Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Thistle

bleakhouseBleak House would be impossible to describe in terms of plot. There are lots of plots, many of which eventually become connected, but not until the second half of the book. The plot elements vary from bad law cases to family secrets to blackmail to forgery to spontaneous combustion.

My thoughts on Bleak House are…not kind. In fact, if I hadn’t been reading it for the readalong, I never, ever would have finished it. After reading Great Expectations earlier this year, I was prepared to think perhaps my first experience with Dickens (A Christmas Carol) was just a bad read and that I might actually like the author after all. Bleak House put an end to those thoughts. I hated it.

Really, it was the way it was written that I hated. I suppose the story itself was good enough, if you don’t count all the amazing coincidences and the miraculous deus ex machina and the fact that the story itself only counts for a small fraction of the 850+ pages of the book. Shaved down, Bleak House could have been fun – in fact, I’m prepared to bet watching a movie version of it will be much better. But the book itself? Ugh.

I guess I just expected Dickens to be something more than the Victorian equivalent of a TV sitcom. Bleak House was published in monthly installments of about 40 pages, each one equivalent to a cross between a few 1980s household staples: Family Matters, Full House, and America’s Funniest Home Videos. Every character was a stereotype, from the angelic blond-haired-blue-eyed beauty, to the “perfect” woman who is mild and obedient, to the “bad guys” who invariably have a “major physical defect”: short height, bent back, acne, or greasy hair. Not only were these “characters” personified solely by their stereotypical qualities, but they were assigned a set joke that was repeated every single time they appeared on the page. After a hundred repetitions, I just wanted to gag.

Some of it, of course, can be attributed to the serial form, and trying to help people remember the characters when there were just so many! But at the same time, it’s very possible to help people get to know the same number of characters in a fraction of the time by giving them real personalities. Zola, for instance, does that incredibly well. But Dickens does not go deep for his characterization. He’d rather use the stereotypes and gags that made up the farce of Bleak House.

It is interesting to see how little things have changed, though. We no longer need to read our sitcoms, but we do still watch them. People watch the same shows every week, and those shows are incredibly repetitive, no matter if the show is dramatic or funny. I’m not saying this is a bad thing! Personally, I love NCIS, which does tell the same jokes every week, all 7 seasons so far, and I still love it. My problem with Bleak House was that it was like watching a sitcom that I despise. It’s really just a matter of taste and preference. I don’t like farce. I don’t like stereotypes. I don’t like gags. I don’t like repetitive writing or wordy fluff or the canned-laughter comic timing that Dickens uses. I prefer more subtlety in both my drama and my humor. And therefore, I don’t like Bleak House.

I won’t say Bleak House is a bad book, just that I personally hated it and was rather disappointed by the whole experience. I have no plans to read anything more of Dickens in the future. That’s one good thing finishing Bleak House did for me – it permanently confirmed what I suspected regarding my feelings towards Dickens. I still like Great Expectations, but I’m going to guess now that that will remain the one exception to the rule, and I have no intentions to try to read myself out of that judgement any time soon. There are enough other authors in the world for me to explore.

If you ever plan to read Bleak House, keep in mind that there are like 50 different plots in the beginning, and that they don’t start coming together until about halfway through the book. There’s almost no movement for a very long time. You have to be patient with it. Knowing that the first half of the book is purely introduction and setup might help you to work your way through this tome!

A note on the BBC adaptation:

I borrowed this 8-hour adaptation from my friend Karen, and after watching, I do wish I’d just watched the movie version instead of reading the book. There were some minor changes to the plot, but for the most part, it was pretty faithful to the book. On the one hand, that meant that the story was far more understandable and followable, and that all Dickens’ fluffery was cut out. It was also a lot easier to see the themes that Dickens was playing off of, which is a good thing because I didn’t get any of that out of my reading experience.

On the other hand, most of the characters still held on to that Dickensian stereotyping, melodrama, and one-sidedness. The people I disliked in the book (Guppy, Vholes, Skimpole, Smallweed), I hated even more in the movie. The jokes got old, the melodrama was WAY over the top, and there were no characters I really felt connected to. Not feeling connected meant it was difficult to be happy or sad when happy/sad things happened.

