Joe’s Book Club: Chapter 52: Happy Fourth of July

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

“If you think the story has a sad ending, it’s because it’s not over yet.” ― Emily Henry, Beach Read

Several years ago, Mary and I, along with my cousin and his wife. went to Key West Florida for a joint vacation. I told her my goal was “to sit on the beach and look at the waves;” My cousin, Mike, agreed with me. Alas that didn’t happen, although one day we did sit around the pool at the nice hotel where we were staying. Some people like to sit on the beach and read “beach novels,” such as those written by my wife’s favorite author Elin Hilderbrand. I only accomplished that goal once in my life when I visited Martha’s Vineyard sometime in the 1970’s. Would I consider either of today’s featured novels to be “beach reads?” I think so…

Books and Movies

A few book club posts ago I talked about how much I enjoyed the novelization of  Godzilla x Kong The New Empire by Greg Keyes. Last night I watched a Blu-ray of the movie and was somewhat let down. Although I liked the 4K version of Godzilla vs. Kong— the Blu-ray for it  is less than ten bucks on Amazon right now—as a guilty pleasure, the simpler story of the G x K film, with its limited number of characters compared to the previous epic movie made it feel like a cheapie remake. And speaking of cheap. Even though it was a big hit—the worldwide gross was $567,650,016— I think the special effects at the end of the film did little to enhance enjoyment of the film. Legendary Pictures’ effects people should take a look at the work done by the late Douglas Trumbull. His effects were indeed special but they looked real, not like something out of a sixties hallucinatory flashback as was the case with Godzilla x Kong The New Empire. The movie is recommended only for die-hard Godzilla fans because the Big Guy does some cool things in the film. Too bad the rest of it doesn’t hold up to the G-man’s performance.

My TBR List

What’s new in the TBR World? The Complete Book of Dodge and Plymouth Muscle Cars by Mike Mueller is still sitting on my desk waiting for me to jump into it. Mary ordered me two Nero Wolfe paperback books as part of her Mary’s Book-of-the-Month program: Trio for Blunt Instruments and Three Doors to Death. She’s so nice and also ordered three other books that won’t arrive for a while, including Michael Connelly’s The Waiting, as well as Preston & Child’s Angel of Vengeance sequel along with Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman’s The Lost Coast. Another book on my TBR list is David Housewright’s Man in the Water. Look for reviews of some or all of these books soon.

Tarzan of the Apes

In 1911, around age 36 and spending several years selling pencil-sharpeners, Edgar Rice Burroughs decided to write fiction. After reading some of the pulp magazine of his era, he thought, “if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, I could write stories just as rotten.” So in 1912 he wrote…Tarzan of the Apes, the first in a 22-book Tarzan series. The story was initially printed in The All-Story magazine in October before being released as a novel in June 1914.

Tarzan of the Apes is the origin story of Tarzan and while you may be familiar with his backstory as Lord Greystoke, there’s a lot more here you may not know based on the movie series and popular culture. I was always a fan of the Tarzan movies, especially those starring Johnny Weissmuller, especially his first, 1932’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, which is a great flick but just barely based on this book. NO SPOILERS.

In the world of literature, I don’t think anybody would consider Burroughs to be a great writer. I’ve always believed there are two kinds of authors of fiction: good writers and great storytellers and that it’s rare to find a writer who combines both talents. Burroughs is an astoundingly good storyteller. Within reading just a few pages you’ll be swept away by the action. His writing has a cinematic quality, even though movies were in their infancy when he wrote Tarzan of the Apes. (The Birth of A Nation was released in 1915.) There’s even a cliffhanger ending that upends everything you thought how the book might end.

Yes, there are some aspects of the book that would be considered racist and maybe Burroughs could be insensitive to the roles of women in society and if that bothers you, please don’t read this book. I was somehow surprised but not surprised by these aspects of the book but if you keep in mind it was written in 1912, you will enjoy the heck out of Tarzan of the Apes.

Farewell, Amethystine

Speaking of great writers, Walter Mosley is simply amazing. Farewell, Amethystine is the latest in his Easy Rawlins book series and takes place in 1970’s Los Angeles. Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, a black detective. searching not for a cliche riddled missing women but instead is looking for the ex-husband of the aforementioned Amethystine aka Amy. In fact almost all of the characters in the book have nicknames and/or aliases and it’s possible to get lost in all this but careful reading will help you sort out all of the characters. Plus it’s fun.

Easy Rawlins is not John Shaft, he’s a family man with a son, daughter and even a grand child. He’s a deliberate, thinking man’s private eye, prone to introspection and trying to do the right thing without resorting to violence, although he will employ violent people such as “Mouse” and “Fearless,” two characters who could easily become cliché but are anything but. Mosley makes these men come alive on the page and you’ll look forward to when they pop up in the novel. And what they do will surprise you as well.

Much of the book has a light poetic feel to it, the way you wished that James Elroy had written his most recent books but didn’t. Interestingly Mosley’s other series that feature King Oliver, such as the fantastic and highly recommended 2023’s Every Man a King, feel like they were written by a different but also highly talented person. I really enjoyed Farewell, Amethystine but will readily admit that I enjoyed Every Man a King just a tiny bit more. I give it a strong nine bookmakers out of ten.