Mini-review: Eleanor & Park

This is a book I read several months ago, but due to a conversation with a colleague I realized I had never reviewed it and that I probably should.  

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Title:  Eleanor & Park

Author:  Rainbow Rowell

Published:  2012

Year I read it:  2014

One sentence summary:  This 1980's, YA, Romance isn't what you'd expect; it's about red-headed, socially awkward, physically and emotionally impoverished Eleanor and half-American, half-Korean, cool-kid Park - two different "outsiders" who discover that true love means becoming "insiders" of something beautiful.

Interesting fact:  Though it won critical acclaim and awards like Amazon's Teen Book of the Year, Amazon's Top Ten Book of the Year, and Goodreads Choice Award for Best Young Adult Book of the Year, the novel was censored in some American high schools. NPR addressed this in their pop-culture blog, saying, ""What's worrying about treating Eleanor & Park as a nasty book, or a dirty book, or an immoral book, is that it transforms talking about how to survive ugliness into something that's no different from ugliness itself. It makes the act of telling a story about rising above misery a miserable thing."

Three reasons to read it:

• This book feels like John Green (The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska) and Stephen Chbosky (Perks of Being a Wallflower) had a sister and she wrote a high-school romance set in 1980's Nebraska.  I say this because she captures the interiority of adolescence beautifully, aware of the dark, but not overwhelmed by it.  Alternating between Eleanor & Park as narrators, she carefully and graciously uncovers the different ways we suffer pain - be it poverty, racism, abuse, or bullying.  It is a profound book. 
• I read this book in one sitting.  It's that compelling.
• I hadn't read a true Romance for a while - a book about falling in love.  Romance was usually incidental to the fantasy adventure or contemporary novel I was reading.  But Rowell does an incredibly job recounting what it's like to fall in love for the first time.  She takes a few pages just to convey the sensation of what it's like to first hold someone's hand.  It may sound sappy, but it is a breathtaking story of what love is like.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• The story does get dark.  There is mature language in an abusive context, which could definitely be a trigger to some.

Great quotes:

Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.

Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.

“I want everyone to meet you. You're my favorite person of all time.” 

I don't like you, Park," she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. "I..." - her voice nearly disappeared - "think I live for you."  He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into his pillow.  "I don't think I even breathe when we're not together," she whispered. "Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?" He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with 'I want you' in his ears. 

“Nothing before you counts," he said. "And I can't even imagine an after." 

Today Samara Learned... [Day 5]

that Naturalism can still be beautiful.

By pre-disposition, Samara is a Romantic... deeply and truly.  In her experiences with Naturalism, she has found things to appreciate, but not enjoy--not marvel at.  That was until today.  She just finished the last of a trio of short stories / novellas by Stephen Crane, and this last one, "The Blue Hotel," was astonishing!  It felt very Greek myth meets film noir - but set in the American west with a very Crane-esque sensibility.  Only three characters had names, and both the setting and the writing was sparse.  But it was brilliant!  Brooding from the beginning, it escalated into a dark observation on what could happen when 5 men, with ego and a machismo to defend, are confined in a small space together.

Well done, Crane.  Apparently this was one of Hemingway's favorite short stories, which makes sense.  Anyway, Samara may not be won over by Naturalism... but is grateful to see such a strong candidate for it.

Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I had high expectations for this book.  In hindsight, that may have been the problem.  

The Ocean at the End of the Lane was my second foray into Neil Gaiman's novels.  I greatly respect him as an author - for a variety of reasons - but I'm afraid Ocean disappointed my expectations.

To briefly set the scene, an middle-aged, unnamed narrator leaves a funeral (presumably a family member's) and drives back to the lane where his childhood home once stood.  Driving [literally] "down memory lane," he comes to the old Hempstock farm at the end.  He then remembers Lettie Hempstock and a long-forgotten week in his childhood that changed everything.  The rest of the novel is told as a sort of prolonged flashback of what occurred.

Being that it's Gaiman, the novel's commentary on life and memory is beautiful.  I also appreciated several of the characters - especially Lettie.  But this was the first book I've read in a long time where I preferred the style and characters to the plot.  At first slightly dull, by the mid-point of the novel I was rather disturbed.  If it weren't for my respect for the author and the book's multiple recommenders [like Patrick Rothfuss's delightful review / fantasy of tree-fort parties with Gaiman and Whedon], I may not have kept reading.  But I am glad I did, because I think the 2nd half was better. 

As for my dislikes, I can pinpoint a couple of things.  

