Month: November 2024

bookmark_border“Shock Induction”, by Chuck Palahniuk

Posted on by Elliott Evans

This is the latest novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It is a satire. The only reason this is not a non-fiction novel is because it is a satire. The truth is that everything this novel talks about basically does happen, just not in the absurd ways Palahniuk pretends it does for the purposes of this novel. Everything that “some shadowy but not actually secret at all group” is doing to young people in the novel is actually happening, just to different sets of young people than imagined in the novel, and in slightly different ways.

This book is a fast read. It is engaging and well written. It is confusing at times, but nobody reads Chuck Palahniuk expecting the narrative to go down like vanilla ice cream, right? Chuck Palahniuk is more like a double cone of rum raisin and rocky road, and the cone is cracked, and the day is hot and sunny; and there you are in the hot sun trying to ingest this mix of textures and flavors while constantly licking the outside of the whole thing to keep from getting any on your pants.

I do not think that Shock Induction will become one of my favorite Chuck Palahniuk books. Those are still Fight Club, Diary, and Rant. It’s pretty high up in the second tier, though. Holding it up against his other recent books, it’s tighter than The Invention of Sound, more palatable than Not Forever But for Now, and less terrifying than Adjustment Day. Maybe wait for this one in softcover if you’re not already the proud owner of a hardcover copy. I mean, it came out weeks ago.

bookmark_borderFifth Takadai Braid

Posted on by Elliott Evans

This braid has been on the takadai for about six months. I have not been working on it constantly, of course, but still. It is a double-layer double-twill braid that used both the upper and lower arms, so it is essentially two braids stitched together at the edges. Even If I had been braiding at full speed, it still would have taken me twice as long as a single-layer braid, but I had so many other things to take care of and so many other braids to do.

The final braid is about a yard long and a little more than a half-inch wide. It’s all in silk lace-weight yarn and there are 52 (!) elements with 3 ends of yarn per element. There are plenty of errors in the braid. You can probably see a few in the photo. I’m still happy with it. It was a great learning experience.

bookmark_border“Everything is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer

Posted on by Elliott Evans

A while back (apparently February of 2023), I saw the 2005 movie (starring Elijah Wood) that Liev Schreiber made from the 2002 novel. I was very taken by the film, and I knew that the novel would give me a different perspective on the story. I did not know how different these two stories would be. It took me about a month to read the novel.

The film details the “very rigid search” that a young American man (also named Jonathan Foer) makes to Ukraine to explore the history of his family there. Jonathan is the family collector. At home, Jonathan has a museum of his family’s history, filled with photos and artifacts. The film is narrated with voice over and vignetted with chapter cards by the young Ukrainian man who is hired to guide the American to “Trachimbrod” the birthplace of American’s grandfather Safran Foer. There are some flashbacks, but most of the film is the story of the search for Trachimbrod and what they find there.

The narration of the film is taken from letters that the guide, named Alex, writes to Jonathan after Jonathan has returned to the USA. Alex’s father runs “Heritage Tours”, the company that Jonathan hires to take him to Trachimbrod. Alex is the guide, pressed into service by his father, and Alex’s grandfather is the driver of the company car. Grandfather believes he is blind, so he has a seeing eye dog who he has named “Sammy Davis Junior, Junior”. Alex’s letters are printed in the book with his fractured English and editorial comments.

There is so much more in the book, however. Alex’s letters are interspersed with a history of Trachimbrod, and of Jonathan’s family there. This “history” is fantastic in the sense that it appears to be largely made of fantasies that Jonathan imagines to be the history of Trachimbrod. These fantasies are probably based on the artifacts that Jonathan retrieves from Trachimbrod, but an early detail in one of Alex’s letters reveals that these items were all stolen while Jonathan is still in Ukraine. This detail, like the note in the foreword to Lolita regarding the death of Mrs. Richard F. Schiller, will most likely be forgotten by the reader before its import becomes clear. None of this is included in the film.

The history of Alex’s family and its connection to the Foer family is also wildly different between the novel and the film. This is not a criticism of either. Both stories are poignant, enigmatic, and impactful. I don’t know if I think either story is better than the other. They are very different, though they end similarly. Alex’s final letters reveal more than the film about how he and his family fare after he returns home with his Grandfather.

Jonathan Safran Foer the author also wrote the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which was also made into a film. For personal reasons, I have never allowed myself to watch that film, but perhaps I will read the book.

I am not sure if this is, strictly speaking, a book review.