Review of Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Why do I dread writing this review?  I was so excited about Swamplandia! – couldn’t wait to read it.  I began reading a few pages but stopped.  I didn’t read it over vacation because I wanted to be alone with it for a stretch (yet I couldn’t be bothered to lift it on the five hour road trip back).  I finished some other books and picked it up in earnest again.  I read.  I got sleepy.  Read some more.  Got sleepy.  What was going on?  I liked the characters.  I liked the concept – it had so much potential and originality.  Why wasn’t I loving this book?

I pushed on because it wasn’t terrible.  It wasn’t even bad.  It just made me very sleepy.  I think part of the problem was Russell’s extensive use of metaphor and many self-conscious turns of phrase.  Gustave Flaubert said, “An author in his book must be like God in the universe; present everywhere and visible nowhere.”  I felt that Russell was too visible in too many places.  Sometimes the description of the setting slowed the pace without adding anything to the general mood or tension in the book.  I got “bogged down”, so to speak. (har, har).  Some of her prose was beautiful but pointless.  Some of it didn’t seem to fit in the characters mouths.  For instance, the main character, Ava, muses:

“I tried to imagine what species of bird could make a sound like that.  A single note, held in an amber suspension of time, like a charcoal drawing of Icarus falling.  It was sad and fierce all at once, alive with a lonely purity.” 

Beautiful words, but I wouldn’t have put them in Ava’s mouth.  Ava often waxes poetic like this, but it doesn’t sound like a thirteen year old with a substandard education and a sheltered life.  It sounds like Karen Russell trying to dazzle me.  Another thing that slowed the book down was the insertion of historical facts about the Florida swamplands.  These were not seamless – I always felt like they were asides basted in with sloppy whipstitches.  It interrupted the flow of this fantastically original story.

Spring Break Reading List - Swamp Things

"Books – the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity."

 – George Steiner

The Book Phantom is leaving for vacation this week-end, and I will be in the marshy low-country of Georgia, partying with alligators in a “drinking town with a fishing problem”.  That’s right – I’ll be in Tybee Island for a little R & R, with plans to jaunt into Savannah for some culture and good food.  Because I’m going to be in the “swamp”, my New Book pick is Swamplandia! by Karen Russell.  Hopefully, Russell will cure me of the aforementioned marsh-gas of boredom, but since I’ll be on vacation, I can deal with at least a little vacuity.

In fact, my reading list will be a little fluffy this go ‘round.  After Shakespearean tragedies, my mind craves some lighter fare.  I’m leaving out my usual professional development book selection, just because I don’t want to think about working.  Instead, I’m adding a contemporary “chick lit” title for leisurely reading on the beach.  So here is my non-boring yet non-taxing reading list inspired by Swamps, Savannah, and the Seashore.

1. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (New Release).  I've had this book for a little over a month, saving it for the vacay, and it hasn’t been easy not to peek.  It’s about a girl and her carnival-type family who run a gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades (I know, I know – the Georgia low-country isn’t exactly the Everglades, but did you read about that grandma that was eaten by an alligator in Savannah? I'm a little scared I’ll encounter one on the beach, too!  Maybe Russell will have some “gator wrastlin’” tips in her book - just in case.)  Anyway, the character descriptions on the book flap totally sucked me in: Ava Bigtree, the thirteen year old heroine, must save the family theme park from a competitor called The World of Darkness; Ossie, the sister, falls in love with Dredgeman who is probably a ghost; Kiwi, the scholarly brother, betrays the family by joining The World of Darkness; and Chief Bigtree, the father, is missing.  Oh, and there’s a cast of 98 gators in little Ava’s charge.  You can’t get more original than this.
2. Wise Blood  by Flannery O’Connor (Classic).  As a Southerner, I admit with some chagrin that I have never read Flannery O’Connor (although I have a foggy notion that at least one of her short stories crossed my path in high school English class).  O’Connor was born and raised in Savannah, so I will make the pilgrimage to her childhood home.  She only wrote two novels – Wise Blood is one of them.
3. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (Non-Fiction).  I read this title in the mid-90s when it was released, and I loved it.  I plan to thumb through it again to refamiliarize myself with the Savannah locales mentioned in the story.  It seems de rigueur for one touring Savannah.
4. Fallen by Lauren Kate (Young Adult).  This is the first in a paranormal series about fallen angels.  It takes place in a boarding school in Savannah.  The second book is called Torrent, and the third, due for release June 14^th, is called Passion.  I perused this a few times at Target but didn’t buy it because I thought it might be a bit Twilight-y (not that there’s anything wrong with that – I just like variety).  If I want to go out and immediately buy the rest of the series, you’ll know it’s a winner. 
5. Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews (Contemporary).  This is chick-lit beach reading.  Here's a quick synopsis:  BeBe Loudermilk is in a relationship with a con-man who said he was an investment counselor.  He absconds with all her money, and all she has left is a run-down motel on Tybee Island.  BeBe and her friends fix up the motel, saving her from financial ruin.  When she locates the crooked boyfriend in Florida, BeBe heads south to get her money and perhaps some sweet revenge.  I’ll be enjoying this in lieu of a writer’s reference this week.
6. Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers by Susan Shaughnessy (Writers’ Reference).  Even though I won’t be doing any professional development reading, I'm at least suggesting a writer’s reference book.  This title seemed appropriate for my "Swamp Things" reading list. 

I'll be posting my reading adventures next week from Savannah (unless the gators eat me before I can eat them!)  Stay tuned…