Jeremy C. Ellis's Books > Book reviews by Jeremy C. Ellis

Masterful

Posted : 2 years ago on 2 November 2006 08:48 (A review of Three Sisters (Theatre Classics S.))

I recently went to a reading of this play by a theatre group here in Philadelphia that I really enjoy. Although I could write a very positive review of their reading, I'll try and focus on the writing itself. This play presents a masterful peek into societal life for three sisters living in a relatively small Russian city of 100,000 people. The theme of living in your memories or living in your hopes is a major theme that is magnificently played out across the play's long four acts. Each of the main characters has a catch phrase or speech that they deliver a variant of in each act, the first time full of hope and happiness and with each passing act with more and more despair and hopelessness. The three sister's arcs into unhappiness and depression weave together to create a very cohesive whole. I thought the contrast between the three sisters and their one brother played perfectly into the development of the sisters' characters. In fact, the contrast between the male characters and the female characters was very interesting all around. The transformation of Natasha's character was also an interesting shift. I found the character of Solyony to be one of the only male characters that compared to the three sisters, but I can't put my finger on why. Watching the town fall apart through the lives of the sisters made for a great play. If you can stand some slow plot development and lengthy dialog (ie, it is a Russian story), you should really check this play out!

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More Interesting than You'd Think

Posted : 2 years ago on 27 October 2006 05:50 (A review of Housekeeping: A Novel)

I just finished reading one of the only novels I had started and not finished. I was supposed to read it for a Philosophy of Literature course I took during my undergraduate studies and during this failed effort I found this to be the most boring book in the world and couldn't get past the first 20 pages (of only 219 pages!) At the time I confessed to this in class and found that I wasn't alone. However, the interesting thing was that it was all the males in the room that found it so boring and all the females who found it so intriguing.

Now, let me immediately say I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that it is titled housekeeping. However, at the time we talked in class a great deal about the difference between a novel with such a feminine perspective and voice and the more numerous novels with a decidedly masculine voice and tone, regardless of the author's gender. I think the most distinctive difference between this novel and most novels I've read is the pace. It is very, very slow and methodical. The cover heralds the praise it received from the New York Times Book Review: "so precise, so distilled, so beautiful that one doesn't want to miss any pleasure that it might yield." I would agree. What I mistook in my first stalled out attempt to read this novel as clunky, boring details were in fact the careful groundwork of great storytelling.

Nearly every dislike I had for this book was disproved during my second read. This book accomplishes an integral task of a successful novel, which is that the form of the storytelling reflects the world of the characters and causes the reader to experience the character's world in the same way. Years ago I criticized the book for doling out details in a stutter-stop fashion, but as I reread it now I realized that this is exactly how the characters matured and learned about these same things. Another gripe I had initially was of the pace, but this I think in reality just drives home how dull and slow the narrator's childhood and path into adulthood was. The act of housekeeping has so many meanings throughout the text that I don't want to spoil any of them, but I found it to be a useful touchstone as I followed the young sisters through adolescence in a small, boring, little town years ago.

Overall, the story is very compelling and chapter after chapter the plight of the women whose lives this novel revolves around delve ever deeper into sadness and loneliness. However, it is in this complete isolation that the protagonist finds some semblance of happiness and peace. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone who has an open mind and enjoys a well-crafted novel.

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Decent Study Guide

Posted : 2 years, 1 month ago on 14 October 2006 04:46 (A review of CliffsTestPrep Praxis II: English Subject Area Assessments (0041, 0042, 0043, 0048, 0049) (Cliffstes)

So, finding myself needing to pass the Praxis II exam for English (Test 10041), I set out to Barnes and Noble in search of a test prep/study guide. I found this one and it has proven to be fairly useful. It focuses first on what is involved in a standardized multiple choice test and what types of multiple choice questions the Praxis II in English offers. Then it goes through strategies for each type. The next section of the book is a series of outlines and definitions for concepts, terms, novels, poems, etc. that you should know to pass the test. They don't go into too much detail on each item but it is meant to serve as a heads-up for things you should study more on your own. Lastly there are full-length practice tests for each of the Praxis II English tests. My only major gripe is that this book covers all four English Praxis II tests instead of focusing on just one test (10041). However, they do a good job of trying to make the each section about all four tests and each test-specific section still relevant to the other tests. If I pass the test (which I should) I might put up my score as a testament to how useful this was. :-)

