreements we’ve had over these books have stemmed from the fact that you have watched them, but a very long time ago, and the things Mr. Doescher is adding to the characters and the plot overall enhance the original, but can confuse someone who may be unfamiliar with the plot. I’m not asking you to change your opinion of Leia and Han, but I think you may find that in the original movie, the romance is used smartly and not “injected where it shouldn’t be.” Even if you feel that the romance isn’t necessary to the plot, at least you’ll see that Leia is not, nor ever will be, a damsel in distress.

Okay. In the writing of this review, I have watched at least six episodes of The Simpsons, and my percentage is down to 97%. I have some errands to run, but I’ll leave everyone with this: I really enjoyed The Empire Striketh Back, and I felt that Mr. Doescher’s interpretation of the text and application of Shakespearean tropes was excellent. I can’t wait to finish this series.

Grade for The Empire Striketh Back: 6 stars

 

The Collaborators!: “The Empire Striketh Back” by Ian Doescher

It’s that time of year again! Erica and I are Collaborating on our first sequel: The Empire Striketh Back, by Ian Doescher.

This is the first time we have read the next book in a series — we’ve read the first book in a series before, but if y’all remember, I was very clear about not continuing that particular series.  This will be interesting for a couple of reasons: namely, does Erica look for the same things in sequels and series that I do?

For instance, I read a lot of series; mystery novels especially.  Between Kinsey Millhone, V.I. Warshawski, Gregor Demarkian … holy crap, hold up. If I ever get off my ass and start writing a mystery series, I am naming my character the most innocuous name ever.  Like, Emily Jones.  Or Sarah Thompson. Bob Miller.  Plain and simple. I never really realized before now how unique and special-snowflake those names are.

(Fun Fact!: When Ian Fleming was writing his first spy novel, he couldn’t decide on a name for his main character. He ended up picking a name from the author of a book on birdwatching, because he felt the name was the most boring name he’d ever seen. That name? James Bond.)

ANYWAY. (drink!) When I decide to continue with a series, ultimately, it comes down enjoyment and consistency. Did I enjoy the characters enough in the first book to make me want to read more about them? Because remember: the plots will change from book to book, but the characters remain constant. You may not enjoy the plot from book to book, but I find that the relationship I’ve built with the characters gives me the motivation to continue (see the J.D. Robb series – I really felt uncomfortable with parts of Witness in Death, but my enjoyment of the relationship between Eve and Roarke was enough to keep me going to read Judgment in Death).

Obviously, I enjoyed William Shakespeare’s Star Wars – it was a new interpretation of an old story, showing us different facets of some very well-known icons of pop culture.  Plus, R2-D2 speaks! In English, even! What’s not to love? So continuing with this series was a no-brainer.

Now we come to consistency – do the elements of the characters remain true enough in new circumstances that my enjoyment doesn’t diminish? My enjoyment of Eve and Roarke, Kinsey Millhone, and Holmes and Russell does not diminish as I continue through their series – their qualities remain constant, so I get to see how they react in different situations.

(Note: I include neither Patricia Cornwell nor Laurel K. Hamilton’s series in this discussion, as my ‘enjoyment’ of those series [such as it is] is based on inconsistency and disapproval of the characters. I hate-read them, basically.)

Going back to the Shakespeare Star Wars series – do I feel that there’s enough consistency? Again, duh. It also helps that I know a little of what to expect – having seen the movies, now I have additional things to look forward to. For instance: the banter between Han and Leia is one of my favorite things about The Empire Strikes Back. If there are no references or shades of the relationship between Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing in this book, I am going to be severely disappointed.

Lando Calrissian’s betrayal (probably) has overtones of Othello (a of all, because Othello deals with betrayal, not because of the moor thing. But b of all, I say “probably” because … I’ve never read Othello. Or seen it performed. Basically, all I know about Othello is from this video and this series of gifs.)

And don’t get me started on how excited I am to learn what the hell Yoda sounds like in iambic pentameter.

So I’m greatly looking forward to reading this. Because yes, I believe that I’m going to enjoy this as much as the first book in the series, but also because I’m curious what Erica’s looking for in this next chapter, so to speak – and whether or not we both get what we’re looking for.

Fiction: “William Shakespeare’s Star Wars” by Ian Doescher

HOLY CRAP I’M ACTUALLY FIRST

(I have a feeling that Erica hasn’t published her review yet out of pity for me, to give me a chance to actually publish first for one damn thing.  Although it is the holidays, and she’s been ill, so I don’t think that’s the case.  But if it’s out of pity, I’ll take it.)

ANYWAY.  (Drink!)  Erica (of NYC Bookworm fame) and I finished William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher and I think we both agree that it was a wild success.

Now unfortunately, I wrote most of this up at work. (Shh don’t tell!)  But that means I left my book at home.  So if there were any quotes or things I wanted to reference, I’m probably going to have to skip it, or you’re going to have to take my word that it existed and I’m not making it up.  Your call.  [Now that I’m home, I might look it up.  Maybe.  I’m kind of sleepy.]

So what Mr. Doescher did was take the amazing film Star Wars: A New Hope and turn it into a play as if it were written by Shakespeare.  It follows the traditional five-act structure that Shakespeare nearly created, plus there is a prologue and an epilogue that calls back to the prologue of Romeo and Juliet and the epilogue of The Tempest or A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  The entire thing is written in iambic pentameter – and here’s where I might have a nitpick, but as a) I don’t have the book and b) I also don’t have an eidetic memory, I may have to fudge things a bit.  Go with me.

Traditionally in Shakespeare’s plays, there are going to be one or two characters that speak in prose – not verse or iambic pentameter.  Traditionally, the characters that speak in prose are comic relief, or non-essential characters, or non-‘regal’ characters.  Occasionally, these characters import wisdom or give us some special meaning on the scene that we wouldn’t otherwise get.  Some of these characters are: Trinculo and Stephano, the drunken members of Alonso’s party from The Tempest; the Porter in Macbeth; and apparently, if the mit.edu edition of Hamlet is to be believed, Hamlet for a while, therefore disproving all of the qualifications I gave above.  Fuck you, Hamlet.

To bring my point back to Shakespeare’s Star Wars, the only characters who might speak in prose are Greedo, Jabba the Hutt, Chewbacca, and R2-D2.  And the reason I say ‘might’ is because Mr. Doescher actually transcribes the language that they speak, rather than making them speak in English.  So when Han is conversing with Greedo, you can understand what Han’s saying, but Greedo’s all, “Na koona t’chuta, Solo” – and again, here’s where I’d quote the thing, but the book’s on my desk back at home, so dear Star Wars nerds: please don’t be offended if I’m not quoting Greedo correctly.  It could be prose, or it could be iambic pentameter.  I’m not sure, I don’t speak … whatever the fuck it is that Greedo is.

