In the Country of Last Things - Paul Auster

I reached the last few pages of this book on the subway this morning and, very reluctantly, put it back in my bag and headed to work. But I couldn't stand it so I surreptitiously read the last few pages at my desk, and I'm writing this only seconds away from finishing it.

I loved this book. It is one of the best post-apocalyptic stories I've ever read -- vivid, eventful, character-driven, terrifying but with enough moments of humanity and hope to keep you invested.

This is the story of Anna Blume, a woman who has come to a ruined city in search of her brother, William. The city itself is a mystery -- I've read reviews that suggest it is New York, but I really didn't feel that it mattered. I like it much better as a city without a name, a city that could be anywhere. The city has collapsed, and probably the entire nation has also collapsed. Corrupt, inefficient regimes come and go in the city, but most of the population lives in a kind of starved, desperate stupor, scavenging for food and any objects they can sell to buy food. There are suicide cults of various kinds, centers where you can pay to be euthanized, and it is against the law to bury the dead, since they have to be burned for fuel.

Anna has an almost picaresque journey through the city -- we see the various micro-worlds through her misadventures of survival. She starts as a scavenger, looking for objects she can sell to keep herself alive, and falls in with an elderly woman who also scavenges, but who has the good fortune of an apartment so Anna doesn't have to sleep outside. She eventually is turned out of this apartment, and finds herself living amongst the remaining intelligentsia, who are inhabiting various rooms of the National Library.

Here she falls in with Sam, a journalist (and a colleague of her missing brother) who is writing a book that documents the decline and fall of the city. The two become lovers, and this is one of the most interesting sections of the book. Auster combines extreme desperation with moments of clarity in dizzying episodes and the physical details of Anna's life, in particular, make this story so incredibly evocative. In a way, it reminds me a little bit of "Oliver Twist" -- the lost child, falling in with wiser and more complicated characters. Anna starts out that way, but she isn't the foil that Oliver was for Dickens -- she's a more well-rounded, complete character.

I also compared this book to Jim Crace's recent book "The Pesthouse", except I felt Auster's book was far better. Crace seemed to shrink from examining the really interesting developments of a post-cataclysmic landscape, as if this struck him as too "science-fictiony" and a little silly. (And it definitely can be, in the hands of the wrong writer.) He had a few really wonderful moments in that book that he didn't exploit nearly as well as he could have. In contrast, Auster seems to luxuriate in those features, and devotes almost a little too much time to them in the opening of the book.

In fact, my one criticism with this book is that he takes a little too long to get into his plot, and spends a little too much time establishing the landcscape. Readers are savvy enough these days to accept an apocalyptic city and recognize it immediately -- they don't need as much establishment as Auster gives them.

According to IMDB, this book might be made into a movie, filmed in Argentina, with Eva Green as the main character. My little "prediction" for 2008 is that we're going to see a lot of these post-apocalyptic stories adapted for film - they might not make it all the way to the screen, but there will be deals and there will be rumors. Hollywood probably sat up and took notice when McCarthy won the Pulitzer for "The Road", and I'm sure someone will think to adapt Crace's book as well. (In fairness, it might make a really good movie.)

Book networks

I've been thinking a lot about book networks. That Oprah book club article started me thinking about the topic, and then this article about Chuck Palahniuk's fan base drew me back to the topic of what I'm calling "book networks". Fan events, reader-review sites, book clubs, book blogs -- these are the new ways that readers are interacting and learning about books. That's a bit of the reason why book reviewing is in jeopardy and newspapers are scaling back their coverage -- these informal networks break up the authority of the bespectacled academic book reviewer, perched authoritatively in his desk chair, pronouncing a verdict upon the latest Philip Roth novel.

I'm intrigued by the phenomenon, and not entirely sure if I think of it as a good-vs-bad thing. On the one hand, the egalitarian, vaguely anarchic side of me celebrates the tearing down of the ivory tower (which I, as a descendant of blue-collar Southerners, never quite felt I could get into), but on the other hand, the labyrinthine world of book blogs and amateur reviews is something I don't have time to wade through.

