Read Harder Challenge 2017: Part 4

This month, I finished a few more challenges, including:

• Read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative.
• Read a book published between 1900 and 1950.
• Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love.

Balzer + Bray

First up, I read American Street by Ibi Zoboi, which follows Fabiola as she adjusts to life in America with her rowdy cousins and her reclusive aunt.  When she arrives in Detroit, she is confronted by a terrible crossroads that will change her life and haunt her as she goes in pursuit of the American Dream.  A fascinating inspection into the immigrant experience, American Street  was made all the more compelling by the fact that the author, like Fabiola, was emigrated from Haiti when she was only a child.

Overall, I liked American Street.  It's a good, solid book with interesting characters, a wonderful narrator, and a heart-wrenching story.  However, I often found myself divided, because I both loved and hated this book.  It inspired a lot of emotions, not all of them good, but it also made me think and it made me feel and it compelled me to read on through Fabiola's story even when I felt my interest waning.

But, most of all, I loved the hints of magical realism seeded throughout the story.  Fabiola has very strong beliefs and she particularly believes in the ilwas of Vodou, which adds a layer of mystery, a thin veil of magic that enriches her story.  You don't really discover if Bad Leg is really Papa Legba, or if he really is just some junkie off the street, like Fabiola's cousins say, but it's that uncertainty that imbues a certain strength in Fabiola's belief and offers uncommon insight into the landscape of Vodou.

Barnes and Noble

Next, I conquered A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who also happens to be author of Tarzan of the Apes.  I picked up A Princess of Mars because I had it on my shelf and, more to the point, it seemed like an acceptable escape from reality; however, I wasn't always enchanted with the story.  I mean, it was really just mindless fun.

Originally serialized in 1912, A Princess of Mars is the first of many novels of the Barsoom Chronicles penned by Burroughs.  It follows John Carter, a former military man from Virginia, who finds himself ambushed in Arizona--and transported to a different world.  Mars (known as Barsoom to the native peoples) is a seemingly desolate land populated with dangerous creatures and war-like citizens, and Carter must find a way to survive if he eventually hopes to return to his home world.

For much of the story, it's really just Carter being really impressive with his super-strength and incredible agility and uncanny ability to learn languages--that is, unless he's rescuing the damsel in distress or endearing himself to the local wildlife.  Something interesting or incredible usually happens at the end of every chapter, so it's a bit of a page turner when Carter isn't boring you with facts that are obviously wrong or making you laugh with physics that could obviously never happen.

New Directions

Last, I checked out Paris Spleen by Charles Baudelaire.  Paris Spleen is a short collection of poetry originally written in French in 1896 by Charles Baudelaire--and none of his poems are about love.  I found it exceedingly difficult to find a collection of poetry that didn't talk about love, because everyone likes to talk about love and relationships and affection.  They're warm, fuzzy feelings to which everyone can relate.

But Baudelaire doesn't base his poetry on warm, fuzzy feelings; instead, he examines a darker side of human life.  He looks at the every day pleasures of intoxicating drink, sensuous women, and fine art; however, he also shines a lot on oppression, city squalor, mistreatment, malice.  His work couldn't be farther from warm, fuzzy feelings, like love.

It worked for my Read Harder Challenge, but, I will admit, it's definitely an acquired taste.  Baudelaire is really something else.

The Financial Lives of Poets

Image courtesy of Harper Perennial

The Financial Lives of Poets
Jess Walter
2009

The Summary
"A few years ago, small-time finance journalist Matthew Prior quit his day job to gamble everything on a quixotic notion:  a website devoted to financial journalism in the form of blank verse.  When his big idea - and his wife's eBay resale business - ends with a whimper (and a garage full of unwanted figurines), they borrow and borrow, whistling past the graveyard of their uncertain dreams.

"One morning, Matt wakes up to find himself jobless, hobbled by debt, spying on his wife's online flirtation, and six days away from losing his home.  Is this really how things were supposed to end up for me, he wonders:  staying up all night worried, driving to 7-Eleven in the middle of the night to get milk for his boys, and fall in with two local degenerates after they offer him a hit of high-grade marijuana?

