Not really my cup of tea: some nonfiction musings

Our local book club pick for September is Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone. While I haven’t read it yet, I am really looking forward to it. It’s been a while since we’ve delved into nonfiction – April to be exact, when we read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin. I’ve decided to take this nonfiction month (which is, coincidentally, the month of elections in Afghanistan) as an opportunity for me to post a long-delayed rant on this over-rated book.

I couldn’t stand Three Cups of Tea, and apparently, I’m the only person in the blogosphere who feels this way.

Now, let’s not get the wrong idea. I think the story is terrific; it’s everything that a good story is supposed to be: interesting, insightful, and inspiring. I laughed. I cried. I learned a lot more about the plight of children living on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan than I had ever hoped.

That is, when I could read it without yawning.

For such a wonderful narrative, Relin does a great job of boring his readers to death. Three Cups of Tea has so much potential, yet the prose is so mundane that I found myself rereading the same page over and over without realizing it, wondering why my mind kept trailing in multiple directions, none of which had anything to do with building schools in Central Asia.

The book feels like it is 2000 pages when it is barely over 200, and even that is too long. Everything that Relin says about Mortenson’s journeys can be condensed into a lovely 10-page essay in The New Yorker.

Did anyone else find themselves snoring in the middle of this book? Or, were you riveted the entire way through? I’d love to hear your thoughts on Three Cups of Tea.

The Emperor’s Children do not reign over readers

The Emperor’s Children is the most controversial novel that I have read in a long time. Not controversial in terms of  its subject matter, which is intentionally non-dramatic, but rather in its likability–or lack thereof. The critics love it. The readers are less charmed.

I was astonished by the disparity of opinion among those who reviewed Claire Messud’s latest work. The New York Times named The Emperor’s Children a notable book, and Slate’s book critic Katie Roiphe was charmed, calling it “that mythical hybrid that publishers dream of one day finding in the piles of manuscripts on their desks.”

However, the masses (and by “masses,” I mean those of us who find an unspeakable amount of pleasure in reviewing literature with fellow book geeks on Goodreads and Amazon) find themselves deeply disappointed. The general consensus is that the characters are unrealistic caricatures of spoiled New York intellectuals, the book is long and drawn-out, and the prose is grandiose.

I cannot say that I entirely disagree.

And yet, I loved the book, if only because the characters remind me of my former high school and college classmates. I also love a writer who can eloquently delineate the strife of  frivolous Manhattanites who are struggling to uncover the meaning of life… by analyzing the history of children’s clothing.

I think that the Times has it right. Messud is certainly a prolific novelist of “unnerving talent.” Her lyrical prose, engaging sense of humor, and astute approach to the post-9/11 novel is spectacular, assuming that one interprets it as social satire. If The Emperor’s Children is taken seriously, it is nothing more than a version of Bravo’s NYC Prep for upper-echalon 30-somethings. But every sentence in this novel is laced with irony, and no one in our generation can craft a comedy of errors quite like Claire Messud.

Mad Men and mad books

After much insistence, my mother lent my husband and I her Mad Men DVD. It’s only episode three and I am utterly hooked. After some thought, I have come up with a list of books that make me think of the AMC series. 

Why do these books relate to Mad Men? They all encompass many of the following elements, such as the existential nature of life, the lure of the big city, advertising agency culture, life in the early 60s, marriage and its discontents, affluent communities, the rise of modern psychiatry and the meaning of sanity. All of these novels, like the show, are brilliantly written with humor, beautiful prose, sheer drama, and fascinating characters. 

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney 

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Everything by Nikolai Gogol

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates 

John Updike’s Rabbit Series

The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (and also The Hours by Michael Cunningham)

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Are there any other books that you can think of? What about shows and/or movies that fit this same tone?