• I can only stand a character being oppressed without agency for so long, and, for such a short book, this 7-year-old boy dealt with agony upon agony - not even anything noble and epic, just meanness and the frustrated plans of a 7-year-old.  
• There were physical descriptions that were just gross.  And there's just something with me and feet wounds - they make me extra queazy.  [Also, fyi, some adult content.]
• Sometimes I think I'm an immature reader for thinking this, but... I do not love magic realism - and most of this book is magic realism.  I think it's because I love fantasy so much that this feels watered down.  I don't mind things being open-ended and left unexplained, but there's something just wonderful about entering the fantastical through a wardrobe or a police box or a train platform, rather than just gradually slipping into unreality without noticing.  I suppose it may have to do with characters generally unquestioning acceptance of magic-realism elements.  The narrator here asks a few questions, but in fantasy, when one enters another realm, they are very much aware of it and their curiosity mirrors my own.  Anyway, parts of the magic in this book were wonderful, but, again, most of them occurred in the 2nd half.

A few general closing comments...  This book felt like one I would have read in my English Honors class - both because of its theme (memory) and the focus on better style than substance.  I do think that the kind of excellent style Gaiman displays makes the book worth reading, just perhaps not as enjoyable.  In the end, I think I expected either more of a reveal or an impossibly brilliant ending [or that it was actually all a dream].  Highlights of the book included its intertextuality, Lettie's character, stunning metaphors for faith, and, we'll just say, the scene "in the Ocean."  Overall? *** out of 5 stars.

I believe the book would stand up even better to a 2nd reading, but I'll have to save that for later.  Off to new worlds - I'll just leave you with these quotes:

“I lay on the bed and lost myself in stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyways.” 

“I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.” 

“Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.” 

“You don't pass or fail at being a person, dear.” 

“How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know."

31 Days of Books: A Review

Whew!  You guys, I did it.  31 book reviews in 31 days.  Some days I had to double up, and some reviews were probably more thoughtful than others, but they're all up!  Thank you to everyone who showed interest and encouraged this project.  It was not easy, but I feel like I learned a lot.

I though I'd recap by mentioning a few reflections on the project:

*  The whole "31 days" concept is a really good challenge if you want to express or share something you're passionate about.  I definitely want to do another one and don't think I'll wait till next October.

*  The hardest part of each post was the "One Sentence Summary."  You will probably notice a lot of complex sentences, bending the rules of what can be included in one sentence... but I knew if I allowed myself to elaborate on the plot, the review would become 1) way too long and 2) probably give too much away.

*  While I did modify the structure a bit along the way, I realized a bit too late that I should have included a rating system (e.g. out of five stars).  I specifically chose books I liked well enough to recommend - reviewing books you don't like can be fun, but gets too easy and boring over time - but some of these are a good 3.5/5 while others are novels par excellence.  Interestingly, as I added my reviews to goodreads, more than once I adjusted my rating on there to reflect how I feel about the book in hindsight.

*  When I first started out, I composed a list of what I was going to review.  Any of the requests I got for authors or specific books happened to already be included in that list.  [You know me so well ;]  The only alteration that was made after drafting up the list was to sub out "Silas Marner" to include a poem, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. [If you're a big George Eliot fan, I'm sorry.  I just wasn't feeling up to her that day.]

*  By far, the most viewed review is Animal Farm, which kind of surprises me.

*  The funnest (and often easiest) part of each review was actually "One reason you maybe shouldn't read it."


I plan to continue more book reviews, and will likely use a similar structure, though I look forward on expanding certain parts of it.  I hope you enjoyed hearing a bit about each of these books.  Books are my love language and literally nothing compares to the feeling I get when people tell me they're reading a book I recommended or they're enjoying one of my favorites.  So, if you choose to pick up one of these, please do let me know and mention what you think of it.


Below I've compiled the final list with links to each review:

1. The Fault in Our Stars
2. The Princess Bride
3. Pygmalion
4. At the Back of the North Wind
5. A Wrinkle in Time
6. The Count of Monte Cristo
7. A Study in Scarlet
8. Northanger Abbey
9. The Woman in White
10. Much Ado about Nothing
11. Animal Farm
12. The Age of Innocence
13. Six Characters in Search of an Author
14. Oedipus Tyrannus
15. The Picture of Dorian Gray
16. Room
17. History of Love
18. Ender's Game
19. Manalive
20. Surprised by Oxford
21. A Severe Mercy
22. To the Lighthouse
23. Heart of Darkness
24. Hunchback of Notre-Dame
25. The Scarlet Pimpernel
26. A Tale of Two Cities
27. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
28. To Kill a Mockingbird
29. Wieland
30. Phantom of the Opera
31. Frankenstein

Happy reading!

