Short Stories

I have to say that after reading some of the assigned stories from The Best American Short Stories, the company who publishes these things may want to get a new editor. I love Stephen King books, I find them compelling, dark, and has some great twists and turns, but I don't want to every story in this goddamn book to read just like his. "The Toga Party" is a terrible story TERRIBLE I don't know if I can stress this enough. I'm not just talking about the melancholy suicide ending that's just more of a personal preference on how I like a tale to end. What I'm talking about is the lackluster writing that wasted an hour of my life that I will never get back. John Barth might be a good author, there are some techniques in his way of explaining events that go on in his story, or explanation of character's back story and what not, but when it comes to dialog, or maybe trying to find out what are characters are thinking is completely asinine. Every one of these people as soon as they open their mouths or turn on their thought bubbles become one-dimensional cut outs. The main characters, Dick and Sue the only thing that seems to run through their minds is death, death, death, money, money, money. Over and over again. Sam Bailey? His wife died, that's Barth's idea of deep character plot, that's it. The ending is the icing on the crap cake for me. It's not the fact that the characters Dick and Sue killed themselves (they were so boring and lame I was kind of glad to see them go) it was how they were written off. There was no alluding to their little death-pact, no hint. Two healthy, happy people just deciding to off themselves because they're getting old? Because Sam stabbed himself at the party and that brought the whole evening down? Stupid. It's a weak attemped of a shabby writer to try to throw in some shock value in a boring story. I would not recommend these 20-odd pages to anybody.

Japanese family customs (Year of Meat)

As I'm reading My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki, I observe the life of one of the main characters, Akiko; and what her relationship is like with her husband Joichi. I must admit I am a little concerned on what exactly makes up for an ideal Japanese marriage, home life and in their community. Now, I can honestly say that I only know very little on what exactly goes on in a typical Japanese family. I know that the husband is the head of the family, I guess the wife is suppose to be quiet and obedient (if I am wrong about any of this, please let me know) as are the children. From just reading the book I feel that a lot of crap is placed on the wives; not just in a clean the house and cook the dinner kind of way, I mean that they have to do all the house work, take care of the kids and then, this is the part that feels weird, the women take all the brunt of their husbands. When the man had a bad day of work the wife not only is supposed to make him feel better (I think all good spouses are supposed to do that) but it seems the Japanese wife has some sort of blame put on her that she has to apologize to him. Am I wrong? Is poor Akiko an exception and she's just married to an abusive asshole? The whole tense relationship she has with Joichi (I do suppose the whole "can't conceive" thing is sort of making things harder) just feels wrong. Why is Akiko so trapped? I believe that divorce is frowned upon pretty harshly in Japan, so perhaps she does not want to be a social pariah? It makes me really feel for the character, to be so helpless and alone.

Year of Meats

As I start to read this book "Year of Meats" by Ruth Ozeki, I learn of our two main protagonists, Jane and Akiko. I have to say I find these two very interesting; there is Jane, a tall, strong, outspoken Japanese-American producer for a Japanese "reality" show called My American Wife. On the other end of the character spectrum, we have Akiko a small, mousy Japanese woman who lives in quiet fear of her bully husband Joichi (or John as he likes to be called,) John is an executive on the same show that Jane works at. At the beginning of this tale, the only simularities these two ladies have is the show My American wife they might as well be on different planets. The show is what is obviously going to pull these two together, it will be very interesting to see how that develops.

The Second Half of Happiness

The second half of this book is when the story really starts to take off. The world is ending, not from the bomb, but from peace, love and not giving a crap anymore. It is during the second half is where I actually start to like our little hero Edwin. He may still be the whiny little idiot that treats people like something stuck on the bottom of his shoe and always says the wrong thing (especially to May) I think he is honestly trying to redeem himself throughout the second half. Of course he has a bit more motivation to change now that he lost his wife, lost May the only woman that he probably could stand to be around has multinational tycoons hiring thugs to kill him because of his connection to the one book that is destroying there companies (if you're happy all the time, would you bother to buy anything?) When reading the first half of the book, I would have been the last person to expect Edwin to behave so dramatically and aspire to such heights as to actually save the world (or at least make it a more interesting place again.) The best part easily is when he is having his battle of wits with the actual creator of the powerful What I Learned on the Mountain Jack McGreary, trying to out-explain each other over if humans are worth more, maybe even deserve more than the quiet, happy lethargic death that looms over the world in the story. The novel becomes more action-packed, not in the sense of guns or explosions (even though it was pretty damn funny when Edwin shot Tupak's finger off) but in more that Will Ferguson is breaking the obvious tone of monotony in the first half and actually having Edwin go on a small series of exciting adventures. It makes the story even more enjoyable.