Book Review – On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood by Irmgard A. Hunt
Childhood is one of the most tragic casualties of war. Any story of a childhood spent in a war-torn country is going to tug on the heartstrings regardless of which side of which war it was, right? Irmgard A. Hunt puts that assumption to the test in her memoir On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood recounting growing up not just in Hitler’s Germany, but miles away from his headquarters. Knowing what she and we do now about just what Hitler and his Nazi regime were up to, Hunt looks back on her life living in the Third Reich.
The question of how the people of Germany could have let Hitler and the Nazi regime commit the atrocities they did has been asked and studied from many perspectives including the psychological and historical. It has been presented in technical terms that make it sound so easy to prevent from happening again. Rarely is it laid bare in the honest way that Hunt does in On Hitler’s Mountain.
Beginning with the story of her maternal grandparents who met and married as World War I unfolded, Hunt presents the struggling Germany of the 1920’s as reparation payments sent inflation soaring and national morale plummeting. That was the Germany of her mother’s childhood, of her father’s childhood. Hunt paints a portrait of a people financially and emotionally drained whose low self-esteem was preyed upon by a skillful manipulator.
An interesting perspective, Hunt manages to keep herself a step removed, though it isn’t intentional. Unfortunately, having been born the year after Hitler’s elected rise to power, there is much of the history that Hunt was almost too young to appreciate and it’s hard to get past how much hindsight and reflection color the narrative. It felt less like the story of young Irmgard and more the tale of her mother, struggling to provide for her children and make sense of the disparity between what the government had promised her life would be and the everyday life she led.
It’s amazing how much convenience and general indifference of the majority empowered the fanatics until disagreement, let alone resistance, became traitorous. The conflict between the generations and the impact that conversation has on a child are one of the many dynamics presented by Hunt for the reader to consider and explore.
It was actually a bit of a relief to read Hunt’s memoir. She could easily have tried to shift responsibility elsewhere but instead shows just how much guilt was felt by the German people (albeit, briefly at the end but it is there). There will always be those who feel that nothing can be done to explain, that there will never be enough, and who will think that this book is glorifying something terrible. But On Hitler’s Mountain is about a real person who really lived through that atmosphere and she feels that the world has finally reached a place where she can tell her story without feeling shamed into silence.
Overall, Hunt’s memoir is remarkably relatable and it is a first step towards acknowledging a perspective of history that has, if not been glossed over, has at least been approached in such a technical manner that it has become detached in many ways from the historical narrative at large.
Book Review – The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Popular culture has absorbed much of the mythology surrounding Dumas’ Three Musketeers as characters, most notably their signature idiom, “All for one and one for all.” It is funny to realize that that famous line is only used a handful of times in the hundreds of pages Dumas’ first novel in his D’Artagnan trilogy. More surprising is just how well Dumas’ novel stands the test of time.
Not a very popular period of history in today’s historic fiction market, The Three Musketeers enthusiastically presents a romanticized version of life as a member of the swashbuckling King’s Musketeers during the reign of Louis XIII when they were competing with Cardinal Richelieu and his men for the king’s attention and support. The young and intelligent D’Artagnan embarks on a personal mission to become one of his Majesty’s Musketeers and after getting himself into a difficult situation, he proves his abilities and befriends three of the more renowned Musketeers (which only helps his case as he moves through the ranks of the guards to become a Musketeer in his own right).
Outsmarting and outmaneuvering Richelieu’s men at every turn and taking on Milady, the religious figure’s most competent and cunning agent, D’Artagnan and his friends engage the reader’s attention and sympathies. In many ways, they are just as ruthless towards their enemies as the cardinalists they bring down, but Dumas’ romantic style keeps the reader firmly encamped on the side of the Musketeers. Dumas even has both sides in the unspoken battle acknowledge their respect for the shrewd planning of the other (Richelieu’s disappointment that he cannot convince D’Artagnan or his friends to ally themselves to his intentions creeps up on a number of occasions).
With plenty of intrigue, plotting, and racing against time, the pacing and scale of the novel still work for a modern audience. There are a few instances where the narrative digresses into trivialities. This happens most often when the main characters are forced to split up and the circumstances of each are recounted through the time they finally meet up again (perhaps the most tedious digressions involve their always tenuous financial situations).
What struck me most about the difference between the popular images of the book and actually reading the novel is how much the four friends’ lackeys are left out (and how much of a role they play in the course of the novel’s events). Treated as extensions of the Musketeers they serve, Planchet, Grimaud, Mousqueton, and Bazin can be intriguing characters in their own right. I can’t help but wonder if someone has already tackled a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead approach to the four companions. As appealing as the novel already is, I can’t help but think that the lackey’s opinions, untainted by the Musketeers’ perceptions of them, would dial down the fanciful adventure aspects and create more of a comedic tone.
Similarly, my mind wandered to what might have been if Dumas had tackled the equally dubious English court during the reign of Henry VIII (if he could generate such an intricate plot during the reign of Louis XIII, imagine what could he have accomplished with the rich material provided by Tudor England). I look forward to the next installment, Twenty Years Later, often passed over in favor of the conclusion to the trilogy, The Man in the Iron Mask.
Book Review – The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore
Though the first novel in the Lorien Legacies Series, I Am Number Four did well as a novel, the film did not fare so well. This second book in the series, The Power of Six, probably won’t follow its predecessor to the big screen for many reasons. Though it holds a lot of promise for the future of the series as a whole, it sacrifices its own tale for those that will follow it.
I Am Number Four left readers with the main character, John Smith, on the run with his human friend, Sam, and number Six, another member of the Lorien Garde. Running from both the human police and the alien Mogadorian enemies of the Loriens, John and the others work to build their own strengths and skills. Simultaneously in Spain, Marina (Number Seven) is stuck in a religious orphanage where her cépan, Adelina, brought her years before as part of a crisis of faith in their Lorien mission. Struggling without the guidance of her guardian, Marina befriends a younger girl new to the orphanage and helps protect her from the bullying of the older girls.
Switching between John’s narration and Marina’s, The Power of Six spends most of its time cleaning up the messes of I Am Number Four and setting up for the next books in the series. The first novel left on such an open-ended note, it’s easy to see that there probably wasn’t too much of a plan in mind for the rest of the series. Since the first book was finished, the author seems to have sat down and come up with a larger, more detailed plan for the series as a whole.
Unfortunately, that requires fixing some of the elements from that first book that no longer fit the overarching plot. In this case, it makes for a lot of messy exposition with some action sequences that felt forced and sloppy (at least until the novel’s dual climax). Though most of the new characters in The Power of Six are fine and fleshed out, the way that the now unnecessary characters from I Am Number Four are handled just doesn’t seem right, particularly the dismissals of Sarah and Henri.
It can be argued that what was done to Henri’s character was just part of the standard process of taking the revered mentor figure and humanizing him, a regular step in the growth of the student on his own. But everything that was done with Sarah’s character in this second novel was messy. She may not have been much of a fleshed out character, even in I Am Number Four, but that doesn’t mean that she has to be left to fall complete flat and clichéd. Maybe she’ll be back later in the series, but after the way the character was handled in this second piece, I don’t think anyone will care if she does. These two were so central to the first novel that this way of handling them completely undermines almost everything the reader takes from book one.
These characters were only the first in a few “rules” established in I Am Number Four that underwent significant changes during The Power of Six, leaving this second installment weak and directionless in its own right. Even the title, so promising in those first few pages, becomes meaningless by the end of the novel. Providing more direction in the concluding pages, hopefully the third episode in this series will find itself on surer footing with better character development and a better explanation for the changing “rules” of the series’ premise.