31 Days of Books: Frankenstein

Hello lovelies!  In honor of our Halloween Plans, NT Live's encore screenings tonight, and in keeping with the spooky ending to my 31 Days project, I am pleased to offer you my final review: 

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Title:  Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Author:  Mary Shelley

Published:  1818

Year I read it:  2011

One sentence summary:  The horrors of a student's obsession, extreme isolation, and each individual's quest for significance - Frankenstein is the ultimate story of monsters and men and meaning in an empirically demanding world.

Interesting fact: On a dark and stormy night, on the shores of Lake Geneva, Mary Godwin (later Shelley); her lover, Percy Shelley; and their friend, Lord Byron were discussing re-animation and reading German ghost stories when Byron suggested they each attempt their own "supernatural" tale.  That night, 18-year-old Mary began what we now know as Frankenstein.

Three reasons to read it:

• This text is fundamental to the cultural shift into the Modern era.  It's a novel that looks to answer things strictly empirically - and that included examining an anthropogenic creation.
• One of my favorite papers from college included a reading of this novel's stance on race, class, and gender.  It's a fascinating study!  Frankenstein creates a new breed - a Monster; the Creature examines several strata of classes, noting pointed issues with how people treat each other; and Shelley succeeds in creating a female-less dystopia by the end of the novel.  If you're interested in examining "The Other," or the oppressed, this would be a very good book to read.
• The dialogues and debates toward the middle of the book ask profound philosophical questions.  As the Creature asks questions of his twisted creator, you can almost hear the tortured author asking questions of her Creator.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:  

• For having reached such significant position on the canonical shelf, Shelley's writing is often unbearably sloppy.  The book jumps forms between epistolary, long sections, and chapters.  The sometimes 4-layered framed narrative is a fascinating technique, but isn't executed the best.  I remember reading the beginning and the diction bothering me so much, I said aloud, "You were the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft!  You were writing after Jane Austen, for goodness sake.  I know you were young, but you should be able to craft a better sentence than that!"  I still respect the book loads, but I can't forgive some of her "stylistic choices"

Great quotes:

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.” 

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!” 

"Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!” 

“Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred."

[One of my favorite quotes on Oxford]  "The spirit of the elder days found a dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps."

"It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishments of my toils."

“How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.” 

31 Days of Books: The Phantom of the Opera

Title:  The Phantom of the Opera

Author:  Gaston Leroux

Published:  1909 - 1910 (serial)

Year I read it:  2005

One sentence summary:  Christine Daae, daughter of a deceased, though still famous, concert violinist, is just a chorus girl for the Paris Opera until one day a voice offers to train her - could the voice be her father?

Interesting fact:  Once the serialization was published as a novel it was not successful and even went out of print several times throughout the 20th century.  Notable improvement in sales followed a 1925 film featuring Lon Chaney and, of course, the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical.

Three reasons to read it:

• This is not the musical!  Andrew Lloyd Weber produced a very nice gothic romance based on a novel, but a la Beauty and the Beast.  Nor is it a bad-boy, good boy love-triangle.  Those depictions fail to capture the book.  I will borrow another goodreads reviewer's description of the phantom's "ugliness."  "[Being ugly] is the single defining characteristic of his entire life, his entire pathology. He is so abominably ugly that no one can look on his face and maintain their composure, so repulsive that even his own mother abandoned him in horror. In the book, he is described as looking like a corpse, a skeleton with skin rotting off the bones, with a gaping hole where his nose should be, and eyes so sunken into black sockets that they're invisible except when they glitter at you out of the darkness. This is not Gerard Butler with a bit of scarring. This is a visage from your nightmares."
• That being said - the more repulsive the horror, the more astounding the redemption. The love Christine offers him is not the romantic sense she feels for the heroic Raoul, it is the acceptance the Phantom's mother never extended.
• I don't think people should read books just because they're "classics," but there are "iconic" moments - from film, stage, books, paintings, etc. - these moments that, well, you owe it to yourself to experience first hand.  The cavern under Opera House, the chandelier, and several memorable frights - these are legendary for a reason.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• This book is one of the scarier ones I've read.  When I read it, the majority of the time I was thinking "Every adaptation on film or on stage has lied to me!  There is no way to explain ____ or ____ or _____ if he isn't actually a phantom!!"  My experience directly following my finishing of the book might also have something to do with it... but that would need it's own post. 

Great quotes:

“I am the little boy who went into the sea to rescue your scarf” 

“All I wanted was to be loved for myself."

“If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.” 

"Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost...”

