The Art of Racing in the Rain

My immediate reaction upon finishing The Art of Racing in the Rain was to fling myself onto the floor where my dog Phineas lay chewing a bone and hug him, while tears streamed down my face. I’ve yet to control my sniffling even as I write this. For anyone who has ever had a dog, loved a dog, felt like that one animal understands you in a way that no human ever will, this is the novel for you. Yes, you will end like me, sobbing and clutching the dog you are so lucky to still have, but you will also be clutching the book, for it is at it’s heart a story of love and triumph and fighting for what you want no matter the cost.

            Allow me to disengage from the emotion for a moment and actually proceed to detail. Garth Stein knows he is writing a book that will make the reader cry. He opens at the end so to speak, slipping us the knowledge that Enzo, beloved dog of Denny the racecar driver, is getting old and ready to die. It is only that first chapter where the reader is given foresight into the later novel, for the rest of the story continues, narrated by no other than Enzo himself. That’s right. The dog is protagonist, the narrator, and a damn good speaker when you get right down to it. Enzo tells of us his puppy days, of Denny choosing him and the life they live as bachelors together. Denny meets Eve, they marry, have a daughter, and Enzo is wrapped up in a loving family just ripe for some sort of drama to tear them apart.

            This is Stein’s first triumph. Terrible things happen to Denny and his loved ones, things that I won’t get into because the reader deserves to be as sad and shocked as I was. It is Stein’s choice to keep his protagonists going, to not allow them to wallow as the rest of us might were our worlds to fall apart that makes him an excellent and insightful writer. Of course, it is Stein’s voice in Enzo, full of compassion, understanding, strong opinions and pieces of revealed truths. To see life from a dog’s point of view, to watch tragedy unfold alongside happiness is a remarkable thing, and will have you sitting at the kitchen table looking at your own dog and wondering what on earth they think of you.

            What makes Enzo’s narration particularly stirring are his philosophical views of the world. He believes that upon his death he will come back to life as a man, and practices thinking and behaving as humanly as possible throughout his life. He watches television with Denny and takes in the facts of the world. He confronts the dark hopelessness that lies dormant within all of us, through a beautiful metaphor about a dancing zebra. He understands death and what it truly means to live, but also how to keep someone living. Enzo is Denny’s support system, and influential in almost every big decision, and plot twist, throughout the novel, drawing the reader in on Enzo’s side, so that we root for Denny.

            Speaking of rooting for Denny, I come to Stein’s second triumph. The author can turn an inspirational phrase like he was born to do it. Denny is a racecar driver and as Enzo grows up, he becomes a racecar dog. He knows all the tricks, the skills, the moments of inspiration that keep a competitor going when all other hope and help is lost. The novel is littered with wonderful quotes about racing, such as a personal favorite, “There is no dishonor in losing the race, there is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.” As a varsity rower who knows more about racing, and the pain, fear and ecstasy that comes along with it than I ever thought possible, every one of these tidbits hit home. Who cares if they were about racecar driving and not rowing? Any athlete will read the novel and apply every word to their sport. If they have a dog like I do then they probably won’t ever want to put the book down.

            So really I don’t understand why you’re even still reading this review. Get in your car (pretend you’re a racecar driver for once in your life) and get a copy of The Art of Racing in the Rain. NOW! I don’t tell you to do this often…so take my word for it.

                                                        Author Garth Stein and his dog Comet

The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time

I read a lot. I suppose that is a rather obvious fact. And while there is nothing wrong with reading in any spare time I might have, I find that sometimes my ample literary mental inventory makes it harder and harder to find books that truly touch me in some way. I live for the moment when I’m only half way into a book and already raving about it to my friends, when I am excited to turn the page and exclaiming over plot points aloud, even in very crowded dining halls at extraordinarily inappropriate times. When I started reading Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in Nighttime, I realized that I had found a book that did all these things.

            This is one of those novels that has actually been on my too read list for ages. Having finally picked it up for my often talked about children’s lit course, I was immediately reminded why the book had received so much hype in the first place. The main character, Christopher Boone, is a fifteen year old with autism, living in England with his father. He tells us early on that his mother “went away” to the hospital, and died of a heart attack, leaving him with his blue-collar father who tries his hardest to understand his son’s view of the world, with limited success. It is the goal of the reader to try and understand Christopher as well, a feat that is much easier than one might think. He explains what he thinks, is incredibly direct in language and logic, and as the reader I honestly found myself thinking that what he was saying made a lot of sense. I do have a rather extensive knowledge of autism spectrum disorders, thanks to a mother’s master degree and years of teaching, and so while I read the book actively noticing the symptoms of the disease, I also was able to see Christopher as a character in his own right, not a clinical diagnosis. I believe Haddon was aware of this while writing, and wanted to present Christopher in a way that we understood he was different and could easily identify those differences, but also see within ourselves some of those same ticks.

