Favourites of the Decade, if such a thing is at all possible...

You know, making up a list of favourite books of the year is hard enough, but of the decade? Sheesh.

I'm not sure if I can even adequately create such a list - there's a hell of a lot of novels published in the last ten years that I never read, most of them the critical blockbuster darlings. So any list I make cannot help but be inadequate. Years from now, I'll still be reading books from this decade, and the list will invariably change. Forget years, how about days from now - I'm just starting China Mieville's The City & The City, and can't help but think it could already make the list.

And what about fairly recent books? Sometimes, only the passage of years allows me to fully appreciate how a novel has affected me over the long-term. I'm sure I'll be coming back to Jeff Vandermeer's Finch or Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection at some point, but it's just too soon to make a final judgment at the moment.

But this is my blog, and as such, is an inherently self-serving enterprise. So it behooves me to go through the years and pick a few choice winners, even if the whole process is tainted by irrelevancy.

Actually, what is most surprising about the last ten years is how many books I cannot remember reading, but am sure that I have. I read The Tent? Really? It was short stories, that I remember, but after that, pfft. Nothing. Ditto Vernon God Little, although I think I liked that one. I even defended The Solitude of Emperors at a McNally Robinson Giller event, but right now, couldn't tell you word one about the plot.

Also, many of my favourite authors are nowhere to be seen. Stephen King is absent (although Under the Dome is on my TBR pile). No Clive Barker. No John Irving. No William Kotzwinkle.

So here is, in place of an objective, quantifiable list, are the novels published in last decade or so that have made a true, lasting impression on me. These are the personal favourites, the novels I could reread on a moment's notice; if I included all the novels that almost made the cut, the list would be endless. They run the gamut, from serious to silly, from sci-fi to sedate, from s-word to other s-word. These are the novels that made me want to write, and the novels that made me want to quit writing altogether. (All links are to pages from LibraryThing, the Internet's pre-eminent site for cataloguing essentially useless collections.)

The Big Why (2004), by Michael Winter - my favourite Canadian novel of the past ten years.
The Book of Illusions (2002), by Paul Auster - Maybe Auster's least-appreciated novel, but my favourite from him since City of Glass.
The Brief History of the Dead (2006), by Kevin Brockmeier - I cried at the end.
The Crash of Hennington (2003), by Patrick Ness - Weird, glorious satire.
Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife (2006), by Sam Savage - I wish I wrote this one, it said so many things I wanted to say so much better than I ever could.
From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), by Minister Faust - Best superhero novel I ever read, right up there with Watchmen.
The Fortress of Solitude (2003), by Jonathan Lethem - I will never forget this novel, if only for the fantastic character name of Mingus Rude.
Inside (2006), by Kenneth J. Harvey - Harvey never disappoints, but Inside is a pared-down masterpiece.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2004), by Susanna Clarke - I practically ate this book whole.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal (2002), by Christopher Moore - Damn, this was funny.
The Life of Pi (2003), by Yann Martel - It's gotten a huge backlash, but Martel's fable etched a deep trench in my soul.
ManBug (2006), by George K. Ilsley - Best romance I've ever read.
The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break (2000), by Steven Sherrill - Greatest title on the list, and a wonderfully odd ode to loneliness.
Norman Bray, in the Performance of his Life (2004), by Trevor Cole - Captures the antics of age (and ageing actors) as perfectly as anything I've ever read. Also, the funniest Canadian novel in a long time.
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart (2005), by Lydia Millet - A satire as penetrating as Vonnegut and as heart-felt as, well, Vonnegut.
Planet Reese (2007), by Cordelia Strube - This one was a surprise to me, too, but Strube's satire has lingered with me.
Quicksilver (2003), by Neal Stephenson - Sheer insane brilliance.
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey (2007), by Chuck Palahniuk - I saw J.G. Ballard in this tale.
A Small and Remarkable Life (2006), by Nick Di Chario - Theodore Sturgeon's heir.
Winkie (2006), by Clifford Chase - Again, I wish I wrote this fable/satire of terrorism and stuffed animals.

