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Reading Wednesday
What did you just finish?
The Mountain and the Wall by Alisa Ganieva. Translation by Carol Apollonio. A novel set in Dagestan, a small region of Russia in the Caucasus region, the southwest of the country, and mainly in its capital city of Makhachkala. The novel starts out when the rest of Russia builds a wall to cordon off Dagestan and essentially wipes its hands clean of the area - or, well, when it probably does. The existence of the wall and its political meaning are a source of fierce debate and rumor throughout the book, and none of the main characters ever actually see the wall with their own eyes, or even through photographs, but certainly something kicks off the political turmoil that drives the rest of the book. Dagestan quickly descends into chaos as multiple groups vie for control; in the early days, these are mostly small ethnic factions, but Wahhabi forces move in (mostly from other countries) and take control for a while, before everything breaks down into outright war, each small group for themselves.
Or at least that's a simple description of the plot. However, almost all of this is only going on in the background; none of the main characters care anything for politics or power, and are fiercely concentrated on just going about their lives as normally as possible while ignoring the news: attending weddings, looking for jobs, dating, breaking up, working out, visiting family, and so on. There's a bit of a theme of the current chaos being contrasted against both Soviet secularism and traditional Dagestani culture, but both states are regarded too cynically for me to think Ganieva considers either to be an "answer" to the problem.
One of the main appeals of the book is that it's written not in standard Russian, but more accurately reflects the local dialects in Dagestan (or so I'm told; I don't speak any of the languages involved). This unfortunately really does not come through in the English translation, which is written in a stilted, mainstream English. There are a huge number of untranslated terms in the text (there is a glossary in the back, but it's pretty annoying to have to flip back and forth multiple times a page); presumably in the original these words reflected an interesting mix of Russian, Arabic, Avar, Turkic, Kumyk, Dargin, Dagestani, Lezgian, and Slavic, but to me they're all equally unintelligible, so I didn't get anything out of them. There are also several times when clearly there should be a shift in tone and style (for instance, there are large excerpts of multiple novels the main character reads, as well as poetry, newspapers, and diaries), but the English translation doesn't show any change at all. I know translation is always a tug between remaining accurate to the original, with the risk that the English readers won't understand, versus changing to reflect the new idiom, with the risk that you'll change too much and lose any connection to the original. I don't presume to have the answer to that constant debate, but I think this book failed the challenge.
Which really is too bad, because I think there's a lot of interesting stuff here, if only I could get to it.
Honky Tonk Samurai by Joe Lansdale. The 11th book in the Hap and Leonard series, though this is the first novel by Lansdale I've read and I had no problem following along (I did read short stories set in this series a few weeks ago, and actually felt that this book would have made a better introduction than the stories did). Hap is an ex-hippie, a liberal "white trash" guy in his fifties; Leonard is a gay Republican black man of the same age. Together, they're best friends (they call each other "brother") who bounce through life in a series of tough-guy small jobs, from private detective to bouncer to field worker to shifts in factories, all of it in small town East Texas. At the beginning of Honky Tonk Samurai, they get hired to investigate the disappearance of a young woman five years ago, now considered a cold case and given up on by the police. This quickly leads to a used car lot, an expensive prostitution ring, a blackmail scandal, a serial killer, a foul-mouthed grandmother, the mastermind behind a chain of barbeque restaurants, and more. Meanwhile, Hap adopts a puppy and a young woman turns up claiming to be his daughter, which causes problems in his relationship with Brett, his long-term girlfriend. All of it leads up to a climax that's such a cliffhanger I was worried that my ebook was missing the last few pages (it wasn't. It's just that much of a "Oh My God! What happens next!" ending).
The appeal of the books is the actions scenes (which are huge and frequent in this book) and the humor, which can range from dumb fart jokes to quite clever wordplay. But most of it is just the language, which makes full use of the East Texas way of speaking, and is quirky and fun to read even when it's not exactly a joke:
“Your new dog, Leonard?” she asked.
Leonard roved an eye my way. “Could be,” he said. “Could be yours.”
“Can I have her?” I said. I tried to sound winsome and wistful at the same time. Actually, I’m not sure which part of how I sounded was wistful and which part was winsome. Maybe you can’t do both at the same time. Maybe one sounds a lot like the other.
“Will you throw a hissy if the answer is no?” Brett said.
“Probably.”
“Oh, he can throw a grown-up big-ass cracker-style hissy,” Leonard said. “I’ve seen him do it, and I got to tell you, I was embarrassed. It wasn’t very manly.”
“I can try throwing the hissy in a deep voice,” I said.
“Nope,” Leonard said. “That’s not how a hissy works.”