            There are wonderful moments of humor in the novel, when Haddon’s sarcasm comes through other characters. Christopher also provides particularly hilarious bits, although the reader does struggle with whether or not you are laughing at him, or simply the situation. This is a novel that forces you to think, that makes you uncomfortable and yet in the end catches you up in a young man’s triumphs. There is profound sadness as well, especially reading as an adult. Never have I empathized so readily with parents, but there are moments when my heart simply broke for Christopher’s father. For fear of ruining any important plot points, I won’t discuss my appreciation and sadness surrounding Christopher’s mother, only say that her character is a bold choice by Haddon.

            I struggle of find a fault with this novel, and honestly can only come up with my sadness upon finishing it. Christopher, despite his many triumphs, is still on a hard road, and it is the reader’s knowledge of this juxtaposed against Christopher’s naïve ignorance that pull at the heartstrings. But don’t let that stop you! This is a novel for adults and children, each getting something completely different out of it, but in the end simply enjoying the story of a boy who is endearingly different, and incredibly sincere.

Parvana's Journey

It’s finally happened. My tolerance for children’s books has completely gone by the wayside, my ability to look at a book not as an educated adult but as simply someone waiting for a story is absolutely dashed. Again, I read Deborah Ellis’s Parvana’s Journey for my course on taboos in children’s literature. In a sweeping generalization, the book is about war torn Afghanistan and several children struggling to survive as refugees, tracking Parvana, a young girl, trying to find her family after her father’s death.

Clearly meant to be a child’s first exposure to the conflict surrounding the Middle East, Ellis has no qualms about beating her reader over the head with every single point and image within the text. There is nothing subtle about her story telling, and perhaps more harshly, nothing redeeming in her actual writing either. The reader is unable to draw any conclusion for themselves, because Ellis is there shouting with a megaphone, “You see!? Adults are supposed to take care of children, not abandon them! War is bad! I think women are mistreated!” Such a tirade of obvious realizations does nothing to educate a young reader, and leaves adults filled with contempt and scorn.

As this educated reader that I assume myself to be, I find the need to try and find some sort of redemption for Parvana’s Journey, because the idea of a book not having any merit at all saddens me greatly. However, I will admit to struggling with that pursuit right now. I take issue with Ellis’s portrayal of women in Afghanistan, for she takes a traditional Western feminist stance, claiming the burqa as an object of oppression and writing in a style that has been described as “save the Muslim girl.” While I wish to avoid a purely political and anthropological tirade here, I believe that Muslim women are quite capable of saving themselves without the meddling of Westerners who understand nothing of their culture or the customs behind the burqa.

I also fail to see how this book can be any sort of helpful educational tool. Yes, it does give a very basic and elementary view of the Afghani war that can serve as a first exposure for a child. There is violence, bombing, death, every horror of war an adult can imagine, and yet nothing ever stays too bad. There is a lack of true realism that I find disheartening. It’s as though Ellis didn’t quite have the balls to leave her novel with an ambiguous and potentially sad ending, instead choosing to wrap up her plot neatly with Parvana finding her mother and assuming that everything would then be okay. What does this teach a young child? That nothing everything bad will be easily fixed and that there is no true suffering? I don’t propose to let my child in on the crushing cruelty of the world at an inappropriate age, but if anything I would rather my child watch the news with me and then we talk about current events, than them reading this novel and not being allowed to draw the lessons from it themselves.

I promise the reader of this review that I did not go into writing this meaning to be scathing. It’s just that sort of book. So read at your own peril. I certainly won’t be joining you for a second go.

Bridge to Terabithia

How I managed to get through my childhood without reading Bridge to Terabithia I honestly could not tell you. It was one of those books that I always heard about, and I’m pretty sure an excerpt of it ended up on my state standardized testing in fourth grade, but here I am, a senior in college and have just finished reading it for the first time. And guess what? I loved it!

            Yes, yes, that is a hasty judgment without any supporting detail. I’m getting there. In this book author Katherine Paterson has tackled the daunting task of presenting death to children in a way that makes sense and yet does not demean a child’s emotional capability. The language is sparse and beautiful, the story simple. Jess and Leslie are the boy and girl next door, drawn together in their rural town initially by their differences, and soon become the best of friends. Together they create the fantasy world of Terabithia, a land where they reign as king and queen and stalk the forests fighting giants. There they escape their teachers and family, free to share secret hopes and dreams, and free to form a bond that transcends romantic love. Keep in mind, these two endearing protagonists are still children, eleven or so, and their friendship is pure, the coming together of two souls in wonderful harmony.

