Newt Gingrich's grammar skills (or possible lack thereof)

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and his co-author, William Forstchen, have just released their latest novel, Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th. As this review in yesterday's New York Times notes, the editors of Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Forstchen's book could have taken more of a hands-on approach. Try to get your head around this passage from the book:

James nodded his thanks, opened the wax paper and looked a bit suspiciously at the offering, it looked to be a day or two old and suddenly he had a real longing for the faculty dining room on campus, always a good selection of Western and Asian food to choose from, darn good conversations to be found, and here he now sat with a disheveled captain who, with the added realization, due to the direction of the wind, was in serious need of a good shower.

Here's another head-scratching passage:

The boys had money in their pockets to burn and fresh in from the West Coast the obligatory photos with hula girls, sentimental silk pillows for moms and girlfriends, and ridiculous-printed shirts had sold like crazy.

I don't mean to say that authors should slavishly follow grammatical rules. After all, some great writers break the rules to yield unique and effective prose. For example, Cormac McCarthy uses occasional sentence fragments to burn images into the reader's mind.

But, as a member of an e-mail listserv to which I subscribe remarked, Pearl Harbor reads as if it were written by "Hemingway with head trauma."

Absurdistan (2006)

Poor Misha Vainberg. The protagonist of Gary Shteyngart's acclaimed satirical novel, Absurdistan, desperately wants to leave his homeland, Russia, to return to the United States. There, Misha went to college on his oligarch father's ruble and, upon graduation and a move to Manhattan, met his beloved Bronx-born and -bred girlfriend, Rouenna, who awaits his return to the U.S.

But Misha begins the story stuck in his native St. Petersburg (or St. Leninsburg, as he prefers to call it) because the U.S. State Department won't give him a visa. Why? Because his father, Boris--in the stereotypical Russian oligarch (read mobster) fashion--had an Oklahoma businessman offed when a business deal went south.

After Boris is killed in retaliation for the murder of the American, Misha ends up traveling to the former Soviet republic of Absurdsvanï, where he tries to swing a deal with a corrupt Belgian diplomat to obtain a forged Belgian passport in his first step to get back to America. Yet instead of finding himself one step closer to the USA, Misha finds himself further mired when he gets caught in the middle of a civil war between two Christian ethnic groups.

This is the setting for the bulk of Shteyngart's farcical tale, and it works well for most of the story. Shteyngart sharply and vividly portrays Absurdsvanï as a backwater country on the Caspian Sea, rich in oil and possessing a capital city newly invaded by Halliburton and other American oil companies. The two warring ethnic groups--the Svani and the Sevo--hate each other simply because each group prefers a different version of the Orthodox Christian crucifix, which difference in preference led to a bit of ethnic cleansing centuries ago. As the story progresses, we come to find out that there is much more to this ethnic conflict than appears on the surface (which I won't spoil here), and it doesn't have to do with crucifix preferences.

A core strength of the book is the character of Misha. He's grossly overweight (referred to as "Snack Daddy" by his college friends) and has a penchant for vintage track suits, gold chains, and hip-hop. He was the victim of a botched circumcision by Chabadniks, so he has a few issues with his khui (as he calls it). He is hopelessly but charmingly naive when it comes to women. Due to his father's fortune, he has enough money to last him for eternity. But it is this fact, which has allowed him to cruise through his adult life with no true purpose, that causes him to pursue a true sense of manhood.

Shteyngart deftly uses Misha's story to pillory Russian culture and immoral global capitalism. In the book, Absurdi locals refer to Halliburton as "Golly Burton," and the Absurdi government officials do everything they possibly can to suck up to the minions of the energy conglomerate.

The book, however, is not without its problems. Shteyngart's mode of satire is often hilarious, but it also tends to be cloying. His humor borders on the overly clever, and some might find his prose to convey conceit instead of incisive social criticism. This produces some rocky patches in the book that I had to struggle to get past. But these deficiencies do not outweigh the story as a whole, which is unquestionably entertaining. In closing, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this as a purchase unless you're a serious book collector; however, I do recommend it as a library loaner for an entertaining summer read.

