In honor of Bloomsday, I'm tackling James Joyce's Ulysses today, reading along with O at Delaisse and a few other bloggers. I've read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Many three times, hating it the first time in high school because I didn't understand Modernism and what he was trying to do, and enjoying it the second and third times because I had a better grasp of his style and purpose.
Since Ulysses is one of the few books that intimidate me, I prepared by watching a lecture last night on the work, part of the series on The English Novel offered by The Teaching Company. I'm so glad the library carries many of those courses! Between that and the lengthy introduction in the Penguin Modern Classics edition I'm reading, I feel like I'm got a good grounding in the novel and what Joyce wanted to accomplish.
So far, I've finished the first six sections and have followed along pretty well, much better than I expected. There have just been a few places where I get lost, but I look at those sections as a whole instead of focusing too much on one sentence and I seem to be getting it. I'm sure I'm missing somethings, but I think I'm getting the overall gist.
As I read, I can't help but read as a critic, analyzing what's happening and why Joyce is doing what he's doing. I wonder if that's a construct of the novel that forces you do that or if it's a societal construct that makes you feel like you have to do that understand it. Either way, I'm enjoying it so far.
Section one lures you in with a fairly traditional narrative structure and a false sense of security. This section does not prepare you for the coming sections where the structure keeps changing. We learn about Stephen, the same character from Portrait, and how he's back in Dublin as a teacher and how his mother recently died. She wanted him to pray over her death bed and he refused because he doesn't believe in a personal God or prayer. Buck Mulligan can't believe he wouldn't grant her wish. Buck seems more like a traditional Irishman to me and like someone who is more comfortable with who he is (although maybe that's not very Irish). Stephen just wants to break free from the English (political) and Italian (religious).
In section two, the style changes to a catechism and is more lyrical. Stephen is teaching a class and the boys do not respect him. He reflects on the ugliness of one boy and how despite that, the boy's mother loved and protected him and made sure he's made it this far and kept him from being stamped out by the world. When Mr. Deasy pays Stephen, Deasy talks about how the most important thing to an Englishman is being debt free and owing no one. Stephen thinks of his debts. This doesn't seem feasible for an Irishman. While Deasy laments the death of Old England, Stephen thinks of the past as a nightmare to escape.
Section 3 is where the stream of consciousness really starts and following everything gets trickier. Stephen visits his aunt and uncle, who seem to blame him for his mother's death to some extent. Later, he walks and wonders if his works will be read. Then, he picks his nose and wipes it on a stone, then looks to see if anyone saw. On the one hand, we want some level of fame because we want to be remembered, yet we don't want people to see us at our worst.
Section 4 moves to Leopold Bloom, our main character. In this section we get a stream of consciousness narrative of Bloom's morning. He prepares breakfast, talks to his cat, talks to his wife and goes to the store. Here, write like Yoda Joyce does. Many of the sentences are in an odd order, although since we don't think in complete sentences this works. I liked seeing Bloom interact with his cat, thinking about how the cat sees him. There's a lot of description of the food, which is just a normal everyday breakfast (albeit a gross one - liver). Usually food descriptions in books are either lush meals or someone scavenging for food for survival, not an ordinary meal. Joyce is trying to capture everyday life in this novel, and this is more evident here than anywhere else thus far.
In Section 5 Bloom is preparing for a funeral he will attend at 11. M'Coy asks him to write his name down and the funeral in case he can't make it. Really? Who does that? We see letters from Martha to Henry and vice versa. Henry is Bloom and Martha is his erotic pen pal whom he has not met face to face. The narcissism technique for this chapter made me think about how we all think our thoughts are amazing and they are so important to us, but if you spilled them all out on paper they would be mostly mundane and banal like Bloom's with a few strokes of genius now and then, but mostly non-sensical to anyone but us. There are more references to Hamlet, which have occurred throughout the book. Maybe this is telling us something about ghosts of our fathers, ghosts of our pasts?
In Section 6, we learn that the Blooms had a son who died in infancy. Bloom mentions that when babies are born healthy the mother is credited, when not, the father is blamed. What an opposite reaction from how most of history viewed that! Bloom goes to the funeral, talks about how at funerals you always have to say the deceased is now in Heaven, because what else can you say and you have to say something.
I'm off to continue reading! I know I won't get through the whole thing today because my father-in-law and his girlfriend are coming over for dinner. I also got a late start and have taken a few breaks, so I'm already a bit behind. I'm planning to continue reading tomorrow and hope to finish most of it this weekend and then wrap it up this week. I don't want to drag it out forever. I plan to come back and update this post again later. Happy Bloomsday everyone!
Showing posts with label Twentieth century fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twentieth century fiction. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
For some reason, I've read several young adult books lately. I don't tend to read much YA lit, despite my obsessions with Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. But, I enjoyed The Future of Us and have gotten quite a few recommendations for good YA books recently, and it is nice to just speed through a book now and then.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower actually came out while I was in high school, but I thought I was way too cool to read YA then. I had moved on to adult books completely some time in early junior high. It's probably just as well. I don't think I would have appreciated this book back then. I would have been too judgemental of all the characters to get anything out of the story.
This book is one of those books that proves you don't have to like the main character to like the book. Charlie is annoying. Whiny. A crybaby. Passive. Overly sensitive. Emotional. He's not someone I'd want to hang out with. But that's okay. He still has an interesting story to tell. He still matters.
And maybe that's the point of this book - even people who are a bit messed up, or who make mistakes, or who are a little annoying deserve to be known and their lives still matter. Charlie makes several references to "It's a Wonderful Life." He wonders what the story would have been like if it had focused on the drunken uncle. How would they have shown that his life mattered?
I also liked the imagery of Charlie coming out of the Fort Pitt Tunnel. If you've never been to Pittsburgh, I think that would be hard to understand. Pittsburgh isn't know for its beauty - it's known as a steel town, for football and hockey. But the first time I went through that tunnel and arrived on the other side? Wow. It was an amazingly beautiful sight. In most cities you slowly approach the downtown area, driving through blighted areas before the streets start to get better and slowly transform. Going through the tunnel, there's a drastic change. You come out and see the skyline rising above you and the light sparkling off the three rivers. At night time, the buildings are all lit up and twinkling. It was not what I expected, and it's one of the best views I've seen because its so striking. And just like there's more to Pittsburgh than people expect, there's more to Charlie.
Even if you don't read a lot of YA, this is one worth trying, especially before the movie comes out. I think it would be great for a teen who is struggling to find their place. It is worth sticking with it - I wasn't enjoying it for the first 30 or so pages and had to overlook some annoyances about Charlie, but overall it's a good read.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower actually came out while I was in high school, but I thought I was way too cool to read YA then. I had moved on to adult books completely some time in early junior high. It's probably just as well. I don't think I would have appreciated this book back then. I would have been too judgemental of all the characters to get anything out of the story.
This book is one of those books that proves you don't have to like the main character to like the book. Charlie is annoying. Whiny. A crybaby. Passive. Overly sensitive. Emotional. He's not someone I'd want to hang out with. But that's okay. He still has an interesting story to tell. He still matters.
And maybe that's the point of this book - even people who are a bit messed up, or who make mistakes, or who are a little annoying deserve to be known and their lives still matter. Charlie makes several references to "It's a Wonderful Life." He wonders what the story would have been like if it had focused on the drunken uncle. How would they have shown that his life mattered?
I also liked the imagery of Charlie coming out of the Fort Pitt Tunnel. If you've never been to Pittsburgh, I think that would be hard to understand. Pittsburgh isn't know for its beauty - it's known as a steel town, for football and hockey. But the first time I went through that tunnel and arrived on the other side? Wow. It was an amazingly beautiful sight. In most cities you slowly approach the downtown area, driving through blighted areas before the streets start to get better and slowly transform. Going through the tunnel, there's a drastic change. You come out and see the skyline rising above you and the light sparkling off the three rivers. At night time, the buildings are all lit up and twinkling. It was not what I expected, and it's one of the best views I've seen because its so striking. And just like there's more to Pittsburgh than people expect, there's more to Charlie.
Even if you don't read a lot of YA, this is one worth trying, especially before the movie comes out. I think it would be great for a teen who is struggling to find their place. It is worth sticking with it - I wasn't enjoying it for the first 30 or so pages and had to overlook some annoyances about Charlie, but overall it's a good read.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The Martian Chronicles
Yeah! I've now read two books by Ray Bradbury that I actually like! After enjoying Something Wicked This Way Comes, I decided to check out The Martian Chronicles.
