Crossing to Safety - Wallace Stegner (Richard Poe) (4 stars)
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (Lyndam Gregory) (3 stars)
With this book my favorite part was this version's preface, detailing the history of the writing of the book and its cultural and political significance in India, and also the intro page. There were a lot of neat sub-stories throughout the book, and I imagine the experience of reading this book for an Indian would be similar to that of a Spaniard reading Don Quixote in the 1600's -- enthralling and hilarious. But, while I certainly found the stories amusing, it was just long enough to start to test my patience.
That being said, much of the writing is masterful, and the depth of the plot along with his ability to maintain consistency between characters and plot and time is a most impressive feat. In other words, this book is probably deserving of its awards and praise; it just won't get a whole lot from me.
Opening Paragraph:
"I was born in the city of Bombay... Once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it's important to be more... On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what had befallen me in that benighted moment, because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left entirely without a say in the matter...."
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (Dylan Baker) (5 stars)
"The cars of the migrant people crawled out of the side roads onto the great cross-country highway, and they took the migrant way to the West. In the daylight they scuttled like bugs to the westward; and as the dark caught them, they clustered like bugs near to shelter and to water. And because they were lonely and perplexed, because they had all come from a place of sadness and worry and defeat, and because they were all going to a new mysterious place, they huddled together; they talked together; they shared their lives, their food, and the things they hoped for in the new country. Thus it might be that one family camped near a spring, and another camped for the spring and for company, and a third because two families had pioneered the place and found it good. And when the sun went down, perhaps twenty families and twenty cars were there.
In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream. And it might be that a sick child threw despair into the hearts of twenty families, of a hundred people; that a birth there in a tent kept a hundred people quiet and we struck through the night and filled a hundred people with the birth-joy in the morning. A family which the night before had been lost and fearful might search its goods to find a present for a new baby. In the evening, sitting about the fires, the twenty were one. They grew to be units of the camps, units of the evenings and the nights. A guitar unwrapped from a blanket and tuned, and the songs, which were all of the people, were sung in the nights. Men sang the words, and women hummed the tunes.
Every night a world created, complete with furniture, friends made and enemies established; a world complete with braggarts and with cowards, with quiet men, with humble men, with kindly men. Every night relationships that make a world, established; and every morning the world torn down like a circus."
Now that's good writing. I was emotionally affected (not quite crying) when listening to that excerpt.
Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis (Nadia May) (3 stars)
Always good to check back in on C.S. Lewis now and again to keep those theological muscles in shape. The story of an unattractive woman, Orual, and her younger, more attractive, half-sister, Psyche, who grow up under their father's rule and with the tutelage of their beloved servant-mentor, "the Fox". The story is a retelling of the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche set in a fictional Scottish-ish setting. A lot of the drama arises out of the ingredients of the father's inability to sire a son, the unattractiveness of Orual, and everyone's behavior in relation to the gods. The concept was strong enough but I never found myself deeply invested in any of the characters, or fully up to speed with the plot -- perhaps it would have helped to have been more familiar with the myth on which the story is based. Also, I found that, as fictions go, this book veered a little too far into the realm of fantastical for my liking -- some parts about the younger half-sister living out in the cold wilderness as a mistress to one of the gods. There are probably layers of allegory and symbolism that flew over my head, but again, I was just never really entranced by the world it created. Some more context would have definitely gone a long way with me on this one. Perhaps I'll need to re-read it.
Waging Heavy Peace - Neil Young (Keith Carradine) (3 stars)Always good to check back in on C.S. Lewis now and again to keep those theological muscles in shape. The story of an unattractive woman, Orual, and her younger, more attractive, half-sister, Psyche, who grow up under their father's rule and with the tutelage of their beloved servant-mentor, "the Fox". The story is a retelling of the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche set in a fictional Scottish-ish setting. A lot of the drama arises out of the ingredients of the father's inability to sire a son, the unattractiveness of Orual, and everyone's behavior in relation to the gods. The concept was strong enough but I never found myself deeply invested in any of the characters, or fully up to speed with the plot -- perhaps it would have helped to have been more familiar with the myth on which the story is based. Also, I found that, as fictions go, this book veered a little too far into the realm of fantastical for my liking -- some parts about the younger half-sister living out in the cold wilderness as a mistress to one of the gods. There are probably layers of allegory and symbolism that flew over my head, but again, I was just never really entranced by the world it created. Some more context would have definitely gone a long way with me on this one. Perhaps I'll need to re-read it.
East of Eden - John Steinbeck (Richard Poe) (5 stars)
Steinbeck is great. Between 'Of Mice and Men', 'The Grapes of Wrath', and now this, the books of his that I've read make up an impressive body of work that is consistent-yet-varied, historically illuminating, and philosophically enlightening. Additionally, his books are packed with memorable and interesting characters.
