Literary World Cup: the Bloodbuzzed Team!

The mighty and referential Penguin Books have created the Penguin Cup, where indispensable authors from 16 of the world’s literary giants battle out for supremacy. A quite funny way to talk about books when everything you read, talk and see is football and more football (happily the World Cup will be over in less than a week).

It was impossible for me to resist the temptation of making my own team, here it is: the Bloodbuzzed team. I'm pretty sure it would be unbeatable!

"Post Office", working-class Bukowski

Post Office- Charles Bukowski

A warning: don't read this if you are struggling with your job. Although it could help you to have the g_ _ _  to call it a day, to put it nicely.

"It began as a mistake", the novel begins. A mistake that went on for more than twelve years, on which Charles Bukowski, through the adventures of his alter-ego Henry Chinaski, shows how he became a slave to the wage, like the 99% of us (we all also know who the vile and corrupted remaining 1% are, but that should go on another post), at the U.S. Postal Service.

Sure, If you have read Bukowski previously, you'll find little to be surprised here. There's booze, horses, women and the grim, raw and let's face it, quite funny prose that is so quintessential of this writer. But besides the (always highly recommendable) Hank-by-numbers, "Post Office" offers something else, something more. A deformed, close to the grotesque if you want, but also a very clear mirror in which the majority of us can reflect his/her image.

Because this novel is truly a treaty, written in Bukowski's unique "knockout style", of how jobs ruins and finally ends killing something inside of us. Chinaski is defeated by routine, by boredom, by plain stupidity, by soul-killing workplaces and mind-numbing strategies created just for the sake of having a higher rate on efficiency while decreasing his level of self-stem. Does it sound familiar to you? I bet it does.

At the same time, though, some people need a daily work not to throw himself/herself from a window, or starts a life of self-destruction. It's a contradiction wonderfully portrayed on "Post Office", being an unsuspected deep analysis of the most mundane, zero glamour, life miseries. It's a poignant "I hate my job" tale, but also a "I need to do something with my life" story, one on which Chinaski constantly seeks company (this book is not really about sex, but about not being alone, there's an intriguing sadness on his perspective on relations here) as much as he needs booze. And despite Chinaski is the perfect example of the anti-hero, in "Post Office" he wins. He says "that's enough", looking towards starting a new chapter on his life.

Like John and Dan Fante (add Carver, Wolff and to some extent Richard Yates), Bukowski is able to say a lot of things to readers without what it seems that much (on the surface). He is just worried of telling the truth (of course, his truth). There's no point in mannerisms, affectations or sentimentalism, because he didn't write to impress you. He wrote about what he cared and what he knew best than anyone else, his life. And he was just interested in telling it like it was. All I can say is thank you Hank.

SCORE: 7,25/10

"Company K", the horror of war

Company K- William March

War-books are quite a recurrent kind on American literature, a few of them being unmissable masterpieces that should be in every good bookshelf. Some personal favourites, together with the stories of Tobias Wolff, are Joseph Heller's "Catch-22", Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five", Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Death" and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried". And from now on, I have to add "Company K" by William March. 

"Company K" works impressively as a piece of WWI literature (seems it was very far from achieving recognition when it was published in 1933), but it cannot be constrained to a period of time. Because William March, an author who was also a veteran of the Great War, offers an outstanding, devastating semi-fictionalized account of a military unit's experiences. 

This incredible, merciless summary of war horrors also surprises in terms of structure, being a complex yet refreshing mechanism. From deployment to years after the war ended, the book is a fragmented collection of personal stories from each member of the unit (before being published as a novel, it was originally serialized in the Forum Magazine). Written in the first person, there are 113 "chapters" in which each soldier of the company tells his own story, from their very different perspectives. They are snippets, a very brief slice of their life, in their very lowest moment. But the sum of voices, together, by accumulation, creates a mesmerizing account of what means being at war. 

And the meaning is clear. War means horror. In this collection of war stories there's chaos, utter panic, desolation, stupidity, atrocities, cruelty, sadness, depression, frustration, rage, insanity. Forget about heroism, honour, patriotism or idealism. All can be summarized in the staggering final sentence of "Soldier Charles Gordon": "Everything they taught me to believe in regards to mercy, justice and virtue is a lie... But "God is Love". That's the worst lie ever invented by humans without any doubt". "Company K" shows that war is fuelled by our darkest instincts. "Each war is the destruction of the human spirit" we read appropriately from Henry Miller's quote at the very end of the book.

March's prose is straightforward, bare, visual, sometimes sardonic (and making me recall Yossarian and Snowden from "Catch-22") and always vivid. He has no time to loose in refinements or sentimentalisms, because he has so much to say, so many soldiers, humans to offer their perspective to the reader, to show how they suffered and how he acted. I'm still petrified with the unparalleled talent of March of saying so much in just a couple, three pages. And when he exceeds that length, it is just to "hit us" even harder. The "Manuel Burt" episode (which seems based in March's own terrible experience), the "Unknown Soldier", or the "Leo Brogan" ones are superb examples of writing precision as well as bold anti-war statements, so powerful and disarming as they come from the anonymous minds and throats of the ones who were there.

"Company K" is a masterpiece. A terrible one, but a masterpiece. Thanks to Libros del Silencio for "rescuing" the novel.

