Memory - Donald Westlake

I was advised when starting this blog not to write posts about books which I didn't like. But as many books as I have read this year, this has given me hesitancy about whether to post anything at all.

I just finished Donald Westlake's last published novel, "Memory."  I have very much enjoyed his Dortmunder series, which follows the ill luck of a small time crime mastermind and his crew. Dortmunder is comedic in the situational problems which crop up in the heists undertaken. There are familiar touchstones in that series. The crew's fondness for stealing doctor's cars because of the luxuries which the MD's inevitably indulge. The OJ bar's regulars having half-drunken debates in which misunderstandings of the topic lead to interesting insights. The middle of the book epiphany to the reader's perspective, as Westlake's characters peel back the curtain to reveal greater truths about humanity.

"Memory" does not follow that cadence. It is excellently written as well, but it made me feel depressed rather than entertained. It begins with the actor, Paul Cole, who is on tour with an play. He is caught in an affair by the husband entering the hotel bedroom. The husband cracks Cole on the head, concussing him. When Cole awakens in the hospital, he has trouble with his memory. Upon leaving the hospital, he desires to return to his New York address, but doesn't have enough cash for the bus fare.

Instead, Cole ends up in a small town.  He is broke and finds a job at the local tannery, saving his money for a half-remembered mission to make it to New York. Some days he forgets his name, who he was, and what he is doing. He leaves notes to himself to remind himself of his job and his life, and he attempts to collect memories from his past life as an actor leave him frustrated and confused when he reads them later.

He falls into a routine, finding comfort in the physical labor and simple demands of his job and life in time.  He finds a girl named Edna who shyly takes an interest in him. Cole likes her, but feels guilty when remembering his mission to go to New York once he gets the money for the bus fare.

The story follows Cole's frustration with his memories to return & his reluctance to admit this weakness to anyone. This causes him to be alienate himself from social situations, makes him apologetic when engaged in one, and irritable when pressured as to why he can't recall commitments and promises he makes.

This took me a while emotionally to get through, but I made it through to the other end. It reminded me of the Nolan movie "Memento," only Cole doesn't have a polaroid camera, nor is the story told in a fragmented fashion.  Instead, Cole struggles with the fragments he receives from his slot machine memory, mostly falling into bed with empty hands and emptier pockets.


I think I shall soon
Violate personal taboo
And review comics

Transmetropolitan - Warren Ellis and Derick Robertson

I am rereading through this series of graphic novels by Warren Ellis and Derick Robertson. I have a love-hate relationship with the stories. I picked up the first issue as a reprint of the Vertigo line: for $1 it was being offered as a hook to engage new readers to successful stories of the past.
I liked Warren Ellis's writing in most comics mediums that I read. He has a rich and dark draw to character detail, while Derick Robertson was unfamiliar to me until I read this.

The first issue features Spider Jerusalem, acclaimed journalist & best-selling author of three books, living in squalor at the top of a mountain. He has been a recluse for the past five years, when his publisher calls, reminding him that his contract calls for two more books. Spider had long spent the advances on his book contract, and is now faced with legal litigation if he fails to fill his end of the contract.

He packs up his junk and disarms his mountain shack's heavy defenses, put in effect to ward off any visitors or fans from his days in the city. But to this city he must return, because if he is to write two more books about the city, he has to experience it for himself. And, as chronicled in the ten volumes, that is what he does.

The city is an entity in itself. The population drowns in constant media advertisement, addictive mind-altering pharmaceuticals, and thousands of start-up religions. Everything is tailored to the consumer, but nothing fits for long. And Spider Jerusalem has returned to reclaim his position at the center of the information web, pulling strings and uncovering the decaying flies trapped in the city's framework.

And that is the crux of the matter. I have conflicting thoughts regarding this series' premise and presentation. Ellis's writing is excellently plotted, though it uses a channel of much swearing and creatively distasteful epithets. Robertson's artwork is mind-numbingly detailed, from street litter to background billboards, an environment is created and fleshed out. It is the flesh part that is troubling: the city's inhabitants are very carnal in their appetites and unashamed of their vices. In a world where almost everything is recorded, the probability that your vices will merit the attention of others is curiously inversely proportional.

The artwork depicts a city that is quite depraved and given whole-heartedly to the newest novelty, once the nasty business of preparing to survive the next day is settled. Spider is a novelty among novelties. No other journalist writes like he does with such success and popularity. He is not a personable fellow, like a Socrative gnat, he buzzes about the city with a recorder & a determination to uncover the truth behind the lies. The problem remains that his audience sees him as entertainment, and whatever he shows them, the changes do not last for long. They find new and more horrible ways to enslave themselves to no greater purpose.

Spider is self-destructive in his habits, smoking constantly, drugging himself in his off-days, and chasing stories which usually result in him having a wolf by the ears. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And Spider grins and demands them served as a double and knocks it back. He will live that way until he can not or does not have the strength to do so.

Because Spider loves and hates his city more passionately than I love and hate these stories. He loves it for what it is and that it gives him a purpose to seek out truth, but he hates that the city is what it is and that it will not listen and change for better.

Borges' Continuity

I have continued my exploration of this series of short stories. I find I am enjoying them better now that the taste is more familiar than before when I was testing his waters.

"The Streetcorner Man" is the second story, also treated as an autobiographical anecdote. Borges as a young man in a small town looked up to the local head punk nicknamed "The Slasher." This was a fellow who walked with an easy swagger and had the town beauty on his arm. The story concerns the night that a tough from another town rolls into a local dance barn and calls the Slasher out. This "Butcher" heard that there was a kid who fancied himself good with a knife and wanted to see for himself. To Borges's shock and disappointment, his hero the Slasher does nothing, allowing this Butcher to steal his girl and dignity in public. The events which unfold afterward change the course of Borges's life and views, and the tale ends in a way that invites speculation and interpretation as to exactly how much Borges changed.