31 Days of Books: Wieland

Well, because of Halloween, I thought I'd save some of the spookier books on my list for the end.  These novels aren't strictly horror - but at least uncanny.  But without further adieu...

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Title:  Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale

Author:  Charles Brockden Brown

Published:  1798

Year I read it:  2009, 2011

One sentence summary:  An epistolary, gothic, Colonial-American novel, this is the tragic story penned by Clara Wieland, detailing her father and, later, brother's descent into religious fanaticism and of the voices they hear - voices from the divine, from madness, or from the strange, visiting Carwin?

Interesting fact:  Considered by many to be the first significant novel to be written and published in America.  Brown was the most successful American author until James Fenimore Cooper.

Three reasons to read it:

• If you like mysteries or the gothic, you'd find this really interesting.  Unlike many late 18th English or American novels, this novel leaves several plot points open-ended.  [If you read it, or have read it, DO leave your spoilerific theories in the comments below]
• Originally, Wieland was written more as a philosophical novel - to explore psychology, community-formation, and even as a commentary of the (then) newly constitutionalized America.  When I first came to it, it really surprised me that one of the original American novels was a philosophical "horror,"  but the more we studied it, the more it made sense.
• I am not much one for epistolary novels (unfortunately, a majority of 18th C novels are epistolary), but the way Brown handled it, I wasn't so bothered by the epistolary form.  I actually found Clara Wieland to be a very strong, if unreliable, narrator.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• I will admit to this being a bizarre story.  If you are familiar with the gothic, it makes a bit more sense, but, I mean, a character dies from spontaneous combustion [to be fair - Dickens used this to explain a character's death over 50 years later].  It is a strange plot, but having read it now twice, I appreciate it's eccentricities. 

Great quotes:

My narrative may be invaded by inaccuracy and confusion; but if I live no longer, I will, at least, live to complete it. What but ambiguities, abruptnesses, and dark transitions, can be expected from the historian who is, at the same time, the sufferer of these disasters?

Presently, I considered, that whether Wieland was a maniac, a faithful servant of his God, the victim of hellish illusions, or the dupe of human imposture, was by no means certain.

31 Days of Books: To Kill a Mockingbird

Title:  To Kill a Mockingbird

Author:  Harper Lee

Published:  1960

Year I read it:  2005

One sentence summary:  "Scout" Finch, a young tomboy, is growing up in southern Alabama when her father, attorney Atticus Finch, decides, against town sentiments, to represent a black man accused of raping a white girl, giving Scout and her brother, Jem, a harsh introduction to prejudices, racism, and misconstrued "justice."

Interesting fact:  In December of 1956, author & producer Michael Brown gave Harper Lee a gift: a year's worth of wages with a note that said, "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas."  She wrote To Kill a Mockingbird - the only novel she published. [I think this is one of the best Christmas presents I've ever heard of, and I think we all owe him a  "Thank You" note.]

Three reasons to read it:

• Atticus Finch - without a doubt, one of the greatest fathers in print (or on screen).  He represents so much of what a father should be: patient, caring, and modeling virtues like true justice to his children.
• This book is offers a hard, but significant perspective on racism.  Lee based much of Scout's view on what her own childhood was like, growing up surrounded by racial prejudice, but just emerging to realize how wrong it was.
• Like I mentioned with Room, Lee finds a way to address a very difficult subject by approaching it from a child's point-of-view.  In doing so, she causes her audience to dial back into each person's innate sense of justice.  It's a very powerful technique.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• Not appropriate for very young children, but above 13 or so, highly recommended!

Great quotes:

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”  

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” 

"Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”  

“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” 

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.” 

31 Days of Books: The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

Today's was a last minute change.  Most of the others were planned in advance, but I thought, "this deserves a day."  And as I thought more, I realized, yes, I said "books," but we need a poem in this little anthology.  So, today's 31 post...

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Title:  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Author:  TS Eliot

Published:  1917

Year I read it:  2012

One sentence summary:  In this profound, Modernist poem, the young Eliot personifies the aging & intensely indecisive Prufrock musing on his life and on an "overwhelming question."

Interesting fact(s):  It's not a love song.  CS Lewis hated the intro.  It's one of Eliot's few rhyming poems.  

Three reasons to read it:

• It's much shorter, more accessible, and more delightful than The Wasteland.  I found that it was a good intro into Eliot's perspective before tackling The Wasteland.  Also, I'm not a huge poetry buff, but this one has fascinated me since the day I read it.
• This poem was written and published during the Great War, just before Modernism exploded onto the scene.  It's very insightful into some of the frustrations and questions plaguing artists at the time.
• You will find references.  You will want to reference it.  This is a very quotable poem.  It's like an erudite version of Dr. Seuss.  