3 of my favorite parts of this book.
Steinbeck is great. Between 'Of Mice and Men', 'The Grapes of Wrath', and now this, the books of his that I've read make up an impressive body of work that is consistent-yet-varied, historically illuminating, and philosophically enlightening. Additionally, his books are packed with memorable and interesting characters.
3 of my favorite parts of this book.
- In the prologue where he lays out his genealogical connection to the families in this plot (I also find it neat that in a few of the books I've read recently the protagonist's/narrator's relation to the characters in question is told through the mothers' side (e.g. 'Midnight's Children', 'Angle of Repose')), he describes the landscape of the California region and the uniqueness of all the different names of the nearby towns with their different language origins and meanings and what we can glean from that.
- When we're introduced to Kathy Ames (I believe) through a "diversionary" chapter touching solely on monsters, and how they can be human. (Steinbeck is a master at these interjectory "diversionary" chapters on tangential philosophical observations (see chapters in 'The Grapes of Wrath' on goggles, and on the tortoise.))
- The "timshel" concept where the characters explore the meaning of the verse in Genesis, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him (sin)." There is some debate on the meaning of the original Hebrew of "thou shalt" in this case. Is God promising Cain that he will conquer sin? Is he ordering Cain to conquer sin? Or, as this book argues, is he blessing Cain with free will, leaving the choice to him (timshel, the original Hebrew word, may best translate to "thou mayest")? "For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' That makes a man great and that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win." This is liberating to the protagonist, Adam, and allows him to be more deterministic in his troubled life.
I'm a HUGE fan of Neil Young. Listen to, say a playlist of 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' ('69), 'Southern Man' ('70), 'Comes a Time' ('77), 'Transformer Man' ('82), 'One of These Days' ('92), 'Old Laughing Lady' (Unplugged, '93), 'It's a Dream' ('05), and 'Angry World' ('10), and you get an understanding of what a varied and impressive career arc the man has put together. Listening to these songs you can catch an abstract glimpse of the artist's soul traveling through time, progressing at times and decaying at times. But it's nice to be able to hear him fill in the abstract guesswork with first-hand accounts and explanations. And all this is to say nothing of various social/political causes he's championed (e.g. the Bridge School for Autism), or the many creative inventions he's committed so much energy to (e.g. sound recording instruments, antique electric cars, and his latest crusade: 'Pono', which is an attempt to put "lossless" mp3 files (capturing the original, superior sound from when the track was cut in studio) in the hands of the everyday consumer)).I enjoyed hearing the details of his upbringing, band stories, his struggles to write good new music while staying "clean", and various anecdotes that help the reader better understand his views on human life.
It's a pretty enjoyable book if you're a fan. Otherwise, it's not essential reading.
“A job is never truly finished. It just reaches a stage where it can be left on its own for a while.”
The Odyssey - Homer (Sir Ian McKellan) (2 stars)
I love the basic plot of this book and what it represents with its unique place in history as one of the first stories ever written, and for the influence it has had on the literary world (and on cinema: -- 'O Brother Where Art Thou'). But I guess my 21st century training made it too difficult for me to deal with the rhythm and the repetitiveness of the novel. Odysseus's diversionary adventures seemed to me to be a few too many, and overdeveloped, as I continually found myself yearning for some true resolution.The poetic prose and use of epithets (e.g. "When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more...") is fun, but just a little too intense for the more casual reader. This book is probably best studied and discussed in a school setting.
"You yellow dogs, you thought I'd never make it home from the land of Troy. You took my house to plunder, twisted my maids to serve your beds. You dared bid for my wife while I was still alive. Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven, contempt for what men say of you hereafter. Your last hour has come. You die in blood.”
The Big Rock Candy Mountain - Wallace Stegner (Mark Bramhall) (5 stars)
Yet another masterful work by Wallace Stegner. This is a (semi autobiographical) story of the Masons (Bo and Elsa, and their two young sons, Bruce and Chester) and their attempt to make it in the West in the early 1900's. The ability to give a snapshot of a life in the U.S. (this book takes place in North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and thereabouts), as well as to help the reader peer into the intimate (and familiar) details of this particular family: the festering grudges, the pure and simple joys, the regrettable disciplining, the childish bickering, the magnanimous stoicism, etc., is a skill that Stegner has to an impressive degree. His philosophy, both on the transcendent importance of heritage/genealogy and his demonstrations of how inescapable those hereditary traits are in his characters is something that really resonates with me.
The part where the boys lost their rabbits down a well right as the family (with father absent) was about to make yet another move is a scene that is seared in my mind, even a year or so after reading it.
"...She did not look back, but she could see in her mind every bush and stump in the clearing, every stain on the canvas roof, every detail of the place that had been home for a year and a half, that had still been home even after Bo ran off to Canada, that she had been fiercely determined to make home. But it was too much, she thought. She couldn't have tried any harder.
