The Host, by Stephenie Meyer (audio)

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Thistle

Host-Stephenie-Meyer-unabridged-compact-discs-Hachette-Audio-booksWanderer is a Soul, a parasitic alien who has lived through multiple lives on multiple planets before coming to earth to invade a new host, a girl named Melanie. Earth has been mostly taken over by the new alien race, so that human bodies walk around controlled by the Souls who live attached to their brains. The Souls are meant to take over their bodies completely, while the human brain/soul disappears, but Melanie won’t disappear. She fights, and soon Wanderer can no longer be sure what parts of her are herself and what parts are Melanie.

I picked this audiobook up on a whim while browsing at my library a few weeks ago. I read the first two Twilight books a couple years back and wasn’t terribly impressed, so I didn’t expect that this was one I’d listen to for more than a few minutes. Doubly so because I’m not really a science fiction person unless it concerns a dystopia. But from the very beginning of this book, I was hooked. The story is intriguing, the narration is perfect, and the science fiction elements are very light. The focus is on the human/emotional aspects of the situation rather than the science parts.

The Host is told from Wanderer’s point of view, which made it far more interesting than if it had been told from a human’s point of view. Through Wanderer’s eyes, you see both sides of the story – that of the Souls, and that of the humans whose bodies are being used as hosts. While it might seem black-and-white from either groups’ point of view, neither group is really bad. Neither group is better than the other. Both have their good and bad points, their strengths and weaknesses. Much of the story is about relationships between people, relationships of many kinds: romance, friendship, parent-child, and more. It explores if people from different worlds – in this case, literally – can really come to understand each other despite extreme prejudice on both sides.

The Host also puts an interesting spin on nature versus nurture, in that Wanderer, and other souls, inherit memories and feelings from their hosts. It also discusses several other difficult topics, such as euthanasia and sacrifice of one for the good of a group. Two different types of romance are also contrasted, an intense, fiery, uncontrollable love and a strong, stable, constant love. I personally prefer the latter, and I have to admit, I fell completely in love with Ian (and I’m not saying any more than that!). The fiery love between Melanie and Jared actually felt forced and a little silly to me, and is probably my only qualm about the entire book. It was the only relationship that didn’t feel as real as all the rest of them.

The ending of the book is perfect. I know people complain about epilogues a lot, but I really enjoyed this one. It was long, drawn out, just like another chapter. I don’t want to give away details, but I think it ended in exactly the right way, in a way that took a difficult situation and said okay, maybe we were all wrong, and maybe working together we can make things right. Hopeful, but not without loss, either. I was disappointed to find out there are sequels planned. While I would love to read more about all the characters, who feel very real for me after spending four weeks listening to their saga, I thought The Host was a perfect standalone novel and I don’t want a sequel to ruin it, especially just for the sake of sequels.

I’m so happy this was my first book of 2011! It was a perfect opener.

Performance: This audiobook of The Host is about 23 hours long, read by Kate Reading. It was a very, very slow read, so I listened to the entire thing on double-speed, which brought Reading’s narration to a normal spoken-aloud speed and truncated the audio to half its length. Other than the slowness, I think Reading did a great job. She was able to perform subtle voice changes for each character and she put a lot of emotion into what she was reading. When I was done listening, I immediately wanted to listen to the book all over again, both for the story and for the audio. I’m very glad I chose the audio version of this book, because I’m not sure I would have gotten as much out of it in print.

Note: I relistened to this book in Feb 2016 and it was just a wonderful the second time around!

Posted in 2011, 2016, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

2010 in Books

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Thistle

This year has been extremely difficult for me. In my personal world, I’ve dealt with illnesses, death, betrayals, libel, psychos, financial difficulties, health issues, severe depression, a huge upheaval in my writing world, and the stress of three months spent in the process of preparing for a cross-country move that, in the end, didn’t happen. In other words, this year sucked. Horribly. It’s been the worst year I’ve had in quite a long time and I’ll be glad to put it behind me. Unfortunately, that omnipresent awfulness found its way into my reading year as well. I did read some wonderful books, oh yes, but considering I spent most of the year reading only what I wanted, not to mention trying about 300 books only to discard them, I’ve not had a good reading year. The first quarter of the year was the worst. Book after book was mediocre to bad. None of my favorites of the year came from that quarter, and six of my fifteen worst books of the year were read then. How’s that for awful? Second and third quarters were better, particularly in July when I hit a brief spell of wonderful books all in a row. The last quarter of the year was mixed. The beginning of October and most of December were wonderful, but the 6-7 weeks in between? Same as that first quarter, mediocre to awful. Bleagh. Most of my 5-star books were concentrated into three parts of the year: a week in July, two weeks in late Sept/early October, and a week in December. I’d rather they be spread out a bit more!!

I’m really hoping that 2011 will be better. I don’t know what to blame the rut on. I can’t blame them on challenges or “should” reads, since I quit my challenges and read what I wanted most of the year. I can’t blame them on reading too many books too quickly, because some of my best months were when I was reading tons. I can’t blame them on modern lit or classics or adult or YA lit, because the blahness was across the board. And I really don’t think that my own blah mood was the problem. None of these were books that I could tell I’d like better if I was in the right mood, and for instance in July, when I had the great spell, I was in the middle of horrible stress and depression. So it’s not mood either. I’m blaming it on 2010. Bad year. It’s time to leave it behind!!

So, in the spirit of getting it all behind me, here is my end-of-year stat report! Yes, I’m a complete stat nerd!!

