Lost on Planet China — J. Marteen Troost

This may prove difficult for me to write as I have been in love with this author, and I am a little disappointed in him at the moment. He let me down.

I’ve written about J. Maarten Troost’s first two novels with passion and excitement. I urged the masses to run to the nearest bookstore and buy Getting Stoned with Savages (2006) and The Sex Lives of Cannibals (2004). I even excitedly ordered his third book, Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man’s Attempt to Understand the World’s Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Living Squid (2008). I waited to read the book because his other two works had been such a laugh-out loud fantastic read that I wanted to save his third attempt for when I needed a read that would make me smile. Unfortunately, Troost did not do for China what he did for the South Pacific. His words made me angry. I don’t know if it’s the fact he is married with two kids now, in his mid-thirties, or if he really is a culturally blind as this book makes him seem, but the way he talked about China made me want to yell at him.

I suppose my intense reaction could be due to the fact that I have lived in Asia and my experiences in Southeast Asia mirror many of the experiences he had in his 3 months spent in China. But I loved Asia. Yes, Bangkok is very polluted and crowded – driving there is a real bitch – and the modes of transportation and their bathrooms leave much to be desired. Based on his descriptions, China is very similar, though I will admit the pollution and traffic are probably worse. Yes, tonal languages are INSANELY difficult to master; I feel your pain, Troost. And I will say that there are places in Thailand where you can escape the hustle and bustle of a city inundated with western influences and karaoke bars; apparently China is lacking in this. So maybe I’m pissed off because he doesn’t seem to even try to understand China or enjoy his stay. I know people, tall white people, who lived in China and loved every moment of it. They weren’t blind to the obviously glaring concerns, but they also weren’t blind to the wonders of this Asian world. Troost seems to have missed the ball on this one. He should call this novel: “SOS – Lost on Planet China – The Story of One Man Bitching and Moaning his Way Across the World’s Most Mystifying Nation.”

Another issue I took with this work is how he seems to be force feeding a history lesson. History is important and, for a book like this, necessary; however, Troost seems to just want to increase his page count. Additionally, I have read some reviews that claim his facts are inaccurate. (One such a “fact” was his confident assertion that no one alive in China still has bound feet. A quick Google search indicates otherwise. If he meant that no one in China currently practices foot binding, he would be correct, but that is NOT what he writes.) He also constantly reminds the reader of his previous two books, the fact he is a writer, and his time of the South Pacific. I think success has destroyed him; he has lost his touch and become what appears to be a white privileged, conceited old man. Yes, 35 is OLD if you’re going to bitch and moan about every single blasted thing.

He opens the memoir/travelogue with an interesting piece on how Mormons and Chinese businessmen are everywhere. (I can support this argument. Except for the interesting fact that Mormons are not in China – which I don’t believe Troost actually acknowledges at any point. I would think that would be an interesting fact to work into his argument, but alas.)

He does still have a way with telling a story, I just wish he wasn’t so bitter about China. Some of his stories made me chuckle, a bit begrudgingly as I was/am annoyed with the work overall, and some of his descriptions are simply well done. Below is such a description from Lhasa.

“The late-afternoon light was ethereal, a darkening blue, but the mountains flared with sunlight. If Mars had been colonized by Buddhists, it would look like this” (287).

The story that had me chuckling the most was when he went to the pharmacy in an attempt to find lip balm. The high altitude had dried his lips and he was in desperate need of some Chap Stick.

“In the morning, when I awoke, the mountains were dusted with snow. But the air was very dry, dry enough to elicit the need for lip balm. I’d never felt the need for lip balm before. I am not a lip balm man. But here, up here, way up here, I had a need, and so I wandered into a Chinese pharmacy. The attendants were dressed all in white, as if this were a sanatorium, or possibly a lunatic asylum. I mimed what I needed and she understood completely. I was in need of a skin-whitening cream for hands” (288).