SCORE: 9/10

"Ms. Hempel Chronicles", teaching, learning, living

Ms. Hempel Chronicles- Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

As soon as you start reading "Talent", the first of the eight short stories of "Ms. Hempel Chronicles", you'll find yourself instantly engaged by the very peculiar voice of Beatrice Hempel, an unorthodox teacher still in her twenties, confused while she grows, as we all do, figuring out what she wants to do with her life, and longing for something, deep inside. The difference is while she tries  to discover what she's looking for, she's also a middle school literature teacher. 

Author's Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is a magnificient one. I'm impressed about the way she's capable of balancing tones without hurting the fluidity of the book. A dreamy paragraph might be followed by a lightweight one, but the next sentence can be a "heavy", dramatic one. It all sums to build a solid portray, and create a genuine and refreshing character. Ms. Hempel is a believable, complex character, and at at the same time, a quite charming women.

After "Talent", we reach the highest peak of the book with its second story, "Accomplice", a wonderful love letter to literature, with a sense of magic, wonder and hope. Holden Caulfield, Tobias Wolff, a father in the "shadows", the fear of of being using the kids to explore her longing to go further, to reach something she can't clearly define. As The National would say, "she waits for the click, she waits but it doesn't kick in". What a haunting story.

But "Accomplice" is also the curse for the book, as the next four stories are nowhere near these fabulous beginning. The school and Beatrice relation with her class is sacrificed for her family and personal life. Bynum is very good writer and her skilled but surprisingly natural prose keeps you reading. There's also a more bitter, personal grey zone, an anxiety for being "stucked" that is quite appealing, but the sense of the magic and wonder, of reading something special, is gone, replaced for a more unoriginal recreation of the past.

Luckily, Bynum rescues "Ms. Hempel Chronicles" with the two last stories, "Satellite" and "Bump", which are again superb. Contrary to the previous central chapters, in "Satellite", she doesn't explain the story of her family. Instead, what she explains reveals her famliar story. And "Bump" concentrates, in a unique way, "defying gravity", with a simple, unexpected encounter where past meets present, and what could have been meets the future. Thanks to that powerful end, once you close the book, although unbalanced and imperfect, it works as a whole. You won't forget Beatrice. And for sure, we shouldn't forget Sarah Shun-lien Bynum.

SCORE: 6,5/10

"Richard Yates", Tao Lin's insult to literature

Richard Yates- Tao Lin

I'm very sorry for the title of my post. But that's how I feel after reading this book. And the mere fact he is using the name and surname of Richard Yates, in my opinion, one of the best writers this world has ever read, as the title of his novel, to me is offensive. I don't believe he did it ironically. Worse, I don't care if he did. The result is exactly the same. This book is awful.

I didn't know about Tao Lin's over-hype. I guess that not being American it was something completely alien to us. I didn't have any previous opinion about him either, but after reading the novel I made a little search and sadly, it has not helped at all. Read this little fragment of an interview made on a Spanish diary. Again, I don't care if he's being ironic or what. That's the answer of a total jerk (depression is quite a serious thing for many people).

"Are you as depressed and unhappy as is assumed in your books? I don't know. Maybe. But other people depressed is unable to do anything. I have published six books. And I take antidepressants just for fun".

Kafka for the iPhone generation? That's a very offensive insult to the Czech genious. The writer for the facebook generation? Excuse but I know lots and lots of people that use facebook regularly (me included) and are not stupid. 

Sorry if I'm taking my time to write about the author and not about the novel. I am. But that's because there's not much to talk about the book. This novel is a trifle. Maybe it wasn't Lin's goal, just a marketing strategy, but contrary to what the say, "Richard Yates" doesn't reflect the reality of the world we are living, with modern kids who live their life through a social network or a chat. Lin's book just shows reflect the lack of talent of someone who constructs simple verb phrases after simple verb phrases (X says, Y says) and the most tedious voice I ever read in literature. 

Dakota and Haley are impossible characters. Not only their ages and educational levels have no relation with how they talk/chat/sms each other, that would be more associable to 10-12 year old kids, but they are plain clichés too. Just two words that resume my point: depressed and suicide, used ad infinitum. If  the book was just a short story of no more than 20 pages it could pass as a joke, or if, at least, the kids fulfilled their promise and commit suicide...

Empty, profoundly superficial and topical, without a direction (plot? still wondering), I promise that finishing only a bit more than 200 pages has been to me like reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace" twice. Some critics say his prose is the most accurate expression of the minimalist approach. That's another offensive comparison. If authors like Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff where called minimalists was because they wanted to eliminate everything superficial, accessory, irrelevant from their works. But Lin's case is the opposite. What can you do when you have nothing else than superficiality and irrelevance on your book?

Tao Lin has said this is sort of an autobiography, that he wrote for himself. That concludes any debate about its (lacking) quality. In my opinion, it would have been excellent if he had decided to keep it for himself. But opens another one: why was this published? I think that has to do with these tendency of looking for and selling trends. You find that author, you create a categorization for him/her (post-post-modernism? how cool sounds that, right?) and hire/influence some critics that will say this is "the next big thing". Oh, and you can always say people that doesn't get is because they are not prepared for anything new or challenging, or that they didn't get the irony of it. Yes, the irony. Look how I'm laughing.

SCORE: 0,75/10