The Grasshopper King

I'm taking a break from Rising Up Rising Down to read Jordan Ellenberg's first novel, The Grasshopper King.

The book's narrator is Sam Grapearbor, a grad student at the mythical Chandler State University, a small western US college known primarily for its basketball team and its Department of Gravinic Studies. As the Gravinics department's only grad student, Sam inherits the task of watching over the department's founder Stanly Higgs, a man who has refused to utter a word for the previous dozen or so years. Prior to his self-imposed muteness, Higgs was the preeminent scholar of an obscure poet whose writings are not only excruciatingly bad, but also are of great academic interest, being one of the few insights to the (also mythical) tiny state of Gravine, located in the former USSR and shielded for centuries from the outside world's influence.

I'm about halfway through the book and I have to admit that I've caught myself laughing out loud more than once. The author's writing draws you into this bizarre little world gradually so that you feel the authenticity of the characters and the setting, despite the abundant layers of absurdity in the story. Mr. Ellenberg is also a well-known mathematician at Princeton and has written regularly for Slate and recently for The Believer magazine.

Perhaps it's no coincidence then that Mr. Ellenberg has just been named as a finalist for the NY Public Library's "Young Lions" award (winner to be announced on March 31). I hope he wins; from what I've read so far, he deserves to.

Rising Up and Rising Down

One of my belated Christmas presents to myself was William T. Vollman's seven-volume study on the ethics of violence, Rising Up and Rising Down. It sounds intimidating, but it's been an engrossing read so far (almost all the way through Vol. 1). I doubt I'll read through the whole thing first volume to last, which is fine as the set is broken into sections that can stand alone.

If you're interested, this review describes Vollman's work better than I can. I'll probably have something more to say about this "book" later.

Motherless Brooklyn

By Jonathan Lethem

In this gripping detective novel and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a group of teenage orphans is "adopted" by a small-time gangster to do various odd (if shady) jobs and eventually form his crew of private detectives in his not-quite-legitimate detective agency. The protagonist is one of these orphans, Lionel Essrog, who happens to have Tourette's syndrome. Lionel witnesses the murder of his boss and, not quite sure whom he can trust, decides to take on the task of pursuing the murderer himself.

The novel unfolds at a breakneck pace and we can almost share his feelings of panic and compulsion as Lionel unravels the web of intrigue surrounding the murder while struggling to hold even the simplest conversations. Immensely addictive and readable, Motherless Brooklyn is a fun twist on the classic detective novel.

When Pride Still Mattered

By David Maraniss

I've finally finished this biography of Vince Lombardi that I started at Christmastime last year. Not that it was bad or uninteresting, I was just sidetracked by other projects and books. I guess that's my first unofficial New Year's resolution: to finish the half-read books that I've started. Except now I've started another new one.

When Pride Still Mattered: A Life Of Vince Lombardi was an honest portrayal of Vince Lombardi the man, not the legend. The book follows the typical biographical arc: it starts in his boyhood w all the familial, cultural and societal influences that played out through his adult life. The theme for Lombardi's life was not success at any cost, but success comes to those who "pay the price." I.e., it's okay to lose, but it's not okay to lose through lack of effort. And when you do lose, you'd better have learned some lessons along the way.

The book presented Lombardi as a driven, hardworking, charismatic, somewhat self-centered, autocratic, kindhearted, color-blind (racially as well as visually) coach who gave everything to his players, friends and fans, but very little to his wife and family. If you have any interest in football or sports personalities, it's definitely worth a read.

Everything & More

By David Foster Wallace

I'm not done with Operation Wandering Soul yet. There is some inspiring writing in that book, but it's interspersed with other bits that just seem tedious to me. The plot seeems to be moving very slowly and I'm having a hard time keeping up. So in the meantime, I've started reading Everything and More: A Compact History of ∞, something I've commented on previously.

I have to be honest, this book will not appeal to everybody. Despite the the author's engaging prose, it gets rather technical in places and can be difficult to follow. Plus, Wallace's writing style is somewhat unconventional, so what I find engaging may turn some people off. Math fans will enjoy this book. Wallace fans will enjoy this book. Generally geeky/curious types will enjoy this book.

Even if you've left formal study of math far behind (as I have), but you're the kind of person who remembers what sohcahtoa means and have actually tried using it (as I have, i.e., tried), then you've got to check this book out. The last time I studied math was in college, more than 10 years ago (gulp!) and E&M makes me wish I had stuck with it longer. It really is fun to read.

Operation Wandering Soul

- By Richard Powers

I was going to start reading this book a couple months ago, but got sidetracked. It is the story of two doctors who are brought together in a pediatrics ward in urban LA. The book deals with childhood disease and death and, from what I've heard, is incredibly sad.

I'm only 50 pages or so in and I can tell this book is going to take me some time. Powers' writing is laden with such powerful (and beautiful) imagery that it demands careful attention.

Cryptonomicon

By Neal Stephenson.

I just finished my second reading of Cryptonomicon. It was almost as much fun the second time. I've become a Neal Stephenson fan in just the last six months.