BRIGHTON ROCK (BY) GRAHAM GREENE

Published 1938, 247 pages
Characters: B
Writing: B+
Plot: B-
Pacing: B-
Poignancy: B+

Given the time period, the tone, the air of danger that pushes the book to its swift start, one might expect Brighton Rock to be a noir, or at least an gangster thriller.  But dark as the novel is, Graham Greene has a different agenda.  Brighton Rock is more of a character-piece than a noir, a meditation on the nature of good and evil rather than their methods, and its memorable young villain quickly steals the focus of the story.  It's nice little twist, and Greene's skill at unraveling characters' motivations in powerful literary bursts drives the novel to interesting depths.

Brighton Rock is mostly the story of Pinkie, a 17 year old gangster struggling to hold on to a feeble criminal empire.  After the murder of a journalist results in a few too many witnesses, Pinkie is forced to go to great lengths to keep them silent — and it's those lengths that make up this story, his mounting desperation at the incompetence of his allies, and his reconciliation at his own inadequacies.  Pinkie makes for an interesting character, a young, somewhat naive boy described as "pure evil" more than once, who understands better than anyone else what he is and what he's capable of.  He feels little remorse, and is portrayed as almost inhuman, incapable of relishing the joys that those around him partake in.  He doesn't drink, has no interest in women, doesn't take the time to savor all the stereotypical vices that gangster characters are known for.  He is cast almost entirely in moral darkness, while his adversary — an overly-happy, overly-noble woman named Ida, determined to avenge the death of a man she barely knew — engages in "good" simply for the virtue of it.  These characters are assessed again and again from each other's perspective, but whatever his message was meant to be, Greene had the insight necessary to make each perspective believable.  When Pinkie and his girl address why they don't want to be good, like Ida — who comes off as kind-of obnoxious and self-righteous — it's fully believable, even understandable.

Greene is exceptionally skilled at short bursts of character insight — one or two sentence denouements wrapping up some character action — and its a testament to his powers of characterization that the villains of the novel are often more sympathetic than the woman who would be the hero.  His prose is strong throughout, but in these moments it manages to achieve lasting poignancy. Interestingly, Greene consistently focuses on such small, action-related revelations, yet does little to explain the underlying motivations of his characters. Pinkie is interesting enough, but when he's presented again and again as simply evil, with no explanation or even backstory, it begins to pull apart the drama.  Convincingly scripted characters can still benefit from complex motivations, and everyone here mostly acts a certain way because it's the way they are.  They're the sort of characters you want to take by the shoulders and shake, until they get some sense.  Brighton Rock is far from the crime-thriller it seems to be at first — everything is a slow burn, good and evil laying their plans but rarely coming face to face.  The pacing is so steady that I sometimes found it difficult to read more than a few pages at once.  It's the sort of book that is savored, and contemplated later, but is just gripping enough to get you through.

MORE PUMPKINS, WINTER CIDER, VERTICAL EPIC

La Parcela - Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales (MI)
VERDICT: Surprising and unique (B+)
The running joke with Jolly Pumpkin was that, the first time anyone sees one of their beers, they assume it's a pumpkin ale — except Jolly Pumpkin is just the name of the brewery, and until very recently they didn't even make a pumpkin beer.  However, Jolly Pumpkin has quickly and deservedly earned a reputation as one of the most interesting micros out there, and when I saw that they finally made a pumpkin, I was all in a tizzy of excitement.  It's a pricey one, yet not as potent as I expected: the ABV comes in under 6%.  But with Jolly Pumpkin you can always expect something solid, and not only does this hold true here, but La Parcela is easily one of the most unique pumpkin beers I've had.  Though the pumpkin barely comes through, it's spicy and tasty in such a strange way that I'm willing to forgive it.  In fact, La Parcela is a shockingly wine-like beer in taste and mouthfeel, aided by a surprising, puckery sourness.  Once you get passed that, there's a whole bunch of other things going on — it's pleasantly carbonated and has a nice medium body, a solid, smooth mouthfeel, making it almost a cross between a sour ale and caramely Belgian double.  If anything, the pumpkin gives it a bit of a "funky" taste.  Overall, one of the most enjoyable beers that I've had this year, but it's also not taking the right steps to reach the upper-echelons of pumpkin beer champions.

Frog's Hollow Double Pumpkin - Hoppin' Frog (OH)
VERDICT: One of the better pumpkin ales (B+)
A tasty, lighter pumpkin, the secret to this one is probably right in the name.  The flavor and mouthfeel isn't much different from your standard pumpkin ale, just richer, sweeter and better — as if they took the recipe and doubled everything good about it.  This one is closer to Weyerbacher's Imperial Pumpkin than it is to Southern Tier Pumking, but the lightness also seems to allow for a bit more pumpkiny flavor than Weyerbacher's.  The trailing-off at the end is smooth, almost too smooth, but keeps Frog's Hollow quite drinkable despite the sweetness. I only found this one at the Whole Food's beer room on Houston late in the season, but it's worth keeping your eye out for.