Now, R2-D2 is another case all together, because Mr. Doescher gave R2-D2 the ability to speak English in aside or soliloquy.  But if he’s around C-3PO or humans, he speaks in “beep, boop, squeak, whistles.”  I loved this addition, and for a couple of different reasons.

Firstly, I remember watching the original Star Wars trilogy last year, and loving R2-D2.  Did I make jokes about how he should stay in the TIE-Fighter, a la Chuck staying in the car in Chuck?  Yes.  Did I make jokes about how he’s impetuous and does things without thinking, under the guise of helping, but he sometimes makes things worse?  Of course I did.  But at the end of the day, R2 is a very important character.  Without him – or without his personality, I guess I should say? – Leia would still –

Hold up.  Dear Microsoft Word: why is Chewbacca a correctly-spelled word in your spell-check database, but Leia isn’t?  That literally does not compute.  What the fuck, guys?

Uh, anyway.  (Drink!)  Leia would still have found a droid on which to record her message to Obi-Wan Kenobi (those are okay too!?  Microsoft Word is a sexist piece of shit!)

Okay, seriously, I just did this:

WHAT THE FUCK, MICROSOFT WORD??  Did George Lucas and his mommy issues pay you nerds off or something?

OKAY, AS I WAS SAYING.  Leia would still have found another droid on which to record her message to Obi-Wan.  Given that mission, R2 would still have separated himself from C-3PO upon crash-landing on Tattooine, but would C-3PO have been as determined to keep himself and that other droid together, leading Owen to purchase both of them?  When they get to the Death Star (or the Imperial Cruiser, whatever it is they rescue Leia from), who was the one to scramble the circuits in the trash compactor, letting the heroes not die a stinky, squishy death?  Who repaired Luke’s TIE-fighter en route to the Death Star?  R2-D2 is a very important character.

Why am I touting R2 so much?  Well, here’s where I’d point to a tweet from the Tweetversation Erica and I held on Saturday night, but my phone is even stupider than Microsoft Word’s spell-check and won’t let me see tweets I made on my computer?  Whatever, Smoron (the name for my phone), I’ll just wait until I get home and have the power of the Interwebs:

@WillBeFunOrElse in that case I love his ego! He thinks he's moving the story & affecting all main characters lives! #TheCollaborators

— E. L. Drayton (@NYCBookWorm84) December 28, 2013

I spent a while trying to formulate a counterpoint to this statement, but Twitter and I don’t always get along because I tend to ramble, and all I wanted to say was, “But — he is important,” but I’m well aware that sometimes my gentle fact-pointing can come across as bitchy, and that is not my intent.  But then Erica mentioned later in our Tweetversation that she hadn’t watched the movie in almost two decades, and everything clicked and there was no longer a need to argue: one’s impression of a droid changes when you watch it when you’re ten as opposed to 29 (the year I first saw all of Star Wars all the way through in one sitting).  Anyway.  I guess what this was all leading towards was that I was prepared to defend R2’s honor to the death, but it’s been a while since you’ve seen it – I guarantee that when you watch the movies again, you’ll see that R2 is a vastly important character, and Mr. Doescher uses the dialogue to show that not only is R2 aware of his own importance, but the audience as well.

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is full of little winks to the Star Wars audience.  I tweeted to Erica that I groaned when I saw the scene where Han is discussing his debt to Jabba the Hutt, because that meant that it wasn’t Star Wars: A New Hope I was reading, but Star Wars: George Lucas’s Shitty New Hope.  But Han’s first line of dialogue in the scene is:

“Now, marry, ’tis an unexpected scene.

Meaning that not only did Han the character not expect to see Jabba in the hangar, but we as die-hard Star Wars fans shouldn’t expect to see Jabba in the hangar, because Lucas threw it in after Mel Brooks stole Lucas’s idea of re-titling his movies Star Wars: The Redux: The Search for More Money.  I won’t tell you how Mr. Doescher tackles the “Who Shot First” debate, but I will say that while I wasn’t one hundred percent satisfied, at least Greedo didn’t shoot first.

Something that Shakespeare did, Mr. Doescher does, and movies don’t really do anymore, is use soliloquies and asides to further characterization and motivation.  In theatre, you have to “play to the balcony,” meaning all your movements and vocalizations must be amplified so everyone throughout the room can hear and understand you.  In film, you don’t have to be so big – some of the best-acted scenes are minimalist in nature: a softening of the eyes, a curl to the lip; even a quick back-and-forth motion with your thumb under your nose can summon an army.

Shakespeare didn’t have the luxury of being able to be minimalist.  That’s why there are so many speeches, and monologues, and huge blocks of text.  A modern-day Hamlet would enter carrying his quandary in his eyebrows, and with a look we would be able to infer that he’s troubled with a decision.  But the balcony at the Globe couldn’t see that; so he soliloquizes.  Here, we actually hear from Luke his desire for adventure — him staring at the double sunset is no longer silent save for John Williams’s amazing score, now we hear him debate with himself whether he should search for adventure or stay and tend to the crops.  We learn that Han truly has a heart of gold because we hear him tell us.  Even Darth Vader soliloquizes some of his regrets in turning to the Dark Side.

When we first started reading it, Erica and I were joking about setting up auditions and getting a play produced.  Unlike Shakespeare’s plays, I don’t think Star Wars would translate to the stage well.  It’s too big — there are too many sets, too many set pieces, too much space to fit on a stage.  Imagine, if you will, attending the theatre for William Shakespeare’s Star Wars and once the curtain goes up, you see an empty stage.  You have a Chorus — oh that reminds me, I’ll get back to them later — that tells us where we are because we don’t have the space to set up Uncle Owen’s farm, or the cantina at Mos Eisley.  The best we can do is roll on a corner booth and a bar and have extras walking around in weird masks.  And no matter what type of budget you have, there is no way we could recreate the battle for the Death Star.  What makes Star Wars great was the spectacle of the thing — shrinking it down to fit on a stage would take some of that away, and we shouldn’t use theatre to minimize something.

A staged reading, on the other hand — that could work.

The Chorus: to help us set the scene, Mr. Doescher utilizes a Chorus.  Shakespeare used a Chorus, as did the Greeks.  I … It was one of my (few) nitpicks.  I felt that having the Chorus interject and remind us what was going on was a bit interrupty.  Now, as I said above, if one were to stage this as an actual play, one would need a timestamper, if you will (NO JOKES ABOUT GHOST HUNTERS, PLEASE).  But in reading it, he just felt out of place.  Sorry, Chorus.