The Martian Chronicles is a series of interconnected short stories about life on Mars, mostly in the 2030s. I thought it was interesting that Bradbury wrote these in the 40s, a time before space travel, setting them nearly 100 years in the future. Now, it's 2012, Bradbury is still alive, has seen us travel to space, and I was born in the same decade as several characters, yet we've just suspended our space program, making attempted settlement of Mars by the 2030s unlikely. :) Thinking about all of that was just a big of a mind trip for me.
Speaking of mind trips, since we get the Martian perspective in some stories, you tend to view the Americans attempted to explore Mars as a bit unwelcome. I wonder how much of that was a criticism of WWII. Oddly enough, I had just heard a story about an old Twilight Zone episode where a woman is being attacked by tiny men with tiny guns, and she has to start throwing them in the fire and smashing them like bugs, and you cheer for her when she defeats them. Then the camera goes up to the rooftop to show the tiny spaceship the tiny men arrived on - they were U.S. military arriving on Mars. Dun dun dun. Some of these stories felt a bit like that - they forced you to think about someone else's perspective.
The most moving stories to me where the ones about being able to "see" your dead relatives again, seemingly alive and well. I thought about my grandfather, and I understood the characters' desire to believe that at any cost, even if they rationally knew that their dead loved one couldn't be there in front of them. I ached along with the characters as they realized their mistake in believing and had to go through the pain of loss again.
These are really my favorite type of short stories - those that interconnect to tell pieces of a whole story. I liked that you get all the meat without a bunch of filler, the freedom to jump perspectives and times in a page or two. I also liked that these weren't too heavy on the science fiction, even though they take place on Mars. The focus is much more on the characters and making you think, not on the science behind everything. I can't wait to read more Bradbury in the future and am glad that I can now say I like him as an author even if Fahrenheit 451 seems to be forever ruined for me.
The Martian Chronicles is a series of interconnected short stories about life on Mars, mostly in the 2030s. I thought it was interesting that Bradbury wrote these in the 40s, a time before space travel, setting them nearly 100 years in the future. Now, it's 2012, Bradbury is still alive, has seen us travel to space, and I was born in the same decade as several characters, yet we've just suspended our space program, making attempted settlement of Mars by the 2030s unlikely. :) Thinking about all of that was just a big of a mind trip for me.
Speaking of mind trips, since we get the Martian perspective in some stories, you tend to view the Americans attempted to explore Mars as a bit unwelcome. I wonder how much of that was a criticism of WWII. Oddly enough, I had just heard a story about an old Twilight Zone episode where a woman is being attacked by tiny men with tiny guns, and she has to start throwing them in the fire and smashing them like bugs, and you cheer for her when she defeats them. Then the camera goes up to the rooftop to show the tiny spaceship the tiny men arrived on - they were U.S. military arriving on Mars. Dun dun dun. Some of these stories felt a bit like that - they forced you to think about someone else's perspective.
The most moving stories to me where the ones about being able to "see" your dead relatives again, seemingly alive and well. I thought about my grandfather, and I understood the characters' desire to believe that at any cost, even if they rationally knew that their dead loved one couldn't be there in front of them. I ached along with the characters as they realized their mistake in believing and had to go through the pain of loss again.
These are really my favorite type of short stories - those that interconnect to tell pieces of a whole story. I liked that you get all the meat without a bunch of filler, the freedom to jump perspectives and times in a page or two. I also liked that these weren't too heavy on the science fiction, even though they take place on Mars. The focus is much more on the characters and making you think, not on the science behind everything. I can't wait to read more Bradbury in the future and am glad that I can now say I like him as an author even if Fahrenheit 451 seems to be forever ruined for me.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Outlander
Outlander is one of those novels I've heard a lot about from other bloggers. Some people love it, some people hate it, and a lot of people liked it but noted that it's really more of a romance series than a fantasy series. I'm really glad I had heard that going in, or I think I would have disliked it. I would have kept waiting for the fantasy part to kick in more, but it's really just the time travel element that makes this a fantasy - it does read more like a historical romance. I somehow seemed to both love and hate it - the fact that I'm anxious to read the next book in the series tells me I must have landed more on the love side!
I think one of the reasons I liked this book was the idea of suddenly traveling back in time. What would it be like to suddenly be 200 years in the past? What would you do? How would you survive? Claire does things she wouldn't normally do, but she has to adjust quickly to life in the mid-1700s Scotland or be killed. The descriptions of Scotland are wonderful - they definitely made me want to move up Scotland and my travel wishlist. Something in the storytelling kept me flipping the pages, which was good since this clocks in at over 800 pages!
On the negative side, it was hard to read some of the scenes or judge characters by today's standards instead of the standards of two centuries ago. Today, it's clearly wrong for a man to beat his wife, or for a man to beat his child for that matter. Yes, people still do it, but they are for the most part reviled. But 200 years ago, this was common. It was seen as normal - something you did out of love as long as you did it in the "right" way. As long as it was done in punishment for something, then no big deal. However, knowing this and being okay with reading a love story where the man beats his wife for disobeying are not the same thing. It's disturbing.
However, this isn't the most disturbing scene in the book. There's a graphic recollection of a rape scene that was sickening to read. I don't think a rape scene would ever be anything but disturbing on some level, but this just went too far. It was so gross, I just couldn't imagine someone actually doing that, or the author dreaming that up and actually writing it. If this happened early in the book, I would have probably have quit reading, but I was invested by this point and carried on.
I think it sounds like I'm being more negative toward the book than I actually feel. It's just easier in this case to pinpoint what I disliked than what I liked! But, I've already pulled the next book off my shelf on to the table by my reading chair, so I clearly liked it overall. I will say this is a lesson learned in buying books in a series before reading them though - I bought the first two during the closing sale Borders had. I doubt these will be books I'll re-read even though I did like this one, so I hate that I spent the money on them instead of just going to the library. I think that's something the TBR Challenge has taught me - quit buying so many dang books!!! :)
This is the seventh book I've read for Adam's Magical March. Just one more to go! I've already started 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and hope to finish it and maybe one more before the end of March.
I think one of the reasons I liked this book was the idea of suddenly traveling back in time. What would it be like to suddenly be 200 years in the past? What would you do? How would you survive? Claire does things she wouldn't normally do, but she has to adjust quickly to life in the mid-1700s Scotland or be killed. The descriptions of Scotland are wonderful - they definitely made me want to move up Scotland and my travel wishlist. Something in the storytelling kept me flipping the pages, which was good since this clocks in at over 800 pages!
On the negative side, it was hard to read some of the scenes or judge characters by today's standards instead of the standards of two centuries ago. Today, it's clearly wrong for a man to beat his wife, or for a man to beat his child for that matter. Yes, people still do it, but they are for the most part reviled. But 200 years ago, this was common. It was seen as normal - something you did out of love as long as you did it in the "right" way. As long as it was done in punishment for something, then no big deal. However, knowing this and being okay with reading a love story where the man beats his wife for disobeying are not the same thing. It's disturbing.
However, this isn't the most disturbing scene in the book. There's a graphic recollection of a rape scene that was sickening to read. I don't think a rape scene would ever be anything but disturbing on some level, but this just went too far. It was so gross, I just couldn't imagine someone actually doing that, or the author dreaming that up and actually writing it. If this happened early in the book, I would have probably have quit reading, but I was invested by this point and carried on.
I think it sounds like I'm being more negative toward the book than I actually feel. It's just easier in this case to pinpoint what I disliked than what I liked! But, I've already pulled the next book off my shelf on to the table by my reading chair, so I clearly liked it overall. I will say this is a lesson learned in buying books in a series before reading them though - I bought the first two during the closing sale Borders had. I doubt these will be books I'll re-read even though I did like this one, so I hate that I spent the money on them instead of just going to the library. I think that's something the TBR Challenge has taught me - quit buying so many dang books!!! :)
This is the seventh book I've read for Adam's Magical March. Just one more to go! I've already started 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and hope to finish it and maybe one more before the end of March.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, February 20, 2012
White Oleander
I really wanted to love White Oleander. But, I suppose the fact that it's been sitting on my shelves unread since 1999 I suppose I had my doubts! I'm really trying to make a dent in my TBR stack and wanted to clear off some of the books that have lingered on my shelves the longest before I give in and head back to the library, which I miss dearly.