So, there you go, a little glimpse into my life via the novels of the past ten years I cannot imagine living without. If you read them on my say-so, great. If you like them, terrific. If you hate them, why are you taking advice from me anyway?

See you in twenty-ten, y'all.

The Best Books of 2009. Well, the books I read, anyways.

Whoa, did another year really go by? Or was that just gas? I do feel a little urpy...probably just the overabundance of gravy coating my arteries. I'll be fine.

As 2009 limps its way to a disappointing close, let's take a look back and ponder over what I've read in the past 365-ish days. These are the novels that stand out to me, regardless of their year of publication.

And they're in no order save alphabetical. It's too hard to choose a winner.



The Abortion: A Historical Romance, by Richard Brautigan (1970) - A winningly sweet little yarn of a weird library, a spontaneous romance, and a trip down south. Brautigan was unknown to me before this, but I'm going to try and read one of his novels every year to make up for it.

Amphibian, by Carla Gunn (2009) - The perils of environmental devastation, as seen from the POV of a nine-year-old boy. Phineas Walsh is a definitely memorable narrator.

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke (2007) - A marvellous comedy following one man's journey from expert in packaging to infamous arsonist. Clarke has a fantastically literate wit.

Finch, by Jeff Vandermeer (2009) - Hard-boiled mushroom noir. A descent into moist madness as a detective tries to solve a murder while an intelligent fungus controls the city. Atmosphere to spare.

God Says No, by James Hannaham (2009) - A clever, humane, and surprisingly even-handed look at the intersection of religious fundamentalism and homosexuality. Gary Grey's inner turmoil as he battles his natural tendencies is funny, sad, and sometimes devastatingly human.

The Living Dead, by John Joseph Adams (2008) - Zombies run amok in a spectacular collection of tales that alternate between the gruesome, the funny, the subtle, and the flat-out terrifying.

Love in Infant Monkeys, by Lydia Millett (2009) - A collection of tales involving the interactions between animal and people that could have gone saccharine in lesser hands. Millet's capacity for satire is matched only by her infinite humanity. These tales, particularly the title story, haunted me for days afterward.

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman (2009) - A terrific foray into imagination, the best adult urban fantasy since Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Mixing Harry Potter, Narnia, and who knows what else, Grossman has come up with a witty ode to coming-of-age stories that is as memorable as it is enthralling.

ManBug, by George K. Ilsley (2006) - Alongside The Abortion, my favourite romance of the year. A touching, wondrously perfect little story between an entomologist with Asperger’s Syndrome and a Buddhist bisexual dyslexic. Ilsley captures magic.

The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry (2009) - A detective story by way of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Alongside Finch (above), the year's most atmospheric and intricately strange mystery.

Ribofunk, by Paul Di Filippo (1996) - An exercise in bio-sci-fi. Di Fillipo's collection takes the idea of genetic alterations to the limit, in a superb set of stories by a master of biopunk.

Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde (2009) - A bizarre, thoroughly offbeat look at a possible (but not likely) future, as denizens of future Earth are classified into castes based on their optical perceptions of colours. Think Aldous Huxley by way of Douglas Adams.

Shambling Towards Hiroshima, by James Morrow (2009) - A lovely satirical ode to the b-movie renaissance of Hollywood, the perils of nuclear arms, and the mania of military paranoia.

The Wall of America, by Thomas M. Disch (2008) - Another fantastic collection of thought-provoking stores. A final gasp of brilliance from a pre-eminent yet often ignored master of science fiction.

The White Mountains, by John Christopher - A re-visit to a novel of my youth. A future imagined where humanity has devolved to a feudal system, and mechanical tripods roam the lands and rule from above. Weird, beautifully intelligent YA sci-fi/fantasy.

Runners-up: Those novels are well worth your consideration, and I can't bear to leave the year without mentioning them.

