Gina Tocalini Tocalini itibaren Caferli Köyü
See my Bookslut interview for more: http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives... I picked up a copy of Pasha Malla's The Withdrawal Method, and I immediately thought of George Saunders' comedy tempered by a down-to-earth acceptance of reality, almost humility. Malla's stories explore the fantastic aspects of everyday life, from the meanderings of a lonely child and his favorite music teacher in the classroom to the 1980's definition of a latchkey child. And yet none of these become trite in the process. The last time I found myself this addicted to a book of short stories, I was on the verge of passing out from influenza on a G train with Elizabeth Crane's You Must Be This Happy to Enter. I didn't want my ride to the doctor's office to end simply because I wanted to read more about the town that lost its color. You have to love that feeling. Malla also wrote a book of poetry (he uses quotes with the term) entitled All Our Grandfathers Are Ghosts, and he has written quite often for the likes of Nerve and The Morning News. He's currently working on a novel due out by Anansi in 2010.
I've decided to read the entire Dickens canon. I'd read many of these in high school and finally quit with a bad taste in my mouth. Some books you have to grow into. But this one exemplifies everything that drove me batty about some of Dickens' work. Maudlin, treacly, and a plot driven by coincidence in the extreme. Not his worst, by any means, and I did finish it, but it would not rate at the top among his works for me. (That would be Bleak House, Oliver Twist, and probably A Tale Of Two Cities.) However, that said, once more as with most of Dickens it is the characters that carry it. Quilp is too evil even by Dickens' standards, but the Brasses are plausibly corrupt. On the other end, Nell is impossibly good, although driven to her condition by circumstances beyond her control to either give in or stand firm. The relationship of child to addict parent-figure is remarkably sophisticated and Nell actions on behalf of her grandfather raise this above mere melodrama. The character of Swiveller, however, is for me the best in the novel. Self-absorbed, a bit profligate at the beginning, he grows---believably---into a moral actor, emerging as the hero, as far as I'm concerned, by believable increments. Funny, intelligent, a bit indolent, but when pushed to it capable and willing of right action. Other minor characters of note pepper the novel and it is for these smaller portraits the book is worthy of attention.