Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach: I’m not a forensics enthusiast so I hadn’t read Roach’s Stiff despite it being highly recommended to me by several people. However, my curiosity was piqued when I heard that Roach and her husband volunteered to be the first individuals recorded having sexual intercourse by MRI. One always admires a writer for going the full length to do her research—even if the publicity helps her too—and that impression was certainly not diminished as I read the book. Roach adopts a casual, first-person tone: this nonfiction book, while full of interesting trivia as well as valuable information about the physiology of sex, is really a narrative. It’s a story about her investigation into the challenges surrounding the scientific research into sex, as well as the characters of the researchers themselves; she draws compelling portraits of the people she meets. I admit that I’m not used to reading popular nonfiction, so perhaps Roach’s style has become the norm, but I found it very engaging. Similar in approach, although completely different in style from Victoria Finlay’s Color, which I enjoyed for its narrative form. Roach is of course much more chatty and prone to tangents—she uses footnotes enthusisatically—but she never fails to treat her subject seriously, despite her lighthearted tone. I wish I’d made a list of all the “fun facts” I learned while reading the book (am still strangely fascinated, for example, by the account of a woman who can reach orgasm without any physical stimulation but merely by breathing).

The Annotated Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (annot. Alfred Appel): I make a particular point of describing this book as The Annotated Lolita because reading an annotated text is different from reading the text in isolation. And I did make the choice (or was it a mistake?) to read the annotations as I read the story. I doubt that it would have been possible to do that if Nabokov weren’t so obviously a master of his craft; despite my constant mental interruptions, I never felt that I lost the flow of the story. On the other hand, my reading experience was spoiled because the annotations were meant for a reader who had already finished the book. I didn’t realize, for example, that it would have come as a surprise to most readers who Humbert Humbert actually killed; though in retrospect I can appreciate how Nabokov manipulated reader expectations throughout the story. Yet I didn’t directly experience that manipulation, and I wonder if the impact of the story was somehow lessened because of that. I also realized while reading the novel that many paragraphs in it sounded quite familiar—in high school, I had edited a classmate’s rough draft of a term paper on Lolita, and I’ve of course seen quotes and excerpts almost everywhere—and I had the decidedly odd feeling of déjà vu, as if rereading a book that I had not actually read before.

All that being said, the book was completely different than anything I expected. I suppose I was already prepared for the aesthetic pleasure of Nabokov’s prose style (though it’s clear that The Defense, the only other Nabokov novel I’ve read, was one of his earlier ones and didn’t show the same level of mastery that Lolita does). I was not so prepared though for the fact that it doesn’t read at all like a psychological novel; I’ve always assumed that it would somehow feel claustrophobic to read from Humbert Humbert’s “confessional” perspective, but in fact he keeps us at a distance with his wordplay and seemingly flippant tone. The lack of any titillating scenes also made me wonder why it’s so often condemned as a “dirty” book. True, its subject matter is probably as controversial as it gets, but the sexual content is minimal and almost never described explicitly. (I had an amusing conversation with my mother, where she tentatively asked me what Lolita was about—”Isn’t it about a stepfather…with his daughter?”—and why I was reading it. I had to laugh because she had recommended André Gide’s books to me—Gide, who celebrated homosexual pederasty—and I find the implicit sexual relations in The Counterfeiters much more likely to offend my mother’s morals than anything in Lolita.

In any case, I do suspect that reading the annotations made me a little emotionally detached from the novel; much of the pleasure was academic, in following the numerous allusions to Poe, the puns hidden in character names, the sheer control of language that Nabokov exhibits. I think the only moment that really gave me pause was when Humbert Humbert begs Lolita to return with him. Though I do think it isn’t meant to be an emotional novel; there’s too much self-mockery and hidden contempt for the reader in Humbert’s memoir that jerks you away from any attempts at pitying sympathy for the narrator.