            Of course, such a beautiful story is bound to meet a tragic end. Books don’t often make me cry, but by the last chapter I had tears running down my face as I faced death, and the acceptance of grief. For fear of spoiling any plot points, I won’t go into detail, but will only say that Paterson understands the grieving process and writes it with integrity, allowing her characters to cope in their own way, and pull at the readers’ heartstrings all the while. She also threw in a bit with a dog, which is a sure fire way to wrench my heart. Perhaps Paterson’s greatest achievement is that in the moment of grief, no one knows how to act. Each character takes a different emotional tact, and the touching scenes come from the intersection of these emotions, particularly Jess and Leslie’s father, where the line between adulthood and childhood is completely decimated by the shared loss.

            It’s a short book, and I feel as though my emotion while reading it, through profound, has been neatly categorized. I was charmed, enchanted, devastated and then given a glimmer of hope. This classic book is worth it’s reputation, and I will be sure to make sure any child of mine reads it well before their twenty-first birthday, and then many times after.

Disgrace

I will come right out and say it. I struggled with this novel. Not in the actual reading of it, for it’s quick and stark, understandable and lacking that absurd authorial elitism that other novels carry like a badge of honor. No, I struggled with J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace because the story made me uncomfortable. This doesn’t happen often, but within the first twenty pages of this novel, I was already squirming with my dislike for the protagonist.

The novel centers around David Lurie, a professor in South Africa, who lives in a world of ideas, completely self centered within his own consciousness. So absorbed within his own sphere is he that the reader doesn’t even find out his name until a good fifteen pages in, after he’s already slept with a prostitute and commented on his need, but not appreciation of women. He then proceeds to have an affair with one of his students. Normal, unimaginative plot twist right? Except that there relationship, short as it may have been, existed in a haze of grey. It is never stated outright that this girl really desires him in any way, and the word rape is just waiting to be said. It is not explicit, there is no violence, but in reading it I just wanted to scream at Lurie to stop that very instant, because the girl so clearly wasn’t into it. Anyone who has remotely been in such a situation, where the headiness of an older, powerful man overtakes the senses would (I imagine) be right there along with me, yelling and remaining stupefied that Lurie doesn’t pick up on the social cues fairly hitting him in the face.

Coetzee cleverly makes the grey area even more obvious by juxtaposing Lurie’s affair with his daughter Lucy’s rape. The two acts of violation are so completely different from one another that as a reader I still found myself more uncomfortable with the earlier affair than the outright rape. Which is horrible! And not quite knowing what to do with that, I will let it alone and leave it to other readers to figure out what happened and how they feel about it.

Despite my discomfort with the protagonist and the questionable violations, the novel did make me feel something. There is a heavy emphasis on Lurie’s work with dogs being put down that absolutely crushed me. Put a dog in a book, kill it, and I promise you, I will sob forever. The dogs worked as distinct characters, tying together Lucy and Lurie’s story and eventually allowing for a symbolic release at the end of the novel. Besides this utter despair at a dog dying, the novel also made me angry, uncomfortable, and frustrated and completely question why on earth this book had won a Booker, a Nobel and been a finalist for the National Book Award. My answer to this last question is that Coetzee’s writing is frank and honest, and further more it made me feel deeply. So perhaps this is not a book I would read again. I’m on the fence about even saying I liked it, but it has affected me, and in the end, that is the point of literature.

The Chocolate War

Secret societies. Manipulative sociopaths. A hero we all root for because he stands up for himself when we cannot. Chocolate. One of these things not quite sounding like the others? In Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, you get all of these, plus a left over uneasy feeling about the cruelty of high school and the unreliability of adults.

            This is in fact a children’s book, despite the obviously dark and dangerous subject matter. In fact it has ended up on the banned book list frequently for exposing the gritty underbelly of an all boys private Catholic school as a home for sexually frustrated, violent prone and psychologically manipulative teens, and a secret society that holds sway even over the faculty. I’m not going to lie; this is not a book that I would have picked up on my own. I read it for a class I’m taking on taboos in children’s literature, and it certainly fits the bill for that. And yet there is something that isn’t shocking at all about this book. Maybe it’s just the desensitization of my generation to violence and the cruelty of the young, but the fact that a secret society controls the student body and no one stands up to it doesn’t seem all that of a remarkable idea to me.

