Dry- By Augusten Burroughs

I devoured this book. It was just shy of 300 pages, and I read it throughout the course of a day (plus 2 hours of night shift). I did get through it in that span because I had a lazy day off to kill. It was a Monday, and I worked two jobs that day. I also craved the life of Augusten Burroughs.

"When I was thirteen, my crazy mother gave me away to her lunatic psychiatrist, who adopted me. I then lived a life of squalor, pedophiles, no school and free pills. When I finally escaped, I presented myself to advertising agencies as a self-educated, slightly eccentric youth, filled with passion, bursting with ideas. I left out the fact that I didn't know how to spell or that I had been giving blow jobs since I was thirteen." - page 2 (By page two, I learned that Augusten Burroughs doesn't bullshit.)

Honestly, reading his relived memories made me feel neurotic. I put the book down for a breather, and realized my eyes were swimming with extremely detailed observations about the setting around me, which happened to be in my car on the freeway and I had no idea how I got there because last I remembered, I was sitting in bed reading. Adopting his perspective disconnected my dots. Not entirely unpleasant, but definitely weird. And addictive, which is the word of the day, while reading Dry. It took me about eight o'clock his time, six martinis in, to figure out he was an overt alcoholic, which is subsequently why it's called Dry.

Slouching in a chair six hours later, I suddenly become aware that I'm at work. I'm trying not to be painfully aware of a fistfull of observations all at once. Each blotchy, faded stain on this worn blue/black/brown/grey carpet looks like year-old puke that someone tried to wipe away after vomiting up; the chipper but screeching voice coming over the intercom scratches the inner membranes of my ears; behind the almost one-way glass window, every person who walks by looks like the same person on loop; the other person slouching in his chair behind the counter next to me hasn't said a word in the last four hours and I also don't think he's moved from the same elbow-on-thigh position; I also haven't spoken or moved in the same amount of time except for page turns; this book I'm reading is pretty intense; before I dive back into it.

I get like this. I get involved. My thoughts fall in sync with the person I'm reading. His neurosis fill my senses to the brim. I'm aware of my tendency to fall deeply in love with my narrator. Steadily and compulsively, I read on, absorbing the details of his shambled life, listening to his confessions as if I had been for years. Whenever I set him down, dog-eared, it's with a promise to return as soon as I can. Like he can trust me. Likewise, every page is scrolled over with precise, completely intimate and honest facts about his life, childhood, temptations, addictions, and anxiety. He's funny in the face of harsh realities, like HIV, alcoholism, rehab, and rock bottom. His laughter shines through the pain of life, always ever hopeful.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaimen

I couldn't wait for my day off... because i was going to spend it in a sunny spot on the couch with Neil Gaimen's new book and a sleepy kitty. I don't think there could have been a better way to read The Ocean at the End of the Lane than with my feet up, kitten in my lap, and the sun on my face. I felt like I was sitting right next to the man on the bench in the sun as he recalled and relayed in detail the strange incidents that occurred to him as a boy.

Coming back home, seeing the house, and then the water made him remember, one word at a time... as if a curtain was being slowly lifted from his eyes. And in remembering, came wonder.

I listened to him speak as I pet the kitten. His story was humorous and heartfelt, and woven with anecdotes from his childhood. The seven-year-old triumphs and heartaches were familiar to me. Then came the magic. It happened slowly at first, and then flooded the story. Sometimes disbelief flashed in my mind, but it always softened into awe at the impossibly marvelous accounts he revealed. Without judgement, I listened, the way I would listen to a child. I accepted what I knew to be illogical bending of reality, simply because, even if it didn't quite make sense, I want to hear more. Captivated by danger, tragedy and wonder, this book held me to the end. The world I was immersed in so closely resembled this one that most people would not notice the way the cat winked or her dress flapped like an empty canvas even though there was no wind. Something a child would point out and an adult would disregard. But if you look closer and chose to question appearances, a door might open. And that door may be a tunnel that lets you out into a new, fantastic world.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane deserves all five stars, for being an honest account of the way marvelous things would happen if they did. Gaimen's imagination is so believable that his story simply slips into our memory of the past during reminiscence. As the narrative began winding down, and I was closing in on the last few pages, the thin film of reality began to splinter and bleed through with magic of every color. Red warning flags flew before my eyes and I wanted to shake this man to wake him up to the truth. THE END had me wide-eyed and open-mouthed with wow. Gaimen owns his personal genre of fiction, known as magical realism.