Amberville, by Tim Davys (2009)

The Breast, by Philip Roth (1973)
Darwin's Nightmare, by Mike Knowles (2008)
Fear the Worst, by Linwood Barclay (2009)
Hater, by David Moody (2006)
The Hunchback Assignments, by Arthur Slade (2009)
Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving (2009)
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
Marvellous Hairy, by Mark A. Rayner (2009)
The Reality Machine, by Cliff Burns (1997)
Steampunk, by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer (eds.) (2008)
The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers (1989)
The Tel Aviv Dossier, by Lavie Tidhar & Nir Yanic (2009)

The Voice of the Butterfly, by John Nichols (2001)
Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld (2005)
The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood (2009)

Some disappointments (novels I expected to love, but was left wanting):

Generation A, by Douglas Coupland (2009) - After the world bee population dies off, five people are thrust into the celebrity spotlight when they are stung. A satire primed for excellence, yet it loses its teeth well before the end.

Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk (2009) - A terrorist infiltrates a typical American family, with should-have-been-memorable consequences. Easily the weakest novel Palahniuk has produced.

The Strain, by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan (2009) - From an award-winning director of some of the most fantastic visions of the past ten years, this first novel in a planned trilogy outlining the vampire apocalypse is fun yet too mundane to have much bite.

And now, because you knew it was coming:

The Minnow Trap Award for Worst Novel Read in the Year 2009 is:

The Justice Riders, by Chuck Norris and three (!) others (2006) - A novel so horrible, it took four people to tame it! A mishmash of historical western, b-movie d-level dialogue, ridiculous high kicks, and grotesque religious overtones. Justice Riders, consider yourselves Minnow Trapped!

X-mas greetings to you all...

...from the Monkey.

Play safe, y'all.

Monkey droppings - Amphibian by Carla Gunn: "I don't know what the crap's going on in the world."

The monkey does not like kids.

The monkey does not like books about kids.

The monkey likes this book.

The monkey puzzles, then falls asleep.

Amphibian
by Carla Gunn
Coach House Press, 2009

If I had an eraser of life, I'd start at the top of the morning and work my way down. I have a feeling, though, that whoever drew this day pressed the pencil really hard and even if I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed, little horible bits of it would still be left behind.

Ah, the glory of today's youth. So young. So full of promise. So innocent. So very much in the pathway of crushing, humiliating, eternal soul-destroying reality.

No wonder that children, in much of literature, are often presented as being somehow wiser than their elders, their lack of world experience uncluttering their precious vision, and thus their every statement uttered from their precocious mouths a jewel of clarity in a universe of uncertainty.

What a load. I hate books like that. Children are not wise. They are not avatars for all that is good and wholesome. They are dirty. They are unformed personalities. They are petty, petulant, simpering, spiteful, and sometimes remorseless eating, sleeping, and pooping machines.

My point? I don't have a point, I'm just ranting.

No, there is a point. Despite the inherent unlikability of children, sometimes (just sometimes, mind you) they are right. Confused, yes, but right. And when an author mixes a child's sense of right and wrong with the onrush of maturity, the results can be spectacular (case in point, The Catcher in the Rye, and damn you naysayers, it's still a damned fine novel).

Phineas Walsh is right. He's nine years old, and he's kind of annoying at times, and he's self-righteous, but he is right. He's also a terrific narrator for a novel.

Amphibian, Carla Gunn's debut novel, follows Phin's process from being a wide-eyed processer of information to a more worldly participant in the events that consume his life. In this case, the widespread extinction of animal life from the planet. The New Brunswick author has captured a pivotal point in every child's development, that time when it becomes readily apparent that the world does not adhere to one's innate sense of fair play.

Phin is a born worrier. His journalist parents have seperated, his grandfather has recently passed away, and the animal kingdom loses species every day. It's this last that consumes Phin, eating away at his sanity until he cannot sleep. The expanded cable universe and Internet allows him instant access to any and all information nightmares he cares to obsess about. The loss of animals from the planet is a process he cannot comprehend, and his parents' seeming indifference to the plight of dolphins, lions, elephants, etc. only heightens his mania.