General stats:
Total books: 217
Full reviews: 197
Mini reviews: 18
Individual Short Stories: 88

First-time reads: 196
Rereads: 21

Just for fun: 86
Read deliberately: 131

Source stats:
Bought: 102
Gift/Win: 25
Swap Site: 16
Borrowed/Library/Web: 50
Review copy: 24 (11 from BEA)

Note: That “bought” category does not mean bought in 2010. Many of them were bought years ago. They were bought from a whole variety of sources, from full price at a chain store to 50 cents at a library sale. I’m glad that over half of my books this year were ones I didn’t pay for…I wish I’d gotten more use out of my swap sites though. Hopefully I will going forward!

Type stats:
Novels/Novellas: 179
–Speculative: 81
–Realistic: 98
Nonfiction: 21
Collections/Anthologies: 6
Plays: 5
Poetry: 6

Text: 179 (including 3 eBooks)
Graphic/Photo/Art: 30
Audio: 8

No real surprises here. I’m happy that I read the equivalent of nearly 2 nonfiction books per month. That’s definitely up from previous years. I also read more poetry and plays, and listened to more audiobooks. Collections are about the same for the last two years, and GNs are about the same as last year (the first year I read them). I’m satisfied with these stats, though I expect the GNs will go down and audiobooks will go up in 2011.

Time stats:
Classics: 64
Contemporary: 153

2000s: 133
1900s: 63
1800s: 17
pre-1800s: 4

Oldest book: If Not, Winter by Sappho (~600 BC)
Newest book: Matched by Ally Condie (Nov 30, 2010)

I’m very happy with my classics stats this year! Nearly a third of my books were classics, and I read more than one per week. I’m back to the percentage I was reading in 2008, and far better than the 20% classics of 2009. Of course, I expect my classic-to-contemporary ratio to drastically change this year with the whole Classic Weekly project. I’m also very happy with my range of reading. Without planning it at all, I read at least one book from every decade from the 1840s to present, plus books from the 1810s, 1790s, 1760s, 1750s, and BC era. That’s pretty awesome.

Age stats:
Adult: 108
YA: 73
Juvenile: 36

This is about on par with what I read in 2009 for YA and children’s fiction, but my adult fiction reading has increased a lot, probably because of the increased concentration on classics. In 2008, there was a far greater percentage of children’s books on my list and only 2-3 YA books total. I’d guess my stats in 2011 will be heavily adult-centered. I have very little YA left on my TBR, and now that my kids are getting into that middle grade age, I’ve found I don’t really want to spend time with that age group in books.

Place stats:
World-lit: 47

Countries visited: US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Russia, Mali, Senegal, Ecuador, Germany, Palestine, Denmark, France, Greenland, Czech Republic, Italy, Nigeria, Spain, Morocco, India, Nepal, Suriname, Paraguay, Turkey, Mexico, Portugal, Lebanon, Jordan, Malawi, Hungary, Switzerland, Ireland, Colombia, Argentina, Israel, Japan, Norway, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Greece, and Kuwait

I made a map for this, because I love maps!!

map

I think I need to read more from Africa and Asia next year. This map and countries listed above, btw, are based solely on book setting, not on author’s country. I might change this stat for next year to include author origin too.

Author stats:
New to me authors: 112
Total authors: 157

By men: 83
By women: 130
Mixed team: 4

Most read authors:
JK Rowling – 8
Suzanne Collins – 7
Francesca Lia Block – 5 (the Dangerous Angels series)
Laurie Faria Stolarz – 5 (the Blue is for Nightmares series)
David Levithan – 5 (standalone novels & collaborations)
William Somerset Maugham – 5 (standalone novels/nonfiction)

My ratio of men to women authors (40/60) is about the same as last year (didn’t track it in ’08). I imagine it’s the high modern book content that tips the scale towards the women’s side. Next year there will probably be more balance, or perhaps a tip towards the men’s side. I bet there’ll be less new-to-me authors as well in 2011.

Other stats:
GLBT: 49
POC: 65
Chunksters: 20
In translation: 20
Languages: French (8), Russian (3), Arabic (3), German (2), Hungarian (1), Norwegian (1), Portuguese (1), Ancient Greek (1)

My GLBT reading is far up from previous years, as well as my POC reading and chunksters. I’m really happy with all of those numbers! Translations are slightly up, but interestingly come from far fewer languages…

Wrap Up:
Best reading month: I didn’t really have an overall “good” month, but instead those three small spurts of good in July, October, and December.

Worst reading month: March!!!!! (Was that emphatic enough?) March was horrible, followed closely by November’s awfulness.

Best book-related discoveries: It’s been a tradition since I first started blogging to include my best book-related discoveries here in my year in review post. In 2008, it was Lois Lowry. In 2009, it was YA and graphic novels. In 2010, I also have a double answer.

1) Émile Zola. What an amazing discovery it was to find out that he was not dry and boring like I expected him to be for years, but instead one of the best authors I’ve ever come across. I’ve read three of his novels now, with a bunch more on my shelves, and have yet to be disappointed.

2) Audiobooks. I used to think I didn’t like audiobooks, but after listening Return of the Native read by Alan Rickman, I fell completely in love. It still takes me a long time to listen to most of them, but I love what listening to them does for my reading experience. I’ve gotten to the point where I can physically read most books quickly, often in a single day, and when I read books like that, they tend to fall away from my memory after awhile. Listening to a book over a few weeks takes them to a whole new level, and many of my favorite books of the year have come from audiobooks, even though I only listened to eight altogether. I remember them all so much better, and I get more out of them. I’m so happy to make this discovery!

So that’s all for my stats. Now for my best of 2010 lists!

People have been putting up Best of 2010 lists for nearly two months now, but I just couldn’t do it until I was officially done reading/reviewing books in 2010! Now, I’m done, so it’s time to evaluate my 217 (yikes!) books of 2010 to decide my “best of.”