Y Kant Jony Reed - The 21st Century Version

Studies in the past several years have shown that adults, particularly young adults, are reading less and less literature than ever before. These studies note that literature reading cultivates critical thinking and analytical skills because of the focus one is required to keep when reading. Furthermore, as a corollary to the drop in literature reading, studies have also shown that the amount of analytical writing that high school and college students are now required to do is a joke and that the writing skills of college and graduate level students have declined and are continuing to decline. High school and college students are lucky anymore if they are required to write any kind of term paper that requires students to begin with a thesis and support that thesis with well-reasoned discussion.

And now, more disheartening news appeared yesterday: a great percentage of high school students who have taken a "college prep" curriculum in high school are still unprepared for the rigors of college level courses. You can read a summary of the study on this topic here.

I may sound like an alarmist (think Dana Carvey's Grumpy Old Man character), but this issue is being buried in today's discussion of current affairs, which is more likely to consist of the latest update on Lindsay Lohan's latest social gaffes instead of more weighty issues.

Without citizens possessing a well-rounded education, the nation is bound to suffer at every level, particularly at the cultural, social, and economic levels.

Man, I really do sound like a grumpy old man.

Business roulette: Finding the bestseller

The New York Times has this article on the publishing industry, focusing on the question of what makes a bestseller. As someone who is a voracious consumer of the products offered by the industry, I found the piece to be fascinating, particularly because of the guesswork the publishers undertake to find a bestseller and because of the lack of market research that those publishers do.

What's on your coffee cup?

"World's Best Dad"? "Soccer Mom"? Some business logo? Footprints?

How about this?:

"Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure."

This quote, from a man named Bill Schell, is what an Ohio Catholic found on the side of her Starbucks cup (my apologies, readers, for linking to WorldNetDaily). And she's not happy about it.

Here's my question: Why should something like this be so offensive, particularly when it may generate discussion, as Starbucks says is its goal in offering these cups as part of a campaign called, "The Way I See It"? And is the complaining Starbucks customer aware of another cup with an overtly religious quote from Pastor Rick Warren? More importantly, is she aware that the vast majority of the quotes on these cups have nothing to do with religion?

I don't want to sound like a Starbucks cheerleader here. After all, Starbucks undoubtedly designed the cups to generate publicity. But, in my mind, this controversy is just another example of modern day outrage that is produced only because of a lack of context.

Looking for Books: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon - UPDATED

You'll find Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, on many recommended reading lists. It is certainly one of the best books that I've read in the past decade. Kavalier and Clay has compelling, page-turning ingredients--engaging characters (two boys who make good on their dream to become comic book authors); a common but winning theme (justice for the weak); dashes of fantasy (the Golem of Prague); and enough melancholy to imbed Chabon's tale in your head and heart long after you finish reading it.

Chabon may have one-upped his own masterpiece with his newest book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union. In this new novel, Chabon makes a foray into history--alternative history, to be precise. As the L.A. Times describes the premise for the book,

What if, as Franklin Roosevelt once suggested, a safe zone had been established in Alaska under the protection of the United States for European Jews escaping Hitler? What if this "Federal District of Sitka" had grown and developed until its population was in the millions, a country within a country, as it were? What if Israel had collapsed in 1948, mere months after independence, leaving many Jews with nowhere else to turn?

And what if, 60 years later, Sitka was about to face a process called "reversion," in which its territories would be returned and its Jews cast back into the Diaspora, a Diaspora in which the desirability of their presence was not entirely assured?

If this isn't enough to pique your interest, consider that the primary storyline is a noirish detective tale in which a Sitka police detective, under the supervision of his ex-wife (his superior officer), investigates the murder of the junkie son of a prominent rabbi.

I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

More on the book from the New York Times Book Review.

Read the rest of the L.A. Times review.

UPDATE: Michael Chabon discusses the book with Jewish culture website Nextbook [mp3 file].