The Hunger Games

Although these fit the theme of Magical March, these are a reread and don't count toward that particular challenge. I wanted to read them in anticipation of the movie coming out Friday (woohoo!) and because I went to a Hunger Games party over the weekend. Because I am awesome and have some great nerdy friends. :) I somehow managed to not take any photos, but I went as Effie and Ryan went as Haymitch and we both won the Tribute challenge we played. Go us!

On to the books - I still loved them this time around. I'm a sucker for dystopian fiction in general and there are so many aspects of this trilogy to enjoy. The statements about focusing so much on bad entertainment like reality shows and going overboard with fashion and looks to the point where you lose your humanity. Katniss. I love her attitude, problem with authority, strength and will. The fact that the love story is clearly secondary in the story - who has time for love when you're fighting a war and don't know if you'll survive? The idea of reaching a point where enough is enough and rising up to take back your government. Fighting for what you believe in.

One of the fun things they had a the party was a map of Panem. Most locations aren't clearly described in the books so I have no idea how someone came up with this and it's clearly not going to be accurate to what Collins had in mind, but I thought it was fun. Plus, it has Oklahoma in District 4 and Texas almost completely underwater, so it's awesome in my book! :)  

One thing that I think is interesting is that I tend to rewrite the ending of the series in the same way I do for the end of Little Women. I know that both end a certain way, but if you ask me about them out of the blue I would think of my fake endings before the real ones and it would take me a minute to remember that's not right and to convince myself of the real ending. Despite that, I do love these books and highly recommend them if you haven't read them yet!

I, Robot

I'm halfway to my goal for Adam's Magical March, finishing my fourth book up today! My goal is 8 books, although I'm hoping to hit 10 since I've read a few young adult books. Even though they count, it feels a little like cheating. I read my first book by Isaac Asimov - I, Robot.
I wish I could have experienced this book back in 1950. The idea of AI and humanoid robots is commonplace today, but must have sounded crazy back then. Because we have so many books and movies with the same ideas and themes about AI robots or machines being more human than humans or taking over the world, I know the book didn't make the same impression on me that it would have to someone encountering those ideas for the first time.
As a result, I thought the book was a bit lacking. It didn't really have anything to get me hooked and stay engaged. I also thought it was disjointed, but I later learned it is actually nine short stories formed into a novel, not a novel in of itself. I wish I had realized that going in, because I kept expecting the story to be more about Susan Calvin, the unifying presence of the stories, and for the stories to have more of a connection. Instead, they just seemed like random stories about robots and humanity, which is what they actually are supposed to be. I guess this is one instance where not reading about the work beforehand failed me.
I, Robot did make me want to rewatch Battlestar Gallatica though, since it has so much focus on the machines having human-like emotions and responses, and being better than humans because they don't have the same weaknesses humans have, and also has a case of not being able to tell if someone is human or robot. Hello Cylons! Again, if I hadn't watched Battlestar Gallatica and developed a sympathy for toasters, I would probably have been more surprised by the story where you aren't sure if one of the characters is human or robot. How strange must that have seemed in 1950 though?
The other odd thing in the book was that Susan Calvin was born one year after me, in this future world where we have robot nannies by the time I would have graduated from high school. That makes me feel old! He was imagining this crazy future that's now in my past. His future had highly intelligent robots that you could trust your child with, but not personal computers or smart phones, which is kind of funny.
Overall, I'm glad I read this since it's the foundation of modern science fiction, but I'm not sure that it convinced me to read any of Asimov's other works, although I have heard good things about his Foundation trilogy, so we'll see.

The Messenger

I hate that it's been a week since I last posted! I've been swamped at work, have had various other things to do and have been reading, but I'm behind in blogging and reading and commenting on others' blogs! I'll hopefully rectify that later this week. For now, here's my third post for Adam's Magical March!

If you grew up in the 90s, chances are you read The Giver in school at some point. This book sparked more debate in my eighth grade English class than any other book discussion I've been part of - and I have my MA in English lit! My class nearly came to blows over the end of the book - what happens to Jonah? Well, if you want to find out, read The Messenger.