This survey comes from Jamie at The Perpetual Page-Turner. Despite the way the questions are worded, I simply can’t limit myself to one book per answer! Sorry!

1. Best books of 2010? This is a big question in a year where I read 217 books! I had a very difficult time narrowing my list down to 15. I had to drop some very good books from the list so I didn’t have too many on there, and that makes me a little sad. But I narrowed it down. Rather than list them all here, I’ll list them with the reasons why they made the list after this survey.

2. Worst book of 2010? I’ve read fifteen books this year that I’d consider “horrible” instead of just “bad.” These round out the bottom five of those: Daddy-Long-Legs, because I felt it was shallow and degrading to women; Bleak House, for the caricatures and the fact that 75% of the prose could have been comfortably cut; African Sojourn, because it was degrading and stereotypical; Market Day, because the end horribly ruined what would otherwise have been a gorgeous 5-star graphic novel; and the very worst – the GN adaptation of Crime & Punishment, because nearly a year later, I still can’t even see the cover of this book without getting sick to my stomach, and I now have no desire to ever read the actual version of C&P.

3. Most Disappointing Book of 2010? Fingersmith. I really expected to love it, but I disliked every minute even though I forced myself to read all 700ish pages. 😦

4. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2010? Liar, entirely because of how much the twist surprised me; Rowan the Strange, because with that cover, I expected to hate the book!; and Germinal, because I’d avoided Zola for years and expected him to be a cross between Flaubert and Wharton, two authors I really dislike

5. Book you recommended to people most in 2010? No surprises here: Germinal, Little Children, The Kid Table, Crossed Wires, and The Painted Veil by Maugham. That last one I didn’t even read this year, but have read three times in the past, and is usually my go-to suggestion for Maugham. Since I’ve read a lot of Maugham this year, I’ve ended up recommending this one a lot.

6. Best series you discovered in 2010? I rarely read through a full series, but this year one really captivated me: The Blue is for Nightmares series by Laurie Faria Stolarz. I read the five books back to back, unable to gulp it down fast enough.

7. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2010? Zola!!!!!!! Gosh I’m so predictable. I also confirmed Rosy Thornton as one of my favs.

8. Most hilarious read of 2010? I’m giggling just thinking of this list: Good Omens, Gothic Charm School, Cold Comfort Farm, and Dick and Jane and Vampires.

9. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2010? This has to be Mockingjay because not only could I not stop reading, but immediately read it a second time, and then read the entire series again because I still hadn’t had enough.

10. Book you most anticipated in 2010? Matched, because of the personal connection, and Mockingjay, because…well, it was Mockingjay!!

11. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2010?

line 1 line 2 line 3

12. Most memorable character in 2010? Ah! Too many. Hm, let’s see: Humbert Humbert, Barbara (Notes on a Scandal), Katniss Everdeen, Eustacia Vye (Return of the Native), Merrycat (We Have Always Lived in the Castle), and…can I just add the entire cast of Good Omens?

13. Most beautifully written book in 2010? Going by language alone? Lolita, Sonnets from the Portuguese, and Notes on a Scandal.

14. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2010? Sonnets from the Portuguese, because it showed me for the first time ever that there IS some poetry out there that I love, and The Return of the Native, because it started my love affair with audiobooks.

15. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2010 to finally read? There are very few books left on my TBR that are ones I’ve put off for a long time. This year, I can only think of two, and one (Bleak House) did not end up being a good experience! So my only answer here will have to be Germinal. I’m so glad I finally sucked it up and gave Zola a chance!

The rest of this survey is about Book Blogging in 2010:

1. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2010? Just like with the books, I couldn’t pick just one! Five of my favorite new-to-me blogs (in alphabetical order) are A Literary Odyssey, Erin Reads, Lifetime Reading Plan, Park Benches & Bookends, and She Reads Novels. I also don’t want to leave out two brand-new favorites I just discovered in the last two weeks: Cousins Read and Your Move, Dickens. There are so many others I had to leave out…sigh. Sorry y’all!

2. Favorite review that you wrote in 2010? Return of the Native. I had more fun writing that review than I ever have writing a review before.

3. Best discussion you had on your blog? I had several really good discussions this year, but the one that generated the most debate was probably on my Your Summary or Someone Else’s post.

4. Most thought-provoking review or discussion you read on somebody else’s blog? Amy did a whole series of posts in late summer/early fall about books and reading that really touched me and got me thinking. An example would be her Less is More post. That’s not the only one, but it’s a particularly good one. She put into words everything I’d been feeling and struggling with and I’m very thankful for that.

5. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)? Event-wise, this was definitely BEA and the Book Blogger Con. Virtual event-wise, my favorite this year has probably been the RIP Challenge, because I threw myself into it completely and loved nearly every book I read for it.

6. Best moment of book blogging in 2010? I’m not sure I could pick out a “best” moment, but the one that touched me most was all the support I got, from bloggers and strangers alike, after the NY Times Crap…

7. Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.)? Above I said that my best discoveries of the year have been Émile Zola and audiobooks, but I’m not sure that’s exactly what this question is looking for. I haven’t really discovered any book related sites or book stores or stuff like that, though, so that answer will just have to do!

***
So that’s the survey, and here are my top 15 books of 2010, listed in the order I read them:

fav 1

Germinal by Émile Zola – So I’ve been raving about this one all year, and I imagine if I was hard-pressed to pick a single best book of 2010, this very well might be it. I never would have expected French realism about coal miners to end up in my best-of list, but Germinal was just fantastic. I’m very much looking forward to rereading it with my book club in 2011!

