Still Here

Still Here by Lara Vapnyar   320 pages

In her seventh novel, author Lara Vapynyar deals with the immigrant experience and identity, specifically a person’s online identity after his or her demise.

The novel centers around four Russian immigrants, friends since their school days. Now in their mid-40s, the four have come to the crossroads that often plague the lives of the middle-aged. The friends---Vica, Vadik, Sergey and Regina---all live in New York City.

Sergey and Vica are married and have a son, Eric. Sergey is constantly being laid off from his job as a financial analyst. Vica works as a medical technician at a local cancer treatment center. Just after the story opens, the couple split. Sergey goes to stay with Vadik and decides to devote all his time to developing an app that he calls “Virtual Grave.” The idea is that the app will peruse a person’s emails, text, voice mails, etc. to continue to recreate his or her online presence after death.

Vadik  is a programmer and is single. He lives the bachelor life, dating woman after woman. I thought he was the lesser drawn of the characters. He had been in love with Rachel, but there were two Rachel’s in Vadik’s life, referred to as Rachel 1 and Rachel 2. I found that utterly confusing.

Then there is Regina. A famous literary translator back in Russia, she spends her days grieving over her lost career and her mother. She’s marred to Bob, a wealthy American. Readers never get to see Bob except in passing and when he shows up, it is sometimes confusing because I always had trouble remembering who he was.

The book seems less to do with app and how it would than it does the four trying to navigate the daily struggle of life. I also had trouble in remembering who Vica and Vadik were…I kept getting them confused.

The story didn’t grab me. I plodded along with, much like the characters do in their lives. The book was okay, but I’ve read better books that deal with the same subject (virtual life after death) that were much better. I did like all the literary references. I give Still Here 3 out of 5 stars.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 894 pages

Anna Karenina is the story of Russia's upper crust in the early 1900s. The titular character is a beautiful woman, bored in her loveless marriage, who attracts the loving attention of military bachelor Vronsky and manages to screw up a whole bunch of lives in the process, including those of her husband, son, Vronsky, her sister-in-law, a man named Levin (who, to me, was the most likeable, identifiable character in this book), and, of course, herself. She runs off to Europe with Vronsky and figures out that, despite the sheen of love, everything's not all it's cracked up to be. And, well, I won't spoil it for you, but there's a reason this isn't on anybody's "funniest books of all time" list.

Anna Karenina had been on my to-read list for ages, thanks to Jasper Fforde's hilarious, literary-in-joke-filled Thursday Next series (this is the same series that caused me to read Jane Eyre and Rebecca, and also made me put Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations on my reading list). For that reason and the aformentioned hilarity, I highly recommend Fforde's books.

But Anna Karenina? Read it or don't. Despite the ridiculous number of long Russian names, it wasn't as hard to slog through as I thought it would be, which was nice. I can also say that I enjoyed some of the characters Tolstoy created, as well as the general Downton Abbey-in-Russia feel of the novel. I wasn't a huge fan of the AGES Tolstoy spent discussing labor and farming, or the philosophical, religious stuff. I feel good that I can honestly say that I've read it, though it didn't change my life in any way (other than completely hosing my December book blog stats, anyway).

For Your Eyes Only

For Your Eyes Only by Ian Fleming, 252 pages

For Your Eyes Only is a collection of short stories or cases involving James Bond. The short stories are odd to read as they tend to leave you wanting more of what happened and the details of everything that fill the novels by Fleming. The five short stories are “From a View to Kill”, “For Your Eyes Only”, “Quantum of Solace”, “Risico”, and “The Hildebrand Rarity”.

According to an online chronology the stories as presented in the book are out of order and should be read `4, 3, 5, 1, 2. Having no real opinion either way I took that advice. I can’t say there were any references or clues that indicate one should come before the other, and I would likely have been fine reading them as presented.

“Risico” involves a heroin smuggling ring that Bond is sent to investigate. This is my favorite short story of the collection as it has some of the best dialogue, and likeable characters. It also has a golf course that has a minefield hazard for the out of bounds which seems like a great way to make golfing more interesting.

“Quantum of Solace” is nothing like the movie based off of it and is quite dull. It is nothing more than the governor or Jamaica telling Bond a story.

With “Hildebrand Rarity” I am split between liking the story about an abusive husband and overall jerk getting his comeuppance and dislike for the needless and wasteful killing of a small section of an ocean reef. I know that the use of poisons like that to collect fish and animal specimens was used in those days but it just seems so wrong and evil.

“From a View to Kill” is a well written short involving a missing dispatch rider. It is quite short for everything that happens in it and is fun to read. It also shows more of the political side of things then previous novels do.

Finally “For Your Eyes Only” is basically M using Bond to get revenge on a couple of murders that killed some friends of his. He justifies it with some legalese but the concept is the same.

Of course every single one of these short novels has an attractive woman that Bond falls in love with, but it wouldn’t be a Bond story if there wasn’t.