Book Review – Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way by Jon Krakauer
In Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson makes reference to the support he and the Central Asia Institute received early on from Jon Krakauer. Only a few years later, Jon Krakauer has come out with a revealing explanation of why he has since withdrawn his support. Beyond a detailed breakdown of just how, when, and where Greg Mortenson lied, Three Cups of Deceit inspires the reader to look a little closer at what’s being done with any money they are inspired to donate.
In a concise and organized manner, Krakauer goes through the different elements of Greg Mortenson’s bestseller, Three Cups of Tea and precisely presents the reality that was carefully veiled and even altered by Mortenson. In a well-organized and methodical manner, Krakauer addresses each element from Greg Mortenson’s self-creation myth through the questionable math behind what is posted on the Central Asia Institute’s website regarding donations and expenses.
In contrast to Mortenson’s own meandering and embellished style, Krakauer’s approach could not be a better example of the polar opposite. Freely citing Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, Krakauer backs up his own claims by providing well-documented excerpts and follow-up interviews with many of the players in Mortenson’s own chart-topping book, a number of whom were displeased with Mortenson’s distorted portrayals of events.
It is easy to be skeptical of Krakauer’s claims. He donated about $75,000 to CAI after being inspired by Mortenson’s heroic and selfless tales. It was after having met with Mortenson on a few occasions and in trying to get information regarding how the donations were being used that Krakauer became uneasy. In doing one of the things that he does best, researching, Krakauer uncovered enough questionable material to withdraw his support from CAI under Mortenson’s leadership and was driven to inform others who had similarly been taken in and donated money in good faith. One could easily imagine that Krakauer’s short book is simply a personal attack on Mortenson.
However, the way that Krakauer presents his findings and his overall message contradict this understandable assumption. There is just too much presented that supports what he claims and it is so flawlessly documented. After having finished his book, some additional information turned up regarding the credibility of one of his interviewees and Krakauer added it to the notes section, leaving it up to the reader to assess how much of the new information affects the interviewee’s credibility. Krakauer maintains that CAI in itself was neither a bad idea nor that its mission should be wholly abandoned. He calls only for a change in its leadership, as Mortenson seems to be acting from a conflict of interests.
Some of the incidents that Krakauer clears up seem, in hindsight, to explain some of what I had simply dismissed as bad writing or difficulties working to blend together the different styles of two “writers.” Perhaps what I took for bad pacing was simply Relin writing around Mortenson’s presentation of what happened and whatever research Relin compiled.
Krakauer doesn’t make excuses for Mortenson and though condemning of Mortenson’s actions, he doesn’t undermine his described goal of helping others through education. Ultimately, what this reader walked away with was a sense of the need to be careful about how and where to give to charity. Being moved by someone’s words or deeds enough to give money to a worthy cause is wonderful but what good is it if that money never actually gets used responsibly for that cause?
The Refined Art of Skipping and Skimming: A Second Look at The Hunger Games Trilogy
“He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming.” – Arthur James Balfour
On the heels of re-reading the entire Harry Potter series in anticipation of the eighth and final film of the franchise, I decided to re-read The Hunger Games Trilogy before the first film hits theaters next March. After waiting months between Catching Fire and Mockingjay, I had devoured the final novel in the span of less than twelve hours. Revisiting the trilogy, my goal was to take my time and really enjoy the intricacies and the planning that clearly went into these three books. I realized that part of what takes me so long the second time around is my tendency to skim.
I do a pretty good job of skipping spoilers and not looking ahead one the first run through. But once I already know what’s going to happen, I have no qualms about skipping ahead. Lying in bed at night reading, I come to the end of a chapter and decide it’s a good place to stop. I flip through a few pages to see how far I am from Event A and start reading through my favorite passages from that scene. The next thing I know, it’s two hours later and I’ve skimmed through the rest of the book. And it isn’t something that happens once. I probably reread each of the books three times over.
I must say that, as was the case with the Harry Potter series, reading entire trilogy in close succession shows just how much planning went into the trilogy as a whole. It isn’t just a series where the first was popular so Suzanne Collins wrote two more. Those series where everything is in place from the beginning continue to prove the best.
While little has changed with my high regard for this trilogy, a number of the elements that bothered me about Mockingjay bothered me less this time. I latched on to things this time around that I passed over the first time because it had been too long since I’d read Catching Fire. Images and characters had lost the sharpness, details faded. With all of them fresh in my mind this time, it helped me to enjoy the series’ conclusion and appreciate it that much more.
Beyond enhancing my appreciation, re-reading has made me more excited for the upcoming movie (I may even read The Hunger Games again closer to its actual release).
Book Review – North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South often reminded me of one of my all-time favorite novels, Pride and Prejudice. At the same time, Gaskell did something more with her novel than Austen’s. North and South is more than just a novel of manners and romance. The depictions of an industrialized manufacturing town in England highlight the difficult conditions of their working class citizens but also managed to judiciously portray the mill owners as humans with their own reasonable concerns for their businesses. Gaskell manages to represent both sides without resorting to glorifying or demonizing either side at the expense of the other.
Margaret Hale thought she would simply return home to her father’s parsonage at Helstone after her cousin’s marriage. But after just a short while back at home, her father moves the family from the quiet countryside to the bustling manufacturing town of Milton. Margaret must adjust her expectations and overcome her own prejudices as she sees firsthand the interdependent relationship between the mill owners and their workers. Able to sympathize with both sides, the relationships Margaret develops with mill-owner John Thornton and the family of Nicholas Higgins, one of the leaders of the local mill workers’ union, help Margaret to cope with the numerous personal tragedies she experiences throughout the course of the novel.
It may sound odd that I couldn’t help recalling Pride and Prejudice as I read this novel, which is far more serious and was designed to address relevant social issues. The exchanges between Margaret and Mr. Thornton may not have the same charming wit as those provided by Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, but they have the same quick paced give and take that originate in divergent opinions and that later grow to mutual respect.
Darker and deeper characters and subjects make Gaskell’s writing an endearing and enduring combination that somehow mixes the best of Austen with Dickens. Jumping to mind almost as frequently as Austen, were the descriptions and social awareness present in Dickens’ novels. The depiction of the mills and working conditions were as vivid as any of Dickens’ passages describing the grime of London and the sweat of those hard at work for trivial wages.
North and South has a certain choppiness that disrupts the novel’s flow, perhaps a symptom of its having been published in installments. Though the issues presented by Gaskell are captivating, much of the plot itself feels sloppy. Death runs rampant with plenty of foreshadowing but little reason. It could have been done to demonstrate universality between the characters, but it felt more like a simple solution to keep things moving towards the final scenes Gaskell had in mind. After reading and enjoying Wives and Daughters so much, I wasn’t expecting something so depressing as this novel could become, though an effort was made to balance those tragic moments with optimism for the futures of the remaining characters.
Written as skillfully as the unfinished Wives and Daughters, Gaskell’s North and South is a darker and more politically charged novel that manages to survive its own tedious tendencies to leave the reader with a moderately hopeful, bittersweet, but still happy ending.
Study Break
“The proper study of mankind is books.” – Aldous Huxley
In spite of my best efforts to keep myself to a regular reading and posting schedule, I am staring down a stretch of weeks where my free time will be severely limited. With graduate school applications and the holidays on the horizon, I will need to take a study break from my posting schedule. I still plan to read as much as time allows and will work on writing when I can, I just don’t know when exactly I’ll get the chance to post anything.
Book Review – The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
It is easy to see why Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale is popular. It appeals to the reader’s curiosity for the sensational. As readable as this novel proves to be, it shows a number of weak points, mainly around the narrator. Somehow, Setterfield managed to make this book a little over-the-top but, remarkably, it was done without the usual reliance of clichés.