"The Approach to al Mu'tasim" is the third piece. It reads as a book review of the first Bombay mystical  whodunnit. Borges has access to a second edition of the story which was reprinted in England, and describes the plot in a drawn out fashion. He holds the mysticism up to the light and decides that the book might have been better in the first edition, without the shifts in wording between the first and second edition. Interesting in the abstract, but not the real meat of this book.

"The Circular Ruins" is the fourth piece. After I finished this short story, I thanked my friend via text message for the novel again. This was a short tale in which I was well pleased and engaged.

In the beginning, a gray man washes up on the shore, and stumbles to a temple to dream. Not just sleep, but to dream a man into life. He receives food and water from unseen villagers, who recognize him as a priest or magician. This man has a single purpose in his dreaming, and creates a mental classroom to instruct constructs on the nature of reality and the steps necessary to achieve it. In the course of this slumbered semester, he weeds out the "yes, sir" students who passively accept his lectures. He drills those reflections who question him to further narrow the field to the worthiest of becoming real. Just when the dreamer is on the cusp of moving to the next stage with a student, disaster strikes in the form of insomnia. He cannot achieve a dream state in which to connect to his tutelage.

The descriptions and care with which Borges weaves this story are very attractive to my sensibilities of imagination. The ending sentence of the story made me think, and smile at the thought. Like a last note of a finely performed song, I was driven to encore him in moving on to the next story.

"Death & The Compass" was another non-autobiographical short story. It concerned an intellectual private detective and the head officer investigating a murder of a Jewish Rabbi. The practical policeman assumes that it was a jewel heist gone wrong, as the Jew's hotel room was opposite a known man of wealth. The detective, Erik Lonnrot, sees the a page on the dead man's typewriter: "The first letter of the Name has been uttered" and connects it to a greater semitic agenda. A second and third murder accompanied by mystical symbols reinforce this original suspicion. Lonnrot studies the dead man's books and discovers the legend of the 99 names of God, of the theory that there is a hundredth name, one that is Absolute and powerful.

This story is also well executed, holding my interest and curiosity as to the resolution and revelation of the mystery. I had to read some passages multiple times to understand what happened though, as the names and locations were unfamiliar to my mental landscape.

The sixth piece is extremely short. "The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz." It is a portrait of symmetry, but the players were unfamiliar to me, so I was left with a vague feeling that I was missing a piece of history which would set this in startling clarity and focus.

That is all I have

Because today was mixed bag

Of cats with coffee

One more Time

Titled in reference to the Daft Punk track from the Discovery album. The track itself is repetitive, but has a catchy rhythm. It has enough of a pulse to get through to the audience, but in the middle there is an interlude. It scales back on the party-feeling with an atmospheric vibration backing the vocalist's musing.

"You know I am just feeling celebration tonight. Celebrate, don't wait too late. We can't stop no. You can't stop, we wanna celebrate. One more time (3x). A celebration. You know we're gonna do it alright now. Tonight. Hey, just feeling - music's got me feeling a need."

But these words do not communicate the experience of the song. They are merely the tool, not how it was used. It is the same with books and most art. It can be described, but there is a communion with the art and the audience. What each has brought to the table and whether it satisfies the audience when it walks away.

My friend has given me a collection of stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I had never heard of the fellow, an Argentinian writer of some renown in the 20th century. But my friend assured me that I will like it. At the moment, I think that it tells me more about what my friend enjoys more than I do. But I am genuinely touched by the gesture. The excitement that he had when giving me this copy of "The Aleph and other stories. 1933-1969."

He told me that it was an out-of-print treasure and was translated by the original author. Reworded to convey the short pieces to the American mind. The author's widow had it reprinted so that she could receive royalties from her late husband's livelihood. I can understand that the career of a writer is difficult and often doesn't pay well. You are trading in ideas, in giving your perspective to the public. Asking them to try on your lenses through how you perceive the world.

The first story, The Aleph, was my friend's favorite one. It concerned the author's persona mourning the death of a woman who never returned his affections. Her cousin, Carlos Argentino Daneri, was a librarian and aspiring poet. Trying to condense the world into the metre of a masterwork poem entitled "The Earth." Borges was not impressed by the man, or his work, but kept company with him because he was a reminder of his late beloved. But Daneri has a secret in his dark cellar. A secret that drives his grand inspiration and ambition to fit the world within the covers of his comprehensive prose.

As this was my first experience reading the author, I have not acclimated my mind to how to read him as of yet. Different authors have certain fondnesses for me to visit. I have a pleasure in reading Neil Gaiman, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Kieron Gillen, Matt Fraction, and Warren Ellis. Each has their own feel to their mind.

Gaiman's is like a thick dreamscape (I am not convinced that he is not Morpheus incarnate, his character from the Sandman graphic novels).
Chesterton's is seriously amusing rather than amusingly serious, he plays with words, tenses, and tensions like a solo artist with his instrument.
Lewis has good thoughts distilled into simple language and examples. He guides the reader along patiently and with good humor to meet his conclusions like old friends.
Gillen plays and plies upon the reader with wit and grins. Snappy dialogue and intricate situations to allow for seeing the present issues through multiple character's eyes.
Fraction is chaotic, swinging from finding the unusual in the everyday to finding the everyday in the unusual. It is sometimes an exercise, others a sigh of contentment and pleasure.
Ellis is gritty and philosophical. His characters are gritty and grind on each other. His words smile grimly and pack heat even in a-sidearms.

I will add more observations as I am in the mood.


Usually ended
These posts of thought and reviews
With some rough haikus