We survived our 50 books in one year challenge. In 2009 we are still reading...

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

On Literature by J. Hillis Miller, (#6, Nonfiction)


J. Hillis Miller tackles some pretty interesting questions in this little pocketbook. Why should we read literature? What is literature? Why is literature dead? How should we read literature? Why have we always read literature? I really like his answer to the question of why we read literature. The way he writes about the kindling of the passion for reading makes me think of my own delight in immersing myself in books when I was a child, something I carried on into adulthood.

The first book, the first piece of literature I ever read, was Anne of Green Gables. I was six. The book was about 300+ pages long, yet I was determined to read it. I think it had something to do with watching the movie on television or hearing about the story from a friend. Whatever the reason, I committed myself to the task and even though it took me a year, I read it. I don't know what my next book after that was, or what I read in between, but after that, I was hooked. Devouring books became an obsession and I lived book to book as a child.

Miller's On Literature is a book for my Politics and Economics of the Canon class although I might have read it of my own accord, because the writing is nice. I like his argument--that human beings have an innate need to immerse themselves in the other world, an alternate reality that books create with their words on the page. And even though literature is dying, as a result of the new media, the new theories that take away the authority of language in a text and replace it with analyzing the race, class, and gender representations in novels, there will always be a place for reading stories and escaping.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (#3, Classic)

Would you rather be selfish or selfless? Conventional thought teaches us that selfish = bad and selfless = good. But, in Ayn Rand's popular novel, The Fountainhead, she creates the utter evil character, Ellsworth Toohey, who preaches selflessness from beginning to end, and the utter heroic character, Howard Roark, who admits he is too egotistical to have a statue symbolize him because he does not wish to be the symbol of anything.

The Fountainhead is built from Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, defined as rational individualism. She says, "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Personally, I am not sure whether Objectivism would work in reality, but in theory I think it's a great philosophy. It may be cliche, but I found the following quote about Objectivism, and being the "sunshine" that I am I really like it and would like to believe in it: "Objectivism is optimistic, holding that the universe is open to human achievement and happiness and that each person has within him the ability to live a rich, fulfilling, independent life. " --William Thomas

The Fountainhead is a great book. I truly enjoyed reading every long, tiny print, 704 pages of it. I recommend it freely. Whether you buy into Objectivism or not, it is worth reading.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion (#5, Contemporary Literature)

My first Joan Didion piece, aside from half an essay in Slouching Towards Bethlehem that I skimmed during Newswriting one class period, I must say I was disappointed. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what I found. This book has an introduction, which should have tipped me off that it might not be such an easy, breezy read but I resisted reading it until after I finished the novel. And good thing too, seeing as how David Thomson gives away the entire book.

Play It As It Lays is a sparse and at times confusing book that tells the story of Maria Wyeth, a character that you just want to shake sometimes. The lean prose forces you to speculate on things which is also interesting but sometimes you need answers. Sometimes you want to know exactly what is going on. But then it wouldn't be a classic, and it wouldn't be considered a piece of literature. This novel is reminiscent of The Great Gatsby and other books that comment on the moral decline of society.

But you will not find a Jay Gatsby here. Maria is a cold character, whose personal tragedies fail to summon even the slightest twinge of sympathy. At the end I wasn't rooting for Maria. I wasn't rooting against her either but the indifference I felt toward her character is perhaps worse than had I secretly hoped for her literary demise. This may be the first and last piece of Didion fiction I will ever read, I haven't decided yet. The entire collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem sits on my shelf, though, waiting.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst, (#4, Reader's Choice)


Carolyn Parkhurst's Lost and Found left something to be desired. When I got to the last page, I asked myself, "Is that it?" For a book of this nature to not deliver a satisfying ending is almost unspeakable. This is bestselling fiction, and I think one of the main draws of reading a book that everybody reads is an ending that is predictable in that it delivers the answers to all of your burning questions.

I can't give this novel a glowing review because it tries to do too much. I don't think you can parade as a light-hearted romp through reality-tv land and then get ultra serious. What's the fun in that? Lost and Found tells the story of seven teams on a reality game show, much like the Amazing Race but with some modifications to the game. Contestants run around to all these different countries in teams of two and track down specific items that they must then lug around for the rest of the game. The twist is that all the players have secrets that the producers hope to reveal over the course of the game. There were not many clever plot twists on Parkhurst's part and the novel was more tell than show, mostly because of the split narration between six of the contestants.