When one of the world’s most famous contemporary novelists decides to finally stop telling stories and divulge her true life’s story, she turns to an obscure sometimes-biographer and full-time bibliophile (who, ironically, had never read any of this famous writer’s novels). Notorious for evading personal questions and spinning stories for inquisitive reporters, Vida Winter, finally decides the time has come for her personal history to be told. The path to her choosing Margaret Lea involves a little leap but it isn’t too great a strain to pull off.
With only a few ground rules, including no questions and an understanding that the tale will be told in order, Margaret takes up at Miss Winter’s house, listening during the mornings, transcribing in the afternoon, and sleeplessly pacing during the night. Haunted by more than just the scandalous and misleading tale that Miss Winter is telling, Margaret is a difficult narrator. The way that she describes her love affair with books is something I find I can completely identify with. Where her tendency to over-describe could push the limits of my patience at times, when it came to the books I found it less annoying.
The main participants in Miss Winter’s biographical tales are compelling, but there could have been more character development. I’m not sure that deeper characters would have been enough to counterbalance the mildly ridiculous storyline they have been placed in, but it would have gone great lengths to reduce the tacky tinge of the plot. Similarly, the sub-plot (if it is even developed enough to call it a sub-plot) about Margaret’s family dynamics is so underdeveloped as to be largely irrelevant to the larger picture. It is in the forefront trying to carry too much of the story for its frail state.
As a narrator, Margaret fell flat for me but it does not matter as the form in which the novel is presented means that Margaret’s input is limited to editorialized comments with the bulk actually being told by Vida Winter. I cannot decide if this is an excellent example of keeping in character (Miss Winter is supposed to be the popular novelist while Margaret is the obscure and only occasional academic writer). Part of me almost regrets that more of the novel does not follow Miss Winter’s rules for telling the tale to Margaret.
The Thirteenth Tale is an engaging novel but it did not capture this reader’s attention too far beyond completing the final pages. It had a few unexpected twists but because of the novel’s scandalous tone throughout, the shocking revelations cannot successfully carry their intended weight, giving the conclusion a commonplace feel. Considering the fictitious notoriety of Miss Winter, I was hoping for a more memorable ending. Though it failed to meet my grander expectations, The Thirteenth Tale remained readable and was well paced (it didn’t fall into dangerously dull narrative lulls) and was okay on the whole.
Flash Fiction – The Hike
The mountain stood its ground as Roger pulled his backpack from the trunk of his compact car. There was a weather-beaten map of the trails laminated on a corkboard next to the entrance of the main trail. The ink marking the map had faded in the blazing light of many setting suns and some of the trails were difficult to discern.
Roger squinted into the light of the sun as it came up over the ridge of the mountain’s summit. He reached out and took one of the maps from a protective cubby built into the display. He never took his eyes away from the summit’s crag as he reached behind himself to tuck the pamphlet into one of the pack’s pockets. There was one final adjustment to the shoulder straps and he was heading up the trail marked by vibrant green circles the size of his palm that were spray-painted on the trunks of trees every ten yards or so.
Usually one of Roger’s buddies or at the very least his dog would join him on his hike. But as luck would have it, one guy had to work, two were on vacation, a fourth had a family thing going on, and Roger’s dog, though willing, was prevented by the veterinarian’s orders and the large plastic cone encircling his head.
So Roger set off up the trail alone, giving the tree a high five on its bright green marker as he passed. Instinctively he looked back over his shoulder only to find that for once, no one was trailing behind. Even with no one to see, Roger shrugged his shoulders, readjusted his backpack because he had just dislodged it from a comfortable position, and continued up the mountain. With no one following but a distracted squirrel and a few burrowing bugs, Roger had no one to say anything about the map that had fallen from his pack as he shifted and jostled it.
Roger, used to having someone moving at a slower pace, pushed himself rapidly along the trail, paying little attention to the forks he chose along the way. Of course, he believed he had a map to reference later when he finally took pause to check. But along with willfully losing his way, he lost his regular references for time. He only slowed down enough to pull out his water bottle from time to time. Until he began to realize he was lost on the side of the mountain.
The green stains transformed to yellow ones before disappearing when he wasn’t paying attention. He finally slowed enough to reach for his map doing an amazing though unappreciated impression of his dog chasing its tail. Pulling the bag from his back, he fought an impulse to hurl it against a conveniently placed tree upon finding the map absent. He looked up towards the peak, backlit by the sun. It was frowned upon to go off the beaten path but since he was already off of it… why not?
Book Review – Naked Heat by Richard Castle
The overlap between the fictional world of ABC’s Castle and the world-within-a-world created by the second tie-in novel, Naked Heat, takes the viewer’s enjoyment to another level while leaving those who are not fans of the show with a solid follow-up to Heat Wave. With plenty of inside jokes just for the fans, Naked Heat leaves readers (and Castle fans) with confidence that the series will continue to entertain (both on the screen and on the page).
Though Heat Wave left things on a positive note between Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook, in the interim between novels, their fledgling romance hit a bump and they were thrown in separate directions. Of course, as is the case in every piece of fiction set in one of the world’s largest cities, life tosses them back together in the form of another murder investigation. Rook trades tagging along with gossip columnist Cassidy Towne for another ride-along with an irritated Detective Heat.
You would think that it would be easier to keep up with a corpse, however Towne’s body is two steps ahead of them just as her columns and sources were always two steps ahead of her subjects. Chasing down a body and a long list of celebrities shows both Heat and Rook that there’s a lot of unfinished business between them but they will have to wait for the case to be over before they will have a chance to deal with their own issues.
It surprised me that it still took a while for the parallels between the characters of book and the show to fade given that I had previously read Heat Wave (although that was several months ago now). There were also quite a few more instances where the book called to mind scenes in the show where elements of the novel, then “in progress,” were mentioned (specifically a scene involving how to escape a chair to which someone is duct taped).
Even with all of the references between the show and novel, after a certain point, they do fade into the background as the action-packed story takes over. There may be a few too many elements twisting around in the plot and getting tangled together, but that is what can make this genre so much fun. It is a weird combination of hoaky one-liners and a predictable, albeit complicated, plot that turn this into an enjoyable novel. The reader is not too concerned with figuring out the plot (and there are times when it twists around on itself so hard it could pull a muscle), so they are free to relax and experience the well-plotted pace that comes with the experience of writing for television.
The character development within the novel is hardly worth mentioning. But then, the characters of the novel are not the only characters at hand. The character of Richard Castle is given more depth as the novel shows insight into the “author’s” mind. It may not register for those who are not fans, but it wouldn’t distract from their enjoyment either. Overall, the novel was just as much fun as watching an episode and actually feels like it could have been pieced together from passed-over scripts.
Book Review – Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Every culture has its traditions and rituals, few running as deeply as those involving the geisha in Japanese culture. Arthur Golden’s novel, Memoirs of a Geisha works to dispel many of the misconceptions held by his primarily Western audience. Golden goes beyond simply clarifying exactly what a geisha does and manages to gradually familiarize the readers with the vocabulary and the customs, making the immersion into the world he creates a relaxed and comfortable one. That level of comfort helps to enhance the story and its characters.
Sayuri, one of the most famous and in-demand geisha from the Gion section of Kyoto, recants the story of her life with the largest portion of it falling in the years from nine to eighteen as she underwent the extensive transformation from the youngest daughter of a poor rural fisherman to one of the most successful geisha of her time. Her fellow geishas and the men they entertain form a colorful and cunning supporting cast. Chiyo, as Sayuri was known before the selection of her geisha name, learns quickly that none of them can be underestimated and the reader learns not to underestimate Sayuri either.
