Claudius the God

Claudius the God
by Robert Graves
read: 2016

Claudius the God continues the real-life Game-of-Thrones story of I, Claudius, but there's a bit of a tonal shift. Graves' Claudius shows a knack for leadership and public service, but he also plays the comic fool sometimes, especially oblivious to his wife Messalina's infidelities and manipulations. Claudius' relationship with Herod, a major element on the story, also has comic touches.

Throughout the two Claudius novels, the protagonist (and narrator) comes across as sympathetic, while the women of the tale - Messalina, Aggripina, and Lydia, especially - take the blame for many of the evil done in men's names. Graves' work is apparently based on historical information, but I wonder how many of those historical takes are based on outdated notions of a woman's proper place. The idea that Claudius ultimately becomes a tyrant to unselfishly hasten the fall of the empire and the rise of a republican form of government is a bridge too far, for me at least.

Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road
by Richard Yates
read: 2016
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

Revolutionary Road is full of uncomfortable truths for suburbanites like me. Protagonists Frank and April Wheeler aren't living the glamorous life they planned when they first got together, but they have a fine existence by most standards: a nice house in the suburbs, two children, a white collar job for him. They make a decision to become expatriates and live the life of their youthful dreams abroad, only to find life getting in the way of their plans.

Most novels would have a clear moral: either reinforcing the idea that people must follow their dreams, or reinforcing the idea that you should accept the good in the life you already have. Either is a valid life lesson. Yates chooses a third path, however, exposing every path, and for that matter, everyone and everything as irredeemably full of crap. Moving to Europe won't fix the Wheelers' problems, but sticking around won't, either. Nor does it seem that they can find solace in each other - it's not even clear that they like each other. Revolutionary Road is as bleak a portrait of modern life as I can imagine.

Most distressing is the way that many of Frank Wheeler's character flaws resonated with me. There have been times I've found myself telling long, winding stories and realized partway through that I'd already told them and they aren't that clever and everyone in the room knows it. There are real differences between me and Frank, but too many similarities for me to be comfortable with.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
by Philip K. Dick
read: 2016

Like most of Dick's writings, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is a mental labyrinth, leaving the reader (and some of the characters) questioning who or what Eldritch really is and what he wants. Characters take hallucinogenic drugs and periodically plunge into realms where the lines between fantasy and reality blur. This is all par for the course with Dick, but Palmer Eldritch also possesses a beating heart under the mental gymnastics: protagonist Barney Mayerson is caught in a spiritual malaise and must find a reason to keep living in a universe where Earth and the other human outposts are largely uninhabitable. Mayerson must not only not preserve humanity, but determine that it is even worth saving.

Tobacco Road

Tobacco Road
by Erskine Caldwell
read: 2016
Modern Library #91, Guardian 1000 Novels

Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road has perhaps the most visceral descriptions of poverty I have ever read. The characters wear tattered clothing, live in dilapidated houses on infertile land, and battle the constant threat of starvation. They have no concept of money and little regard for human life, as evidenced by Dude's casual attitude towards committing two vehicular homicides. They are in part victims of the economic conditions of the times, but Caldwell's portrayal doesn't absolve them of their sins, either: theft, laziness, ignorance, and apathy.

Murder On the Links

Murder On the Links
by Agatha Christie
read: 2016

The multiple twists in Murder On the Links got gratuitous - it no longer felt like an earned surprise but instead just Christie trying to fool the reader. The romance was a bit silly, too - particularly Hastings' willingness to physical restrain Poirot so Cinderella could escape.

Dog Soldiers

Dog Soldiers
by Robert Stone
read: 2016
Time 100 Novels

Dog Soldiers is set in the Vietnam War, and like modern war novels Gravity's Rainbow, Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse Five, it has a wicked sense of dark humor. However, despite the title and temporal setting, Dog Soldiers isn't a war novel. There are no battle scenes, but the world of the novel and the actions of the characters are affected by the war. The characters do a lot, but they seem to be almost sleepwalking through their actions, going through the motions in a world where war has devalued human life.

The Croning

The Croning
by Laird Barron
read: 2016

In some ways, The Croning is a love story (albeit a twisted, horrific one), but I don't think Barron quite stuck the landing. He establishes a strong sexual connection between Don and Michelle, but I don't see a lot of depth beyond that. Plus, she's been lying to him and manipulating him for decades - that he would consider the moral sacrifice he's confronted with late in the novel didn't ring true to me.

Barron is a master of conveying that something incredibly creepy is going on on the outskirts of our world, and I was intrigued and weirded-out through the novel. The tie-in with the classic fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin is a nice touch.