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READ THIS EVERY DAY

Posted : 2 years, 1 month ago on 9 October 2006 09:33 (A review of Latro in the Mist)

This is what Latro writes on the outside of his scroll to remind himself to read over his writings every morning. He has to leave himself this note because he cannot form new memories. Sound familiar? Yes, this is very much the same general idea as the film Memento from 2000, but this novel (actually a compilation of two novels, Soldier of the Mist, 1986 and Soldier of Arete, 1989) was written well before then. According to Wikipedia another book in this series, Soldier of Sidon is due out this year (2006), although I felt that the second novel, Soldier of Arete, pretty neatly ended the story.

On to the specifics. On one hand I found it really interesting, well-written, historically engaging, and a real challenge to follow a lengthy novel when the narrator isn't much help. On the other hand, the format was at times frustrating and the whole "I forget everything" got a little tiresome, especially near the beginning when most chapters were consumed by notes from Latro to himself explaining that he can't remember anything. Gene Wolfe seems to enjoy the relationship that the narrator has with the audience, as I've found his narrators are generally unusual in some way. In the New Sun books his narrator couldn't forget a single detail that he had lived through; in the Latro books the narrator can barely remember what happened a handful of hours ago, losing the rest to time, what he describes as the mist. In many ways I found myself enjoying the task of piecing together Latro's experiences into a meaningful narrative, flipping back in the novel over and over again to see if I really remembered hearing that name or that place.

This brings me to the one thing that I think really helped the Latro books be successful, which is true of Memento as well, and that is that the medium of the work inherently causes the reader to suffer the same ailment and fate as the protagonist. Wofle's writing keeps you slightly in the dark, and his method of opening each chapter with what has most recently happened, not what you just finished reading about, before moving back in time and catching up with this new present keeps you on your toes. This is why I like reading post-modern novels and novels that share many characteristics with a post-modern novel, such as this one: the effort that the reader must give to the reading and the ability and responsibility to help create the art.

Lastly, it was interesting to read what could be very loosely constructed as an historical novel. Set in ancient Greece, Wolfe does a fairly good job of helping the reader through difficult geography and cultures without giving away the game too much. He gives us many details which are likely true (I'll admit that I'm nothing close to a Grecian scholar, but what I read of Wolfe is that he likes to bleed history into his fiction) and many rough sketches of life in Greece around the turn of the calendars from BCE to CE. These details never seem to intrude on the story, only to enhance or flush out a given moment.

Overall, I would recommend this novel to others, but keep in mind that it is not a passive read. However, I found it to be pretty rewarding. Yeah for Latro.

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The Last Truly Great Wheel of Time Novel

Posted : 2 years, 1 month ago on 9 October 2006 07:09 (A review of The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4))

Remember the days when the Wheel of Time was printed in small type with small margins and little line spacing? When the timeline was moving at a pace that could be measured in weeks or months instead of hours? Well, if you have a hard time remembering any of those things, pick up The Shadow Rising, one of the last truly great Wheel of Time books. Now, as much fun as I'm having at the series's expense, I did enjoy the rest of the series and think that the most recent book, Knife of Dreams, was the best book in the series for a long time. However, The Shadow Rising is one of the last that really cooks. From the story of Emond's Field and Perrin to Rand and company's journey through the Aiel Waste there is tons of adventure, tons of answers, and tons of new questions. We see the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn for the first time, we see some of the Forsaken in greater detail, we learn the history of the Aiel (a fantastic sequence, perhaps the best moment of the series so far), we meet a whole host of new characters that are interesting, and by the end of the book we've finally taken care of a nagging problem: How is Rand going to get better at yielding saidin? Plot aside, Jordan is really at the top of his form in this novel, weaving enticing story lines without getting too lost in the details. As I said at the beginning, I'm still a fan of the series as a whole and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy fiction, but be warned, the next book is the end of the fast pace and from there they just continue to slow down until Knife of Dreams.

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