Sayuri’s difficult rise to prominence in Gion is set against the deteriorating conditions of Japan as the years leading up to World War II take their toll on the country and slowly begin to creep into the seemingly separate world occupied by the famous geisha districts. Reference is made to the increasingly bleak conditions faced by the average Japanese citizen as the war approaches, but the reader, like Sayuri, spends most of the time in Gion where the illusion of stability holds out the longest.
The voice of the History Major in my head piped up every once in a while to lament that more time wasn’t spent elaborating on what was happening to cause those changes and that after such a drawn out telling of Sayuri’s teen years as she fought to become a geisha, the five years of the war passed in little more than one chapter. But that voice was quickly silenced by another, one which appreciates the aesthetics that such brevity creates. Since it is Memoirs of a Geisha, it does make some sense for the book to only lightly touch upon that time when circumstances caused her to temporarily resign that identity.
What I appreciate most about the novel is its subtlety. The path of the plot seems predictable, but there are elements that help to keep the reader in doubt as to just where Sayuri will be at the end of the novel and what that path looks like. The characters play the greatest role in keeping the reader guessing. The culture and the training of a geisha especially prepare the characters for a lifetime of concealing one’s true intentions. Even greater than Golden’s ability to agreeably educate the reader in the complexities of the culture is his faithful and unflinching portrayal of these multifaceted characters. From the petty jealousies of Hatsumomo, bent on the destruction of Sayuri’s career even before it can start to the inexplicable empathy of the Chairman towards an upset young girl.
Book Review – The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus by Joshua Kendall
I have lists of all the books I have read since the fifth grade and I save all my ticket stubs from the movies. But I haven’t made lists of words (at least, not yet). When The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus came across my desk, I was immediately drawn to the tale. Having always considered the Thesaurus to be a reference text, I’d never really thought about how it came to be or who wrote it or that it could be taken in any way other than referential. Joshua Kendall shows the evolution of Roget’s Thesaurus and that it was created out of a man’s need to keep hold of his sense of self through a life filled with trial and tragedy.
Peter Mark Roget hardly knew a time when some form of hardship failed to touch his life. From losing his father at age two to growing up under the suffocating influence of a self-centered mother with family history of mental instability, Roget used lists and organization to maintain a sense of control in his life.
Kendall’s examination goes beyond just the life of Roget. He also includes a lot of information about Roget’s also famous uncle, Sir Samuel Romilly (in fact, there were moments when it sometimes felt like the book had a dual subject). Though deviating from his main focus, this and his other deviations into the lives of those around Roget help to vary what could easily have been a tedious tale. Kendall mentions that Roget had difficulties connecting and empathizing with those around him. The little glimpses into their personal histories feel like Kendall’s attempt to make up for his subject’s weaknesses (there are a number of anecdotes that show Roget to be more than simply removed but flat out insensitive).
The writing style is straightforward and makes for easy reading though the organization leaves something to be desired. There were many moments where I chuckled over the irony of this book about a man obsessed with organization and classification jumping back and forth in time so much. It isn’t enough to make the reader dizzy or confused, but I think Roget would have had a few things to say (though I do think he would have appreciated Kendall’s use of passages from his Thesaurus at the beginnings of each chapter).
What I love about biographies is the glimpse that you get of another time. It’s different from just reading a history book because of the human context they provide. For me, the most interesting part of the book had nothing to do with the Thesaurus. The difficulties faced by British citizens abroad as Napoleon rose to power and took over after the French Revolution. There’s always such a focus on the French Revolution itself and then it seems like everything jumps to when Napoleon was in power and at war. It was one of the few moments with genuine suspense (and it’s a period of history I might look into further).
Ultimately, the creation of his Thesaurus is understated in the text but it hardly matters. What wins the reader over is that Roget’s creation was a form of therapy. Organizing words and concepts from the world around him into comprehensive lists helped Roget to cope with the depression that crippled so many in his family.
Flash Fiction – Battlefields 1
Standing at the right angle, the early morning mist and tree limbs disguise the wires of the power-lines and the poles might be trees. The hill dips low enough to hide the road when standing closer to the line of trees. Thunder from a far-off storm that will not strike the field for another several hours, rumbles faintly like approaching cannon-fire.
A strange calm settles on the plain as longer silences separate the birds’ calls to one another. All that can be heard is the low hum of the insects hidden among the whistling grasses. The clouds become a slightly brighter shade of gray, which must mean that the sun must have risen somewhere. The pools of mist thin but remain in the air making it thick with humidity. For a few moments, the shadows at the edges of the woods appear to be moving but whatever is hiding remains just out of sight.
Beads of sweat form along the nape of the neck, crawling their way down the spine before being absorbed by that fabric of our lives and joining skin to clothing in a sticky and uncomfortable mess.
Gravel jostles in the parking lot and the slamming of car doors rattles the illusion. A last sweep of the eyes along the horizon to try to preserve the impression halts on the silhouette of a man atop his horse, forever watching the ground where his men fought and fell.
He remains alert and stoic even when the landscape becomes peppered with the bright colors of locals in their jogging outfits with their decorated canines tethered to their sides and of tourists in their mass-produced, silk-screen gift shop t-shirts, churned out in a cheap steady stream and inversely marked up for sale. Instead of trumpets and drums calling the troops into formation and urging them on, an occasional car’s horn will reach his deaf, sculpted ears. Instead of the blaze of musket fire aimed at a foe, the gaudy flash of a camera in the hands of an over-eager visitor illuminates the hollows.
At regular intervals, a group of sightseers is forced into a weak imitation of what a formation should be and their guide leads them off down the hill to confront the past. The not-so-sudden clash overhead manages to startle the distracted travellers and the steadily building barrage of water sends them seeking cover where they can.
From his perch just outside the protection of the tree line, the vigilant rider shows no weakness, no surprise, only calm as the water washes the dust from his hat, from the stone creases of his uniform, and from the finely wrought mane of his horse. The modern chatter cannot be heard through the rain beating down on the over-heated grass and the struggling leaves. The echoes of an antiquated battle roll through the hills, wrestling with the thunder and with the stone man on his stone horse intensely scrutinizing the scene.
Book Review – The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
There are some writers whose famous lives can intimidate readers. For a long time, Virginia Woolf has been one of those writers to me. Perhaps this stems from the extensive examination and discussion in class when we read The Hours. There is a reason for the reverence but, as usual, no reason to have been intimidated. Woolf examines interpersonal relationships with great depth while establishing a rapport with the reader that progresses from formal to familiar and comfortable, not at all the daunting feat I’d built it up to be in my mind.
One of Woolf’s earliest novels, The Voyage Out follows the young and naïve Rachel Vinrace as she travels with her uncle and aunt to South America for a holiday. After a rough patch on her father’s ship and some unexpected visitors (a primitive version of Woolf’s most recognizable Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway and her husband Richard), Rachel finds a friend in her aunt, Helen Ambrose. Helen talks Rachel into staying with them at the villa rather than continue up the Amazon with her father, a decision that throws the inexperienced Rachel into the company of the dozens of other Englishmen and women visiting as well.
At first I was a little puzzled by Woolf’s decision to set the novel in South America when so many of the characters are English, but after a greater consideration of what Woolf is examining, what conclusions she draws, a non-European setting underscores what she is saying. Though there are those who would consider The Voyage Out to be a romance of sorts, what strikes me most about the book is the way Woolf examines intimacy. She emphasizes both the exhilarating freedom and terrifying loneliness that stem from the idea that, no matter how much we try to share about ourselves, even with those we love, we can never fully know one another.
