A modern version of "Moby Dick"

"We, the Drowned" by Danish writer Carsten Jensen was just recently translated into English. It begins in 1849 and ends in 1945 just as WWII is coming to an end, and is centered around a small Danish sailing village, although a lot of it takes place at sea. With battles on the ocean, 2 world wars, cannibals, shrunken heads, foreign ports, mysterious women, love affairs, murderers, and epic journeys around the world, you'd think this book would be exciting. It's nearly 700 pages and split up into sections that are disconnected and seem to drag on and on, repeating the same stories of sailors going to sea and dying in a war or a storm that sinks their ship. The characters are completely flat and it's impossible to get invested in them; whenever a main character died, I didn't care. They lack personality and everything else that could make readers care about them.
     The worst part is, the very last section of the book including the ending is absolutely amazing. It's hard to believe that the incredible, beautiful end was written by the same person who wrote the rest of it. I kept thinking someone needs to chop off the last section and publish that separately, because then it would probably be one of my favorite books. But the other 550 pages are so tedious and redundant that, overall, this is one of the worst things I've read all year.

Don Delillo's "Cosmopolis"

Edgy, modern, and risqué, Delillo's novel has a unique style. It takes place mainly in the back of a limo making its way through Manhattan roughly during the course of one day. Eric Packer is a billionaire who encounters women that are just as sex-obsessed as he is, and everyone around him finds his charm (and money) irresistible. Except for one mentally-disturbed man who periodically cuts into the narrative with his manic, stream-of-consciousness ramblings and plots to kill Eric Packer. The limo Eric is riding in is super high tech and as they drive through the city they are constantly stalled by traffic jams caused by various unusual occurrences, so Eric jumps out of the limo several times to do whatever he feels like doing at the moment, and keeps running into his beautiful heiress wife. Throughout the course of the day he purposely makes poor investments, throwing more and more money away, which parallels the course of his downfall. Finally, he also purposely loses all his wife's money as well, to ensure his ruin. More strange occurrences and even stranger encounters bring the day-- and the novel-- to a close.
     I like the style of this novel, as well as its originality. It was interesting and ingenious, but not extremely exciting.
     The film adaptation of this book is in progress right now, so maybe you can wait and just see the movie. It's worth mentioning that Delillo has other novels that were critically acclaimed and very successful, including "White Noise." If his style sounds appealing to you but this book sounds a bit dull, try that novel.

"The Monsters of Templeton"

Lauren Groff needs to keep writing; this was her first novel and it's been successful with critics and readers. The story takes place in the fictional town of Templeton, where Willie Upton returns after having an affair with her professor, and then trying to run the professor's wife over with a small plane. Upon her return, a dead monster is discovered in the lake, bringing news crews and scientists to the town and leaving everyone totally baffled. In the midst of this, Willie's hippie mother decides to tell her that she's been lying all these years: Willie's father is not a hippie that her mother hooked up with once at a commune in California; he's a citizen of Templeton, and someone Willie knows. But that's as much as her mother will say, so Willie obsessively researches her family's history, going back to the founder of the town hundreds of years earlier, of whom she is a direct descendant.
     This story has tons of layers, twists, and lovable characters. Willie herself is flawed but endearing, and her interactions with her old high school classmates that she tries so hard to avoid are funny and memorable. Willie's mother is probably the best character, and adds a ton of humor, wit, and originality to the story. I appreciated the ending, which completely did justice to the rest of the novel. I hope Groff's next novel comes out soon.