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• It's far, far easier than the Wasteland, but still one of the most intertextual poems ever - so find a version with lots of explanatory notes.

Great quotes:

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherised upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,The muttering retreatsOf restless nights in one-night cheap hotelsAnd sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo lead you to an overwhelming question...Oh, do not ask "What is it?"Let us go and make our visit.[Opening lines]

There will be time, there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet...Time for you and time for me,And time yet for a hundred indecisions,And for a hundred visions and revisions,Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Do I dareDisturb the universe?

For I have known them all already, known them all:--Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,And in short, I was afraid.

31 Days of Books: Tale of Two Cities

Title:  Tale of Two Cities

Author:  Charles Dickens

Published:  1854

Year I read it:  2004, 2006

One sentence summary:  The classic novel of the French Revolution; of doppelgangers; of family devotion, betrayal, and shame; and of the relation of two cities: London and Paris.

Interesting fact:  Dickens's only historical fiction novel. 

Three reasons to read it:

• If you, like me, think Dickens is a bit heavy-handed in his symbolism and caricatures and length, etc... Let me assure you, this book is better than most.  [It's like Spielberg's Lincoln - he seems to have stepped back enough to let the characters breathe and fill the space he's created.]
• Sydney Carton.  No, I'm not just fangirling.  I may have a thing for complex, quasi-scoundrelly protagonists.  But it's not just that.  Sydney is genuinely amazing.  He's brilliant creation and he makes the rest of this story work.
• This is one of those books that you have to trust that the author is weaving a web of plots and that they will somehow connect in the end.  Dickens does a fabulous job of bringing all his threads together for a spectacular climax - no loose ends, no characters wasted. 

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• Being that it's Dickens, there are still (in my opinion) the issue of the weak-or-evil-female conundrum. 

Great quotes:

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” 

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.” 

"Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?""Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.”

31 Days of Books: The Scarlet Pimpernel

Title:  The Scarlet Pimpernel

Author:  Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Published:  1905

Year I read it:  2004

One sentence summary:  Dazzling, French, former-actress Marguerite St. Just seems to be enjoying her socialite life but is privately distant and bored with her aristocrat English husband, Percy Blakeney, until one day she is threatened by a French investigator and pulled into the hunt for the elusive "Scarlet Pimpernel" - an agent smuggling French aristocrats to safety during the reign of terror.

Interesting fact:  While the "Scarlet Pimpernel" seems to be inspired by the Sherlock Holmes-type of costume and out-witting people, his character in turn inspired the "secret identities" of many of our recognized heroes, like Bruce Wayne's alter-ego, Batman.

Three reasons to read it:

• Mystery - Baroness Orczy does a good job of weaving and then unraveling the mystery of what's going on and who's who.
• Action - with high stakes, both socially and personally, these characters cut some close calls, and it makes for some wonderful action.
• Romance - at it's heart, this is really a beautiful romance story!

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• Being one herself,  it is very apparent that Orczy deeply sympathizes with the aristocracy.  Some authors do a better job of keeping a balanced approach, acknowledging the fact that there were gross injustices leading up to the French Revolution.

Great quotes:

“She said nothing, and Sir Andrew, too, was silent, yet those two young people understood one another, as young people have a way of doing all the world over, and have done since the world began.” 

"Her love for him had been paltry and weak, easily crushed by her own pride”  

“Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear--a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love and as soon as her light footstep had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade, where her tiny hand had rested last.”  [ah! one of the most romantic passages ever!!]

31 Days of Books: Hunchback of Notre Dame

Title:  Hunchback of Notre-Dame, or Notre-Dame de Paris

Author:  Victor Hugo

Published:  1831

Year I read it:  2005

One sentence summary:  Hugo's classic tale of love vs. list, inward vs. outward beauty, appearance vs. fact - the Hunchback of Notre-Dame tells the Gothic Romance of the detested hunchback Quasimodo, the mysterious Gypsy Esmerelda, the dark priest Claude Frolo, and of how all their lives interconnect.  

Interesting fact:

Three reasons to read it:

• You can't beat Hugo's language - it's cadence, it's poignancy.  His words just soar. 
  Through the eyes of several different characters in search of it, Hugo's fleshes out what love is and what it looks like.
• If you're not up for Les Miserables, try a 500-page Hugo.  No, it's not the same.  It's not as epic.  But it is still amazing!
• Gorgeous ending!!  Another fantastic - tragic, but fantastic - ending.