The novel’s main couple find, even in their initial happiness, that there will come a time when the independence of their private thoughts will come between them, that it has already come between them on several occasions and they can only wonder what it will do to them in time. A sense of bittersweet peace comes with the tragic climax as they realize that they will never have to test the happiness they found and risk losing it.
The idea was a little depressing initially (actually, my first thought was whether I was reading too much into it because I already know that Virginia Woolf would one day commit suicide or if a modern psychologist would look at it as some kind of warning sign; it is not the only incident where characters romanticize the morbid but there are just as many characters who reject such thoughts vehemently). After finishing the last few chapters, however, I realized that it’s just a slightly darker side to an idea that I have myself examined in my short stories (I just take a more light-hearted and ambiguous approach in “Second Guessing”).
As engaging as I found the debate regarding the circumstances and perceptions of intimacy especially those between men and women, it would have been difficult to follow and enjoy if not for Woolf’s appealing prose and witty dialogue. Even the pretentious and misunderstood St. John Hirst grows on the reader through his discussions with the sympathetic and patient Helen. Woolf’s approach to introducing the myriad of characters is encouraging as she uses primarily last or full names until a level of familiarity has been established, not just between the traveling strangers but with the reader as well.
Melancholy and thought provoking, Virginia Woolf shows with The Voyage Out that it isn’t necessary to show off to a reader that your writing is deep and profound. Such pretensions can put a reader in a less receptive mindset. Instead, Woolf captures in her group of traveling strangers the social settings and interactions that lead to those moments of individual insight and the intimate occasions when two or three people strike upon such philosophical ideas naturally. There is a sense of normalcy to her characters that readers can identify with and which allows her messages to linger.
Book Review – Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
When I find I’m forcing myself to read a book rather than actively enjoying it, I do my best to stick it out and finish it. I don’t feel that anyone can truly judge a book unless they have finished it. Often times, it remains painful and the only satisfaction is with myself for not having given up. Other times, I’m glad to have pushed through it because I am surprised. Such was the case for Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.
Tess is the unfortunate eldest daughter of John Durbyfield who one day learns he is most likely one of the last descendants of the old and formerly honorable D’Urberville line. When his pretensions send him looking for connections with those he thinks are related, he sends young and beautiful Tess out to seek what she can on their behalf. Tragically, nineteenth century England proves to be a dangerous place for one so young and beautiful and Tess attracts trouble and returns home in disgrace.
After getting by such a trying and shameful time, Tess once again leaves home and tries to leave her past with it as she finds seasonal work as a milkmaid. She finds more than just work as she draws the attentions of Mr. Angel Clare, the son of a prominent preacher. But however much Tess regrets her past, she will not let herself forget it no matter how much it might make her miserable.
For the first third of the novel, I found myself considering how many other tales of fallen women have been written and how many were written during the nineteenth century. What kept jumping to my mind were the contrasting tales of Tess Durbyfield and Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter fame. Both are tales written by men about the social conditions of women. Though they were written a few decades apart and take place during different centuries on different continents, both highlight the injustice of societies where women are blamed and punished socially for an act of both the sexes.
Where I ran into trouble and even the promise of a good analytical comparison failed to keep my attention focused was after Tess revealed her history to Angel. I have a difficult time reasoning away my indignation over such blatant hypocrisy especially when it is followed by extravagant and drawn out displays of stubbornness, self-pity and self-punishment. She not only refuses to defend herself against anything he says, she goes further in her self-reproach bringing it to the ridiculous.
Though Tess’ attitude was enough to make me nauseous, I was encouraged by the fact that the omniscient narrator’s tone was more formal but almost as disgusted with her view of her circumstances as I was. This carried me through the dreary hundred or so pages of whining until Alec D’Urberville’s return when Tess once again became a character I found engaging. Her refusal to speak up for herself ceases when confronted by her chief tormentor and restores a sense of life to her character. The novel’s final two parts are the most engaging and surprising with an ending that had me raising my eyebrows. I don’t necessarily think it was the right way to end the book, but at least it was unexpected and entertaining rather than just plain depressing (though I’m sure there are many who truly sympathize with Tess and would consider it a sincerely depressing conclusion).
Book Review – Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara
After having been so horribly disappointed with The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, I needed to read a piece of historic fiction that I knew would be good and Jeff Shaara’s Gods and Generals did not disappoint. A tribute and prequel to his father’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Killer Angels chronicling the three day Battle of Gettysburg, Gods and Generals focuses on some of those same generals in the few years preceding Gettysburg.
Starting in November 1858 and ending on the eve of Gettysburg, Shaara’s novel switches perspective between Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson who would lead the Confederacy and Winfield Scott Hancock and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who would rise to help lead the Federal army. Shaara’s novel focuses a great deal on the behind the scenes planning on both sides of the battlefield and less on the events of the battles (with the exception of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville in the latter half of the novel).
The beginning of the novel is slow-moving and methodical. It felt like Shaara had a difficult time deciding just how and where to focus. He could have shown the first battle of Manassas from Jackson’s perspective (it is, after all, the battle where he earned the nickname “Stonewall”). But instead he mentioned it through Lee who was stuck in Richmond, sifting through the red tape of organizing and supplying the Confederate army while Joe Johnston still held official command. The battle of Shiloh is casually mentioned. Antietam is briefly shown but mostly from Chamberlain’s vantage point with his unit of reserves who only saw the drifting smoke of battle but were behind a hill and didn’t see any action. There is little mention of anything that was happening away from the Virginia front.
At times, this approach felt like a missed opportunity on Shaara’s part (especially after the skill he demonstrated with Hancock’s maneuver at Williamsburg early on; his ability to clearly and effectively narrate the more difficult tactical movements is exhilarating and the continued use of diagrams and maps that were used in The Killer Angels remains a useful supplement). It seems to fit since missed opportunities are what Shaara focuses on for most of the novel, particularly the many retreats of the Union army and the frustrations this caused to less hesitant commanders like Hankcock. I knew that the Union had changed their lead commander several times, but I did not realize or remember that it had happened so many times. Shaara doesn’t leave Lee and the Confederacy out of the line of fire when it comes to chances slipping through powerful fingers.
Knowing that Gettysburg is coming, the focus of the end of the novel is Jackson’s role in Lee’s army and his demise in the days following the battle at Chancellorsville. Shaara is at his best as he captures the tensions of battle and the chess-like precision of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and there are moments when I could faintly hear the voice of David Muccullough narrating. I mainly wish that he had chosen to turn these talents to either of the battles at Manassas because it is the only battlefield I have visited (in fact, that was where I purchased my copy of Gods and Generals). Having walked those historic hills enhanced my appreciation of what took place there and of Shaara’s nuanced novel.
There is only one choice that Shaara made that causes me to pause. Aside from a brief glimpse of an unhappy Chamberlain in the third chapter, he is largely absent from the first half of the book. In fact, I think that the only reason Chamberlain is in the novel at all is because of the role he plays at Gettysburg and, consequently, in The Killer Angels. His only occasional perspective does offer a glimpse at an inexperienced officer, someone who was given a high rank in the military due to necessity and prestige rather than experience. However, with all the time spent away from the famous battlefields and near the battlefields but not actually watching the fighting on those battlefields, much of the time spent with Chamberlain feels like missed opportunities.
Now I’m going to let my inner history nerd show and start planning a trip to Gettysburg while watching Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary (again) and skimming through The Killer Angels (for the third time) before diving into the last novel in the unofficial Shaara Civil War trilogy, The Last Full Measure.
