Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

Author: Vincent Lam

To be honest, I'm a little burned out on "medical dramas". I was a rabidly devoted fan of ER for the first five or six seasons, before most of the original cast left, I've seen my share of "Life in the ER" style reality shows, I've had a passing interest in Grey's Anatomy and like most people, I've been in a hospital a time or two. So I'm not sure what posessed me to pick up this book and dive into yet ANOTHER story about burned-out doctors, difficult patients and poignant reflections on mortality. Perhaps it was the three pages of rave reviews or the fact that it won the Scotiabank Giller prize, or perhaps it was the nifty red cover with the cool picture of a heart; Who knows? Even after reading it I'm afraid that I can't offer you too much in the way of a recommendation because the forgettable characters and lack of a cohesive plot caused the entire thing to slip from my memory exactly two minutes after putting it down.

In all fairness though, Vincent Lam is a talented writer. His prose is polished and slick and his intimate knowledge of the medical profession (his "day job" is an emergency room physician) is evident throughout. The problem here is the subject matter itself. It's just one more kick at the dead-horse doctor drama, and while it is a good, solid kick, that animal just ain't breathing.

So unless you have some kind of unhealthy obsession with hospitals and all the messy business associated with them, I'd suggest taking this book off of life support and letting it die with dignity. Please Doctor Lam, don't quit your day job.

I guess they will hand out Giller prizes to just about anybody. Although, this is a step-up from last years winner: "My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad" by five-year-old Josh McLean. It is a scathing commentary on man's self-destructive pride. Written in crayon on cocktail napkins. With pictures.

Score: 5/12 monkeys

The Road

Author: Cormac McCarthy

Normally I go out of my way to avoid any book with a sticker on the cover proclaiming "Oprah's Book Club". I am afraid that by simply touching it I will become a militant, right-wing feminist. Despite that mark of cain appearing on the cover of "The Road", I simply couldn't ignore the glowing reviews, intriguing plot description and the fact that it won the Pulitzer Prize. After thumbing through it a little, I found no references to women with eating disorders or grossly exaggerated tales of drug addiction so I decided to give it a shot.

I'm glad I did. This post-apocalyptic tale of a father and son travelling through the ashes of a devastated world is a work of bittersweet brilliance from start to finish. The sense of crushing despair is palpable, you can almost feel the grit of the road crunching beneath your bootheels and taste the ashes on your tongue. The only small light in this darkness is the bond of love shared by the two nameless characters. It is a work of both staggering complexity and profound simplicity. McCarthy's grasp of the language is unparalelled with lines of descrpition and dialogue that would be just as at home in the works of Faulkner or Keats.

Okay Oprah, I'll give ya' this one. Don't for one second start thinking that I'm not on to your diabolical plan for world domination, however. She must be stopped! Who's with me!?!? I have a plan that involves a giant catapult and lots of chocolate cake. Because everyone knows that chocolate cake is Oprah's kryptonite. Or...Wait, no....Chocolate cake is MY kryptonite! Damn you, Oprah! I'll get you for this!

Score: 12/12 monkeys

Lullabies for Little Criminals

Author: Heather O'Neill

Does anyone truly remember what life was like when they were twelve years old? Did your mother die while you were too young to have any memory of her? Did your father have a crippling heroine addiction? Was your only friend a pimp who forced you to turn tricks in the seedy underbelly of Montreal? How could anyone possibly survive a childhood tainted by such ugliness? By staying connected to the mystery and magic of childhood, that's how. That is exactly what Baby, the twelve year old protagonist of Heather O'Neill's beautfully poetic novel does.

This book will break your heart. It will then take the pieces and re-assemble them into a box full of childhood memories, fears and ecstasy. It reads more like poetry than prose, with a lyrical cadence full of simile and metaphor. There are moments of profound sadness sharing the same page with moments of sly humour. This is a remarkable first novel from an author with a bright, exciting future.

My testosterone levels are dangerously low after reading this book and writing this review. I'm gonna' go eat a big, bloody steak, watch a mindless action movie and then punch somebody in the face. Seeing the world through the eyes of a twelve year old girl is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to spend a whole lot of time there. It's a little uncomfortable how much we have in common. Creepy? You bet.