For some reason, I love stories about crazy women. Why? I don't know. I also tend to like stories about realistic hardships, poor people fighting their way to something better, books like The Glass Castle or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. So, White Oleander should have been a winner. And it was good. It just wasn't great, and I was left feeling disappointed.
It started of promising. Astrid's mother Ingrid is straight-up crazy - in a selfish, free-spirited poet kind of way. Ingrid eventually loses her mind totally over a man, and goes to prison for killing him. Astrid is then sent off to the foster care system, struggling just to survive.
At first, I felt sorry for Astrid and was fearful for her as she finds herself in a bad situation. One of the things I enjoy about books like this is imagining being in these situations - what would it be like to be sent to live with strangers? Strangers who are gross, or creepy, or racist, or violent, or mean. What if you had nothing in life to call your own?
As we continue on Astrid's journey, however, I quickly grew bored with the series of unfortunate events and terrible choices that Astrid makes. I understand that in some of her choices, she's acting out or reaching for things the only way she can. But the whole things just seems so unrealistic. I get that most teens in foster care get shuttled around from bad situation to bad situation. But Astrid's experiences are so terrible and so plentiful that it just seems crazy and took me out of the story. It felt more like someone was cramming every bad story they'd ever heard about foster care into one storyline than something that could really happen.
Because of Astrid's choices, at some point I stopped really rooting for her. This made the last half of the book difficult to get through because I just wanted someone to kill her off already and put us both out of our misery. I also felt like the writing was just a bit overwrought, like someone trying really hard to write literary fiction instead of writing naturally. Don't get me wrong - I love literary fiction, and literary, poetic writing. But something about this just felt contrived. I'm not quite sure what made it different, because it certainly wasn't bad writing. Something just seemed off in some way.
While I didn't end up loving this book, I am glad I read it and I'm glad it's finally off my TBR pile!
For some reason, I love stories about crazy women. Why? I don't know. I also tend to like stories about realistic hardships, poor people fighting their way to something better, books like The Glass Castle or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. So, White Oleander should have been a winner. And it was good. It just wasn't great, and I was left feeling disappointed.
It started of promising. Astrid's mother Ingrid is straight-up crazy - in a selfish, free-spirited poet kind of way. Ingrid eventually loses her mind totally over a man, and goes to prison for killing him. Astrid is then sent off to the foster care system, struggling just to survive.
At first, I felt sorry for Astrid and was fearful for her as she finds herself in a bad situation. One of the things I enjoy about books like this is imagining being in these situations - what would it be like to be sent to live with strangers? Strangers who are gross, or creepy, or racist, or violent, or mean. What if you had nothing in life to call your own?
As we continue on Astrid's journey, however, I quickly grew bored with the series of unfortunate events and terrible choices that Astrid makes. I understand that in some of her choices, she's acting out or reaching for things the only way she can. But the whole things just seems so unrealistic. I get that most teens in foster care get shuttled around from bad situation to bad situation. But Astrid's experiences are so terrible and so plentiful that it just seems crazy and took me out of the story. It felt more like someone was cramming every bad story they'd ever heard about foster care into one storyline than something that could really happen.
Because of Astrid's choices, at some point I stopped really rooting for her. This made the last half of the book difficult to get through because I just wanted someone to kill her off already and put us both out of our misery. I also felt like the writing was just a bit overwrought, like someone trying really hard to write literary fiction instead of writing naturally. Don't get me wrong - I love literary fiction, and literary, poetic writing. But something about this just felt contrived. I'm not quite sure what made it different, because it certainly wasn't bad writing. Something just seemed off in some way.
While I didn't end up loving this book, I am glad I read it and I'm glad it's finally off my TBR pile!
Thursday, February 16, 2012
A Lessson Before Dying
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines is a story about a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time who ends up on death row for a murder he didn't commit. The story takes place in the South, some time around the '50s. I don't think it ever said that specifically, but that's the feel I got anyway. The accused man is black, the victim is white. I thought the book would focus more on the trial and whether or not he should be convicted, but it focuses more on what happens afterward, when he's on death row.
While on trial, the defense attorney refers to Jefferson, the accused, as a hog who can't be held responsible for his actions. The main character, Grant, is asked to visit with Jefferson after he's convicted and help him become a man. I got the feeling that Jefferson might have some developmental disabilities, which adds to the difficulties of trying to teach a man who knows he's about to die.
The lesson I learned from this book is that no matter what life throws at you, you have to handle it with dignity. Even when you're about to die, your life is worth something. For Jefferson, is able to be a hero to his "nannan" by dying with dignity, like a man.
The book also addresses feeling out of place - Grant is the only college-educated black man in the area. He's teaching kids whose priority is helping their families with farmwork, who are unlikely to go anywhere. He's trying to reach kids of all ages in a one-room schoolhouse with few supplies. He starts to see his situation as hopeless and has to learn his own lesson as he teaches Jefferson.
While I enjoyed this book, there was something just a little off for me. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it was something about the writing style. It wasn't anything obvious, just something that kept this from being a great book. It was good, just not great.
While on trial, the defense attorney refers to Jefferson, the accused, as a hog who can't be held responsible for his actions. The main character, Grant, is asked to visit with Jefferson after he's convicted and help him become a man. I got the feeling that Jefferson might have some developmental disabilities, which adds to the difficulties of trying to teach a man who knows he's about to die.
The lesson I learned from this book is that no matter what life throws at you, you have to handle it with dignity. Even when you're about to die, your life is worth something. For Jefferson, is able to be a hero to his "nannan" by dying with dignity, like a man.
The book also addresses feeling out of place - Grant is the only college-educated black man in the area. He's teaching kids whose priority is helping their families with farmwork, who are unlikely to go anywhere. He's trying to reach kids of all ages in a one-room schoolhouse with few supplies. He starts to see his situation as hopeless and has to learn his own lesson as he teaches Jefferson.
While I enjoyed this book, there was something just a little off for me. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it was something about the writing style. It wasn't anything obvious, just something that kept this from being a great book. It was good, just not great.
Monday, February 13, 2012
The Girl with a Pearl Earring
I'm really glad I've enjoyed all of Tracy Chevalier's novels so far, since for some reason I bought several of them before ever reading anything by her. They are quick, light, fun reads that don't feel like pure fluff. While at first I thought about not posting anything about The Girl with the Pearl Earring- it was good, but there's not a lot to really talk about - but then I realized how much it made me appreciate my life.
Greit, the main character, is forced to become a maid to help feed her family. She works all day at hard labor six days a week. On her day off, she goes back home to see her parents and go to church and turn over her wages so they can eat. When offered an opportunity for marriage, she has to take it, and will still have a life of hard work ahead of her.
When you think about that, I feel guilty for the things I complain about, especially when I've complained about work over the years. Even at my lowest career points, I've never had to do hard physical labor six days a week, morning to night! I've never had to put up with my bosses' bratty children trying to get me in trouble or make my job harder. Even in a bad economy, there were still options and places to move on to.
I would never be in a position where I need to marry someone for money or security. I didn't have to settle for someone I just liked because they could take care of me. Sometimes I think we complain inadvertently about the fact that we have choices. We choose our careers, our spouses, where we live - in most ways our lot in life is up to us. Instead of being grateful for having choices, we whine about it. So, while also having an interesting story, this book made me appreciate what I have!
Greit, the main character, is forced to become a maid to help feed her family. She works all day at hard labor six days a week. On her day off, she goes back home to see her parents and go to church and turn over her wages so they can eat. When offered an opportunity for marriage, she has to take it, and will still have a life of hard work ahead of her.
When you think about that, I feel guilty for the things I complain about, especially when I've complained about work over the years. Even at my lowest career points, I've never had to do hard physical labor six days a week, morning to night! I've never had to put up with my bosses' bratty children trying to get me in trouble or make my job harder. Even in a bad economy, there were still options and places to move on to.
I would never be in a position where I need to marry someone for money or security. I didn't have to settle for someone I just liked because they could take care of me. Sometimes I think we complain inadvertently about the fact that we have choices. We choose our careers, our spouses, where we live - in most ways our lot in life is up to us. Instead of being grateful for having choices, we whine about it. So, while also having an interesting story, this book made me appreciate what I have!
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The Color Purple
Wow. Wow wow wow. Have you read The Color Purple? If not, go get on it!!! I've had this on my shelf for YEARS. Like I bought in high school kind of years ago. My junior year English teacher recommended Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston to me, and the introduction in my edition talked about how Alice Walker basically rediscovered Hurston - both her works and her gravesite, which had been unmarked. One I read and fell in love with Their Eyes Were Watching God, I wanted to thank Walker by reading her work. But for some reason it set on my shelf for a while, then I read Morrison and don't love her the way most people do and I was afraid I'd feel the same way about Walker and so I've put it off.