The characters of this group, called The Vigils (hello incredibly non- intimidating name!) fall easily into typical high school archetypes, remaining relatively undeveloped outside of the given parameters. There is the underdog hero Jerry, standing up to The Vigils by refusing to sell boxes of chocolate in the annual school fundraiser. He is quiet, an outsider, and takes abuse like it’s going out of style. He never fully achieves that triumphant moment over the bullying that most other novels would provide, which is perhaps why I struggle to form my opinion of the book. I’ve been trained to want that ending that puts the bad guys down and leaves Jerry riding off into the sunset. Of course, real life doesn’t work that way, and that discomfort is what redeems the novel as a work worth reading.

Archie Costello serves as Jerry’s tormentor, and is one of the most horrifyingly relatable bullies in literature. Perhaps it is a testament to his manipulative power that as a reader I found myself sympathizing with him as he felt increasing pressure as the mastermind of The Vigils, coming up with “assignments” and constantly being plagued with the possibility that the entire system will turn on him. He has the assistant head master in his pocket, and the eerie power struggle between the two of them cast the reliability and authority of adults into greater doubt.

In the end I still can’t quite decide if I enjoyed The Chocolate War or not. On the one hand it is fairly predictable in terms of characters development, but then the plot refuses to adhere to the traditional mode of an anti-bullying story. This disconnect made me uncomfortable, which then caused me to think, so the novel does facilitate that higher cognition one doesn’t always expect from young adult literature. I will recommend with trepidation, for the conclusions you come to as a reader might surprise you, but then, isn’t it always better to be surprised?

Midnight's Children

It is not often that I truly enjoy a novel I am required to read for class. There is a preemptory disdain for the inevitable picking apart of the written word that is sure to follow any assigned book. Yes, I have read wonderful literature because I have been told to, but not necessarily something I would willingly curl up with on a Sunday afternoon when the mountain of homework we all have had diminished just a bit. However, I have found that magical book, the assigned novel that I actually enjoyed tremendously, in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. With its sweeping plot and exquisite language, Rushdie’s novel was the well-deserved winner of the Booker Fiction Prize in 1981 and subsequently named the “Booker of Booker’s” twenty-five years later. But enough about the novels accolades! Onto the actual point of reading a book. Because it is good.

            Set in India, Midnight’s Children is the account of Saleem Sinai, whose birth at the stroke of midnight on the night of India’s independence ties his life to his country in magical and haunting ways. Mentally connected with the other children born at midnight, but forever alone in the greatness of his own intuition and connection to the country’s well being, Saleem’s life provides a fascinating read, even for someone (like myself) who doesn’t quite catch every one of the overwhelming historical allusions to India’s volatile early years of independence. Rushdie has achieved a truly sweeping narrative, following Saleem’s family drama across three generations, while simultaneously managing to include a story of vast and painful history between India and Pakistan. Occasionally this sweeping nature overtakes itself, leaving the reader adrift in a sea of detail and narrative tangents. We don’t even get to Saleem’s birth until about one hundred pages in, although that historical lead up is warranted. Towards the end of the novel, details again hinder the progress of plot, and Rushdie, in his desire to make is point clear, trends towards repetition and verbosity.

            Never fear! I’m not about to completely bash this novel. In fact, get ready for some intense praise. Midnight’s Children is the story of the past, told by a present day Saleem. He is writing his history, retelling his life to his companion Padma, thus maintaining two separate narrative tones. Rushdie also occasionally switches perspectives, leaving Saleem to the world for a while in order to investigate the inner struggles of other characters. This structure adds interest for the reader, pulling you out just as you become comfortable within India’s tumultuous past. And what a past it is! Saleem takes on a Forrest Gump quality, influencing moments in history in impossible ways, lending the entire novel a cinematic air.

            Adding to the cinematic quality of the novel is the absolute beauty of the language. Never before have I encountered someone who can craft a sentence with such skill and grace, and even still manage to tuck some humor in as well. His descriptions of people are spot on, pin pointing the features that we are always drawn to in the real world but never dare acknowledge. Saleem, for instance, has a nose that generally is compared with a cucumber. We’d never actually describe someone like that in real life, but definitely would think it. Rushdie takes that very human tendency to the pages of Midnight’s Children. It is a novel driven by its characters, and the believability of these people, despite their sometimes-grandiose lives and problems, is Rushdie’s greatest achievement. You care about these people’s stories.