In the end, I liked the movie more than the book, though it wasn’t a favorite. It was fun to watch once, but it’s not one I’ll ever want to see again and I’ll probably forget it in a few months. It has the great advantage over the book of cutting out all the unnecessary stuff and being much, much shorter, and it still portrays everyone exactly as Dickens wrote them. I highly recommend it for people who really want to know the story of Bleak House but can’t seem to get into the book itself.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Imposter’s Daughter, by Laurie Sandell

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Thistle

imposterI don’t think I’ve ever seen a review of this book that wasn’t mixed. People seem to like it, but with reservations, not fully connecting with it. I, on the other hand, really, really enjoyed it. I kept waiting for it to take a turn that would bother me, but it didn’t. In fact, it’s the first graphic novel I’ve read in nearly six months that I fully enjoyed!

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

The Curse of the Blue Figurine, by John Bellairs

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Thistle

bluefigurineMy first experience with John Bellairs, The House With a Clock in its Walls, was mixed – I liked it, but had trouble really connecting with it. The Blue Figurine was happily much better, a creepy little children’s book perfect for reading around Halloween. I loved Johnny Dixon and the Professor, and I felt the narrative flowed better than in the other I read. I miss having Edward Gorey illustrations, though.

Posted in 2010, Children's, Prose | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby (audio)

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Thistle

Juliet-NakedTucker Crowe, a middling rock star from the late 70s and early 80s, disappeared from public life in the mid-80s. Since then, he hasn’t made any music or given any interviews. It’s rumored that he lives on a farm in Pennsylvania.

Duncan, half a world away in Gooleness, England, considers himself an expert on Crowe’s music, career, and the decades of silence since. He is heavily involved with a website devoted to Crowe, and pretty much centers his life on the ex-musician.

Annie is Duncan’s partner of the last fifteen years. She was introduced to Crowe’s music through Duncan and she likes it well enough, though Duncan’s obsession has led her to feel that she can never be the primary object of affection in his eyes. She wonders if she’s just wasted the last fifteen years of her life on a man who can never really love anyone but Crowe.

When a demo version of Crowe’s album Juliet, entitled Juliet, Naked, suddenly breaks through the decades of silence from the musician, it changes everything in all three of their lives.

Normally I don’t take so long to describe the setup of a book, but it would have been difficult to really summarize Juliet, Naked without all that. Each character has their own storyline, from Annie’s regret and desperation for a child, to Duncan’s romance with a world that isn’t really there, to Tucker’s struggle with mortality and decades of baggage. All three storylines are delicately woven together, and the audio version nicely has three readers to separate out Duncan’s, Annie’s, and Tucker’s sections.

Chris told me about this book back in December last year. I’d never read anything by Hornby before (and was in fact quite afraid of him). Chris mentioned a general plotline, that the book was about a couple obsessed with a former musician that barely anyone had ever heard of. He said it reminded him of my own obsession with Stiffs Inc, and that instantly sold me on the book.

I know what it’s like to love a band that hasn’t existed in over a decade. I know all about the searches for the tiniest bits of information, the hankering for new material, the joys you can get from the slightest gestures from band members. Like for Duncan, it does become a sort of romance, and you have to be careful to keep it from flipping over onto the stalker-ish side (as Duncan, sadly, is not careful enough about). The internet – with ready access, with information ranging from rumors to truth all over the place, with the sudden proximity of fellow fans for a band 99% of the population has never heard of – becomes a tool and a curse, all at once. It is too easy to take your love for a band or musician and blow it up to epic proportions. What is significant to you may just look psychotic to that musician you love. The contrast between Tucker’s and Duncan’s points of view was fascinating.

Then there’s Annie, sitting on the sidelines of this romance, knowing but not admitting until far too late that she’ll never be able to compete. By the time she realizes that she wants someone to love her most, that she wants to marry and have kids and lead a normal, non-Tucker-centric life, she’s forty and worried that she’s too old to really change anything. Her journey was actually the most interesting to me. There’s this huge thematic element, brought up both by Annie and Tucker, of wasted time. What do you do when you realize you’ve wasted 10, 15, 20 years of your life? How can you make up for that? Which parts can be considered waste, anyway? Can you bargain yourself into thinking you’ve led a more productive and useful life than you really did?

I really enjoyed this book for the most part. My only complaint was that the ending seemed to happen way too quick. I think it was meant to be cathartic, the way things happened, but instead it all seemed overly optimistic compared to the tone of the rest of the book, and it was a little too ambiguous. I actually listened to the last tracks of the audiobook several times, trying to wrap my mind around what I was hearing, wishing for a paper copy so I could just check a few things. It’s not that I mind the ending that I think it ended with (trying to avoid spoilers here) but it just seems to happen too fast, too ambiguously, too unsure. I don’t know. The climax passed over me without leaving much of an impression, which is sad because the rest of the book spoke volumes.