Having read this, I feel like I wasted one of my fifty on something less than satisfying. Let's hope my next read, Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays, is a little better.

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland (#3, Reader's Choice)


Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland was a leap for me. I found out about him on another book-blogger's page and decided it might be interesting to read a book where the main inciting incident is a school shooting. Overall, I would give this book a B+. Coupland tells a wonderful story, with those great little twists in plot that have you sighing and screaming at the same time. His writing is also beautiful at times, but only when the narrator is male. I had some problems with his female narrators. Both Cheryl and Heather seemed too much like the stereotypical whiny female and finishing their chapters became a chore, even though Cheryl's chapter is supposedly the most interesting since she narrates her own death in the school shooting.

I also didn't know what to make of the rampant religion, which in the beginning turned me off and made me almost not read the book. But once you get past that first chapter, Jason takes over and the story really starts to emerge in the wake of the school shootings. Coupland does a great job of taking his characters through a horrible tragedy and then shows us what the aftermath might be like. And while I thought Cheryl was supposed to be the focal point of the novel and the figure that haunts you well after the book has been read, I think I was wrong. Jason is this figure, because it is his story that lingers, his losses that you feel when the novel comes to a close.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Marley and Me by John Grogan (#2, Nonfiction)

I am an animal lover, pure and unwavering. People laugh when I tell them I wrote my personal statement for Law School about sheep, chickens, cats and dogs. But I am not ashamed, I am a product of my life alongside all creatures great and small. (Yes, I also read all the James Herriot books) Armed with this information you would probably guess that I enjoyed reading Marley and Me. And, yes, I did.

I had my hesitations as I started the book. The writing is technically good, John Grogan is a well known newspaper columnist, but I found myself overly critical of what I imagined my writing would look like if I were to write a book. But, when I continued reading my criticism disappeared as Grogan won me over with his ability to tell a story about Marley that had me laughing out loud and visualizing that dopey lopsided grin of a dog who has already forgotten the trouble they caused moments ago.

The book is hilarious. The book is sad. The book is poignant. It may not be a breakthrough novel that will fill English class book lists, but for Grogan it was more than just a book about a dog. At the end he says, "It was an amazing concept that I was only now, in the wake of his death, fully absorbing: Marley as a mentor. As teacher and role model. Was it possible for a dog--any dog, but especially a nutty, wildly uncontrollable one like ours--to point humans to the things that really mattered in life? I believed it was. Loyalty. Courage. Devotion. Simplicity. Joy." I agree.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, (#2, Contemporary Literature)


Think The Island crossed with Prep. That is how I would describe this book. Ishiguro grabs you in the first paragraph with the simple word carer. What the hell is a carer? It was this question that made me read on, and on, and on. There is strangeness throughout, along with gaps that need to be filled and questions that need to be answered. I read on because I was compelled to do so by the narrator. Kathy H. hooked me into her little world and I was powerless to put the book down. And I guess that is what we might call a good book? I suppose so. But I feel like when I cruise through a book, hell-bent on reading just to know the answers the book promises to deliver, I feel cheapened. Can you really enjoy a book you just devoured? I read like a starved person, scarfing down the words on each page as though I was not sure when my next meal of gripping fiction would come along.

This type of story, this genre crossing, is exactly the type of novel I gravitate towards. Not marketed as science fiction, this book comes as a surprise as you think you will be reading about normal things. But you have been fooled and you soon realize this as Kathy talks about the shaded nature of things at the boarding school she attends in the countryside in England. You realize at about the same time as Kathy that things are indeed rotten in the state of Denmark.

There was one thing that annoyed me at times, though, and that was the narrator's voice. Kathy tells the story of her life, and it is the blind acceptance of her fate that gets too much to handle at times. In fact, all the characters are guilty of this. Not one of them does what seems like the obvious thing to do. As a reader you can't help but have that reaction. Mine was that they needed to ask questions, they needed to demand to be told what was going on and then be able to decide what to do for themselves. But that was the beauty of Ishiguro's novel. None of the characters did this and the novel remained satirical, disturbing and utterly distressing.