Since I'm trying to read all of the unread books I own and it's Black History Month, I made a stack of books by African-American authors from my shelves and decided to start with The Color Purple. And I'm so glad I FINALLY read this!
Walker creates an amazing story of Celie, drawing you right into the action. It starts off like a train wreck you just can't look away from as she tells her horrible story in a matter of fact manner. Something about her just sucks you and I couldn't stop reading. Dialect doesn't always work, but much like it works in Their Eyes Were Watching God, it clearly works here. The letters show the clear differences between Celie and Nettie, two sisters writing each other. They each have a distinct voice that shines through.
The Color Purple is more than a novel about race - it's about gender, will and humanity. What makes a person strong? What is the best way to show strength - through fighting or turning the other cheek? Why are some people so horrible? How can humans treat each other so poorly?
I adored Sofia. She's a spitfire! She's such a contrast to Celie - ain't nobody gonna git her down! She was just so vivid and alive and I identified with her more in the beginning because fighting has always been my first instinct, even if it causes more trouble. It was interesting to watch both Sofia and Celie change and grow through the novel.
Spoiler!
One of the things that surprised me was Nettie becoming a missionary in Africa, and I really enjoyed reading those sections. Seeing her travel to London and have her eyes opened to how blacks can be treated in a white a society (in a good way) and then learning more about African history - the good and the bad. She learns about blacks in biblical times, in Egyptian times, the things they created. And she also learns how Africans participated in the slave trade, selling their fellow Africans. That's one of the things I love about travel - it makes you see things differently, even if it's not always comfortable. I was also surprised that she talks about female genital mutilation. Considering how long ago this book came out and that there's still little attention paid to that subject, that surprised me. I almost wish I was back in school so I could write a paper about all of the feminist stuff in this book! It would be such a great book to teach if I were a teacher (and didn't have to worry about censorship - I'm sure it's not allowed to be taught in most high schools).
Quotes I liked:
"But one thing I do thank her for, for teaching me to learn for myself, by reading and studying and writing a clear hand. And for keeping alive in me somehow the desire to know." Nettie talking about her teacher.
"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." Shug - loved her too!
"I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love." Celie quoting Mr. _____.
If you haven't read this one, give it a try! It might take a little bit to get used to the dialect, but don't let that get to you!
Since I'm trying to read all of the unread books I own and it's Black History Month, I made a stack of books by African-American authors from my shelves and decided to start with The Color Purple. And I'm so glad I FINALLY read this!
Walker creates an amazing story of Celie, drawing you right into the action. It starts off like a train wreck you just can't look away from as she tells her horrible story in a matter of fact manner. Something about her just sucks you and I couldn't stop reading. Dialect doesn't always work, but much like it works in Their Eyes Were Watching God, it clearly works here. The letters show the clear differences between Celie and Nettie, two sisters writing each other. They each have a distinct voice that shines through.
The Color Purple is more than a novel about race - it's about gender, will and humanity. What makes a person strong? What is the best way to show strength - through fighting or turning the other cheek? Why are some people so horrible? How can humans treat each other so poorly?
I adored Sofia. She's a spitfire! She's such a contrast to Celie - ain't nobody gonna git her down! She was just so vivid and alive and I identified with her more in the beginning because fighting has always been my first instinct, even if it causes more trouble. It was interesting to watch both Sofia and Celie change and grow through the novel.
Spoiler!
One of the things that surprised me was Nettie becoming a missionary in Africa, and I really enjoyed reading those sections. Seeing her travel to London and have her eyes opened to how blacks can be treated in a white a society (in a good way) and then learning more about African history - the good and the bad. She learns about blacks in biblical times, in Egyptian times, the things they created. And she also learns how Africans participated in the slave trade, selling their fellow Africans. That's one of the things I love about travel - it makes you see things differently, even if it's not always comfortable. I was also surprised that she talks about female genital mutilation. Considering how long ago this book came out and that there's still little attention paid to that subject, that surprised me. I almost wish I was back in school so I could write a paper about all of the feminist stuff in this book! It would be such a great book to teach if I were a teacher (and didn't have to worry about censorship - I'm sure it's not allowed to be taught in most high schools).
Quotes I liked:
"But one thing I do thank her for, for teaching me to learn for myself, by reading and studying and writing a clear hand. And for keeping alive in me somehow the desire to know." Nettie talking about her teacher.
"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." Shug - loved her too!
"I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love." Celie quoting Mr. _____.
If you haven't read this one, give it a try! It might take a little bit to get used to the dialect, but don't let that get to you!
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Waves
I have finally become a Virginia Woolf fan! I'm not sure if I just needed to encounter her a few times or needed to be in the mood to poetry to "get" her, but I finally get the obsession with her. I may not understand all that she's trying to say, but I understand her appeal.
I read Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse both a couple of years ago and while I liked both to some extent, I just didn't connect with Woolf. I prefer my novels to have at least character or plot, if not both! Woolf usually seems to have neither. But what she does have is beautiful, amazing language. And I finally got that this time, with The Waves.
I think it might be helpful to others coming to Woolf for the first time or who didn't like her at first to think of her as a poet, not a novelist. The Waves is really a book of poetry, not a novel. It doesn't matter if you can't quite figure out what's going on all the time or who's talking. What matters is the images she makes you see, the feelings she invokes.
The Waves covers the lives of a group of children as they grow up, age, and die. It compares life to the waves of the ocean, going in and out, ebbing and flowing. The children begin full of imagination and possibility. They truly believe if they close their eyes and believe hard enough, they can be anything, even a tree. Going to school begins to beat this out of you.
"So each night I tear off the old day from the calendar, and screw it tight into a ball...I revenge myself upon the day...You are dead now, I say, school day, hated day." Oh, how I have felt that way when I made a heavy line through a day on the calendar, either during a bad time at school or at work. This is what matters in the book, this feeling parts like this make you feel, not what happened to cause one of the characters feel this way.
One of the things I did feel that Woolf was saas that saying though was that we keep rushing forward to the next station in life, not realizing that in doing so we're rushing toward death. Makes you want to slow down! While every new day as a child is an adventure, every day begins to run together as an adult. You get up, you go to work, you come home, repeat, repeat, repeat. You can feel that monotony weigh down the characters toward the end. This work made me want to recapture some of that feeling of childhood - of viewing each day as an adventure.
I read Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse both a couple of years ago and while I liked both to some extent, I just didn't connect with Woolf. I prefer my novels to have at least character or plot, if not both! Woolf usually seems to have neither. But what she does have is beautiful, amazing language. And I finally got that this time, with The Waves.
I think it might be helpful to others coming to Woolf for the first time or who didn't like her at first to think of her as a poet, not a novelist. The Waves is really a book of poetry, not a novel. It doesn't matter if you can't quite figure out what's going on all the time or who's talking. What matters is the images she makes you see, the feelings she invokes.
The Waves covers the lives of a group of children as they grow up, age, and die. It compares life to the waves of the ocean, going in and out, ebbing and flowing. The children begin full of imagination and possibility. They truly believe if they close their eyes and believe hard enough, they can be anything, even a tree. Going to school begins to beat this out of you.
"So each night I tear off the old day from the calendar, and screw it tight into a ball...I revenge myself upon the day...You are dead now, I say, school day, hated day." Oh, how I have felt that way when I made a heavy line through a day on the calendar, either during a bad time at school or at work. This is what matters in the book, this feeling parts like this make you feel, not what happened to cause one of the characters feel this way.
One of the things I did feel that Woolf was saas that saying though was that we keep rushing forward to the next station in life, not realizing that in doing so we're rushing toward death. Makes you want to slow down! While every new day as a child is an adventure, every day begins to run together as an adult. You get up, you go to work, you come home, repeat, repeat, repeat. You can feel that monotony weigh down the characters toward the end. This work made me want to recapture some of that feeling of childhood - of viewing each day as an adventure.
Monday, January 23, 2012
A Room with a View
Ergh!!! I had a great post about A Room with a View and it somehow got deleted!!! Blurg! I can remember none of the awesome things I had to say, so hopefully this will still convey how much I enjoyed this book and why you should read it!
