Naked Lunch Week 2

I have recently reached the 80 page mark of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs and I have entered the no-dropping zone so no matter how crude and nihilistic Burroughs hipster-esque masterpiece gets I will continue to read. A main character has been fleshed out in a man named Bill Lee, who is really just a device to reflect Burrough's own junkie thinking. Lee is stoned out of his mind and has weird narcotics-induced dreams. One in which his paid by the President to get him high by taking some weird drug and transferring it through bodily fluids. The book is hilarious, but if you read too much it can hurt your head and your stomach. Yesterday as I was reading the vignette on the Informants visit to the fake area of Interzone, I nearly barfed reading Burrough lucid descriptions of the jail for drug abusers. This is the most disgusting book I have ever read, but I have to admit there are parts of the book I really enjoy. For it's short length I can think of worse things than reading a book praised for being the best counter culture book of the 20th century.

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

After finish the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I picked up one of the most important books written recently Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, the book is a mix of drug paranoia, funny vignettes about odd people with odd names, and horrific detailings of how addiction effects everyones life and that everyone is addicted to something whether it's drugs or money and that addiction will ruin your life. I've only read the first vignette of the book which was left untitled and was a runthrough of the different peoples involved in the drug culture and the many drugs (C,H,M) that dominate the lives of the addicted. The first vignette is told in a harsh almost biographical and could serve as a precursor to future novels by Vonnegut, Kerouac and Thompson. The next vignette is much darker about Dr. Benway who is employed by Istanbul Inc. a fictional company who pays Benway to go to the fictional country of Annexia and set up a police-state. Even though Benway steadfastly denies his involvement in the use of torture he continue to torture the citizens of Annexia. The book at times is hard to follow, but it's disturbing themes and detail offer a polarizing view of the ill-fated life of junkies.

Sherlock Holmes Post 2

Recently I've been reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's compilation of Sherlock Holmes stories called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In this novel the famous detective goes through a series of adventures each one with a different case. Over the week I've read two adventures, "The Red Headed League" a weird story about a master criminal who forms a league and has a bank teller to join so they can distract him from his day job and rob the very bank he works in, of course Holmes stops the man before he can rob the bank, but the proceedings are so interesting you won't mind when the inevitable happens; the inevitable being Holmes figuring everything out. In the second adventure "A Case of Identity" where a women's lover disappears and she vows to never marry again. It turns out the lover was made up by the women's stepfather so she would never leave his residence and he could continue to profit off of her inheritance from her actual father. I look forward to reading the future adventures even if they're in old english and very hard to read.

Sherlock Holmes and The Road

I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. In writing craft and style it is without question the best book i've ever read. I can easily see why it won a pulitzer prize the words flow effortlessly through a plot that's nothing more than a father and son at the end of the world. At the end when the father dies I felt myseld affected like no other book has ever done to me before. It was sad, but I could believe it and feel for the boy who know travels with strangers on the earth so far away from what we know. After reading such a sad book, I needed to read something funny. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle fits that bill. I've gotten through the first adventure about a woman, Irene Adler, who black mails the soon-to-be King of Bohemia, with a picture of herself with him so she could sabotage his marriage. Holmes a cocaine addict is hilarious and genius at the same time, making it obvious why Doyle got death threats when he killed off this great character. Holmes is an amazing character making the book an important if sometimes breezy ride through the mind of Britain and Scotland Yards best.

End of Quarter Blog

This quarter I was able to accomplish something that has eluded me in the past. I read the books and I thoroughly enjoyed each one. I read three books one about a baseball team, one about a serial killer, and one about an imaginary journalist who ingests a cornucopia of narcotics in the Las Vegas sun. I read over each of my blogs and I thought each one was very good. They explained the book well, but not too well. Each included why I liked or disliked each one. Also something good was that each book was from a different genre, I read a biography, a classic and a mystery. Each one met the length requirement and weren't too long as to bore anyone who might think of reading the book. I definitely see some room for improvement, I saw that some of my blogs were confusing and made little sense. In the future I have to be more clear and concise. It also wouldn't hurt to include a quote once and a while. Each blog would also benefit if I could connect the book to other books I've read in the past. I think the fact I was able to read three books and understand each one is also an achievement, because in the past I have not taken the time to enjoy each book. I hope the success I'm having now will continue in the upcoming quarter.

