BOOK REVIEW: Beautiful Ruins

The Centre County Reads pick for 2015 is BEAUTIFUL RUINS by Jess Walter. If BEAUTIFUL RUINS is typical of his work, Jess Walter is an exceptionally gifted author and one I will be adding to my must read list.

The plot line may be a little difficult to summarize because this is a story told on many different levels with complex characters and a time span of about fifty years. The locations include a very small fishing village in Italy, modern Hollywood, the lavish movie set of Cleopatra and various small towns and cities in America and Europe. Sound confusing? Trust the author because he will have you hooked from the opening scene.

In 1962 on a very isolated beach, a dying actress arrives by boat to stay in the Ad-e-quate View Hotel. The hotel’s young owner, Pasquale, is trying to create a beach so that wealthy Americans will come to his little part of Italy.

We soon learn that Dee Moray, the American actress, is in Italy as part of the cast of Cleopatra and that she is not dying of cancer but is pregnant.  The doctor, Liz Taylor’s personal physician, has told Dee that she has cancer because the truth would be very bad for the publicity of the picture...especially if the father’s name would become known.

Jumping to the present, we meet Claire, assistant to a big-has-been movie producer/publicist. Her job is to listen to want-to-be script writers pitch their ideas for the next block buster film. Her boss, the legendary Michael Deane, has been reduced to producing reality shows for television. The pieces of what actually happened in 1962 start to come to light.

At first, BEAUTIFUL RUINS reads as a collection of short stories. We see glimpses of different characters at various times of their lives. At first, we see little to connect these people, but soon their stories start to pull together.

Jess Walter has given us a novel full of wit, irony, pathos, and characters to remember...some to love, some not so much. The scenes in Hollywood scream satire. We are not surprised by the fact that movies that feature walking zombies or reality shows about drunken midgets being forced to live in the same house have become so popular. We can sympathize when Claire has trouble finding a script that tells an actual story.

The intrigue of getting the public relations right so that a multi-million dollar movie, that really stinks, can make it at the box office rang true. It did help that the stars of the picture were having a very hot, very well publicized affair despite their well-know spouses.

I do have some problems with authors who use a historically famous person and drastically fictionalize his actions. Plotwise, it worked in this case and there was an air of authenticity to the characters. I especially felt that Richard Burton’s cameo rang true.

The final chapter, chapter 21, bothered me a bit. It was actually an epilogue that summed up all of the characters in the novel and everything was resolved happily.Too happily. I liked the ending at chapter 20 and the book could have ended at this point. There was a poignancy to it that was just right.  

It is true that in chapter 21 we  once again are a witness to the humor that comes out of irony proving why Jess Walter is considered by many critics to be one of America’s top comic writers.

I am pleased that the committee of Centre County Reads introduced me to BEAUTIFUL RUINS.  

BOOK REVIEW: Packing For Mars

This year’s Centre County Reads is PACKING FOR MARS by Mary Roach. I was not sure if it would have the universal appeal to be chosen as the book for an entire county. The reaction among my reading acquaintances has been very mixed, ranging from “loved it” to “could not get beyond the Fourth Chapter”.

PACKING FOR MARS is an excellently researched book written by an author who is first of all a scientist, but with an eye for the humor in serious situations. Roach has the ability to make any scientific subject accessible to everyone.  There is a reason that she makes best-seller list with each new publication.

PACKING FOR MARS takes us up close and personal with the astronauts: Russian, Japanese, American, dogs, chimps, in fact anyone or thing that has entered space. We learn that the Japanese test a man’s talent with origami for eligibility into their space program. The United States puts great emphasis on the ability to spend extended periods of time either alone or with others in a cramped space.

It never occurred to me that motion sickness would be a big challenge in a space capsule or helmet. I thought that proper training would take care of that problem. Throwing up in zero-gravity is more than just messy; it is dangerous. There is the danger of choking, suffocation, and if inhaled, the acid will eat the lining of the lungs. Those little nuggets of grossness just float around. The information in this chapter was very informative, if a bit disgusting.