Two final nitpicks and then we can put this (and myself) to bed:

1)  Multiple times, Mr. Doescher used the word sans instead of without.  It’s a perfectly appropriate word — sans is French for ‘without.’  But while it made the line scan correctly, it didn’t really sound like either Star Wars or Shakespeare.  And I felt that he used it a lot.  Not a lot-a lot, if you catch my meaning, but if the same word and usage shows up in at least each act, it stands out and detracts.

2)  I am actually going to end up blaming George Lucas for this one.  One of Shakespeare’s greatest elements is his use of wordplay.  And since Mr. Doescher was interpreting a script, I felt that this version of Shakespeare lacked that interplay of words.  There were humorous bits, but very few double entendres or playing with the language.  I missed that from this.  However, I don’t know if Lucas really allowed for a lot of wordplay in the source material, so … it’s probably a moot point, but I wanted to make it anyway.

So there.  That’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars.  But before I grade it, here’s what I’m embarking upon over the next 26 hours:

– I finished Dracula; I finished Star Wars.  Over the course of the holiday weekend I started and finished H is for Homicide.  I’m still reading that stupid little romance novel.  If I can finish that novel and read the entirety of one more book, I’ll have read the same amount of books this year as I did in 2012.  So I picked out the shortest Dick Francis novel I have in my collection, and if I don’t end up working in the bakery tomorrow (and no one comes over for New Year’s, which is fine), I’m going to be doing a shit-ton of reading.  Wish me luck!

Grade for William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: 5 stars

The Collaborators: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars

I AM TAKING A BREAK FROM CLEANING TO POST THIS

See, I host an annual Christmas party.  (I was almost going to add “every year,” but then I remembered that that’s what “annual” meant, and that’s where my head’s at, you guys.)  The Christmas Party is for people that I used to work with.  And this year, no one has declined.  That means, in less than 48 hours, my apartment will be filled with 23 adults, one toddler, and two infants.  What the everloving fuck did I get myself into?

Because — and you may have gleaned this from my reviews — I’m not the most organized person.  I have spent the majority of the afternoon and evening cleaning my apartment.  The living room and office are done, the kitchen is 75% done (and will be complete before I go to bed, so help me God), and the bathroom — well, I’ll take care of that tomorrow.  And bake cookies.  And finish someone’s gift before he shows up right at 5 like he did last year.  And as for everyone else’s presents: for the majority of you, being invited into my abode should be present enough, and then I’m baking you cookies.  Unless you’re allergic to coconut, you’re going to get cookies and LIKE IT.  (Just kidding, I love you all.)

So I took a moment to check my Facebook and I see that my counterpart Erica (of NYC Bookworm, if you don’t already know) has already posted her pre-review of our next book, William Shakespeare’s Star Wars.  And I swear, and then I say, “I’m gonna take a break from cleaning and post this so at least ONE TIME, I can post my thing on the same day.”

(I’m not sure why those pictures are so small … but I also know I’m not going to take a moment to fix it.)

Full confession: Erica, I haven’t read your review yet.  I saw the link and said “DAMMIT I’M GONNA DO THIS FOR ONCE.”

So here’s what I know about William Shakespeare’s Star Wars:

• It’s the story of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, told in iambic pentameter.
• It should be hilarious.

I would like to point out, however, that I know *all* about Regular Star Wars, because I have seen ALL of the Star Wars movies.  So many jokes I can get, you guys!  This is going to be epic!

In fact, here’s what I want out of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars:

• References to the prequels and how much they suck.  In iambic pentameter.
• Let’s face it; everything’s funnier in iambic pentameter.
• Iambic pentameter.  I’m just gonna keep saying that.
• If Han Solo doesn’t shoot first, then I quit.
• I also would like a reference to Darth Vader’s enormous helmet, and possibly, his dolls.

Personally, I’m excited to read something funny.  Like, I know going in that this should be hysterical.  Don’t know if y’all are aware, but I like funny things.  Making jokes is kind of my jam.  And while I enjoyed Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Brave New World, they weren’t really … funny, y’know?  I’m ready for a little laughter.

Honestly, I don’t know what this collab is going to look like.  I mean, we usually talk about characterization and plot and theme, and … it’s Star Wars.  I guess I can see if there are references to Shakespearean plays — outside of the ones found in the movies, that is.  But honestly?  I’m giving you a heads-up, Erica: our Tweetversation may just be me tweeting out my favorite lines.

Okay, before I wrap this up, let me read Erica’s review.  *hold music*

OH MAN I GUESS IT IS A PLAY

I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT THAT WAY

H2 CROWD WE ARE ACTING THIS OUT AT OUR NEXT NEW YEAR’S PARTY

I WANNA BE C3PO NO ARGUMENTS

As for the shortest book – I guess you’re right.  Honestly, I just want to finish a book.  Because yeah, I still have fifty pages of Dracula, and that review will be full of strong words for various reasons.

Okay, I’ve rambled plenty, and I have 25% of a kitchen to clean.  Here’s where I’d leave with a Star Wars reference, but all I can come up with is Han Solo telling the diner guys “sorry about the mess,” but it’s not like I shot Greedo out there.

So hopefully, after the party, by the end of the week, we’ll be having our 3rd Tweetversation.  Follow us at the following social media sites!  (It’ll be fun, I promise!  Now seriously, I need to be asleep in ninety minutes so I don’t completely crap out at work, I gotta go.)

Alaina – @WillBeFunOrElse
Erica – @NYCBookworm84 / nycbookworm.com

Fiction: “Bridget Jones’s Diary” by Helen Fielding

Dear Lord, I love this book.

I think this makes it the sixth time I’ve read it? I first read it … either in high school or freshman year of college. I want to say before college, because I definitely used an excerpt from Bridget Jones for a speech tournament at Franklin Pierce (British accent and everything! I believe I came in fourth. Hurrah!). For a while I was reading it every January, as a kind of kick-off of the year. But going back through my records (because yes, I am completely the crazy, paranoid, anal-retentive individual that keeps records of when she reads books, by month and year, and whether she’s read them before or not. IT’S ONLY A PROBLEM IF YOU THINK IT’S A PROBLEM), the last time I read it was 2007.

Why did I fall in love with Bridget Jones back then? She was funny, self-assured, thought she had a “weight problem” (come to me when your weight problem is an additional sixty pounds on you, Bridge), delightfully alcoholic and addicted to cigarettes, went through phases of trying to be a better person, and single in her thirties. Her character was someone I could connect with, even as a young adult.

