Up next: The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco

I'm now reading The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. Eco's famous for his intricate novels, with layer upon layer of reference and meaning. He's a semiotician, an academic concerned with signs and the meanings of messages, symbols, metaphors and the like. That's another way of saying he's one hell of a lot smarter than me.

It makes his books challenging reads. I've read Foucault's Pendulum, but not his most famous work, The Name of the Rose. Eco's approach is often to zero into a European period and locale, detail it obsessively, and invest into his work clever meanings and explorations of meaning. The Island of the Day Before is an exploration of the early 17th century and the baroque. Which means the prose itself is deliberately baroque and not for casual, sleepy eyed reading.

I read a handful of brief reviews, and many were disgusted with this book. Perhaps I shouldn't have let it color my reading, but I'm delighted so far. It's clever, complicated and funny, and I'm eager to see if he can maintain interest given the protagonist is stuck on an abandoned sailing ship and unlikely to leave it  (he can't swim). Fortunately, the flashbacks remain engaging, and the ship a mystery.

Walker of Worlds reviews Queen & Country

The Walker of Worlds blog has a review of one of my favorite series, Queen & Country. Check out Stephen Aryan's review of Queen & Country: Definitive Edition Volume 2.

I'm not surprised Stephen liked it! Queen & Country is amazing.

Shaping up a routine

Around the first of the year, the company I work for always puts on a special event to get employees exercising. I started and stopped the last couple years. But, this year I stuck with it. So far, I've worked out nearly every week. I missed a couple when I was sick and on vacation.

For the first time in my adult life I stick with it. There wasn't anything special about it. Oh, going with my wife to the gym helps, sure. She does look great in workout gear! But, it wasn't anything different this year.

I still hate doing it. I have sore knees. When I lift a lot, I get stiff and sore. I dread the exertion, but finally did reach a point I feel good after workouts. I haven't quite hit running 2 miles without resting, but I'm close. And, I'm already lifting more than when I started. It's progress, as long as I can keep that damn knee of mine in line.

Last week, I sat down on my couch with my laptop and actually wrote more than 500 words of fiction. I did it again last night, though it was fewer than 500 words. It was something. The writing's not terrible, and I may actually get a short story out of my efforts for once. But it won't just happen effortlessly. And, as my graduate classes ramp up again, the routine will be tough to keep.

I've been at this point before. Over a year ago I wrote a couple thousand words, but never finished. For years, I've had starts and stops, but never have much to show for it.

Writing is a lot like working out for me. No amount of reading inspiring books on writing, no amount of knowing all the tricks of the trade changes the fundamental thing. Just like braving cold January days when I don't have to work out, I also have to set aside time and write. I'll have sore knees, and I'll have frustrating sessions of only a couple hundred words.

I accept that it's exercise. It's a routine. And, it doesn't come easy. I know this isn't news to anyone. It's not news to me, either. Exercise  is good for me, but I still didn't always do it. Writing's the same way. I know what I need to do. Doing it's another thing.

I take heart in two things. First, that I can actually change my routines in life, whether working out or writing. Second, that those things shows real progress, bit by bit. The trick will be keeping that up.

Ebook Review: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

The Imperfectionists: A Novel by Tom Rachman hits a place dear to me - newspapers. I spent my college years learning to be a newspaper man in one of the best damn college newspapers in the country, The Daily Iowan. But, like the paper and staffers in Tom Rachman's novel, my journalism career was doomed to a short life. Fortunately, my life isn't quite as dysfunctional and, well, imperfect. I think we both have just a little regret, though.

The book assembles several short narratives from a different characters' perspectives. Here are short, usually tragic stories of, say, the ambitious obituary writer, the hapless news editor, the copy desk old maid, and even the obsessive-compulsive newspaper reader among others. All work at or read a once-great international English-language newspaper headquartered in Rome.

Between the short fiction for each of these journalistic  has-beens, Rachman insperses vignettes of the paper's history that serve as its obituary. It is the kind of inbred jouarnlistic enterprise whom all the participants refer to simply as "the paper." (Say no more; I know the kind.)

Rachman's title is clever. They characters are all imperfection personified, and they're more than slightly obsessive. Yes, the thing unfolds in a kind of broad stroke imperfect tense -- things that have happened with indefinite endings. Characters with action, but without "tense," so to speak. Rachman's too good at noting the idiosyncracies of copy editing -- and copy editors -- to avoid such playful spirit in the book.

It works. But, there's something off kilter about these frustrating messes of people, as though the twisted, tragic endings for each chapter and character came out of a modern day O. Henry school. Oh, the trajedies aren't surprise endings. Some are predictable. Rather, Rachman paints an expatriate life that the imperfectionist fools manage to let slip through their fingers.

The book does have an incredible sense of both time and place. Rachman, who worked as an international journalist and still lives in Rome, paints a wonderfully mundane, vivid locale of Rome. His characters walk his streets, and it shows. There, too, are wonderful juxtapositions of actual events in precisely the right time. The novel's set around 2007, and headlines bubble up through the work, giving the characters a grounding in the real world we all know and fret about. Iraq war references abound, as do events like the Virginia Tech shooting.

That juxtaposition is Rachman's real achievement here. He crafts believable characters living in a dynamic world. But, he doesn't cast them larger than life, caught up in those events. He lets them be their imperfect selves, worried about a bit of flab or sucking on hard candies, or lonely at night. When their imperfections aren't frustrating (and they are, those poor, imperfect bastards), they're vulnerable and endearing. Cheer for them, anyway, won't you?

In each tale, though, there isn't much time to cheer. The stories are brief, as is the book. It's a fine, quick read, but Rachman rushes at times. Dialogue is more reported than scored, which may be the effect Rachman aimed for. It's a newpaper pace that doesn't let the characters breathe.

And, taken as a whole, the strung-together short works stumble their way to the newspaper's demise, yet those characters never realize their fates. The book works as a novel mainly in name. Yes, characters "cross" one another's narratives, thus tying the work together. But, its differences from an anthology are sparse.

In the end, it's a wistful look at the tough times newspapers face in a new digital world, and the human mess those stubborn old journalists make of things. I feel bad for them ... almost.

The Imperfectionists: A Novel: C+

Shakey says keep blogging

My daily commute is usually me shuffling through songs on my iPod as I dodge traffic in my car. I've been driving the same route for about 13 years now, so it's getting pretty robotic.

Today, Neil Young popped on the list. This song's not very old. It's the eponymous Fork in the Road, which was a pitch-perfect send up to the recession. It really affected me in a time when the world was going more crazy than usual.

Anyway, I had to smirk when Shakey blasted out this verse:

Keep on bloggin'
'Til the power goes out
Your battery's dead
Twist and shout

Immediately preceding this great lyric is:

Download this
Sounds like shit

On the knee-slapping video of this bit, he has a pair of headphones plugged into an actual apple. After he sings that bit, he takes a bite out of the apple. Funny stuff, but it's one hell of an irony that I love Neil so much I had Keep on Rockin' in the Free World engraved on the back of my ipod.

Up Next: The imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

I'm already well into The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. It's a speedy read, and it came recommended by my old boss. He thought the quirky stories about a newspaper would suit me, and he's right. It reminds me of my short-lived days as a news journalist. These days, I'm far gone from those nobly intended days to do good in print. I still remember them fondly, and I still am a news junkie.

Those brief years, even while young, did give me enough of a taste of newsrooms to appreciate Rachman's fictional newsroom, inspired by his own reporting days. It's proving a nostalgic read that way, although the characters are a entertaining, frustrating mess so far. Review to come!