Skinny Bitch - Rory Freedman & Kim Barnouin

A shiteous book.

What, do you want my reasoning behind my three-word verdict? Ok, here goes:

• It's based on a flawed premise, right on the first page of the first chapter: "Healthy = skinny. Unhealthy = fat." No, these things aren't equal; if this were an equation, I'd say they've tried to divide by zero somewhere, and only Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
• "There is nothing in soda that should be put into your body." FALSE. Water's good, and you need sugars because hey, that's your body's energy source. Sure, it doesn't make you skinny, but who - oh, right, the whole point of this book is that skinnyness is what you're reaching for.
• Also, just BY THE WAY: you don't need to drink eight actual glasses of water a day, you get a huge part of your water through your food anyway. So yes, water drunk in carbonated sugared beverages still counts as water. Proof.
• Tons of paragraphs are lifted from PeTA propaganda. No kidding here.
• I don't take issue with profanity (I love it!), but I do take issue with how this text keeps insulting, degrading and verbally bullying its readers. I did not appreciate being called a "lazy shit", a "fat pig", being told that "[I]'ll be fat forever" if I didn't stop drinking coffee or eating acid foods (Dude, I love pickles, sod off), being told to "suck it up" and not take painkillers for my menstrual cramps, or even being told to "drag [my] cankles" to a health food store. All in the first chapter.
• I really hate the world "cankles". It's like "moist"; it's very creepy.
• On a sidenote, Blogger's spellcheck doesn't recognize "cankles" as a real word. Hah!
• Out of the ten chapters that I read (seriously, I just couldn't take any more of it), I got a distinct pro-eating disorder feel from this book, especially pro-anorexia attitudes. 
• They recommend "periodic repeated fasts", and "the longer the better" (see p. 132)
• I was especially creeped out when they describe the point where you're so hungry you don't feel your hunger anymore, and they call it feeling "light, clean, pure, and divine." (p. 133)
• On top of that, they give the reader some bullshit about how during fasting "the aging process is actually being reversed" (p.135). Last time I checked, you didn't turn into Benjamin Button by depriving yourself of sustenance, so FAIL.

It's a loathsome pile of fetidness indeed.

The Affinity Bridge - George Mann

This novel combines all the usual trappings of the steampunk genre (Victorian-era setting, in London; things with gears and electricity; dirigibles; technology far more advanced than it was; tea) with a zombie invasion. Or at least, the beginning stages of a zombie infection.

It was an okay read; the dynamic between the hero of the story (he's a bit of a proto-Indiana Jones, and frankly he's just unkillable) and his lady assistant (slash love interest, I know, CLICHÉ) was really annoying, and the descriptions tended to be a bit overlong. However, I really liked the whole (BIG SPOILER HERE, although I figured it out about halfway through the novel) zombie robot idea. (/END SPOILER HERE, but seriously who cares.)

It's 330 pages long; read it if you want, but I don't think you really have to. If you don't like the steampunk genre, and have a low tolerance level for the Victorian era's patronizing attitude towards people with uteruses, you should really avoid it. Otherwise, shmeh.

Sex Drugs Rock & Roll - Eric Bogosian

One day, as I wandered in the rows of the North American literature section of my university's library, I saw a thin volume wedged in between the usual musty, academic bricks. This thin volume (only 98 pages long!) was all the more attractive because it sported a bright green cover with a chunky typeface and a rather clichéd title - so I read it.
This is actually a collection of monologues by Eric Bogosian (or should I say, BOGOSIAN), which were presented on stage in the mid-90s, I think. It was a bit boring, though.
Don't take me wrong, it was a good time-killer, and the characters were pretty varied, but it was still a book full of monologues by conceited, stupid, unpleasant or downright asshole-caliber guys. And while the blurb on the back cover is partially true:

"He is a born storyteller with perfect pitch for the voices of various ethnic, racial and economic backgrounds" - Frank Rich, New York Times

...So long as the voice comes from a heterosexual male.
Verdict: time-killer. On the same level as reading inane celebrity news, in a more dated way.

Blogging Notes From Underground (Part 2: 5-end)

For all of you who were impatiently waiting for this, here is what passes for the rising action immediately before the climax in this classic existential mess of a novel.