First of all, I was surprised I liked this book so much. I read A Passage to India in school and didn't care for it. That may have been because I had to read it and five other lengthy, mostly boring books for a one-hour pass/fail class my freshman year of college. I had so much other reading and things to do that the books for that class didn't get much attention from me. I felt like it was pretty dry, so I was surprised when A Room with a View was so wonderful and a quick read, entertaining read. I suppose I'll have to give A Passage to India another shot sometime.
A Room with a View is about a young woman visiting Florence and Rome before journeying back to England. It was published in 1908 and takes place around that time, which was a time of massive change. England was moving from the Victorian age to the modern age. I know we've experienced massive change just in my lifetime with the prevalence of the internet, but can you imagine living back then? They were on the cusp of having technological changes with cars and electricity, but they were also experiencing social change with women fighting for the vote and the changing societal classes.
The novel focuses on this social change, with the main character starting out with a proper chaperone on her travels who dictates her behavior, but you begin to see changes as they travel and meet new people. One of those people is Mr. Emerson, who despite being an older man, is quite modern. He makes comments about one day women will be seen as equal and how a lot of the rules people follow are silly and how love is more important than following expectations. I adored him! He was so unexpected, although I suppose old people do tend to have more of a "tell it like it is" philosophy and he definitely had that. You shouldn't live by other people's expectations.
Forster also talks about how some people are so snobby and pretentious that they suck the life out of everyone around them. He demonstrates this through Cecil, who I just wanted to strangle. I wanted to shake Lucy and tell her to snap out of it and get away from him!
The novel was very similar to a Jane Austen novel - it captures a small part of society and has the same sort of feel, which I think makes the discussion of the more modern elements all the more striking. Lucy has to make a choice that none of the Austen heroines can make - love or independence? An Austen character might have to choose between love and comfort, but independence is never an option.
"It makes a difference, doesn't it, whether we fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?" Lucy can choose to fence herself in or not, whereas women even a decade earlier didn't have that option. "I don't see any difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in the same place." The character speaking here is thinking of literal fences, but she has a point - a fence is still a fence. Someone told me the other day that every decision in life is a sacrifice. If we choose to marry, we sacrifice our independence. If we choose to have kids, we sacrifice time and money and freedom. If we choose one career over another, we sacrifice the other. It was an interesting way to think about things, and I thought it fit this book nicely.
I think fans of Austen who are looking for something new would enjoy this, as would people who are interested in the start of feminism and the modern age. I'm looking forward to reading Howard's End soon!
First of all, I was surprised I liked this book so much. I read A Passage to India in school and didn't care for it. That may have been because I had to read it and five other lengthy, mostly boring books for a one-hour pass/fail class my freshman year of college. I had so much other reading and things to do that the books for that class didn't get much attention from me. I felt like it was pretty dry, so I was surprised when A Room with a View was so wonderful and a quick read, entertaining read. I suppose I'll have to give A Passage to India another shot sometime.
A Room with a View is about a young woman visiting Florence and Rome before journeying back to England. It was published in 1908 and takes place around that time, which was a time of massive change. England was moving from the Victorian age to the modern age. I know we've experienced massive change just in my lifetime with the prevalence of the internet, but can you imagine living back then? They were on the cusp of having technological changes with cars and electricity, but they were also experiencing social change with women fighting for the vote and the changing societal classes.
The novel focuses on this social change, with the main character starting out with a proper chaperone on her travels who dictates her behavior, but you begin to see changes as they travel and meet new people. One of those people is Mr. Emerson, who despite being an older man, is quite modern. He makes comments about one day women will be seen as equal and how a lot of the rules people follow are silly and how love is more important than following expectations. I adored him! He was so unexpected, although I suppose old people do tend to have more of a "tell it like it is" philosophy and he definitely had that. You shouldn't live by other people's expectations.
Forster also talks about how some people are so snobby and pretentious that they suck the life out of everyone around them. He demonstrates this through Cecil, who I just wanted to strangle. I wanted to shake Lucy and tell her to snap out of it and get away from him!
The novel was very similar to a Jane Austen novel - it captures a small part of society and has the same sort of feel, which I think makes the discussion of the more modern elements all the more striking. Lucy has to make a choice that none of the Austen heroines can make - love or independence? An Austen character might have to choose between love and comfort, but independence is never an option.
"It makes a difference, doesn't it, whether we fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?" Lucy can choose to fence herself in or not, whereas women even a decade earlier didn't have that option. "I don't see any difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in the same place." The character speaking here is thinking of literal fences, but she has a point - a fence is still a fence. Someone told me the other day that every decision in life is a sacrifice. If we choose to marry, we sacrifice our independence. If we choose to have kids, we sacrifice time and money and freedom. If we choose one career over another, we sacrifice the other. It was an interesting way to think about things, and I thought it fit this book nicely.
I think fans of Austen who are looking for something new would enjoy this, as would people who are interested in the start of feminism and the modern age. I'm looking forward to reading Howard's End soon!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
The Bell Jar
It should perhaps worry me that when I had a bad day a little over a week ago, my response was a craving for a re-read of The Bell Jar. I'll just hope that means I'm wonderfully sane because I wanted to read something about someone having a much worse day than I was to remind myself of how lucky I am!
I liked The Bell Jar when I first read it in high school, but I loved it even more this time. I had forgotten just how beautiful the language is. Plath is wonderful at drawing you into Esther's mind, which is a bit disturbing, but there's something cathartic about it. It's like instead of snapping yourself, you get to experience snapping through the safety of a book and return back to the real world cured.
It surprised me how much I could identify with Esther in the beginning of the novel. I didn't really expect that since what I remembered about her came more from the second half, after she begins going crazy. It's a bit scarier this way, as it makes you feel like we each have this ability to go a bit mad lurking under the surface. I suppose that's why it's such as good book though.
In one scene, Esther pictures a tree with figs, each representing a possible future - wife and mother, editor, Olympian, professor, world traveler. "I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and everyone of them, but choosing meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." Oh how I have been there. I'm normally a very decisive person, but I went back and forth about my major several times in college and then considering switching careers at various points when I wanted to leave a certain position and couldn't find anything similar. PR, teaching, pursuing my doctorate, marketing, being a librarian, being a freelance writer, packing everything up and running off to Europe and teaching ESL. It's all sounded appealing at some point or the other. I'm happy with the direction I chose, and didn't find myself unable to move forward as Esther does, thankfully. But I definitely understand that feeling of wanting to be able to do everything!
I also think that perhaps my views on childbirth and raising children were greatly influenced by all the reading I did when I was younger. Perhaps reading does corrupt a girl's mind after all. No wonder men used to not want woman to read and learn! :) This book had a rather gross childbirth scene that I'm sure added to my disgust at the whole situation, and Esther has some good quotes about motherhood, although they're quite sad considering Plath was a mother. "So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state." "If I had to wait on a baby all day, I would go mad." Amen sister. I'm glad other people enjoy that and totally get that they're the normal ones, but just the thought of having a child makes me feel slightly crazy, claustrophobic, panicky. I'm so thankful I live in today's society and can be both married and childless by choice.
Re-reading The Bell Jar reminded me of how enjoyable re-reading is. Like many book bloggers, I've tended to re-read less since I started blogging. I had massive reading lists before blogging, but since then my lists have exploded and it's hard to re-read when there are so many books waiting to be read for the first time. I need to make a point to re-read more often!
I liked The Bell Jar when I first read it in high school, but I loved it even more this time. I had forgotten just how beautiful the language is. Plath is wonderful at drawing you into Esther's mind, which is a bit disturbing, but there's something cathartic about it. It's like instead of snapping yourself, you get to experience snapping through the safety of a book and return back to the real world cured.
It surprised me how much I could identify with Esther in the beginning of the novel. I didn't really expect that since what I remembered about her came more from the second half, after she begins going crazy. It's a bit scarier this way, as it makes you feel like we each have this ability to go a bit mad lurking under the surface. I suppose that's why it's such as good book though.
In one scene, Esther pictures a tree with figs, each representing a possible future - wife and mother, editor, Olympian, professor, world traveler. "I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and everyone of them, but choosing meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." Oh how I have been there. I'm normally a very decisive person, but I went back and forth about my major several times in college and then considering switching careers at various points when I wanted to leave a certain position and couldn't find anything similar. PR, teaching, pursuing my doctorate, marketing, being a librarian, being a freelance writer, packing everything up and running off to Europe and teaching ESL. It's all sounded appealing at some point or the other. I'm happy with the direction I chose, and didn't find myself unable to move forward as Esther does, thankfully. But I definitely understand that feeling of wanting to be able to do everything!