Book Review – American Gods by Neil Gaiman
What would Zeus be if instead of sitting atop Mount Olympus with his lightning bolt he struggled to keep his Greek restaurant at the base of Mount Washington afloat? What would Isis be if she walked the banks of the Mississippi instead of the banks of the Nile? They would be right at home among the other struggling American Gods of Neil Gaiman’s novel, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. An interesting interpretation of some recognizable deities from a variety of pantheons, Gaiman’s American Gods juggles several plotlines without losing the reader’s interest though it does at times stretch the reader’s ability to organize and remember the influx of information.
The novel focuses mostly on its protagonist, Shadow, who is released from prison a few days early upon the tragic death of his wife, Laura. With Laura dead, he has nothing left to hold him to his former home so when a mysterious man calling himself Wednesday hires him as a sort of bodyguard, Shadow shrugs his shoulders and goes. It does not take long for Shadow to see behind the curtain as Wednesday brings him to a number of the older, floundering gods seeking their assistance for an unavoidable battle that’s brewing with the younger gods of the current technologically advanced society and culture.
There are side stories involving Shadow’s dead-but-still-around wife and the mysterious disappearances of children in the small town where he lives in hiding under an assumed name between gigs for Wednesday. Diverging completely from the main story lines are interludes giving the background of some of the gods and/or details of their existences in America today. Some of these deities pop up again as Wednesday and Shadow plead their case. They provide a lot of background for Gaiman’s whole concept of how these gods came to the country and what they do in order to exist as well as functioning as pauses from the main storylines.
American Gods has so many elements, many of them supernatural, it is hard to appropriately describe any of them. The same goes for the many-faceted characters. The gods have as many sides to their personalities as the people who have believed in them over the years (or fed their needs when straightforward belief failed to be enough). Perhaps the most unexpectedly engaging character is that of Shadow’s dead-but-still-around wife, Laura.
Based on the information about her that Shadow gives before the reader is introduced to her, dying turned off any filters she had for her speech and behavior. Her honesty is brutal and refreshing, especially for the reader who is probably not as trusting as Shadow proves to be. Laura’s observation that as much as she loved Shadow, she never felt that he was really alive, proves to be one of the biggest influences on his character as the story progresses.
The magic of American Gods lies not in it’s clever and surprising plots, but in the way it forces the reader to examine the role of the divine through history and its reflection of us, particularly in the present. The gods of the novel are at the mercy of the people, their tastes, their whims, and their values. Desperate gods are just as dangerous as desperate humans though they can prove to be just as susceptible too.
Book Review – The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Despite a bewitching subject matter and modern approach, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe is riddled with clichés and lacks consistency. This debut novel tells the tale of a graduate student splitting her summer between conducting research for her dissertation and cleaning up the run-down house of her late grandmother. The work on the house slows as Connie’s research sets her on the trail of a text that could change the world’s understanding of a dark chapter in American Colonial history – the Salem Witch Trials. With her advisor pressuring her to find the book, Connie’s discoveries turn into discoveries about herself, her family’s history, and her own abilities.
Clichés abound throughout the novel, though none so prominently as tragic and sudden harm befalling the menfolk of the women possessing “the gift.” Each time this trend was hinted at, my mind flashed to the movie Practical Magic (in my opinion it worked better for the film). But clichés can be overlooked when other aspects add balance to the narrative. Howe failed to achieve that balance as glaring inconsistencies and illogicalities frustrated this reader and were compounded by an admitted altering of history.
The main narrative following Connie’s search for Deliverance Dane’s mysterious book is broken up with glimpses into Deliverance’s life and those of her descendants. In the first part of the novel, these dips into the past follow the trail of the book in pace with Connie’s search. In the novel’s second half, rather than continue with this interesting approach, Howe returned to Deliverance and placed her in the heart of the witch trials, put her on trial, and hanged her with one of the earliest and most famous groups of the accused (in reality, she was not from Salem, she was one of the later accused, but she was never tried, let alone hanged). In an afterword, Howe explains the exact changes that she made to history, and for that I give her credit. These later narrative jumps occur with greater frequency, becoming a distraction from Connie’s storyline and making it unclear where the focus of the novel lies. I think she would have done better to keep the trials out of the main narrative and examine their legacy rather than using them because they are a source of inherent tension and drama.
This change to history only makes other aspects of the plot shakier, especially those circumstances designed to set up the plot. Connie finds the name Deliverance Dane while examining the contents of her grandmother’s house but the name means nothing to her and she isn’t initially convinced that it is a name at all. But with the changes to Deliverance’s personal history made by Howe, there is no reason that a Harvard graduate student of Colonial New England who extensively studied for PhD candidacy exams (one of the first things the reader learns about Connie) shouldn’t recognize the name someone hanged during the hysteria of 1692. The argument that one of the many accused went undocumented is vaguely plausible, but someone as close to the events as Howe specifically places Dane goes beyond the believable. It is one of many misguided illogicalities that loosely hold this novel together.
What bothered me most about this book was not the weakly explained alterations to history nor the hokey and clichéd attempts to inject real magic into the Salem Trials’ legacy (both of which struck me as a little insensitive and Howe’s explanation that her own ancestors were among those accused does not make those differences any easier to swallow). What I found to be the greatest distraction was her haphazard Boston accent. Having lived an hour from the city my whole life, reading Howe’s presentation of it had me rolling my eyes. Capturing linguistic expression is never a simple formula. A Boston accent is far more complex and subtle than replacing all “R”s with “ah.” Vowels are dropped in some places leaving consonants to run together and those “R”s that are dropped get glued on to other words so they don’t go unused. It might not be noticeable to those unfamiliar with the patterns, but calls attention to it in ways that don’t make sense. Finding Deliverance’s daughter Mercy under the name Marcy in historic records makes enough sense for a less literate society. There is no reason to try to blame it on an accent that would have evolved in three hundred years anyway. Bostonians would not pronounce Mercy as “Mahcy” as Howe does consistently. The “er” combination would be lower and become something closer to “Muhcy.” The accent is also applied to characters inconsistently and the lack of colloquialisms further remove the dialogue from authenticity.
For those whose interest was piqued by the research that went into tracking Deliverance’s physic book, The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr illustrates the process in a clearer and more efficient way (perhaps because it is a true tale) while those interested in the Salem Witch trials and beyond would probably do better to try Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Godbeer (a short work of non-fiction that addresses the Salem hysteria in contrast with a simultaneous witch trial in Connecticut). The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is one Barnes & Noble Recommends book that I would recommend leaving on the shelf.
Book Review – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go could easily have been just another formulaic, sentimental story about a lifelong friendship and the way it grew and changed from childhood through the rough teen years and into a reflective adulthood. Kazuo Ishiguro, however, added another layer to his tale of Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, a layer that diverted his novel from the maudlin path and lead it into the socially conscious and poignant realm it inhabits instead.
The novel is comprised of carer Kathy’s reminiscences over her childhood at Hailsham where Ruth was her best friend and where she always kept an eye on Tommy who sometimes had a difficult time fitting in. Hailsham, which at first appears to be some sort of boarding school, turns out to be a special facility where clones are raised for the purpose of repetitive and sacrificial organ donation upon reaching adulthood. The students are vaguely aware of the fate that awaits them but as Kathy points out several times, they are told without being told.
With a format reminiscent of a memoir, the reader’s awareness of the alternate reality in which the novel takes place builds slowly, revealed in a similar fashion to the way the students were told without being told. This deliberately paced disclosure encourages the reader to see the relatability of the novel’s setting before turning the tables. Injecting such an unsettling and plausible difference into the book causes the reader to re-examine their perceptions of characters and events as well as just how close we are to our world becoming the one on the page.