Score: 11/12 monkeys

Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs

Author: Chuck Klosterman

Deconstructing pop culture in the post modern age is like making jokes at the expense of George W. Bush. It all feels a little redundant because the work is already done for you. Unless, of course you are Chuck Klosterman. Nobody can put a more refreshing, insightful and hilarious spin on the state of our modern world quite like he has in this "low culture manifesto".

He blames Woody Allen movies for the breakdown of the modern relationship. He delves into the surreal world of a Guns N' Roses tribute band. He views Saved by The Bell as one of the most culturally important shows in the history of television. He believes the 1980's playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics is a metaphor for absolutely everything in the Universe. The man is completely insane. But like most insane people, he is also a genius.

I challenge you to read the chapter entitled "Billy Sim" and not laugh out loud like an idiot. His attempts to recreate his own life within the confines of The Sims video game is one of the funniest things I have ever read. Ever. Here's a sample:

"I clicked on the "options" key and directed my cursor to the button that said "Free Will." I deployed actualization and Sim Chuck was emancipated. I watched him take a shower and crawl into his Sleeping Machine, where he slept for the next fourteen hours. And then I did the same."

This book is required reading for pop culture junkies. It unapologetically tells us that our world is a pretty fucked up place, but that's okay. We're much better off if we just surf the wave of craziness, laughing all the while. Otherwise it will break on top of you and you will most likely drown. Surfing analogies are cool, and they give me street cred. Whatever that is.

Score: 9/12 monkeys

The Terror

Author: Dan Simmons

There really is no "good" way to die. However, some methods of shuffling off this mortal coil are definitely worse than others. After reading The Terror, I can think of no worse way than slowly wasting away from scurvy. It's slow, painful and includes symptoms such as bleeding from hair follicles, bruising that never heals and blackend, receeding gums. I've been drinking seven glasses of orange juice every day. Better to be safe than sorry.

All of this and more befalls the 127 men of the ill-fated John Franklin expedition to find the legendary Northwest Passage in the winter of 1847. Their two ships, Erebus and Terror find themselves frozen in the ice above northern Canada for more than three years, forcing the men to abandon ship and make their way overland across the unrelenting ice. Spoiled food stores, killing cold and rampant scurvy are just the beginning. Some massive, inhuman thing is stalking them across the ice. A giant predator that exhibits a malevolent intelligence and super-human strength and cunning.

Simmons is one hell of a storyteller, and he is in top form here. His characters are immediately identifiable and pathos-inducing. His narrative deftly shifts perspectives and each one is truly unique. Whether we are viewing events through the eyes of the hardened leader, Captain Francis Crozier, or through the earnest diary entries of the ship's surgeon, Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir, Simmons imbues each with the spark of life that is so rare in most modern fiction these days. It is a brilliant story well told, what more could you possibly ask of any novel?

One small caveat: This book is not for the squeamish. Simmons never flinches away from descriptions of men dying horrific deaths. Lots of men. In fact, I wouldn't even recommend reading this one during or after eating. Keep lots of fresh fruit and vegetables handy though, you DO NOT want to die of scurvy.

Score: 10/12 monkeys

Gates of Fire

Author: Steven Pressfield

In honor of the release of 300 today, I thought I would share with you one of the best books ever written about the legendary Battle of Thermopylae.

It's 480 B.C. and the million-strong Persian army is set to lay the smackdown on Greece, thereby extinguishing the first fertile fires of Democracy. In order to buy time for the rest of Greece to get it's act togeather, 300 Spartans and their allies embark on a suicide mission to the pass of Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass above the Aegean sea. It is here that these crazy-brave warriors, led by King Leonidas, hold off more than 100,000 Persians for the better part of a week. It is one of the most valiant stands in military history, and it bought the rest of Greece the time it needed to rally it's armies and eventually repel the Persian host

Pressfield gets down and dirty with his prose as he describes this viscious battle in painstaking detail. Every tactic, technique and "dirty trick" employed by the Spartans in their desprate fight is lovingly detailed here. The narrative style is brilliant, adding a sense of suspense and immediacy to a battle with a pre-determined outcome.