My mother doesn't understand and I don't know why. Actually, I think I do know why: I think it's because she's too busy. She's always hurrying around. I'm not too busy so I know there are almost 400 species in the order Primate and one third of them are vulnerable or endangered or critically endangered on the Red List of Endangered Species. All of the orangutans are endangered or critically endangered. In fact, all the individual remaining primates in the twenty-five most endangered species could fit in one single football field.

Phin's quick erosion of faith in mankind marks him as a loner in school, where he begins to lash out at any and all logical fallacies he comes across in his homework, such as in an assignment to celebrate Earth Day by drawing "the greatest gift humans could give the earth":

I looked at what Kaitlyn had drawn - it was a picture of humans picking up garbage out of ditches. I couldn't figure out how that was a greatest gift because the humans had put the garbage there to begin with. That would be like somebody setting someone else's clothes on fire and then throwing water on that person to put out the flames and then calling the water a gift. It just didn't make any sense.

Phin's dilemma is spot on; how can we make a difference if people only tells us comforting homilies that everything will be all right, when it plainly won't? But Phin is at an awkward stage of his development where shades of grey do not enter into his perceptions; right is right and wrong is wrong, and that's the way it must be. His frustration at the lack of seriousness others take in his beliefs is palpable, and so is his understandable (if childish) manner of reaction; tantrums, screams, and more layers of worry. Phin is on his way to an ulcer before he hits his tweens.

As in any novel written from a child's POV, there is a suspension of disbelief that must occur in order for the plot to function effectively. Phin writes at a level far beyond his years, and there are a few points in the novel where his reactions seem a little forced and unlikely. But far greater are the novel's strengths; a sure sense of self, believable characterizations, a crackling good plot, and a fine understanding of the confused interior monologue that marks a child's growth. Gunn presents Phin as an idealist poised for a great fall, and it would be easy to force Phin into becoming that saintly child who corrects to problems of the world with a few deft words and a dewy-eyed plea for understanding. God bless us, everyone.

Yet Phin is a child through and through, which means that certain aspects of adult relationships will always seem foreign to him, and his reactions will always be extreme. Gunn does not shy away from displaying Phin's bursts of unpleasantness, even though his motives may be sound. The world is a strange and perplexing place at the best of times, and there is no shortage of worries to be found out there.

And in the end, Phin is absolutely right. The world is insane, animals die, and people lie to protect themselves. It is a cruel place to live, and that said, the book's ultimate ending is a tad too upbeat, and a little jarring.

But that's a quibble, and besides, by novel's end, Phin's earned a right to a little happiness. Amphibian is a great debut novel, and Gunn has talent to burn. Her style is deceptively simple, clean but smart, and her way with characters is akin to the healthy humanity Miriam Toews invests in her characters. Amphibian marks a novelist to watch.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES A LOT

Monkey Droppings - The Reality Machine by Cliff Burns

Just a quickie review today, as short and devastating as the book itself.

One hopes.

The Reality Machine
by Cliff Burns
Black Dog Press, 1997

The reality was far more ugly and ominous.
Isn't that the way it always is?

Some authors write to mirror reality. Others, not content to be restrained by the limitations set down by an arbitrarily perceived list of natural rules, try to warp reality to suit their own needs.

Cliff Burns is definitely among the latter. The Canadian author's 1997 collection The Reality Machine should stand as proof. It is twisted. Seriously twisted. Gloriously unhinged. Irredeemably odd. And one whackadoo amount of fun. These are stories that add layers to reality, both atop and underneath, revealing new worlds while at the same time reflecting back our own existence. I'm not sure if that makes any sort of literal sense, but its difficult to encapsulate the overall effect Burns' stories have on the unsuspecting reader. And when you come across a paragraph such as this -

The waitress dragged her feet and her thighs had worn holes in her nylons. Cancer had eaten her ovaries and one day would be back for seconds. And she wouldn't mind one bit.

