#346 The University of Man- Henry Dumas

#346 The University of Man- Henry Dumas

A watchmaker has learned all there is to his craft. His knowledge has ended.  His precise work has left him stagnant and hungry for learning. “I am run down, tired of chasing the same speck of dust away, weary of winding myself up each morning, tired of squeezing time into metal boxes.”

What follows is a vision quest, in the vein of Voltaire’s Candide or Zadig. At times he seems like a fool or a rube, but he knows that his path is leading him to something:

“It is the quest for knowledge that is holy, not the knowledge itself.”

He meets a man digging near a canal. This man is pure, he is intent, and he is undeterred. Thus the town resents him. Man is afraid of those who try to change the flow of the river. They engage in a conversation, like one of Plato’s dialogues. The topic is knowledge and education.

This story here is what makes Dumas special.

Notable Passage: “The greatest tool of education is the soul. The truly educated man is like a giant stylus etching in the sands of the earth. As he walks, words and songs flow behind him.”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#345 Amapola- Luis Alberto-Urrea

#345 Amapola- Luis Alberto-Urrea

An eighteen year old boy falls in love with his best friend's sister. The two friends are high school outcasts, Goth kids and inseparable. Popo, aka The Pope is Mexican and lives with his Uncle, they are rich and probably drug cartel connected. The narrator is a poor American and comes from a broken home.

When he falls for Popo’s sister, it doesn’t go over well, but like most forbidden love, it persists and will not be denied. Popo comes around, but his Uncle, and worse his father who visits to check on this “gringo” after his precious daughter, have other ideas. In the end love will be tested, lives changed, and innocence lost. Isn’t that how these all end?

Urrea has a great, natural, story telling pace, reminds me of David Eggers a little. Many of the authors I read for this project I will probably not read past this blog, but I will certainly try to pick up Urrea’s longer fiction works. I can see why this collection was a Pulitzer finalist.

Rating: 9-7-8-7 Total= 31

#344 Bad Boy Number Seventeen- Lucia Perillo

#344 Bad Boy Number Seventeen- Lucia Perillo

Starting a new collection with this story. Happiness is a Chemical was listed as one of the best books of 2012. Good start with Bad Boy Number Seventeen. A woman is at a bar with her sister—the one with Down Syndrome—and ruminates on all the bad decision relationships she has had.

“Inside every dissolute romantic there’s a brooding Schopenhauer, with a chronic melancholy that he nurses like a sourball in his cheek. He can see the whole arc of his life—from the uphill curve that is his present freedom to the downhill slope that’ll lead him to some evangelical storefront church where he’ll suddenly find himself swaying with his hands raised in the air. And the one’s who come without this flaring sense of precognition are just losers, plain and simple.”

Ouch! That’s quite a bar to set. As she finds herself number seventeen, we learn more about her sister. The story is as much about that connection than about her wayward love life. This is both funny, and touching.

Rating: 8-8-8-9 Total= 34

#343 The Guesthouse- Kirsten Valdez Quade

#343 The Guesthouse- Kirsten Valdez Quade

Jeff has traveled 2,000 miles to take care of his grandmother’s funeral. “Jeff is awash in enervating, aching nostalgia, his limbs thick with it.”

His mother is traveling and doesn’t want to ruin her trip coming back for a funeral, so as usual the family duties fall to him. That’s as it has always been in this family:

“Jeff and his Grandmother were the doers, the fix, and now Jeff is alone. The fact is, he doesn’t know if he’ll survive the loss of her.”

His drug-reformed sister, the one living closest to the grandmother seems untouched by the death, but wants Jeff not keep the house. As it turns out their dead-beat father has been living in the guesthouse for a while secretly from Jeff, his sister, and their mother. He has convinced the grandmother that he is worthy of a second chance, and now he’s on his way to convincing the rest of the family, all except for Jeff. Eventually all snakes get vulnerable after feeding too much.

You know the writing is good when you start feeling the anger of the narrator, and feel some satisfaction when Jeff finally lashes out.

Rating: 9-8-8-8 Total= 33

#342 Ashes to Ashes- Jabari Asim

#342 Ashes to Ashes- Jabari Asim

Friends for life Leo and Octavius, aka "the reverend" and "the rascal" have found themselves tested like many have, living lives under Jim Crow laws.

Violent events in 1928 caused them to flee the south for their lives. Like the millions of others that fled north during the second great migration, they hoped to find a better existence for themselves. Now in 1968, in that “better world” history repeats itself, and violence follows the pair.

There are times in life where a stand has to be taken, and of course a prayer must be said.

Notable Passage: “Sullen and humiliated…rage rose from them as thick and redolent as the smoke that had issued from the barbecue grills not long before. Unlike the smoke, which rode the air over the woods and on to far more pleasant places, their anger had nowhere to go.”

Rating: 9-8-9-9 Total= 35