Soy Chai Bookshelf

The Hunger Games trilogy ~ Suzanne Collins

2012-01-27T17:35:00.001-05:00

I have something fantastic to tell you about today. You probably already know about it. In fact, you probably knew that it was fantastic before I did. That doesn't really matter. What matters right now is The Hunger Games.Holy crap, why did nobody hit me over the head and force me to read this before?? I mean, come on. It's me we're talking about. I love dystopia and strong female characters. Okay, maybe I don't say that enough here. So consider this a warning. Now you know. Don't let it happen again.

I was disinterested at first. When I first heard of The Hunger Games, I was intrigued by the fact that it was a dystopia but put off by the fact that it was classified as YA. I feared that it would be underdeveloped and poorly written and all-around disappointing. Which was rather elitist and silly (considering that I enjoyed the Uglies trilogy) and ultimately lost me out on years of enjoyment, because the only thing that makes The Hunger Games YA is the age of the protagonist and perhaps a slightly simpler writing style.

Just to note, this isn't going to be my full-fledged review - I listened to the series on audiobook and want to read it in print before I really get into things. So let's talk about that. I was actually put off at the beginning of the first book because of the reader - she sounded like a woman trying to sound younger who is trying to give a speech BuT Doesn'T nORmalLY Give SPeecheS and Over-eNUNciaTeS every word. Also, the series is in the first person, and the narrator didn't do a good enough job differentiating between her narrative voice and her speaking voice, which sometimes made it tough to figure out when Katniss switched from dialogue to internal monologue. But once I got past that, the story was insanely intense.

This is dark stuff. There is real evil going on but not in the traditional "other" way, like with vampires - rather, in a "wow that's awful but I bet humans could actually be like that" kind of way. The action is intense and incredibly emotional and made believable - there is not happily ever after here. Katniss, the main character and first-person narrator, is great - complicated and passionate and strong but confused, and very naive. Since I don't like to listen to audiobooks without something else to do (walking, washing dishes, driving, cleaning) because I get too restless, I had an incredibly clean apartment for the two-and-a-half weeks it took me to get through the entire trilogy because I just couldn't take the earbuds out and had a hard time thinking about other things when I wasn't reading. Again, I'll review it in greater depth when I've actually read it, but suffice it to say that I really love this series and ~~was~~ continue to be emotionally invested in it (I bawled during the epilogue).

On a different note, I'm interested to compare the reading and listening experiences, as I've never read a book after only ever having heard it before. I hope the reader's voice don't translate to the page, because I know that this series will be even better without her.

The Robber Bride ~ Margaret Atwood

2012-01-22T21:37:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've read anything by Margaret Atwood, but since my first novel of 2011 was by her (The Edible Woman), I figured I should start 2012 in the same way. The Robber Bride was never a novel that really stood out to me based on the blurb on the back, but I got it at a library sale for practically nothing and it's still by Atwood, meaning it was bound to be good. I was not disappointed.

The Robber Bride presents itself initially as being about a woman, Zenia, though it's really about three women whose lives Zenia damages. The novel is constructed through these three women's experiences with Zenia and each other and themselves - space is allotted equally to each into equivalent sections that tell of their childhoods, time with Zenia, and time with each other. Though this may seem too structured for some, I liked the predictability - it gave me something to look forward to. The women are Tony, a tiny and quirky professor of military history; Charis, spiritualistic and sweet, though sometimes simple; and Roz, a business tycoon who puts on a facade every day.

What really struck me about this novel was how aggressively feminist it felt without making a feminist agenda the obvious point. We are faced with three women who are incredibly strong and independent while being weakened and diminished by the men in their lives and another woman, who appears extremely powerful, yet uses that power to hurt others and never truly relate. Though the book pretends to be about her, we know nothing of substance about Zenia, but about Tony, Charis, and Roz we know so much. They are stuck in an in-between generation, during which women are expected to be independent but still haven't been released from the past way of doing things. They go out in the world and do things and provide, but when they get home, they still have to cook the dinner and clean the house (much as my own mother did). Even Charis, who is easily mocked even by her own friends, is more self-sufficient than most people, working multiple jobs and growing her own food and taking care of more people than just herself. They are truly superwomen but should they be? They are overworked and overtired, and get very little thanks for it. However, Roz and Charis both have daughters, of the next generation in which women don't have to be everything. They are strong but comfortable with it, okay without men, able to choose their path rather than having everything dumped on them.