- it's clear that the author is not content to let the reader wile the hours away with some mindless entertainment.

Each short story brings forth a skewed perspective of our world, subverting what appear to be, on the surface, simple tales of relationships, work, love, and the like. "Also Starring" posits a brief but intense crime spree by criminals who look an awful lot like Hollywood's best-loved character actors. "The Woman Who Gave Good Phone" is a witty ode to random cruelty. "The Goblins" posits terrors far worse than the monsters under the bed. "Dialogue (For Two or More Voices)" examines the destruction of a relationship through the inevitable lassitude and ennui that infects all couples. "In Dreams, Awake" presents the end of the world, if you can stay awake for it.

Burns writing is sparse, minimalist, but his words are as sharp as knives, dissecting our universe with astonsishing precision. The Reality Machine, as sharp and memorable as a paper cut, is a real find. These stories have teeth, and they bite. You will not leave unmarked.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES A LOT

EXTRA: If your interested, Burns has two of his novels, So Dark the Night and Of the Night, available online for free, so how could you lose?

Monkey droppings - Finch by Jeff Vandermeer: "I am not a detective. I am not a detective."

The monkey treks through a strange land where mushrooms hold sway over people and the spirit of Dashiell Hammett infects the most jaded of men.

Call it 'mushroom noir'.

Or maybe 'fungalpunk'?

'Spore gore'?

How about 'hard-boiled truffles'?

Finch
by Jeff Vandemeer
Underland Press

Another part of him looked down from a great height, puzzled. When did being a detective mean this? He was investigating a double murder. He was working for an occupying force that could make Stark disappear in a burst of dandelion-like spores. And he didn't have his shoes. He didn't have his socks. He didn't have his gun.

I don't know how it got its talons into me, but if there is one type of fiction that always gets my motor revving, it's the sci-fi/supernatural/fantasy novel mixed lovingly with healthy dollops of the tropes of detective/cop/noir mysteries. Did that sentence make sense? Probably not, but neither does my love for the mashup genre. Give me a Raymond Chandler mixed with Star Wars, and you've won my heart.

There are no words to describe my absolute enchantment with novels such as Falling Angel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Gun, with Occasional Music, Bone Song, and Asimov's Lije Baley series. I can easily sit through repeat viewings of Angel Heart, Blade Runner, Constantine, and Lord of Illusions, again and again falling easy prey to their pulpy charms. Clive Barker's noir PI Harry D'Amour is one of all alltime favourites, and the rumours that Barker is set to comingle D'Amour and the helltastic Cenobites in his long-delayed Scarlet Gospels have made me giddy for years now.

I just want you to understand my mindset when I'm confronted with such scenarios. And so you can understand that the concept of setting a gritty detective noir within the moist, claustrophobic confines of Jeff Vandermeer's world of Ambergris made me tingle in all sorts of indescribable but PG-rated ways. And the end result, Finch, is just what I wanted.

Ambergris, as set out in the award-winning author's multi-layered novel City of Saints and Madmen and his follow-up Shriek (unread by me, but hopefully not for long), is a city with a long and uneven relationship with a bizarre species known as gray caps. The best way to describe them would be 'sentient fungus.' The titular character John Finch describes the gray caps as "rows and rows of needle lines set into a face a little like a squished-in shark's snout. Finch couldn't tell if the lines were gills or teeth, but they seemed to flutter and breathe a little. Wyte said he'd seen tiny creatures in there, once." They are, by all accounts, desperately unpleasant creatures to be around, with "a touch like wet, dead leaves sewn together and stuffed with meat." They have also, by the time of Finch, completely taken over the city.

Before I get into the actual plot structure, I want to heartily congratulate Vandermeer on crafting one of the most unpleasantly atmospheric (in a good way) novels I've had the pleasure to read. Ambergris, as befits its fungal overlords, is a city of mould and mildew, of creeping tendrils and sweaty walls.

