Norman Rush, Whites ***

This short collection of stories is like the extra features on the DVD for Mating or Mortals: deleted scenes or early shorts. The flavor is similar, and you can see the seeds of ideas that recur in the novels. The first story even shares a narrator with Mating, although her voice is very different. Rush's style is not fully formed yet, except for his descriptive powers. 

The book was enjoyable as a supplement to the novels rather than as a standalone collection. 

Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, The Theory that Would Not Die ** 1/2

A disappointing history of Bayes' Rule, the insight at the heart of much modern statistical analysis and extremely relevant to Google. In her quest to appeal to general readers, McGrayne doesn't do a good job of explaining the rule or how it is applied. I got only a very vague idea of how Bayesians differ from frequentists.

The main message that I took from the book is that Bayesian inference has many practical applications but is (or was) anathema to statisticians who demand mathematical rigor. The secondary message is that Bayesian reasoning requires computer power, which is one of the reasons it took so long for it to gain acceptance.

The book is more interesting as an example of how personalities and academic in-fighting influence the course of scientific progress. The development of statistics as a discipline flows from a few strong individuals, and if they didn't like Bayes' Rule then it wasn't a proper object of study. The stories of non-statisticians using Bayesian reasoning -- to break the Enigma code in World War II, to set reasonable insurance rates, to locate objects lost at sea -- were entertaining in their own right, but didn't illuminate the central topic.

The long list of interesting applications in the final chapter just made me more frustrated that I didn't understand the theory!

Norman Rush, Mating ****

Mating has many of the same strengths as Mortals, the Norman Rush novel I discovered and loved earlier this year. The locale is the same, Botswana, and the narrator is an insecure, self-involved academic who overthinks and filters her experiences through a gauze of literary references. Rush seamlessly combines the story of a romantic relationship between a man and a woman with meditations on the relationship between Western liberal reformers and the Africans they help, discreetly drawing parallels between the two. The partners are more equal in modern relationships, but what aspects of paternalism persist?

Objectively, Mating is the more ambitious book, with a National Book Award to prove it. But even though Mating tosses off more ideas about love and society than Mortals did, I enjoyed it less. Probably because the female narrator's central obsessions -- about the role of (strong) women in relationships -- speak to me less directly than Ray's anxieties about his marriage in Mortals. This middle portion of the book dragged for me.

I'm working my way backwards through Rush's oeuvre. Next will be his first collection of stories, Whites.

Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers **** 1/2

This National Book Award winner and "best book of the year or maybe the decade" (Slate.com) nearly lives up to its hype. The narrative non-fiction charts the lives of several people living in a Mumbai slum tucked between the airport and the Hyatt, shielded from travelers' view by a wall covered with advertisements for Italian tiles that promise to be 'beautiful forever.' It's a sad story for the most part, about people barely surviving, but it captures the day-to-day struggles effectively.

Boo focuses on the details of the people, their story, and the place they live, leaving the larger lessons implicit. Her writing is quite beautiful sometimes, but always in a way that serves her narrative. She packs a lot into a comparatively short book (250 pages); in fact, my only complaint is that I wish she had provided a bit more sociological detail in a few places or filled out a couple of the minor characters.

Very vivid and moving, with a strong sense of place.

Adam Ross, Mr. Peanut ****

The cover of Mr. Peanut and the reviews chosen for excerpting promise meta-fictional hijinks and post-modern twists and turns. The book certainly has those, but the strongest sections are the more traditional narrative ones. The main theme is the difficulties of marriage: how spouses are often at a loss to understand what the other spouse needs, and how it's impossible to understand the dynamics of a relationship from the outside. The main plot is a detective story about whether David Pepin murdered his wife Alice (by means of her peanut allergy), and several characters fluctuate between wanting to resolve their marital difficulties through murder or through reconciliation.

The modern trappings of Mr. Peanut are not as compelling as they could be, but the book has more human feeling than such fictional exercises usually do. I look forward to checking out Adam Ross' next book.

Patrick O'Brian, The Fortune of War ** 1/2

The first truly weak entry in the Aubrey/Maturin series finds our two heroes sailing on other people's ships as spectators to real-life sea battles from the War of 1812. Between voyages we get unconvincing and uninspiring espionage in Boston. O'Brien's unique writing style is intact, and many of the usual elements are there, but the lack of agency from Jack Aubrey leaves the book feeling tired. Disappointing.

P.S. The War of 1812 ended up as a leitmotif of my reading this year, its bicentennial. I started with War and Peace in January, read Pierre Berton's history of the Canadian border war, and now The Fortune of War.

Benjamin Hale, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore ***

This ambitious novel is narrated by the world's first chimpanzee to develop the power of speech. Bruno doesn't just learn to speak, he develops a Nabokovian love for metaphor and colorful language. He narrates his life story with the verve of a raconteur.

My reference to Nabokov is not incidental. The early chapters of the book show the clear influence of Lolita: An eloquent murderer telling his story from prison; illicit sexual attraction; justifications of brutish behavior; a love of wordplay. Bruno also introduces many interesting thoughts about the role of language in human consciousness and how our experience of the world would be different without it.

The tone of the story shifts several times over the course of the long novel. Later sections are more straightforwardly comic, less Nabokov than John Kennedy O'Toole or Alexander Theroux.

Despite being littered with stray insights and clever turns of phrase, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore fell short of being the "brilliant, unruly brute of a book" promised to me by the cover. Too often I found myself tripping over an inability to suspend my disbelief. Bruno's narration is chock-full of literary and cultural references, right next to passages where he describes everyday activities that he doesn't comprehend, like riding in an elevator. Like, say, Forrest Gump where Forrest's apparent level of intelligence changes to fit the situation, Bruno's cultural sophistication is unbelievable and widely variable.