Now Troost goes on to complain about the Asian desire for white skin, which I also experienced in Thailand, but that’s not what struck me about his story. One of the few times I went into a pharmacy in Thailand was after a pretty bad motorcycle wreck on the way to Pai. I don’t even know what town we were in, but Budge and I set off to get bandages and medicine for Loren. A Thai pharmacy is apparently very similar to a Chinese one; all the attendants were dressed in white and we mimed what we needed, she pointed us to birth control. Like Troost, we eventually found what we needed. The difference between me and Troost is that I didn’t bitch about the misunderstanding. (And Loren healed up quite nicely.) I will say this novel makes me even more desirous of writing my Thailand story – though I’m not sure that I still want Troost to write my blurb.

Troost finally loves China and longs for her embrace, but only after the motor on the boat dies just 6 feet from North Korea soil and as much as he hates China, he is pretty sure he’ll hate North Korea more. And that is how the novel ends, with Troost begging China to save him from North Korea.

Troost is currently working on a book about India. In a recent interview, he clearly stated he did not like China but loved India, so maybe that book will bring back the writer I enjoy.
On a final note, I did thoroughly enjoy his jabs against Dan Brown’s novels.

Chang-rae Lee — ALOFT

Chang-rae Lee is a first generation Korean American. He graduated from Yale and teaches at Princeton. (ohhh fancy pants Ivy Leaguer.) His first novel, Native Speaker (1995) won the PEN/Hemingway award. The publication of A Gesture Life in 1999 seemed to secure his position as an Asian American author whose beautiful prose appropriately painted the disjointed nature, the nervous condition, of split cultures – the struggle for an Asian American identity. I knew of Lee’s work, and I expected Aloft (2004) to have similar themes ESPECIALLY with the title. I know judging a book by its cover and/or title is taboo in a bookslut world, but we’re all guilty of it.

Aloft is Lee’s first novel that does NOT have an Asian American protagonist; Jerry Battle is an Italian American and while the Italian heritage does feature in small snippets (the family’s real name is Battaglia and was changed “for the usual reasons immigrants and others like them” have), it is not a central struggle in the novel. There is nothing wrong with a Korean writing about an Italian American. There is nothing wrong with a woman writing from the POV of a man. But I would be lying if I said the identity of the author does not factor into the reading of the text. A good author can make you forget that she’s a woman writing about a man. Or a Korean writing about an Italian. Unfortunately, I could not resolve Chang-rae Lee with Jerry Battle, especially with Jerry’s take on race. I couldn’t understand what Lee was trying to do – what role he wanted race to play.

There is an Asian American and it doesn’t take a genius to say that Chang-rae Lee is kind of making fun of himself with the character Paul. Paul is the prose poet boyfriend of Jerry’s daughter, Theresa.

“But apparently Paul is somewhat famous, at least in certain rarefied academic/ literary circles, which is great if true but also means that no one I’ve met on a train or plane or in a waiting room has ever heard of him, much less read his books. And I do always ask. I’ve read his books (three novels and a chapbook of poetry), and I can say with great confidence that he’s the sort of writer who can put together a nice-sounding sentence or two and does it with feeling but never quite gets to the point. Not that I’ve figured out what his point might be, though I get the sense that the very fact I’m missing it means I’m sort of in on it, too. I guess if you put a gun to my head I’d say he writes about The Problem with Being Sort of Himself – namely, the terribly conflicted and complicated state of being Asian and American and thoughtful and male, which would be just dandy in a slightly different culture or society but in this one isn’t the hottest ticket.”(74)

Oh. Well, it would seem Lee knows exactly how he is perceived and what I was expecting with this novel. Interesting move. I kind of like it. I will readily admit that Paul was by far my favorite character and ironically, the most alienated and alone by the end of the novel.


Jerry seems too concerned with race. His first wife was Asian and his second long-term, lasting love interest, Rita, is Puerto Rican. The couple he buys the airplane from is biracial. Jerry’s son’s wife, Eunice, is English-German. I find the whole race issue over acknowledged but under developed. It was a bit disappointing and just one of several flaws with the novel.

It’s too ambitious for what it is. There is suicide and attempted suicide. A business fails. There is sexual harassment and a high stakes tennis match. There is a run-away father and a daughter dying of cancer. There’s death and birth and ethnic food. There are honey colored breasts and “fuck me” clothes. There are large diamond rings and Ferraris. There is a plane named Donnie. There is so much in this novel. So very much.