French Milk by Lucy Knisley – This book was so much fun. I think it helps that I had many of the same experiences in France. I get a kick out of this one every time I think about it.

Little Children by Tom Perrotta – Like reading The Awakening only in modern times. Oh my gosh. So powerful.

fav 2

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe – I hated this book nearly the entire time I was reading it. I almost didn’t finish it, but I kept going, and once I hit the end, I really understood this book. Everything got turned around in my head, and I fell in love with it!

Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller – Brilliant writing, absolutely brilliant. Barbara is one of the creepiest, most fascinating narrators I’ve ever read, and the prose is gorgeous.

Theatre by William Somerset Maugham – A reread for me, this is one of my favorite Maugham books ever! I loved it even more this time around.

fave 3

The Kid Table by Andrea Seigel – This was like reading a quirky book about me and my cousins. So much fun!!

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning – First book of poetry that I ever liked, and one that made me cry the whole way through.

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (audio) – Not only was Alan Rickman’s reading of this book stunning, but the book itself made me fall in love with Hardy!

fav 4

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson – Just like Notes on a Scandal, the prose and characterization and tone of this book are all brilliant! (And I would have included that cover in my best covers this year IF it had been the cover of the version I read. Sadly, I read one with a really ugly cover…but happily, my mom got me a copy with this wonderful cover for Christmas, yay!)

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis – This was pure sensationalism, but so much fun that I still find myself giggling over it months later.

Gothic Charm School by Jillian Venters – Nonfiction that hit really close to my heart, with all my gothic aesthetic tastes!! 😀

fav 5

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (audio) – This is probably the funniest and most fun (funnest?) book I’ve read all year. I can see myself rereading it multiple times in the future, picking out new little references every time I read.

If Not, Winter by Sappho – Second book of poetry I ever liked! I love how this made me think so much about writing in general, and prodded my imagination in ways I never expected. It made me want to write again, and gave me a lovely look at enduring beyond death.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (audio) – A reread. I listened to the wonderful audio by Jeremy Irons, and once again, the writing just captured me!

Honorable Mentions (because I can’t help at least mentioning the ones that sadly got cut!): The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon, Returning to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani, Harry Potter Film Wizardry, Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton (reread), Kindred by Octavia Butler, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 2 Comments

Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Thistle

cold-comfort-farm-201x300Nineteen year old Flora Poste has just been orphaned. She doesn’t want to work – why work if you can easily live off others? – so she sets out to mooch off her extended family until she decides to marry, which will, of course, settle her financially for life! She is welcomed to join her distant cousins the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, where everything’s a little bit off. The farm supposedly has a curse on it, and all the Starkadders who live there are constrained by the elderly matron of the family, Aunt Ada Doom. Because Aunt Ada “saw something nasty in the woodshed” as a child, she has gone mad and threatens to get worse if any of the Starkadders leave the farm. Flora is not one for chaos and disorder, however, and she’s determined on reshaping Cold Comfort Farm.

That description is just a tiny glimpse of the satire that is Cold Comfort Farm. This book was recommended to me about a year ago by my friend Kim, who likened it to one of my short stories (also a satire). It was right around Christmas when she told me this, so for some bizarre reason I associate this book with Christmas. Considering the book takes place from spring to summer, that makes no real sense, but hey, I decided to read it at Christmas anyway!

At first when I began the book, I had a hard time getting into it. The prose was a little dry, and the satire didn’t seem very funny. Oh there were silly names like Adam Lambsbreath and statements like “She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while you were eating an apple.” These things made me smile a bit, but on the whole, the first 75-100 pages of this novel were a bit dull for me. But I stuck to the book, and I’m glad I did, because then it took a swing towards hilarious and I was laughing out loud the rest of the book. It all started with the introduction of the intellectual, Mr. Mybug, who says things like:

Hullo, Flora Poste. Do you believe that women have souls?

and

Sooner or later we should have to tackle the problem of homosexuality. We should have to tackle the problem of Lesbians and old maids.

and who talks about nothing but sex and his book, wherein he “proves” that Branwell Bronte actually wrote all the Bronte sisters’ novels. Mr. Mybug would normally be a disgusting character, except that his entire purpose in the novel is for us to laugh at people like him (I read somewhere that he’s supposed to be a loose portrayal of DH Lawrence, which I admit made me chuckle a little).

Every character is meant to spear a personality type. I just couldn’t stop laughing as, for instance, the psychiatrist diagnoses his eight-month old baby with paranoid tendencies or when Adam Lambsbreath gets weepy over the mop Flora gives him for washing dishes (and then hangs it on the wall because it’s so “pretty”). The whole book is meant to laugh at tropes in popular lit from the time period, as well as older authors like Thomas Hardy and the Brontes. While I’ve never read a lot of popular lit from the early 20th century (just classics mostly), I definitely recognize the satire as applied to some of the 1800s classics. It made me giggle, even if I like Hardy and the Brontes!

One of the best things about this satire, though, is that it’s not a tragicomedy. (Not that tragicomedies are bad! I just wasn’t in the mood for one.) The satires I’ve read in the past tend to turn into poignant, biting tragedies by the end, books like Catch-22, or plays like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and I was not in the mood to be bitten when I read Cold Comfort Farm. This book does not turn sour. It had a nice, tidy happy ending! Of course, the ending itself is a satire of happy endings, but still, at least it didn’t end by making me feel awful. For my last book of 2010, I needed that happy ending, satire or not! This was a great end-of-year read, and Christmasy or not, a perfect holiday book as well!

