2666, Water for Elephants, and All the Pretty Horses

I should be writing individual posts about all of these, but I just started reading Bodega Dreams and I really want to escape into the rabbit hole and crawl out into East Harlem.

The Payoff Scale: A inadequate tool to measure how good I subjectively think a work is based on a delicate balance between entertainment and erudite snobbyness. Kind of like a book that makes your brain sweat but then hands you a cold beer in gratitude of your labors. A 1 on the Payoff Scale could be an entertaining read without a shred of intellect, or it could by pages of brilliant crafted literature that the reader has to re-read 8 times in searching desperately for a shred of plot. In the number 10 parade marches the Moby Dicks, Grapes of Wraths, and Hundred Years of Solitudes. Books that are hard to get through. Damn Hard. But entertainment and literary stimulation converge to make... a good, intelligent read. Fighting through language and metaphor actually PAYS OFF. Anything below an 8 you might forget the characters' names. Anything below a 6 you might forget certain events but can piece together a back-flap summary. Anything below a 4 you take a few moments to try to remember if you actually read the book or not. 2 or 1 requires a letter to the author/editor/publishing house, asking for a refund. If not a financial one, then a compensation for the time wasted and the energy drained in turning pages. According to this ridiculous (but useful to me right now) article: The Da Vinci Code burns 885 calories. Therefore Dan Brown owes me a Big Mac with Medium French Fries. But I'm a veg, so he owes me 30 seven and a half inch carrots.

2666, Roberto Bolaño
I read 2666. I want this on my tombstone. Not only because its a long book, (I've read long books before without feeling like I just climbed Everest without an oxygen tank and no Sherpa carrying my shit and providing me with spiritual guidance) but because a large puñado of the book deals with the Juarez murders. (Shame on you if you don't know about this yet...like me...a year ago.) Wait I'm sorry. Did I say "deal?" Did I just grossly misrepresent Bolaño intentions? Or intimate some kind of subtle trope, equivocation? He describes the discovery of each woman/girl/woman and the condition of their body in such graphic detail that I had to put the book down for a couple of months. Details like dogs chewing on their torn nipples had me crying on the 1 train, upsetting all the sensitive Upper West Siders. It took me 5 months and a bunch of comics and bestsellers before I could cross the 2666 finish line. It was worth it.

He indulges in the arcane world of academia with its ostentatious business write-offs and bookish love affairs. Very entertaining. There's also some of the most amazing WWII writing (this means a lot coming from me). It is from the point of view from Nazi, less interested in Third Reich ideals, and more into sex. A lot of sex. There is nothing better than an exciting sex scene that is so bookishly well written, you feel completely artless in loving every second of it. Somehow, because it's artistic, God won't smite you as hard. Things come together in an ending that just takes off. Takes off. You will understand when you read it. Actually, please read it, so we can get coffee and talk about it in approximately four-five months. It was a book that elicited audible gasps, laughs, tears, and actual "Oh no!"s. Bolaño writes it all as if he was there first hand. The highlight is when he writes about writing itself. Any writer/artist who has milked obsession over failure and doubt, should read this immediately.
Payoff Scale: 9.5

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
The characters lack depth or change. If Jacob Jakowski was trying to grow from a boy to a man, I missed it. His morality rivals Jesus Christ's and becomes unbelievable. There is no questioning who is good or bad, Circus owner- BAD. Ringleader- BAD. Dwarf Clown- GOOD. Elephant- GOOD. Actually the elephant is the most dynamic character in the novel, it should have been from her POV.
There are some surface level race relations that go nowhere. "If you're a performer, you take shots at working men. If you're a working man, you take shots at Poles, if you're a Pole you take shots at Jews." Aside from sounding like water-downed Steinbeck, all I could think of is, "Can't we all just get along?!" The description of the circus itself is written as if the author had never been to the circus. (She hadn't, I checked.) And Gruen achieved my pet peeve, when I can hear an author's voice through the words and I then picture said author on his or her Macbook in a Starbucks using a thesaurus. It is particularly bad when I can picture what latte he/she is drinking. Gruen was drinking a Peppermint Mocha.
I am exaggerating. But the book was a disappointment. I give it a 3 on the scale. Maybe a 4 because I liked the elephant.
Payoff Scale: 3.5

All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
If I wasn't on a 14 hour plane ride from Kuwait to JFK, I may not have given this book a chance. In the style of a Western, it has terse dialogue and slow moving introductory prose. The landscape descriptions were beautifully written but nothing was happening. There was A LOT about horses. Reading the book initially gave me the feeling of riding a horse in the midday sun of the Tex/Mex border. So good job with that. But I thought seriously about trading in the book for a Jim Thompson novel, similar style but at least you know in a few pages, someone is going to get shot.

I am glad I finished. As the novel developed, it still lacked a thrilling plot, but there was some beautiful language that required both underlining AND dogearing. Especially when Doña Alfonsa speaks: "If fate is the law then is fate also subject to that law? At some point we cannot escape naming responsibility. It's in our nature. Sometimes I think we are all like that myopic coiner at his press, taking the blind slugs one by one from the tray, all of us bent so jealously at our work, determined that not even chaos be outside of our making." I couldn't figure out where I knew that voice. Ah yes, it is quite definitely an homage to Addie in As I Lay Dying. Oh my, McCarthy's entire style is an homage to Faulkner.

I realized that this is common knowledge in the literary world that I was not privy to while flying above the Atlantic sans Interweb. Google "McCarthy Faulkner" and you'll see what I mean. To enjoy this book make sure you're in the mood for a slow read that hypnotizes you with beautiful language and American folk philosophy such as, "My daddy used to tell me not to chew on somethin that was eatin you."
Payoff scale: 7.5