--Irwin Shaw

I read four books over Shabbos:

Visitors from Oz, by Martin Gardner

A nice try.

The concept of this book is that it would be really interesting if Dorothy, the Tin Woodsman, and the Scarecrow would come visit contemporary New York City. And that's what happens, after detours through Mount Olympus and Wonderland, both of which have relocated to Oz.

That Martin Gardner wrote it is readily apparent; I don't think anybody else writing an Oz book would have included schematics for a Klein bottle. Not to mention the Wonderland stuff, which I suppose he just couldn't resist, being the author of The Annontated Alice and More Annontated Alice (both of which are well worth checking out, by the way). Nor could he resist a couple of metafictional flourishes, like this one in Chapter 25: "Martin Gardner spent many weeks recording conversations with the three visitors and with Samuel Gold. Gardner's novel, Visitors from Oz, was published in 1998 by St. Martin's Press." On the whole, I couldn't help but feel that he'd be better off sticking to non-fiction.

The verdict: Not too bad a light read, but your time would be better spent with one of the earlier Oz books.

Star Trek: Vulcan's Forge, by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz

To quote Samuel Johnson:

"Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."

The verdict: Not the worst Star Trek book I've read, but not all that far off. It certainly didn't deserve to be published in hardcover. Read The Romulan Way or My Enemy, My Ally instead.

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, by Nathan Englander

I got this as a birthday present from a professor of mine, and read it concurrently with the other books listed in this entry. It's a collection of short stories with Jewish characters or themes, and it's not bad. Not bad at all.

Literary, definitely. And the endings tend to be somewhat open-ended, and a bit cryptic, which tends not to be my preference. But, with one exception, the characters and situations ring true. On the fringe, perhaps, but there's nothing wrong with that.

It's a pity that the one utterly false note in the book is what the book is titled for. Specifically, in the title story, a character is given dispensation by his Ultra-Orthodox Jerusalmite rabbi to see a prostitute. Uh huh. Get real.

Granted, the author does interesting things with that, plot-wise (just try to imagine a Chassid attempting to find a prostitute and you'll see the possibilities open up), so I could almost be willing to overlook it... but the emphasis put on it makes that harder to do. Which is a pity, because, as I said, he does a remarkable job of creating believable characters and situations otherwise.

The verdict: Fairly good, literary reading. Check it out.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King

At 224 pages, this is King's shortest work since The Green Mile, and it seems to be aimed squarely at the young adult market. If it's not, it should be.

Here's where I wish I had an older brother or sister. Because I very want to share this with my younger sister, but I don't think I can get away with it. Because this book has an awful lot of profanity in it, and while I know she's already familiar with all the stuff therein, and she knows I know she's already familiar with all the stuff therein, from an official standpoint, I don't want to be in a position where I'm seen as her "pusher."

Which is to say: Okay, maybe I'm the black sheep of the family, whether or not my parents are fully aware of how much that's the case. I can live with that. But I don't ever want to be accused of having led any of my siblings to the "Dark Side." (Pardon the Battlestar Galactica reference. <g>)

At any rate, I never had an older sibling to corrupt me. I had to find everything on my own. When I was much younger, I just accepted that "grown-up" books weren't for me (and were boring anyway, so who cared?). I gradually added them to my diet as I got older. (Oh, the nights spent furtively reading Asimov's Robots and Empire...) But it was pretty much always stuff I found on my own.

I dunno.

But I digress. The book... it's not King's best, but it needs to be taken on its own terms. Which is to say that it's a pretty decent young adult novel, with a bit of horror around the edges. Fairly strong female protagonist. Too bad she's a Red Sox fan. :-)

One nitpick: I expected him to do something with one particular piece of equipment in the protagonist's backpack, but he didn't. And I still think it should have been dealt with. If you've read the book, and want to know what I'm talking about, drop me a line and I'll be happy to elaborate.

The verdict: I liked it. But, then, I like young adult novels.