This wasn't the most amazing, life-changing novel I've ever read, but it was good and it sucked me in and it made me think. Beware though - the men are awful (the worst of them shares my husband's name, which was unfortunate and elicited some comments from me about what would happen if my husband ever behaved like him). That may be the point though, because it's them that make Zenia the horrible women that she is. I definitely recommend this, though maybe not for somebody new to Atwood.

Meatless Monday ~ Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan

2012-01-16T17:01:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting for Meatless Monday much since I started the "weekly" installment, initially because school was going on, and more recently because I'm not that inspired to do so, which is odd because I love talking about food and vegetarianism. I guess I'm just not very good at writing about it. However, the inspiration has struck, and so I welcome you back to my semi-monthly chat about meat-free food.

Meatless Monday is a movement to get Americans to eat less meat and more veggies through the simple expedient of not eating any animal products one day a week. It's a great way to segue into vegetarianism or even veganism, or just make a small but real difference in your health and the environment. To that end, on Meatless Mondays here at Soy Chai Bookshelf I will talk about anything related to food and vegetarianism, from cookbook reviews to to recipes I've created (don't hold your breath) to bragging about the delicious vegetarian feast I just whipped up to discussing in a (hopefully) not-too-judgemental way why vegetarianism is a great choice. I would also love to host guest posters on the topic, so if you're interested in being featured, send me an e-mail at jlmarck at gmail dot com.

Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan is one of my favorite cookbooks. It's vegan chef Dreena Burton's third cookbook and it's just fantastic. Contrary to what many people believe, Burton makes it clear that healthy and vegan don't have to mean boring and tasteless. In this book, Burton gives us recipes for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, sides, sauces, hummuses galore, and a bunch of desserts, and everything I've tried has been delicious. It's not heavy on meat and dairy substitutes, which I love, but is heavy on creativity. For those folks with kids, Burton includes lots of kid-friendly recipes and ways of getting picky eaters to eat better, like her "Hide the Lentils" Tomato Sauce in which red lentils are cooked into pasta sauce and then pureed as though they were never there, creating yummy pasta sauce with a boost of protein and fiber.

Some of my favorite go-to recipes include:

Banana Pecan Rice Pudding Pie (for breakfast!)
Orange Sesame Tofu
Balsamic Maple Sauce
Bask-to-Basics Balsamic Vinaigrette
Savory French Lentils (delicious warm, over salad)
Bean and Corn Tortilla Lasagna with Avocado
Sesame Lime Soba Noodles, served with Tamari-Roasted Chickpeas
Simple Swiss Chard
Supercharge-Me! Cookies (click the link for the recipe!)

In my opinion, the recipes aren't too fussy, but if you find chopping and measuring too much work for a weeknight meal, you might want to save this cookbook for the weekend. It has some photos of the recipes but certainly not of all; however, you could probably google nearly any recipe in it and find some blogger's rendition.

Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan is a great choice for anybody new to vegetarianism or veganism, as well as anybody who simply wants to eat a little less meat - you won't even notice that it's missing.

River of Snore

2012-01-07T22:59:00.000-05:00

I was really excited for this book. Super-excited. Pre-order it in hard-cover and pay whatever Barnes & Noble was asking, no questions asked-excited. For a lot of people, that means nothing, but I like used books and, at the very least, would wait for the paperback version, but that's how excited I was. Okay, technically I paid for it with a gift card that B&N gave me for participating in a survey while on the clock, but still, that gift card is valuable to a thrifty bibliophile like myself.