Next up is Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland.
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Thursday, January 11, 2007

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (#1, Classic)

Invisible Man may not be the best book I've ever read, and it probably wouldn't make my personal top 50 or onto my recommendation list, but unlike some of the books I have read in the recent past, I don't feel less intelligent for having read it. That said--did I actually like it, is it good literature, do I feel enlightened? Mostly, Yes. Often times when I am reading I find myself skimming quickly along to find out what happens--Invisible Man is not conducive to my method. I found more theoretical narrative and rambling prose than an unfolding plot, not exactly a page turner. On to the analysis.

Apparently Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man in response to books like Black Boy and Native Son to counter the "ignorant and naive" black narrator. The narrator in Invisible Man is extremely intelligent and praised for his oratory ability throughout the novel, yet, his naivety almost raises him to the level of ignorance. He wants so badly to make a difference, and you as a reader also want that to happen, that you both get caught up in believing he is going to come out on top. Pulling for the narrator is all the more comical as a reader because the first chapter begins at the end, and from the first paragraph you know it is not a "happily ever after" ending. I wondered from the beginning, "Who is an invisible man, what makes him invisible?" That is what the nameless narrator realizes at the very end once he is robbed of his naivety and the reality of his life and position in society sets in. He is invisible not because of his race, but rather because he is not a person, instead he is a pawn for his "Brothers" to accomplish their never fully defined goal.

Invisible Man should be read in a classroom or at least should be discussed along the way. Often times during the book I would be completely confused about what was going on, "Where is he? Who are they? Did he just get a lobotomy???!!?" (Still wondering!) Pushing through, suddenly the plot would fall back into place and I would have to just pretend I understood the previous chapter. After finishing the book I am so curious about reading scholarly articles to get a better grasp on what I read . . . did I get it? Hopefully I did not completely miss the point. Bottom line–good book, fairly easy reading, but take your time!

And now on to book number two of 2007–Marley and Me by John Grogan. Who can resist that cover? Being the animal lover I am this is sure to be a quick read. Stay tuned.

Monday, January 8, 2007

A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton (#1, Readers Choice)

Book number one I am afraid to admit is an Oprah's Book Club pick. Oh the horror. I vowed I would never subject myself to that particular form of literary torture after having read some of her previous picks and finding them lacking. I find that the more books from the Oprah Book Club I read, the more the books blend together and become a singular mass of stories about a tragedy in a woman's life and then her subsequent time spent dealing with the aftermath.

But--I am not here to complain. Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World was a peculiar read. It had that essential tragic ingredient necessary for its placement on the Oprah list, but there was momentum to the story. While there was stagnation at the beginning mostly due to Alice's subsequent depression after the death of her best friend's daughter in the pond, the novel only stood still for a few chapters before Hamilton threw us another surprise. The descriptions of the farm, of Alice's emotions, of the other character's emotions are gritty and make you clench your teeth in some parts.

One of the saving graces of this novel, though, that spared it the monotony and unbearable ravings of a depressed woman that are so often the case with Oprah books, was how Hamilton told the story in three parts. Alice narrates up until her arrest, but then the story is given to her husband, Howard. His voice felt very real and it was refreshing to hear the portion of time Alice spent in jail from the other side. We only get Howard for one section, but it is probably the best section and the reason the novel works.

I also just found out that they made the book into a movie back in 1999. And although I didn't rent it, I don't think I would want to, I found their casting choices interesting. Can't say that I saw Sigourney Weaver as Alice at all. Julianne Moore I suppose is all right for Theresa, but Howard should have been beefier, or at least that is how I pictured him.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

50 books not suggested by Oprah

I accept the challenge. After reading a long string of HORRIBLE books (Prep, A Wedding in December, The Starter Wife) I will not succumb to any more books endorsed by Oprah or found on the Bestseller list. No more "Chick Lit" or trite "woe is me" family sagas. 2007 will be the year of good prose, intelligent thought and innovative ideas. Time to start turning the pages.

50 Books in One Year

A failed book club behind us, Becks and I have decided to rise to the challenge and attempt to each read 50 books in the year 2007. Can this be done? Of course. Will we become obsessed with accomplishing this task? Probably. Will our tired eyes cry out in pain when reach books 40-50? Perhaps. But it will all be worth it.

Now for the rules. Don't think there aren't limits and guidelines to our little challenge. We must read ten nonfiction books, ten literary classics, and ten books that are considered contemporary literature. The other twenty books can be whatever we like. Let's just hope that we will both be able to resist the urge to read a string of toilet paper novels.