"Or, he thinks, could this be the solution to all my problems?

"Following Matt in his weeklong quest to save his marriage, his sanity, and his dreams, The Financial Lives of Poets is a hysterical, heartfelt novel about how we can reach he edge of ruin - and how we can begin t make our way back."

The Good
The Financial Lives of Poets was not what I expected.  It's about poets and money and financial distress, as I expected; however, it's light-hearted and heavy by turns, combining a scathing wit and humor with astute insights into the emotional and financial lives of Americans, not just poets.

I found the novel unique, inventive, and thought-provoking if only a little perturbing.  The narrator is excellent:  concerned parent meets desperate, irreverent observer.  Matt Prior is intelligent, articulate and highly cynical, and I enjoyed reading his story, his thoughts as he made his way through life and struggles to right his financial status.

Although his story is not always satisfying, although I was not always satisfied by how things turned out, I really enjoyed reading Jess Walter's novel.  Matt Prior, for all his wild flaws, for all his problems, is truly an endearing narrator.

The Bad
I enjoyed reading The Financial Lives of Poets.  I like Matt Prior, but I found I became fed up with the narrator on more than one occasion.  Sometimes, I just wanted to reach into the book ad shake the narrator, shouting:  "Seriously?  You're going make that decision?"

Because I know it won't end well.

The Ugly
Absolute financial ruin is not a pretty sight, and it doesn't really make for a pretty story.  It makes a desperate man out of a (typically) grounded, thoughtful individual.  If you heap on paranoia about an extramarital affair and generous exposure to weed, you basically get The Financial Lives of Poets.

Let's just say I wouldn't recommend it for light afternoon reading.

Bonus: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot
Image courtesy of
www.nytimes.com

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
T.S. Eliot
1915

The Summary
A poem about growing old and growing gray - and all the strange and unfortunate flaws that come with it.

The Good
I found T.S. Eliot's poem particularly lovely and insightful, if only a little morbid and slightly strange. The words of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" are beautiful and the imagery evocative, lingering in the mind and melding myth, reality, and dream into a single, complex entity.

While a little lengthy, the poem creates a unique and surreal world populated with human worries and illusory characters that compels one to read it again and again.

It is quirky, but beautiful for its strangeness and ambiguity.

The Bad
For all intents and purposes, Eliot's poem remains a little vague. It combines dream-like imagery with a complex and heady brew of vocabulary, fashioning an unsettling situation and an even stranger, more ambiguous setting.

The Ugly
The idea of reality imposing itself upon the individual - crushing, drowning, and, in essence, destroying the individual you have been and you continue to be or wish to be - is a distinctly terrifying and worrisome notion that Eliot forcefully highlights in his poem.

Reality, and age, are inescapable.

[Visit The Poetry Foundation for the full version of Eliot's poem.]

Bonus: This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin
Image courtesy of
www.bbc.co.uk

"This Be the Verse"
Philip Larkin
1971

The Summary
"This Be the Verse" is a poem about life and growing up, growing old, and growing more like your parents every day.

The Good
Philip Larkin's poem is simultaneously outrageous and amusing. Crass, perhaps, but ultimately enjoyable and hysterically funny.

Carefully crafted into a short, lyrical form that follows a strict beat, "This Be the Verse" is quirky and ingenious and brilliantly observant. It's a short but insightful poem that speaks levels to every generation and everyone who has ever had that sudden moment of realization, when they think, "I'm just like my parents."

The Bad
While Larkin proves adept at poetical maneuverings, he does use some strong language that some people may not find suitable.

Personally, I find his language easy to overlook - amusing, in fact, and accurate in some way - but I wouldn't recommend this particular poem for a younger audience or if you find yourself offended by some very colorful language.

The Ugly
It just might be true.

In fact, one might argue that it probably is.

[Visit The Poetry Foundation for a full version of Larkin's poem.]