Okay, less about my frugality and more about the book. I haven't finished it. In fact, I'm not even halfway through. I'm not officially giving up on it, per say, but I am starting another book and there are so many characters in River of Smoke that I know I will probably forget half of them if it's not the main thing I'm reading, but I'm not sure that I care.

So why was I so excited, you ask. Why was this such a let-down? Well, it all started with Sea of Poppies, the first book in a proposed trilogy by Amitav Ghosh and the first book I ever reviewed on this blog (fun fact!). Sea of Poppies was fantastic. It was a story, the beginning of an epic really, set in India and aboard a ship, the Ibis, just prior to the Opium Wars. Prior to reading Sea of Poppies, to which I was attracted mostly because of its cover and the fact that it was set in India, I had had little knowledge of the opium trade, but the book just drew me in. It was a great story, yes, but also good for political thought and considerations of capitalism and how its discussion hasn't really changed. And there were characters and they came together and it was wonderful.

And then there's River of Smoke. In which Mr. Ghosh has a lot of knowledge and tells it to you. I have read two hundred pages and I have yet to find a real character or the inkling of a story. Any story. Mostly, it's just exposition and a lot of fun historical tidbits that Ghosh feeds to you through contrived dialogue and the narrator's tangents (no, I didn't even care about the history of chai - I know). It feels a lot like he is saying "look at all the things I know!" and completely forgetting that he's supposed to be writing a novel. Sea of Poppies got off to a slow start but two hundred pages?! Out of five hundred? And no story in sight? Nope. No thank you. I'll try to keep up with it, read a few pages a day, but I don't know what will happen. My hopes are not high.

Also, stay tuned for a comparative close-readings of River of Smoke and Harry Potter. Because I used to be an English major and why not?!

The Boat ~ Nam Le

2011-12-29T17:21:00.000-05:00

It took me two months to get through The Boat, Vietnamese-born Australian writer Nam Le’s debut collections of short stories, a fact at complete odds with how much I enjoyed it. However, this just means that I had time to savor, a verb that this collection certainly deserves. The Boat consists of seven carefully written stories, all of which revolve around a single character in various settings. The stories are more about character development that plot, though there is a point of conflict in each story around which the narratives revolve. In each you can sense the care that Le gave in writing and the efforts he made to get inside the characters’ heads. A note about each story:

“Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” takes place in Iowa, and is about a character named Nam Le struggling to write the final piece for a writers’ workshop, in which he struggles with his conflicted feelings about his father and writer’s block. He takes risks, changes his perspective, and comes to understand more about his father, though disastrously.

“Cartagena” is about a Colombian hit man on the verge of a promotion. I didn’t think that I would like this one but it was shockingly revealing, both about the main characters and the drug and crime culture of Colombia.

“Meeting Elise” focuses on a famous artist who is trying to deal with his art and his lost daughter while getting a cancer diagnosis. This was also excellent, but the number of euphemisms for anus got a little ~~hilarious~~ distracting.

“Halfhead Bay” was a little confusing. Though I enjoyed the story and the perspective of the character, there was a lot of distracting slang and I spent a good amount of the story trying to figure out where it was set, which was annoying. The ending is a little jarring, but probably more honest than what was expected.

“Hiroshima” stands apart from the rest in that it utilizes stream-of-consciousness to follow a young girl in the time leading up to the bomb dropping. One thing that really struck me about this story was what a lot of people would call “brainwashing” and what is really ideology, which Americans spout just as much as anybody but misunderstand in others. This was extremely powerful, no less because I knew what was coming from the first word.

“Tehran Calling” was probably my least favorite of the collection. The focal character is a weak woman who never grows and whom I couldn’t like, and the portrayal of Iran seemed stereotypical (though to be fair, I’ve never been there).

“The Boat” is hands down the most disturbing of the collection. It tells of a girl on a fishing boat escaping from Communist Vietnam and the horrors that occur on board. This isn’t the tale of heroism that another writer might make it, but a brutal story of the truths of what many people have and continue to suffer in the effort to find freedom (ßideology).

This was a powerful collection, and I recommend it to anybody who likes intense looks into characters’ subconscious. Beware: there are no happy endings here, only truth.

