A Life Spent Reading

Life of Pi is not your usual book. Most of the story takes place in a lifeboat, and the main characters are a boy and a Bengal tiger (trapped together in the boat). It’s an inventive story, with heavy philosophical overtones that I will leave to other readers. (For those interested, a starting point might be the name of the ship that sinks, Tsimtsum.) It also won the Man Booker Prize.

Pi is the nickname of Piscine Patel, polytheist and son of an Indian zookeeper. Although author Yann Martel isn’t Indian, he has done an inordinate amount of traveling and is able to write from an Indian perspective that seems convincing, at least to an outlander. He also knows an impressive amount about animals, which was one of the more delightful aspects of the novel. I recommend it to anyone who likes animals, or a novel to dig into and uncover multiple layers of meaning, or just wants something different.

Heart of Gold, by Sharon Shinn, failed to hold my interest. The cover looked good, the blurbs suggested an interesting story, but when I actually cracked open the book it just kind of…died. There was too much in the way of obvious gender-reversal, and I just wasn’t hooked by the blue/gold class struggle motif. The author’s style didn’t really hold my interest either; one too many clichés and too much in the way of telling rather than showing. She could learn a few lessons from Iain Banks about how to immerse a reader in an alien culture right off the bat. Even the murder that takes place a few dozen pages in is told in an excruciatingly roundabout method.

This isn’t a terrible book; it’s competently written and readers with different tastes might like it. But I put it down after about 50 pages.

This is one of the later installments of Lawrence Block’s long-running Matthew Scudder series. Block has several series, and unlike many writers never seems to fall into the traps that such series usually have. But then, Block is a consummate professional and writes with a rare command of his craft. If you pick up some of the older editions of his books, you might see a blurb that says something to the effect of: “Of all the writers who could replace the irreplaceable John D. MacDonald, Lawrence Block comes the closest.”

It’s high praise, and well-deserved in my opinion. True, Scudder doesn’t have the same larger-than-life qualities of Travis McGee – in fact, nothing about Scudder is larger than life – but he is very often truer to life. And if you read the first few pages you will somehow find yourself inexorably drawn into the narrative in the same sorcerous way that MacDonald used to have. Block comes in totally under your radar, and if you’re like me you find yourself wondering just how he achieves his effects.

I haven’t read all of the Scudder novels, but I’ve read enough to appreciate the continuity that exists in the series. Old names pop up with comforting regularity, and in this particular book an old killer is recycled, to chilling effect.

Scudder isn’t as cool and collected a protagonist as some of Block’s other creations — Keller, for example — but if Keller is a kamikaze shot, Scudder is a glass of good wine. You can take your time with it and enjoy the subtleties. Younger readers may not find the pace of the story to their liking, but if you’re over the age of forty, like well-crafted mysteries, and haven’t tried this series, you’re missing out.