Review: A Visit From the Goon Squad [versus] One on One

Unbeknownst to me, I scheduled twin books side-by-side on my booklist: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and One on One by Craig Brown.

Fraternal twins, of course. They have their differences, which are substantial: fiction versus non-fiction, experimental versus painstakingly structured. Yet their similarities are eery. The way each of the characters are connected by chance encounters which leave lingering impressions upon their lives. Chapters jumping backwards and forwards in time. Separate pearls of stories strung along a single strand, fusing to create a common message about the way we live our lives.

A Visit From the Goon Squad 

Another week, another brilliant book.

Goon Squad is a story about time. "Time's a goon, right?" Jennifer Egan explores how it slips away from us; how one moment can mean everything, or nothing, or both. How we can torture ourselves with "what could have been"; how our pasts shape us. How we can start over, but most of us don't, haunted by shadows of our old selves, remnants lingering from times gone by.

Lives are simply a matter of getting from A to B. "We know the outcome, but we don't know when, or where, or who will be there when it finally happens. It's a suicide tour." It's what happens in the middle that matters.

Egan also writes about gaps and silences. Her characters, despite their love for each other, are separated by fear and awkwardness; culminating in misunderstanding and words unsaid. Sasha and Rob; Lincoln and Drew; Jules and Kitty; Stephanie and her next-door neighbour, their impression of each other ever-obscured by the slats of the fence that divides their lives. 

Susan turned to him and suddenly said, "Let's make sure it's always like this.".. because she'd felt the passage of time.

But eventually a sort of amnesia had overtaken Susan; her rebellion and hurt had melted away, delinquered into a sweet, eternal sunniness that was terrible in the way life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it gravitas and shape... it came to him that Susan had forgotten how things were... she'd forgotten and was happy... and while all of this bolstered his awe at the gymnastic adaptation of the human mind, it also made him feel his wife had been brainwashed. By him.

One on One

One on One is a daisy-chain of encounters between famous people. There are 101 chance meetings, each told in exactly 1001 words, totalling 101, 101 words, beginning and ending with one Mr Adolf Hitler. 

The short stories are all true to life (Brown lists his sources at the end) and, naturally, have diverse outcomes...  

from the funny (an elderly Bertrand Russell trying to seduce his beautiful young neighbour, actress Sarah Miles),

to the the awkward (Queen Elizabeth II's dutiful final visit to her dying uncle, the Duke of Windsor),

to the disappointing (The Beatles' long-awaited first meeting with their idol, a reluctant Elvis Presley), 

to the murderous (Gorky's mysteriously swift death, purported to be at Stalin's hand),

to the heartwarming (the friendship between Mark Twain and Helen Keller),

to the desperately sad (Oscar Wilde, alone and penniless in Paris).

We learn about the real people behind the renowned facades. They are quirky, selfish, charming and shy. Some of the things these people do (and get away with because they are who they are) is downright bizarre. Many lives are not as happy as they seem on the surface. Yet what we learn - and what we knew all along - is that all of these famous faces are human, just like us. They are multi-faceted; they have flaws and fears, along their more favourable attributes: grace, talent, charisma, work ethic, cool factor, good looks. Their lives may have taken place in the public eye, but they are plagued by fallibility. We all are.

To find out more about the book, you can read an article by Craig Brown in The Guardian here.

I would love to read your thoughts.

Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

OK, first of all, I must apologise for the colossal delay in publishing this review. I am embarrassingly behind schedule and have kept you all waiting. I do have excuses to cite: travelling and emergency surgery (not mine), for example. 

But I'll be honest. 

To put it simply, I LOVED this book. I thought it was beautiful, inspiring, tragic and heart-warming. I wanted to write a brilliant review, ripe with insight and intelligence, to do it justice; so, naturally, I put it off and put it off and put it off and then, when I did start writing, gave up when it wasn't good enough. 

So, how does the saying go again? Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good? To get this done, I have to lower the bar (as Gretchen Rubin advises). I don't think Jonathan Safran Foer will mind if this one isn't quite up to The New York Times standards. 