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Christmas Holiday, by William Somerset Maugham

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Thistle

christmasholidayCharley Mason, part of a fairly well-to-do family in England, goes to Paris for his Christmas holidays to visit an old friend and have a bit of fun. Everything changes, though, when Charley’s friend (Simon, now very changed) introduces him to a Russian refugee prostitute named Lydia on his first night in Paris. Lydia, wife of a convicted murderer-drug-dealer-thief, has suffered through more than Charley could ever have imagined, and yet she still remains devoted to all the things and people who have made her miserable. It’s something that, in his sheltered life, Charley cannot comprehend, no matter how much he tries to understand.

This is a reread for me, though I only have the vaguest recollections of this book from the first time I read it. On reread, I can see why that is. Despite the intriguing plot outline, the book itself is not very memorable, not for plot alone anyway. I’m actually in two minds about this book. The ideas it put forth were very interesting and I loved exploring them, but the manner in which the book is set up and written is very dull. I’ll talk about that part first, and then move on to the ideas expressed.

This plot is primarily Lydia’s story, with Simon’s and Charley’s only secondary, but the narration stays with Charley. Charley is a very passive narrator, and in order to get a full scope of what Lydia has been through, about 90% of this book is back-story. The chapters go something like this: Charley and Lydia go somewhere, then she tells him part of her story for thirty pages. Next chapter, they go somewhere else, and she tells him another part of the story for thirty pages. Then Charley visits Simon, and Simon tells him the next part of Lydia’s story for thirty pages. In the present, the actual storyline, almost nothing happens. Charley spends a couple days with Lydia, sees Simon a few times, and goes back to England in the end.

A book in back-story is not fun. It’s actually rather boring, to be just info-dumped like that. I kept wondering why Maugham didn’t just write Lydia’s story as the primary plot, but after awhile, I understood why he didn’t. It had to do with the major theme he was exploring. It’s a theme he explores often and that I’ve seen in other books of his, and one I particularly enjoy: naivety versus knowledge.

Charley is a happy and fairly innocent person. Simon asks him in the beginning how he plans to spend his next year, and the year after that, and so on, and Charley has no problem looking forward into the future, knowing his life will just repeat endlessly. He doesn’t mind doing his job faithfully, spending cheery Christmases with his family, playing mediocre piano and painting mediocre paintings, and so on. It doesn’t bother him. He’s never been exposed to anything different, and so nothing troubles his world. Through the course of Christmas Holiday, however, Charley is exposed to all the insane, self-depriving views of Simon’s new world outlook, and then introduced to a woman who has been through more than he can comprehend. She not only exposes him to sorrow, but she weeps passionately at a concert he takes her to, and forces him to examine why he likes various paintings in the Louvre that he claims to like. They both play piano for each other. He plays technically well, but with no feeling, whereas she messes up constantly, but evokes strong emotion in her notes.

Charley is overwhelmed by all this new stuff coming at him. At one point, he thinks about Christmas at home:

There’d have been a lot of kissing under the mistletoe, a lot of fun, a lot of ragging, a lot of laughter; they were all having a grand time. It seemed very far away, but thank God, it was there, normal, decent, sane and real; this was a nightmare.

Charley has entered a sort of hell, where his mask of naivety is ripped away and he’s forced to see what’s really out there in the world. This book, while in one way is so much Lydia’s story, is really about Charley. About how Charley is affected, about how he changes because his innocence is stripped away. That’s the thing about truth and knowledge – when you gain them, you can never go back to that more innocent state. When you grow up, you lose your childhood.

A couple weeks ago, I talked about those “lightning strike” moments and how I don’t believe in them. I believe in more gradual change, something that worms its way inside you and alters you from the inside out over a period of time. How could Charley fail to change after a week spent with these people? He couldn’t. There’s no way to put that mask back on, and to me, the saddest part of the book was seeing Charley go back to England, fully thinking he was leaving the insanity of this world behind him. There’s no way to leave it behind, though. It found its way inside him. It rooted itself in the music he plays for his family, in the way he feels like a foreigner among them, in the way he thinks. Simon’s questions to him in the beginning are revisited, only now that future, repetitive and cheerful, feels bleak and illusory, a “pleasant parlour-game that grown-ups played to amuse children.” Charley wonders how “the bottom had fallen out of his world.”

Note: Review date is only an approximate of when this book was read/reviewed in 2010.

Note: Originally read in ~2004-ish.

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Returning to Haifa, by Ghassan Kanafani

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Thistle

returnto haifaMy sister recommended three novellas by Ghassan Kanafani, and so I read all three. This was the last of them.

In this story, Said and his wife Safiyya are going back to their home town Haifa twenty years after they were forced out of their home by the Jews. They left everything behind, including their five month old son Khaldun, whom they were separated from. This novella is about their journey back to the home they owned, and what they find there. It’s about how things change, and about the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.

This was by far my favorite of the three novellas I read. It reminded me a lot of Mornings in Jenin, particularly in the way it addressed the conflict between the two sides of the war. No one was painted as purely evil – it wasn’t an anti-Jew or anti-Israeli story. The woman who has occupied Said and Safiyya’s house for the last twenty years, and who raised their son (now named Dov), is a good woman. She almost left Israel back in the 40s because she saw the way the Jews treated dead Arabs, and it both shamed and disgusted her. She welcomes the couple into her/their home and says she has been expecting them. Of course, she also loves her adopted son and has raised him in her faith. What I found most interesting about this book was the difference between mother and child. Dov is now in the Israeli military and is far more anti-Arab/anti-Muslim than his mother. Though he knows that he was adopted, he has no love for his biological parents when he meets them, and claims that he is not their son. Though he knows he’s biologically Arab, he is prejudiced against Arabs. He is dedicated to a cause, and in that cause, I saw the beginnings of the war that still goes on today. It was very sad to read about it, to see both sides diverging when they could have come together.