As for the audio production, it was pretty good. The readers for Duncan and Annie (Ben Miles and Jennifer Wiltsie) were excellent, particularly the latter. The reader for Tucker (Bill Irwin) did great when he was playing Tucker, and not so great when any of the other characters spoke, especially Tucker’s son Jackson. The book was a good one to hear on audio. Except for the very end, like the very last track, I never felt like I wanted to have a paper copy in front of me to flip through and reference things. It was easy to follow and I was completely engrossed in the story, so much so that I spent more time listening to the audiobook than actually reading in this last week!

All in all, it was a WIN for my first experience with Hornby, and I’m no longer as afraid of him as I used to be. Now I just need to decide what to try from him next.

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

Callback: Crossed Wires

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Thistle

crossed-wiresI first read/reviewed Crossed Wires last fall, and it ended up being one of my favorite books of 2009. I remember debating at the time whether or not I should do a giveaway – I wanted more people to have a chance to read the book, but I also wanted to keep it for myself. In the end, I decided to keep it. Crossed Wires also has the distinction of being the very first book I accepted for review. The author herself kindly sent it to me. I still have that copy with her postcard inside.

With all the new-to-me books I’ve been reading lately, I’ve been in a bit of a nostalgic mood, wanting to revisit some old favorites. I sorted through all my cravings and in the end decided to reread Crossed Wires. I’m very glad I kept it last year! It was every bit as good this time around, perhaps even better, and I wanted to enumerate all the things that kept me loving the book.

(I’m not looking at my thoughts from last year before I write this up, so I apologize if I end up repeating myself.)

1. I love hearing about all the family dynamics. Of course there’s the triple-dose of single parenthood – of Mina raising her ten-year-old Sal who has never known her father; of Mina’s own mother having been a single mom, with two kids from two different fathers; and lastly of Peter’s widowhood, raising his nine-year-old twins. This book doesn’t make family and parenthood sound easy or even all the time a wonderful blessing, which makes me so happy. Sometimes, parenthood isn’t a joy! I know there are some people who enjoy it 100% of the time (mostly in retrospect once their kids have moved out, I expect), but I’m a more typical mom who definitely needs some time away from kids! I can’t imagine doing it all single-handedly! I liked the realistic look at family and parenthood here.

2. Then there’s the way the book dives into several issues without ever making them feel forced or heavyhanded. The twins have several friends who live in an Irish traveler camp on the edge of town, who are later bullied out of town. Peter’s neighbors are an elderly gay couple with several very unusual dimensions to their relationship. There’s also a lot of discussion of teen pregnancy and the responsibilities that come with parenthood. All these things are in the book, but naturally there and not pushed on didactically.

3. And of course, there is the romance, which I absolutely love. It isn’t a one-night-stand, jump-into-bed sort of romance. In fact, it can hardly be called a romance book, with how slow it goes and how ambiguous the relationship between Mina and Peter is. But I love that. I love how realistic that is, relationships building out of friendship over a longer period of time. And I love how the two really get to know each other through phone calls. That last part is pure nostalgia on my part, since my husband and I met through a mutual friend over email and spent two months getting to know each other by letters and phone calls before we ever met in person.

In short, I enjoyed this reread so much! Absolutely loved it. I wish I could recommend this book to everyone (and tell them to please, please, please ignore the silly cover which doesn’t at all represent the content inside!).

Note: I have now read my thoughts from last year and apparently I had taken a bit of an issue with some abrupt changes from one paragraph to the next. During this read, there was only once that a section end felt abrupt and jarred me. Perhaps I was more prepared for the flow this time? It’s definitely a very British book, with lots of Britishisms in the language that I had to adjust myself to, but I enjoyed that. It felt very authentic.

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

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy (audio)

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Thistle

The_Return_of_the_Native_Thomas_Hardy_unabridged_compact_discs_Audio_PartnersOh Thomas Hardy! I offer you my sincere apologies for not having read this book sooner. It’s just, after reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles, I was a little scared to read another of your books. I loved Tess, don’t get me wrong, but oh my god those first 125 pages were excruciating to get through! I swear it took me twice as long to read them as it did to read the last 250 pages. There was just so much pastoral, scenic description that I wanted to gag! I understand that the landscape is a character. I really do. But that doesn’t mean I like those descriptions any better. Tess was wonderful, but I couldn’t help wanting to scream, “Get to the point!!!”

