A Room with a View

Books with your Barista

by Jared A. Conti

A Room with a View

Mysterious book leaves reader with more questions than answers

Room is one of those books that come along once in awhile where you can’t help but stay up late into the wee hours of the morning because you’re unable to put it down to see where it leads you.

I’d heard an interview with author Emma Donoghue ages ago on NPR, but it had completely fallen off my radar. I was happy to lay eyes on it again in the glorious sea that is the AAUW booksale.

This adult novel sings with originality as we’re told a story of a five-year-old Jack and his mother. Their lives consist of just this one room, Room, and everything contained therein. This bristles in mystery as the majority of objects they come in contact with in Room—Stove, Skylight, Bath, Outside—are all mentioned as proper nouns.

As Jack learns after the meager celebration that is his fifth birthday, things are not always what they seem. Parents often keep things hidden from their children and the meanings of such stories they are told have more sinister motives. Apparently locked in Room, nightly visits by Old Nick parcel out more and more about the state they are in reach disturbing conclusions.

Once Jack and mother escape Room to Outside, the story takes off on an entirely different perspective as family is introduced to Outside and that which he has never before been introduced.  A previous world known only as Television showing different “planets” become real, and the addition of new people into their familial unit gives much to think about in regards to child rearing, the media and where hard circumstances take us in life.

Once pieces start falling in place, Room begins to build itself into the fabric of your thoughts, peopling itself with ideas once held dear, haunting you for long after you’re done reading. Three distinct stages of Room’s story conclude satisfyingly with lives that cope with others’ decisions on what living really means.

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Jared A. Conti is a local writer, blogger and Lock Haven University graduate who spends his work time as a barista at Avenue 209 Coffee House. He would love to hear your suggestions on great books, movies or comics to review. He can be reached at jaredaconti@gmail.com.

You can break his ship, but you can't break his spirit.

Okay, so here's the dealio:

        Sorry I've not been keeping up-to-date with posting.  Though it's a horrible excuse, I've been GETTING PAID doing regular bi-weekly book review columns in our local rag The Lock Haven Express.

        The only hitch to this is that other than giving me something extra to do, no one can read my column because they've not put any online.  Not sure if any of you's really want to read 'em, but I'm posting them on here so at least I can share them with some of my writerly friends.

Here's the latest.  Read it and weep.

THE ORACULAR BEARD

       

You can break his ship, but you can’t break his spirit.

Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi, is the kind of post-apocalyptic book I can get into: solid story, characterization and harrowing exploits. The fact that Ship Breaker has received multiple awards for young fiction doesn’t hurt, either. 

In a gritty post-apocalyptic future, teenage boy Nailer scuttles through the ductwork of washed-up oil tankers salvaging copper wire to sell to the highest bidders. The work is tiring and dangerous, and it  doesn’t help that his drug-addled father uses him as a punching bag to regularly take out his aggression. 

This doesn’t keep Nailer from looking on the bright side. Days are spent searching and daydreaming of the “Lucky Strike” that will make him reach beyond his wildest dreams. One fateful afternoon, he finds himself trapped in a holding tank full of oil, but his wishes are not to come true. Here we see—in excruciating detail—the loyalty which this society leans on to help one another.

Due in part to the destruction of our fragile ecosystem, class 6 hurricanes now rage and wreak havoc upon entire coastlines. Yet these “city killers” can bring up salvage of their own, and this one offers a wrecked clipper ship as penance. 

But what he finds aboard a ship exclusively designed to shuttle the rich is quite more than he bargained for. Amid threats of death and loyalty, Nailer enters into a class war that brings him closer and at the same time further from his home. 

The only thing that caught me up in this book was Nailer’s time on the ocean (I am in no way nautical) and a nutty penchant for using half-human animals as characters in post-apocalyptic settings. It’s one thing to bring this upon ourselves, but to make the animals suffer, too? Ludicrous. 

This fast, entertaining read was at times predictable as well, but the richness of the storytelling helped me to forget that with the addition of themes and ideas I’ve not seen previously breached in the genre. For fans of this book, there is also a companion novel The Drowned Cities to partake of.

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We now return to your irregularly scheduled blogpost...

"Once more into the breach, my dear friends."
King Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1
Billy Shakespeare
  
I've been put on Front Street this week because of my lack of writing.  I'd originally meant to give up facebook for Lent like I did last year. I got a lot of flack from friends who'd seen me attempt (and succeed) last year.  Folks thought that this time was to focus on Christ's suffering, not on my own.  Or some such nonsense. 

Not that I'm trying to deny Him or anything he's done for me.  My sabbatical from the internets was one straight from the heart.  I'd have to say I'm mild-to-moderately addicted to social networking, and I felt that not checking my phone every five seconds would do me some good.  Yet here I am.

Long story short (or as short as I can) I was propositioned by a friend of mine to stay on.  It was a last-ditch, Hail Mary pass sort of effort that could only be expressed in the pitiful words of one losing out on something, no matter that it revolved strongly around a such a time-sucking habit.  I was what people would be missing out on if I took this break, and that kind of frightened me.  This sympathy was further manifested in that all these fine folk would be missing out on my writing.

I'm reminded tonite of one of my favorite scenes in The Postman. Near and dear to my heart not just because of the post-apocalyptic spin, but because both the movie and the book stand well on their own.  We've got this scene where Kevin Costner (I know, I know) is talking over a montage of people getting ready to fight this big fight.  He's hurtling along this zip line cagey thing, amassing all these troops to his cause for freedom of the postal service, and really, freedom in general.  I'm not going to tell you the ending, but considering Kevin Costner is the hero, you know who's going to win.