This was a fantastic novella. It was far easier to read than the other two, and less experimental in style (especially compared to All That’s Left to You). I got all three of these novellas from the library, but this is the one I want to acquire and own. It’s wonderful and an amazing look at the conflict without placing blame on either side. Or, more accurately, placing blame on both sides. It acknowledges that there’s no way to end this conflict without war, and that there’s no easy way out. I highly recommend it, if you find a copy.

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The Rock and the River, by Kekla Magoon

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Thistle

theriverandtherockThe Rock and the River is set in the late sixties during the Civil Rights Movement. Sam is a thirteen year old boy caught between two paths of the Movement. His father is one of the leaders in the peaceful resistance movement, and his other brother, Steve, has joined up with the Black Panthers. Sam doesn’t know what the right path is, or if there really is a right path.

This was an incredibly powerful book, one of the best historical fiction novels I’ve read all year. It was powerful enough that I had to set it aside a couple times just to catch my breath and let my mind settle. Like with any period of history, the Civil Rights Movement is something I’m just not that familiar with – I’ve never been the biggest history buff – but this book presented it in a way that made it come alive to me, with all its grey areas highlighted.

I’ve never been a fan of violence. I’ve never liked the idea of the Black Panthers, but let me qualify that: I never liked them in the way that I learned about them. I learned about their violence, and that’s about it. As a pacifist, I think violence only begets violence and strengthens the cycle of hate among two sets of people who should, instead, try to come to know and understand each other. Only understanding can put aside prejudice and fear. That’s always been my opinion, but The Rock and the River really showed a different side of the Panthers, and why having both sides of the Movement were important; how they propped each other up and helped to even each other out. Neither on their own would have done as well as the combined efforts of both.

I thought there was a pretty good case in this book against violence. One violent act spurred another, which caused another, and then another, and so on, until the situation was spiraling out of control. It reminded me of gang violence that was unfortunately very prevalent in my high school: groups of people hurting each other in revenge, back and forth, escalating. Same thing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that I’ve been reading a lot about recently. Same thing in any feud. Only when one side steps back and says no, we’re not going to keep this going, it doesn’t matter who wins, does violence stop.

But can a person or group step back when they know they are in the right, and by stepping back they will continue to be trampled on? This is where the situation really becomes grey, and why I understand why some people did resort to violence. What whites were doing to blacks was horrible! The fact that police could get away with beating or shooting someone and then blaming the victim because of skin color is appalling. That hospitals could elect to treat white people before black people is morally repugnant. That blacks were denied jobs and decent housing because of their skin is disgusting. At times as I read, I found myself not minding the violence as much, even though in the end, I honestly can’t condone it.

It’s a hard situation. The Panthers did some wonderful things, like setting up free breakfasts for poor people, building health clinics to serve the black population that couldn’t get seen in a timely manner (or at all) at hospitals, and raising money to hire lawyers for the wrongfully accused. I liked that they worked with the peaceful resistance movement as well. I liked what Steve tells Sam, that the Panthers are not all about guns and violence, and that if he thinks that, he doesn’t know anything about them. I like that some of the Panthers chose nonviolent, but still active, ways of resistance. I think there is a segment of the Panthers I can fully agree with, even if there are other parts that I simply can’t. There were parts that advocated violence as a means to an end, and some members who were more violent than others. I can’t condone those parts. But I loved learning about all those other parts, the parts that we aren’t really taught in school (and should be!). The social reform aspects were far more powerful in my mind than the violent ones.

This was a fantastic book, and my only qualm at all is with a choice Sam makes at the very end of the book. I felt like through the whole book, Sam is trying to feel his way along, measuring both paths he might take. I felt like the author showed both the positives and negatives of each sides of the Movement, without advocating one or the other. When Sam makes his choice at the end – and I won’t say which way he goes, because I don’t want to spoil it – it was written in a way that felt like the author was weighing in with her opinion on the situation. I liked how balanced the whole book was, but the very end tipped it in one direction. It doesn’t even matter the direction; either way would have been equally disappointing. I liked that the book was balanced, and I didn’t like the scale tipping at the end.

But that was only a very minor thing. All in all, this book was fabulous, thought-provoking, and eye-opening, and I can’t wait to discuss it with my YA book club!

Posted in 2010, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (audio)

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Thistle

lolitaI first read Lolita about a decade ago. It was my first experience was Vladimir Nabokov, and what made me fall in love with him. I decided to revisit this novel on audio, a second read. Here, I’m going to concentrate on what I got out of this novel the second time through, and thus this review will contain minor spoilers. If you haven’t read Lolita and plan to some day, I suggest skipping this post.

Most people know the basic premise of Lolita. Humbert Humbert, the narrator, is a pedophile, and Lolita is his pre-pubescent prey. Of course, many people hear this and automatically turn away from the book, thinking that any book about a pedophile is inherently bad or distasteful. There’s no question why this has remained on frequently banned books lists since it was first published. People don’t want to read about a pedophile, especially one who, when you begin reading, attempts to seduce you into taking his side.

Humbert Humbert is the epitome of villain. He is not only evil, but he believes he isn’t, and he attempts to convince the reader that he is nothing more than a victim of fate and a thwarted childhood. His arguments are extremely eloquent, and there are times that it’s easy to forget momentarily that the person talking is a 30-something year old man who lusts after twelve year olds (of course you then feel terrible when you catch yourself forgetting). HH is intelligent, articulate, witty, and persuasive. I think this is the real reason that people find Lolita a distasteful novel. They don’t like how the narrator attempts to win them over. They don’t like how sane and rational he can sound, or how convincing, or how human. Often they don’t read far enough into the novel to hit the point where narrator and reader break off and go their separate directions, when his arguments are no longer in the least bit convincing (though M. Humbert still believes they are), when you start to raise your eyebrows, when you begin to hate instead of dislike-but-also-pity. By presenting Humbert Humbert as (somewhat) sympathetic in the beginning, Nabokov creates a far more powerful feeling anti-Humbert, anti-pedophile, than a reader would have had if Humbert had been portrayed as the enemy from page 1.