What really impresses me over and over is the artifice—in all its nuances—of Nabokov’s writing. He makes no pretense at realism, even when he draws the most incisive portrait of motels in Midwest America. He presents his art as art, not as an imitation of life. Now there are writers who emphasize their writing to the point where they stop engaging the reader and merely indulge in the equivalent of artistic masturbation (I am harsh only because I recognize this failing in myself), but Nabokov makes his writing the centerpiece that communicates with the reader. It’s as if…he makes no attempt to hide the puppet strings, but instead of it being an ugly intrusion on the reader’s consciousness, those very strings are incorporated into the show. Rather like (to use a similarly theatrical example) having visible stagehands change sets during a play as part of the performance. It seems immensely difficult to me, and I am all the more blown away by how Nabokov does it faultlessly. I am watching a virtuoso perform.

Arabella, by Georgette Heyer: I never did get around to logging that Heyer reading spree in which I indulged last fall. I burned out after a while and decided to hold off on reading the last two Heyer novels I had obtained. I finally got around to reading them, and perhaps my dissatisfaction with Heyer’s male romantic interests (with the exception of Freddy from Cotillion, who may never be equaled) has mellowed because I didn’t dislike Mr. Beaumaris at all. I suppose it helped that although he was perilously close to being yet another rake (I dislike rakes immensely, and so many of Heyer’s versions happen to be misogynists at the same time), he managed to show some self-awareness. A cynic, but one with a sense of humor. Also, while his “prank” was irresponsible and could have seriously ruined Arabella’s life, he did his best to make up for it. I guess what also helped the dynamic was that Arabella remained self-possessed and calmly encouraged his meaningless flirtations for her own ends while mostly assuredly not falling in love with him. Actually, I think I mostly liked Arabella, especially with her social justice crusades.

Sylvester, by Georgette Heyer: Well, I didn’t like Sylvester at all, but he didn’t actively annoy me. It took me a while to start liking Phoebe; I still can’t understand how such an unconventional girl could be such a doormat to her stepmother. I mean, I do understand the fear of invoking displeasure or disapproval, but in my experience, those sorts of girls actively try to remain as conventional as possible. I mean, I’m not saying that those personality characteristics are mutually exclusive, but I do wish Heyer had put a little more effort into completing her characterization of Phoebe. She felt like two characters mashed into one. That being said, how delightful is it that Phoebe published a novel parodying the ton! That was what made me like her in the end.

Sethra Lavode, by Steven Brust: All I can say is, I felt like crying at the end of this book. Poor Khaavren! I must admit that most of the storyline with the Jenoine and the Duke of Kana didn’t really interest me all that much, and I was even starting to get a little tired of Paarfi’s neverending exposition and circuitous dialogue, but the ending reminded me why the books hooked me in the first place. Ultimately, it was Khaavren’s story we were reading—how he lived and changed—and while there is a happy ending, there’s also irreversible loss.

His Grace of Osmonde, by Frances Hodgson Burnett: I must say, I never knew that Burnett wrote any books for adults, and it’s kind of odd reading a very characteristic Burnett novel with typical Burnett characters, except that there’s an actual love story involved. His Grace of Osmonde seems like a cross between Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy. I didn’t quite like Osmonde with his impeccable chivalry, and I think Burnett is a little too fond of children upon whom “Fortune seems to smile from birth” (Cedric from Little Lord Fauntleroy, Sara from A Little Princess) but are forced to endure hardships that the cruel world inflicts on them. I mean, I enjoyed both those Burnett books, but they don’t hold as dear a place in my heart as The Secret Garden, where bitter, sullen Mary and sickly, paranoid Colin actually seem like real children, full of imperfections. They are not wholly likeable, which perversely makes me like them better. In any case, I also didn’t quite like the foreordained quality of the romance here—wherein Clorinda is the only possible woman worthy of the shining perfection that is Osmonde—although I suppose the arbitrary circumstances that keep them apart make it truly tragic. I really did like the ending; a nice change from Burnett’s usual instinct to moralize. Good people are sometimes forced to do bad things. I never would have expected her to put in such a twist.