Lois Lowry followed up The Giver with Gathering Blue and The Messenger, neither of which were out when I read The Giver in high school. I read Gathering Blue a few years ago and was somewhat disappointed - there seemed to be no real connection to The Giver. That changes with The Messenger. The worlds of both The Giver and Gathering Blue unite in The Messenger. I wish I had realized that before reading The Messenger - I would have gone back and reread the other two books to have them fresher in my mind. I assumed it was just loosely connected, more of a book with the same themes than a true sequel. I was wrong: we find out what happened to Jonah!!!

Before I get to that though, I just wanted to say a few things about the book itself. It's not nearly as strong as The Giver, although The Giver is so wonderful that's perhaps not a far comparison. It's still good, but it feels rushed. The pacing is good until the end, and then it just felt like a million things happened in two pages and that's it.

I'm also not quite sure how I feel about knowing what happened to Jonah. It was almost sweeter not knowing. Plus, I imagine English teachers feeling frustrated about this ruining the discussion about the ending of The Giver, because now the answer is out there! I won't spoil it here for you, but I will say my eighth-grade self was right. :) Take that everyone who disagreed with me!

The Handmaid's Tale

I'm not entirely sure I can write a coherent review of The Handmaid's Tale. All I seem capable of is "OMG! Awesomeness! I want to read all of Atwood's works NOW! Why oh why has this lingered unread on my shelves for over 10 YEARS?!?! What's wrong with me???"

In case you can't tell, I loved this! This makes me so happy, because the last three speculative fictions works I've read I ended up disliking so much I didn't even finish them. And I'm usually a bit OCD about finishing books if I start them. Until about a year ago, there were only three books I had started on not finished (She's Come Undone, Invisible Man, and The Killer Angels - all in high school). I'm happy I've managed to stop obsessively making myself finish books I'm not enjoying, but I was starting to think I just didn't like speculative fiction anymore and made me sad.

The three books I had problems with are all very popular with book bloggers: The Magicians, Howl's Moving Castle, and Game of Thrones. I really expected to like all of these. Bloggers with normally similar tastes to me liked them. They aren't out of my comfort realm. But, I just thought the writing on all of these was awful! I feel like I've been really picky with writing lately. I think maybe I'm reading too many classics and literary fiction with beautiful writing and it's changed how I read. I don't like feeling snobby or missing good stories because of this though, but none of the stories were pulling me in. I got more than halfway through The Magicians and Howl's Moving Castle and just didn't care what happened. In The Magicians, I was actually starting to wish bad things upon the characters! In Game of Thrones, I made it about 60 pages and just wanted to cry at the thought of finishing it.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a post about The Handmaid's Tale. I couldn't help comparing it to the three works above, however unfair that may be. The language was lush and lyrical without being overdone. She hit all the right notes, telling just enough to keep you moving forward, curious, anxious, right up until the last page. She leaves you wanting more - what happened??? It's one of those stories where you really want a sequel, but that would ruin everything.

I think this work was terrifying because something like this happening isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. It's unlikely, but think about things that happened in Nazi Germany or the USSR or under Mao - all of these were civilized countries where essentially a dictator was able to take over and do horrendous things. The government - left and right - has been taking away our freedoms for years and most people do nothing. Who's to say it wouldn't happen here?

The duties of Offred in the book are especially scary to me. I would rather be tortured than be forced to have sex with a man with his wife there and have my whole purpose in life be to provide them with a child!!! It's awful! It gives me chills. Why is in dystopian novels women almost always are reduced to baby-making machines? Perhaps reading too many of these books as a young adult are part of the reason why I don't want kids! :)

I'm so happy to have finally read this book, which is the second book I've finished for Adam's Magical March. And I'm happy Atwood has written quite a few books for me to read in the future! It's nice to discover a new-to-me author with a good backlist.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

When I started Uncle Tom's Cabin, I was not impressed, to say the least. If I hadn't had a few people tell me to keep reading and read Jean's post on it, I may have given up. I'm happy to say that I finished it - and ended up liking it.

All of the things I complained about were still issues throughout, although her writing is definitely better in some sections than others. It's like she has all of Dickens' faults magnified by 10 - out of nowhere coincidences, extreme overuse of adjectives, inserting herself into the narrative, bad pacing, caricatured characters, and endless preaching. Don't get me wrong, I love Dickens and while he does those things to a small extent, it's nowhere near as bad as Stowe and his works are strong enough in other areas to compensate. I know the book did astonishingly well, but I still think it would have been better if she'd written more like Dickens and toned down some of the faults a bit or had a better editor. It definitely felt more like a propaganda piece thinly disguised as a novel than a novel with a moral and call to action.