And in any case, in my frazzled state I had lost track with the essence of Egg Cup... which is, of course, to create a book club, centred around sharing and discussing books we love. So I'll throw it open to you, rather than (quite selfishly) focusing so intently upon my own response.

Before I do that, I will just mention a few of my favourite things about Jonathan Safran Foer's beautiful novel:

• As Barbara Kingsolver wrote, in The Poisonwood Bible:

“Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet.”

• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is rife with misunderstanding, skewed perceptions and the way they shape our knowledge of the world and the people we encounter. Jonathan reminds us that we never really know each other. Do we even know ourselves? People don't say what they mean and, even when they do, we imbue their words with our own subconscious: our fears, our hopes, our desires. Whether it is believing that your mother-in-law is delusional or pretending to read blank pages or blindly hoping that Mr Black ended up with Ruth on the roof of the Empire State Building.  
• Which is exactly why Oskar is such a refreshing narrator. He is ideal, really, as a storyteller, navigating such a confusing milieu. His Asperger's syndrome is never expressly mentioned but we know that he is no ordinary 9-year-old; he is too direct, too honest, too forthright, too clever. Yet, seeing things through his eyes, we are forced to wonder whether it is us with the problem. Why don't we behave more like Oskar? What do we have to lose?
• As the novel progresses, we realise, of course, that his honesty and fearlessness has a price; hurting people who love him, unconditionally. We lie and hide to protect people we love, including ourselves. 
• Life is a series of compromises. It's a delicate balance, creating a semblance of happiness, prolonging love. The final destination of Oskar's grandparents is, literally, meeting in middle: at the airport, neither coming nor going.
• All of this sounds awfully depressing, but it's not a depressing story. It's also uplifting and heartwarming. Oskar's journey, for example; every Black is the phonebook is willing to help, to show him kindness, to offer him a little bit of themselves. He traverses a city of people, all touched by tragedy in some way or another, drawn together by a sense of loss.
• Oskar's journey didn't end the way he had so desperately hoped it would. After all of his efforts, he realised that he had found an answer to somebody else's question, not his own. Although it wasn't the outcome he wanted, however, his journey was meaningful nonetheless. 
• As Oskar says, his father wasn't a "Great Man". He wasn't famous. He didn't save lives in the tower. Mr Black had not recorded his existence. But he was a great man. He was a loving father, son and husband. He worked hard. He told beautiful stories.

Review: Breaking Away by Anna Gavalda

Finally, our first book club book is up for discussion! (Apologies for the delay - I am on summer holidays and my holiday house is equipped with an incredibly slow internet connection.) As Egg Cup's first official member, Kimberley, pointed out, Breaking Away isn't a novel, per se (contrary to what the cover suggests). I think it is better described as novella. It is short and sweet, rambling along without much plot or structure yet, thankfully, its brevity saves it from dragging. I chose it as our first book precisely because it is such a breeze to read. We have Hitchens coming up in March, after all!

First impressions

It was very French. Which is a compliment, coming from me, because I am a francophile. It was elegant, self-deprecating, funny, charming and chic. A breath of fresh air!

Themes & issues

Family

Essentially, this is a story about family. I love the way Gavalda characterised the siblings and the dynamic between them. There are so many books and films describing the sadness, tension and awkwardness that surfaces within families when they reunite after time apart. It is rare for literature to celebrate the joys of family in a raw, honest, believable way, especially amongst adult siblings who have diverged onto separate paths and lives.

As Tolstoy says, "happy families are all alike". The relationships between Garance, Lola, Simon and Vincent were so familiar to me. The teasing, of course. Taking pleasure in torturing each other. Pressing each other's buttons, right where it hurts. The effortless, unconditional love and the fondness, tenderness and protectiveness underpinning a friendship between siblings. The way family members can fit together like a puzzle - they are not identical but, rather, varying shapes with jagged edges that fill each other's gaps, oh-so-comfortably. 

There are also the recollections spawning from a shared childhood. The same old stories, recalled over and over again: "remember the time..?" The magic of creating more of those moments, within the story, and the added appreciation of their preciousness that comes with adulthood: because we know that they will come to an end, all too soon. I love the scene towards the end, where Garance, Lola and Simon sit in the car on the way home, listening to Vincent's carefully curated playlist. The music represents the unified emotions that bubble to the surface with the sharing of collective memories. 