One reason you maybe shouldn't: 

• "A Bird's Eye View of Paris."  It's a chapter in the middle of the book with no characters and no dialogue - just a meticulous tour of 15th century Paris.  I hate to admit this, but this is the first and only chapter from a classic that I've completely skipped.  [désolé, Monsieur Hugo!]

Great quotes:

“Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket."

“Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.” 


“Spira, spera."  ["Breathe, hope."]

31 Days of Books: Heart of Darkness

Title:  Heart of Darkness

Author:  Joseph Conrad

Published:  1902

Year I read it:  2010, 2011

One sentence summary:  Allegorical on so many levels, this novella relays the story of Charles Marlow's journey up the Congo river and of Kurtz, the man he meets there.

Interesting fact:  When Conrad decided to become an author, he had to choose to write in Polish (his native tongue), French, or English.  He chose English.

[Bonus fact:  Yes, this novella is the basis for Apocalypse Now.]

Three reasons to read it:

• When I was first reading this book, I wasn't enjoying it too much until at one point, I was talking to my brother, and I realized the deep intertextuality in this little novella.  My favorite is an ongoing parallel with the Aeneid, the white man stopping in Africa on the way to his own European empire - there are several specific references with the death of the helmsman, Kurtz's  African Mistress, etc.  Anway - that's just one example!
• This book offers a very interesting perspective.  Some argue that Conrad was racist and helped establish stereotypes.  While some of that may be true, he does bring to attention the many "horrors" of colonialism. 
• This is one of the best examples of framed narrative.  It's use is both masterful and significantly adds to the storytelling.  For instance, it makes the retelling of the narrative dream-like.  This is random, but I have a theory that Heart of Darkness helped inspire Inception.  Marlow compares his story to a dream multiple times - "It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream..." “We live as we dream--alone....” "I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice."  The plots of both stories turn (if you'll pardon the pun) on an idea left open-ended [the spinning top, and "the horror!"].  I will have to develop the theory more fully in another post... but I promise - it's trippy!

One reason you maybe shouldn't: 

• This is a hard book.  One of the harder ones I've read.  It's only 70 pages long, but the first time I read it, I had such a hard time making out what was going on.

Great quotes:

“And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth.”  [First lines of dialogue - he's referencing London colonized by the Romans]

"No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone.”

"The intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory--like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment."  [Marlow on the death of his African Helmsman] 

“the mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future”

“I think the knowledge came to him at last — only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude — and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating.

"The horror!  The horror!"

31 Days of Writing: To the Lighthouse

Title:  To the Lighthouse

Author:  Virginia Woolf

Published:  1927

Year I read it:  2012

One sentence summary:  In this stream-of-consciousness, autobiographical novel,  Woolf tells the story of the Ramsay family and their artist-friends and of their visits to the Isle of Skye between 1910 and 1920.

Interesting fact:  Woolf felt haunted by memories of her parents until she started this novel and finished it very rapidly.  She wrote this novel, in part, to understand her parents better; and afterwards never sensed the haunting again.

Three reasons to read it:

• If you are wary of Virginia Woolf, modernism, stream-of-conciousness, or all three (as I was), this is a rather good place to start.  [I preferred it to Mrs. Dalloway - gasp!]
• Woolf's language is stunning!  She's writing prose as poetry or poetry as prose or something really amazing with bits of philosophy & psychology thrown in.  I enjoyed her language immensely!
• Interactions between the characters struck me as rather universal - wives and husband, children and fathers, the misunderstood and socially awkward nerd, the female artist being told her work in some way doesn't count.  They're people I've seem to have met - or seem to have been.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• Woolf can be hard to grasp.  There's so much in there - but it's fun trying!

Great quotes:

To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.

Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black, halfway down, in the darkness, in the shaft which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps a tear formed; a tear fell; the waves swayed this way and that, received it, and were at rest. Never did anybody look so sad. 

What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.

It seemed to her such nonsense-inventing differences, when people, heaven knows, were different enough without that.

31 Days of Books: A Severe Mercy

Title:  A Severe Mercy

Author:  Sheldon Vanauken

Published: 1977

Year I read it:  2012

One sentence summary:  Vanauken's autobiographical narrative of the deep love he and his wife developed; their adventures all around the world, leading them to Oxford; their journey into faith, with the help of Oxfordian friend, "Jack" Lewis; and of their loss, the severe mercy.

Interesting fact:  It contains 18 of Vanauken's letters from C. S. Lewis.