I wanted something to read this week which was the equivalent of vanilla cookies and Dr. Pepper (Leonard's favorite foods, which tend to come up frequently) for the mind, and this was exactly perfect for that. It's not a deep book, but it's a hell of a pleasant way to spend some time. And then I found out that there's a new TV show based on the series, starting tonight! Hap and Leonard, Sundance TV, 10pm EST, tonight. I'll totally be checking it out, and I'd love to hear what y'all think, if anyone else watches it.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Make It Easy: 120 Mix-and-Match Recipes to Cook from Scratch--with Smart Store-Bought Shortcuts When You Need Them by Stacie Billis. A cookbook that focuses on simple, easy to make recipes that don't take a lot of time, ingredients, or skill. Which is totally the sort of cooking I prefer. On the other hand, the book is very much aimed at a parent cooking for a whole family, which doesn't apply to me so much since I a) almost always am cooking only for myself, and b) never have to cook for children.
The book is divided into sections, with one giving useful tips for basic cooking methods such as a method for perfect hard-boiled eggs (what is it with hard-boiled eggs that everyone has their own secret recipe? I mean, it's pretty hard to mess up boiled eggs. Sure, some are better than others, but I don't think I've ever seen an egg that was boiled so badly it became inedible), rice, quinoa, etc. Another sections give recipes, as you might expect from a cookbook. The last section gives tips on how to be a more effective shopper in the grocery store.
But my favorite section was the one on snacks, where Billis gives tips on how to use stuff you probably already have around the house to make interesting and simple snacks. I'm sure she intended recipes like "fruit with citrus sugar" and "Orange Julius" smoothies to be for kids, but I don't care; they sound delicious and I'm making them for myself.
Overall, it's a cookbook that's better for it's tips on how to be more efficient and change your approach to cooking much more than it's a collection of recipes, so how useful you will find it depends on what you want out of a cookbook. I enjoyed it, but I probably wouldn't have bought it if I'd come across it in a store.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. Oh, man, I forgot how good this book is.
The Mountain and the Wall by Alisa Ganieva. Translation by Carol Apollonio. A novel set in Dagestan, a small region of Russia in the Caucasus region, the southwest of the country, and mainly in its capital city of Makhachkala. The novel starts out when the rest of Russia builds a wall to cordon off Dagestan and essentially wipes its hands clean of the area - or, well, when it probably does. The existence of the wall and its political meaning are a source of fierce debate and rumor throughout the book, and none of the main characters ever actually see the wall with their own eyes, or even through photographs, but certainly something kicks off the political turmoil that drives the rest of the book. Dagestan quickly descends into chaos as multiple groups vie for control; in the early days, these are mostly small ethnic factions, but Wahhabi forces move in (mostly from other countries) and take control for a while, before everything breaks down into outright war, each small group for themselves.
Or at least that's a simple description of the plot. However, almost all of this is only going on in the background; none of the main characters care anything for politics or power, and are fiercely concentrated on just going about their lives as normally as possible while ignoring the news: attending weddings, looking for jobs, dating, breaking up, working out, visiting family, and so on. There's a bit of a theme of the current chaos being contrasted against both Soviet secularism and traditional Dagestani culture, but both states are regarded too cynically for me to think Ganieva considers either to be an "answer" to the problem.
One of the main appeals of the book is that it's written not in standard Russian, but more accurately reflects the local dialects in Dagestan (or so I'm told; I don't speak any of the languages involved). This unfortunately really does not come through in the English translation, which is written in a stilted, mainstream English. There are a huge number of untranslated terms in the text (there is a glossary in the back, but it's pretty annoying to have to flip back and forth multiple times a page); presumably in the original these words reflected an interesting mix of Russian, Arabic, Avar, Turkic, Kumyk, Dargin, Dagestani, Lezgian, and Slavic, but to me they're all equally unintelligible, so I didn't get anything out of them. There are also several times when clearly there should be a shift in tone and style (for instance, there are large excerpts of multiple novels the main character reads, as well as poetry, newspapers, and diaries), but the English translation doesn't show any change at all. I know translation is always a tug between remaining accurate to the original, with the risk that the English readers won't understand, versus changing to reflect the new idiom, with the risk that you'll change too much and lose any connection to the original. I don't presume to have the answer to that constant debate, but I think this book failed the challenge.
Which really is too bad, because I think there's a lot of interesting stuff here, if only I could get to it.
