Book Review: The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

Jansma, Kristopher. The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards. New York: Viking, 2013.  Hardcover. +272 pages. $26.95. Release Date: 21 March 2013.

Full Disclosure: I received an advance digital copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.

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"THE UNCHANGEABLE SPOTS OF LEOPARDS follows the worldwide travels of a deliberately unreliable narrator and his two friends: Julian McGann, a brilliant but troubled collegiate literary rival, and the high-society Broadway actress Evelyn, also known as the girl who got away. Struggling to define themselves as individuals but inextricably bound together, the three chase love, success, and each other from jazz clubs in Manhattan to a writer’s colony in Iceland, from the mountains of Sri Lanka to a wedding on the lip of the Grand Canyon. After the trio has a disastrous falling out, the narrator weaves an intricate web of fiction around himself that allows him to dodge responsibility—but never fully escape it.   It is only once he is able to put aside his fictions and confess his own role that he is set free.

 As much a coming-of-age story about a young man and his friends trying to find their way in the world as an exploration of the nature of truth, Kristopher Jansma’s THE UNCHANGEABLE SPOTS OF LEOPARDS will appeal to readers of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and David Mitchell’s The Cloud Atlas, with its elegant study of the stories we tell to find out who we really are." - Viking Press Release

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I remember the first time a book reached out and, to use an Internet colloquialism, punched me right in the feels.  I was a teenager reading a book called The Mozart Season by Virginia Euwer Wolff, and when I was finished, I put it away, but the book stayed with me.  Six months later, I read it again.  Six months later, I read it yet again.  Each time, it kept making the emotional impact.

In graduate school, I recognized that feeling again when I picked up A.S. Byatt's Possession for a class.  I didn't have the luxury of putting it away, thinking about it, and picking it back up again months later; I had to sit down and write about in depth about it and pick apart the paradoxes and the tangles of plot.  I lived and breathed Possession for a semester until it infused my soul.

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, like these other volumes, is one of those books that takes up residence right behind your breastbone and settles in, molding itself and wrapping itself around your heart and changing you, perhaps in a subtle way, until you are no longer quite the same person you were before you read it.  In the same way that Possession was about reading and literary study, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards is about writing.

Viking noted, in their blurb to me, that this book and its narrator follows Emily Dickinson's lines to "Tell the truth, but tell it slant."  It also reminded me of a remark attributed to Mark Twain: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story," and something I've heard my father say: "In a room full of storytellers, the first liar never has a chance."

Simply put, this is a story about telling stories.  And it's intensely clever about doing so--at the beginning of the book, there's a note that asks the reader to contact "Haslett & Grouse Publishers" if the reader believes they are the author of the book.  I admit, I completely skipped over that--as most people would, I think--until I read a question and answer with Jansma.  The author's note is beautifully written, and I remember thinking, as I read the note, how much I would like to read that story, of how Jansma had lost his first novels.

It wasn't until I was well into the book that I realized the author's note was by the fictional narrator.  I paused, went back to the author's note, and read it again, suddenly realizing that I was reading the story I'd wanted to read, only that I'd made the cardinal mistake of literary criticism--one of the first things you learn not to do--to conflate the narrator and the author.  What's more--I'd been intended to.

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I've spent two weeks contemplating how to write this review.  There are so many insights about writing as a profession, from the adjunct professor to the professional plagiarist to the world-class novelist (writing from the perspective of a writer for a paper mill was particularly inspired, I thought, and as an academic, I've always wondered about that thought process).

That is not to say that the book is perfect.  There is a break at the midpoint of the novel that keeps the book from being seamless in its narrative that causes an abrupt shift as the reader struggles to catch back up with what's going on and tries to figure out if the characters now appearing are the same characters as before; if there is a main weakness in this novel, this is it.

This book, will, very simply, take more time.  I'm going to have to live with it, come back to it and re-read it, think about it, and yes, perhaps write about it some more, because it is a book that is worth being written about, if only to figure out where, in this postmodern morass of lies and fictions, the germ of truth is (if there is one) that I, as the reader, will choose to believe.