So Apparently Santa Publishes Now...

2011-12-20T18:17:00.000-05:00

That's right folks, it's time for my first post of December! It only took me three weeks, and to be honest it probably would have taken longer if it hadn't been for ladies at The Broke and the Bookish reminding me how much I want a select few books and how much I'd like to talk about that. Get ready for my most covetous bookish post of the year...

TOP TEN BOOKS I HOPE SANTA BRINGS

(ranked for Santa's convenience)

10) Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose: This has been on my wish list for years, longer than anything else on this list by far. I think it's probably never been bumped to the top of the list because it's not actually a novel and that tends to be what I read but I'm so attracted to the blurb on the back about examining why certain stories carry on. Plus her last name is Prose - how convenient is that?

9) Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy: So I read The Road (like every other good American) and it was horrifying and excellent and I finished it in two days and I'm not really sure why I haven't read anything else by him because I finished that years ago. Anywho, I hear that this is the Cormac McCarthy book to read and who am I to argue?

8) Zone One by Colson Whitehead: So I'm not all that into zombies but literary zombies (funny story: I told my husband about how this is a literary zombie novel and isn't that awesome and he was all "Haven't those been out for like a year? Like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?" and then I punched him). Plus, Whitehead is freaking hilarious (I saw him do a "reading" and it involved a whiteboard and charts and it was fantastic) and I love both Apex Hides the Hurt and dystopia, so how could this go wrong? It can't, I say.

7) Fables Volume 1 by Bill Willingham: Fairy tales. Graphic novel. Highly recommended. Need I say more?

6) Design Sponge at Home by Grace Bonney: So in my advanced age (ducks punches) I find myself becoming crafty. Not crafty in the knitting kind of way (as I have neither the patience nor the mastery of my own neuroses to handle that) but in the hang stuff on the wall and make scrapbooks kind of way. Plus, I like things that are hand-crafted and one-of-a-kind and how can I be sure something is one-of-a-kind unless I'm the one that hand-crafts it? Okay, I'll probably just look at the pictures but I still want it.

5) The History of History by Ida Hattemer-Higgins: I don't know very much about this except that it does funny things with history and the description remind me of a story in Fragile Things and it comes highly recommended in a cult kind of way (by cult I mean you must be special and superior if you like it [man I hope you know I'm not being serious {it's hard to tell online sometimes}]). Plus, I like the cover.

4) 1Q84 by Haruki Marukami: So I've only read one other book by Marukami and it was short stories and I loved it and that means two things: I'm not actually sure that I enjoy his longer fiction and I have a whole plethora of his other writing to enjoy without having to buy a gigantic hardcover copy of this but... I want it all the same. It's kind of named after Nineteen Eighty-Four which means awesome in my book. Though if Santa does give it to me, I'm really going to have to learn its name because I keep calling it IQ84 and wondering why it won't come up in online searches.

3) Possession by A.S. Byatt: I honestly can't remember what this is supposed to be about but I am absolutely confident that I must have it.

2) Vegan Diner by Julie Hasson: Did you really think that I could get through a list of books I desire without including a cookbook? I myself am astonished that only one book made it on the list. This book looks like a yummy way to have greasy diner fare at home (or just in NJ, as I don't know of any meatless or even veg-friendly diners in this state).

1) The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides: Even though this book has only been out a couple of months, I already feel like I'm the only member of the book blogging community who hasn't read it yet. What I've heard about it - Victorian literature, and English major, mental disorders, and a man named Mitchell* - makes this the number one book on my list.

*My husband's name is Mitchell; I'm not some creepster who makes book purchases based on random men's names.

The Help ~ Kathryn Stockett

2011-11-26T22:58:00.000-05:00

I managed to read The Help back in September, back before things started to be due for my graduate classes, and I had a (now defunct) book club and an assignment (though I was allowed to just watch the movie) to motivate me. Now the idea of reading a 400-page book while classes are going on, even a quick read like this, makes me want to start pulling my hair out. But back in September I managed it, though not the review, so I'm playing catch-up now (it's my hope to also write a review of The Awakening before the end of my rapidly disappearing long weekend). I can't promise a very thorough review since it's been two months, but here goes.