Moneyball

Over the week I finished reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis. It's a biography/informational guide on baseball and the genius general manager of the Oakland A's, Billy Beane. The book may be about baseball, but Lewis's approach is a more intellectual take. He views it from the outside and yet it's obvious he loves the subject. The book focuses on many older and younger players including greats like Miguel Tejada, Ray Durham and Nick Swisher as well as prospects and players who are less renowned like Jeremy Brown, Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford. At it's heart this book is about underdogs, the Oakland A's have the lowest payroll of any major league team, but using baseball savvy and common sense they found themselves in the playoffs three years in a row. The reason for their success is Billy Beane, a man who could have been anything except for a pro ball player and he chose to be a GM. Beane is the most interesting character, a failed prospect himself who looked to change the way baseball is managed. Beane doesn't care about home runs, singles or steals. He only cares about one thing: outs. As long as you tried to maximize all twenty-seven outs given to your team you can maximize your chance of winning. Winning is the most important thing to Billy Beane, and like Billy Beane, Moneyball is a winner.

Fear and Loathing

Over this weekend I finished reading Hunter S. Thompsons masterwork: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey To The Heart of the American Dream. I loved every second reading this book. It's a debauched lurid tale of two men, Raoul Duke a doctor of journalism and Dr. Gonzo a doctor of law as well as an ample prankster. The book is too much of everything and yet it's still not enough. Everything about is fierce and funny, the book may seem stupid because of the obvious mass amount of narcotics taken to write it, but don't be fooled... it's genius. The tale represents the peace, love and music of the 60's and it's hard transition to the drugs, sex and rock n' roll of the 70's. The men in the book are pure evil, men who relish hurting others and laughing about it, all while visiting an anti-narcotics seminar. The men do many wrong things including taking a couple on a meth induced joy ride, eating the adrenal gland of a former living person, drugging a defenseless woman and fooling the cleaning lady of the Flamingo Hotel into thinking that they are two narcotics officers, to explain the drugs on the floor. The book has pieces that are incoherent and odd, but when it hits it's stride and becomes un-put-downable. Without any suspense, or mystery Thompson has crafted a novel that is a complete page turner that even though it reflects a bygone era it could easily take place in 2009.

My Week in Reading

I finished Dearly Devoted Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay last week and it had a very good end, but it was sort of unnatural. I felt as if I was being pushed into reading the next book in the series, which isn't horrible as the "Dexter" series is pretty good every time I read it. I decided it was a time for a break from Dexter so I picked up a new book. It's written by the good doctor himself, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and it's a memoir about his trip to Las Vegas. The book itself is called Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, as is I'm very excited to read it. Hopefully it'll keep my interests. I have many books I hope to read, one being the book Moneyball about Billy Bean the genius general manager of the baseball club the Oakland A's. Another book is Ayn Rand's seminal classic, Atlas Shrugged, which has really caught my attention even though it's incredibly long. Two other books I'm interested in are The Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne, and The Tao of Wu by The RZA, a rapper who is the pioneering founder of The Wu-Tang Clan. As my reading of the Thompson novel progresses I'll definitely record another entry in my blog.

Still Devoted

As of right now I'm about half way through my current book Dearly Devoted Dexter and i plan to finish it by next week. The book took a sharp left turn when Dexter went from a serial killing nutso with a conscience to a stay at home mom for his girlfriends kids. The sequel has to do with Dexter Morgan the fun loving serial killer who only murders bad guys. A new killers on the loose and he's really messed up. The CIA calls him Dr. Danco because he was a med student who decided to put his surgical talents to better use... torturing rebels in South America for the government. He was sold out by the government and was forced into a prison camp. He's back and he wants revenge so he's picking off his former acquaintances. The CIA sends a guy named Kyle Chutsky to help out Dex and the rest of the Miami Metro Police police, but Chutsky goes missing and later his finger is mailed to Dexter's sister Deborah, a close friend of Chutsky. The whole revenge-betrayal saga is interesting and Dexter's character isn't as dark, but the move from realistic fiction (about a killer) to police procedural isn't that great when the original formula worked so well.