Pumpkin Pie - Chelsea Brewery (NY)

VERDICT: Surprising but not satisfying (C+)

This is honestly one of the most unique beers I've ever had, yet I can't decide if I even like it. It's certainly a strange pumpkin beer, and I'm glad for all the new entries into the style that are making an effort to do things differently. None of them has entirely succeeded, in my opinion, but they're at least being creative. Chelsea's doesn't even look like a pumpkin beer – it pours a murky, opaque gold, like a hefeweizen. It basically tastes like all the spices of a pumpkin pie, minus the actual pumpkin. And true to its appearance, it's very light, despite its strong spicy taste. Though I heavily criticized Coney Island's Albino Python, I'd say Pumpkin Pie isn't far off from that – a spicy white lager of sorts, but here the taste is smoother and more palatable, with the spices coming in richer. It does become somewhat off-putting halfway down the glass, with a bit of a menthol aftertaste burying the more pleasant characteristics of the beer. Worth trying, though – the nice thing about the recent variety of pumpkin beers is that there's probably one out there to capture what you envision the style should be.

Winter Seasonal - Woodchuck Hard Cider (VT)
VERDICT: Unsurprising but still satisfying (B-)
I'm a pretty big fan of Woodchuck's cider.  I have to give them credit for the diversity of their main lineup, plus the creativity they show in coming out with a number of seasonal ciders, something that no other cider brand really attempts.  Woodchuck's Fall cider is one of my favorite beverages ever, and while their other seasonals are nowhere near as exciting, they're still solid.  Winter seems to be their attempt to make a somewhat more complex cider, and I suppose on those grounds, it's nothing astonishing.  If you don't drink a lot of cider you probably wouldn't even be able to tell the difference, but there are hints: aged in oak barrels with vanilla, these little touches do add some interesting aftertaste to the cider, though not enough to greatly shape its profile.  The vanilla is most noticeable in the body, making it just slightly smoother and tastier, while the oak-aged treatment seems to have added a bit of sharpness and bite to the initial taste.  These extra touches aren't terribly exciting, but they're worth savoring, and if you like cider anyway, the same holds true as always: it's a very drinkable, refreshing beverage.

10.10.10 Vertical Epic - Stone Brewing (CA)
VERDICT:  Solid, but not quite epic (B+)
10.10.10 is a one-off beer by Stone, and you can probably even guess when it was brewed. Stone being mostly known for badass-levels of hops in their beer, I was fairly surprised to see them making a Belgian, even if it is a Belgian Strong Pale Ale.  At 9.5% ABV, you can smell the alcohol faintly, but it's well hidden in the mouthfeel of the beer itself, which packs a nice, immediate flavor without being overpowering.  It's smooth yet complex — I would have expected more hoppiness, but Stone went toward the sweet end on this one, adding in some grape varieties that give it a lighter, wine-like presence.  Really, anyone trying this one should check out the brewing process Stone used, and all its crazy ingredients: things like a "legendary Ardennes strain of Belgian yeast," "triticale (a cross of wheat and rye), hopped with German Perle hops, and steeped with chamomile"... "Muscat, Gewurztraminer, and Sauvignon Blanc grape varieties."  Jesus Keg-Standing Christ.  While not the best example of the style that I've had, 10.10.10 is interesting enough to justify its experimental brewing status.

NOTHING TO ENVY (BY) BARBARA DEMICK

Published 2009, 294 pages
Characters: n/a
Writing: C
Plot: n/a
Pacing: B-
Poignancy: B+

I've been mildly fascinated with North Korea lately, probably just because it's so hard to find any information about the place — it's perhaps the most bizarre, backwards country on earth. In my research, I came across Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives In North Korea, which sounded like it might address exactly what I was wondering: what are ordinary lives like in North Korea like, and should I envy them?  Sure, the title is a bit awkward and nonsensical.  (Isn't it a bit like titling a book Not Particularly Delicious: How Enriched Uranium Changed Western Energy Consumption?)  Still, Nothing To Envy is a fascinating look into this real-world 1984, even if it's not meant to be a comprehensive one.

Demick, at the time of the book's release, had been to North Korea a number of times herself, though the North Korea government only allows select visitors into its showcase capital city, and allows tours into the countryside only with special government guides.  Most of her research for this book was through defectors from North Korea now living in China or South Korea — she says she interviewed over a hundred, as well as various humanitarian organizations and groups, but Nothing To Envy primarily follows six or so North Koreans throughout their lives, up to their escape into South Korea.  Much of the book deals with the terrible famines the country experienced in the 90's, and which most North Koreans probably still have to deal with today.  As a result, the narrative is paced somewhat strangely, jumping back and forth between its "characters."  Demick spends varying amounts of time with each, since some of their stories are inherently more interesting — like a boy and girl who fall in love as children and maintain a secret relationship all through their years in North Korea, yet never reveal to each other how they long to escape their country.  Yet both of them do, eventually but separately, and then find each other again in South Korea — except the woman has married and neither can remember what they saw in each other now that there's no longer a tyrannical government keeping them apart.  These stories are interesting, but Demick jumps in and out of others, all of which are ultimately about starving, jobless people with little to distinguish their lives, all eventually escaping over the Chinese border.  The pacing suffers as a result, with some stories seeming under-developed and hard to tell apart from one other.