Three reasons to read it:

• This is honest-to-goodness one of the best love stories I've ever read!  The depth, the romance produced from self-sacrifice (and common love for literature), is just astounding.  And it's so refreshing to hear a romance from the man's perspective!  Loved that beginning.
• Oxford!  This book captures Oxford of the '50's - which really hasn't changed much.  See below for some of the best explanations of life in that University town.
• The pain Vanauken goes through - and the faith with which he faces tragedy - are far more than "tear-jerking" or "heart-breaking."  None of those cliche's will do.  This book touches something far deeper.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• It has very, very sad parts.

Great quotes:

Love is the final reality; and anyone who does not understand this, be he writer or sage, is a man flawed of wisdom.

We saw self as the ultimate danger to love, which it is.

Coming to England was like coming home, coming to a home half-remembered - but home.

"That's what Oxford is, a place to talk about everything..."

"This, you know, is a time of taking in--taking in friendship, conversation, gaiety, wisdom, knowledge, beauty, holiness--and later, well, there'll be a time of giving out... Now we must store up the strength, the riches all that Oxford had given us, to sustain us after.  She stood there, Oxford, like a mother to us all with her hands heaped with riches."

I tended, indeed, to feel that God Himself dwelt in Oxford, His holy city, where He could hear the bells.

He had been wont to despise emotions: girls were weak, emotions–tears– were weakness. But this morning he was thinking that being a great brain in a tower, nothing but brain, wouldn’t be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky– no feelings at all. But feelings– feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But then– this was awful!– maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! He checked himself, showing one’s emotions was not the thing: having them was. Still, he was dizzy with the revelation. What is beauty but something is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least, is partly emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, the purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it was found in love– a great love… So if he wanted the heights of joy, he must have it, if he could find it, in great love. But in the books again, great joy through love always seemed go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain– if indeed, they went together. If there were a choice– and he suspected there was– a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.

31 Days of Books: Surprised by Oxford

I missed yesterday's!  But I promise I'll make it up.

If you want to read some funny stories connected to me and today's book, you can read about them here and here.

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Title:  Surprised by Oxford

Author:  Carolyn Weber

Published:  2011

Year I read it:  2011

One sentence summary:  In the memoir of her first year of grad school studying English at Oxford, Weber recalls her journey into new realms of academia, relationships, and faith.

Interesting fact:  My cousin had the author as a professor and I found this out only after she had moved - missed connection. 

Three reasons to read it:

• You want to talk about intertextuality?  Weber, now a lit professor, weaves her story with marvelous connections to famous authors, beautiful passages, and a load of U2 lyrics.  It's a beautiful read for any fellow bibliophile.
• While reading this book, I walked into my mom's room and said, "Mom, I have a problem.  I'm falling in love with a guy in a book.  And he's not fictional.  And he's not dead."  All that to say, the romance in this book is a delight!  And the fact that it takes place in Oxford doesn't hurt...
• It is so refreshing to hear of an intellectual's journey of faith.  Weber gets vulnerable, sharing about her wrestling through skepticism, feminism, and a host of other things.  I loved reading about her wrestling and the revelation she got through it.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• I really can't think of any detractors for this one.  Highly recommend it!

Great quotes:

"Even Oxford's infrastructure was conducive to contemplation, revelation. Its walls seemed infused with mystery... It was tempting to think that resting my head against htis stony chest would betray a heartbeat, or by putting my ear to this shell, I could hear the distant but undeniable advancing and then retreating of whispered wisdom." 

"Life is messy. Life is beatuiful and terrible and messy. So why would we expect a faith in this life that is easy to understand?" 

"Any student of literature knows that metaphor is far more precise than the literal..." 

"Books become alive not only when read, but when shared..."
"A happy ending makes up for a lot."

"Dead authors really do make the best friends."

31 Days of Books: Manalive

Title:  Manalive

Author:  GK Chesterton  [You didn't think I could leave him out of this, did you?]

Published:  1912

Year I read it:  2011

One sentence summary:  The odd and enthusiastic Innocent Smith arrives at a London boarding house full of disillusioned modernists; but after the stir he causes in the cause to improve his fellow tenants, he is arrested and charged with burglary, polygamy, and attempted murder, turning the boarding house into the trial of Innocent.

Interesting fact:  Chesterton was friends and philosophical adversaries with George Bernard Shaw, author of Pygmalion.

Three reasons to read it:

• Chesterton is all about paradox - and this book is full of them!  I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say that Innocent is himself a paradox.
• If you need a reminder of the delight of the little things, this would be a great book to read.  There are so many moments we moderns/post-moderns take for granted that the author recognizes and celebrates.
• This novel is witty and funny and perfectly Chesterton.  [Don't tell anyone, but I actually preferred this to Man Who Was Thursday]

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• It is very obviously and intentionally a parable.