I took the book back out of my bookcase this time because as I write this, there is one more week to go until I turn thirty. And apparently I’ve been all over Twitter with this, but nowhere else. Short story is: I’m not handling it. It’s not the age thing – I don’t feel thirty (not that I know what thirty feels like); when I get together with my friends I still feel young and we still want to do young things. I just thought that I’d be more … advanced in some parts of my life that I’m not. Do you know I’ve never colored my hair a wacky color? In high school, when everyone else was putting blue streaks and pink streaks in their hair (or dying their entire head a different color), I never touched the stuff. When I did highlight my hair, it was in subtle tones of red. Two days ago, Hot Topic was having a sale and I bought some colored chalk and I’ll use it, at some point, but a thirty-year-old with blue streaks just seems weird, right?

I’ve never sung karaoke. I don’t have a tattoo. I haven’t finished writing any of my stories. I’ve never been to a Hooter’s. And I’ve been single for a very long time. And let me tell you, Little Corner of the Internet For Whom I Write: I’m starting to feel lonely.

Anyway. Uh, sorry if you just read those paragraphs. Those were clearly meant for an analyst, not my book blog. Apologies.

But it’s also why I turned to Bridget Jones. I could read this from a thirty-year-old Singleton’s perspective — a perspective I’ve never had before. I always assumed I’d have found someone by now, so to be in pretty much the same position as Bridget would hopefully make me feel better.

Good news – she did. I mean, look! She experiences the same angst as me!:

Humph. Have woken up v. fed up. On top of everything, only two weeks to go until birthday, when will have to face up to the fact that another entire year has gone by, during which everyone else except me has mutated into Smug Married, having children plop, plop, plop, left right and center and making hundreds of thousands of pounds and inroads into very hub of establishment, while I career rudderless and boyfriendless through dysfunctional relationships and professional stagnation. [67-68]

If you’ve never read Bridget Jones’s Diary, it is written as a fictionalized diary. Meaning, it doesn’t sound like those blogs I used to write in college – she actually includes dialogue and elements of storytelling that a person wouldn’t necessarily employ when writing a diary. But that’s why it’s fiction. The book starts in January of a year (not necessary to the plot) and goes through December. Bridget works in publishing (I want to work in publishing!) and has a crush on her boss, Daniel Cleaver (I have never had a crush on any of my bosses! But I imagine that’s a thing). She visits her parents over Christmas (which is a thing that I also do!), and at an annual party, her mother and her mother’s friend Una try and set her up with Mark Darcy, a divorced barrister who Bridget used to play with as a child (none of those things ever happen to me, because the only childhood boy friend I had is gay! And lovely, and his boyfriend is lovely, but — I wasn’t friends with boys as a child… hm. Maybe that explains a lot.)

As the months go on, Bridget does have an affair with Daniel, but throughout she maintains her sense of self and character. At the first date, as he’s reaching for her skirt, he — well:

As he started to undo the zip he whispered, “This is just a bit of fun, OK? I don’t think we should start getting involved.” Then, caveat in place, he carried on with the zip. Had it not been for Sharon and the fuckwittage and the fact I’d just drunk the best part of a bottle of wine, I think I would have sunk powerless into his arms. As it was, I leaped to my feet, pulling up my skirt.

“That is just such crap,” I slurred. “How dare you be so fraudulently flirtatious, cowardly and dysfunctional? I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage. Good-bye.” [29]

She knows what she wants and what she doesn’t, and she waits for Daniel to commit to her before going out with him again. (It’s not her fault he cheats on her – he’s a fuckwit.)

Meanwhile, in another part of the plot that (luckily) does not echo anything going on in my real life, Bridget’s mother is going through an end-of-life crisis, in which she leaves her husband and becomes a reporter for a morning show doing a report called “Suddenly Single,” which consists of her thrusting a microphone under the nose of a single woman and asking them, “Have you had suicidal thoughts?” Bridget’s mother is a caricature, almost, but in the end of the book she gets her comeuppance and returns to her husband after taking a lover (Julio) that turns out to be a con artist.

And then there’s Mark Darcy. I should have mentioned at the top that this book is also a very loose reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, with Bridget playing the part of Elizabeth Bennet, Daniel Cleaver becoming George Wickham, and Mark Darcy obviously playing the great role of Fitzwilliam Darcy. (So now you know why I find Bridget’s mother so bloody annoying — I *detest* Mrs. Bennet.) If you’ve read P&P, you know that at the end of the novel, Darcy is going to help Bridget with a family problem, thereby winning her over completely – this after he’s steadily had her warm to him over the course of a couple of months. For instance:

“Last Christmas,” Mark went hurriedly, “I thought if my mother said the words ‘Bridget Jones’ just once more I would go to the Sunday People and accuse her of abusing me as a child with a bicycle pump. Then when I met you … and I was wearing that ridiculous diamond-patterned sweater that Una had bought for me Christmas … Bridget, all the other girls I know are so lacquered over.” [207]

And then he asks her out for dinner.  swoon

AND THEN, after he goes and gets Julio captured and Bridget’s mother is back at home with her husband, Mark whisks Bridget away from her family and craziness on Christmas to decompress, rents a suite at a local hotel and then orders room service. He’s telling her the story of how he basically Sam Spade-ed Julio out of Portugal, when:

“I simply told him that she was spending Christmas with your dad, and, I’m afraid, that they’d be sleeping in the same bed. I just had a feeling he was crazy enough, and stupid enough, to attempt to, er, undermine those plans.”

“How did you know?”

“A hunch. It kind of goes with the job.” God, he’s cool.

“But it was so kind of you, taking time off work and everything. Why did you bother doing all this?”

“Bridget,” he said. “Isn’t it rather obvious?”

Oh my God. [266]

GUH. Because no, it’s not always obvious! And maybe that’s coming from a woman who is completely oblivious. I admit: I do not recognize when someone flirts with me, mainly because it happens only all the never time. So when someone starts being nice – and nicer than normal – for instance, friends that do not usually have physical contact beyond a fistbump or high-five, all of a sudden they start giving gentlemanly shoulder slaps of “Good job!,” and also saying that they have a plan for a birthday, when normally booze is exchanged and that’s it? Is that flirting, or is it the new normal? I DON’T KNOW, I ACTUALLY CAN’T READ SIGNS.

I’m telling you, guys — my mind is one big ball of crazy. But at least I don’t keep track of how many calories I ingest on any given day?

In the end, this book is one I will continuously return to. The narrator is smart, funny — I will say, also exceptionally British. There are some jokes that I have to look up to get the reference, but luckily, they’re not the important jokes. And overall, Bridget is relate-able. She resonated with me when I was in high school, as someone to look up to. Now, I find her a comrade-in-Singleton-arms. And I look forward to the day when I can revisit her and say, “Oh, that used to be me.”

