Library books:
Call me shallow.

As I've said before (i.e., earlier today) I don't have anything against crazily hyped books, which is why I read the Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander and Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel. I read Englander's book of short stories, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, when it came out, but I don't remember much about it except that it involved a lot of illicit sex among Orthodox Jews and that I liked it (who wouldn't?). So the Ministry of Special Cases started really well. Englander is not at all a magically light writer -- you always see exactly how you got to where you are -- but he's competent in the best sense of the word. It started out pleasantly farcical -- I feel like he's writing in the I.B. Singer shtetl-humor mode, but maybe I think that only because I've never read Bernard Malamud or other such writers -- in Argentina in 1976, when lots of people are being "disappeared" by the military government. You sort of stroll through all sorts of darkly absurd scenarios until all of a sudden you realize you're in a serious political novel about the Dirty War. Then you -- er, I -- feel really stupid and morally bad for having been waiting for more funnies. But then I thought about it, and I think it's Englander, not me: the two halves of the book are really mismatched, and he doesn't seem totally in control of that. So maybe I'm wrong about him -- he actually did cause me to lose my bearings, and in a way that doesn't seem entirely competent. Still, the good parts are good.

Indecision also became serious when I least expected it or wanted it. At first I thought he was kidding with the epiphany and all that, but I think he actually wasn't. The book had a really appealing voice, though (don't be turned off by Michiko Kakutani's ridiculous Holden Caulfield-voiced review). But no one -- seriously no one -- wants to read about another person's drug experiences. Not so keen on reading about Americans having romances abroad either. Wait, so what did I like about this? I can't really remember any passages I liked, but I felt sort of constantly pelted by funny lines and startling phrasing. This is one of those books where you have to keep looking at the author's picture because you can't quite give yourself over to the book and you also can't decide whether you hate or love the author. It's rare that I wish someone would be more glib, but he's really nailed glibness and I wish he stuck with it throughout.