04-09-13:Paul McComas & Greg Starrett Sew Up 'Fit for a Frankenstein'
Hands All on Gretl
It doesn't all have to be about the meaning of life. As readers, it's nice to have a breather between the more substantial titles in our queues. Surprisingly though, silliness is pretty hard to find, probably because it's hard to write. Life is not silly, unfortunately, and offers few examples from which to draw inspiration. But movies, with or without intention, are full of nonsense, even when they're based on seriously good books.
Paul McComas and Greg Starrett have happily mined their childhoods and many of ours to stitch together 'Fit for a Frankenstein,' a short snappy joyride that reconciles a seemingly minor inconsistency in the movie The Ghost of Frankenstein and in the course of doing so manages to find some serious comedy. You might not learn anything about the core reasons for existence, but in the moments you spend reading this you may blow a fuse or two at the non-stop jokes, puns and in-the-know shadowboxing that makes up the story.
The premise is simple. In the movie, The Ghost of Frankenstein, we see a disheveled Ygor and a sulfur-streaked monster leave the village of Frankenstein only to show up in Vasaria much better dressed. 'Fit for a Frankenstein' details the journey from one stop to the other and explains how they obtained their clothing. In the process, the authors use just about every form of humor you can imagine with a shockingly high hit rate with regards to making the reader laugh.
McComas and Starrett are smart enough to know that the key to comedy is character and give readers a nice gallery of goofy ghouls. Ygor is impatient but ambitious, the monster dim but powerful, Gretl, more voluptuous than virtuous, and Klaus, her father, innovative with a needle and thread. We know who they are and we know who we're with, and the clockwork just keeps ticking.
The fun here is to be found everywhere, on and off the page. From "Chapter Vun" to the authors' campy photos, the humor comes not just from the jokes and puns and groaners that grace every page and paragraph, but as well from the in-jokes and the intense references to just about every film incarnation of the story, good and bad. The book is not just about the story within, but the many efforts to tell it on film, which gives it a fun dimension that is actually pretty unique.
The authors are happy to fill readers in where all this came from and why in an enjoyable afterward. It's fun to read about both the details and the authors' memories of the movies. Anyone who spent childhood TV time in front of a small black and white television watching Chiller or any the hosted TV horror movie shows will find companion souls here. There's a three page extra story, to complete the emulation of a movie with a stinger after the credits. 'Fit for a Frankenstein' is actually a great fit for readers who think books are better than movies; a fun book based on bad movies we nonetheless loved because they were clearly the products of people who loved what they were doing.
04-08-13:Ruth Ozeki Clocks 'A Tale for the Time Being'
Reading is the Future
The book is a solid object, a physical creation that you can hold in your hands. But it's also a mirage, something that appears real but is not, at least not until you begin reading, and it is only while you are read that the book assumes its true form. The voices you create as you scan the words are as ephemeral as thought itself, yet they can create memories that are analogous to actual experience. You spend actual time of your life reading, but within the book, you are a different being.
In 'A Tale for the Time Being,' Ruth Ozeki gives you the voice of Nao (now), that is, Naoko Yasutani, who is sitting in Electricity Town writing in her diary. Ruth, who lives on a remote island off the coast of Canada, is reading the diary, and you are reading her story. As the voices layer and echo, as the story curls in on itself and sets up shop in your life, as you create the story by reading the pages in this book, every page you turn, every word you read, is a choice that changes everything that follows. You have become The Time Being.
Ozeki's novel is compelling and cleaver, funny and harrowing, insightful and witty, wildly imaginative and inventive yet down to earth and occasionally quite gritty. 'A Tale for the Time' is a stealth novel, and it plants seeds that grow into unexpected hybrids. As Ruth in the novel reads Nao's diary, she becomes increasingly concerned for Nao's fate. Did Nao survive the tsunami? What of her aged grandmother or her suicidal father?
Nao's story is compelling stuff, but 'A Tale for the Time Being' has a contemplative pace that encourages readers to take their time. Here's a novel that actually knows you will find yourself not wanting it to end and guides you to read it in an appropriate manner. That in itself is a remarkable achievement, one of many to be found in both the physical object and the ineffable reading experience you can extract fro that stack of marked pages.
There are essentially two stories here, that of Nao and her family and that of Ruth and her family, that is, Ruth and her husband Oliver, who hear a remarkable similarity to the author and her husband. No matter whose voice you are reading, the worlds that Ozeki creates are utterly enchanting and the voices mesmerizing. 'A Tale for the Time Being' creates many worlds within its pages; Nao's life in California, in Japan, her grandmother's time in Taisho Japan, Ruth's world on a rural island, Nao's father's life, and more. The novel feels like an elaborately carved fresco, with stories in stories, documents, footnotes, appendices and search engine results. It's all very fun to read.
The stories you'll create as you read the novel are funny, poignant and sometimes disturbing. We live in a bullying world, where arrogant leaders push around those whose interests they are supposed to serve, and where young schoolgirls in Japan torment one another with an equal ferocity. But there is beauty and creativity as well, the sweet love and sacrifice of family. Ozeki's vision is balanced, embracing opposing visions with the ease of Nao's Buddhist monk grandmother.
But getting at the essence of lives in world where the future and past co-exist but do not mingle requires more than two simple stories, even if they are intertwined with the skill that Ozeki brings to the architecture of her novel. The imaginative leaps Ozeki makes in terms of storytelling are ultimately matched by her visions of the technology we use every day. Not surprisingly, her technological innovations end up as storytelling tools, turning 'A Tale for the Time Being' into a sort of kaleidoscope of shifting realities.
Ultimately, 'A Tale for the Time Being' ends up being the sort of book that can only be a book. Story exists outside of the means by which it may be told, and it is often easily ported from one form to another. But books require the active participation of the reader in order for the story to unfold. As you turn to the first page of 'A Tale for the Time Being,' you'll being to change, and that change will not be complete, even when you've finished reading the novel.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
