Scott William Foley

Maps and Legends was both a real pleasure and incredibly insightful in a multitude of ways. 

This nonfiction book by Michael Chabon, author of Wonderboys and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, offers a variety of essays that will assuredly please all readers.

That’s not to say that all readers will love each and every one of the essays in this book, though.  However, I know there is something for everyone to appreciate and even learn from in Maps and Legends.

Chabon essentially covers four broad topics in this collection.  He expends great energy discussing trends and personalities in comic books, the art of writing, various aspects of literature, and his own diverse influences and personal background.

Since these are four topics that I’m very interested in as well, I loved almost every single essay. 

Chabon is such an interesting man.  The idea that a Pulitzer Prize-winning author takes the time to lament the death of Will Eisner, acknowledge the brilliance of Howard Chaykin, analyze McCarthy’s The Road, and reveal deeply personal secrets (some even real) from his own life all within one collection, it’s just a pure joy for someone like me to experience.

However, I think the most valuable thing I learned from Chabon in his book is that the term “genre” in literature is not a naughty word.  He analyzes the importance of genre, especially in relation to the short story, and disparages the fact that people’s snobbery towards genre is actively executing the short story.

Furthermore, Chabon is utterly transparent in the essays involving his life, so transparent he even reveals he has lied to us and could be lying at any given moment.  That sort of honesty about deception is a breath of fresh air.

If you’re a fan of comic books, the art of writing, or Michael Chabon himself, I really encourage you to give this book a try.  I think you’ll be pleased with what you read.

Volume II of The Border Trilogy, The Crossing is McCarthy’s follow-up to All the Pretty Horses.  The United States-Mexican border is the only recurring character from the previous volume, but the settings and themes are quite similar.

However, The Crossing is unlike its predecessor in the fact that while All the Pretty Horses followed a fairly linear story, The Crossing resembles exact life in that one never knows what the next day will bring and sometimes today’s conflict has no resolution tomorrow.  Nonetheless, we grow and learn from one day to the next, whether we intend to or not.

The Crossing begins with Billy Parham, a teenager, inexplicably deciding to return a captured pregnant wolf to Mexico and neglecting to inform his parents of the trip.  The plight continues for such a lengthy time that I found myself wondering if the entire book would be about the return of the wolf.

It isn’t.

In true McCarthy style, the wolf’s tale comes to an abrupt conclusion.  However, Billy’s story continues on.

He returns home, only to have a horrifying discovery.  He now must return to Mexico with his younger brother on a new odyssey.  They have a mission, but that mission soon gets derailed and practically forgotten.

After a great deal of conflict, Billy finds himself alone once more and returns to America.  He wanders for several years and then resolves to return to Mexico a third time and find his brother.  What he does when he finally locates his brother will both stun and touch you.

McCarthy writes The Crossing in elaborate detail that sometimes can lull your interaction with the book.  However, just as things become almost dull, he jars you back to full alert.  Because of this, I like to compare this book to real life because follow-through is so rare in our day-to-day affairs.  We never know what to expect and predictions are so infrequently accurate we wonder why we bother in the first place.  McCarthy understands such nuances of true life but manages to synthesize such reality with enough drama and conflict to keep the reader invested.  We follow Billy on an epic journey that plays out over years and we watch him grow from a boy to a man, experiencing hardship that would annihilate most people.

I wouldn’t say The Crossing is one of my favorite reads, but I learned a great deal from the author about pacing and description.  I also learned more Spanish from this novel than three years in high school and understand the complexities of horses and camping on the open plain far more than I ever could have imagined, thanks to this book.

I largely credit my love of reading with The Chronicles of Narnia.  My fourth grade teacher read the entire series to our class and I loved every minute of it.  With the contemporary release of theatrical versions of the first two installments, I’ve enjoyed rereading the books for the first time in twenty years.

Prince Caspian is beautifully simplistic.  Aimed at children, the ideas of duty, compassion, and heroism are wonderfully relayed in an easily digestible format.  When I was a child, I found the stories incredibly stimulating, but now as an adult I realize the life-lessons Lewis taught with each installment of The Chronicles of Narnia.  Prince Caspian is the story of doing the right thing even when you must go against everything that seems natural.  It is the story of putting your faith in a higher power and purpose and leaving mundane worries behind. 

Keep in mind, however, that Lewis offered more than just a morality tale.  Prince Caspian lays the groundwork for an epic story to come.  In Narnia, Lewis created a varied and fantastic world where mythology, religion, and reality seamlessly meld.

I so look forward to reading the rest of this series as an adult and critically analyze Lewis’ style and purpose.  I also, however, look forward to reading the series to my daughter when she’s old enough.  I can’t wait to see the wonderment in her eyes that only a child can experience.

For some reason, and I don’t know why, I had it in my head that Angela’s Ashes was about Frank McCourt and his brothers returning to Ireland as adults and fumbling about as they tried to decide how to dispose of their cremated mother’s ashes.

It’s not.

Angela’s Ashes is actually a memoir essentially detailing Frank McCourt’s life from the age of three through nineteen. 

Born into a life of poverty, McCourt’s immigrant parents decide to return to Ireland.  Unfortunately, conditions are actually worse for them in Ireland.  Add to the equation that McCourt’s father is an alcoholic who thinks nothing of drinking away what little money they come across while his family starves … well, the book gets more than a little depressing.

And that’s the real magic of McCourt’s writing.  For as awful as things are (and they get pretty awful), McCourt’s wicked sense of humor has you laughing at things that shouldn’t be the least bit funny.  I actually felt guilty at times as I couldn’t help but chuckle at McCourt’s description or use of dialogue.