Sputnik Sweetheart, by Haruki Murakami (trans. Philip Gabriel): Oh, what to say about Sputnik Sweetheart. The writing literally overwhelmed me from the very first paragraph. More so than Norwegian Wood, which may be due to the different translators (I read Philip Gabriel’s translation of Sputnik Sweetheart and Jay Rubin’s translation of Norwegian Wood). The book seems relatively normal until about halfway through the book, when Sumire disappears, and Murakami becomes progressively more and more surreal until you don’t know what’s metaphor and what’s literal anymore. But of course, that’s not the point. You aren’t supposed to ask, wait, what’s really going on, because that isn’t what’s important. It shocked me how comprehensible the book was. I mean, usually with avant-garde writing, there’s a certain leap of thought required before it makes sense, that is to say, it takes a little time for it all to sink in, but not so here. Sumire disappearing, Miu’s hair turning white, the strange music on the hilltop: it all made sense. Although now that I try to articulate what it meant to me, it comes out sounding rather flat and banal. I was a bit disconcerted by the sharp transition when the narrator returns to Japan, and in fact, a part of me wondered at first if those final chapters were even necessary. And then I realized that the break in the narration, almost like a snap, is exactly like the narrator’s own transition. This kind of writing awes me to no end. Murakami’s style (at least from what I can tell in English translation) is deceptively simple, open, even dryly humorous (I forgot to mention that he’s really funny, which is not exactly what one would expect from the summaries of his novels), and yet this sensation of something powerful. I wrote in my LJ that it’s hard for me to say that I “like” Sputnik Sweetheart because the experience can’t be classified in those categories of liking or disliking. The analogy used: “when you glimpse yourself in the mirror and see yourself as a stranger, not-self, and yet the person you see is intimately familiar.” (Oh dear, to think that I would resort to the conceit of quoting myself.)

The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy L. Sayers: To be entirely honest, I found this mystery to be rather tiresome and not one of Sayers’ best. Too many suspects, too many details, too many detectives. We didn’t even have much opportunity to at least enjoy Wimsey’s conversation, which used to be a delight when the mystery itself fell short of expectation. Also, I do like attempting to solve the crime along with the characters, but not when I’m forced to juggle timetables in my head. I daresay real detectives have to deal with these kinds of messy mysteries all the time, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily make good narratives. Oh well, I managed to finish it in the end though. The solution to the crime was equally disappointing.

Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash is one of those books that when you look at it piece by piece, you wonder how the story ever managed plausibility in the first place, but when you look at it as a whole, you find it absolutely cool anyway. Hackers! Mesopotamian mythology! Linguistics! Viruses! Seriously, Stephenson comes up with the most awesome (if far-fetched) ideas. The first chapter, by the way, is a brilliant piece of writing: if you read it out loud, you notice the rhythm he’s built into the narration. The puns are…kind of obvious and bad, but I forgave him anyway. I also forgave him for equating glossolalia with fanaticism and mob mentality (not that I can exactly blame him, but “speaking in tongues” does not send you off into a mindless euphoria). Oh yes, and Stephenson’s definition of agglutinative language is incorrect as well. But quibbles aside, the whole Asherah idea—the impulse to conformity, and not just conformity but irrationality being transmitted as a virus to which human brains are particularly vulnerable—reminded me of Dawkin’s original concept of the “meme”. Also, the Babel phenomenon being responsible for inspiring human diversity was pretty interesting too, especially considering that I’m taking a course on language acquisition taught by a Chomskyite professor. The Metaverse was well designed although I wish Stephenson had included some more notes on how the user interface worked. I mean, how exactly does Hiro get his avatar to fight in the Metaverse? Is it tied into his actual physical movements? Wouldn’t that be kind of limiting? I mean, imagine if he had to stand still but his avatar had to walk? Or is it connected directly to his brain? Eye movements? Hand movements? Yes, I do obsess over worldbuilding details like these. Juanita is awesome although the way Hiro perceives her is definitely different from the person she really is, I bet. Also, why on earth does Hiro keep changing from washed-out delivery boy to hacker legend to kenjutsu master to some sort of secret agent to way too many personas for one individual? He can’t be that talented. I would call him a Gary Stu except it occurred to me that Hiro Protagonist reflects how men (or at least many males of my acquaintance) see themselves: a mix of both unrecognized genius and insecure failure. Anyway, the reinterpretation of religious history in terms of Enki’s nam-shub might require gross generalizations but what a brilliant idea nonetheless.