            I must only fault Rushdie once more before telling you emphatically to go out and read this book. There is elitism in the novel that will not appeal to everyone. Often I found myself thinking, “The book is smarter than me!” during particularly deep historical and political plot turns. However, there is enough plot available to move through these moments with the confidence that you will come out on the other end not being mocked by the novel and it’s celebrated author, but having experienced a epic story of fate and feeling against a back drop staggering in scope and beauty.

A Dance of Dragons

George R.R. Martin, you incredible man, you’ve done it again! In the fifth installment of A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin has nearly outdone himself with his breadth of plot and depth of character. For those unfamiliar with the series, Martin has created the world of Westeros, a vaguely British feeling medieval land that is embroiled in a massive “game of thrones” as various powerful families and outside forces vie for the Iron Throne and lordship over the vast realm. We’ve followed the Houses of Stark, Greyjoy, Targaryen, Lannister, Baratheon and a host of others as they rebel, defend and die at the hands of each other. Meanwhile, far to the North at The Wall, the first defenders of the realm, The Nights Watch, has begun an assault upon a supernatural force that descends from the haunted forest and frozen wastes inhabited only by murderous and wild clans. Already, you can tell that this book, let alone the series, is not for the faint at heart.

Martin manages to juggle these many plots as they stretch out over time and oceans with a mastery that has linked him to Tolkien many a time. However there is a different feel in these books than there is in Lord of the Rings. People die, characters that I begin to love are ripped away from me and the plot is constantly evolving, never stagnating into the same quest that started way back in book one. Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different character, rotating without any specific order through approximately ten separate points of view. Thus one can jump from battlefield to dungeon to whorehouse in the span of a few pages, becoming enlightened to several new plot developments all at once.

It is hard to write a review like this without completely ruining the plot for other readers, because I had so many moments during A Dance of Dragons where I literally dropped the book, yelled “WTF!” and then had to freak out for several moments before being able to continue on my way. It is a testament to Martin’s skill that I felt so much compassion and connection with a character that is otherwise completely not relatable to a contemporary reader such as myself. Although I’d like to feel closer to a fifteen-year-old exiled queen who just happens to own three dragons and leads an army of a hundred thousand, don’t get me wrong.

While Martin’s ability to rip the floor from under you is certainly admirable and makes for exciting reading early on, there were moments towards the later half of the novel (you know, around page seven hundred or so) where his formula for character arches becomes a bit predictable. After my initial freak out, I was able to realize that I probably could have seen it coming. However, those moments are few and far between, overshadowed by the immense plot lines that weave back and forth throughout the novel.             It is the plot that is perhaps my favorite aspect of A Dance of Dragons. It’s just so good. And I realize that makes me sound like an inarticulate 6^th grader, but it has to be said. At it’s heart, the book is a story of the ambiguity of what is good and right and an attempt to answer questions about who has the ultimate right to power. There is religion, statesmanship, academia, and even the odd romance thrown in along the way to make the human connections between the vast casts of characters compelling while also actually forcing the reader to think a bit. It’s a novel that starts a conversation. I’ve spent evenings with several friends trying to predict what might come next or rehashing our favorite bits or even just laughing over a clever jape made by the soon to be infamous character of Tyrion Lannister.

I say soon to be infamous because many of you are reading this review have perhaps heard of a little television phenomenon called Game of Thrones on HBO. Yes, this is the series that it is based upon. Yes, you should watch the show because it’s tremendously well done and breathtaking to behold. And yes, yes, a thousand times yes you should start reading the series because there is magic to Martin’s words, ideas and entire world that no TV series, no matter how wonderful, can ever hope to attain. So there you go...pick up A Dance of Dragons (after the first four books of course!) and delve into the Seven Kingdoms. Just watch out for rogue dragons and the occasional white knight along the way.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Problem

I find it rather ironic that the first Sherlock Holmes story I read is his last, chronicling his death in the pursuit and capture of an exceptionally brilliant criminal mastermind. Perhaps this was the best place to start though, because I was struck by how emotional I became even in just a few short pages. I was shocked, dismayed, and deeply sad as Watson relayed the final events of Holmes’ life with that clinical English stiff upper lip attitude that belies the true feeling below the surface. But don’t think that I was bawling my eyes out here; I did actually enjoy the story for other reasons!

            Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has a distinct style that moves with a rapidity and wit that is highly appealing. I fall in love with Holmes through that quick style, his sarcasm and quips making me chuckle a bit under my breath while I read. Granted that also earns me some strange looks, but what can you do? The writing is straightforward, driven in equal parts by a strong plot and careful elaboration of characters. Every villain is so carefully created, subtly evil and more like Holmes than anyone would willingly admit. T

Then of course there is the friendship between Watson and Holmes, which is the original bromance. Holmes’ is forever antagonizing Watson, refusing to follow typical social order and yet operates with such brilliance and confidence that Watson can only just keep up. Watson in this way is like us, the reader. We figure things out together in the moment after Holmes has leaped several steps ahead of our reasoning. The two are sharp with each other but in this story especially the depth of their relationship is revealed beautifully. Neither could truly exist without the other, both as characters in the story and as human beings. A perfectly matched pair, but not perfect unto themselves, Doyle is sure to give his heroes enough human flaw as to make them relatable and realistic. That real aspect is perhaps the key of the entire story. There is a depth and breadth of detail, particularly in traveling logistics that allowed me to fall into Holmes’ world quite easily, despite the knowledge that no detective could ever be so capable and cunning.

So, a short review for a short story, but one that packs a deep emotional punch and perfectly demonstrates the world that Doyle has created, the one to which fans keep coming back to time and time again.

Heart of Darkness

It’s rather fitting that I post about Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness amidst the swirling winds of Hurricane Irene, for nothing seems more uncertain and dangerous than the combination of Conrad’s style and 70mph wind gusts. No really, the sky is the color of ink that’s seeped out of its well and been smeared around on an old scrap of parchment, and the perfect shade to represent the entire novel of Heart of Darkness, with its gritty detail, sweeping plot and unique take on how one tells a story.

            The novel opens with a group of men sitting on the deck of a ship, sailing silently down the Thames as nightfall approaches. Thus far, Conrad is not making a radical departure from his usual nautical formula. However, the narrator, upon introducing each of the men and their surroundings briefly, takes a backseat to Marlowe, who begins to tell the story. I thought that it would just be a little bit of a story, something to wet the reader’s appetite to the rest of the novel, and a means with which Conrad decided where he was actually going plot wise. Instead, Marlowe’s story actually spans the entirety of the novel, creating an element of meta-story telling and an atmosphere that is only broken by the true narrator a couple times in order to harshly jolt the reader out of the African colonies and back into the civilized world they know. This method is startling and wonderful, for the fantastic world of Africa and the savagery of the story is in such stark contrast with Conrad’s calm nautical world that the emphasis on the darkness that the characters encounter within humanity is that much stronger.

            When I say emphasis, I’m not joking. Conrad grabs hold of a certain phrase in each of his novels and wears it to pieces the same way a child does a favorite toy. The words heart of darkness are littered throughout the novel, just in case anyone forgot that traveling into the jungle in the middle of Africa and encountering savage whites and not so savage natives might be anything but strange and dark. I managed to get over this sense of being beaten over the head with a theme and tried to focus on Conrad’s style, which is the true beauty of the novel.

            Ah, Conrad’s style. Let’s face it, I could really take or leave the plot of this one, but I fell in love with the way the words were put together. He manages to describe things so simply but still capturing exactly what makes a scene or a person unique or haunting. There are moments of humor created simply by a turn of phrase or a particularly apt description, and passages that cause a chill up the spine at the depravity of the human condition. Conrad’s mastery of each end of the emotional spectrum is triumphant and makes his novels grand things, worthy of the praise time has heaped upon them. Humor me for the moment as I share several bits that grabbed me for some reason or another.

“It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.” (pg 76)

“The mind of man is capable of anything-because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage-who can tell?-but truth-truth stripped of its clock of time. Let the fool gape and shudder-the man knows, and can look on without a wink.” (pg 106)

Only two examples, and interestingly enough both two different takes on gender (an exploration of which I will spare you for the moment) but both breathtaking with their simplicity that belies the depth to which Conrad is speaking about humanity. So go, pick up Heart of Darkness and immerse yourself in a sea of language whose swells will easily pack the same punch as the ones Hurricane Irene seems set upon delivering right now.

The Hunger Games

Phenomenal! I’m not sure that I’ve read a book this quickly in an incredibly long time, but I simply could not stop with Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games. Having finished it only minutes ago I’m already desperate for the next in the trilogy and plotting how to obtain it as fast as possible.

            Now let me slow down a bit and elaborate on these feelings of such intense fervor. This novel, although written clearly with a young adult audience in mind, had drawn influence from very adult concepts. Annihilation of our modern world as we know it, intense government interference and control, the suffering of the poor and the frivolity of the rich, and above all, the terribly confusing feeling of falling hopelessly in love, just to name a few. Collins has created a world where children are sent to compete to the death to keep the people of Panem, a 1984 mixed with V for Vendetta with a shot of Oz type society, from rising up in rebellion as it had once done. And with that one simple choice she immediately draws you in. How can a reader not be fascinated by the idea that these characters are not adults, some barely even teens, and yet are coping with events far beyond the scope of any normal person’s existence? Thankfully Collins tempers her indulgence in violence and gores just enough to keep a sinister and raw edge to the setting, without allowing it to overwhelm the novel as a whole.