That said, this is still a work worth reading for its historical significance. It heated up the debate about slavery and surely opened many people's eyes - in both the North and the South. She lays into both sides. Southerners, more obviously, for their continued use of slavery, no matter how kind the masters may be. For the North, she lays into them for not doing enough to fight slavery or to help free men. What is the purpose of freeing the slaves if they can't find jobs, go to school, vote, or anything else? Racism was just making it easier for the South to cling to slavery by arguing that their slaves would be better off as slaves than free men in the North, which on a physical comfort level, was true in some cases.

Stowe particularly lays into Christians for standing by and doing nothing, or talking about ending slavery but not being willing to welcome a black person into their homes or educate them or hire them. Christians would send money off to fund missionaries to Africa, but wouldn't help the blacks in their own cities.

One thing Stowe obviously does well is stir up emotion. You can't read this and not react, not feel for these people and their real-life counterparts. The break up of families is especially heartbreaking. I can't imagine being ripped away from Ryan that way and sold off, possibly being forced to take another husband or fulfill the desires of my master. I just realized the next book I'm planning on reading is The Handmaid's Tale, which is sort of about the same thing in a completely different society. That should make for an interesting comparison.

One of the many problems I had with the book was that I loved Eliza, and we go so long without finding out what happens to her! That was so frustrating, because poor Tom just wasn't as interesting to read about, not until the very end. I think he was just too good - rebellion is more entertaining to read about I suppose. Don't get me wrong - I felt horrible for him and would have loved to have rescued him or just given him a hug, but the other characters were more alive in a sense than he, or maybe they were just more relatable.

I also loved dear little Eva and the younger Master George. Stowe does a good job of portraying the issue through the eyes of innocent children, who see right and wrong much more clearly than most of the adults. The story also did pick up and made me want to see what happens to everyone, and I managed to finish it quickly despite all of the sermons she injects.

I don't want to harp too much more on the writing style problems, but my edition has a few excerpts from reviews at the time and I thought this part from North American Review was quite funny: "Whatever may be the literary merits of Uncle Tom, they do not account for its success. It exhibits by no means the highest order of genius or skill. It is not to be named in comparison with the novels of Scott or Dickens; and in regard to variety of knowledge, eloquence, imaginative power, and spirited deleations of life and character, manners and events, it is inferior even to those of Bulwer, or Currer Bell, or Hawthorne."

How hilarious is it that this reviewer says it's inferior even to Charlotte Bronte or Nathaniel Hawthorne! As though they are rather inferior writers to begin with, and Stowe is so bad she can't even compare to them! I couldn't help but laugh. It's also funny that he ranks Scott above them as well, and I think most people today would rate Bronte and Hawthorne above him. How tastes and standards change!

There is also a bit from Dickens himself, saying how much he liked the work, but feels she went a bit too far and tries to prove too much, which sort of sums up my own feelings. I would recommend the book to other people though, and think it is an important book to read solely for its history.

The Wizard of Oz

Magical March has just begun and I've already managed to finish my first book! Woohoo! Adam at Roof Beam Reader is hosting Magical March, and I signed up for the highest level - 8+ books! Since I'm still trying to wrap up Uncle Tom's Cabin from last month's reading, I decided to go with something light while I finish that up, and so I started with The Wizard of Oz.

It's strange to me that I'd never read any of the Oz books. I think part of the reason is that I know one time when I looked for them at a bookstore long ago, they didn't carry them, and the library didn't have them, and this was in the dark ages pre-Amazon and easy online ordering so I must have just given up. Now I have the whole collection on my Nook, although I read this story in a hard copy I picked up somewhere along the way.

I LOVE the movie version of The Wizard of Oz, and I saw a musical version in the West End in London on my 30th birthday this past November and adored the performance. After seeing the movie for the first time when I was just 4 or 5, my aunt made the mistake of asking me what it was about and I apparently reenacted the whole movie for her. :) So, even though, books are usually better than movies, I was a bit hesitant over this one. I knew I'd be picturing the movie and stage performance the whole time. And I was - most of the time anyway.