Honky Tonk Samurai by Joe Lansdale. The 11th book in the Hap and Leonard series, though this is the first novel by Lansdale I've read and I had no problem following along (I did read short stories set in this series a few weeks ago, and actually felt that this book would have made a better introduction than the stories did). Hap is an ex-hippie, a liberal "white trash" guy in his fifties; Leonard is a gay Republican black man of the same age. Together, they're best friends (they call each other "brother") who bounce through life in a series of tough-guy small jobs, from private detective to bouncer to field worker to shifts in factories, all of it in small town East Texas. At the beginning of Honky Tonk Samurai, they get hired to investigate the disappearance of a young woman five years ago, now considered a cold case and given up on by the police. This quickly leads to a used car lot, an expensive prostitution ring, a blackmail scandal, a serial killer, a foul-mouthed grandmother, the mastermind behind a chain of barbeque restaurants, and more. Meanwhile, Hap adopts a puppy and a young woman turns up claiming to be his daughter, which causes problems in his relationship with Brett, his long-term girlfriend. All of it leads up to a climax that's such a cliffhanger I was worried that my ebook was missing the last few pages (it wasn't. It's just that much of a "Oh My God! What happens next!" ending).
The appeal of the books is the actions scenes (which are huge and frequent in this book) and the humor, which can range from dumb fart jokes to quite clever wordplay. But most of it is just the language, which makes full use of the East Texas way of speaking, and is quirky and fun to read even when it's not exactly a joke:
“Your new dog, Leonard?” she asked.
Leonard roved an eye my way. “Could be,” he said. “Could be yours.”
“Can I have her?” I said. I tried to sound winsome and wistful at the same time. Actually, I’m not sure which part of how I sounded was wistful and which part was winsome. Maybe you can’t do both at the same time. Maybe one sounds a lot like the other.
“Will you throw a hissy if the answer is no?” Brett said.
“Probably.”
“Oh, he can throw a grown-up big-ass cracker-style hissy,” Leonard said. “I’ve seen him do it, and I got to tell you, I was embarrassed. It wasn’t very manly.”
“I can try throwing the hissy in a deep voice,” I said.
“Nope,” Leonard said. “That’s not how a hissy works.”
I wanted something to read this week which was the equivalent of vanilla cookies and Dr. Pepper (Leonard's favorite foods, which tend to come up frequently) for the mind, and this was exactly perfect for that. It's not a deep book, but it's a hell of a pleasant way to spend some time. And then I found out that there's a new TV show based on the series, starting tonight! Hap and Leonard, Sundance TV, 10pm EST, tonight. I'll totally be checking it out, and I'd love to hear what y'all think, if anyone else watches it.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Make It Easy: 120 Mix-and-Match Recipes to Cook from Scratch--with Smart Store-Bought Shortcuts When You Need Them by Stacie Billis. A cookbook that focuses on simple, easy to make recipes that don't take a lot of time, ingredients, or skill. Which is totally the sort of cooking I prefer. On the other hand, the book is very much aimed at a parent cooking for a whole family, which doesn't apply to me so much since I a) almost always am cooking only for myself, and b) never have to cook for children.
The book is divided into sections, with one giving useful tips for basic cooking methods such as a method for perfect hard-boiled eggs (what is it with hard-boiled eggs that everyone has their own secret recipe? I mean, it's pretty hard to mess up boiled eggs. Sure, some are better than others, but I don't think I've ever seen an egg that was boiled so badly it became inedible), rice, quinoa, etc. Another sections give recipes, as you might expect from a cookbook. The last section gives tips on how to be a more effective shopper in the grocery store.
But my favorite section was the one on snacks, where Billis gives tips on how to use stuff you probably already have around the house to make interesting and simple snacks. I'm sure she intended recipes like "fruit with citrus sugar" and "Orange Julius" smoothies to be for kids, but I don't care; they sound delicious and I'm making them for myself.
Overall, it's a cookbook that's better for it's tips on how to be more efficient and change your approach to cooking much more than it's a collection of recipes, so how useful you will find it depends on what you want out of a cookbook. I enjoyed it, but I probably wouldn't have bought it if I'd come across it in a store.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. Oh, man, I forgot how good this book is.
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(My friend is related to people who go by names like "Bubba" and "Cooter," and I am related to "Frosty" and "Buck," while my husband has aunts named "Judy," "Truda," and "Jewel." And we all know that when our friend Shirley goes home to East Texas, her name is not Shirley, it is Shirley Anne.)
Another series that nailed the Texas I lived in is by Rick Riordan--the Greek gods YA guy--who wrote a series of mysteries set in San Antonio before he went into YA starting with Big Red Tequila. I couldn't tell you if the mystery is any good or not because the setting is so nostalgic for me--I went to college in SA and lived there afterward for a bit before grad school.
Anyway! I hadn't realized the new Hap and Leonard book was out, so thanks for reviewing it! I bought it last night. :) Lansdale sets most of his stuff in East Texas, and while most of it isn't as funny as Hap and Leonard*, being mostly horror or thriller, he knows the setting and the voice bone-deep, and it's worth reading if you in the mood for it.
* An exception being Bubba-Ho-Tep, which I recommend.
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