I can't fault the book for its content — even when the pacing is a bit sloppy, the stories are always interesting.  Demick sticks to these "ordinary lives" and doesn't write much about the government and politics of the country, or anything much outside of the cities where her subjects lived.  If there is a major fault to Nothing To Envy, it is the tone it takes, or perhaps just Demick's writing style.  She is clearly a journalist and not a novelist, and unfortunately her book reads like it.  Her writing never drifts or loses focus, but it's lifeless and even a little cheesy when trying to convey the pathos of its subjects; it doesn't drive the story the way many successful non-fiction authors are able to do.  At times, Demick seems to skip narrative tangents that could have explained a great deal more about how these people lived, and since she writes without citations or specific references (because most of the stories were related to her orally), I often felt a strange disconnect as a reader, having to remind myself that this is a non-fiction book. She repeatedly refers to the habit of North Koreans having to forage for weeds and grass to eat, and multiple times mentions that older women would leave their jobs in the afternoon and go into the mountains to collect wild plants.  It's a very sad thought, but as an image, it doesn't really click — maybe just because I'm a hiker, but how are these starving, middle-aged women going from an urban center "into the mountains" to collect weeds that barely nourish them?  How are they getting there and back in a matter of hours?  I was genuinely curious, but perhaps Demick herself could not flesh out all these strange curiosities.

While the writing in Nothing To Envy doesn't give the book the spark it should have had — with such unbelievable, dramatic material — the material is still interesting enough to make this a great read, and Demick does seem to be a good researcher, uncovering anecdotes from her subject's childhoods, and allowing them to open up and speak their minds about the horrors they escaped.  In all of this, North Korea as a country comes out seeming the most flat and confusing of all, because it is such a contradiction.  Rather than a ruthlessly efficient dictatorship, it is a country where the military cannot afford to give socks to its soldiers.  The government is undoubtedly brutal, but from the comfortable distance of this non-fiction account, it often seems naively incompetent rather than sinister.  More than anything, it is astonishing that such a a regime still survives, when most have been predicting the country's collapse for over two decades.

I WAS TOLD THERE'D BE CAKE (BY) SLOANE CROSLEY

Published 2008, 228 pages
Characters: N/A
Writing: C+
Plot: C
Pacing: C+
Poignancy: C

In my recent review of The Thieves of Manhattan, I complained that maybe humor books just aren't for me anymore.  While my lament was certainly relevant to that novel, it was equally inspired by I Was Told There'd Be Cake, which I had started previously and, after struggling through a few stories, put down in frustration.  I almost never picked the book back up, knowing there was little chance I would like it.  But I have a blog, and therefore a mission, and thus an obligation, dammit.  The book had to be reviewed.  And guess what?  I did not enjoy it.  I Was Told There'd Be Cake is a collection of "humor" essays — modern confessional essays in the vein of David Sedaris, focusing on the wacky things that happen in the author's life and her self-deprecating reactions to said wacky things.  It's probably unfair to compare everything in this genre back to Sedaris, just like every other review of I Was Told There'd Be Cake does, but whatever — Cake is essentially a watered-down version of Sedaris without any of the insight or humor.

Ultimately, anyway, humor can't really be analyzed, since it's mostly subjective.  Nonetheless, I'm perplexed as to what in this book was meant to be funny at all.  I hate to be so cruel, but this collection reads like an assortment of LiveJournal entries that some college senior shipped off to a publisher.  It's choppy, banal and never says anything interesting or insightful.  Sure, any slice-of-life story can be funny if told the right way, with a strong voice, and Crosley doesn't go for cheap shocks or obvious hyperbole.  It's undoubtedly grounded in reality, no question.  But that's just the problem.  These are the sort of stories you tell your own friends, while wasted, to maybe get a few chuckles.  The sort of stories you write while pissed-off over the day's events and later read to your writing workshop so you can vent — and maybe get a few sympathetic smiles.  Crosley establishes herself as an average person from a wealthy suburban background, who's never had to work all that hard, who's suffered the same mild embarrassments and set-backs that everyone has suffered, but still manages to find time to condescend to those around her.  She's had bosses that were mildly irritating, and yelled at her — but don't worry, she found a new job the day after she quit anyway, the day after 9/11 no less!  What luck!  She's self-deprecating, in an attempt to make herself seem even more average, but self deprecation is an art that she can't quite pull off, and instead it just makes her sound self-absorbed. 

I don't want this review to sound like a character critique when it's a review of a book, but such things are hard to get past when dealing with confessional essays — the writer's personality often is the story. The main problem with Cake, and my primary confusion with how Crosley got this published in the first place, is that Crosley is just not a very good storyteller.  Her tone is generic and predictable; her every-day subject matter is never elevated to anything else.  She's not witty; she just sounds exasperated.  Her narratives jump around clumsily and rarely have anything like a satisfying resolution.  Some of the stories here are strangely hard to follow for lightweight humor essays, and others end so abruptly and pointlessly that I began checking my copy for missing pages.  Without humor, without poignancy, without gripping storytelling or well-crafted prose, there's simply nothing here.