Aloft was too caught up in itself, too lofty and hard to pin down, and too rambling. It really could have been a ploy on the part of Lee, but it didn’t work. And the fact it didn’t work has nothing to do with the protagonist being Italian-American. While beautifully written, the novel just doesn’t fly.

It’s official….

your resident bookslut is sick. Could be the piggy flu. *weeps* She feels horrible – too horrible to even read. And she’s currently reading a great book by Chang-rae Lee that will prompt a fantastic multicultural response on “the other” writing from the POV of the white man. Be patient… your bookslut has not forsaken you.

Edit: Not the piggy flu. Feeling better. Football is taking up my time though. My apologies.

Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak


Published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are quickly earned a permanent place in the BEST BOOKS EVER. Maurice Sendak has said that the monsters were originally horses but he couldn’t draw horses but that he could draw a “thing” – he even modeled his things after relatives. It is and always has been a book close to my heart – “I’ll eat you up I love you so.”

When I learned about Spike Jonze’s movie, I was a little skeptical. But now I’m just smitten. I can’t wait. Add the fact that Dave Eggers help adapt the screen play and Sendak served as one of the producers, and I think it’s worth the price of admission. (I’m even interested in Egger’s ficitonal novel, The Wild Things – excerpt here: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/08/24/090824fi_fiction_eggers)

See the trailer below – couldn’t embed for some reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–N9klJXbjQ

Shakespeare’s R & J





(The cast of Shakespeare’s R & J – the guy in the front is the one I loved.)

This isn’t a book, but sluts get to break the rules. I recently went to see the Raleigh Ensemble Players Theatre Company’s production of Shakespeare’s R & J. The play was adapted in 1999 by Joe Calarco. Calarco is quoted as saying, “This is a play about men. It is about how men interact with other men. Thus it deals with how men view women, sex, sexuality, and violence.” He goes on to say that it is a play about students so the actors are students first and foremost, not Shakespearean characters. This is very important to remember when viewing the play.

Shakespeare’s R&J is about four male students in strict boarding school finding release, comedy, love, realization, and self through Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The first act of the play has four very boyish students laughing their way through the text. They’re finding in humor in making sex jokes and portraying women with large breasts; they’re typical teenagers. But something happens between two of the students. The obvious attraction between the two students is ridiculed by the other two boys and they mock it and even try to stop it. At one point, things become violent. The brief violence jars them and they apologize through sonnets and the urging of all to continue. After intermission, the boys are engrossed in playing the parts – it has become real for them.

The stage is bare – four black boxes that start as desks become all the play of them. There’s a tattered copy of Romeo and Juliet that gets read from and tossed around the stage. And there’s a red cloth that was used to hide the text. It makes sense that this red cloth has to serve the purpose of all the props needed to put on the Shakespeare play; the students wouldn’t have swords, costumes, vials, etc. at their disposal. It was easy to accept the cloth in this role – the cloth is also important because it connects, conceals, and violently separates the boys.

At the end of the play, the boys are startled into their routines and hurriedly scramble around to find their socks, shoes, ties, and books. One boy, the one who played mostly Romeo, urges them to continue. They all leave him; the boy who played Juliet looks back, noticeably conflicted, before brushing it off as a game and leaving him. It’s heartbreaking, really.

The cast was made up of Shawn S. Stoner, Jack Benton, L.A. Rogers, and Ryan Brock – these four men did an excellent job. The clear stand-out for me was the student who played the nurse (among others.) The problem with four men playing several characters (and sometimes playing the same character) is that the playbill doesn’t let you know who is who as they are just listed as students 1-4.

I thought it was well done though I do have some issues with the actual script – other parts of Shakespeare get tossed into the reading (other plays & sonnets) and I wish there was a bit more to explain this heavy reliance on all of Shakespeare’s work when it seems that the tragedy is a dirty secret. I also didn’t much care for the boy who played Juliet. His voice annoyed me.