I liked it despite myself. And despite itself. I went into the reading experience with some other bloggers' thoughts in my head, most notably the opinion that Stockett would have achieved her aim better by putting together a real version of The Help, i.e. the real stories of real black maids as told in their real words, and also by not making a white character their savior. And I still stand by those opinions. But I liked it anyway.

Skeeter, as you may know, is a white native of Jackson, Mississippi, where the novel takes place. She misses the black maid who raised her and flinches when her racist friends make racist comments but doesn't say anything. She wants to be a writer, so she applies to a publishing firm in New York, and is told to submit a writing sample on something super-interesting and relevant, so she says Aha! I will write about these black ladies because surely they want to help me! And then after months of convincing them, she becomes a hero and runs away to New York and leaves them to their fates. It makes me sad that she's the character I mention first in a novel that seems like it should be about black women, but really it's about a white lady helping black women (oooh, I wonder if that's what the title really means). Oh, by the way, I don't like her very much.

I do like the maids, though, whose stories intersperse hers (though not often enough). They were a joy to read about and are really what made the story. While Skeeter is worrying about upsetting her mom and being fired from her job as editor of the Junior Racists Newsletter, Minny and Aibileen are living. They support their friends and families, work harder than their employers could imagine, suffer real pain and worry, get dumped on regularly, and still manage to thrive. They expose the truths of their employers, both good and bad, while not letting those truths get in the way of their own beings. They are why I couldn't dislike this book.

I'm not going to ramble too much, but I'm going to direct you to the Reading Rambo's discussion of a short bit of the book because everything she says I agree with, and how often does that happen? Not very.

As for recommendations, I don't know what to tell you. It's an easy read and the writing's decent. Not great, but decent. I took it out of the library (a service I rarely utilize) and am happy I did, because I won't be reading this again. If you want something quick and balanced between fluffy and really quite serious, this is a good choice. If you're likely to vomit at the idea of somebody pooping in a pie, you might want to shy away. If you're looking for a great idea of a project to work on, you might consider a factual collection of the stories of black maids in Civil Rights-era Jackson, Mississippi. I know I'd read it.

Meatless Monday er Tuesday ~ Thanksgiving Recipes

2011-11-22T21:58:00.000-05:00

Sadly, this is my first Meatless Monday post in months and I didn't even manage to post it on a Monday. Ah well. This will be a quick post; I just wanted to share with you some yummy vegetarian Thanksgiving ideas because OH YEAH. It's possible to have a delicious Thanksgiving feast without a dead turkey in the middle of the table! I just had my fourth annual pre-Thanksgiving celebration with friends, which was entirely vegan except for a pie somebody brought, and I really don't think anybody missed the bird. In fact, one of my omnivorous friends even texted me ahead of time to tell me how excited he was for my cooking (which totally made my day).

Meatless Monday is a movement to get Americans to eat less meat and more veggies through the simple expedient of not eating any animal products one day a week. It's a great way to segue into vegetarianism or even veganism, or just make a small but real difference in your health and the environment. To that end, on Meatless Mondays here at Soy Chai Bookshelf I will talk about anything related to food and vegetarianism, from cookbook reviews to to recipes I've created (don't hold your breath) to bragging about the delicious vegetarian feast I just whipped up to discussing in a (hopefully) not-too-judgemental way why vegetarianism is a great choice.

But first, a rant. I HATE it when people call it Turkey Day and I always have, even before I became a vegetarian. Calling it that completely undermines the purpose of the holiday, which is to give thanks for all you have and not verbalize your gluttony. Also, the idea of Thanksgiving is not an American thing! Many, maybe even most cultures have an equivalent celebration, even if they don't necessarily call it that (though some, like Canada do). Ever heard of a harvest celebration? Yeah, same thing.