A-

Reading Roundup and Reviews

1. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.

One of my expat novels--this was so beautiful. It shows a man struggling with and trying to come to terms with his sexuality in 1950's Paris in the most beautiful, elegant prose. I don't even have words to describe how hauntingly beautiful this novel is, but it's absolutely amazing. A.

2. Extraordinary Renditions by Andrew Ervin.

Dude. WTF. This book is best described by one word: dissonance. The first and third sections of the book are absolutely beautiful (though Ervin's agenda is bothersome in places, as I have a hard time believing that a Holocaust survivor would compare Gitmo to a concentration camp. Yes, the United States has done some horrible things in the course of the War on Terror, but comparing it to the wholesale extermination of Jews during World War II is beyond the pale.). When Ervin sticks to music, the book is, in fact, musical. The second section, which follows a young, black Marine through Budapest as he delivers illegal weapons for his CO in order to keep from being booted out of the military through trumped up DADT charges, doesn't fit. It has no real linkage with the first and third pieces.

One of the reviews my professor read had to do with the fact that the links between the three novellas seemed contrived. Well, he's right. Linking the first to the second and the second to the third are completely contrived, while the first and third are perfectly done. Apparently, the second novella had been a story the author wrote during college and admitted was bad--in which case, it should have been left out and he should have written something else for the middle section. C-.

3. Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

I took a break from expat reading to have some fun with Sookie Stackhouse--and was fairly disappointed by it. It felt like nothing happened. The only real action took place in the last twenty pages or so, and the rest of the novel was really not that great.

I hate saying things like this about authors that I enjoy, and I really hate saying it about someone like Charlaine Harris, who from all accounts is one of the most genuinely nice people you'll ever meet (according to Jim Butcher). Now, is it as bad as what has been made of the most recent season of True Blood? Well, not if I take my favorite Snarky Writer's word for it (as I don't watch the show, but she does), and her own blog posts on the subject have been hilarious. And I should be fair--1. I haven't re-read the book before this one in quite a while, so it did take me a while to get into the book and try to remember what was going on. Since I typically borrow the books from SW, I didn't have it handy. 2. Sookie, Eric (yay, Eric!) and Bill (boo, Bill) were all still recovering from fairly severe injuries from the previous book, so an action-packed novel isn't necessarily realistic. (Although, I should mention that I'm glad that Bill's 'sister' has showed up, because if he's with Judith, then Sookie can stay with Eric, which I heartily approve of.) Anyway, the book had so little going on that I can't really summarize the plot, as I'm not dead sure of what it was, other than a fairy trying to make Sookie's life miserable and some problems with the Were's leadership. Also the government trying to make Weres miserable. B-.

Up next, Sherrilyn Kenyon's No Mercy, as well as the first batch of reading for my directed reading, which includes Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (which I've read before) and Roxana. It's almost time for school to start back (and yes, I am wishing that there was more than two weeks between now and then and that one of those weeks wasn't taken up with TA orientation, but that's a problem with the university's scheduling. *shakes fist*).

One last note--I was reviewing blog stats, and as I was looking through where posts came from, I found that I had a reader from Germany and one from India. Now, either I have readers in other countries, or someone is using Tor to send their IP address around the world. Whichever it is, please leave me a note! I love meeting new people. :D

Three months later....

1. I apologize to John Ruskin for my last post. I'm now in a pre-Raphaelite class, and he's actually pretty cool.

2. Important book news: Jim Butcher's Ghost Story has been pushed back to July. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth. However, what's this? Chapter one? My husband has some interesting theories about who the captain is.

3. In school related reading, I've recently read Tennyson: An Unquiet Heart. Very interesting, very informative. It's neat to look at Tennyson as a real person, rather than the poet laureate who was the be all end all of Victorian poetry. He was cranky, often slovenly, painfully shy, and a chronic, clinical depressive who had little ability to manage his money and who worked on his poems until, some claimed, he'd polished all the shine off them. This might explain why "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is one of my favorites--it was written in one sitting and published approximately ten days later after the Light Brigade was delivered a resounding defeat during the Crimean War.