It took me a long time to work up the nerve to read something else, and in the end, I didn’t even read – I listened. Glorious, wonderful Alan Rickman, my second favorite voice in the world after the brilliant Mr. Sterling’s, read this book to me. It was a lovely production. Not only did I get to listen to 15+ hours of Mr. Rickman, but he SANG to me. And then he sang to me IN FRENCH! It really doesn’t get any better than that. This audiobook was perfect. (Except for the cover art, which makes no sense at all. Wild turkey and guns in the woods?? What does that have to do with anything?)

So what about the story? Because as it was said to me on Twitter, “Alan Rickman could read the phonebook and I’d listen.” Well, it was wonderful! The Return of the Native would be painfully difficult to sum up in general terms. It’s like an 1800s soap opera on Egdon Heath. The best part about it, though, was the distinct lack of 125-page landscape descriptions! Sure, Hardy describes the world around these characters from time to time, but it’s never too much. Never so much that I wanted to fast forward. And the descriptions – particularly read aloud in such a beautiful voice – were evocative and refreshing. I loved it.

To tell you more about the book itself, I’ll need to break it down into the players. There are five main characters in Return of the Native: three men and two women.

The Men

Clym Yeobright, aka The Dreamer: Clym is arguably the primary character in the book, even though he doesn’t arrive on scene until at least a quarter of the way through this chunkster. He is the “Native” from the title, returning to Egdon Heath from Paris, where he sold luxury trinkets. He is frustrated with his lot in life, wanting to do something more idealistic, for the good of mankind and in particular for the poor rural folk.

Love interest(s): In former days, his cousin Thomasin. After returning from Paris, Eustacia Vye.

Damon Wildeve, aka The Scoundrel: Mr. Wildeve is a cad, toying with the affections of two different women in order to try to get the most benefit to himself. He runs the local inn/pub. He is a slave to his pride.

Love interest(s): Primarily Eustacia Vye, though he has a passing affair with Thomasin Yeobright which eventually causes him to propose marriage (because her aunt doesn’t like him, which hurts his pride). It gets him in quite a difficult situation.

Diggory Venn, aka The Gentleman: Diggory, a reddleman by trade, is the steadfast, loyal man of the trio, down to earth and hardworking. He has a solid sense of self-irony, and is honest, brave, and selfless. He travels for his profession, and always ends up in Egdon Heath whenever wrongs need to be set right.

Love interest(s): He carries an undying passionate love for Thomasin Yeobright, even years after she’s rejected him.

The Women

Thomasin (Tamsin) Yeobright, aka The Angel: Thomasin is the very epitome of innocence, naivety, kindness, and childlike foolishness. Everything she does and feels is young, immature, and easily taken for granted. No matter how much evil she’s exposed to, she is never corrupted.

Love interest(s): Despite offers of marriage from both her cousin Clym and Mr. Venn years prior to the beginning of the book, Thomasin does not know love until she meets Mr. Wildeve.

Eustacia Vye, aka The Demon: Descended from upper class and now forced to live on the Heath with her backward grandfather, Eustacia is passionate, wild, arrogant, contemptuous, lustful, and greedy. She hungers for a life better than the one she has now. She wants nothing more than to escape her current life, as long as that escape doesn’t involve any sort of work on her part.

Love interest(s): Herself. In a partner, she favors Mr. Wildeve at first, then later transfers those leanings onto Clym when he can give her something more to her advantage.

***
The rest of the cast is filled out by Mrs. Yeobright, whose parenting skills towards Clym and Thomasin are contrasted by those of Captain Vye, Eustacia’s grandfather. There are also a handful of comic relief characters scattered around the Heath.

The biggest thing I got out of this book was that you should marry not the person you love, but the person who treats you the best (Go for Diggery Venn! Really! You’ll be happier if you do!!)! This is particularly the case for the women, who in that time really had nothing they could do for their own lot in life and depended heavily on their husbands. Going into marriage with contrary opinions or when your future spouse’s affections aren’t always true is a BAD IDEA. I suppose, perhaps, that in some ways, it’s a lesson people still learn today – that strong, passionate love in the beginning does not necessarily lead to lifelong compatibility.

There was also parenting contrast, as mentioned above. Mrs. Yeobright was a wise woman who was very involved with her wards’ lives. She saw things and knew what her children should do, even if there was nothing she could do to get them to believe her. She foresaw all the problems they would have if they took certain paths. One of my favorite quotes in the book came from her:

Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?

Captain Vye certainly didn’t have a lot of foresight. Once Eustacia was under his care, he never bothered with her. He didn’t try to direct her behavior or have a hand in her upbringing, but instead let her run wild on the Heath. Eustacia, consequently, never has much direction in her life and must make her own way the only way she knows how.