When Xerxes, the leader of the Persian army demanded that the doomed Spartans lay down their arms, Leonidas' replied simply, with two words: "Molon labe". Roughly translated: "Come and get them". That, my friends, is the very definition of BALLS.

Here's the trailer for 300. If it even comes close to telling this story as well as Stephen Pressfield did in this amazing novel, I'll be first in line at the movie theatre....

300 - movie trailer

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Score: 11/12 ass-kicking Spartan monkeys!

The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins

No other book in the history of my "reading career" (is reading a career?) has given me as much trouble as The God Delusion. It took me TWO MONTHS to read this 374-page bastard. For someone who can normally knock out a 500-pager in roughly a week, this sort of plodding progress is inexcuseable. I do have an excuse though, and it has nothing to do with the book's heavy-duty subject matter. It's Dawkins' heavy-handed writing style that tripped me up. Despite the fact that he is a world-respected scientist, no one has ever bothered to tell him about "economy of language". He frequently uses twelve words where two or three would be sufficient. In fact, a friend of mine dubbed this book "The Language Delusion" after I read her a couple typical paragraphs.

While I could sit here all day and talk about the stylistic shortcomings of this book, I would never dispute the sociological importance of it. Dawkins (like John Lennon before him) imagines a world without religion. A world in which people subscribe to higher ideals of evolution, Darwinian natural selection and the logical order of a living, breathing planet. He argues (and rightly so) that religion in all of it's guises has done the human race much more harm than good.

Setting out to disprove what Dawkins calls "the God hypothesis" is no easy task. Critics have often fired back with the old "okay, so you can't prove the exsistence of God, but you can't disprove his exsistence either" arguement. Well, based on this sort of logic Dawkins claims we can't disprove the flying spaghetti monster or bigfoot either. What we can do is make an educated assumption based on all the evidence. Or in the case of God, the lack of evidence.

I just can't in good conscious recommend this book, despite its important underlying message. From a purely literary standpoint, it's a bloody mess. It's tough to get into and even tougher to get out of. So unless you enjoy being beaten to death with verbosity, I'd pass on The God Delusion. Go read something a little more accessible, like a thesis on theoretical quantum physics or something.

Score: 5/12 monkeys

Eleanor Rigby

Author: Douglas Coupland

Fans of the Beatles (John, Paul, George and that other guy) will be familiar with the name. Their song about "all the lonely people" inspired this bittersweet story of loss, loneliness and what it means to wake up one morning and realize that the person you are is the only person you will ever be.

Meet Liz Dunn; she's thirty-something, overweight and as far as everyone around her is concerned, completely invisible. Which is just fine by her, thank-you-very-much. After all, she wouldn't want to "inflict her presence" on anyone and make them uncomfortable, right? That is until her son re-enters her life and shakes her faith in the cold comforts of loneliness.

Coupland has the uncanny ability to invoke profound emotion using simple, uncomplicated language. We identify with his characters not because they are larger than life, but because they are small, flawed and fragile....Just like us. When they succeed we cheer, when they fail we flinch and when they die we mourn.

It's not quite as deeply moving as Hey Nostradamus! or as witty and subversive as JPod but it is classic Coupland. My only complaint is this: If you are going to write a book based on a Beatles song, why not "Yellow Submarine"? Just imagine all the zany underwater adventures! Now there's a book I'd like to read! No YOU'RE Immature. No YOU ARE!

Score: 8/12 monkeys

Everything Bad Is Good For You

Author: Steven Johnson

Welcome to 2007! Have you made your new years' resolutions yet? Do they include watching more TV, playing more video games or spending more time surfing the web? If not, then you should read "Everything Bad Is Good For You" before you make any hasty decisions about quitting smoking or losing weight. As it turns out, these activities actually give you a good mental workout. They will not, however, do anything for your inability to walk up three stairs without getting winded. For that you're going to have to stop shoving cake in your pie-hole, fatty.

I couldn't help but feeling just a little vindicated after reading Steven Johnson's well-researched and intelligent argument. I've been spouting off for years to anyone who will listen about the sophistication of shows like The Simpsons and South Park and video games like Grand Theft Auto. Contrary to what the "old guard" has been preaching about the "dumbing down" of society, popular media is actually making us measureably SMARTER; a happy little phenomenon that Johnson calls "the sleeper curve".