As Tolstoy also says, "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". We are privy to glimpses of quietly held pain throughout the story. Their parents' divorce; no longer being in contact with their father. There is a touch of jealousy in Garance's description of Lola and Simon's idyllic childhoods, in contrast with Garance and Vincent's lonely, deprived ones. And of course, the tension that arises from the mutual dislike between Carine and her husband's sisters. Yet despite the pain, they look on the bright side of things. Gavalda doesn't dig particularly deeply into her characters' psyches but that choice reflects the way life and family often present themselves. Our interactions can skim the surface of what is going on inside us, and in our lives; yet they are no less beautiful and real. Things are left unsaid but we are still understood perfectly by the people who know us best.  

Welcome

Welcome to Egg Cup. Yes, I know, the name. I have been umm-ing and ahh-ing - too whimsy? - but I am sticking with it. You can read the FAQ for an explanation. (Truthfully, nobody has actually asked me about it yet, but I assumed it would come up!)

Since the name explains nothing, allow me: 

Egg Cup is a virtual book club, open to anyone and everyone, where we can gather to read books and share our thoughts about them. 

My incentive is selfish. I have a book collection which is expanding at a rate that is gradually overtaking the rate at which I can read my way through it. Ergo, my shelves are full of wonderful books (or so I hear) that I am yet to devour. Some I have read in part, only to abandon them in favour of something newer and more exciting, which is, in turn, left by the wayside. Some have been transferred straight from the shopping bag to the shelf, only to become dusty and faded with time. So my commitment to this blog will entice me to finish them, one by one.

Despite my selfish motivations, my hope for this blog is that it can be a place for sharing and connecting in a fun, friendly, thoughtful way. The internet is a funny thing. It has a reputation for being seedy and shallow, yet my experience over the years - msn-ing, blurty-ing, MySpace-ing, Facebook-ing, tweeting, blogging, the works - has opened my eyes to its miraculous knack for drawing together like-minded people, across generations, space and time. Whether we Google the same search terms or answer each other's questions on a forum or stumble across each other's reviews of the same book, we find kindred spirits with whom we never would have had the pleasure of conversing were it not for the internet. 

Ideally, I would love this blog to act as a sparkling oasis for self-appointed literati (or book lovers, bookworms, bibliomaniacs, whatever we like to call ourselves); a virtual meeting place for those of us with romantic hearts, restless minds and a love for literature. For whom reading is as vital as food and water; it enriches our lives and nourishes our souls. Anne Lamott, in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, says it beautifully:

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. 

It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship."

Membership is, of course, free; price-wise and string-wise. I will be featuring a "members list" at the footer of the blog, so that we can find each other through forums other than here, and enjoy and support each other's ventures; blogs, businesses, twitter feeds, etcetera. If you would like to join, please leave a comment or email me at laura.valerie89@gmail.com, with your name and a link to your site. 

The first book is Breaking Away by Anna Gavalda, published in July 2011. I will be posting a review next week. I know it doesn't give you much time, but it is a little 140-page novella, and it is only $16.95 at Australian bookstores (even cheaper online, of course). Plus there is no time limit to joining in book discussions, so don't stress if you have a busy week ahead of you. 

I hadn't even sat down yet, one buttock still hovering, my hand on the car door, and already my sister-in-law was on the attack:

"At last! Didn't you hear the horn? We've been waiting here for ten minutes!"

"Good morning," I replied.

On the car journey to a family wedding, Garance reflects on how adult life, with its disappointments and responsibilities, has not always gone to plan for herself or her three siblings.

But just around the corner lies the chance for them to revisit their younger, carefree selves in a delightfully unplanned escapade.

Anna Gavalda is one of the most acclaimed authors writing in French today. In this exquisitely told story she explores the themes of time passing and the highs and lows of family life, with characteristic wit, warmth, and brilliant characterisation.

Please join me!

P.S. If you have any questions, please check the tabs above for more information. If I haven't answered your query, just leave a comment and I'll address it as soon as I can. Thank you!