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

The chaos of the human mind is something we've always been fascinated with. Many great works of fiction were experiments with the damaged brain after it was subjected to war trauma or some other psychological battle for survival. Herein lies a narrator who is trying desperately to tell us some key thing that happened or will happen but cannot face the actuality of it and so he rejects it and instead tell us everything else inside his warped mind, every anxiety, every random memory, in hopes that we will piece it together and maybe even save him.

Yosarian is someone i care about. He is scared. He is severely flawed, but he's the only one who seems to be honest about what's going on. He hates being a captain of war and wants nothing more than to go home. He is also trying to get laid. Rambling, paranoid, prankster, hopeless, he is all we have.

The meaning of catch 22 is found several hundred pages of dialogue in, where Yosarian and Doc Daneeka discuss "the catch". The only way to get out of flying more missions is to be declared mentally unfit to fly by the doctor. To be declared unfit however, one must request a psychological evaluation, but only a sane person would request to get out of flying more dangerous missions. The cycle of regulations spin tauntingly out of reach as the number of missions each cadet is mandated to fly before being honorably discharged steadily increases. As the invisible vice tightens, Yosarian's frantic paranoia that someone is trying to kill him actually mimics true insanity, all the while, the destinations of warfare create chaos and a mounting body count.

I must confess that the entire story, from page one, is a rising climatic suspense. Every detail is thrown at the reader, a dozen names intermixed with a dozen pagelong descriptions of each character's appearance, rank, habits, spouse, and peculiarities. Actually plot advances are unchronologically splashed with confessions, youthful memories, paranoid delusions, and fixations. With his pain that borders on euphoria, Yosarian must reach his epiphany of recollection and give the whole thing meaning. Nearing the last few chapters, I had my doubts as to whether or not he'd make it through to resolution. Overall, I'd give Catch 22 four out of five stars. I do strongly recommend reading it if you have not already. It was a challenging read, I admit, not altogether enjoyable, yet fascinating nonetheless. I withhold one star, not for the lack of it being a masterpiece or even an American classic, but in respects to the payoff at the end, the very, very end, which was remarkable but fleeting with an exasperated conclusion of utterly used up human persistence.

Neverwhere By Neil Gaiman

“You've a good heart. Sometimes that's enough to see you safe wherever you go. But mostly, it's not.”

The skin of routine is pulled tightly over your face, stifling the senses, compressing your creativity. Life is readily apparent. "Work. Home. The pub. Meeting girls. Living in the city. Life. Is that all there is?"

Beneath the normal and the mundane, lying just under the paved streets, sewers, and network of subways that carry Londoners to and from their apartments and appointments... is the real London Underground. Having slipped through the cracks of reality, people and those who aren't quite people, find themselves among the rubbish piles of lost things. In this undersociety, the inhabitants function by code of survival touched by a magical order of ancient rule. Unimposing Robert Mayhew is essentially unplugged from the matrix as his life spirals away from normality. Once trapped in this weird underworld, Robert must come to terms with his newfound nonexistence in order to try and escape with his life.

Masterful with this twisted fiction, Gaiman creates a protagonist carefully, almost lovingly, and then proceeds to completely disregard his safety, unceremoniously yanking him away from his nice, normal life, into the throws of dark, magical realism. Robert Mayhew tumbles through the laws of physics along side the only friend he has left in any world-- a strange girl seeking revenge. For lack of a better idea, he adopts her quest and begins to discover how real fear can be. In this place, the motley travelers encounter the reverse hierarchy of sewer rat lords and fragmented fiefdoms, forgetful kings and imprisoned angels. Floundering through the subterranean  universe, Robert must learn to defend himself from nightmarish monsters while trying to "do the right thing" amongst sinister creatures unbound by modest moral codes. Facing, betrayal, trickery, and mysticism, Robert faces physical and psychological tortures in the hopes of ultimate restoration.