Not Recommended: "Imperial Bedrooms"

"Imperial Bedrooms" by Bret Easton Ellis is worthless. From a writer's standpoint, it's poorly written, purely plot-driven, shallow, soulless, and completely banks on shock value. From a reader's standpoint, it was mildly entertaining but fell flat, and was mostly just disgusting. The narrative follows a screenwriter from LA named Clay who's hedonistic and self-involved. He is constantly having sex with random young girls (and sometimes young boys, too) by promising them that he can get them roles in movies, and of course he never follows through. Then he finds out his long-time best friend, a guy named Julian who works as a pimp, is dating the girl Clay has been pursuing. So Clay does what any normal person would do: he drops Julian off with a violent killer to be murdered. Then he rents a house out in the desert where he spends days violently raping and torturing a young girl and young boy, until the boy turns evil and the girl goes out of her mind. The entire book is completely devoid of emotion, and Clay lacks remorse for everything he does, discussing these horrific acts the way a person would talk about going grocery shopping. But the cold-hearted, detestable main character didn't bother me as much as the bad writing. Don't waste your time with this one.

in my Top 10: "In Cold Blood"

Truman Capote's writing holds a special place in my heart. Whether he's talking about a love affair or murder, his writing is just shockingly beautiful. It's like a really beautiful song that you just love hearing. This book is non-fiction and is about a family-- husband, wife, youngest daughter, and son-- who are murdered during a robbery by two men who are eventually tracked down and sentenced to death. Although all the factual details are there, it reads like fiction. Capote spent years researching this case and personally interviewing the killers while they awaited execution in prison. He got so close to them, in fact, that he befriended one of them. His close friend, Harper Lee (author of "To Kill a Mockingbird") also took part in conducting interviews and collecting research, and you'll notice that Capote dedicated this book to her. Once he finished writing it, he was so disturbed and so drained from the experience, that he never finished another novel, although up until then he was a celebrity in the literary world (I have a copy of a photograph of Truman Capote dancing with Marilyn Monroe at a party).
     By the end of the book, you feel like you personally know the murdered family, which makes it even more heartbreaking. You know the killers well enough to see them as regular boys, and you start to wonder what the hell happened to them. You won't be able to sleep with the lights off; there are parts of the book that are absolutely terrifying, and the ending is perfect, understated, undramatic, just the right way to end something like this.
     And after you've read this book, you should watch the movie "Capote" which earned Phillip Seymour Hoffman a best actor Oscar, and covers Capote's arduous process in writing "In Cold Blood."

Classic of the week: "The Sound and the Fury"

The title comes from Shakespeare's Macbeth, the novel is from William Faulkner. It's notable for its use of stream of consciousness, and is separated into 4 sections, each one narrated by a different member of an old-money family that's in a state of decay. The construction of the book is both impressive and baffling. In fact, if you're going to read it, you might want to do a little research on it first so that you can follow what's happening. Particularly because the first section of the book is told through stream of consciousness from the mind of a severely mentally handicapped man who recounts events completely out of sequence. Adding to the confusion is the double-naming; there are two different characters named Jason from two different generations, two different characters named Quinten-- one is a boy who commits suicide and the other is the illegitimate daughter of that boy's sister, and two different characters named Maury, but one of them is usually referred to as Benjy. It's not always clear which Jason or which Quinten is being talked about. In the literary and historical sense, this book was and still is significant, and worth reading. It's success contributed to Faulkner winning the Nobel Prize in literature. However, if you're not ready to tackle something so difficult but you want to read Faulkner, you might want to start with something a little easier, like his short novel, "As I Lay Dying," which is just as noteworthy.

Where do I start...

"Beat the Reaper" by Josh Bazell is... brutal? Ruthless? Don't read it if you have a weak stomach, particularly because of the extremely detailed part where the narrator slices his leg open, breaks his own bone and then rips it out to use it as a weapon. Yeah, that really happens in this book. I'm not complaining; I stayed up all night to finish the last 150 pages because I couldn't stand not knowing what would happen next. It's also really funny, witty, sardonic. The narrative is split between the main character recounting his youth when he became an orphan and was informally adopted by a mob family who ends up hiring him as their best hit man, and the present where he's working as a Doctor and is in the witness protection program for obvious reasons. There's so many jaw-dropping moments in this book I don't even know where to start, and I don't want to give away any of the good parts. Just read it.