Juvenile Nonfiction

A National Book Award winner (1980), written (for young people but readable at all ages) in the highly stylized — and heightened — language of classic folk tales; borrowing its title from the ancient Irish manuscript of the same name and its characters from Chaucer; that is, taking as its sources a wide range of ancient storytelling traditions, including not least The Story — where most of the characters here are Types of Christ and the tale is the ancient one of the suffering servant who defeats Death Itself by self-sacrifice, and of the common folk who hold Evil at bay simply by doing well the simple work that is given them to do (though the folk here are Roosters, Hens, Weasels, Dogs and the Dun Cow, and the evil is Wyrm and his minion, Cockatrice, and his minion’s children, the Basilisks) — this, then, is the most satisfying fable, novel, story I’ve stumbled upon in quite a while, touching the same parts of me that were/are satisfied with The Return of the King or Out of the Silent Planet, and doing them good service with a good story that serves both itself and Another, truer Story. Good work, Wangerin.

Amy Sedaris and Tom Perotta both call it “quirky” on the dust jacket. Why didn’t that give me pause? Probably because Perotta also contends that Shapiro is truly ‘Salingeresque’ among a passel of posers. Please. This is an amusing read, but far from the profound exploration of teenage longing-for-experience-and-belonging it aims to be. Henry Every (the titular ‘Every boy,’ and see what he did there? see the cleverness?) strikes off on his own after his parents’ divorce and has a Chelsea Hotel experience with a one-handed bohemian temptress, before realizing the right girl was back home the whole time. After his accidental death/martyrdom (by setting his father’s pet jellyfish free, he was metaphorically setting his father free from his obsessive guilt over driving him and his mother away, see?), his father and mother learn to love each other again. Neither seems to miss him much, which is just one of the character-motivation problems with this novel. Plenty of pathos — no less than four teen suicides, not counting the death of the title character — but the payoff is Chuck-E-Cheese-cheap.

“Our Lincoln aims to bring to bear on the study of Lincoln some of the new interpretations of Lincoln’s era, in the hope of producing a more nuanced understanding of both the man and his world.” (from the Preface, p. 12). Starting with Team of Rivals, and fed by a bicentennial issue of the New York Times Book Review and the lifelong interest of a pastor I follow, I’ve been picking up Lincoln biogs. This showed up on my library’s new book shelf, and I grabbed it. Interesting essays on Lincoln’s mastery of his image in art, Lincoln’s dogged pursuit of colonization for African-Americans, his ’sacramental language’ and mastery of oratory (the author, Andrew Delbanco, posits that Lincoln changed the nature of style in American writing), and the current political theft of Lincoln’s memory. The title, eyed on the bus, sparked one memorable conversation where Lincoln was variously vilified by my fellow (black) passengers, and compared to a gangster, a la Michael Corleone. There’s a new perspective for you.

I’m so happy this exists I can’t even tell you. A detailed index of 1980’s saxaphone solos, with commentary.

my notes from readernaut (mostly) adequately sum up my thoughts:

1. the incredible list of items in the medicine cabinet. the self-consciously bad television script. the “verbal stunt pilot” bit where zooey impersonates buddy from buddy’s phone in buddy’s room. the abrupt sideline into buddhist quotes on the back of the door. franny’s evident self-awareness vs. lane’s lack of same. the audacity of making the glass family brilliant, eccentric and good looking. buddy’s first person/third person introductory gymnastics. the haunting presence of seymour and the de facto haunting presence of buddy over everything. the debatable point(s?) of it all.

2. this book is an entirely different read, post-wes-anderson.

and, i’ll add this: “…don’t you know who that Fat Lady really is? … Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It’s Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”

Juvenile Nonfiction is Joshua Neds-Fox’s blog v.3, internetted lovingly to you from Detroit, Michigan.

I’m worth $1MM in prizes. I am without excuse.

I’ve redesigned this thing a mere two times. This is its third iteration. It’s using WordPress, for the first time. This theme was adapted from the standard, Kubrick. Border elements prefacing the ‘comments’ were graciously provided by Barrett Stanley, from his 100 Erased Lincolns.

Try joshua, here at neds-fox.com, via electronic mail, should you want to get in touch with me.

I hope you’re happy.