Eustacia herself is a fascinating character. Despite what I said above in describing her, there were parts of me that sympathized with her. She was trapped by her situation and upbringing. While she certainly could have made better decisions, I understood why she manipulated things the way she did. She was always trying to find the most advantageous path to take, while keeping other doors open in case something didn’t work out. This sort of manipulative scheming is awful, but how many of us haven’t done something like that? Trying to figure out the best way to go by taking a couple steps down each road? I both disliked and loved Eustacia.

Happily, the end of this book was not the utter depressing misery that ended Tess. Of course, there is some share of tragedy. You must expect that from Hardy. But the end is mixed, with good and bad, and it left me completely satisfied in all respects. I loved this book. And I loved listening to Alan Rickman read it to me over the course of 5 weeks. It was a perfect experience altogether!

*****
Note: This book was reread and re-reviewed in January 2019.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Thistle

200px-The_Sweetness_at_the_Bottom_of_the_PieFlavia de Luce, an eleven-year-old chemistry prodigy in 1950 England, is taken by surprise early one morning by the discovery of a body in the garden of her house. The police are called in, but Flavia, not wanting to be left out, sets off on her own investigation.

I’m probably the last person in the blogosphere to read this book. Everyone has talked about how wonderful it is, but I wasn’t convinced until Kerri reviewed the second mystery in this series, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. I loved the cover and title far better than I ever had Sweetness, and I put both books on my TBR list.

This book was awesome. I’m not always a mystery fan, but about this time of year, I start craving one or two mysteries, which satisfies me for the next year. Most of the time I read some generic cozy, but this year’s selection was far better! I adored Flavia, with her love of chemistry, her battles with older sisters Ophelia and Daphne, and her absolutely ridiculous and unbelievable narration. No one, and especially no child, speaks the way she does, but because it felt too over the top to be believable, it made me grin all the way through. It’s a writer’s technique that I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed.

The mystery was also a lot of fun. I never had a clue in advance what I was going to find out, and the setup was not the traditional flirting between several main suspects. Instead, we gathered information as we went along in Flavia’s wake. She reminded the reader of crucial moments just at the right times, and there was never any bait-and-switch trickery. The mystery was straightforward, as was the path towards the truth. I’ve never read a mystery quite like this, where trying to find the answer in advance wasn’t at all important.

I’ll add my voice to the chorus of people saying what a wonderful book Sweetness is.

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

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Thistle

MockingjayNo Spoilers Section

Excited anticipation, with a little hesitance as well – that’s how I met with Mockingjay the morning I got up early and went to Walmart, forcing the lady stocking the books to open up a box so I could get a copy. She didn’t even know what Mockingjay was. Sigh. Sometimes I realize just how insular the book world is, and how little people outside of our world know about it.

The verdict? I loved every minute of Mockingjay. So much so that I read it twice. People complain that the beginning is slow, but I couldn’t disagree more. It was perfectly paced, while the end was actually a little too fast! There was very little talk of the love triangle (thank goodness after Catching Fire!) and the book focused more on Katniss’ journey, which I found fascinating. The beginning laid out a very strong emotional ride that I loved. While I never got teared up the way I do in the one section of The Hunger Games, there was instead one moment that had me laughing out loud for a good ten minutes. There was a wonderful balance of light and dark, and the ending was just perfect.

Unlike Catching Fire, the events were again minute-to-minute, without much recap, so the writing no longer had that awkward, stilted feel so prevalent in the first half of CF. Beyond losing the awkwardness, there were places where the writing was just downright gorgeous. For instance, take a look at this (spoiler-free) paragraph:

I’m not flailing now, as my muscles are rigid with the tension of holding myself together. The pain over my heart returns, and from it I imagine tiny fissures spreading out into my body. Through my torso, down my arms and legs, over my face, leaving it crisscrossed with cracks. One good jolt … and I could shatter into strange, razor-sharp shards.

Mockingjay exceeded my expectations in every way and completely made up for Catching Fire. Katniss was back to her normal, wonderful, not-stupid self!! Now I want to go back and reread the whole trilogy. There’s, of course, new information given in this book, and I want to see those old books in light of the new.

A few last notes: First, why do people take such issue with the naming system in Panem? I’ve heard people say Collins “makes up” ridiculous names, but at least half of them are old Latin names that she didn’t make up at all! Cressida, Messalla, Plutarch, Castor, Pollux, Octavia, Flavius, Venia, so on and so on. I don’t see what the big fuss is! Second, I really, really want a map of the Districts! We get more information about some of them in this book, and I’m dying to see what North American looks like under this new layout!