With all that in mind, if a local ensemble group is putting it on near you, go check it out – it’s worth the two hours of your life.

As for the REP – check them out, you Raleighites, at http://www.realtheatre.org — it doesn’t hurt that their new home is over Foundation (a lovely little bar with amazing drinks – try cucumber on the vine – http://www.foundationnc.com)

J.M. Coetzee – Life & Times of Michael K

J.M. Coetzee is one of my favorite South African writers. I have a special love for the white voices of South Africa and even though Coetzee has since moved his citizenship to Australia, I still consider him a South African novelist. Coetzee was born in Cape Town in 1940. He moved to London in the early ‘60s and worked as a computer programmer. While in London, he was awarded his Masters of Arts degree based on his work with the novels of Ford Madox Ford. (Sidenote: The Good Solider is one of the best novels ever. Ford’s relationship with Jean Rhys was also pretty awesome for the literary world.) Soon after, he came to the States, where he earned his PhD. He sought citizenship here but was denied due to his role in anti-war protests. He went back to South Africa and started teaching at the University of Cape Town. In 2002, he retired to Australia and in 2006, he became an Australian citizen.

A pretty well lauded novelist, Coetzee is a two-time recipient of the Man Booker Prize [Life &Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgrace (1999)] and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. He’s actually long listed for the 2009 Man Booker Prize award. The shortlist comes out on Tuesday and the winner will be announced in October, but sources indicate Coetzee as a strong favorite. (Summertime seems a bit masturbatory in nature – I’ll read it eventually.)

Coetzee has always been a bit political, but his novels do not read with the same political urgency that laces Gordimer’s works. The two are forever placed side-by-side as the white voices in a black fight. It is a very interesting comparison when one looks at Coetzee’s women vs. Gordimer’s women; I’ll save such interesting reading for a later day.

I recently read the Life & Times of Michael K and found it similar to Disgrace in haunting qualities. I don’t know that it’s as fine tuned as Disgrace or even as Slowman, but there’s no denying that Coetzee was and continues to be a very powerful writer.

The novel is relatively short (under 200 pages) and divided into three sections. The first section is the longest. It is written in third person and follows Michael K. The second section is told in first person through the eyes of a doctor who treats and envies Michael K. The final section is back in third person. The writing in all three sections is brilliantly Coetzee.

The title makes it very clear what the novel is about – Life & Times of Michael K is surprisingly about the life of Michael K. Michael is a nonwhite, slightly slow, man in his early 30s. His cleft lip is the reason he doesn’t even have a face a mother could love. His mother, Anna K, is a very unsympathetic character who is disgusted and embarrassed by her son. She sends him away as a child, but readily calls on him when she needs him. Rather sick and dying, she convinces Michael to take her to her childhood home of Prince Albert. She’s very large and cannot walk so he pushes her in a cart. Shouldering the burden of caring for her with filial love, he sets off. When she dies, he continues the journey, carting her ashes with him.

But the novel isn’t about a son’s love; it’s about a man trying to find himself or lose himself. He’s beaten, robbed, arrested, and nearly starves himself. The most annoying scene for me is when he buries money and walks away. Parts of it reminded me of the L’etranger by Camus, but Michael is such a simpleton that it’s a bit more annoying. I felt no connection to Michael, but Coetzee does that on purpose. The writing is brilliant, but the story is unsatisfying. I do think this is one of Coetzee’s blatantly more political works and it is well-deserving of all the awards bestowed upon it, but I found it a bit too depressing. Everyone should read Coetzee, but not everyone should use Life & Times of Michael K as their starter Coetzee novel.

All this said, if any of you lovely people find an autographed Coetzee work, it’s a sure fired way of forever buying my love. That is all.

Sluts should get paid

Being a bookslut is hard work, methinks payment should be involved. My goal is to read 10,000 pages this year – a sad number in comparison to years past, but considering I didn’t read any for pretty much the entire Spring, it’ll have to do. Yes, it’ll have to do indeed.

When I get the time, you’ll have a lovely review of an older Coetzee novel and a play I recently went to see. Please try and contain your excitement.

Booksluts get to be teases too.