            Of course, a novel is nothing without it’s protagonist, and Katniss Everdeen is one to go down in the history books of literature. She reminded me so much of Tamora Pierce’s Diane from her Immortals series. And if you’ve been reading this blog at all you know my connection to any of Pierce’s characters, hence there was no chance of Katniss and I not getting along splendidly. She’s a fierce girl, protective and independent but not above feeling and being human. Her early friendship with Gale, a boy from home, is written with grace and moderation. You don’t quite realize that she might be in love with him until Katniss does herself. Of course, the rest of the novel interrupts whatever love might have been between the two, and throws us instead into the heady whirlwind of Katniss and Peeta’s relationship. The two start as allies, then enemies, then lovers (as only a young adult novel can work the term “lovers”) and then leave off in a precarious position of indecision and mistrust. He loves her more than anything, and Katniss hasn’t the faintest idea if she’s ready for that, even able to return it on the same level. Thus Collins triumphs, as I the reader struggled alongside Katniss to discern the wayward tides of love. I’m pretty sure I ended up just as confused as our heroine.

            The novel is fast paced, with action that makes putting it down close to impossible. The characters are relatable, while the setting just strange enough to make this a new story wrapped in the pieces of old ones. Not to be hyperbolic, but I actually will say that this is the best book I’ve read in a very long time and only look forward with eager anticipation to the rest of the trilogy and any work Collins might produce in the future. Go read it. NOW!

The Secret Sharer

I love the ocean. If you know me, then this is redundant information, but it must be said. A good nautical tale makes me absurdly happy. There is something about the lonely character of a sea captain and the ample descriptions to be written about the expanse of the open ocean that totally do it for me. Add a dash of secrecy and a touch of heavy-handed symbolism and you get Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Sharer, my most recently read short story.

            I have never read anything of Conrad’s before (I’m sorry Professor Jeremy at UEA for not doing the assigned reading!) and didn’t quite know what to expect with his work. I’d heard about his better-known novel Heart of Darkness and when I bought my copy of that novel, The Secret Sharer was included in the edition. So I started off with this short story full of intrigue and duality and the sea. I enjoyed Conrad’s easy descriptions of his various characters. He would fleetingly mention the more boring details of countenance and stature and focus completely on the few things that really created a character in the person, such as the first mate’s absurd whiskers and blustering speech.

His narrator, the unnamed Captain is a brilliant personification of isolation, set apart from his crew and the reader. This isolation allows for Conrad to push the theme of duality to the breaking point with the introduction of Leggatt, the escaped murderer who the Captain feels an immediate bond with, often saying that looking at Leggatt is like looking at him in the mirror. There were wonderful moments in the story when the two men were alone, sitting in silence contemplating the other as much as they were contemplating their own person. There were also several funny moments when the captain in his zeal to keep his double from being discovered behaves erratically with his steward, inciting a chuckle as well as that lovely knot of tension deep in your belly.

The tension that Conrad built up in this story was perhaps my favorite element of all. I would only read it while I was on my break at work, so in twenty minute chunks at most, and I would be consumed with the desire to read faster because I felt as though something insane would happen at any moment. I had no trouble at all getting right into the story, for Conrad didn’t trouble himself with the exposition required for a longer novel, and thus each moment between the Captain and Leggatt was new and exciting and charged. As the reader I felt like I too was in on the secret, sharing with the two men who were bonded so closely over a seemingly random event.

Now to be as succinct as Conrad is. I loved The Secret Sharer for the sheer ease with which it was written, and yet the depth of the writing that was still evident. In the words of my dear friend Kris Conrad has “just enough nautical flavor to be slightly esoteric without being dickish,” something that any author attempting to tackle writing about the ocean and it’s distinct character should take note of.

Tortall and Other Lands

Let me just begin by saying, yes, I know that I am no longer a thirteen year old girl. I cannot justify putting myself in the child category and let’s face it, even young adult literature is really only aimed at sixteen year olds. Nope, I am very much too old for Tamora Pierce’s most recent book and yet I read it because she is my hero. I have read literally every book the woman has ever written and give her full credit for my childhood not being completely devoid of positive, strong, female role models. In her latest, Tortall and Other Lands, a collection of short stories set within the universe of the Tortall novels, Pierce proves once again that she has mastered the creation of the young female heroine who isn’t afraid to be witty, sharply clever, and fierce with a sword to boot.