Simply put, this sleeper curve reminds us that we humans are a problem solving species that isn't really satisfied unless we can sink our mental teeth into a good challenge now and then. Therefore, in order for modern media to become and stay popular, it has to be sophisticated enough to give our highly-evolved intelligence a good workout.

So the next time somebody accuses you of wasting your life playing video games, just tell their dumb-ass that you're studying to become the next president of the Universe or whatever. Then throw something at them, preferably this book. They'll understand. Even if they don't, who needs them anyway!

Score: 10/12 monkeys

A Complicated Kindness

Author: Miriam Toews

"There was a new sign in the Tomboy window. COME ON IN AND CHECK OUT OUR NEW MEAT DEPARTMENT! I stared at it for a while. And then I crossed the little parking lot and went in and walked to the back of the store and looked at the pieces of meat behind the glass. The butcher, who was also the man who opened the windows in church with a long stick that had a hook on the end of it, said hello and wondered if there was something he could do for me. I told him I was just checking out the meat.
This is the new meat department? I asked.
That's right, he said. We've expanded our selection. He spread his arms.
I nodded. It's nice, I said. It's very um...you have a lot of interesting meat products here.
Yes, he said, we're very happy with it.
Yeah, I said. Well, me too. I smiled. He smiled."

-a complicated kindness
Miriam Toews

The passage above is just an appetizer in this wonderful banquet of a book. It's a straightforward narrative told from the perspective of 16-year-old Nomi Nickel. The simple, elegant prose draws you into the life of a little girl struggling not only with adulthood, but with the religious fundamentalism of her Mennonite community. Nomi bites, kicks and thrashes at the world in an attempt to understand why her family is falling apart, why her boyfriend is so aloof, and, most of all, how people can claim to care for you while at the same time imposing tortureous, inhuman dogma.

Despite the title, this is a brilliantly uncomplicated story. There are great depths of emotion to be found here, and an unflinching perspective so clear that you'd think Miriam Toews has written an autobiography of her own childhood experiences.

My only petty complaint is that it too short and I read it too fast. Not much of a complaint eh? Well, that's all I got. Deal with it.

Score: 11/12 monkeys

Wild Fire

Author: Nelson DeMille

Meet retired New York homicide detective John Corey. He's goofy, abrasive, socially inept and the ultimate alpha male. He's also one of the smartest, funniest, most endearing protagonists working in the modern thriller these days. Nelson DeMille rolls him out once more in this story about an insane multi-millionaire and his genocidal plan to solve the "terrorist problem" once and for all. He would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids!

Actually, this is pretty freaky post-9/11 conspiracy theory stuff. DeMille claims that "Wild Fire" is the code name for a top secret govenment protocol that ensures the complete nuclear destruction of the entire Islamic world in the event that a weapon of mass destruction is ever used against the good ole' U.S of A.

Well, I for one am sure glad that they went into Iraq and got rid of those pesky weapons of mass destruction. They did get rid of them didn't they?

Score: 10/12 monkeys

American Gods

Author: Neil Gaiman

Do you remember that guy that you didn't hold the elevator for as he was struggling with all those bags? I have some bad news for you; he is a god. Note the non-capitalization. No "capital-G" gods around here, mister. In fact, according to Neil Gaiman gods are everywhere, they have been living among us since the first humans dragged the skulls of their prey back to their caves and worshipped them. Creepy, huh? Don't worry though, apparently America is not a very "healthy" place for the old gods like Thor and Kali. Due to the lack of goats/people being sacrificed in their name, they have been reduced to minmum wage slaves, two-bit hustlers and prostitutes. The new gods, however, have no such problems in this new land. The gods of television, technology, the internet and money are basking in the glory of this culture of greed and excess.

Reading this gave me the same feeling I can remember experiencing while reading "horror epics" like The Talisman by Stephen King, Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons and even Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon. That feeling of being taken by the hand and led down a long, dark road full of nighmares. But at the end of that road you learn a little something about yourself. Like how you hate using metaphors about dark roads but you just couldn't think of anything else at the time. Damnit! There I go agian.