For example, here is the National Book Critics Circle Links page -- possibly the most thorough listing of the best book blogs and review sites out there. Have I had time to go through all these sites yet? No. At best, I manage to sprint through a few sites each month, or I go searching for a review of a particular book. Sometimes I wonder if you could actually spend all the time you had available to read a particular book just searching for and reading all the blog and mainstream journal reviews of the book that are available. Information Overload, big time.

The nature of reading -- as a solitary activity -- and the type of personalities who tend to be avid readers often makes for a certain longing to connect with other like-minded people. People who read a lot, often from an early age, tend to feel solitary and isolated from other people, and to seek understanding and comfort from books -- I'm not stating an opinion here, that's a well-documented fact (anthropological studies, blah blah blah). So the idea that these people could connect with each other and enjoy nerding out over their favorite books would seem to be a no-brainer, right? I don't know, somehow I'm still skeptical.

I'm interested to see how the website GoodReads does -- whether it takes off or not. A lot of people have enthused to me about it recently, but that doesn't mean they're going to put in the time to write reviews and document their reading lists. My secret suspicion, which I'm hoping is proved incorrect, is that people who have historically felt isolated from others and took solace in books are not exactly going to succeed in creating a networking movement that is based on those books.

I'm very happy to be wrong about that, however.

The Hurricane touches down on land

Introduction -- Welcome to Hurricane Laura

After keeping an extensive journal for almost seven years, I finally decided to hell with it, time to consolidate my writing and my journal in public space. So here it is, the Hurricane Laura blog. At some point, this will all be updated into a website, with links to my writing, my CV, some pictures my cousin is taking of me, as well as anything else I feel like adding, but for now, this will be a placeholder where I can post things I'm doing or just thinking about.

A note on the name "Hurricane Laura" -- this is a joking nickname my mother and my brother have called me since my adolescence. It refers to my ripping-up-your-trailer-park style temper, as in: "Uh-oh, here comes Hurricane Laura. Everybody take cover in the basement!" I used to get irritated by this nickname, but now I embrace it. Whatever, ya'll, I'm a tempest in a teacup. Goes with the territory when you're a) a Southerner and b) a redheaded Southerner.

Recent Reviews Available Online

My first review is up for the Brooklyn Rail, available here. It's a review of Mackenzie Wark's book "Gamer Theory".

I filed my second review, about post-apocalyptic fiction, this month and that will be out in the July/August issue. I'm excited about that one because I've been doing a lot of summer research about post-apocalyptic fiction. I have an annotated bibliography in the works -- at nine pages and counting -- and I am busily going through and refreshing myself on the major works or reading some things for the first time. Currently, I'm in the middle of Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things (1987) and Tatyana Tolstaya's The Slynx (2002). I have to say, I wouldn't recommend reading a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction for months at a time -- you do start to get very world-weary and a little paranoid. I'm cleansing my literary palate with a variety of other things whenever I feel like I just can't take it anymore.

By the way, two other ways to find me: here I am on Goodreads and here I am on myspace. I don't really like 'the myspace' so much -- someone mentioned to me the other day that it is 'growing like a weed', and I thought, yup, that's why I don't like it -- it's a weed. But you can't exactly prune the Internet.

What I'm Thinking About Today

I just read this review by Chris Beha about the whole Oprah book club thing and the Cormac McCarthy interview. I "joined" the book club for the exact same reason -- just to see the interview -- and I agree with Beha: McCarthy shouldn't have to talk about the book if he doesn't want to. Get him going about something parallel, something he's interested in that (perhaps) informs the work. But he's far too intuitive and private to be capable of a good interview about his own books.

Well, that's it for post one -- pretty milquetoast for me, but I'm just getting warmed up.