I also think that perhaps my views on childbirth and raising children were greatly influenced by all the reading I did when I was younger. Perhaps reading does corrupt a girl's mind after all. No wonder men used to not want woman to read and learn! :) This book had a rather gross childbirth scene that I'm sure added to my disgust at the whole situation, and Esther has some good quotes about motherhood, although they're quite sad considering Plath was a mother. "So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state." "If I had to wait on a baby all day, I would go mad." Amen sister. I'm glad other people enjoy that and totally get that they're the normal ones, but just the thought of having a child makes me feel slightly crazy, claustrophobic, panicky. I'm so thankful I live in today's society and can be both married and childless by choice.
Re-reading The Bell Jar reminded me of how enjoyable re-reading is. Like many book bloggers, I've tended to re-read less since I started blogging. I had massive reading lists before blogging, but since then my lists have exploded and it's hard to re-read when there are so many books waiting to be read for the first time. I need to make a point to re-read more often!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty
I was excited enough to visit Persephone books on my 30th birthday, and I couldn't believe it when I saw a book called It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty. I knew I had to have it. I was surprised, because I've read through the Persephone catalogue before, but for some reason this title didn't sound familiar to me. Maybe because I wasn't ready for it yet!
It's been a while since I've read much poetry, so at first I wasn't sure if I would like this collection. But, while still in the store, I opened it to a poem that was so me! I knew I then that I would enjoy the collection, and have read it slowly, just a poem or two a day to savor it. The language and easy to understand poems reminded that poetry can be enjoyable and has inspired me to keep up the habit of reading a poem every day, which is good because I have several poetry books in my TBR stacks! It's also good because I think reading poetry is helping my own writing, making me think more about my language choices as I write.
The poem that drew me in is called "Starting on Monday." It's all about her starting a diet and exercise plan on Monday. "Starting on Monday my will will be stronger than brownies." Brownies are my favorite dessert. The poem goes on about jogging each morning, eating carrots, losing flab, all starting on Monday. "But Tuesday a friend came for coffee and brought homemade muffins." And so on, through the week. There is always an excuse isn't there? I can't really capture it without writing out the whole poem, but I just love her writing. It's so accessible, yet still meaningful, and she still plays with language. Most of the poems are about everyday life: marriage, babies, diets, friends, growing up. Yet she somehow makes beautiful poetry out of it.
The book is really two collections of poems, It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty and People and Other Aggravations. How great is that second title? I had to laugh at that. And while the poems are about how other people can indeed be aggravating, at the same time, they're about how we need others and our lives are enriched by them.
I think anyone who enjoys the Persephone books would enjoy this one, and it's worth it even though it's a slim work. I promise you'll keep flipping through it to re-read! I also think it would be a great gift to a mom struggling with meshing her old self to her new mom identity. And it's a great starting place for someone who wants to read more poetry, but is intimidated by it. And, it's written Judith Viorst, who wrote Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It's got to be awesome, right? I loved picking up a grown-up book by the author of one of my favorite childhood books on my birthday! If you give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
It's been a while since I've read much poetry, so at first I wasn't sure if I would like this collection. But, while still in the store, I opened it to a poem that was so me! I knew I then that I would enjoy the collection, and have read it slowly, just a poem or two a day to savor it. The language and easy to understand poems reminded that poetry can be enjoyable and has inspired me to keep up the habit of reading a poem every day, which is good because I have several poetry books in my TBR stacks! It's also good because I think reading poetry is helping my own writing, making me think more about my language choices as I write.
The poem that drew me in is called "Starting on Monday." It's all about her starting a diet and exercise plan on Monday. "Starting on Monday my will will be stronger than brownies." Brownies are my favorite dessert. The poem goes on about jogging each morning, eating carrots, losing flab, all starting on Monday. "But Tuesday a friend came for coffee and brought homemade muffins." And so on, through the week. There is always an excuse isn't there? I can't really capture it without writing out the whole poem, but I just love her writing. It's so accessible, yet still meaningful, and she still plays with language. Most of the poems are about everyday life: marriage, babies, diets, friends, growing up. Yet she somehow makes beautiful poetry out of it.
The book is really two collections of poems, It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty and People and Other Aggravations. How great is that second title? I had to laugh at that. And while the poems are about how other people can indeed be aggravating, at the same time, they're about how we need others and our lives are enriched by them.
I think anyone who enjoys the Persephone books would enjoy this one, and it's worth it even though it's a slim work. I promise you'll keep flipping through it to re-read! I also think it would be a great gift to a mom struggling with meshing her old self to her new mom identity. And it's a great starting place for someone who wants to read more poetry, but is intimidated by it. And, it's written Judith Viorst, who wrote Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It's got to be awesome, right? I loved picking up a grown-up book by the author of one of my favorite childhood books on my birthday! If you give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Atlas Shrugged
It took me forever to get going with Atlas Shrugged, but it was so worth it in the end. Rand's dense sentences pack meaning into every word, unusual for such an immense work. In the beginning, I dreaded picking it back up and had to force myself to keep reading, wondering why I was torturing myself for fun. Everything takes off in the middle though, and it now clearly takes a place in my top 10 favorite books of all time.
I'll admit, for the first 500 pages, I was irritated. It felt like slogging my way through a swamp of philosophy and I kept getting mired down trying to make sure I understood each sentence. I was shocked by the behavior of Hank Rearden and the emphasis on not giving charity and being entirely selfish. I didn't think I could get through a work that was pushing an agenda like that, and it didn't even have any interesting plot or well developed characters at that point to keep me interested.
I actually set the book aside for a few months, something I rarely do. I just recently returned, and forced myself to read a chapter a day. Fortunately, I quickly reached the page 500 mark, and somewhere around there the story took off. By this time, I had become much more connected to the characters and they seemed much rounder, more like actual people instead of stooges for an agenda. The plot also took off, although this clearly never becomes a plot-driven book. I finished the second half of the book in three days.
What happened to turn the book around for me? Two things happened - one was learning more about Dagny and her experience in the corporate world. There are few books out there that cover the corporate world at all, and seeing such an accurate presentation of some of the stuff execs pull was fascinating to read and pulled me further into the story. She's such a strong, driven, intelligent character who just tries to do what's best for her company and she has to fight stupid, lazy, corrupt people at every turn.
The second thing, the thing that made the book for me, is John Galt. The "This Is John Galt Speaking" chapter is incredible. It's a 64-page speech overflowing with philosophy and psychology and economics. Ironically, while it's a chapter focused on rational thinking, I actual teared up while reading it. And I very rarely cry. I returned back to it several times right after finishing it and reread and marked passages.
While there are many, many philosophical ideas to gleam from this section, some of which I don't agree with, some I do, and many that I don't claim to understand, I think the main point boils down to making sure you are using your mind to its fullest. It's about the value of thinking and about how true happiness comes not from escaping our thoughts but through using our mind and thinking.
It also talks about how so much of the world focuses on taking away our desire and ability to think. Too many bosses just want robots who will do exactly as they are told, despite what they may claim to the contrary about wanting "A" players. Teachers often just wants kids to shut up and memorize what's going to be on the test. Even religious leaders often focus on only relying on faith and don't focus on really examining your beliefs. Politicians of course don't want people to think, just to pass control over to them so they can think for us. Most of these people despise being questioned, and too often children are taught to stop asking "why" - either by their parents, caregivers, teachers or all of the above.
I never grew out of the stage, and it's gotten me trouble throughout my life. From second grade, where I wouldn't stop asking why I couldn't work out of the third-grade book since I'd already used the second-grade book in first grade (where my teacher saw my advanced reading schools and bumped me ahead) until finally she gave in after realizing the threat of discipline wouldn't stop my questioning, to more recently in the business world where I've questioned decisions of executives and debated with them. Sometimes this has gotten me ahead, sometimes it's gotten me in heaps of trouble.
Most of the people I've seen who question things in the business world and try to make positive change end up forced out or fired. This is a major source of frustration to me and has caused me to leave positions before as well. That's why I loved this explanation: "Any man who's afraid of hiring the best ability he can find, is a cheat who's in a business where he doesn't belong. To me - the foulest man on earth, more contemptible than a criminal, is the employer who rejects men for being too good." I can sadly name several amazing people who were fired or forced out of a company for just that. It amazes me that this happens, that execs can be so threatened by others who are smarter than them that instead of encouraging them to make advancements for the company, they'll cast them aside because they are intimidated.