5
So after the other guys ditch his drunk rude self, Frodoy decides to follow them because he's sure they've gone to a particular brothel. On the way, he talks to himself and - EURGH I GIVE UP. Read the Sparknotes if you don't want to read the book yourself or if you want to make sense of it.

Essentially, Frodoy meets Liza, a prostitute; after the act, the talks to her about how she should get out of sex work as soon as she can (he even rants at her for 5 full pages!), and is generally all-around annoying. And rude. And a total twat, a cruel man even, and an unpleasant character on all counts. To quote the back of my library's copy of the book:

The underground man had always felt like an outsider. He doesn't want to be like other people, working in the 'ant-hill' of society. So he decides to withdraw from the world, scrawling a series of darkly sarcastic notes about the torments he is suffering. Angry and alienated, his only comfort is the humiliation of others. 

Is he going mad?

Or is it the world around him that's insane?

He's definitely mad. And his torments, may I add, are mostly self-inflicted.
If you want to read a book written in the first person from the perspective of a character you will not feel empathy for, and that you will detest before the last of the 151 pages are done, read this book. Or don't.

Blogging Notes from Underground (Part 2: 4)

On the bright side of things; at least for this part of his novel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was nice enough to number the chapters. This makes for an all-around easier labeling process. Especially when one is reluctantly summarizing it for some blog somewhere.
4

So Frodoy goes to the restaurant, where he gets told that the reservation was for 6, and not for 5 as he was told; he was 26 minutes early. So he just sat there, wretched, and was even thankful when the rest of the guys finally arrived.

Awkward, rude social interaction ensues.

The dialogue was pretty well-written, if a bit on the verbose side - but the entire book is verbose, so it fits wonderfully and even pops out. Then, for a while, the narrator stops paying attention to his dinner companions to mope around, be unhappy and wallow in his self-pity. He also gets quite drunk

Really, he has no social skills, and he's terribly rude. Frodoy's a 24-year-old man, acting like a spoiled brat a third of his age; he's annoying. Also, crazy.

Blogging Notes From Underground (Part 2: 2&3)

Reading a book where the main character (and narrator) remains unnamed is ANNOYING. So I took the author's first name (Fyodor) and re-arranged its letters so that the main character could finally have a name. That's it.


2
Our narrator, Frodoy, started to feel some remorse for his debauchery (which he apparently indulged in often), but he pushed it away, got used to feel guilty. He's great at getting used to stuff.
He would daydream endlessly - he lost himself in his dreams for three months, and was content. They were pretty grandiose dreams. Eventually they incited him to socialize with people, but he was really awkward with everyone.
Then we're treated to a bit of exposition about how a bloke called Simonov was one of Frodoy's peers in school, and one of the rare people he could stand. Also, Frodoy wasn't 100% sure if Simonov despised him or not.

3
So Frodoy went to Simonov's place and - lo and behold! - two other guys he knew from school were there, and they all ignored him. This depressed our narrator a bit, and he sat down to listen to their conversation.
They were planning a farewell dinner for Zverkov, another guy that went to their school, and that Frodoy hated and was jealous of. In his defense, Zverk sounded like a jerk once we learned about his behaviour in school.
Now, we finally learn about the other guys in the room: there's Ferfichkin, Frodoy's enemy from childhood; and Trudolyubov (I'll call him "Trudy"), a guy who only talked about army and promotions and was indifferent to Frodoy.
So the group have the supper all planned out, and Frodoy decides to invite himself. The other guys don't want him to, everyone knows he and Zverk were never friends, but Frodoy insists and pig-heads his way into inviting himself. Now, he knew he didn't give a damn about Zverk, and he didn't even have enough money for it, but because it was so inappropriate he knew he'd go.
That night, he suffered nightmares about his time in school. He had never fit in, had been isolated, and had always seen his peers as his inferiors. He was actually pretty smart; at the top of his class, he read books far more advanced than anyone else's. But he was also a cruel guy, and had driven his only friend to tears and "nervous convulsions"; he had just used him to get his submission.
The next morning, he was sure that his life would take a radical turn. He was really nervous about the dinner, that evening - he could already imagine Zverk's condescension, Trudy's contempt, Ferfich's sniggers. But still, he was determined to go, and at five sharp he left for the dinner, ignoring his servant whose wages were due but that he could not afford to pay and still go to the dinner.

