Book Log 2022 #11: The Plough and the Stars by Sean O'Casey

This play of the Easter Rising in Ireland focuses on Nora, who lives in a two room tenement apartment with her husband Jack, her uncle Peter, and cousin called The Covey. For the first two acts of the play, we're introduced to these characters and their neighbors, all poor, working class Dubliners. Nora is pregnant, and has hopes of improving her family's station, but Jack is involved with the Irish Citizens Army, and eventually leaves her to fight the British.

The last two acts take place during the Rising, with Nora trying to get Jack home safely while her family and neighbors discuss the revolt and, later, try to survive as the British put it down. 

The play is critical of the Rising, often juxtaposing nationalist rhetoric (delivered by "the Figure in the Window" quoting Patrick Pearse) with the daily life of the other characters (most notably a scene involving a prostitute in a pub). This led to riots during its opening week, as widows of rebels and Irish veterans saw the play as denigrating their sacrifice.

I do think this might be better seen in performance than read. 

 Book Log 2022 #10: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

I first heard about this book on an episode of So Many Damn Books, where they discussed this on its 20th anniversary of publication. I don't read a lot of horror, but was intrigued by how they introduced the book, so I did something I rarely do: I stopped the pod before they got to anything like spoilers so I could read the book.

I'm glad I did that, though the book is so unusual that I don't know how much of it would have actually been spoiled if I'd listened all the way through before reading. In any case, It's also a hard book to describe without getting into too much detail, so fair warning if you read ahead!

The book is purported to be based on a manuscript found by a Los Angeles-based tattoo apprentice named Johnny Truant, who discovered it among the belongings of a blind man in his neighborhood who recently died. The manuscript appears to have started as an academic paper on a documentary called The Navidson Record, which captured the story of a family in Virginia that moved into a house that would spontaneously change. Doors would appear where they hadn't been previously, and new rooms and hallways would appear whose dimensions were beyond what should fit in the house.

The manuscript claims that the documentary became a sensation and spawned a wealth of supporting discussion and scholarship, except that Truant finds through his own research that there was no film with this name, and that the family doesn't exist (though they appear to be based on real people). But even these discoveries are questionable, as it becomes clear that Truant's mental state is slipping, through the writing he adds as he continues to organize the manuscript.

The unusual structure of the novel - multiple unreliable narrators, mixed points of view, footnotes that have their own footnotes, etc. - is complemented by it's unique visual style. The text is often laid out in a style other than reading left to right, with some pages containing fewer words or words arranged in a way to reflect the events or emotion of the story. Some words and phrases are printed in different colors (for example, in the edition I read, the word house is always printed in blue: house). All of this ramps up the creepiness factor, and also adds to the unease created by both the story of the house and the burgeoning madness of the narrator. Apparently the author typeset the novel himself to ensure that it would printed as he intended.

I didn't really feel like this was a horror novel, but I don't think there's really a genre that it would neatly fit within. I've also seen it described as a thriller, a love story, and a send-up of academic writing, all of which apply at points. 

While I don't think I really "got" the novel fully, I do see why a book podcast would return to it 20 years after publication. There's enough here left open to interpretation that you can return to the book regularly and take something new out of it. It's also the sort of singular work that's worth revisiting to see what impact it's had on other books. 

 Book Log 2022 #9: The Corpse on the Dike by Janwillem van de Wetering

I've tried a few times over the years to get into this series of books featuring Amsterdam police detectives Grijpstra and de Gier, liking the books well enough to come back to them from time to time but not so much as to make a dedicated attempt at completing the series. This book will do nothing to change matters in either direction. 

The story itself is interesting enough - a hoarder is shot dead, and while a neighbor who is a competitive pistol shooter may be to blame - but I never quite connected with the plot as it played out. It feels flat to me, not sure if it's an issue with the writing or the nature of the characters.

So I'm not going to rush into the next book, but I'll probably pick it up eventually.

 Book Log 2022 #8: Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein

Goldstein, the co-host of NPR's Planet Money, has as a core belief that money is innately social, that it exists because all of us, collectively, agree that money has value. He examines that view through a historical lens in this book, which uses a number of anecdotes to show how the development of monetary systems and types of currency shaped countries and civilizations. 

It's a good book for people who could use a layman's explanation on how money works and the ways in which it can cause and solve problems (the discussion of the Great Depression gives a clearer understanding of how the Federal Reserve helped spur it on and how FDR taking us off the gold standard helped to end it). 

 Book Log 2022 #7: The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

I'm not a huge Western fan, though I'm definitely in favor of the recent move to redefine the genre. This book lands squarely in that movement, as it follows its Chinese-American title character as he tries to avenge his (white) wife's kidnapping and his being forced into hard labor (both at the behest of his railroad tycoon father in law).

The story not only considers issues of race and class, but also throws in some magical realism with a traveling show whose members appear to have supernatural powers and a character known as the Prophet, who can occasionally see the future.

Like a traditional Western, there's a fair amount of violence, and the white characters can't tell the Chinese ones apart (which Ming uses to his advantage more than once).  But unlike traditional Westerns you actually do see non-white characters in main roles, and the good and bad guys are more nuanced.

I don't know if I'll develop more of a taste for Westerns if they're written like this, but I'll at least be more likely to give them a chance.

 In case you missed, it the USFL is coming back this year, an otherwise bright spot in our continued hellscape. At least for those of us who will watch pretty much any football.

The league is starting off with eight teams, all of which are using the names, logos, etc. of teams from the original incarnation. Which I will now rank in order of preference, because I didn't have the chance to do so in 1983.

8. Philadelphia Stars. It seems odd that I'm putting the most successful USFL franchise last, but it lands on the bottom for being a generic name with a generic logo. It looks like they've made minor tweaks to the Stars word art, and they've dumped the old gold color in favor of both orange and gold. None of which helps.

7. New Jersey Generals. I don't like the changes they've made to the logo. I find the stars too close together. Also not a fan that they still have five official colors. But the name is fine if generic.

6. Birmingham Stallions. They've also cleaned up the word art and logo, but have kept the colors more or less the same. Nothing wrong here per se, but I like the other five teams better (as well as this other Stallions franchise).

5. Michigan Panthers. Another case of making the logo and word art sharper, and the light blue accent seems more prominent than the original. I was going to rail about both changes, but in looking at old photos I think the changes are less significant than I originally assumed. 

4. New Orleans Breakers. New word art, but the logo looks very close to the original. I'm probably being a total homer for ranking them this high, but they will always be the Boston Breakers to me.

3. Pittsburgh Maulers. I was never a fan of their color scheme. But I like the name and the logo, and the changes they made to the word art and logo are an improvement. 

2. Tampa Bay Bandits. They've also neatened up their word art and logo, and it's also an improvement (though their originals weren't too bad). Very solid and traditional color scheme that works well with a great nickname.

1. Houston Gamblers. They refreshed the word art (an improvement) and it doesn't look like they changed much else. Which is good, as most everything else about their nickname, logo, and colors is great. I still find five official colors too much, but when everything else works that's a minor quibble.