I'm the hero of this story, which I can now say I'm writing.  Done bun can't be undone.  There's something moving through me right now that I'm trying to grab a hold of, but only through the help of those that are willing to hold me accountable to that which I really need to be spending my time doing. 

They're what makes this all worthwhile.

Early, but none too soon.

     It's 530 in the am, and I should be in bed because sleep the last few nites has been rather hit or miss.  I know it's bound to catch up with me sooner or later, but it just wasn't happening.  I want to be curled up in bed, trying to make up for lost time.  Something isn't letting me.
     So I get this bright idea to make my way down to the shop and get some work done, but then I don't want to do it.  I cruise around facebook for a bit (mine and Avenue's), reply to a few emails and messages and book a band, watch a video and read a poem...but I just don't want to put in the time for me.
     Two days strong, and that desire to do it, but I'm like that old proverb: If there's a writer alone in the forest, is he still a writer?
     Not that I don't already love the feedback I'm getting from you faithful followers, but where's the love, really?  If I can't even love it for what it is, what good is it?  I've got Han's delusions of grandeur every which way I pilot this thing except that I can't get the ship off the ground, let alone get the hyperdrive to work right.  I could go on all morning with Star Wars metaphor...
   Here I am, though, puttering away, hopefully a bit more streamlined than the last post because I can't bear to be not good.  I need to write.  I just have to.  If you only knew the hemming and hawing I've been doing these last few weeks alone, you'd be hard-pressed to believe that this isn't some ghost writer working on this page.
     But I've got a ghost of a chance.
    

Vaugest of Vagrancies

Yah, so...about last nite.  Sorry about all that.

This whole blog thing is a new step for me, but I'm willing to give it a try.  It's sort of like a gift to myself to prompt me to write more, and hopefully hear from others whether or not they think it's any good.  I need to hone my skills and would like some way to garner a little feedback, so if you wouldn't mind...  Think of it as a little gift to the both of us: I write and you respond.  It's a win-win, no?

I'd like to be just a bit more succinct with my endeavors and try to improve my focus.  I've never really been trained in the art of writing as I thought I should be, but maybe that's not how it works.  I'm into a whole bunch of stuff as well, so I'm hoping that I can show off some of the things that I like and we can all get sharing a little bit more.  As long as it gets me writing.

But here's the real deal: I'm working on this comic.  It's this huge, sprawling magnum opus that I've been cooking up in my head for a long time, and things are finally gathering up enough steam for them to gel together and stick enough that they're beginning to make sense.  All in all, there're about four volumes in varying lengths that I'd like to tell, and you to hear. 

But the proof is in the pudding.  I'll tell you now that I've pulled out the plum and have entirely too many damned metaphors and enough cliches to shake a stick at.  I've been a bad boy.  I've not followed my heart for such a long time that at this point it's all going to flood out and splatter onto the page.  I think it's going to be a mess.  Yet I've faith.  I've had time to gather all that is in this noggin, now I just need to make it make sense.

Christmas in (The Last 4th of) July

"I shall sit here upon this rock, this new cornerstone of American civilization.  I will gaze across the barren lands with arms spread wide and I shall harbor those which this world has left behind, brought forth, through pain and suffering of the worst kind.
"Upon wings of glimmering, golden mirrors reflecting the true shape of things to come--as a phoenix rises from the ashes, life begins anew."

     So began a most epic saga half-a-lifetime ago...and I'm really just getting down to it.  Funny that I mention it, too, because one of the other members of this itty bitty life o' mine just walked into the coffee shop I closed down a half hour ago to write this.  He'll show up from time to time in pictures for a project I'm working on, too: he plays a big part in the cast of characters, not just in real life.  To quote "Throw Momma from the Train" as he leaves:

"All you ever do is sit there at your typewriter and
peck peck peck 
just like a fat pigeon."  

  
     Truer words were never spoken.

     "What is all this rambling for?" you may ask yourselves.  "Can he keep it up consistently?"  "Traveling Tales of what?"
     These are all fine questions that I will one day hopefully answer here or elsewhere in the aether.

1.  I ramble because I care.  If I don't, you (or I) might miss something important that could leave us stranded in the previously stated aether.  Truthfully, though, I have an ultra hard time focusing my attentions onto a keyboard (sans typewriter) because my fingers travel faster than my thoughts.  'course, maybe that should be the other way around...  Anyhow, I edit a bit as I write, too.  Not very well, either.

2.  I'm gonna try really hard to be on my game with this.  At least every other day.  I figure that if I've got people's attention (or keeping my own?) I'll do this for as long as I can.  I need an outlet, and though I despise sitting in front of a computer, I figure I'll be here anyhow.  Might as well do something productive with it.

3.  The Traveling Tales of Waybackwhen (TToWBW) is a little something I've been working on since time out of mind.  Seriously, I've been working in this in one form or another since I read Robinson Crusoe in ninth grade.  (Followed by reading The Stand, you couldn't expect this to not be slightly off, could you?) 
     So, TToWBW has taken so many twists and turns in the last fifteen years that I hope this newest venture into comics and graphic novels is just the ticket.  I've seem to've gotten all my personal junk out of the way (and having an illustrator helps) so now I've got time to devote to this story mostly wholeheartedly.

     What's it about?  Tune in to see...

     The Oracular Beard