Inside, the lobby is dank and dim and molding. And old crooked photograph on the wall captures a few signs of the hotel's lost luxury in a scene from some long-ago party. A strain of pale green lichen has infiltrated the faded burgundy of the carpet. Gives the floor a spongy feel and sheds a disconcerting, ghostly glow that leads Finch through the entrance after dark.

Not since Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, with its oppressive depiction of a world overrun by decay and kipple, have I felt the walls of a fictional world close about and suffocate me so effectively. It's perverse, but Ambergris is a a beautifully ugly city, and Vandermeer is a loving tour guide who does not shy away from the seedy back alleyways.

Stuck in this nightmarish world, the human citizens do their best to survive the new occupation. Some survive by becoming Partials, human/gray cap hybrids who "got an adrenaline rush from heightened powers of sight. Enhanced by fungal drugs autogenerated inside the eye."

Alternatively, humans work in coordination with the gray caps to keep order. One of these men is John Finch, a detective charged with keeping a modicum of order in a crumbling society. At the start of the tale, Finch is called in to examine the bodies of two beings, one human, one not, both discovered in strange positions in an old apartment. The rare appearance of a murdered gray cap is enough to clue in Finch (despite his personal mantra of "I am not a detective") that something beyond even the usual unusualness is going on:

Gray caps bled. Finch knew that. Not like a stream or a gout, even when you cut them deep, but a steady drip from a leaky faucet. Puncture wounds healed almost immediately. It took a long time and a lot of patience to kill a gray cap.

As the investigation proceeds, Finch and his partner Wyte (a man slowly disintegrating under an infection by spores) uncover a labyrinth conspiracy involving the plans of the gray caps and a planned rebel uprising. And throughout it all, Finch struggles with his place in Ambergris' history, both before the occupation and, hopefully, after.

Despite its fantastical trappings, Finch is hard-boiled noir through to its infected heart. Finch is the prototypical loner cop, hiding from his past and simply trying to survive (think Bogart's Rick Blaine mixed with his Marlowe). There are code words, and femme fatales, and dastardly criminals, and red herrings, and goons, and betrayals. There are also numerous blows to the head; John Finch may hold the record for most times knocked unconscious within seventy-two hours.

Finch may also be viewed as a subtle commentary on the dehumanizing nature of occupying forces in a foreign land; there are some distinct parallels to be made between Ambergris and the current situations in Iraq or Afghanistan, although Vandermeer is wise to keep such comparisons simmering beneath the surface. Finch is first and foremost a mystery thriller, set in an unearthly city so well-described it might as well be the next town over. Like the best detective stories, Finch does not offer easy explanations, and much that occurs is completely beyond the detective's realm of control. John Finch is both observer and participant, and if the ultimate ending is slightly confusing, it's only because all the pieces have not been made visible to him. But Vandermeer does not cheat; there are distinct codes and modes of thinking within Ambergris, and he is rigid in his understanding of its history and culture. Finch follows a obscure internal logic that may take more than one reading to fully comprehend. It does offer a note of hope by the end (although only of the bleakest sort), and it is gratifying to think that there may be more to come.

Make no mistake, Finch is not a mystery for everyone; it is dark, spooky ride with a gruesome, gory centre. And while a passing acquaintance with Vandermeer's previous excursions onto the streets of Ambergris is not essential, it does help. But for those with a love of the strange and the challenging (or if you simply want to visit a world of trenchcoats and tough, tough guys), Ambergris should be your next visit. Like the great detective novels of old, it demands repeat readings.

VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES

NOTE: And how wonderful it is that in the same year I come across two decidedly unique takes on the detective novel, Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection being the other.

EXTRA NOTE: For some Finch-related goodies (including the images scattered about this review), check out Finch's reader kit.

Monkey droppings - Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving: "Danny knew how stories were marvels."

Today, the monkey travels to the past, to an author long loved yet somehow misplaced as the years roll by.