Spoiler Section
DO NOT READ PAST THIS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ MOCKINGJAY. Unless you don’t care about spoilers.

Also: This will be long. You have been warned. This is literally the longest review I’ve ever written.

The third book in this series has Katniss wandering around the underground world of District 13. Her home in 12 has been destroyed, with few survivors. District 13 runs on precise schedules and rules, and they all want Katniss to be the Mockingjay, a figurehead and mascot for the Rebels in this war. Katniss herself is confused, disoriented, grieving, and in pain. She’s in no shape to become a mascot, but she has little choice if she wants to save the people she loves.

There were so many good things to talk about in this book! First and foremost, I love the message on war: War is never one-sided. It’s messy, it takes sacrifices, and sometimes both sides will cross over an invisible line between fighting for justice and just plain inhumanity. Like Barty Crouch in the first war against Voldemort, sometimes the “good” side will fight according the same dirty rule book as the “bad” side. Gale with his bombs and his avalanche, playing by Snow’s rules in a fight to make a world better than Snow’s. How can you make a world better if you lose your humanity by using the same dirty tricks? It’s like what Peeta said before the first Hunger Games – the most important thing is not to lose your SELF in this war.

People really became divided here, those who wanted to win with the least amount of violence possible, and those who didn’t care who they destroyed in their quest to win. War divides. There are people who can see that no one is purely good or evil, and those who are blinded by their politics. The conversation Katniss and Gale have about her prep team is a great example of this, because are the prep team really to be hated? They may be wrong in doing what they do, but you can’t blame them either. This is their world. This is what they’ve been taught. They genuinely care for Katniss, even as they prepare her for slaughter. Good or evil?

War is so messy, and I love that Mockingjay didn’t end in some glorious battle scene. I love that everything fell apart, until you don’t know who’s on which side. Good, bad, right, wrong, it all gets jumbled up. Is Coin any better than Snow? Will Paylor be? There is no glorious climax in war, and I love that in the end, there was no real resolution. The Rebels won, oh yes, but to what purpose? By the end, it all just seems pointless in the amount of life that is lost. It didn’t slip by me, the irony of Prim’s death, seconds from the war’s end. Prim, who would have died had she gone to the Hunger Games in Book 1. Prim, for whose life Katniss tried to give her own, sparking the revolution that, in the end, could not save her. Prim, who after everything, died anyway, with Katniss powerless to save her. It was a masterstroke on Collins’ part.

The resolution of this novel is so anticlimactic, which in some twisted, grim way felt perfect to me. Exactly as it should be. Unexpected realism, and a good message brought with it. Still, even after reading the book twice, I do have some unanswered questions. There were conversations throughout the book that never led anywhere, like foreshadowing gone wrong. Boggs’ last words to Katniss are never fully explained. And why, why, did Katniss vote YES to the new Hunger Games? Was it because she knew she was going to assassinate Coin, and thus the new Games would never happen anyway? Did she say YES only to get Coin to let her guard down? Or was it because she knew it was a choice between a handful of innocent children dying and the whole population of the Capitol? You never find out if that last Games took place, and I want to know. I want to understand Katniss’ motivation, because in every other respect, I understand her so well.

That’s one of the reasons I loved this series so much. I love Katniss. So many readers were irritated with her, particularly when it came to the love triangle, but I understood her so well, and her character was so well developed for the first and third books (not so much in CF). Think about who she really is: Katniss, oldest of two, growing up in a horrible place, loses her father and mother at 11 years old. Suddenly, she’s in charge of providing for her family. She has to take care of them and keep them from starvation or worse. She never has a chance to process her grief for either parent, and the only way she survives is to bottle up those emotions and focus on the only thing that in that moment matters: survival.

Katniss is a girl who knows only one thing, and when anything takes her out of that comfort zone, she is lost. She knows how to read people, but not their emotions. Anything involving emotions throws her off-balance. Survival becomes more difficult with time because it’s less about food and protection, and more about emotional assault. Katniss deteriorates, becoming less and less able to handle the horrors around her. Death haunts her, and she hates the monsters people around her become in this war. She never wanted to be a leader or a fighter. She doesn’t even want to be seen. She only wants to be left alone to protect the ones she loves, and yet she’s become this crucial piece to a war game that she wants nothing to do with. And people sneer at her when she’s unable to do it well.