Blogging Notes From Underground (Part 2: 1)

Now that Part One is over, on to Part Two: a plot appears!
Narrator uses Misanthropy: it's not very effective...
Enemy plot uses Exposition!

Part 2: A Story of the Falling Sleet
1
The narrator - I'll call him "Frodoy" from now on, ok? Anyways, Frodoy was a real antisocial loner when he was 24 years old; and he was also very egocentric. He thought he was the only person paranoid about what other people thought of him, and if that word had existed in the 1840s, he would have called his coworkers "sheeple" (eurgh, that word is terrible. I'll never use it ever again, I promise!).
He was listless, restless, and inclined to what he called "debauchery", even though he never tells the reader what he specifically means by that. In any case, at one point he wanted to take part in a brawl, but didn't not because he was afraid of pain, but because he was afraid that nobody would understand why he wanted to fight, and that they'd laugh at him. He was afraid of humiliation.
So he started stalking this officer, who he would have fought with but hadn't, and Frodoy was really obsessed with him for several years. He even wrote a satire, a caricature of this policeman, and sent it to get published, but it never was. Then, he wrote the officer a letter asking him to either apologize to him for something that didn't happen 2 years before, or to agree to a duel with the narrator - but Frodoy never sent this letter.
Now, Frodoy often saw the officer when he'd take a walk on the Nevsky Prospect; they would both get out of the way of more "important" people when they'd walk there, but the narrator usually moved out of the officer's way. Frodoy saw this as an act of subservience, a symbol of the officer's victory, and hated himself for it. So he had an idea: what if he didn't step aside? He obsessed about it, went often to the Nevsky Prospect to visualize it and psych himself up. He also planned it: he would be well-dressed to make a better impression on by-standers, and even borrowed money to get his outfit (this was a source of anxiety and insomnia).
Frodoy chickened out a few times, decided to give up on his quest and went for a walk on the Nevsky Prospect for the last time. Lo and behold: the officer was there! And Frody stood his ground: their shoulders collided! He had done it!

And yes, this counts as a plot point for this novel.

Pygmy - Chuck Palahniuk

This book features: rape (anal), graphic violence, scenes of psychological torture and brainwashing, as well as an almost continuous hate-spew against American culture, as told from the perspective of a supposedly thirteen-year-old agent from a totalitarian state. He, agent number 67, along with several other agents of the same supposed age are posing as exchange students in the same American community, all the while planning an "unspecified act of massive terrorism" (as read on the inside book cover).
Not suitable for younger readers; reader discretion is advised.
This book is divided into 36 chapters, presented as dispatches from agent number 67. Now, let me be honest: I gave up at chapter 14. This book was just too annoying.
Chuck Palahniuk can be a compelling author, as anyone who's read his memorable short story Guts can confirm: he can write so that you are pulled into the story, where you can't put down the book despite the graphic grossness of it - but really, you don't want to stop reading, because you want to know what happens next, and the narrator's style and tempo beautifully incite you to keep reading until the end.
However, in Pygmy, instead of making the story readable, he decided to really make it sound as though a spy (or terrorist, what the hell) with a somewhat shaky yet precise grasp of the English language narrated the story. During the first few "dispatches" this made for an interesting narrative device, but it quickly lost its appeal; essentially, you have to mentally translate the text, written in definitions-only English, into somewhat-comprehensible English. Here's a quick example of this novel's style, lifted from page 47:

Force compelled to sing how yearning for location on top arched spectrum of light wavelengths created by precipitate. Exact song expressed Judy Garland, woeful martyr, slaughtered pawn of capitalist entertainment machine combined pharmaceutical complex.

Translation: "We had to sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". It's the same song that Judy Garland, the actress, sang - before she died of drug overdose."You can still understand what the narrator's saying, but it gets mighty annoying after more than ten pages, and there's 240 pages' worth of it to slug through.
Apart from the sheer annoyance of it, this style also has the side-effect of making all the scenes of violence and turmoil seem grotesque and their impact is lessened on the reader.
Can you really blame me for giving up?