Of course, the fact that it was quoted in an episode of Deep Space 9 ("Sacrifice of Angels") doesn't hurt either:

O'BRIEN: Cannon to left of them, cannon to the right of them, cannon in front of them, volley'd and thunder'd

BASHIR: Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well into the jaws of death. Into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred.

NOG: Whatever it is the two of you are reciting, I wish you'd stop.


4. While on vacation, I picked up Nora Roberts' Happy Ever After and Elizabeth Lowell's newest, Death Echo. I read Happy Ever After first, since I was really looking forward to Death Echo more. It's good enough, and I suppose a good enough end to the quartet, but I can't help but feel that Nora Roberts needs to perhaps focus on quality, not quantity. The woman has published more than 190 books. The used bookstore where I picked it up had one entire (big) shelf devoted to just her books.

In any case, it certainly wasn't worth sixteen dollars, which was the retail price on the cover. Part of this is the fact that the book itself is larger, dimensionally speaking, I feel sure. The other is that I'm sure Nora Roberts can command sixteen dollars for one of her books, rather than the eight most other romance novelists can get for their (longer) novels. It's still a bit frustrating, and why I don't buy her books new anymore.

I will say that the first Yahoo! game based on the quartet, Vision in White, is pretty fun (though I've only played through the free trial), and it seems to follow the book pretty closely.

I'm halfway through Death Echo, and I hope to have time to read it this weekend, after I take a midterm in my pre-Raphaelite class and in French (which I hope to have done before this weekend), and after I grade papers and put together midterm grades for my students. It's a bit implausible (okay, a LOT implausible, and I would have thought that before my husband, the international security expert, had begun schooling me on what does and does not actually happen in that field), but it's entertaining, and it's fairly fast-paced, though not enough that I couldn't put it down (which we can see happened).

Still, if you're looking for an Elizabeth Lowell book to read, you can't go wrong with Amber Beach, Jade Island, Pearl Cove, and Midnight in Ruby Bayou. The Rarities Unlimited books are also good, but Death Echo is probably the weakest of the St. Kilda Consulting books.

5. I did manage to pick up two books on the to-read list at Barnes and Noble, on sale, even! Sherrilyn Kenyon's No Mercy and Catherine Coulter's Whiplash. Of course, I still need to read Coulter's Knockout, which I haven't gotten to either, but is around here somewhere.

6. I'm also halfway through a weird little book called Einstein's Dreams. It's quite curious, going back and forth through different conceptions of time in the same 1905 Swiss towns. Very definitely postmodern, and very definitely weird, but I understand why it was titled the way it is. The interludes, a fictionalization of Einstein's conversations with a friend while he contemplated the theories of relativity, give it a frame that makes all the odds and ends fit together.

7. In other news, I am so glad that my brother doesn't live in Japan anymore, even though the prefecture where he studied abroad was okay. Episcopal Relief and Development is taking donations to their disaster relief fund to help over there. In the meantime, I will leave you with the prayer for Japan, added to the Daily Office for the foreseeable future.

Prayer for Japan after the Earthquake
from the Church of England

O loving Creator, bring healing and hope to those who, at this time, grieve, suffer pain, or who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We remember those who have died and we pray for those who mourn for them. We pray for those who may be affected as the tsunami spread across the Pacific. May we all be aware of your compassion, O God, which calms our troubled hearts and shelters our anxious souls. May we pray with humility with our troubled and struggling brothers and sisters on earth. May we dare to hope that through the generosity of the privileged, the destitute might glimpse hope, warmth and life again. Through our Savior Christ who lives with us, comforts us and soothes us. Amen.

The Book Stack Grows Ever Taller

Because of the torrential rainfall and extensive flooding in the metro Nashville area, I have spent much of my weekend (and today) reading various and sundry things rather than spending time in the library where I should have been to focus on schoolwork. I also need to return a stack of books that seems to be growing exponentially.