John Galt emphasizes that going through life unthinking is essentially sleepwalking through life and you're not truly living. His explanation of happiness so hit home with me and made me clearly explained why I'd been so unhappy at work the last two years in a much more succinct way than I'd ever explained it before.
"Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy - a joy without penalty of guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but a producer."
I was so unhappy at work for many reasons, but I think it boils down to that - I was being told not to think, I was helping people who clashed with my values and I was not producing anything of value. Atlas Shrugged reminded me of the vital importance of thinking. It's part of the reason why I wanted to start blogging again. I don't want my reading just to be for entertainment - I want it to make me think and to challenge me. Blogging helps me think through a book and respond to it instead of rushing on to the next one. It also made me want to continue reducing the amount of TV I watch, which has gone down dramatically since I stopped watching several shows and cancelled Netflix. I'm also trying to eliminate other activities that just don't add value to my life so I have more time to focus on things that are important.
While you probably won't agree with Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and may have to force yourself to get through the first part of the book, I promise it's worth it to give Atlas Shrugged a try.
I'll admit, for the first 500 pages, I was irritated. It felt like slogging my way through a swamp of philosophy and I kept getting mired down trying to make sure I understood each sentence. I was shocked by the behavior of Hank Rearden and the emphasis on not giving charity and being entirely selfish. I didn't think I could get through a work that was pushing an agenda like that, and it didn't even have any interesting plot or well developed characters at that point to keep me interested.
I actually set the book aside for a few months, something I rarely do. I just recently returned, and forced myself to read a chapter a day. Fortunately, I quickly reached the page 500 mark, and somewhere around there the story took off. By this time, I had become much more connected to the characters and they seemed much rounder, more like actual people instead of stooges for an agenda. The plot also took off, although this clearly never becomes a plot-driven book. I finished the second half of the book in three days.
What happened to turn the book around for me? Two things happened - one was learning more about Dagny and her experience in the corporate world. There are few books out there that cover the corporate world at all, and seeing such an accurate presentation of some of the stuff execs pull was fascinating to read and pulled me further into the story. She's such a strong, driven, intelligent character who just tries to do what's best for her company and she has to fight stupid, lazy, corrupt people at every turn.
The second thing, the thing that made the book for me, is John Galt. The "This Is John Galt Speaking" chapter is incredible. It's a 64-page speech overflowing with philosophy and psychology and economics. Ironically, while it's a chapter focused on rational thinking, I actual teared up while reading it. And I very rarely cry. I returned back to it several times right after finishing it and reread and marked passages.
While there are many, many philosophical ideas to gleam from this section, some of which I don't agree with, some I do, and many that I don't claim to understand, I think the main point boils down to making sure you are using your mind to its fullest. It's about the value of thinking and about how true happiness comes not from escaping our thoughts but through using our mind and thinking.
It also talks about how so much of the world focuses on taking away our desire and ability to think. Too many bosses just want robots who will do exactly as they are told, despite what they may claim to the contrary about wanting "A" players. Teachers often just wants kids to shut up and memorize what's going to be on the test. Even religious leaders often focus on only relying on faith and don't focus on really examining your beliefs. Politicians of course don't want people to think, just to pass control over to them so they can think for us. Most of these people despise being questioned, and too often children are taught to stop asking "why" - either by their parents, caregivers, teachers or all of the above.
I never grew out of the stage, and it's gotten me trouble throughout my life. From second grade, where I wouldn't stop asking why I couldn't work out of the third-grade book since I'd already used the second-grade book in first grade (where my teacher saw my advanced reading schools and bumped me ahead) until finally she gave in after realizing the threat of discipline wouldn't stop my questioning, to more recently in the business world where I've questioned decisions of executives and debated with them. Sometimes this has gotten me ahead, sometimes it's gotten me in heaps of trouble.
Most of the people I've seen who question things in the business world and try to make positive change end up forced out or fired. This is a major source of frustration to me and has caused me to leave positions before as well. That's why I loved this explanation: "Any man who's afraid of hiring the best ability he can find, is a cheat who's in a business where he doesn't belong. To me - the foulest man on earth, more contemptible than a criminal, is the employer who rejects men for being too good." I can sadly name several amazing people who were fired or forced out of a company for just that. It amazes me that this happens, that execs can be so threatened by others who are smarter than them that instead of encouraging them to make advancements for the company, they'll cast them aside because they are intimidated.
John Galt emphasizes that going through life unthinking is essentially sleepwalking through life and you're not truly living. His explanation of happiness so hit home with me and made me clearly explained why I'd been so unhappy at work the last two years in a much more succinct way than I'd ever explained it before.
"Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy - a joy without penalty of guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but a producer."
I was so unhappy at work for many reasons, but I think it boils down to that - I was being told not to think, I was helping people who clashed with my values and I was not producing anything of value. Atlas Shrugged reminded me of the vital importance of thinking. It's part of the reason why I wanted to start blogging again. I don't want my reading just to be for entertainment - I want it to make me think and to challenge me. Blogging helps me think through a book and respond to it instead of rushing on to the next one. It also made me want to continue reducing the amount of TV I watch, which has gone down dramatically since I stopped watching several shows and cancelled Netflix. I'm also trying to eliminate other activities that just don't add value to my life so I have more time to focus on things that are important.
While you probably won't agree with Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and may have to force yourself to get through the first part of the book, I promise it's worth it to give Atlas Shrugged a try.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Wedding Girl
I had no idea until a couple of weeks ago that Sophie Kinsella wrote books under her real name: Madeline Wickham. I noticed on Amazon that books my Wickham were suggestions for people who liked Kinsella and Jennifer Weiner, so I looked into her and realized she and Kinsella were one and the same! I immediately headed to the library and checked out The Wedding Girl. This was written before the Shopaholic series, and the writing feels a little less polished. However, I really liked this book and was surprised by the ending, which usually doesn't happen this type of novel. Wickham is still quite funny here, just as she is in the Shopaholic series. It's a fast read and will keep you entertained. It's light and fluffy, but at the same time it's more serious than the Shopaholic books. If you're a fan of Kinsella, I would definitely suggest checking this out!
Monday, August 23, 2010
Jemima J
Jemima J is the first book I've read by by Jane Green. Green's name always pops up on Amazon when I look at books by authors I enjoy such as Sophie Kinsella and Jennifer Weiner, so I decided to give her a shot.
Jemima J is partially centered around internet dating. It was published in 1999. That makes it quite hilarious, in ways both intentional and not.
It's quite funny and amazing to think how far we've come in just over 10 years. Jemima and her friends are amazed at this shiny new thing called the internet and they can't wait to get on and try it out. Which takes a while since they're using dial up. No one in the book has a cell phone and they use calling cards for long distance. I remember thinking I was quite cool in high school because there was this boy I had a crush on who lived in Tulsa and got a calling card so he could call me. I thought it was all quite grown up. How much easier a long distance relationship between Tulsa and OKC would be today. I actually did have a cell phone at that time because my parents were totally paranoid about me driving by myself, but it didn't have long distance and I was one of the few teenagers I knew at that time that had one. That would have been my sophomore year of high school, 1997. Robbie and I also e-mailed back and forth with the few AOL minutes we had available. Which seemed so amazing at that time. I sit here looking at what I'm doing online right now and thinking about all of the other things we can do and it's just amazing how quickly it all exploded.
The first thing Jemima and her friends Ben and Geeraldine do online is look up porn simply because they're curious that it really exists out there. It's quite funny reading about them deciding what to type and then waiting patiently while a picture loads line by line. Remember when pictures used to load like that? Then they go to a chat room because that was about the only other thing you could at that time.
And yet how things stay the same. Once there, they create a profile for a young girl and promptly get hit on by an old man. Then Jemima comes back the next day and she and another guy start flirting and suddenly they are internet dating.
Jemima J is a rather large woman at the beginning of the book, but she doesn't want her hottie in LA that she's dating online to know that so they have the graphics guy at the newspaper they work for Photoshop the photo to make her skinny. Then of course the guy wants to meet her. What will she do? The book is about her struggle to lose weight and her huge crush on Ben, one of her coworkers, as well. Will she lose the weight? Will she choose Brad the internet hottie or Ben? Will she be happy?