The unexpected, when it came to Katniss, was her singing. It was like she’d been pushed so far that the child part of her reemerged. All those years later, horror after horror, and suddenly she can do no more. So she sings. It’s a soft spot in her that proves she’s not only human, but has a heart. She is processing beyond childhood, finally growing up now that there’s no one left to protect.

I was Team Katniss, but I still enjoyed the way this book ended. Gale turned out to be everything I predicted for him. He was bloodthirsty, cruel, indifferent with innocent lives, and loved the revolution far more than he ever cared for Katniss. He proved, over and over, that he didn’t understand her at all, nor could they live together without fighting. Peeta, on the other hand, proved himself to be strong and resilient. The hijacking they did to him was horrible, but even through it, he’s still fighting for Katniss, still warning her of dangers to come, still trying to hold back those nightmares even as the impulses Snow put in him say to kill her. I felt so sorry for him, but admired him all the same, and the hijacking eventually helped Katniss to really appreciate how wonderful Peeta genuinely was. It gave her a way to pay back her debts to him, helping him to sort what was real and not real.

To put it all in Harry Potter terms (because that’s just fun to do), Gale is a Gryffindor: headstrong, brave, willing to jump into battle, restless, hasty, reckless, arrogant, and sometimes foolish. Peeta is a Hufflepuff: loyal, hard-working, and not necessarily too noticeable on his own. I guess there’s a reason I prefer Peeta. I married a Hufflepuff. They make great husbands.

As does Peeta. I was Team Katniss, but the way she ended up with Peeta, slowly over many years, was perfect. She doesn’t end up with him by default. She ends up with him because she realizes he’s exactly what she needs, and who she really loves. This paragraph from the last non-epilogue chapter says it all, and is exactly what I said in my predictions for Mockingjay:

What I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

That is why I’m okay with them ending up together. Because finally, Katniss can see exactly what many of the rest of us could see all through these books. It’s not because Peeta is a better person (though I would argue that he is). It’s because he’s better for her.

People complain about the epilogue, but I liked it. I love hearing how it takes Katniss many years, but she eventually decides she wants to have a family with Peeta. Katniss never wanted children, but that was only because she didn’t want them up for Reaping. There is no more Reaping. The epilogue says there are no more Hunger Games. For Katniss, the most important thing in the world is family and the people she loves and wants to protect. I don’t see her decision to have children when she is 30+ years old as contrary to her 16-year-old self. I see it as her facing her fears to do something that may scare her, but will also make her (and Peeta) happy. The anonymity of the children was also important, and goes back to Katniss’ wants in life. She never had the chance to stay quiet and hidden from the world. In not telling us her children’s names, she gives them that chance. It was perfect.

Last notes, written to two of my favorite characters, and then I will end this super-long review.

First, to Cinna. Oh Cinna, how I loved you, how I wished you’d come back! Alas, you didn’t, but at least you lived on in the things you designed and provided for Katniss. I was glad to at least see your presence all throughout the book.

Second, to Finnick. I didn’t really know you well in Catching Fire, and didn’t know how to judge you, but in this book, I fell completely in love. I know that happens often, what with discovering how many people were paying for your body after you won the Games (at only 14 years old! How tragic!), but what I loved was your self-deprecating humor. The stunt with the hospital robe cracked me up, so that I was laughing for a good ten minutes both times I read the book. I nearly cried when you died. No other death in Mockingjay affected me so much. I was glad to hear that you and Annie had a child, even if you never met him. You are the primary reason I want to reread the series, so I can see you in a new light in Catching Fire.

That’s all. I’m going to assume probably no one is still reading by this point, but I just had so much to say! Sorry to go on so long.

Posted in 2010, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Thistle

kindredThe year is 1976. Dana, as a black woman married to a white man, has a myriad of race-related issues in her life. It’s not a good time period for interracial marriages, and both family and friends (on both sides) disapprove. Her troubles get worse, however, on Dana’s 26th birthday. That day, she is sucked back in time, landing in slavery-day Maryland just in time to save a young white boy that she later realizes is a distant ancestor.

This book was fantastic! I’ve tried to read Butler before, with Parable of the Sower, and didn’t get very far. I’ve wanted to try something else by her, though, and I picked this one up back in April at a school book sale. I had no idea what it was about before I began to read it. Each time I saw a review, I skipped the summary altogether. I had no idea there was a science-fiction element, or that it was about slavery. I didn’t even realize that the book was published in 1979 until after I finished it! I thought it was from the last decade. The back of my book calls Dana “a modern black woman” and I wondered about that, given that she lived a good 35 years ago, but now I realize “modern” was meant in relation to the book’s publication date.