Oh, cruel march of time! Why must you trudge so relentlessly onward? Damn you, sir!




Last Night in Twisted River
by John Irving

As for the river, it just kept moving, as rivers do - as rivers do. Under the logs, the body of the young Canadian moved with the river, which jostled him to and fro - to and fro. If, at this moment in time, Twisted River also appeared restless, even impatient, maybe the river itself wanted the boy's body to move on, too - move on, too.

John Irving has a lifetime pass with me, for the following reason:

In 1982, the movie version of Irving's The World According to Garp was released. I was a lad of twelve, and far too young and impressionable to be allowed to watch such an R-rated film. However, I was a huge Robin Williams/Mork and Mindy fan - still am, really; why, Robin? Why Old Dogs? WHY? - and would find another way to avail myself of what was sure to be a laugh riot. So, as there is no restriction on what books a boy of twelve may purchase, I snapped up a copy of Irving's novel from the local Woolworth's and sat down to read.

Many, many days later, my perception of reality had been permanently skewed, a result of an influx of deeply adult themes and settings that my then-tender grey matter was ill-prepared to accept. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying, not what I expected. But it was awesome. A novel richer and more dynamic than anything I had ever come across. Since then, I have reread Garp's story numerous times, and as in the case of all great stories, always discover something new, another nuance that only age reveals to me. And then I discovered The Hotel New Hampshire, and then The Cider House Rules. I've read them all at least four times each, and Irving has carved a permanent place in my heart.

But I did not care for A Prayer for Owen Meaney. Despite protestations from acquaintances that it remains his best work, I found it unexpectedly forced, artificial, and surprisingly annoying (although it remains astronomically better than the movie adaptation, which will surely go down in history as one of mankind's most awful crimes). And after that, I simply fell away from Irving's oeuvre. I gave a half-hearted stab at The Fourth Hand, but wasn't in the mood at the time. And the movie version of Cider House was, like almost everything Lasse Hallström directs, vastly overpraised; it really should have become an HBO miniseries.

But there were rumblings that Last Night in Twisted River was a return to form, so, hesitatingly, I cracked open his latest novel, and began to read a corker of an opening sentence; "The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long." And what I found as I continued on through the pages was almost a primer (intentionally so) for everything I loved about Irving's earlier novels - it has (among other Irving obsessions) bears, farting dogs, unlikely coincidences, sex, sudden violence, accidental deaths, and gloriously rich characters.

But it was also uneven, occasionally sloppy, and sometimes unbearably twee (see the opening quotation of this review). But it is a John Irving novel through and through, and in the end, that is quite a good thing indeed.

Last Night follows the father/son duo of Dominic and Daniel Baciagalupo. Dominic is a cook at the Twisted River Logging camp, creating food fit for kings for loggers too hungry to appreciate his craft. Dominic's wife passed away years earlier in an accident on the frozen river, and ever since, "Dominic had the look of a man long resigned to his fate. He was so unflinchingly calm that he radiated a kind of acceptance that could easily be mistaken for pessimism." Or, "Neither a storyteller nor a dynamite man, Danny Baciagalupo thought of his father." But Dominic lives for his son, and when a strange event occurs - an accident so unlikely you marvel at how effortlessly Irving pulls it off - Dominic and Daniel are forced to flee the camp, changing their identities as the hop from city to city, only keeping in contact with their former life through Ketchum, a hard-talking logger who functions as the novel's Greek chorus, always telling the Baciagalupo's how to stay alive, always commenting on their actions.

As the Baciagalupo's traverse a portion of the United States (and, later, Canada), Daniel's natural talent begins to flourish. The novel transforms from a chase scenario into an examination of what it means to be a writer. Irving clearly has a lot of fun with the details, as much of what happens to Danny runs parallel to Irving's own experiences:

"All writers are outsiders," Danny Angel once said. "I moved to Toronto because I like being an outsider." But no one believed him. Besides, it was a better story that the world-famous author had rejected the United States.