But anywho, the recipes! I started the meal with a repeat hit from last year: Houlihan's shrooms, deep-fried and delicious. I subbed in Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, and nobody could care less, they were so yummy. This year, I decided to make a yummy lentil loaf, which is a first for Thanksgiving and will certainly be repeated. I also made a delicious sweet potato casserole, sans vegetarian-unfriendly marshmallows. I don't think marshmallows are necessary for sweet potatoes, but if you want them, go for Dandies or Sweet & Sara's brands. They are gelatin free and veg-friendly! I also made stuffed butternut squash from an e-cookbook that I can't seem to find, but here's what seems to be a free updated version of it (there are about a trillion other great Thanksgiving recipes there as well). I also made the mushroom gravy from Vegan Brunch, which is always a big hit. There's also this stuffed pumpkin recipe (vegans beware - there be cheese). I've never made it, but I have my eye on it for next year. If you make it, let me know how it turns out.

Then there are the basics that you don't really need recipes for. Boil up some potatoes until fork tender, drain, and mash with enough melted Earth Balance and warmed soy milk until they're just how you like them. Don't forget the salt. Take some from green beans and broccoli and saute them in olive oil with some garlic, and you have an easy and yummy green veggie to serve (I add a splash of water in the pan and cover it for a couple minutes so that they soften without shriveling up or getting burnt). And you don't need help with the dessert, right? That link up there with a whole list of recipes also has some great veganized desserts. Check out the list of veg references I posted a couple of months ago for more great ideas.

And here's a bit of Thanksgiving Day advice: if you're a vegetarian hosting omnivores, please don't feel like you need to cook a turkey (see above comment about how this is about the harvest not a dead bird). Stick to your convictions and serve up some delicious veggies, and everybody will be happy, including you. And for you omnivores that are entertaining vegetarians - use vegetable stock instead of chicken or beef so that everybody is happy (and Earth Balance and non-dairy milk if they're vegan), and please don't be insulted when they don't partake in the bird. It's nothing personal.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I hope it's a great day for all!

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week Eight

2011-11-05T13:38:00.000-04:00

I'm writing this at work - shh, don't tell!

I'm a week behind on both the final Fragile Things post and the RIP IV challenge. Better late than never, right? As usual, here's the link to all of the final week's posts. Since it's the last week, I'm also going to give you links to all of my posts up to now:

Our first (and fourth-to-last) selection was a poem, "The Day the Saucers Came." I actually liked this poem's rhythm and pattern, so I'll share a stanza with you:

That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that the graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran
But you did not notice because (271)

Each stanza feeds into another (hence the abrupt stop above) and it flows well. The content I'm not as big a fan of - zombies and similar horrors really aren't my thing - but I was still able to enjoy it. The apparent point of the poem is for the narrator to list all of the horror some person could overlook in waiting for him to call, which was a bit of an underwhelming end and demonstrated exception immodesty but, you know, whatever.

"Sunbird" was a story that had me considering a Meatless Monday discussion but lets face it, it's unlikely that that will happen, so I'll just talk about here. So there's an Epicurean Club of obnoxious, wealthy people whose sole goal seems to be to experience every possible thing on the planet via their gustatory systems. As a vegetarian, I've got to say that I'm not a fan of people eating every living being they can't get their mouths on just for the hell of it. They begin the story listing everything they've eaten - "vulture, mole, and fruitbat ... kakopo, aye-aye, and giant panda ... several long-extinct species" (274). I think there's a bit of a problem when people choose to experience their world by digesting it rather than seeing and learning about it. And yes, I know that this is a story, but there are a lot of people out there who couldn't give a crap about other cultures yet get their kicks from eating whatever weird new animal has made its way onto a menu. But anyway. The Epicurean Club is lamenting the fact that there's no new weird thing left to eat. But their oldest member, who mysteriously dines on fireflies and coal, suggests the Sunbird (aka phoenix), so the party travels down to Egypt to catch and munch one. They never seem to actually kill it, which I guess is the point with a phoenix, but they also don't seem bothered by the fact that they're eating an animal that's not dead. But anyway. So it turns out that phoenixes are delicious but they burn you up from the inside unless you train for it by eating fire and stuff beforehand, so you could say that the old dude tricked them but I'd say that they should not be eating mythical creatures to begin with. We'll call it a draw? I had a hard time thinking about this story in a literary sense because I was so bothered about it, so I'm sorry for the uselessness of this paragraph. Ah well.

