(Fritz) Books 22-27

I finished a few books in the last week or two since my last post. Obviously two cross country flights and vacation in general give you plenty of time to just hang out and read. I actually finished books 22-27, some of which I'll be reviewing after the list:

22. Walking Dead 1-3
23. Walking Dead 3-6
24. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
25. No One Belongs Here More Than You - Miranda July
26. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
27. Capacity - Theo Ellsworth

The first book I finished was Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. I suppose this book is sort of old news to most people, especially because of the movie coming out 17 years ago and such, but it was a favorite film of mine, and I think it's definitely worth reading the book. There is a greater depth to the details, as well as a large change to many [big] plot points. Characters exist in the novel that aren't even in the movie, characters who don't die in one medium do die in the other, etc. etc. The one nice thing about this story, is that as science fiction, it displays a pretty good grasp of real science and a realm of believable pseudoscience that never really breaks you away from the story. The novel always manages to keep an element of suspense and the ending actually did a great job at surprising me. I guess it would be right to end this review by saying the novel was memorable and thoroughly enjoyable.


The next book in the last few weeks was "No one belongs here more than you." which is a compilation of short stories by Miranda July (of course you could probably discern that from the picture). There's about 16 short stories in here, and I don't think I could do any one of them justice trying to explain it. I guess this may seem like a negative criticism, but every story in here is firmly a Miranda July story. I'm told by two friends that her early writing was very different than her stuff after the film "Me and You and Everyone We Know" and that a lot of her old fans were alienated by her later works. I couldn't really find anything to substantiate this rumor online really, but apparently she used to be in with Kill Rock Stars records, and is good friends with a member of Le Tigre, so there you go. Anyway, what I meant by all these stories being obvious Miranda July stories, is if you've read her other famous stories, or seen any of her films, the stories in here are clearly written by the same person. There's this constant sense of alienation, awkwardness, social anxiety, or whatever word or words would fit this better. You feel the desperation of trying to work things out in a mundane and lonely world. (That's deep, man). There is a huge element of sexuality to these stories as well, and a lot of focus on illicit love. Somehow though, you never really feel like you should be condemning these characters, though, you sort of just understand what things would lead them to these places. And this is not to say that all the stories are perverted or depressing or any of that, far from it. Many of these stories contain moments of extreme beauty and insight that make you really consider how you approach your world, which is obviously one of the most powerful things a story can do. I would definitely recommend checking out at least a few of the stories in here, "This Person" and "I Kiss A Door" particularly stand out in my memory as being worthwhile stories.

Even more recently still, I finished Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. Murakami is (I guess) generally known, for a stylistic combination of Magical Realism or supernatural themes, with Pop. I could probably go on for a while about the Pop themes in this, and then couple it with Pop themes in other shit, I'll avoid the travesty as that's what it would be. The short story is that this book was seen as a radical departure by many of his long term fans, as, quite simply, nothing particularly supernatural ever happens in this book. The thing is, that's okay though. This is sort of a love story, and that's okay too. However, due to Murakami's wonderfully detailed writing, it goes beyond just being a love story, it almost becomes an adventure. We see wonderfully complex characters growing, learning, developing, and changing over the course of the story in great ways. There are great surprises, and even some of the things that you expect to occur, still come across as shocking when they happen. The ending is the only part of the book I felt even a little let down by, and that's solely because of the openness of it. I guess, if your only complaint about a book is that the author let you have your own interpretation the work, then the author did a fine job? Coincidentally (I don't think this counts as ironically), this book, while being a departure from his known style, is what 'launched' Murakami into stardom, much to his chagrin.


Capacity by Theo Ellsworth is a graphic novel of beyond-surreal narratives. The introduction to the book deals with you (yes, literally you, the reader) traversing through a dream world, where you are confronted by different bizarre creatures who help you to eventually reach the actual author himself. The rest of the book could simply just be a compilation of his smaller zines of comics he's released over the past five years, but given the grandiose beginnings, he's not content to do just that, and he strings the different pieces from his past together in a sort of adventure theater that almost becomes challenging to figure out what's "actually happening" to you and what's just occurring in front of your eyes, until the very end when he pulls it back together with a wonderful ending. This of course says nothing of the narratives which are compiled within, which are even more enchanting or enchanted, in every sense of those two words. There is a tremendous amount of self doubt in the artist-insert-narrator's voice, but it is never cliché or trite, but instead it's endearing. You get a sense for the literal aspects of his life, as they're told in the most mundane of detail and the most exaggerated of magical realism, sometimes at the same time. (Does this go beyond magical realism? Probably, you should judge for yourself). And of course, this says nothing of the art, which is just breath-taking. I was constantly made jealous of Ellsworth's talent and dedication to his craft (which he of course talks about at points, along with everything else in his life and your life and the bizarre dreamworlds we all often inhabit). If you're one of those people who doesn't see graphic novels or comics or whatever as "art" or "literature" then this book could probably change your mind. And if it doesn't, then you're some kind of troglodyte. Though, be prepared, this is a heavy read, I'd say far heavier than most books of this length (334 pages). I picked up a newer zine of this guy's work while I was in Los Angeles, which I'll be reading soon, somewhere in between my next two books. I'll let you know how it is (though at 18 pages, I won't be counting it as a full book, obviously).