Like Daniel, Irving has made a home in Toronto (although to my knowledge he has not become a citizen). Like Daniel, Irving is a successful novelist whose work is constantly scrutinized for hints of his own existence. While all authors use pieces of themselves in their writing, here Irving deliberately plays with the notion, crafting a character who serves as both a focal point for the narrative and as a meta-character for Irving, drawing attention to Irving's own life while subverting it to suit the novel.

It's clever, and each of Last Night's individual pieces work well, often superlatively. Irving's recreations of the logging camps of the 1940s, and later of the various kitchens Dominic works in, are superlative, giving the book a welcome flavour of authenticity. His characters (always his greatest strength) are believable and robust, particularly Dominic and Ketchum. Ketchum is a terrific creation, one of Irving's best, an over-the-top mountain man with hidden reservoirs of wisdom. In lesser hands, Ketchum would be a completely unbelievable construct, but Irving lodges a human centre within Ketchum's ferociousness; in many ways, he is similar to Saul Bellow's brilliant comic creation Henderson, brash and impulsive yet undeniably charismatic and wondrously complex.

But Daniel only becomes the focal point at the midway point or thereabouts, and his transformation from confused child to talented author is sudden and unconvincing. Irving fills in a lot of Daniel's backstory as he goes, but Daniel never fully congeals into a recognizable character of his own. Irving's fun with meta distances the audience from Daniel, and as a result Daniel skirts the edges of full characterization without ever truly connecting. Comparing Daniel to Garp (another Irving writer/protagonist) only serves to show the cracks in Daniel's seams. Garp's functioned as his own character, and his life seemed more real; Daniel's existence is shown through a prism of authorial cleverness, and can't function on his own. He lacks a recognizable character arc of his own. His story is stuck on the path of the novel, rather than the novel allowing Daniel to find his own way.

And as much as the individual pieces work, when jumbled together they show the novel to be a quite misshapen beast. Some have said that the Baciagalupo's lives correlate with the violence and political landscape of the United States. That may very well be, but the sudden introduction of commentary on current events is jarring, and does not mesh with the story. The narrative drive that propelled his best works is in a lower gear here, resulting in swatches of story that threaten to stall altogether.

And yet, the overall story is still vastly affecting in that manner only a few gifted storytellers can attain. Irving's novel may be rough, but it still touches, and while he may not hit the heights of his trio of powerhouse novels, be shows that he is not bereft of stories to tell. Last Night in Twisted River may be lesser Irving, but lesser Irving is still, at the root of it, a damned entertaining thing.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES

Critical Monkey! Update the fifth! Seven contestants, no waiting!

Man, five months down, seven to go. Seems like an eternity, doesn't it?

And now, the stats! Survey says:

Acceptance (seven reviews)

Depression (six reviews)

Anger (five reviews)

Guilt (four reviews)

Corey Redekop

• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
• The Justice Riders by Chuck Norris
• Jake and the Kid by W.O. Mitchell
• Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins

Lori L

• Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Roses of Glory by Mary Pershall
• Spock's World by Diane Duane
• A Texan's Honor by Leigh Greenwood

Steve Zipp

• Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
• Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock
• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• The Whiteoaks of Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

Bargaining (three reviews)

Denial (two reviews)

gypsysmom

• Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Jeanne

• Empire of Lies by Andrew Klaven
• A Merry Heart by Wanda E. Brunsetter

Shock (one review)

Alison

• On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Betty

• Generation Dead/Generation Dead: Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters

So we've got three people at the Guilt stage (comin' up on Anger), a few new reviews, and one spankin' new entrant (welcome, Alison!). Looks like a good group. With strong stomachs.

But we've still got seven months to go. Remember, all new reviews between the last update and next months' put you in the running to win a signed copy of Canadian author Mark Rayner's oddball sci-fi epic The Amadeus Net.

So okay ramblers, let's get rambing. Nut up, buttercup, times a'wastin'.