Score: 10/12 monkeys

Wild Ducks Flying Backward

Author: Tom Robbins

If you've never read anything by Tom Robbins then I pity you. I really do. In fact, this blog was almost entirely devoted to Tom Robbins, and if I didn't have this damn ADD, you'd be reading excerpts from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues rather than my super-sexy reviews right about now.

Mr. Robbins playful prose and liberal useage of metaphor, alliteration and anthropomorphism make reading his work feel like being hit in the head by a giant, goofy metaphysical mallet. You'll laugh out loud occasionally, grin like an idiot the whole time, and occasionally say to yourself: "Gosh, I never thought of it like THAT before..."

This collection of his short writings is a good place to start. It serves as a sort of Tom Robbins "primer". It should be said that not everyone will like this stuff. It's a bit of an acquired taste, much like most of the finer things in life like Guinness and midget wrestling. It should also be said that if you don't like it, you're a big-dumb-stupid-head, nobody likes you and you are going to die alone. Wild Ducks Flying Backwards scores a 13 out of 12. Not possible you say? I say that anything is possible, and it's my blog so I'll do whatever the hell I want.

Score: 13/12 monkeys

His Majesty's Dragon

Author: Naomi Novik

Word around the campfire is this is Peter Jackson's next project. If you don't know who Peter Jackson is, you can jump right back on your spaceship and go back to your home planet, freak. I know I would fork over ten bucks to see Mr. Jackson bring this particular tale to the big screen. It's got everything: Epic battles? Check. A likeable hero? Check. Stuffy French guys getting their asses handed to them? A big glowing check with sprinkles on top. Naomi Novik places us in the midst of the Napoleonic wars with the French about to make a play for Britian. At this point you might be afraid that you are about to learn a long, boring history lesson. Well, you would if it were true that dragons were real and badass pilots rode them into battle like giant, talking fighter planes. Cool? You bet. The monkeys had as much fun re-writing this as I did reading it.

Score: 11/12 monkeys

A Long Way Down

Author: Nick Hornby

Martin, Jess, JJ and Maureen have a problem: They can't kill themselves. Their chance meeting on the roof of a building on new years eve is the "excuse" that all four of them were looking for to not jump. So instead they take the "long way down" ie: the stairs.

If you're looking for sentimentality or weepy, Oprah-style revelations about the gift of life, move along; you're not gonna find 'em here. Hornby never surrenders to the urge to make this one of those goofy new age life affirming books. Instead, he plants us firmly in the heads of four VERY messed up people who struggle with the question: "Okay, I didn't kill myself....Now what the hell am I gonna do?" I know what I'd do, I'd start some fires. But I was gonna' do that anyway.

Score: 8/12 monkeys

Freakonomics

Authors: Steven D. Levitt, Steven J. Dubner

Economists were the guys we used to beat the piss out of in high school, right? Well, let me tell you something skippy; now that we're slinging slurpees at 7-11 those guys we beat up are now getting revenge by doing a little something I like to call: "Ruling the Earth." We really showed them didn't we? Steven Levitt, who has been described by the New York Times as a "Maverick Treasure Hunter" is different. He askes questions like: What makes the perfect parent? Where have all the criminals gone? and what do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? He then applies the tools of economics to uncover some startling and surprising answers. It turns out that monkeys already have a fundemental understanding of economics so 9 of them knocked this one out easily. Who woulda' thunk it?

Score: 9/12 monkeys

Hey Nostradamus!

Author: Douglas Coupland

There are two ways to get a thick-neck lumberjack to cry...Take away his Bud Light while kicking him in the balls or talk him into reading this novel. It opens with a "columbine-style" high school massacre and then explores the lives of four of the kids involved, one of them no longer among the living. Four of the monkeys committed suicide while attempting to reproduce this, leaving it with a default score of eight.

Score: 8/12 monkeys

Anansi Boys

Author: Neil Gaiman

This is what would happen if the monty python guys ever decided to write a horror novel. The humor is very "british"; dry and self-depricating, which I like, and the story itself is simple, fun and kinda' disturbing which I also like. So after a steady diet of shock therapy and raw human organs followed by several screenings of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, seven monkeys were able to reproduce this one.

Score: 7/12 monkeys