Of course I know that not every reader has the same reactions. I don’t pretend that all people who dislike this book do so for the same reasons. But this is the overwhelming pattern I’ve seen from readers, especially those who start Lolita but never make it to the halfway point, who never get to the moment when Humbert Humbert loses hold of his readers and begins to spin madly off into the distance. Though still telling his story, HH is nothing more than a disgusting, perverted madman, less than human, even lower than he would be if he’d just been labeled “pedophile,” which of course is already bad enough.

The most interesting thing to me in comparing my two reads of this novel was how differently I saw the character of Lolita. I believe she is the other reason why people react so violently against this novel, because the way Humbert presents the story, she is partially (if not mostly) responsible for what happens between them. The reader knows, of course, that this is complete bilge. Most of what HH says about her can be dismissed outright. By that point in the novel, he has already lost some of his eloquence, and the reader can see how he is trying to absolve himself from the responsibility that is most definitely his. But where the grey area comes in is with Lolita herself. She is a very sexually precocious pre-teen. At twelve, she’s already having sex with her peers, both lesbian and straight sex. She flirts and shows off her body and tries to act far older than she is. This is a truth that comes through Humbert’s narrative, apart from what he says. Of course, her sexual nature does not absolve his violating her, not by any stretch of the imagination. But adults don’t want to read about a sexually active little twelve year old. They don’t want to think about the idea of their own children doing these sorts of things.

When I first read Lolita, I was much closer to Lolita’s age than I was to Humbert’s. I grew up in an area where sex-by-age-ten was fairly common, where people had babies at age twelve, where I was an embarrassed outcast because I’d never even held a boy’s hand at thirteen. Lolita’s sexual precociousness was nothing new to me. I didn’t see her as a little girl at all, because in my world, childhood was lost by that age. Once again, I’ll state that that does not give anyone the right to violate children of that age, but Lolita’s innocence – apart from her relations with Humbert – was completely lost on me. Reading the book now as a much-older adult, I could see how much of a child she was outside her attempts to act like an adult. Little things – picking her nose, absently scratching at dry skin, wearing mismatching socks – all these little things stood out to me, so that Lolita became a contrast between childhood and adulthood, transitioning naturally from one to the next as most pre-teens do. I could see the picture of what she would have become had HH never entered the picture. It made for a very different reading.

The other big change between my first and second reading was how much my own vocabulary and knowledge base has widened since a decade ago. The first time I read Lolita, I’m sure 90% of the book went completely over my head. I found it difficult to read, keeping a dictionary by me, trying to figure out all the little jokes and turns of phrase. I meant it when I said Humbert Humbert was intelligent and witty! On this read, I actually had a really easy time understanding the prose! I can’t decide if that’s because I know a lot more now or if it’s because I listened to the book over four weeks and thus didn’t read too fast and get myself muddled. Either way, I got more out of this read and appreciated it even more.

I can’t express just how beautiful this book is. The subject of the book is horrific, but very, very poignant. Nabokov is very anti-pedophile. He creates the most disgusting villain I’ve ever read, forming him into the semblance of a person until, layer by layer, his monstrosity is laid bare and undisguised. The book is moving and painful and uncomfortable and very disturbing to read, but at the same time lyrical, poetic, and beautifully written. The contrast between monster and beauty is a fantastic juxtaposition. I loved Lolita every bit as much, if not more, on second read.

Performance: My audiobook was read by Jeremy Irons. He did a fantastic job. I’ve listened to a lot of audiobooks recently where the narrator was fine, but they were just reading the book aloud. Jeremy Irons didn’t read this book; he performed it. He became Humbert Humbert. And with his gorgeous voice, he was perfect to read as HH, who said the most horrible things in the most beautiful prose possible. Adding the seductive voice was just one more layer for HH to try to draw the reader in against his/her will. It was amazing.

Note: Originally read in ~2001.

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Men in the Sun, by Ghassan Kanafani

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Thistle

menin sunMy sister recommended three novellas by Ghassan Kanafani, and so I read all three. Men in the Sun was the second I read.

This is the story of three desperate men from Palestine trying to make their way to Kuwait in order to find a better life and a way to provide for their families. In order to get there, they must cross Israel and Jordon, enter Iraq, and hire smugglers to get them across the Iraqi desert and into Kuwait. Smugglers are notoriously crooked, and often collect money only to abandon their charges in the desert, where many die. The novella first recounts each of the mens’ stories and why they are going to Kuwait, then tells of how they meet each other and a smuggler who is more honest, and then of their journey across the desert.

I admit, at first I didn’t like this one as much as All That’s Left to You. I found the disconnected narratives of the three men confusing and didn’t realize until after their stories all came together exactly what the framework of the novella was. Once I figured that out, I understood better, and the journey they all make through the desert is very well written. There’s this constant suspense, wondering if they’ll make it through the burning sun, through the times when they have to be locked in a tank that feels like an inferno as they cross checkpoints. You get to know each character, and see the relationships between all four of them develop over that treacherous journey. In getting to know them, you get to experience their journey with them, a journey that has been echoed throughout time by many people. It’s universal in a way – people fighting to get to a better land, with more opportunities, a paradise of sorts. The ending nearly made me cry, it was so powerful. I ended up liking this one more than the last.