You'll have to read the book to to find out. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, but there was one thing that would occasionally make me want to reach out and slap Green or perhaps her editor. The book goes back and forth from first person narratives to a third person omniscient narrator. At times this was jarring and felt like Green just couldn't make up her mind on which way to go and did both and for some reason her editor didn't make her pick one. Other times, and especially as a got further into the book, this became quite enjoyable. I like getting both perspectives, and the third person narrator was usually quite funny. I usually like having multiple narrators, but it just didn't flow naturally for me in the beginning of this book. If that annoys you this might not be the book for you. Otherwise, it's a good, quick read that will give you some good laughs and perhaps motivate you to get up and exercise and eat a little better.
Have you read any of Jane Green's other books? Any favorites?
Sunday, August 22, 2010
On Mystic Lake
I really love my cats, but sometimes I really don't enjoy being a pet owner. My cats decided they HAD to eat at 5:30 this morning. That's even earlier than I get up during the week. I tried ignoring them, but they sounded like they were breaking the bedroom door down and scratching it so I gave in, then couldn't go back to sleep so I decided to catch up on some blog posts.
I read Kristin Hannah's Firefly Lane last year and loved it so when I saw her On Mystic Lake on sale at The Strand bookstore in NYC in May I picked it up. It's a about a woman who drops her daughter off at the airport for a summer abroad immediately following her high school graduation and when she and her husband get home he promptly tells her he's leaving her for another woman. That's not a spoiler, it's on the back cover and happens on about page 3. Up until that point Annie had a seemingly perfect life and it all comes crashing down on her. She decides to leave LA while her daughter is gone and go back home her small hometown in the Pacific Northwest where she rekindles a romance with a boy from high school.
I read the first half of this book very quickly, on an airplace home from LA actually. At that point I was a fairly captive audience because the other unread books I had with me were more literary and it was very late at night and I couldn't concentrate on those. Once I got home though, the book sat untouched for two weeks. But again, once I picked it back up, I finished it quickly. It's got a nice story and you care about the small town characters. The problem was with Annie. I just didn't identify with her at all. I think most women would though, so take this with a grain of salt.
Annie is completed identified by her husband and daughter. She's lost who she really is and has no life separated from them. I absolutely can't identify with that, but I know that is a common issue for mothers, so this may be a great book for someone going through that. For me, I couldn't understand how she got to that point. I can't fathom losing my identity that way. That's one of the many reasons I don't want kids. This made it hard for me to emphathize with her. I could understand why her husband left, even though he was clearly a jerk and had a lot of other issues himself once we get to know him a little bit better. I'm certainly not saying that he was right to leave her, just that I understand wanting to. I wanted to leave her at several points. I do think a lot of moms would identify with her though, so I don't want to leave the impression that isn't worth reading. It just didn't work well for me. I'm still going to try more of Hannah's books, and I strongly recommend Firefly Lane if you haven't read it.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Speak
I had heard about Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson when it came out, but being an older young adult at the time, thought I was way to mature for it. :) What's interesting is that I probably liked the book more now then I would have then. I think my 17-year-old self wouldn't have been very understanding of why Melinda stays quiet. I can't imagine not telling everything to the cops, my parents, everyone. I would have yelled at her for not standing up for herself. And I think that would have clouded my view of the book. I still feel that way now, but I'm much more understanding than I used to be. I also realize now how young 13 is and how someone of that age wouldn't stand up for themselves, especially if they aren't taught to do so. When you're younger, you tend to assume everyone grew up the same as you did, even though you know that's not true. My family so stressed standing up for yourself that I never thought to do otherwise. Whether it was standing up to second grade teacher about the assignments she gave me (which were the same ones I'd done in first grade) or today standing up to my now former boss and telling her she can't treat people the way she does, I've never had a problem speaking up. When I served on a jury a few years ago in a sexual assault case, I didn't have any problems sending the guy to jail with the maximum sentence. And I was the one to convince the on the fence jurors to do so too. Obviously those examples aren't the same as what happens in the book, and I don't mean to minimize what happens to her. And I've learned that many people aren't taught to stand up for themselves. They're taught only to obey authority, to stay quiet and out of trouble. And since Melinda's parents seem to be the type of people who would rather ignore a problem than solve it, it's no wonder she stays quiet.
I also think I would have been annoyed with Anderson's writing style as a teen. I was not a fan of modernism/post-modernism even back then, and just wrote off anyone who wrote that way at all. Although I'm still not a big fan, I appreciate those styles more now and something like Speak is just fine with me now, and I get that it works well for the story. I think the style probably speaks better to her target audience, I was just weird about things like that.
Overall, I did enjoy Speak, and it's a very quick read.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Ethan Frome
I've owned Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton since college but hadn't read it, despite loving The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. When I read Summer recently for the Classics Circuit, I remembered Ethan Frome and figured it was about time to read it. It's really short and I read it in one day, so I'm not sure why I waited so long to give it a try. However, it's definitely not up to Wharton's usual par in my opinion. I noticed several people seemed to share that opinion during the Circuit. A lot of them attributed that to the book not being set in NYC like most of Wharton's books. Since I enjoyed Summer, which was also not set in NYC, I thought perhaps I would enjoy Ethan Frome as well. But, it just didn't have anything that grabbed me. I'm usually much more attached to Wharton's characters than I was here. I finished this a week ago, and now I can't remember anyone's name except Ethan's. I still remember Lily Bart and Newland Archer even though it's been years since I've read The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, whereas I doubt I'd remember Ethan's name if it wasn't the title!
Also, the book was depressing. Now, I think all of her other books are fairly depressing too, so that's not a deterrent, but since I didn't care about the characters, it was just depressing and boring instead of depressing and moving. I didn't hate or anything, I don't want to make you think that, it just wasn't Wharton's usual quality.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Father Brown
Welcome to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction blog tour hosted by the Classics Circuit. For today's stop, I'm reviewing
Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton. Before I start my review, I want to say that Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is my husband's favorite book, and it's definitely up there on my list too. It's a great mind-tripping well-written mystery. I just want to preface my review with that so I don't steer you away from Chesterton entirely. You should read The Man Who Was Thursday; it's just around 150 pages and it's great.
But Father Brown is not. Too be far, I do see how other people could enjoy this collection of short stories. I know my husband does. But when I read a mystery, I want suspense. I want clues so that I can at least try to find the solution. And I want fun. I didn't get any of that out of Father Brown. Father Brown is very literary. Even thought it's all short stories, half of each story has nothing to do with the mystery and is just more about life in general. I felt like the stories focused more on philosophy and things like how you never know when you're sitting right next to a murderer. The stories are all clever, but I just didn't find them interesting.
I had exactly the same feeling when I read Sherlock Holmes though. I only made it through two Holmes stories before deciding not to force myself to suffer through anymore, so I'm clearly not an expert, but the stories seem fairly similar on some level, and I think that if you enjoy the Holmes stories you would enjoy Father Brown. So I don't want to discourage everyone from reading them, I just want to explain why I didn't really care for them. I want my mysteries to keep me on the edge of my seat. Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown don't do that for me. They may actually be a lot more intelligent and literary reads than the mysteries I prefer, but when I read a mystery it's because I'm in the mood for an escape and I don't want something overly literary. (Now, I didn't really find Sir Conan Doyle's writing to be that great, but he's considered literary and his stories do have a more intelligent focus.) Maybe if I was better prepared going in and not expecting something lighter I would have enjoyed this more. I do want to point out that the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown are quite different though. Holmes is so egotistical, moody, and he overpowers the stories, while Father Brown hovers in the background, quiet, calm, supremely rational.
I did really enjoy this quote though: "It's part of something I've noticed more and more in the modern world...People readily swallow the untested claims of this, that, or the other...It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can't see things as they are." That theme came up quite a lot, that people often accept what others say without thinking about it, yet the question what is right in front of them. If you don't believe in God, you still search for something to feel that void and don't have the moral compass to prevent you from doing things like killing people or stealing or other things for your own benefit. Clearly not everyone who doesn't believe in God does those things, but it's a lot easier to do those things if you don't think there's some sort of eternal punishment awaiting you for doing them. Father Brown also talks a lot about being both a man of faith and a man of science, like Chesterton himself was. He believed that the two worked together, and that common sense makes you belief in God and that if you abandon him you abandon common sense. Although he's not very popular anymore, Wikipedia lists numerous authors who cited him as an influence on them, including C.S. Lewis and Neil Gaiman. Wikipedia also had this quote I found quite entertaining: "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." So, while I didn't enjoy Father Brown as much as I had hoped, I'm still fond of Chesterton in general and hope you give The Man Who Was Thursday a try!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)