I will grant you this; the stories all blur together a bit unless you’ve read the rest of Pierce’s work and remember the particular characters that she does revisit. It was quite fun for an avid fan like myself to find out what happened after Numair turned Tristan into a tree, and just how Ally and Nawat’s marriage turned out. Of course you’re probably reading this shaking your head and saying, “Who?” Never fear! There are stories in this collection that require no previous reading or knowledge of Pierce’s characters. In fact, those are perhaps the best ones, especially her brief foray into a Islamic-esque setting that relates to present political circumstances without blatantly delivering an opinion of such.

Now, I’m not saying this is an overtly bad thing, but each story follows a very distinct formula: young girl whose a bit of an outsider asserts herself and proves that just because she is young and a woman doesn’t mean anyone else can mess with her. There isn’t any grand language or style, and you never have to stop and really think about any particular part. It’s all easy, and for that I think the collection succeeds in its ultimate purpose, to get young girls to read and feel good about whom they are and can become. Hell, I’m old (not really, but for all intents and purposes) and I thoroughly enjoyed whipping through a story or two on my break and work. In the end I wasn’t looking for something to mentally challenge me. I wanted the comfort of an author I’ve grown up with and that’s exactly what I got.

Tongues of Serpents

Although I hate to start my reviews off smack dab in the middle of a series, timing lends itself to such. I’ve just finished Naomi Novik’s Tongues of Serpents, the sixth installment in her Temeraire series, a work of historical fantasy that sets the Napoleonic Wars in a reality where dragons create the Aerial Combat Corps, a force much like Britain’s RAF that would be formed decades later with the advent of the fighter plane. Novik crafts her novels with an emphasis on the historical rather than the fantastic, thus giving each novel in the series a sense of realism that grounds, rather than distracts the reader.

            In this latest novel, the dragon Temeraire and his human captain Laurence have been exiled to the prison colonies in Australia after being convicted of treason. Sadly this baseline creates a sense of finality and defeat during the early chapters, as if Novik didn’t quite know what to do with the story she’d created, but couldn’t bear to just let it end. However, military politics and a healthy does of contrived adventure push the plot along, so that I was quickly able to move past my early disinterest and engage with characters that by now I know quite well.

            In fact, the characters are the diving force behind Tongues of Serpents, which otherwise would have been a rather lack luster read. Novik has honed her skill for writing witty dialogue, and it truly shines in quick exchanges between the rough and tumble men of the Corps, and Laurence, who clings to his past Naval propriety. Of course, Temeraire provided me with the moments I actually chuckled out loud. Over the course of the series, he’s becoming increasingly move vocal on the subject of equality and democracy, viewing the world with a childlike innocence, and delivering one liners that simultaneously provide humor and provocation. His unabashed discussion with Laurence about the difference between mating for procreation versus pleasure was only one of the many times when I had to quickly stifle my snorts of amusement while reading in public.

            Overall, Tongues of Serpents does not stand out as the best of the Temeraire series, but I would still recommend it for those who delve into Novik’s universe and as I did, quickly become to engaged to think about skipping an adventure.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a young woman who realized that the only thing she really wanted to do in life was read. Yes, she was finishing college and applying for jobs in the new and frightening real world, but in her heart she knew that the only world she would ever need was the one her books provided her.

And now the movie trailer voice can be turned off, and we'll get to the heart of the matter. I love books. I love reading. I love writing. I've decided to review any book I read from here on in, throwing objectivity to the wind and simply responding to the novel at hand. Let's chuck academia for a bit and just have at it, yeah?

Oh, and about the title. It is my greatest dream to one day own a home with a wonderfully old fashioned library, complete with walls of books that can only be reached by those cool sliding ladders, and a massive leather chair next to a window that the sun pours through each afternoon. I'm convinced that one can do the most extraordinary thinking when seated in such a grand and comfortable spot, and thus my reviews will the musings from that hypothetical slice of the future.

I will readily admit that I favor fantasy and historical fantasy/fiction when choosing what I read for pleasure. I also love contemporary fiction and am a sad sucker from slightly angst ridden young adult novels that I really have no business reading at my age (but what the hell, they're fun). Classics are of course always up for grabs and once I'm back at school (Middlebury College)  the academic texts will filter their way in as well. My aim is to, as P.J. O'Rourke once said, "Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it." So look forward to a plethora of reviews across all genre's, and perhaps you'll even give the books I'm reading a go as well. Welcome, and happy reading.