I loved every bit of this book. I have this thing with history, where it’s very hard for me to imagine or empathize with any historical period without having some sort of personalization of it. Most history books teach about the broad basics, and the people they mention are groups and classes and figures. There’s rarely any focus on a specific individual’s experience, and that’s what I need to really understand and empathize with the group at large. Reading about Dana’s experiences in the antebellum South really made certain aspects of slavery real to me in a way no history book would ever be able to do. It’s no wonder this book has been used in school slavery units!

The book is intense. It never lets up, only spirals deeper and deeper. Butler did a magnificent job showing the tragedy of that time period, while at the same time illustrating that the situation was not completely black and white (no pun intended). The white people weren’t all bad. The slaves and free black people were not all innocent. Of course, the white people were in the wrong, but Butler breaks down modern-day thinking until you realize that the white people aren’t just wrong – they’re ignorant. They don’t know any better with the way they’ve been raised. The black people may know their condition is wrong, but they likewise have a conditioned response to accept their position as natural or normal. Definitely unbreakable. It’s horrible. The whole culture in the South from that time is repulsive.

Dana, in the beginning, can’t understand that mentality from either race. From her modern world, she never understood why the slaves didn’t fight for their freedom, and much of the book is the slow deterioration of her self-certainty. She starts to understand what’s at stake for everyone. If the white owner dies, the slaves will be separated from their families and sold into even worse conditions, so it would be disastrous (in more ways than one) to kill him. If the slaves rebel, they will not only be whipped and beaten, but their spouses or children might be sold off. Running away means almost certain death. In these conditions, it’s amazing that anyone escaped, or even attempted escape. I know I wouldn’t have been strong enough to do it.

Dana is a little stronger than I am, but even her tolerance for what she’ll allow done to her when she’s stuck in the past saving her great-great-great-(many times removed)-grandfather’s life grows wider and wider, until almost nothing remains. She’ll suffer a myriad of humiliations and work-orders to escape physical agony. She often ends up in a position to choose the lesser of two evils and the smaller of two pains.

I can’t sing this book’s praises enough! It is absolutely brilliant and I am only scratching the surface in this review. I can’t begin to talk about everything packed into these pages. It is so good, definitely a (semi) modern classic.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Black City, by George Sand

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Thistle

blackcityÉtienne, nicknamed Sept-Epées for his expertise with metalwork, is a young man in mid-1800s France. He belongs to the lower class, but dreams of one day escaping poverty and the doldrums of daily work to live in the Upper Town above him. Only one thing can hold him back in the Black City where the lower class lives: love. And unfortunately, Sept-Epées loves a woman named Tonine. He must decide which is more important to him – love and happiness, or wealth and ambition.

When I first began to read The Black City, I expected this book was going to go one of two ways. Possibly Sept-Epées would take what we might call the Thomas Hardy route, shunning his feelings and working himself into the ground, only to find out that his lofty aim was either unattainable, or not as wonderful as he expected. Or, perhaps, it would follow what I like to call the “Of Human Bondage/Keep the Aspidistra Flying” route, where he pushes and pushes against his lot in life until he eventually gives in and accepts reality and responsibility.

George Sand surprised me. This was the first of her books I’ve read. Not too many have been translated into English and as far as I’m aware, none of them are widely available. Sand is quite popular in France and she was a very prolific writer. I’ve wanted to read one of her books ever since visiting her house at Nohant back in 1999. About a year ago, I saw The Black City at a Half Price Books and snatched it up. I didn’t know anything about the book itself, but I wanted to take the chance. It’s not often that you see her books around for the taking!

The Black City, despite being written in the 1800s, was surprisingly easy to read. It was fun, fast, and a great character study. It was far more optimistic than I expected (though I won’t tell you which of the two paths mentioned above – if either – that it follows), and there was quite a bit of commentary on idealistic socialist societies. There was also a great emphasis on the strength of women. In fact, without the women, absolutely nothing in this book ever would have been done well. The women are strong, self-sufficient, and decisive, helping their husbands, fathers, boyfriends, and friends to cope with the world around them.

I had so much fun reading this. Compared to other classics I’ve read on similar themes, this was a bit too idealistic and heavy-handed for my tastes when it comes to the literary aspects. However, the plot itself was enjoyable and I really liked the characters. In the end, I didn’t mind the idealism as much as I would have normally, because it was such an interesting ride along the way. I really do hope that I get a chance to read more from Sand!

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