Review: If Beale Street Could Talk

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are some books you read because you want to. Some books to read just for shits and giggles. Some books because you want to complain about how badly literature has fallen. And there are some books you read because you need to. While the last one could probably describe all of Baldwin's work, there might not be a better example for a much needed emotional stirring than Beale Street. A fully encompassing tale about emotional bonds and the system that feels justified in breaking them.

Because I can't help being negative, I have to point out the plot is a little slow going. It opens by telling us why we're all here but takes some time to develop after that. I'm mostly only pointing this out because I've given other books lots of shit for pacing issues. The difference here is that Baldwin is a much better writer than the people of those other books. The subtext and underlying the family connections everyone shares is the main purpose of the book, the tragedy being that when systemic racism brings hell to one person, it brings hell to everyone he/she/they are connected to. The book needs time to establish those connections before the non-linear narrative explains itself.

The prose are some of the best I've ever read in modern literature. It's impactful, deep in emotion, and heavy in its intent. Even though it's short, I felt full by the time I finished. I didn't want anymore because I don't think I could handle it. Which is probably why it ends where it does.

I think what makes Baldwin's work so engaging is the subtle feeling of hope under the tide of tragedy and injustice. Being simultaneously anger and sad at the system that treats humans as less than that, but still being able to imagine a world that can be better. To quote Baldwin himself, "I am an optimist, because I am alive."  For all those who still feel they are alive, read this book. Because you need to.

View all my reviews

Review: Heavy Vinyl, Vol. 1: Riot on the Radio

Heavy Vinyl, Vol. 1: Riot on the Radio by Carly Usdin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Most things are just alright. Books, movies, days. It's the nature of the universe that everything just settles into a bell curve. With that in mind, I try to temper all my expectations. I don't expect everything to knock it out of the park. Just as long as they get on base. This book? Yeah, it's just okay.

It's nearly perfect okayness mostly steams from the writing. I understood what was happening at all times, the commas and periods were all in the right places, and the characters weren't entirely two dimensional. But doing everything right doesn't mean you did well. Nothing was excessively creative, the plot was a little thin, and the writing wasn't as engaging as I would have hoped. There's pieces of coolness in this book, but most of it comes off as dry.

The art. Well the art is actually really good. Not and-the-award-goes-to good, but it exceeds its serviceable needs. Characters are well designed and drawn. Backdrops and settings don't feel lazy or uninteresting. Emotional impact and panel transitions  are all properly communicated. Given the so-so writing, the quality of the art actually stands out.

There is one thing that really bugs me though. No record store looks this nice or does this well business wise. I mostly say this because New Jersey's Vintage Vinyl, the best record store east of the Rocky Mountains just announced it is shutting down. A reminder that record stores struggle daily to stay in business and are mostly used by their cash strapped owners as storage. It's a cool fantasy, but I've seen D&D games with more realistic settings.

View all my reviews

Review: Piranesi

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I consider myself to be pretty pretentious, all the people who know me nodding simultaneously in agreement, but even I'm not pretentious enough to like "Piranesi". I'm going to try and keep this review as non-ranty as possible, but it's going to be obvious I didn't like this book. Or, to be more accurate, I'm going to explain why this book isn't good. Disliking something and knowing it's bad are two different things. In this case, both qualify.

For those reading this review who have no idea what this book is about, let me sum up: It's a journal of the universe's most boring genre character. It's not uncommon for books to have a fairly uninteresting main character in comparison to the supporting cast, but damn is Piranesi a boring person. He literally spends a good portion of the novel, especially in the beginning, just wandering around making notes about when birds show up. There is a motivation about finding some great knowledge, but it's such a generic idea that I rolled my eyes each time it came up. Also, the secret knowledge doesn't matter. At all.

The pacing is terrible. The so-called plot takes some time to get started, ramps up suddenly without warning, and then overstays its welcome after the climax. You would think a short book like this would have a tighter narrative. You would be wrong. Imagine watching an eight-hour-long debate on C-SPAN over the arrival of albatrosses, there's an explosion, and then the debate continues in the wreckage for two more hours. That's what reading this book felt like.

The prose are okay. If there weren't so many damn structural problems, I might have actually liked the writing in the book. Aside from most of it being boring, there are two problems with the writing I wanted to highlight. One, most of it is formatted in the way of a journal. That wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, but it's far too observational to be a journal. Journal entries are meant to self-reflective, processing the days' event(s) into a means for the person writing it to psychology examine. But the descriptive nature makes the book more of an artistic form of logging.  And there's a difference between keeping a journal and keeping a log. The biggest problem is that no one would write a journal or a log in this fashion. As normal prose, it's fine, but the journal structure mostly just ruins it. Two, it's trying too hard to impress C.S. Lewis. There's a difference between influence and imitation, and the prose of this book rides that line likes it's a wild horse it's trying to break in. At the end of the day, I would say the book bucks on the influence side, but anyone else who has read a good amount of C.S. Lewis will notice it.

Perhaps this book's biggest sin is that it only sounds good if you talk about it conceptional. Like how "Catcher in the Rye" is only good when you talk 'of it' instead of 'about it'. "Piranesi" alludes to a bunch of stuff but firmly commits to almost nothing. I feel there are some genuinely good concepts floating about only to forever remain shadows. There's also a misconception some people are having with this book coming out in 2020 and the nature of being in quarantine. This isn't the book's fault so I won't devolve into the extremely mean rant forming at the base of my skull. I'll only say that those people are wrong.

View all my reviews