Have His Carcase, by Dorothy L. Sayers: A much better mystery than Five Red Herrings even though again there was much agonizing over alibis and timetables. At least the solution was quite clever this time, and it all fit together pretty well, even if the cryptography seemed a little excessive. I mean, are murders, even premeditated ones, ever that elaborate? Of course, that’s beside the point because no matter how interesting the sleuthing, what this book really is about is Harriet and Peter, and Harriet’s inability to reconcile her need for independence with her very genuine affection for Peter. The author makes it more than obvious that she loves him back, but nonetheless, we must watch the painful dance. Oh the difficulties of being a Modern Woman! I must say that this book is the first where Lord Peter’s been so consistently wrong in his theories, even if he comes up with the right answer in the end.

The Deer and the Cauldron, vol. 1, by Louis Cha (trans. John Minford): Louis Cha is the English pseudonym of the popular wu xia novelist Jin Yong. The Deer and the Cauldron is one of his works that is available in English. The translation is most definitely for people who don’t know anything about the Chinese language, and considering this audience, I’d have to say that the translator did a good job. Of course, one might be annoyed by the fact that several characters’ names are translated literally (for example, Xiaobao becomes Trinket) but I think that it does convey a nuance that English readers might otherwise miss. Also, the translator takes pains to explain every possible reference, even at the cost of interrupting the story, and there’s a very comprehensive glossary at the beginning that explains nearly everything else. The story itself is very humorous, detailing the adventures of Trinket, a young rascal who was born in a brothel and (at the moment) ends up masquerading as a eunuch in the palace. The setting is early Qing dynasty, when the Han Chinese, especially in the South, were still feeling resentful and rebellious toward their Manchu conquerors. (Trinket hails from such a Southern province.) In the Brotherhood of River and Lake, the underworld in which so many wu xia stories take place, the Triad Society (or more accurately the Society of Heaven and Earth) are among many who conspire to overthrow the Manchus and restore the Ming. Trinket makes for an unexpected hero, although well within the Chinese storytelling tradition (I suppose one could compare him to the monkey king in Journey to the West?), and he’s hilariously foulmouthed, tactless and yet somehow compelling. I hesitate to draw any larger conclusions at the moment, since there are two more volumes to the work, but it’s definitely a lot of fun to read.

Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox, by G.K. Chesterton: In a sense, this book is not simply a hagiography of Thomas Aquinas, but rather Chesterton’s reaction to “modernism”: his explanation of why he turns to Catholicism to find answers that modern philosophy cannot provide. Very gently done of course because Chesterton never quite preaches at the reader; instead he presents his opinions in a delightfully subversive way, overturning the usual stereotypes about Christian religion and Catholicism in particular. One of his points, which struck me as particularly important, is that Christianity is essentially a religion that celebrates life. It is easy to forget this fact considering tendencies within the Church to emphasize asceticism and original sin, but Chesterton argues that asceticism is in many ways a natural emotional impulse, which the structure and dogma of the Church holds in check. He writes that the Church’s traditionalism is what prevents it from embracing extremes, that keeps it professing the innate goodness of all creation. Faith is complex and shifting, but religion provides a structure in which it can remain healthy instead of stagnant. Chesterton’s perspective is clearly far from conventional, but I felt that he articulated what it means to be Catholic.

