yong | book 2 of 26 (right) | Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

(Yep, same book as Rich.) What Rich said. Yeah. And having read the book, I can better appreciate the words he strung together, that before sounded pretty good but that I admittedly read with some skepticism, tasted the hook but didn't gulp down the line and the sinker, can now see how they totally jive with Steinbeck's Cannery flow. It's a short book but not a fast read. Kinda like life. Neat to read about day to day life in a place not so far away, place names I've visited, passed through, and at the same time truly far away, the era bygone, the places probably gone forever, gentrified to all hell. Most writers are hacks. They try, and you can tell they're trying. Steinbeck's a natural. Or his skills are unnatural. I read without doubting. Or at least not very much. I'm a natural doubter. Got a big head, can't help it. Rich, you know what I mean.

The story's about life for people on the fringes of society. Salt of the earth types. Blue collar, and I mean really blue. Or maybe no collar. The type of people that you and I, and anyone else who'd be on a computer reading a blog, probably have no connection to, no idea what their lives are like, not two ships passing in the night but two ships on entirely different seas, one chugging along through the ocean doing its thing, the other sitting idle in some cove somewhere, just chilling, not needing to chug. Even those of us who think, Oh, we know blue collar, we're down with the salt of the earth, who really haven't the foggiest notion, like people who overuse the term "hole in the wall", like people who overuse the term "literally". I scoff at them, knowing I'm probably one myself.

Life can be a lonely thing. It can seem hopeless, pointless. But you can have nothing, and it can at other times be filled with connection. Warmth. Light. You can have nothing, and still have everything. We aren't so different. And we aren't so alone.

And that's Cannery Row. Wouldn't want you to go through two write-ups of a book and still feel like you had no idea what it was about.

You don't, do you?

yong : book 1/x : Fledgling by Octavia Butler

(yes, same book as ewee) It's been so long I damn near forgot how to read. But I finally stepped into our new library today, finally used the ol' library card again, and finally cracked open a new book. And though I'd been thinking Butler had shot her wad, used her best stuff on the Parable books and never really found the same inspiration in her other novels, I was delighted to have this her last novel prove me wrong.

It boggles the mind that someone can take a road so often tread as the vampire genre and turn it into something so new, so completely not at all vampire, so intensely more human. And it's a relief that Butler actually toned down some of her previous over-focus on the truly dark, despicable aspects of human misbehavior, things that even with their artistic merit in her previous works also had the unavoidable--whether intentional or no--stink of sheer shock value. In taking vampire lore and making it...you know how some good sci-fi is almost anti-sci-fi? This is anti-vampire. You know how taking a color picture and turning it black and white or sepia or using some other filter, while removing or distorting some colors, somehow serves to better bring out, focus, illuminate other parts of a picture? So does this book do some powerful light-shining on...I won't list 'em for fear of spoilering, but certain significant of the things that make us human, and our internal struggles to make ourselves mo' better human.

And it ain't even so heavy a read that I couldn't enjoyably blow through it in an afternoon-cum-evening as a weary-head-emptying diversion. Good read. And a long time coming.

ewee (19/26): Fledgling by Octavia Butler

It's actually been awhile since I finished this book, and even longer since I bought the book...guess I've been busy.

Or, perhaps, it's just that I'm mourning the fact that I'll never have another Octavia Butler book to read.

Overall, even with my general dislike of vampire stories (ok, except for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which--much like Fledgling--was actually more a parable of being "other.") this was an engrossing read, well-worth the hard-back price. The story offers so many layers, I'm not sure where to begin. Luckily, there's tons online about this book and it's much-too-shortlived author. So I'll resort to mostly just linking. (note that almost all the links below contain spoilers, or at least plot summaries.)

A very poetic summation of Butler's writing style, from boingboing's review:

...all the while never neglecting to tell a fast-moving, action-oriented story that had me turning pages well past my bedtime. I even stood on a freezing subway platform and finished a chapter before putting the book away and heading out.

Butler's novels earned her the MacArthur "genius" award, and it was well-deserved. Few writers in our field are so good at blending potato-chip page-turners with nutritious philosophical questions so seamlessly. Fledgling stands with Parable of the Sower and other classic Butler novels as a book that will provoke strong emotions and deep thoughts.

More links:

• Octavia Butler interview on Democracy Now
• Octavia Butler's Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America page
• Octavia Butler's African American Literature Book Club page

Rich (1/?): "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck.

A truck leaves the dock, revving its diesel engine, and sends a flock of ducks cursing into the midday sun. A crew of workers shouts above the clang of the machinery, laughs, and jokes without the aid of alcohol on their lunch-break. The whistle blows, the shift ends, and the conveyors stop rolling. Activity gradually fades from view, just as the first snowfall brushes away the color from the earth.

A man retires to his home, has dinner with his wife, and shares how he almost caught the big one that day. A man retires to his home, eats in silence, and begins his evening. Five hours before he turns out the light, he turns to his books and reads into the night. Another gets to work on his boat, today dismantling the past year's effort to get her seaworthy. A lady knocks on the back door of a house and is quietly admitted. A bouncer casts a unruly gentleman into the street.

This is Steinbeck's Cannery Row, of life between the high and low tides. Between the life-changing events of marriage and death are the sunrays that imperceptibly fade the soul over time. Those that are alone, without someone waiting at home for them, do not lose their color faster with time, nor are they condemned to loneliness. Their lives are insulated from the pulls of attachments, and, instead, they float as they will. Yet, the moorings of the surrounding community prevents them from vanishing completely. Like flowers in the meadow, they sway together.