PS – the movie is good too. Doesn’t follow the book’s plot 100%, but who can resist Colin Firth playing Mark Darcy? Hmm… maybe that’s how I’ll spend the rest of this snow day…

Grade for Bridget Jones’s Diary: 6 stars

Fiction: “Practical Demonkeeping” by Christopher Moore

Fucking-A, man. As one of my heroes, Frank Vitchard, once said: this is getting ri-goddamn-diculous. I finished this book back in October. October. Like, before Halloween. And I’m just getting to write about it now? The hell, man?

And as if that weren’t bad enough, it has taken me three weeks to read one book. You know how I know it’s been three weeks? Because the book (and the four others I took out from the library) are due this week. I’m not sure which day they were due — all I know is I’m looking at some overdue fees because I’m too lazy to get out my library card and renew them online. And I’m not even sure I can renew them once they’re overdue (although I think I’ve done that in the past).

Let’s put this in perspective. In the time since I’ve finished Practical Demonkeeping and tonight, when I’m writing the review, the following things have happened: 1) LucasFilm was bought out by Disney; 2) Barack Obama was reelected President of the United States; and 3) Hostess went out of business, thereby ruining stonerdom for all time. You all want signs of the apocalypse? There’s three for you right there.

Okay, so, speaking of apocalypses. Apocalypsi? Shit. I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse. And now I’m pissed that I’m quoting Riley Finn, of all people. And now my thumb hurts, for no readily apparent reason. That’s karma for ya.

OKAY, ALAINA. I said, “Speaking of apocalypses,” let’s talk about Practical Demonkeeping. This was Christopher Moore’s first novel, but not the first novel by him that I read. Back in the middle of October — y’know, when I actually read this damn thing — I found myself going through a terrible bout of nostalgia. I had realized that I had six months to remain in my twenties, and there is a long list of Things I Want to Do Before Turning 30. (Which now includes “Travel to Washington, D.C. for a Weekend so I Can Touch the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 That Lives in the International Spy Museum.” Thanks, Skyfall!) So as a way to make myself feel better about not accomplishing anything on that list thus far and, also, as a way of dealing with my return of Saturn, I picked up Practical Demonkeeping because a) I keep meaning to read more of Moore, and why not restart at the beginning, and b) because my landlady’s husband was currently reading H is for Homicide.

Practical Demonkeeping introduces the town of Pine Cove, California, which I imagine to be a tiny town close to Big Sur. I say ‘imagine’ because, if y’all recall, when I was supposed to drive through that area last year, a chunk of the PCH fell into the ocean, causing my detour into Salinas. So I can’t really say that it is Big Sur; I can only guess. I was really looking forward to driving over the Bixby Canyon Bridge while listening to “Bixby Canyon Bridge.”

Wow. Apparently I am still pissed about that. Fucking gravity, man.

Pine Cove is a sleepy little town where not much ever happens. Augustus Brine runs the Bait, Tackle and Wine Shop. Mavis runs the Head of the Slug tavern. Robert and Jenny are going through a divorce, and the entire town knows about it. The same thing happens every day — and because this could be a potential Moore-sian twist, no, it is not Groundhog Day. It’s just that nothing ever happens in Pine Cove.

Until one day, a stranger named Travis arrives in town. He’s quiet, very polite, and a shark at billiards. At the same time, Augustus is visited by a Djinn, who tells him he needs to help fight against a demon.

Turns out, Travis has been traveling for ninety years with the demon Catch, who eats people. Catch is controlled by a spell created by an old Pope (or something), and is only able to remain in Travis’s control by the strength of Travis’s will to control the demon. (Does that make sense? I’ve been trying to write this review for three days, and I’m too … something to go back and rewrite that sentence.) Travis’s will begins to falter when he meets Jenny, which allows Catch to go on an overnight quest amongst the residents of Pine Cove to gather the tools to gain his freedom.

Practical Demonkeeping is a very funny book, but not as funny as Lamb. Sure, there were some laugh-out-loud moments, but I think the reason Lamb is funnier is because the subject matter from which Christopher Moore creates his novel is decidedly not funny. One doesn’t expect humor to come out of the Bible; when it does show up, what was supposedly a tiny little joke becomes exponentially funnier.

Okay. One review down; one more to go, and then I need to fucking finish this other book I’m reading. Three weeks for a 300-page book? Seriously?

Grade for Practical Demonkeeping: 3 stars

Essays: “Fraud” by David Rakoff

Written September 5, 2012

Oh my god, this is the most frustrating thing ever. Well, okay; one of the most frustrating things. This is easily in the top ten, though.

As y’all know by now, I’ve been having issues getting internet. So here I am on my day off this week, doing laundry at the semi-local Laundromat. (There’s a localer one in Freeport, but I didn’t even go inside. It didn’t look clean, and there were no tables or chairs. In fact, for lack of a better term, the whole place looked pretty … rapey, and I don’t like throwing around that word. [IT IS SO A WORD, SHUT UP BRAD, who doesn’t even read this]) So I drove down to Portland and went to my old Laundromat, because yeah, it’s a bit out of my way, but I know I’ll have a table and a chair on which to write while my laundry spins. And all the light bulbs work.

(Except that, when I get here, there are no chairs. The chairs by the tables have disappeared. And so, I’m sitting on a table cross-legged, with my netbook in my lap. And my iPod’s battery is in the red, so I’m playing Chicken with Barney the iPod to see who cracks first. All I need is a pair of Old Navy flip-flops and my ratty FPC sweatshirt and it’d be just like college up in here.)

(FPC = Franklin Pierce College. Fuck you, Franklin Pierce University. I mean, what the shit is that?)

So anyway. I’m perched, and I happen to see that there are internet connections available. And I’ve almost never been able to connect to WiFi here, but I’m desperate, so I give it a shot. And holy shit — the Yahoo! page comes up! And I can open another tab and then Google comes up! And I can vote for the Tubeys on Television Without Pity! And then —

AND THEN THE ROUTER CONKS OUT AND I’M INTERNET-LESS AGAIN.

Dear Internets: why do you hate me? All I want to do is love you, and learn with you, and watch TV on you, and interact with you. You’ve been a true companion over the past decade; why are you turning on me? ALL I WANT TO DO IS CONNECT WITH YOU AND YOU WON’T LET ME.

*sigh* And so, after half an hour (or one wash cycle) of frigging with the internet that doesn’t belong to me, it turns out it’s the router which isn’t mine so I can’t fix it, and that’s why I’m writing this, my last backlog blog, in a Word document. Because the Internet hates me. And Wednesday hates me. And my days off hate me. Basically, all of the hatred in the world somehow got together today and decided, “Hey, it’s Alaina’s ONE DAY OFF this week! Let’s see what we can do to completely fuck it up.”