Behind her she heard Bruce's crying, furious now because she had not comforted him, and she felt in Chester's silence his grief for the death they left behind them in the well. She couldn't blame them any more than she could help them. There was too much that lay dead behind her. That well and clearing and abandoned tent-house neatly swept and locked against intrusion was a gravestone in her life. There had been other gravestones, but this was the worst, because it was more than a hope or a home that lay dead there. It was her marriage. Though she had not admitted it before, she knew that one reason she had tried so hard to keep the cafe going and to hold to the clearing was the hope that some day Bo would come back.
She did not look behind her, but she knew exactly how Bruce and Chester felt when they knelt at the lip of the well and saw the white, furred-out shapes of their pets floating, lifting motionless to the motionless lifting of earthbound water in a dark, earth-smelling hole under the rain."
I also like the part later in the book, when Bruce is older, and a deeper thinker, where he shares his observation with his mother about people as lines, not points.
"People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort."
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway (Campbell Scott) (5 stars)
A simple story of an American, Robert Jordan, in Spain, helping an anti-fascist guerrila unit to explode a bridge, overlaid against the complexity of the Spanish Civil war in the late 1930's and all its accompanying philosophical struggles of right and wrong, and difference of perspective. A key ingredient in all this is the American's infatuation with the war-ravaged Maria and the unsurpassed love that develops between them.
I loved everything about this book. Its simplicity, Hemingway's touch with the prose (as well as his literal Spanish translation convention (e.g. "what passes with thee?")), the characters, the scenery, you name it. I also have a soft spot for stories about Americans adapting to and adopting cultures different from theirs while still trying to be true their own (e.g. 'Dances with Wolves', 'Avatar').
From what I've read of Hemingway, Robert Jordan is his best example of a code hero. He's resourceful, efficient, stoic, and intelligent. And I like that he doesn't waste his life away smoking cigarettes, drinking absinthe, and getting into trouble with girls as some of Hemingway's more tragic protagonists sometimes have a knack for doing.
"There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life."
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (Elijah Wood) (4 stars)
Expertly narrated by Frodo, and costing only $1.99 if you first download the free kindle edition, this was a great surprise to stumble into this old high school-required reading and to find that I enjoyed it so much. I was instantly taken in by the southern charm with Twain's depiction of the scenery and settings and awesome phrases like, "dis' dat' and t'other", "rapscallions", etc.
Twain's ability to extract so much ironic wisdom out of simple-minded folk like Huck and Jim, and others, and to employ and negotiate so many different perspectives and styles with all the different characters is a thing of beauty. It's no wonder this book is held in such high regard as the modern era storytelling masterpiece.
This book is good humor. The kind of humor that makes you laugh, but somehow always a little reservedly (even if raucous), since you can sense all the deeper emotions and issues at play with the cast of characters. It helps the reader to not be so rigid for rigidity's sake about his or her belief system. Now das' considable powful writin'.
This book does suffer, however, from some of the same dragging that 'The Odyssey' does, in that we get overly sidetracked with a few misadventures (e.g. the sometimes hilarious conmen, Duke and Dauphin, and the feuding Grangerfords and Shepherdsons) that don't sufficiently contribute to the story commensurate with their "screen time".
I recently watched '12 Years a Slave' on an international flight, and I didn't care for it one bit. It beats you over the head with all the torture, rape, white villainy, guilt, etc. Conversely, for my money, Mark Twain accomplishes more to evoke sympathy, compassion, and an understanding of the African-American plight in one page when he writes about the time Jim beat his daughter (end of chapter 23). (Granted, the Huck Finn excerpt has little to do with slavery directly, but it's part of that broad category, and the scene is impactful on Huck's progressing comprehension of the humanity of these slaves.)
"Yo’ ole father doan’ know yit what he’s a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he’ll go ’way, en den agin he spec he’ll stay. De bes’ way is to res’ easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey’s two angels hoverin’ roun’ ’bout him. One uv ’em is white en shiny, en t’other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can’t tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las’. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo’ life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin. Dey’s two gals flyin’ ’bout you in yo’ life. One uv ’em’s light en t’other one is dark. One is rich en t’other is po’. You’s gwyne to marry de po’ one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep ’way fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no resk, ’kase it’s down in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung."
As I am now reading Hemingway's 'Green Hills of Africa', I was glad to see that he and I see eye to eye on this topic. Said he, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the n***er Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it’s the best book we’ve had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
Yet another masterful work by Wallace Stegner. This is a (semi autobiographical) story of the Masons (Bo and Elsa, and their two young sons, Bruce and Chester) and their attempt to make it in the West in the early 1900's. The ability to give a snapshot of a life in the U.S. (this book takes place in North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and thereabouts), as well as to help the reader peer into the intimate (and familiar) details of this particular family: the festering grudges, the pure and simple joys, the regrettable disciplining, the childish bickering, the magnanimous stoicism, etc., is a skill that Stegner has to an impressive degree. His philosophy, both on the transcendent importance of heritage/genealogy and his demonstrations of how inescapable those hereditary traits are in his characters is something that really resonates with me.The part where the boys lost their rabbits down a well right as the family (with father absent) was about to make yet another move is a scene that is seared in my mind, even a year or so after reading it.