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All That’s Left To You, by Ghassan Kanafani

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Thistle

allthats leftMy sister recommended three novellas by Ghassan Kanafani, and so I read all three.

This was my sister’s favorite of the three, so I read it first. It follows several different stories, offset by type (bold, italics, normal) to differentiate between the three narrators. The first narrator is Hamid, a young man in his mid-20s from Gaza. He has been taking care of his family since he, his sister, and his aunt were separated from his mother back when he was ten years old. Now, though, his aunt is dead and his sister got pregnant outside marriage, so that he had to give her away to a man he hates for just about no dowry at all. He fantasizes about killing her, but cannot bring himself to violence, so he sets off through the desert one night instead, hoping to walk to Jordon and find his mother there. The second narrator is Maryam, Hamid’s sister, who is thirty-five and now the second wife with a bastard son to take care of. She is caught in the middle of the feud between her brother and husband. The third narrator is the desert itself, impartial and all-knowing.

This is a really fascinating story. We learn about the past – what happened to Hamid’s and Maryam’s family, why Hamid and Maryam’s husband (Zakaria) dislike each other, and more – slowly as the story unfolds, the three narratives weaving in and out of each other, punctuated by beat of a clock that Hamid brought to the house sometime in the past. Only a few hours of time actually pass in the novella, from sunset until dawn, but so much happens, so many transitions. The story is about loyalty, deception, betrayal, honor, and the conflict that comes from lack of communication. Maryam’s story was the most interesting to me. She is a woman abandoned by her brother and scorned by her husband. She spends 35 years of her life unmarried and living according to society’s rules, and is treated like a worthless cow as soon as she “misbehaves.” She felt the most human to me of all the characters, as she sat up in a silent all-night vigil for the brother who is out wandering in the desert. I was really surprised at the way her narrative ended, but like all three endings, it fit. It made sense, but was also very disturbing. Definitely unexpected.

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Harry Potter: Film Wizardry, by Brian Sibley

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Thistle

Filmwizardry01I have never been as big a fan of the Harry Potter movies as I am of the books, but I do enjoy the movies. I own the first six, and there are some I like better than others. When I first heard about Film Wizardry, I didn’t think I’d be much interested in the book. The movies, to me, are an amusing spin-off of the HP series, but not anything I’d want to study on their own. But then, someone (not sure who) put out a link on Twitter to an article that showed a couple sample pages, and I was hooked. The next time I got a 50% off coupon from Barnes & Nobles, I bought it.

In short, I absolutely loved the book!! I learned so much, and there are so many neat little touches inside. For example, every few pages there are things for you to keep: potion label stickers, a Marauder’s Map, some of Umbridge’s Proclamations, cutouts of Honeydukes products, Ministry of Magic identification cards, Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes order forms, etc. There were also interviews with a lot of the cast and crew, telling funny stories about things that happened while on the set. I learned about which parts of the movies were done with CGI, and all the stuff that they did with props and sets, and how they put everything together.

I don’t think I can review this book in a normal way, because it sort of boils down to a list of facts about how the movies were constructed. Instead, I’m just going to bullet out some things that I learned and thought were really neat (in no particular order), then encourage Harry Potter fans to pick this one up!

  • Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) was the only child-actor who had acted professionally before doing Harry Potter. He actually hadn’t read the books before auditioning, and initially auditioned for both Harry and Ron’s parts before getting Draco’s.
  • The director for Prisoner of Azkaban, Alfonso Cuarón, actually hadn’t read the books or seen the movies and almost declined the position when he was asked if he would direct.
  • Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) has a stand-in who is 6 foot 10 inches tall. The book includes a picture of them side by side, which is amazing to see. Apparently there was a lot done to allow Coltrane to seem giant-sized by way of props, like making a lifelike model of Draco Malfoy 30% smaller than his actual self for Hagrid to carry after Buckbeak’s attack.
  • Fawkes is animatronic (not CGI) and covered in thousands of hand-painted feathers. He also had a mechanism inside him that let him cry real “tears” onto Harry’s arm in the Chamber of Secrets.
  • The scene where Aunt Marge floats up into the air was done by tethering the actors/prop-dog to each other and lifting them up 30-40 feet in the air!
  • They filmed the Hogwarts Express scenes actually at King’s Cross, where fans stood around gaping. I would have loved to be there!!
  • I adored seeing pictures of the “smaller” version of Hogwarts (about the size of my house), the set for the Great Hall (which has never changed), and all the mini-models of locations!
  • They used to use real food on the set for the feasts, but it would rot and start to stink every couple hours because of all the hot lights…ew!
  • Rupert Grint (Ron) says he got to keep a piece of a broken horse from the chess game in Sorcerer’s Stone!
  • I learned why Professor Flitwick’s costume changed after the second movie.
  • Jason Issacs (Lucius Malfoy) always looks like he’s putting his nose in the air because he has to keep his head tilted back slightly to keep his wig on straight, haha!! Perfect for his character.
  • It talks about how they made the mask for Moody to wear, and how his magic eye tended to pop out every once in awhile.
  • At the end of the book, it had a preview of sets from Deathly Hallows Part 2!

This is just a small chunk of things I learned while reading this book. Many of the characters talked about how they auditioned and got their parts, and how they’ve developed them over time. My favorite part was probably when Tom Felton admitted (trying to be diplomatic all the while) that he’s a little embarrassed looking back on the first movie because of how inexperienced they all were then. He says he likes to think they’ve all improved over time, and I have to say I think they all have. These last few movies have seen marked improvements in my opinion. I can’t wait until next July when the last one comes out!

If you’re a fan of the series and of the movies at all, I highly recommend picking this one up.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | 1 Comment