Tuesday, April 15, 2008

First Blog (finally!)

Hi All --

Well, let's hope the future of my stint here on Blogspot is more positive than its beginning. I actually created this site on March 20th, but was quickly shut down for "potentially being a spammer." The request to get my blog open and operable took OVER 3 WEEKS. Frustrating is the nicest euphemism I can use to express my feelings about it.

Anyway, wipe the slate clean. Here's my intro:

I'm a writer and undergraduate student at UCLA, with a current blog going at MySpace (www.myspace.com/justinmcfarr) that details my family life, school life and writing life. Here at Controlled Chaos, I plan to focus on books and writing. Reviews of books I've read, pieces of my own raw, experimental work, and an occasional rant or rave. Essentially, a sophisticated dumping ground for my thoughts, feelings, ideas, and current preoccupations.

Here's hoping you check in periodically. I'll do my best to keep it fresh and worth your eyeballs' time.


First off, a review of Viken Berberian's DAS KAPITAL: A NOVEL OF LOVE AND MONEY MARKETS, which I read in January:





The title of the novel is a direct play on the Marx/Engels non-fiction analysis on capitalism and its critical applications in society and on the laboring man. Berberian, who has written for the NY & LA Times, as well as for The Financial Times, knows his way around global markets and hedge fund traders, which he exploits to the fullest here.

The action takes place from Manhattan's Wall Street to Marseille's mean streets, revolving around three main players: trader Wayne, architecture student Alix, and the mysterious Corsican. Global economies, terrorism and e-mail connect the three players, cocooned in a literary style that is at once cold and calculating while managing to also be very lyrical and haunting.

It reminded me of a book from the capitalistic 80s that was never written (something that McInerney or Easton Ellis would have written if they weren't so solipsistic) and had tones of narrative structure and tenseness that Alex Garland achieved in the wonderful "The Tesseract."

Ultimately, all of the pieces don't quite come together in the way the author intends, and I was left a little hollower when I finished than when I began... but the writing is tremendous, the juxtaposition between poetic language and stock-trading terminology a near-to-masterful feat. I was never really invested in the characters, yet I followed the author's lead regardless, and let the stellar writing carry me through to the story's conclusion.

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