Darkly Dreaming Sequel

This week I dumped the slogging Inherent Vice, and tried to pick up a fresh start with the sequel to Darkly Dreaming Dexter, called Dearly Devoted Dexter, so far I'm very happy with the results. It gives you the same amount of goosebumps as the last book, but there is something missing. This book gives you more laughs, but it lacks the discovery of Dexter Morgan, i guess that's what you get when you read a sequel. Dexter has become somewhat of a couch potato, instead of slaying baddies he's at home with his girlfriends kids playing around trying to act normal, but how normal can you be when you're a serial killer. In this book, author Jeff Lindsay really ups the ante with the killing, but it's not so much Dexter. There's a new kid in town and the way Lindsay describes the crime scene is masterful. His words have always been very playful which adds light to the otherwise pitch-black story. It would be a police procedural in anyone elses hands, but in Lindsay's the book's satire is as strong as the Miami sun that shines down on Dexter. The book maybe gruesome, but it really rewards you with its sparkling wordplay, and chilling sequences. If you want a literary roller coaster than you'd better start reading the "Dexter" series.

Incomprehensible Vice

Thomas Pynchon is one of the most renowned writers of the post-60's era. With his new novel, Inherent Vice, the noted recluse looks to go back to the seventies, 1970 to be exact. His novel plays out like a sequel to the Coen Brothers 1997 film, The Big Lebowski, unlike that stoner film classic this book is completely unlikeable. Everything about this book is annoying and drives you insane, whether it's the characters names (such as, Doc Sportello, Shasta Hepworth and Bigfoot Bjornsen) or the million references to the counter culture and the sixties. The book is not all bad some of the side plots are very funny, whether it's a story about a cop/real estate salesman/adman/commercial actor named Bigfoot, or a story about a massage parlor where neo-nazis like to go to, to meet their boss named Mickey Wolfmann, nothing makes sense and everything is a joke as if Pynchon had attempted to mix Raymond Chandler and Saturday Night Live together. The story (if there really is one), deals with a hippie private investigator named Doc who is searching for his missing ex girlfriend named Shasta who may or may not have been kidnapped, inadvertently while pursuing his lady Doc is framed for murder of a nazi named Glen. How much this appeals to you depends on how much you can stomach, be warned the book is a slog.

As the Last of a Series, The Last Olympian, Doesn't Disappoint

The Last Olympian is the fifth and final book in the Percy Jackson series, written with warmth and wit by Rick Riordan. Riordan is the former writer of non fiction books about greek mythology. His love of greek mythology has pushed the series past other fantasy books, his novels are never dark and always fun-filled. Obviously gods like Athena, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon populate these books, but the real interesting thing is how Riordan intertwines his main character Percy, with the past exploits of such heroes as Theseus, Achilles and Hercules. All of the great greek characters and gods have been peppered throughout the series whether it's Medusa or Ares all of the characters have a modern edge that makes all the books worth reading, Ares is a biker, Poseidon wears Tommy Bahama, and most memorably is Hades with a very emo-take on his character. I advise this book to everyone because even though nothing will ever beat Riordan's first book of the series, The Lighting Thief, this is still a completely enjoyable fable.

Favorite Book of Summer: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Darkly Dreaming Dexter is the story of a man named Dexter Morgan, a man who is a serial killer. Already the book may be turning you off, but read one page and you'll discover that as dark as the book is, it's still really enjoyable because of it's main character. Dexter is one of the most sharply drawn portraits of any character i've ever read about. He's nuts, but he's also hilarious. He's evil, but you don't have to worry because he only kills murderers. The smaller characters in the book don't matter because Dexter is the master of ceremonies and his character alone will keep your eyes glued to the text for hours and hours. Even though the ending falls flat, it won't matter because in Darkly Dreaming Dexter it's not the catch that matters; it's the chase.