The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight by Marc Weingarten

I suspect this book will only be of interest to those familiar with the work of Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Gay Talese and other writers who first appeared as part of the New Journalism. The book follows the rise of these and other NJ stars and the magazines that recognised and fostered them: Esquire, New York, Harper's and Rolling Stone.

Early practitioners of the art didn't necessarily adhere to today's standards of verifiable truth (although many did). Thus, I discovered, Michael Herr's Dispatches, the book about Vietnam, contained composite characters and, worse, invented ones. So a passage about a dying soldier telling Herr to "Be careful, Mister. Please be careful," instead of making me weep makes me think, "Oh, come off it, Herr!"

Gail Sheehy spent months investigating the world of prostitutes in Manhattan and then rolled them all into a dramatic blend for a five-part series in New York. That used to be called "fiction.".

But while I was losing respect for Herr and Sheehy, I was gaining it for Norman Mailer, Thompson and . . . well, it's not possible for me to think more highly of Wolfe.

Today we have John Berendt rearranging events and timelines and conflating characters in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. an entertaining read, but once you know part of it is made up, how can you trust any of it? Defended by its practitioners as striving for a "higher truth," true journalists call it "making stuff up." And when you're busted, you get fired from the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Honest descendants of the New Journalism, inheritors of the story form variously called "narrative journalism," "literary journalism" or "creative journalism" insist upon verifiable fact. When they wander into speculative territory, they have footnotes to explain how they got there and back. Think of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, John Krakauer's Into Thin Air or Wolfe's The Right Stuff as well as Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and War Hospital by Sheri Fink, MD.

The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight reads as though Weingarten was learning the history as he wrote. Observations he made in the beginning of the book about the legitimacy of the form as reportage had me grinding me teeth, but by the end I felt he had it right.

Sky Dancer, by Witi Ihimaera

So, this is the first review I've written in a number of years - please forgive me if it's a little disjointed and/or incomprehensible... (but also point it out, so I can hopefully improve going forward!)

Witi Ihimaera is a well-known NZ author; outside of New Zealand, he's probably best known as the author of Whale Rider, made into a film a few years back. He's also one of my favourite NZ authors, although he writes of a world I never saw any more than glimpses of, growing up. I think perhaps that's a lot of what fascinates me; how there could be this whole entire world existing right alongside ours, all the time, and yet all we ever saw were displaced edges, thrust into classrooms and learnt by rote, or glimpsed in passing but never understood. I think probably this sort of thing occurs wherever you have one culture alongside another; even as some merging occurs, some deeper parts just never seem to transfer over.

Sky Dancer is an interweaving of the mythic and the prosaic; on the one thread, we have a portion of the Maori creation myths, where the god Tane opens the gates of Heaven for the birds to claim the land and the sea; and on the other thread, a young woman in modern day NZ fleeing with her mother to small-town Tuapa, trying to escape her mother's problems.

The threads cross in a prophecy written in the Great Book of Birds, and handed down from mother to daughter amonst the handmaidens of Tane: that in the third year of the second millennium as it is counted by Man, Armageddon will come; the sky will open, and birds of the future will stream through to fight once again the Great Battle where the seabirds, the manu moana, will challenge for dominion over the land birds, the manu whenua. However all is not hopeless; as well as this second chance granted to the seabirds, Tane will send to the landbirds a chick to assist in the battle - the young woman, Skylark O'Shea. Who, as it turns out, is contrary, antagonistic, and doesn't believe a word of any of this...

Sky Dancer is the story of how the first battle between birds, but mostly of the second; of how it came to be that it was to be fought at all; of how a reluctant Skylark was dragged along to help fight a battle she didn't believe was anything more than a myth, helped along by an assortment of characters across the length of the country, and hounded by seabirds at every step.

It's not Ihimaera's best book, but it's far from bad. The plot falters here and there - gets a little too caught up in intermissions, and a little too preachy here and there - but overall, it's a good read; and if you like discovering myths and cultures of other cultures, then it's a very good book for this. Don't be put off by the fact that the story switches between human and bird characters - my father, who scorns fantasy of any kind and will usually run a mile if there's any hint of fantastical elements, thoroughly enjoyed this book. (Moreso than I did, I think, and I *do* love fantasy).

Anyway, to conclude; I enjoyed this book. It's a good story, well written, and a very good introduction to some Maori myth, although you'll probably need to watch out for where the actual myths end and the storytelling begins...

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

by Ariel Levy

This book is amazing... I think the author summed it up when she said:

"This is not a book about the sex industry; it is a book about what we have decided the sex industry means....how we held it up, cleaned it off, and distorted it." (Ariel Levy, excerpt from book page 198)

What is feminism to you? How does it equate to our existence as a woman? Why do we strive so hard to be "manly" in our daily activities? How did sexuality become feminism? When did Porn Stars become the Cool Role Models? Why are our kids driven to look sexually "hot", when half of them don't know what sex is all about?

All these questions are looked at in this witty book written by Ariel Levy. She takes the reader inside behind the scenes to talk to the people who are putting out the images we are all striving to be like. You get a view into the inner sanctums of playboy, girls gone wild, CAKE, old school feminist,Strippers, Porn Stars, Teenagers, Lesbians and much much more. If you think you know feminism and how it equates into a woman's sexuality or just curious about it all, this book is a must read for you.


I have to admit, I have never been stopped and asked by so many strangers "what is that book about" as I have been with this one. It is guaranteed to cause a sensation just from the cover alone. I loved the witty tone it had as the author explained some of the really absurd norms we have these days. I found each chapter a pleasure to read and Ariel posed a tons of questions which set me to pondering the reason behind all the madness these days. One question she did not really address is "why is this happening". We see a big jump from conservative feminism to raunchy feminism; she show a great picture of what it was and what it is now but no history on the between time; how we changed over to what it is. I enjoyed the section she had on the teenage girls and was pleased to see a section from a boys perspective. What the male interviewee said made a lot of sense. As I read the statements from the women who were interviewed I couldn't help but wonder why they needed to be so "manly" in their behaviors, why do they feel they need this trade off. I found the book to be a very informative book and will recommend it to many of my friends.

Click here to add it to your wish list at bookmooch.

Tesse
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