Even with the changed perspective offered with fuller knowledge of the world they in habit and their positions in it, I found the characters and events either annoyingly predictable or just plain aggravating. The relationships within the trio, particularly between Ruth and Tommy, never manage to feel completely natural. Of course, their relationships must presumably be this way for the full effect of their slightly altered world to be felt by the reader.
Kathy has the benefit, being the narrator, of analyzing her own past actions as she relates them to the reader. This allows her to highlight her reasoning at the time and to demonstrate how it has changed since those days of her childhood making her the most rounded of the characters. Her insights into her two friends, even with hindsight allowing her to rationalize their actions, are limited and I think this might be why they fell flat to me.
I can’t decide if it’s the character of Ruth that bothers me or if it’s just the way that she constantly manipulates Kathy (it could also be the way that Kathy allows herself to be manipulated). More often than not, Kathy knows exactly what Ruth is up to, and she lets it go, even when it makes her miserable. Every time she has the bratty Ruth cornered, she either makes a mistake and they call a truce or she backs down.
Tommy’s character sometimes feels as though he has no will of his own, swinging from the moody boy that everyone except Kathy picks on to suddenly cool enough for someone as popular as Ruth to date. The only time he gives the impression of being a real character is, fittingly, in the presence of Kathy. It is this subtle difference in his behavior and the well-laid clone/donation subplot that kept this novel from becoming a caricature.
Flash Fiction – Joseph
“Joseph!”
Ten heads in line dropped a little, from aggravation, from disappointment, from frustration, from annoyance. There were a few chuckles but only enough to cover the harsh whispers.
“Joseph, stop that! You’re going to break something and hurt yourself. Go stand with your father.”
But the metallic clanging didn’t stop.
“Honey! Honey, will you please watch Joseph. I’ve got to change the baby.” As if to back up its mother’s pleas, the baby began quietly whimpering before deciding it was up to the task of competing with Joseph.
“Honey!” she shouted at a man standing towards the back of the line resembling an overburdened coat-rack reading through the paperwork that would be necessary when the position at the front of the line was finally achieved.
“Yeah, Babe? Right, go ahead. Joseph, come here and stand with Daddy.”
The metallic clanging stopped but was soon replaced with the nails-on-a-chalkboard screeching of hinge in dire need of grease as Joseph caught hold of a door handle and used the little weight he had to swing the tired door slowly back and forth.
“Joseph,” his mother hissed over the gradually increasing volume of the distraught infant strapped across her chest. Throwing her large purse over the head of her husband so that he listed to one side, she strode off to where Joseph’s feet hovered inches above the floor. Her voice became gentler but the crying baby kept her volume at an easily overheard level. “Joseph, do you want to stand here with Daddy or do you want to come to the bathroom with Mommy?”
No one heard Joseph’s response. Apparently speaking was the only thing he could do quietly.
“Honey!” she called across to her waiting husband. “Joseph’s coming to stand with you while I go change the baby.” As she stood she gave Joseph a little push towards the line before spinning around, momentarily startling the baby into a quiet lull that lasted until she paused to open the bathroom door. Then the infant’s wails were magnified and multiplied as they echoed off the walls of the long and empty bathroom.
Joseph took a few steps towards his father before veering off in the direction of the restroom. “Babe, he’s going with you instead!” the baggage covered man called from his spot in line.
As we crossed the threshold to the next room where those waiting in line were divided amongst four manned desks, we collectively glanced over our shoulders and watched as Joseph changed course before making it through the bathroom door.
We continued shaking our heads as we made our way out of the airport and into our taxi.
“Can you believe?”
“It’s amazing.”
The quiet drive was welcome to our travel weary ears and we were nearly asleep as we pulled up to the hotel. The desk manager took our reservation for dinner and told us to wait while the bellman fetched our bags.
As we sank into the couch, we heard a distant echo of “Joseph!”
The Real World Inside Your Head: Revisiting the Magic of Childhood through Harry Potter
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” – Albus Dumbledore Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
So my hiatus lasted longer than I intended. We’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming next week with my weekly reviews and some more flash fiction. I wish I could say that I managed to get a lot done in the last month and a half but it still isn’t as much as I would have liked to accomplish. I did manage to re-read all seven Harry Potter books before seeing the final film last weekend and plan to continue my summer of re-reading. There are a few realizations that came to me while re-reading, most of which made me laugh though they’re probably common enough.
I was surprised by both how much I’d managed to remember and how much I’d forgotten. The things I remembered best were the bits of the books I had most been looking forward to seeing on the big screen as was disappointed with, either because they were left out or because they had been changed in a way I didn’t appreciate. It was only with the benefit of hindsight that I was able to appreciate the way Rowling dropped little pieces of information through the novels that weren’t relevant until the later books. Characters mentioned in passing in one book that grew in importance with each subsequent novel. Of course, with months or years between being able to read each book the first time, many of these tidbits slipped from memory having little perceived importance. I could have re-read the previous book just before the release of the next but I’m not sure reading all seven in succession would have been quite so spectacular if I had.
For the most part my favorites remained my favorites (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was, is and I believe will always be my favorite, both with the books and the films). But it did amaze me that I had a harder time getting through what was one of my favorites the first time around. After waiting so long, I flew through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with my first reading. But now I see how much of that came from the simple desire to uncover what came next. It appeared to cloud my perception of certain characters. At least, I want that to be the reason I didn’t register how whiney Harry was in that novel. It could also have been that during those days a few weeks before I turned sixteen Harry’s I was more sympathetic to Harry’s frustration and angst.
On a parallel note, one of the books I’d found a little tedious the first time through was more enjoyable the second time through. With so much going on, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire feels like the odd-man-out in many ways but now I’m able to appreciate that it is because it stands as the turning point of the series. As the middle book, it divides the series into two halves. The more lighthearted and innocent antics of the first three books have a cushiony barrier between them and the darker, dire circumstances of the later three. It is also the novel where Rowling first proves that she is not afraid of killing characters off, though she does a wonderful job of easing her young readers into the ideas that those who are evil aren’t the only ones to die in battle, the way a person acts doesn’t always show you what they’re feeling, and that people don’t always get what they deserve.
I would have thought that I’d fly through my re-reading since I already knew what happened, but instead I found myself lingering over phrases and passages that I’d skimmed in rapid succession last time. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published the year I turned ten. The first film came out just months after I turned fourteen and helped to inject magic into a generation whose innocence ended with 9/11. With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows published just before I turned twenty and this final film installment coming just a year after college graduation, I must face the reality that I am now an adult who will forever find it easy to be young at heart as long as there is someone around willing to discuss Harry Potter.
As I move onto re-reading The Hunger Games Trilogy in August, I hope they hold up as well the second time through as the Harry Potter series did.
Again and Once More Again: The Joys of Re-reading
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” – Oscar Wilde
As much as I always enjoyed a trip to the library, there was always something infinitely more satisfying about walking out of a bookstore with an armload of books. To go to the library meant having to return them when I reached the end and, in many cases, even though I had finished the book, I was by no means done with it. I have my own living library now, continuously growing and expanding (I’m getting ready to add a seventh bookcase to the family). It isn’t as though I hoard my books with no one allowed to touch them but me; they take vacations of their own but they (almost) always come back. And when they do, we have a chance to become reacquainted with one another and I find myself feeling akin to how I felt when I first took it/them home.