However, that didn't stop me from enjoying it. It was great to see old friends and read about their adventures. There were quite a few differences, primarily of things that happen in the book that don't make the movie even though it's a slim little book.

Here are a few of the differences that stuck out most to me:

• There are no songs! I knew most of these were probably added for the movie, but I was surprised there was no greeting from the munchkins or "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."
• The ruby slippers are silver!!! This was actually familiar to me. I think that there was something about this in the Smithsonian describing the display with the ruby slippers from the movie. They wanted to show off technicolor.
• Dorothy doesn't say "There's no place like at home" at the end. She says "Take me home to Aunt Em!" Not nearly as catchy. 
• There's a wonderful back story about the Tin Man and how he used to be human, although it's a bit grotesque as the Wicked Witch causes him to cut off all of his body parts until he's made entirely of tin. It sort of reminded me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "It's only a flesh wound!" 
• Glinda is the Good Witch from the South, not the North. She's not the same as the Good Witch from the North that appears at the beginning. (Side note: The Glinda in the West End performance had the most spectacular dress ever. Seriously. That thing was nothing but bling. It was like she was wearing a million glittering diamonds in a swishy dress form. I want to wear that thing just once!)
• The Wizard fools people through ventriloquism, acting, and puppetry, not sound and technology effects, which I suppose wouldn't have been invented yet. 
• The group goes on many adventures that don't make it in to the movie - they deal with mice, Winkies, half bear half tiger creatures, and others. 
• They visit a literal chinatown, where everything is made of china - including the people and animals. If they are taking to the real world, they freeze, turning into dolls. 
• The Emerald City is emerald because everyone wears green glasses. 
• The opening is very short - there's no evil neighbor trying to get Toto.
• The Winged Monkeys get a backstory too, and have way more depth than in the movie/play.
• There are no uncles, which is a good thing, because I hate how the movie makes it all seem like a dream. It wasn't a dream. It totally happened! 

Even though I'm listing out the differences, one way wasn't better than the other. I still enjoyed the book, and I'm excited about reading the rest of the series. I think one of the things I loved most about the movie when I was younger was that Kansas and tornadoes were familiar - I'm from Oklahoma. This was a girl from my neck of the woods having these types of adventures, not someone in faraway London, which already seemed magical to me, discovering a magic wardrobe or some entirely fictional world. If Dorothy could go there, surely there is hope for me, right? I'm glad it still holds the same charm as an adult.

The Suppliants

I planned to read Herodutus' Histories this month as part of Jean's Greek Classics Challenge. That didn't happen! I do hope to read it this year still, but instead I've kept trying to work my way through Eurpides' plays.

The Suppliants is about a group of grieving mothers who lost their sons in the battle of seven against Thebes, which is the topic of Aeschylus' aptly named play Seven Against Thebes. I think it helped that I had read that play before and at least had a vague idea of what happened and some of the major plays even though I didn't remember most of the details. This play kind of assumes you already have that knowledge, which you would have if you were a Greek playgoer back then.

The mothers go to Theseus for his help in getting their sons' bodies back, which he does.  He even goes as far as to prepare the bodies for burial himself, which was a great honor. It was extremely important to the Greeks to have a proper burial as they believed that affected the afterlife.

One of the things that stuck out to me the most from this play is the idea that we should look to the gods for the answers and not try to take over their roles, yet the play had much less influence and presence of the gods than many other Greek tragedies. For example, Theseus says "Are we not then too proud, when heaven hath made such preparation for our life, not to be content therewith? But our presumption seeks to lord it over heaven, and in the pride of our hearts we think we are wiser than the gods."

I found this striking, because it seemed to me that while Theseus says this, he then relies on his own wisdom and the people of Athens to make a decision, without calling on the gods. (Unless I overlooked that, which is entirely possible.) Only at the very end of the play does Athena make an appearance, and it's not to interfere. I know Euripides as a whole uses the gods much less in his plays than Aeschylus or Sophocles, so I wonder if this was a way of ironically saying we are wiser than the gods? After all, the Greek gods weren't exactly the infalliable, moral paragon God of the Judeo-Christian world, so who is to say that the gods were smarter than the humans? Or maybe it's just an example of "do what I say, not what I do," but even if I don't quite know for sure what he was trying to say, it gave me something to think about about and I enjoyed his play as a whole.