Therefore, I think it’s fitting that today’s book review is of Fraud, a collection of essays by the (sadly) late David Rakoff.

I picked up Mr. Rakoff’s second collection, Don’t Get Too Comfortable, after seeing him on The Daily Show. I thought he was hysterically funny, and to be honest, there have been a couple of books I’ve picked up because Jon Stewart clearly had chosen to read the book, not just the back cover (you watch enough Daily Show, you learn to tell the difference between when Jon reads the book and when he doesn’t). And then, because this is how I operate, I went out and bought the first book — Fraud — and then promptly … didn’t read it.

In fact, I leant both books to Brad a few years ago — right after I bought both of them. He’s a Sedaris fan, and … he may have seen me reading Comfortable in the break room, or maybe I was reading my favorite parts out loud because I loved it so much, anyway, he asked to borrow them; I said ‘sure.’ Two years later I get the first one back; I don’t get Fraud back until last summer. In fact — and I told him this when I got them back — I had forgotten I had leant them to him. I wasn’t even pissed about the length of time it took to give them back, because I had his copy of Million Dollar Baby for at least two years, and for most of it, it was holding up Jeremy the Tivo at the old apartment. (He may have gotten the case back with a TiVo-sized dent in the top. He was a sport and still leant me stuff after that. This is why we are friends.)

(I also think it’s hilarious that, in the process of moving, I offered Brad first dibs on any of my books and/or DVDs I was going to get rid of. He said that he was ‘all about Blu-Ray,’ and passed on the DVDs, but did say, “I’ll take your David Rakoff books.” But I want those, Brad! You are limited to the books in the box marked “TO GET RID OF.”)

Then, a month ago, I learn that Mr. Rakoff passed away. I was really sad when I heard that, because I loved Don’t Get Too Comfortable, and was hoping he’d be around for a very long time. Put succinctly: Fuck cancer, man.

So when I unpacked my books and found Fraud, I picked it up after Loyalty in Death. And when I saw this was the first quote (I’m not sure what the term is, but it’s the quote that authors put before they start their books, and it gives the book a sense of atmosphere and theme), my heart melted and I died a little:

OH MY GOD. Oh, my GOD. You guys. That is I kid you not, one of my favorite quotes of all time. It’s from All About Eve, one of the best movies of all time. I love that movie so much, I’m not sure I’ll be able to talk coherently about it. My favorite character (after Margo Channing, of course, who is played by the fabulous Bette Davis) is Addison De Witt, the theatre critic, played by the wonderful George Sanders (the voice of Shere Khan in Disney’s The Jungle Book, for those who may have seen that movie and not All About Eve, which is okay — I liked The Jungle Book). The quote in question is directed towards the great Margo Channing, who is in the middle of the performance of her life: the bumpy night of the other famous quote from the movie. She is lashing out at everyone due to her own crumbling self-esteem, and Addison notices it, latches on to it, points it out, and turns it into a compliment. Because yes, she is being terribly maudlin (who plays Liebestraum over and over again at a party?) and full of self-pity (because she doesn’t believe Bill when he tells her he feels nothing for Eve, who is much younger than Margo), but you know what? She is magnificent in her downward spiral. She commands the room as she commands the stage, and all eyes are on her during these moments. She is magnificent.

While others have clung to Margo’s famous ‘Curtain’ speech, about women and their careers and what they give up for success and how love and family plays into their success, I have always raised the flag of Addison as my life-model. He is a success, he is a manipulating bastard, and he calls ’em like he sees ’em. And to everyone out there: you may be maudlin and full of self-pity, but by God, you are magnificent.

Holy crap; almost thirteen hundred words and almost none of them are about the book. So anyway, when I saw that quote I died a little and knew immediately that I would love the book.

As I think I said above (I’m not scrolling up to find out), Fraud is a collection of essays. Mr. Rakoff was a contributor to This American Life on NPR, and he’d written articles for GQ and New York Times Magazine. The premise of this collection is that Mr. Rakoff goes and does things that he doesn’t normally do (like, climb a mountain in New England, visit Tokyo, and attend a comedy festival) and try to assimilate into that particular segment of culture.

In the first essay, Mr. Rakoff climbs — I shit you not — Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. Why do I shit you not? Because Mount Monadnock is within sight of the aforementioned Franklin Pierce College that I attended! I have people who have actually climbed Mount Monadnock! (I have not, because I have always been very upfront about not being a hiker.) He meets up with this guy, Larry David, who has climbed the mountain every day. Rakoff, also not being a hiker, wears Payless hiking boots and gets winded easily. When they reach the summit, instead of feeling victorious and like he conquered something, Rakoff feels apathy: “this is it?” Sorry, David; if you had asked me first, I would have told you that Jaffrey, NH’s nothing to write home about. All it has is a Mr. Mike’s gas station.

He travels to Iceland to investigate the myth of the Hidden People. There’s this rock, see, and the city of Reykjavík wants to redo a road, and the rock will have to be moved. But local lore says that there’s a race of Hidden People (like elves) that inhabit the rock, and if the rock is moved or their home destroyed, terrible things will happen. Obviously, Rakoff finds no evidence about the Hidden People, but he does interview a woman who claims to have them living with her in her house:

“One sits there, two are walking over here, one sits there. When she plays music they come. It attracts them.”

I am suddenly overcome with a completely inappropriate urge: the barely suppressed impulse to slam my hand down on the coffee table really, really hard, right where she’s pointing. [88]

I felt that this collection was more cohesive than Don’t Get Too Comfortable — but please don’t quote me, as it’s been at least four years since I read that one. There were a couple of places that made me laugh out loud, but only because I’m a pop culture moron: he attends a cultish weekend, and is told that lunch will begin with a blast from a conch shell, and I immediately yelled out “NEWS TEAM … ASSEMBLE.” He tells a story about this Greek ice cream shop he used to work at as a teenager, and the hired a French chef named … Benoît. [BALLS — thanks, Archer.] He mentions the plight of Kitty Geneovese, and I start reciting the Boondock Saints prayer.

Oh look, I’m about to tie the whole thing together! David Rakoff was this generation’s Addison De Witt. He may not have been a theatre critic, but he critiqued our culture, from the weird cults and the survivalists to Tokyo and Icelandic Hidden People. He tried to understand why those people believed what they did and he tried to indoctrinate himself, but his cynicism wouldn’t let him. Which is fine — my cynicism keeps me from believing lots of things. He has an acerbic wit that cuts to the core but also enlightens and reveals hidden depths in his words.

So dear Brad, I’m keeping this book. And Don’t Get Too Comfortable. And I’m going to buy his other book too, and I’ll also keep that. You may borrow them again; that’s cool.