After a streak of reading only new books, it’s nice to relax with an old, familiar favorite, a book that’s become a part of you and has crossed the line into family. This summer, I’m planning a family reunion. It has been more than ten years since I first read a Harry Potter book and with the final installment in the film series due out in a matter of weeks, I’m finally going back and reading them all again. Having grown up with it and witnessing what it has done to popular culture as well as the book and film industries, it is only fitting to celebrate this last piece with a trip down memory lane. It will be a test to see just how well I actually remember them and this time around I think I will appreciate the path that was laid out from the start now that I’m not losing track of my bread crumbs in my excitement. I wonder if my favorite parts will still be my favorites now that hindsight is involved?
Since Harry Potter will only take up a fraction of the summer, I think I might pull a few others down from the shelf for a second (or third or fourth) go-round. It would be nice to take my time through The Hunger Games as well as read them without a gaping eleven month break between Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Maybe I’ll revisit Russia with Crime and Punishment or walk from Longbourn to Netherfield once more if the weather is clear enough. I haven’t made up my mind that far yet but I do plan to relax a little and switch up my regular book reviews with a sprinkling of re-reading.
Book Review – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
I had heard a lot about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (all of it good) without actually hearing much of what it was actually about. Now, I understand why. Douglas Adams’ classic science-fiction novel is a quick and entertaining read that leaves the reader speechless for two reasons: its imagination and tone inspire pleasant surprise and it is almost impossible to summarize without being drawn into too many of the specifics (though I will do my best).
Arthur Dent is an ordinary human being who, understandably, thinks his biggest problem is that developers are trying to knock his out down to make way for a bypass. Then his friend, Ford Prefect, drags him down to the pub and forces him to drink three beers while he informs Dent that the planet is about to be destroyed to make way for an even bigger bypass, and that, by the way, he (Prefect) is actually an alien who has been stranded on Earth for the last fifteen years.
Prefect drags Dent along for the ride as he catches a ride with the planet’s destroyers and the two make their way on the most improbable journey from one side of the galaxy to the other, with the help or at least the insight of the bestselling, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (though as, Prefect explains, that edition is in the process of being revised and he was traveling for the purpose of rewriting some of the entries when he became stranded). Along the way they fall in with the on-the-run president of the galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, his current companion, Trillian, and the ultimate in depressed and depressing technology, Marvin “the Paranoid Android.”
It is difficult for me to pin-point which aspect of the book was my favorite, the characters or the tone of the writing. In some ways, the two go hand-in-hand. And both are right in line with my sarcastic, dry, and often dark, sense of humor (books might make me smile or chuckle from time to time, but this one had me laughing loud enough to catch the attention of anyone sitting near me).
The writing style often reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut (not a bad thing since he is one of my favorite writers). Adams’ combination of satire and science fiction is refreshing. It doesn’t take itself or its subject matter too seriously, which so many books tend towards, regardless of genre. The technology mentioned is less technical and more whimsical in both imagery and explication.
The characters carry on the tone with their own selfish and morbid observations. Dent can be both practical and ridiculous as everything he has ever known is turned on its head. Prefect and Zaphod vie for consideration as the most optimistic, or perhaps the most oblivious.
My only wish is that the novel had been longer. The abruptness of the ending fits with the established feel of the novel, but it is still upsetting that it has to end, the consolation being that there are more books to follow. Trillian and Marvin were underused and hopefully there are more of them in the rest of the series as well as answers to those questions raised in this first installment, or questions to the answers given, as the case may be.
Book Review – The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
It’s somewhat appropriate that I’m writing about The Lincoln Lawyer while watching the season finale of Castle since Michael Connelly frequently appears at Castle’s mystery writer poker table. I found The Lincoln Lawyer to be less of a true mystery and more of a thriller as the audience and the narrator, Mickey Haller, are sure about who is behind various questionable and many certifiably illegal acts. The question of this novel isn’t “whodunnit?” but how is he going to finally get caught, especially since it’s the narrator’s job to make sure he gets off.
Mickey Haller is a criminal defense attorney with the fruitful LA area supplying him with a steady stream of clients who provide just enough of a living for him to keep gas in his Lincoln. That is, until he finds himself defending Louis Roulet against attempted rape charges and it looks like he finally has the franchise case his bank account has been dreaming of. But while Roulet’s story and Haller’s trial plans may be enough to get Roulet off, is at a loss for how to get another client, Jesus Menendez, back out of prison for a murder Haller now knows he did not commit.
I have mixed feelings about this novel. On the one hand, it is very meticulously organized and is a very compelling read. There are scenes and histories with other clients and other cases that can be a little tedious at the novel’s beginning (though it starts to pick up around the one-quarter mark and really gets going halfway through) but they each come back around and play a part in the plot’s progression.
On the other hand, I found it difficult to connect with the characters, even Haller who is telling the story in the first person. There is a lack of trust he shows towards the reader that may be meant as part of his character or that might just be there because it’s the best way to maintain both suspense and the first person narrative. Haller has plots and plans that he informs the reader he has, but without giving any details about what those plans are. It’s difficult to identify with Haller’s fears and anxieties when there is only something abstract to tie them to. The character of Jesus Menendez, who should be the most sympathetic character in the story, is only glimpsed for a moment and with little to stand on, the relationship between him and the reader crumbles and his fate fails to be the emotional investment for the reader that it could have been.
And yet, with all that bothering me, I still flew through the book and would say I found it enjoyable. The courtroom action had a more engaging pace and less objective pace than others I have read (namely Jodi Picoult’s trial scenes which are perhaps too true to life and can drag). While I have not seen the movie yet, but I think it would make a better movie than a book since it wouldn’t have the same problems of keeping perspective and suspense in balance.
Flash Fiction – Revelation
Tiffany had the radio cranked so she could hear it above the wind howling across the gaps of the open windows. When it came down to a choice between going deaf and slowly steaming to death in her car, she chose deafness and the small breeze slowly circulating the oppressive air in the car. There was just enough coming in to gently lift the hairs on her bare arms and cool the sweat on the back of her neck.
Her cell rattled in the cup holder next to a bottle of tepid water. She knew it was Andrew calling. Again. She ignored it. Fifteen minutes later the phone started its shivering again. Tiffany gritted her teeth.
When the phone signaled a third call from Andrew in less than an hour, Tiffany suppressed the urge to yell at him while negotiating her way through the eighteen-wheelers and SUVs, and instead simply turned the phone off and put it away.
It could only be one of two reasons for Andrew to be calling and both of them annoyed Tiffany to the point where she was pretty much perpetually pissed off at him. She couldn’t even drive the hour and a half to her parents’ house in peace. She was sick of him and just wanted him to leave her alone for a while.
This distance during the holidays would be perfect for getting the relationship back on track. What was that saying? Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Hopefully her sister wouldn’t say anything in front of her parents. Tiffany hadn’t told them she was seeing Andrew and she didn’t want to be mad at him when she did.
If she was being honest with herself, she was worried they would be disappointed that she and Stephen had never become a couple. They had been good friends growing up and their parents had done a great job of not pushing them together, which couldn’t have been easy considering their longtime friendship.
She would probably see Stephen at his parents’ infamous Christmas party. It would be nice to catch up with him. They had started to drift apart the last few years and Tiffany sort of missed her best friend.
As her excitement grew she caught sight of the phone again. Fury returned and it brought a lump to her throat.
She wasn’t in love with Stephen. True, she had never really thought about what she’d been fighting when she had rejected the hints and winks of family and friends but she was pretty sure that it was only friendship she felt for him. And yet, she was more excited about the prospect of spending an evening with him than of talking to Andrew for a few minutes’ time (and not even a face to face conversation at that).
Tiffany began crying quietly as she let herself feel how miserable she’d become. She would rather be alone than with Andrew and she decided to call him and tell him so… after the holidays.