It was also interesting to know that male astronauts do not wear a diaper, but rather a device built along the idea of a condom. For vanity reasons, the sizes come only in L, XL, and XXL. An interesting footnote to this is that four “urine collection assemblies” have been left on the moon, two large and two “small”. Which one belongs to Neil Armstrong and which to Buzz Aldrin remains a mystery.

For all of you who dreamed of being an astronaut as a child, Mary Roach does much to de-romanticize the idea of going into the Void. Still, to me, the people who have gone into space are indeed heroes; they went into the complete unknown. Ideas could be tested on Earth, but that would not prepare them for the actual event.

There were times when I felt that Mary Roach took particular interest in the scatological material in her research, but that may be what we are all secretly interested in. No subject was too repellent to deserve minute detail.( I had never thought that cadavers played such a large part in our space program)

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PACKING FOR MARS is very full of detailed information. Even though written in an entertaining style, it reached the point of overkill for me by the fourth chapter. I would suggest that it be considered the book that you read one chapter at a time while reading a less stressful book. Reading it that way also gives the information time to be digested.

After reading and discussing the book with my book group, I understand why PACKING FOR MARS was the Centre County Reads for 2014. The book pays homage to the things that Americans hold dear, traits like bravery, the search for knowledge, and exploration of the unknown.

BOOK REVIEW: The Book Thief (redux)

ed note:  Pat first reviewed this book back in June 2010.  She has told me several times that this is on her top favorite books of all time.  Not a small task to make that list!  She is republishing the review to coincide with the 2012 Centre County Reads program. 

This year's book selected by Centre County Reads is one of my personal favorites. In fact, their yearly selections have met with my approval since the beginning of the program.  THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zusak, is a brilliant choice. It is one of the books that though written for the youth market, has universal appeal.

There are so many things that I would like to share about THE BOOK THIEF, but here is what I wrote when I first read it:

THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak is not a happy book. But then, what would you expect from a book that takes place in Nazi Germany and is narrated by Death.

Twelve year old Liesel Meminger and her six year old brother were being taken to the small town of Molching, near Munich to foster parents by their mother, during the trip, the little boy dies. At the quick burial along the way, Liesel finds a book dropped in the snow by one of the gravediggers. Putting it in her jacket, she has stolen her first book. This becomes her only touch with her dead brother.

Liesel is delivered to her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Hans is a quiet man who makes a meager living painting homes of the wealthier residents of the town. Rosa does laundry for those who can still afford it.

Hans teaches Liesel to read from the book that she had stolen, ‘The Grave Digger’s handbook’. The book has come to stand for the last time she saw her brother and mother. Her next stolen book is taken from the large bonfire that the Nazis used to burn the dangerous books owned by the Jews of the community.

Liesel uses stealing books as a type of comfort as life get more precarious in the small town. Her reading becomes important to her neighbors as she reads to them in the basements used as bomb shelters during air attacks.

The neighbors themselves become an important part of the story. Liesel’s friend Ruby is obsessed with the image of Jesse Owens. So much so that he paints himself black and trains as a runner. The woman who lives next door hates Rosa Hubermann and never passes by without spitting on the Hubermann’s door. By the time her son is killed in Russia, we know her well enough to cry with her.
We have to mention the important Jew hiding in the Hubermann’s basement. To tell you too much about him would ruin the story for you.

All of the characters are so well defined that we could be living on Himmel Street and watch its demise with them. The plot of THE BOOK THIEF is what would be expected, a young girl during the Nazi uprising in Germany. If you are thinking, ‘Another story of the human ability to overcome adversities.’ You could be right, except in this book, we learn how tired Death gets picking up souls too soon and too often. We also learn how important words can be-- from Hitler’s use of words to stir up a nation to words saving a young girl’s life on Himmel Street.

I have to admit that I finished this book with tears running down my cheeks. It is brilliantly written. Using Death as the narrator keeps it from getting overly sentimental, in fact Death may have a bit of a sense of humor. I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates a well written book about the human condition.