Masterful. I give this flightful twist 6 out of 5 stars. Gaiman blew my mind with a metaphorical shotgun.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde's depiction of life is all glamorous effluence during the 1890's. The characters you encounter are elegant in appearance and cynical in temperament. Their greatest foe is ennui, and their deepest fear is wrinkled, aged, quiet death. The book is stuffed full of witticisms and memorializations that summarize the world and its experiences into pithy epiphanies. They entertain one another so as not to let true emotion touch their unbothering hearts. Fear, I suspect, is what drives them through their carefree days. Fear of loving keeps each distant and happy and young.

And then, one day, a wish is granted to one, lovely Dorian Gray, who will never age another day of his life. Instead, he watches this experiences paint the face of his likeness, which he keeps secretly hidden. At first, it is his microscope, with which to observe with scientific detachment the changes that do not touch his soul. Drawn deeper daily are the lines and wrinkles of worry and regret that otherwise would be etched along his perfect face. But as this turns into an unfortunate obsession, we witness the price that Dorian pays to retain his youth and isolated, underdeveloped joy. Wilde writes for us a picture of how the soul, ripped form the body, leaves humanity to perform unspeakable deeds. When we are swept into the darkness of imagination, we can momentarily experience this contaminated mind before returning safely home. This philosophical fiction offers an enchanting and speculative metaphor to remind us of the preciousness of the soul and the Gothic horrors of our own destructive capabilities.

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. It is entertaining and frequently quotable. However, only right at the very end does it become fascinating and compelling.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The woman wore the symbol of her sin until
the word became synonymous with her character

The original 1850 coverpage of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter uses one word to prepare the mind of the reader for its contents: Romance. In the truest sense of the word, Romance has broken two secret lovers from all reason and the extreme piety of their puritan culture in a moment of passionate love. But the narrative does not give us privy entrance to that concealed night. Only in the aftermath of consequences and shameful ignominy do we experience the true romance of the lovers.

In the puritan heart, romance is not only or even primarily about passion, but deep and complete commitment.  Completely abandoned by her community, Hester Prynne carries out her public sentence shunned as an Adulterer, forever keeping commitment to the secrecy of her lover's identity. Selflessly, she loves daily after the protection of her child's father in public light, offering herself instead as the sacrifice for their hate. Sin, she allows to be her reputation. Everyday relearning the lesson that her crime will teach her.

But secret shame meanwhile does its work upon the heart of another. The inward Devil tortures what is outward seen as holy. Hawthorne beautifully and sadly depicts an entire life affected by the daily choice to conceal shame. Hypocrisy is a process in which guilt creeps into youthful passions until, overripe, they are consumed with a dark, rotting despair. The once-loving faculties abandon the body and "the heart is converted into a tomb."

The characters play out a dynamic tenseness of mundane days drawn out into years in which everyday is as painful as a knife digging into the obscurity of secrets hastily buried within their hearts. The endurance required to live out inner torture is immense. The debate is demonstrated through human lives: is it better to pay for sin publicly or to hide guilt and shame in fear of discovery? Will there be redemption for he poor woman we have grown to love? Will the blackness of hate consume the hearts of those who seek revenge? Is it possible for anyone to become the hero of this regretful tale?

Room - Emma Donoghue

Now that I'm five...

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumped. Jack is Mister five. And now that he's five... He is old enough to know the truth. That his world isn't real.

Are you ready to enter Jack's room? At first, you can't tell what exactly is wrong. It's just an unsettled feeling that creeps into your gut. There's something wrong with this innocent kid... It's coded in his not-quite-English version of talk where everything's been given a new name under his own set of rules. Even the walls have names, because they're his friends. Everything in the room is his friend. Even the wardrobe where he sleeps at night when the man comes to go to bed with his Ma. In his head, Jack counts the bed creaks until they stop and he can fall asleep.

This is a story of survival. Of what a mother will endure for her son. Of what a child can do to save his mother. Of what people are capable of...both brave and sinister. It is both disturbing and heartfelt. When you figure out what's going on, you won't be able to put the book down.