_________ Up

Charlie Chaplin appears simultaneously in over 200 places across the country. Lee Duncan tries to save him from crashing into a sure death trap while floating helplessly into the California coastline. Hugo Black is upset when Chaplin doesn't show for his planned appearance at a Texas railway station. But the real Charlie Chaplin knows nothing of this whole plot. And after that story line dissolves by page 10, neither does the reader. Which is too bad, because the idea was what intrigued me to pick the book up in the first place.

So instead we're left with 3 mildly connected story lines in the lives of Chaplin, Duncan, and Black during the misery of World War I. One is a famous actor who tries to prove his worth by stumping for the war rather than enlisting. One is a wannabe actor who is forced into enlisting. And the other just enlists.

These 3 plot lines are interesting enough for awhile, but this was one of those books where the last 100 pages or so just felt like labor. And not the good kind. A majority of this book was entertaining and seemed to have a good feel for the mood of the times around WWI (I say "seemed" because I was born 69 years after war's end) but I think the 3-story format might have been too ambitious and the connections between them too loose to sustain that entertainment throughout the whole thing.

However, I did get to read about Charlie Chaplin, World War I, the origins of Rin Tin Tin, and a spectacularly scheming Jewish family. And I did enjoy over half the book. So all in all I think I'd call it a modest success.

Weirdly wonderful

She really IS crushable!! And her writing's not at all bad either. In fact, I really enjoyed the twists and turns and tangents that her stories took. Some were a little strange, some a little uncomfortable, but that's what I loved about them. Ms. July is not your run-of-the-mill story-teller. Oh, and Julie? I agree with you about "The Swim Team". I think that was my favorite too. I listened to this book and was pleased to know that Miranda is the reader and she has a mesmerizingly flat, calming voice that goes well with her tricky stories. I wish I had a hard copy though because there were some lines that I'd love to quote in here and I know if I try to recreate them right now, I'll slaughter them. Maybe I'll just have to take a trip to B&N!

Beautiful, Slim, and Sad.......

This is how Doug Parker's twin sister, Claire, describes him when she points out that he's in great demand by the women in town now. That's because Doug is a 29 year old widower, his wife having died in a plane crash 2 years ago. And he is beautiful and sad and slim and young and there's nothing like a dashing tragic figure to bring out the maternal instincts in all the ladies. Plus he's got a great job writing a column for the local paper and a huge settlement pending from the airlines. This guy's going to be not only beautiful, slim, and sad but rich too!

Jonathan Tropper has written another great story here. I recently reviewed another one of his books: "This Is Where I Leave You" and promised that I'd be reading more and I have and am glad I did and will be reading others down the line. Tropper understands family. He understands family really well! I loved Claire and Debbie, Paul's sisters and his demented father and brutally upfront mom and his 16 year old troubled but lovable stepson. Tropper has written a sad story about a sad man in sad circumstances yet manages to throw in a lot of humor, a lot of wit, enough that this story doesn't even come close to being depressing or sappy. Tropper has been compared to the writer Nick Hornby and I tend to agree but I happen to think that Tropper is better. I loved Doug Parker. You will too.

Skippy Dies.

In the first few pages of this book, Skippy turns purple in a doughnut shop, falls onto the floor, writes a half-message in raspberry filling with his finger, and then, of course, dies.

The book then cycles back in time, splits itself into thirds - Hopeland, Heartland, and Ghostland - and gives us the whole story. It's about a private boarding school in Ireland called Seabrook. It's about the 14 year old boys who live there. It's about the teachers that teach there. It's about string theory and the 11 dimensions of space and time. It's about Irish folklore and repressed Fathers and diet pills and watching girls through telescopes and Hallowe'en dances and text messaging. And then it's about death.

I loved some of this book. The science experiments, the nervous breakdowns, bad boy Carl stealing fireworks to trade for diet pills to trade for blowjobs and anal sex, the musings on space and time and the fabric of reality. I liked all that. Other things, the 14-year-old dialogue, the lighting of farts into fire, the long tirades about priests and repressed homosexuality, and private school behind-closed-door dealings, the rather unlikable 2-dimensional adults... It's 661 pages, and Paul Murray tries to cram in, it seems, everything he's ever learned about the world. Some of it is fascinating. Some of it ends up being rather masturbatory.

But the book is fun, and it's fast, and you get to like Skippy so much that you forget what the book is called, until about halfway through, when you remember again, and then you get sad because you know that Skippy Dies.

Soñé con detectives helados en el gran refrigerador de Los Àngeles en el gran refrigerador de México D.F.

THE ROMANTIC DOGS

Back then, I'd reached the age of twenty

and I was crazy.

I'd lost a country

but won a dream.

As long as I had that dream

nothing else mattered.

Not working, not praying

not studying in the morning light

alongside the romantic dogs.

And the dream lived in the void of my spirit.

A wooden bedroom,

cloaked in half-light,

deep in the lungs of the tropics.

And sometimes I'd retreat inside myself

and visit the dream: a statue eternalized

in liquid thoughts,

a white worm writhing

in love.

A runaway love.

A dream within another dream.

And the nightmare telling me: you will grow up.

You'll leave behind the images of pain and of the labyrinth

and you'll forget.

But back then, growing up would have been a crime.

I'm here, I said, with the romantic dogs

and here I'm going to stay.

GODZILLA IN MEXICO

Listen carefully, my son: bombs were falling

over Mexico City

but no one even noticed.

The air carried poison through

the street and open windows.

You'd just finished eating and were watching

cartoons on TV.

I was reading in the bedroom next door

when I realized we were going to die.

Despite the dizziness and nausea I dragged myself

to the kitchen and found you on the floor.

We hugged. You asked what was happening

and I didn't tell you we were on death's program

but instead that we were going on a journey,

one more, together, and that you shouldn't be afraid.

When it left, death didn't even

close our eyes.

What are we? you asked a week or year later,

ants, bees, wrong numbers

in the big rotten soup of chance?

We're human beings, my son, almost birds,

public heroes and secrets.

The City of Ember- Jeanne DuPrau

The City of Ember (its another dystopic young adult novel, I admit it!) is a fun read. In the city of Ember the sky is always dark. The only light comes from the electric lights that line the city and houses. Beyond the city is only darkness and unknown. This is the only life teens Doon and Lina have ever known, and they are happy here. But as the city approaches 500 years in existence, the lights are beginning to fail and the food is starting to run out. If the citizens of Ember don't do something drastic and soon, they will die in darkness.

The concept of the book is great and you spend the novel wondering what happened to the rest of the world and what lies outside the city. However, the characters are pretty weak and I'm going to tell you right now (this is a 4 book series) that the rest of the books are truly bad. But this one has it's merits and I enjoyed it. The world Duprau creates is vivid and bright in it's perpetual darkness.

And one last note, Bill Murray is in the 2008 movie version?

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Yay! Nice conclusion to the series. Very satisfying. Fast-paced. Thrilling. Yay!