"...She did not look back, but she could see in her mind every bush and stump in the clearing, every stain on the canvas roof, every detail of the place that had been home for a year and a half, that had still been home even after Bo ran off to Canada, that she had been fiercely determined to make home. But it was too much, she thought. She couldn't have tried any harder.
Behind her she heard Bruce's crying, furious now because she had not comforted him, and she felt in Chester's silence his grief for the death they left behind them in the well. She couldn't blame them any more than she could help them. There was too much that lay dead behind her. That well and clearing and abandoned tent-house neatly swept and locked against intrusion was a gravestone in her life. There had been other gravestones, but this was the worst, because it was more than a hope or a home that lay dead there. It was her marriage. Though she had not admitted it before, she knew that one reason she had tried so hard to keep the cafe going and to hold to the clearing was the hope that some day Bo would come back.
She did not look behind her, but she knew exactly how Bruce and Chester felt when they knelt at the lip of the well and saw the white, furred-out shapes of their pets floating, lifting motionless to the motionless lifting of earthbound water in a dark, earth-smelling hole under the rain."
I also like the part later in the book, when Bruce is older, and a deeper thinker, where he shares his observation with his mother about people as lines, not points.
"People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort."
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway (Campbell Scott) (5 stars)
A simple story of an American, Robert Jordan, in Spain, helping an anti-fascist guerrila unit to explode a bridge, overlaid against the complexity of the Spanish Civil war in the late 1930's and all its accompanying philosophical struggles of right and wrong, and difference of perspective. A key ingredient in all this is the American's infatuation with the war-ravaged Maria and the unsurpassed love that develops between them.I loved everything about this book. Its simplicity, Hemingway's touch with the prose (as well as his literal Spanish translation convention (e.g. "what passes with thee?")), the characters, the scenery, you name it. I also have a soft spot for stories about Americans adapting to and adopting cultures different from theirs while still trying to be true their own (e.g. 'Dances with Wolves', 'Avatar').
From what I've read of Hemingway, Robert Jordan is his best example of a code hero. He's resourceful, efficient, stoic, and intelligent. And I like that he doesn't waste his life away smoking cigarettes, drinking absinthe, and getting into trouble with girls as some of Hemingway's more tragic protagonists sometimes have a knack for doing.
"There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life."
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (Elijah Wood) (4 stars)
Twain's ability to extract so much ironic wisdom out of simple-minded folk like Huck and Jim, and others, and to employ and negotiate so many different perspectives and styles with all the different characters is a thing of beauty. It's no wonder this book is held in such high regard as the modern era storytelling masterpiece.
This book is good humor. The kind of humor that makes you laugh, but somehow always a little reservedly (even if raucous), since you can sense all the deeper emotions and issues at play with the cast of characters. It helps the reader to not be so rigid for rigidity's sake about his or her belief system. Now das' considable powful writin'.
This book does suffer, however, from some of the same dragging that 'The Odyssey' does, in that we get overly sidetracked with a few misadventures (e.g. the sometimes hilarious conmen, Duke and Dauphin, and the feuding Grangerfords and Shepherdsons) that don't sufficiently contribute to the story commensurate with their "screen time".
I recently watched '12 Years a Slave' on an international flight, and I didn't care for it one bit. It beats you over the head with all the torture, rape, white villainy, guilt, etc. Conversely, for my money, Mark Twain accomplishes more to evoke sympathy, compassion, and an understanding of the African-American plight in one page when he writes about the time Jim beat his daughter (end of chapter 23). (Granted, the Huck Finn excerpt has little to do with slavery directly, but it's part of that broad category, and the scene is impactful on Huck's progressing comprehension of the humanity of these slaves.)
"Yo’ ole father doan’ know yit what he’s a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he’ll go ’way, en den agin he spec he’ll stay. De bes’ way is to res’ easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey’s two angels hoverin’ roun’ ’bout him. One uv ’em is white en shiny, en t’other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can’t tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las’. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo’ life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin. Dey’s two gals flyin’ ’bout you in yo’ life. One uv ’em’s light en t’other one is dark. One is rich en t’other is po’. You’s gwyne to marry de po’ one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep ’way fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no resk, ’kase it’s down in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung."
As I am now reading Hemingway's 'Green Hills of Africa', I was glad to see that he and I see eye to eye on this topic. Said he, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the n***er Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it’s the best book we’ve had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
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