Dave From GP

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt is a kind of surreal western. It follows hired guns and brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters on a journey to California to kill a prospector that has done their boss wrong. A typical “road” type story, the brothers encounter adventures along the way such as troublesome horses, a strange gypsy witch-like woman, a killer bear and a few other odd ball characters.

Eli is the main character and the story is told from his point of view. His brother Charlie is a bit more prone to this type of work than Eli. Eli seems to have come to a point in his life where being a gun for hire no longer appeals to him. In fact I get the sense that he never really wanted to do it but his loyalty to his brother forced this life upon him.

The story has several humorous parts but some scenes take on a dreamlike aura and you wonder if maybe there is supposed to be a deeper meaning to the novel that I just did not get. There are two “intermissions” in the book revolving around a peculiar and homicidal little girl that seem to come out of nowhere. I am not sure what they were supposed to lend to the story. Continue reading →

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin is the true story of a mountaineer (Mortenson) who having failed an attempt on K2 in the Karakoram mountain range in Pakistan was instead driven to build schools for impoverished children in that region.

The book is not not very well written in my opinion. The author, David Oliver Relin adds some background information that does not seem necessasy to the story. Various sidenotes on the history that would be interesting in and of themselves seem to pop out of nowhere and then disappear. They seem to be just thrown in as filler. I found the first half the most interesting when he begins to learn the culture of the people of Pakistan and goes through the rigamorale of raising money and acquiring the materials to build his first school. The parts to do with the Taliban are interesting but not very eye-opening. Later chapters revolve around the time of 9/11 and Mortenson was trying to extend his school building mission into Afghanistan. He was in the region when the invasion of Afghanistan began. Continue reading →