Chesterton also does an excellent job, by the way, of putting Aquinas in a historical context: the renewal taking place within the Church, the rise of new monastic orders (the Dominican and Franciscan friars), the Manichaean heresy, Albertus Magnus, the revival of Greek classics via the Muslims in the East, Aristotelianism and Church theology. I appreciated the originality of his interpretations—he really has a way of turning one’s view of history topsy-turvy—although I will say that Chesterton has a tendency to generalize in order to fit things into a clear pattern (dialectic?—although he himself would deny that he poses any dialectics). He makes an interesting comparison between Buddhism and Christianity, saying that the two are similar precisely because their philosophies are exact complements: they describe the same contours so to speak but are nonoverlapping. In other words, where Buddhism ends with Self, Christianity posits a Creator, although that sounds a bit too glib. Not exactly a groundbreaking insight in itself, since the grandmothers at my church say essentially the same thing (our parish, being Korean-American, has a unique relationship with Buddhist tradition), but nonetheless meaningful. I don’t quite agree with the way Chesterton draws sweeping conclusions about the East—particularly since I’m Asian myself—but other than that, I must say that his conception of spirituality is very much my own. I really do recommend the book, if only to get a better understanding of theology. It’s very easy to read one or two books, or even worse, listen to one or two people, and believe you know what Christianity is about, but I find that everyone complicates the issue with their own personal psychologies (and no one less than Catholics themselves) and forgets the simplicity of the message underneath. Chesterton returns to that simplicity and explains the exterior complications with remarkable lucidity. His explanation of Augustine, or rather Augustinianism and its influence on Church theology, was eye-opening for me.

I find it very difficult to discuss religion directly—it is, after all, intensely personal, not to mention difficult to verbalize—but I think the following quote explains best my own reason for theism:

“Things change because they are not complete; but their reality can only be explained as part of something that is complete. It is God.”

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde: I read the sequel Lost in a Good Book first, so I had the disadvantage of already knowing, in a loose sense, what was going to happen in this book. This may have biased my reaction to it, of course. I think I enjoyed the sequel more, although I’m not sure if that’s because Fforde’s writing has improved since his first novel, because I dislike Jane Eyre more than Great Expectations or because Fforde’s cleverness can only last for the duration of a book and a half before growing tiresome. The uncharitable part of me would say it’s the last. I do appreciate the whole setup with all the details of this alternate world from the obsession with literature to the not-so-secret tyranny of the Goliath Corporation, and I didn’t even mind the worst of the puns, but at a certain point, I felt that Fforde was just throwing clever idea after idea at me without much substance to back it up. Frankly, his writing at its best is only average. There were a few moments when I was quite appalled at how awful the dialogue was and wondered what sort of editor would let him get away with that. Also, the characters are amusing as flat caricatures but there is absolutely no development whatsoever. One might ask, is there supposed to be, but when Acheron Hades utterly fails to come across as particularly evil other than Fforde’s insistence that he is, the story falls flat. I do acknowledge that Fforde is parodying certain literary stereotypes, but in Acheron’s case, he failed to make it amusing. Thursday also doesn’t work as a character for the simple reason that she isn’t one person, but ten. She keeps changing her personality to suit the situation—hardened veteran at one point, rejected lover at another—but she becomes completely amorphous as a result. Again, I suspect that this lack of effective character development is at least partly intentional, but I’m still left with the impression that Thursday is a badly executed Mary Sue that takes itself a little too seriously to be funny. Oh, I adore all of Fforde’s ideas, and I’ll freely admit that he’s clever beyond belief, but there’s still something missing. I can’t remember if Lost in a Good Book managed to acquire that something or not, but nonetheless I’ve lost all desire to track down the sequels.