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The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Calvino just has magic. This book really consists of two long stories or novellas. The first one, The Nonexistent Knight is the somewhat amusing story of a suit of armor without a body inside that is serving in Charlemagne’s army and of a girl in love with the knight she imagines inside.

But it is in the second story, The Cloven Viscount, that Calvino really lets loose. This is the story of a man cut in half by a canon ball whose two halves return home, one evil and the other good, and the adventures they have; one rampaging across the countryside on his black horse, killing plants and animals and people too, while the other good half travels about trying to cure all ills and heal all wounds.

The Cloven Viscount is a rich and humorous and visceral story that grabbed my fascination almost immediately and was hard to put down. The author’s sense of humor really shone and there are passages that are simultaneously ghastly and hysterical. I definitely encourage anyone to read this one.
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Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I probably have a slightly inordinate fondness for this book because of the many hours I spent in Junior High School listening over and over again to the “Let’s Get Small” and “A Wild and Crazy Guy” comedy albums of Steve Martin.

The book itself is a straight-forward and honest accounting of how fame, that seems to strike all at once, is actually the result of years of hard work and craft and an idea. It’s really a simple autobiographical accounting of where and how he grew up, how he learned magic and comedy and performing, and how over the years he developed a routine that suddenly became the hottest thing around in the late seventies and early eighties, and then how he walked away from being a stand-up comic when fame ruined the gig.

I found the brief passages recounting jokes and gags that he used to do onstage reminded me fondly of hearing these same routines on his albums. I was too young, really, to have attended any of his comedy concerts, but the albums were very important to me in my understanding of humor.

The book reads very quickly, I finished it in two afternoons, and found it to be well worth while.

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McSweeney’s Issue 28 by Dave Eggers

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like McSweeney’s, and I love the packaging of this issue, and in theory the idea of it is terrific—that is to “resurrect and reinvent the art of the fable.”

I think the reality is that the eight stories are moderately entertaining, but I feel slightly unsatisfied. As if I were only just getting started yet had already reached the end. I feel like the issue is missing having at least one slightly more substantial story in the mix.


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American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, is the story of Shadow, a large man, just released from prison, who suddenly finds himself a central player in a brewing war between the forces of old power and new power.

Gaiman is a very clever writer, and there are ideas and imagination aplenty here. All in all I found this novel to be very entertaining. I will admit that it took me a little while to become involved with the central character of Shadow. He’s kind of an enigma even to other characters within the novel who we expect to know things we don’t. This leads to a kind of remoteness that is sometimes a little hard to overcome.

The story is sprawling as the characters travel to and fro across America. There are many characters introduced seemingly at random meetings who then re-appear later and we learn that the earlier meeting was far from random. I would recommend staying alert while reading to best be able to make all the connections. Also, there are many scenes involving mystical experiences where the line between reality and un-reality blurs.

I personally found it very amusing that one of the climactic moments occurs at one of those uniquely American tourist attractions at the Tennesse-Georgia border called Lookout Mountain. I visited there a few years ago with a friend and remember the experience well.

This would be a great read for anyone who has an interest or fascination with pagan or other world religions and is entertained by stories built around those differing religions. As well as being a fun book for anyone who simply enjoys a good adventure.

Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman, recreated for me the spirit of enjoyment I used to get years ago when I was growing up and reading the short story collections of Ray Bradbury. I don’t think it is quite as consistent as the Bradbury collections were, but there was still a sense of excitement at the end of every story as I wondered what the next one might bring.

Not everything in the book is actually a short story. Some of the entries are poems, and some are random paragraphs that without reading the introduction you might wonder what was going on. But even those have an entertaining and imaginative quality. One of the entries is actually a supplement for a musical album by Tori Amos where each section corresponds to a song on the album, and another is a companion piece for one of her tours.

I mentioned the introduction above. I think one of the cool things about the book is that for each story or entry he has included a little commentary within his introduction explaining the circumstances by which he came to write that particular piece. Whether it was by invitation from a publisher or fellow writer, or something from his personal history, or to accompany a piece of music. But the added information was enlightening and in some cases cast one of the entries in a new light. I took the approach of reading the stories first, and as I would finish one I would jump back to the introduction and find the page discussing it.

I think my favorites from the collection are October in the Chair, The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch, Goliath, and A Study in Emerald. The first one is kind of a traditional spooky story. The second and third both begin with what seems like a real and normal world, but then events occur to reveal something else going on; either an entirely different reality, or a glimpse into another unexpected reality. The last one is a re-imagining of a Sherlock Holmes like story with a twist.

All in all, not a perfect collection, but still very entertaining for me personally, especially in the way that it recaptured memories of reading from my youth. Also, it is the kind of collection that inspires me, makes me want to keep trying to write creatively myself.