But over this (long) weekend, I've read quite a bit, not least of which the aforementioned Being Abbas el Abd. I also re-read Joanna Russ' The Female Man with my post-it note flags by my side, marking relevant passages so I could find them easily later. I did the same thing with Stephen Toulmin's The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and Natural Theology, which was a very interesting book about how the specialization/fragmentation of science during the Enlightenment separated science from theological concerns. Adding that to Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, which outlines the quest of string theory to combine Einsteinian physics and quantum mechanics, and I'm starting to put together an interesting view of postmodern cosmology--something that has been fragmented into many, many pieces, but over which humanity still tries to force an overarching theory of everything.

Somewhere in that paragraph lies the thesis for my postmodernism paper. Somewhere.

In the meantime, I did find time to read Laurie King's newest Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes novel, The God of the Hive. It follows almost immediately The Language of Bees, but doesn't have quite the ratiocination (to use Poe's term) that the previous novels have used--it's more in the style of an adventure novel than previous installments and moves much further away from Conan Doyle's Sherlock.

I also read Nora Roberts' newest, Savor the Moment. Yes, it's brain candy (tasty, tasty brain candy), but everyone needs fluff now and then, especially fluff that doesn't require you to parse complex literary machinations. I might have paid a little too much attention to the cake decorating descriptions, having watched my mother decorate cakes for years, but overall, it was satisfying enough. It did make me long for my wedding to get here a little faster.

I've also been trying to put together a list of things I want to read during my copious amounts of spare time over the summer. I know I've got to read Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces again, as I'm writing a paper on Campbellian heroes in Firefly
for Slayage in June. Also on the list is Charlotte Bronte's Villette, as my friend Shiloh gave me a copy of it--it's on my preliminary exam reading list. I'd also like to have time to read Catherine Coulter's Knock Out, which I've had for months and haven't opened; the same goes for Elizabeth Peters' newest, The River in the Sky, which I just bought a few weeks ago. A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book is sitting on my bookshelf looking lonely as well.

I've also had an urge to open up some of my old Nancy Drew mysteries. Most of them actually belonged to my mother, the gray volumes with two books bound into one. They've started to get that wonderful smell that old books get, a musty smell of comfort. I guess the older that I get, the more I want to sit back and remember my childhood and so many, many hours sitting back and engrossing myself in the adventures of Nancy, Bess and George. I always, always had my nose in a book.

Still do.

Timeliness.

I'm always surprised when I read a book and it has some incredible relevance on my life. For example, after a visit from Gloria Steinem to my university and a rather upsetting argument with one of my colleagues, I read Joanna Russ' The Female Man for my class in Reading Postmodernism. It's a tale of four women--who might all be aspects of the same woman--moving through life, discovering and deciding what it means to be female.

The last book for my Postmodernism class has been an Egyptian novel, Being Abbas el Abd. Moving past the (postmodern) fact that it has been translated from Arabic into English, it is a book that I found primarily about fear and mental illness.

I should point out that I read Being Abbas el Abd in my bathtub. No, it was not with a lit candle and a glass of wine, as I might have preferred. Instead, I was hunkered down with pillows and a blanket, riding out three separate tornado warnings for the county. (I decided that if I was going to be spending that much time in the tub, I might as well be comfortable, and there is little as comforting as the heaviness of a quilt.) I have a deep fear of tornadoes, a fear known as lilapsophobia, a word unknown to me until today, a fear stemming from a traumatic childhood experience in a tornado.

Being Abbas el Abd is not necessarily a comforting book when it comes to fear--if you want a book that gives you strength in the face of fear, try Dune instead (fear is the mindkiller). But it does present an accurate picture of the cognitive process of someone with a mental disorder that heightens fear. As someone who has experienced that, I appreciated the depiction. It's something that I think postmodern literature does very well, something I also noticed in Chester's The Exquisite Corpse this semester. The fragmentation in the novels mirrors the fragmentation in the mind, and I cannot help but hope that novels like these will continue to help maintain the acceptance we are starting to exhibit for mental illnesses--both the severe and mild.

In the meantime, you'll have to excuse me. I may be spending the night in the bathtub.