But I really like his writing, and am still very sad that he’s gone too soon. You will be missed, David Rakoff. Very much.

And with that, I am caught up with my backlog. And also, I have internets at the new apartment, so I shouldn’t have to steal from Starbucks any longer. Huzzah!

Grade for Fraud: 4 stars

Essays: “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” by Sloane Crosley

After the interminable time-suck that was Great Expectations, I needed something short, sweet, easy-to-understand, and above all, funny to read next. And since this year I have made myself promise that I am only reading books I own and not a) buying any more or b) borrowing them from the library because I have so many books [note: I have broken that Promise A twice in the past 48 hours], I found this title hiding underneath a bunch of Bad Romance Novels and Dick Francis titles in my little bookcase.

I can’t remember how I heard of Sloane Crosley. I think I was reading one of the many Entertainment Weeklys that Johnny used to give me and they had reviewed her second book, How Did You Get This Number, and I, being both the Masochist and the Completist that readers over on Movies Alaina’s Never Seen have come to know and both love to hate and hate to love, decided to find her first title and read that before reading the second, because obviously, essays have sequels?

So anyway, like so many other books I own (I swear, one of these days I’m going to post pictures of the two bookcases in my room, plus the three tubs of books I’ve got scattered throughout the house so y’all understand), I bought it and then promptly forgot about it. Until three days ago, when I picked it up and then promptly blazed through it in good ol’ Alaina fashion.

Three days! I finished this book in three days! Huzzah! (and there was much rejoicing.)

I Was Told There’d Be Cake is fifteen essays by a twenty-something New Yorker about random things, ranging in topics from moving into a new apartment (and getting locked out of said apartment), being a pescetarian, and her tenure volunteering for the buttefly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. There are also stories from her childhood, including summer camp and when she found out her mother had a first husband.

But the three essays that really hit home with me are, in no particular order: “Bring-Your-Machete-To-Work-Day,” “You On a Stick,” and “Bastard Out of Winchester.”

“Bring-Your-Machete-To-Work-Day” is, in essence, an ode to the Oregon Trail. Yes, the Oregon Trail — the game we all grew up with in grade school. Ms. Crosley discusses the game’s ability to suck us in on a long journey when we’re really not going anywhere. She enjoyed the game thoroughly as a young teen; not because it taught her about the hardships our settlers experienced on their journey to the Pacific coast, but because she used the game to work out some of her rage issues.

I would load up the wagon with people I loathed, like my math teacher. Then I would intentionally lose the game, starving her or fording a river when I knew she was weak. The program would attempt an intervention, informing me that I had enough buffalo carcass for one day. One more lifeless caribou would make the wagon too heavy, endangering the lives of those inside. Really now? Then how about three more? How about four? Nothing could stop this huntress of the diminutive plains. It was time to level the playing field between me and the woman who called my differential equations “nonsensical” in front of fifteen other teenagers. Eventually a message would pop up in the middle of the screen, framed in a neat box: MRS. ROSS HAS DIED OF DYSENTERY. This filled me with glee. [55-56]

WHY DIDN’T I EVER THINK OF THAT?! Think how many times I could have killed Tiffany Smith from sixth grade…

“You On a Stick” is the tale of when she accidentally got roped into being her old high school friend’s Maid of Honor. I have been in a couple of weddings, and I have to say that none of them were as bad as her experience. Essentially, she goes through the first eight months or so of the year-long process not realizing that she was named as the bride’s maid of honor. Essentially, this essay is gives oblique advice to brides: namely, let your friends know if they are a maid of honor or a bridesmaid. The distinction is important. And just because you’re not screaming at the top of your lungs and cursing doesn’t mean you’re not a Bridezilla. Actually, what this essay reminded me of was when my sister was a bridesmaid for one of her friends. It sounds exactly like when my sister was a bridesmaid.

Finally, “Bastard out of Westchester” talks about her name and her identity growing up. WIth the first name of “Sloane,” she was teased a lot about Ferris Bueller and the Sloane Ranger. With a first name of Alaina, I didn’t have a lot of pop culture references, but I did have a lot of mispronunciations. Alana, Elena, Eleanor one time — I’ve heard ’em all. One day, Sloane asked her mother where the name came from, and she learned it was from an old black-and-white movie called Diamond Rock. She eventually watched it and was sad that the character “Sloane” wasn’t as awesome as she had made it out to be.

The story of my name (abridged):
One night, years and years ago (I think I was about … twelve? fifteen?) and I was helping my dad pack up a bookcase — we were about to do a remodel in the living room. And in the bookcase were a lot of my mother’s old romance novels. At that time, I had an … interesting relationship with romance novels. At that age, they weren’t really something I was allowed to read, so I ended up sneaking them to read the “good parts.” (Which is probably why I’m so messed up romantically right now.) But I was also jaded enough at that young age to recognize that love never actually happened like it did in romance novels (thanks, stupid Junior High and High School Valentine’s Day carnation sales, for making me feel completely unliked throughout February every year), so I also didn’t really like reading them.

So as Dad and I were packing up the books, I was reading the backs of them, trying to figure out why these plots were so intriguing to women. And then, on the back of one of those books, I read my name.

I dropped the book. “Dad? Is this where Mom got my name?”

He wasn’t paying attention. “Go ask your mother.”

I immediately ran downstairs to the basement, where Mom was working on her stained glass. “Mom! Was I named out of a romance novel?”

“Huh?”

“MOOOOOMMM!”

Turns out she was reading the book while pregnant with me, and she liked the name, and hence, Alaina was born. Literally. In both senses of the word.

I am not naming this book here, because — I can’t remember how we got onto the subject, but one of my former coworkers and I were talking about names and I mentioned that I was named after a character in a romance novel, and he wanted to know what book, and I said, “You’re gonna have to figure it out!” and he replied, “Challenge accepted!” And interestingly enough, it was not Brad. I don’t think he even knows that I was named after a romance character. So, to aid in your search, Former Coworker: written 1982 or prior; romance novel with a character named Alaina. GO.

Also, ever since, whenever I find a copy of that book, I buy it. I don’t know why, because I’m not planning on reading it any time soon. I imagine two things: I want to have a copy of every edition it was ever published, and see the progression of different covers they’ve put on there; and two, that that book will be my version of Desmond Hume’s Our Mutual Friend: it will be the last book I read before I die. Because I’m not sure I feel comfortable reading about a Yankee Alaina who cross-dressed as a soldier in the Civil War having sex.

Oh: Civil War cross-dressing. GO.

Grade for I Was Told There’d Be Cake: 4 stars

Non-Fiction: “How To Archer” by Sterling Archer

Sterling Archer is the world’s greatest secret agent. And while the FX series that details his escapades (titled after himself, naturally) is animated, one shouldn’t assume that means it’s fictitious. After all, one knows what it means when one assumes. It means you’re a dick.