Make no mistake, however, like in his memoir Teacher Man, McCourt does not try to deceive us into thinking he’s the hero of the story.  He’s tough on everyone, but he’s toughest on himself.  He reports to us misdeeds and lewd thoughts that most of us would never dream of sharing, and that sort of honesty is quite refreshing.

Though funny, the book was also so disturbing (especially McCourt’s father) that I really wanted to get through it as fast as I could.  I absolutely appreciate both McCourt’s humor and charismatic writing, but I won’t lie to you and say this was one of my favorite reads.  But, life is hard and disturbing for many people, and my perspective of the world improved thanks to the Pulitzer Prize winning Angela’s Ashes.

Living under the shadow of Sandman and American Gods, Gaiman has difficulty impressing me with other works because those two are so utterly superb. 

Anansi Boys is an unfortunate example of just such a case. 

It tells the story of Fat Charlie, the son of the trickster god Anansi.  Early on in the story his father dies, and Fat Charlie finds himself more relieved than anything.  Fat Charlie’s life continues on with the dull routine most of us suffer, until his long-lost brother appears at his doorstep.  From that moment on, Fat Charlie’s fiancée, job, sanity, and freedom are put in jeopardy.

Anansi Boys begins rather slowly and takes its time establishing the main characters’ traits-perhaps too much time.  However, once the book gets rolling about three-quarters of the way through, it moves very quickly and becomes a bit of a nail-biter.

I wouldn’t consider Anansi Boys one of Gaiman’s must-reads, but it also isn’t something I’d say you should avoid.

The Kindly Ones encompasses the direct consequences of the earlier volume, Brief Lives.  In Brief Lives, Lord Morpheus (Dream) changes, for better or for worse.  The actions that lead to such change must have ramifications, and The Kindly Ones details such repercussions.

In The Kindly Ones, Lyta Hall, a character who has made sporadic appearances throughout The Sandman series, is convinced that Dream has stolen her baby, Daniel.  She goes to the women known as the Kindly Ones for vengeance, and even she couldn’t predict the outcome.

Making use of virtually every character in The Sandman mythos, The Kindly Ones is a truly epic tale that brings us to a point in Dream’s existence that would seem, based upon Brief Lives, inevitable.  At times The Kindly Ones gets a bit muddled and verbose, but in the end, it was all worth it.    

I’ve had the privilege of reading The Sandman series in completion and for the first time in the last few months, and The Kindly Ones is testament to the genius of Neil Gaiman.  I don’t know if it was on purpose or a happy accident, but The Kindly Ones makes use of virtually every storyline preceding it and concludes such a mammoth story … it’s nearly unimaginable someone could dream up such a story.

My only suggestion: skip the introduction and read it after you finish The Kindly Ones.  It does reveal a fairly major plot point, which, upon retrospect seems obvious, but even so, I would have liked to have avoided the introduction’s cataclysmic revelation.

I thought Season of Mists was my favorite The Sandman volume until I read Brief Lives. 

Brief Lives absolutely has it all-drama, action, comedy, romance, and philosophical ponderings.  It focuses upon Morpheus rather directly-unlike other volumes where sometimes he exists within the stories only peripherally-as he helps his sister Delirium track down their brother known as Destruction. 

Destruction is part of The Endless.  The other members of The Endless are his brothers and sisters Destiny, Death, Dream (Morpheus), Desire, Despair, and Delirium.  He long ago abandoned his post and family, choosing instead to exist on his own terms.  Addle-brained Delirium unusually makes up her mind and decides she wants to reunite with her favorite brother.  She is very surprised when she manages to enlist the aid of her brooding brother, Dream, especially after all her other brothers and sisters refuse to help her.

Dream accompanies Delirium on quite a journey as created by Neil Gaiman who makes brilliant use of legend and mythology, both preexisting and self-manufactured.  They finally find Destruction, but things don’t go exactly as expected and incredible possibilities are revealed.

I love this volume so much because something happens to Dream that hasn’t really occurred in the previous volumes-he changes.  While always dynamic in dialogue and appearance, Dream was not a character who seemed to evolve.  I enjoyed Lord Morpheus just as he was, but now that Gaiman introduces a changing Dream, a Morpheus who suddenly empathizes with mortals and family members, he becomes all the more fascinating.

Furthermore, the afterward by Peter Straub was absolutely riveting.  Brief Lives was enthralling on its own, but Straub’s afterward analyzing the volume makes it, and the intricacies of Gaiman’s artistry, all the more impressive.

The first volume of what’s known as The Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses encompasses what I love about McCarthy’s writing.

Set in the late Forties, All the Pretty Horses follows teenage Texan John Grady Cole seeking a better life for himself in Mexico.  He travels by horse with his slightly older friend, Rawlins, and on the way down they join up with a very young teenager named Blevins.  They can tell Blevins is trouble, and he causes them more problems than they ever could have imagined.  But John also finds some danger without the help of Blevins, and it involves the daughter of his new ranch boss that he just can’t quit.

McCarthy offers a bit more descriptive narration than I care for in this work, slowing it down at times, but his tight-lipped, capable, honorable, humble, and just plain tough John Grady Cole represents what I enjoy most about McCarthy’s creations.  John Grady Cole is the perfect McCarthy protagonist, and this neo-western perfectly conveys all that it means to be human—love, loss, betrayal, redemption, loyalty, and resolve.

It is with great anticipation I look forward to completing The Border Trilogy.