Great quotes:

“I don't deny," he said, "that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.”  

“This man's spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has distinguished between custom and creed. He has broken the conventions, but he has kept the commandments.”

“Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.”

“I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.”

31 Days of Books: Ender's Game

Title:  Ender's Game

Author:  Orson Scott Card

Published:  1985

Year I read it: 2013

One sentence summary:  Aliens have twice attacked the Earth and now 6-year-old Andrew "Ender" Wiggin has been selected as humanity's greatest chance of defense and survival - the only question is: can he survive the training?

Interesting fact:  Originally published as a short story in 1977, the Ender's series now contains 12 books, several collections of short stories, and Card is still fleshing out the "Enderverse." 

Three reasons to read it:

• What I expected?  An 80's sci-fi story aimed at 14-year-old boys.  What I got?  An extremely thought provoking, gripping book that delved into philosophy, psychology, sibling rivalry, human fears, loneliness, otherness, and empathy.  The point is, you might not be into sci-fi but trust me that this book transcends sci-fi!
• Battle school is the Hogwarts of space!  The games, the maneuvers, the teams, the loyalty, the enemies, the teachers - when written well, I think stories about schools like this one can be some of the most insightful (if perhaps slightly over-simplified) to our daily lives.
• Card knows how to write!  The pacing and cadence of his writing is so good, and the character of Ender Wiggin - just wow!

[Bonus reason:  Film adaptation coming out November 1st!]

One reason you maybe shouldn't: 

• Some have complained about the ending, that it veers in a new direction or doesn't feel cohesive... I actually appreciated the ending, but some have objected.

Great quotes:

[Opening line]  “I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.”  

“Everything we do means something.  Them laughing.  Me not laughing. He toyed with the idea of trying to be like the other boys. But he couldn't think of any jokes, and none of theirs seemed funny. Wherever their laughter came from, Ender couldn't find such a place in himself. He was afraid and fear made him serious.”  

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”  

“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”

“Remember, the enemy's gate is down."

31 Days of Books: History of Love

I've talked about this book a lot, so I thought I should give it a proper review.   It will also be forever connected, in my mind, to yesterday's book because I read them in an Honor's Seminar on "Memory, Emotion, Space, and Place" - in which my final paper was on how the human mind copes when lacking interpersonal relationships... anyway, it was a very interesting class and these two books are very dear to me because of it.

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Title:  History of Love

Author:  Nicole Krauss

Published:  2005

Year I read it: 2011

One sentence summary:  A "beautifully sad," multiple-narrator novel about an aged and lonely holocaust survivor named Leopold Gursky and the lives his writing unknowingly changed--including his own.

Interesting fact:  Krauss incorporates Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles in her novel, a book which her husband, fellow NYT-bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer, literally carved up to form a new book, Tree of Codes.

Three reasons to read it:

•  Leopold Gursky.  He remains one of my favorite characters - romantic, tragic, comic.  I love his grumpy self.  And his writing... his writing is like a romantic poet's, but without being pretentious; it's like a post-modern's without being depressing.
• This is a writer's mystery novel - working out the tangles Krauss has woven takes 4 narrators and several intriguing twists.  [After reading this for class, my professor had us each create a chronological sequence of events - only a few people were accurate, and I didn't pick up everything until a read-through] 
• This book is "beautifully sad" in a remarkable way.  It somehow is both happy and sad, but, overall, extremely satisfying.  Krauss's language, intertextuality, and symbolism is really lovely.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• Some adult content.

Great quotes:

"All I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen."

 When I saw a Starbucks I went in and bought a coffee because I felt like a coffee, not because I wanted anyone to notice me. Normally I would have made a big production, Give me a Grande Vente, I mean a Tall Grande, Give me a Chai Super Vente Grande, or do I want a Short Frappe? and then, for punctuation, I would've had a small mishap at the milk station. Not this time. I poured the milk like a normal person, a citizen of the world, and sat down in an easy chair across from a man reading the newspaper. I wrapped my hands around the coffee. The warmth felt good. The next table over there was a girl with blue hair leaning over a notebook and chewing on a ballpoint pen, and at the table next to her was a little boy in a soccer uniform sitting with his mother who told him, The plural of elf is elves. A wave of happiness came over me. It felt giddy to be part of it all. To be drinking a cup of coffee like a normal person. I wanted to shout: The plural of elf is elves! What a language! What a world!

“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, and they parted with leaves in their hair.
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” 

“there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.” 

"When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?"

"Life is a thing of beauty and a joy forever."