Mr. Archer was asked to write a how-to book on espionage for HarperCollins. Unfortunately, Mr. Archer thought that they were asking him to write his memoirs:

“A how-to book?! A book can’t teach someone how to be equal parts deadly and sexy! That’s like asking a cobra to write a book about how to be a cobra!”

“Well, I’m sorry, but a how-to book is what you just signed a contract to write.”

I pause, thinking about my options. And about money. And John Huston. And cobras.

“Could it have a chapter about cobras?” [xiii]

SPOILER ALERT: there is no chapter about cobras. And don’t think he doesn’t ever let that go.

And so, Mr. Archer sets about writing 30,000 words of how to espionage. Or spy; whatever. I believe the greatest compliment I can give Mr. Archer is: for (or, in spite of) all of his epic poonhoundery, he is a rather kick-ass spy, and he gives us a lot of information. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “how-to” book, though; more of an overview.

Anyway. The bulk of the overview is on the day-to-day work that is espionage. He does warn us, however, that he has mixed feelings about giving all of his trade secrets away in trade paperback form:

In addition to possibly enjeopardizing my life at some point in the future, sharing my secrets of tradecraft is wildly irresponsible: I bet this book won’t be in stores twenty minutes before some dumb idiot kid catches himself on fire trying to make a Molotov cocktail (see Molotov Cocktail, page 84). But that’s HarperCollins’s problem. And apparently they have the best lawyers in the world. ^6
^6: So good luck with your lawsuit, anguished mother of that dumb idiot kid who caught himself on fire. [1]

Oh right, PS, there are footnotes throughout, which are not only hilarious, but also count towards the overall word count.

Mr. Archer jumps right into Things That A Spy Does That Is Not Drinking Or Screwing. Essentially, there’s a bunch of alphabetical indexes for various categories. Found under “General Tradecraft” is this explanation of Dead Drop:

A dead drop is a secret location that makes it possible for two (or more) agents to exchange information without having to meet in person. One agent places the information in the dead drop — for example, a mailbox. He then uses a prearranged signal to alert a second agent that a drop has been made — for example, a small red flag on the outside of the . . . Goddamn it. An hour of research. To basically just learn how the U.S. Postal Service works. [7]

He goes into a bit more depth in the weaponry section. A little bit. [just the tip?]

FLARE GUN
While the flare gun — also known as a Very pistol — was originally designed for use as a signalling device, you can also use it to shoot people. People who then catch on fire. [25]

Mr. Archer is also very knowledgeable on makes of pistols. For those wondering (which should be all of you), he prefers a Walther PPK to the American-made Colt .45, because a, it’s smaller and therefore doesn’t ruin the fall of his suit, and also b, shut up.

When discussing poisons, Mr. Archer does not help to discourage an idea that a dear friend of mine has: namely, that I (and another dear friend) write for the ArcherTV show:

Often these poisons are fast acting: if you got hit in the neck with a dart tipped with poison[^47] from the tiny Phyllobates terribilis, also known as the Poison Dart Frog (holy shit – true story – I just this second got why they call them that) you’d be dead before you reached the end of this sentence[^48]
^47: They say stress is the silent killer. But poison darts are also pretty damn quiet.
^48: If you happened to be reading that sentence when you got neck-darted. [43]

I can hear Sarah confirming now: Shit happens! People get shot in the neck with darts! [Silent, poison darts.]

Torture (or, interrogation techniques) is one aspect of espionage in which Mr. Archer does not engage. Mainly because it’s messy, but also, it’s controversial.

Torture is one of those things that Americans constantly whine about (e.g., the inhumane treatment of cows), but then they go out and exhibit the exact behavior (e.g., gobbling down a big platter of delicious sliders) that perpetuates the necessity of that thing in the first place.

Americans are repelled by the very thought of their government’s sanctioning torture, and yet they demand to not be blown up by terrorists. But it’s the exact same principle. Except that the cows are now terrorists — a chilling thought in and of itself — and national security is now a steaming plate of hot, juicy miniburgers. And you can’t have your sliders and eat ’em too, folks. [60]

Once Mr. Archer divulges as many secrets about the spy trade as he can (which is quite a lot, actually), he still has about 15,000 words remaining. So he gives us a section on cocktails [alcoholic] and cocktails [waitresses] to help round out the lesson.

The Alcoholic Cocktails section is also an alphabetic compendium, and while I, a renowned alcoholic, am familiar with a lot of these recipes (and have, in fact, improved upon many), it is worth it to read the recipes if only for Mr. Archer’s wit and wisdom.

Moscow Mule
I was worried that, given the overall espionage theme of this book, the Moscow Mule might seem like too obvious a choice. But then I realized go write your own fucking book. [85]

Sidecar
Why doesn’t anyone drink sidecars anymore? Or, for that matter, ride around in them? Because I can’t think of a single thing I would rather do than get totally ripped on a thermos full of these babies while somebody motorcycles me around town and country in an actual sidecar. [89]

Whiskey Sour
Oh my God. If I’d known that America had a gomme syrup-based economy, I would’ve invested in whatever stuff gomme syrup is made out of. I can’t do that, however, because I obviously have no idea what that stuff is. The only thing I know is that Woodhouse is in trouble. [91]

(According to the footnotes throughout the section, recipes keep popping up with gomme syrup as a major factor, and sadly, Mr. Archer’s valet Woodhouse is out getting oranges and is unable to define gomme syrup for Mr. Archer. Mr. Archer is going to pain Woodhouse dearly upon his return.)

Mr. Archer also discusses dining, style, how to finance your operations both personal and professional, and how to sex up the ladies, both amateur and professional. (Tip: Keep the money in your sock, keep your sock on your foot.) He also includes a handy, hand-drawn map of the brothels found in Phuket, Thailand. Finally, he has one last index: brief information of all the nations in the world (that are worth knowing). Even Andorra:

Andorra
This tiny principality is actually a co-principality, meaning it’s ruled by two princes. Which makes me wonder: What ever happened to the Spin Doctors? Were they all murdered? [159]

I would recommend this title for anyone who has ever seen the television show Archer, as well as those with a sense of humor. But there are some stories he tells where it’s helpful to have some knowledge of the escapades he’s revealed on the show.

The only thing missing from this tome of excellence is one sweet, spotted ocelot named Babou. Without him, it’s like … Meowschwitz in here.

(Sorry — couldn’t help myself.)

Grade for How To Archer: 5 stars

(no seriously, if that fox-eared asshole Babou had made an appearance it would have easily made that sixth star.)