"Inventing Aladdin" was a poem about a woman who tells stories to stay alive. Literally. If she runs out of stories to tell and her husband gets bored, he will kill her. This was obviously a fictional creation of how Aladdin came to be, but I like it. There are some things that will never be known, and this was a good an explanation as any. I tend to like historical fiction (though I rarely read it) and this definitely falls into that category. AND, me liking it sets us up for a strong ending...

...which, fortunately, the book had. The collection ends with a novella, "The Monarch of the Glen." It apparently is connected with American Gods, which I have never read and now want to. Which is rather impressive, considering the fact that for most of the book I was all "meh" and then it ends and I somehow want more. Clever, Mr. Gaiman. Very clever.

So "The Monarch of the Glen" tells of a creepy place filled with monsters and rich people who delight in barbarism. This place is called Scotland. Which I am now a little scared to visit and has also jumped to the top of my list of places to visit. Our main character is called Shadow, and he is large, large enough to be called a monster and to be selected as a last-minute "security guard" at a party for people he's never allowed to talk about. Mr. Smith and Mr. Alice from "Keepsakes and Treasures" make another appearance, which was a pleasant surprise. So does Grendel, or some Grendel-like creature, which was odd and made me want to revisit the story of Beowulf, which I think I last read in 2003 for junior year English. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say that this story was creepy, evocative, and shows what Gaiman can accomplish with more words than he uses in most of the pieces in this collection. It was a great way to end the book.

Overall, I'm not sure that I really enjoyed this book, but I don't regret doing the group read. It was nice to feel like I was in a book club, even if I was that obnoxious member that never does the reading on time. A commitment like this was a bit too much too pile on top of grad school, but I've got nobody to answer to but myself, so deal. :] This also brings the RIP challenge to a close for me (I managed to stretch it out a bit), but I look forward to next year and to Carl's spring challenge devoted to fairy tales (I already have a book ready for that).

Next I'll be reading The Boat by Nam Le, another collection of short stories. I also have a books up my sleeve that I still need to write reviews for (The Help, The Awakening, and Neverwhere) so look out for that. And I'm deciding what book to read over Thanksgiving, since I know I won't be devoting the whole week off to getting ahead on school work. I'm thinking The Difference Machine, which I've had sitting on my shelf for several months now. Thoughts?

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week Seven

2011-10-29T22:06:00.000-04:00

Late again, but are you really surprised? So here are the details, last week's post, and this week's other posts. Onward!

"In the End" is a reverse story of one of the Bible's Creation stories, in which someone seems to be rewinding the surveillance camera at the Garden of Eden. Okay, that bit's my addition, but you get the point. I like when people do clever little things with that particular tale and this is a clever little thing, so I liked it. I would like to know how one takes away names, though.

"Goliath" is about a rather large person whose world keeps pausing, resulting in him accidentally meeting a member of the system maintenance team. Then there's this bit where the CPU teaches him how to fly fancy new technology in the real world outside of the computer world we live in and he saves the real world à la Ender. But then they're all like, we didn't bother figuring out how to get you out of that there plane but you've got like an hour of oxygen so that's cool. And he's like, Alright but could you maybe plug my USB into the world I used to think was the real world again? And he goes there (AKA here) and has this awesome life and then he's back in the plane and about to die but it's cool because he had that awesome fake life. À la Second Life.

So I kind of like those stories where they're like TWIST! This life you've been living is just an artificial construction performed to see if you can do something that we need you to do but it's a one-shot deal so we had to make sure. And hey READER. Maybe you've got the same shiznat going on. Are ya scared?? Are ya?! Because then I get to be pleasantly paranoid and mildly flattered and it's cool. Though I think I prefer the Goosebumps story where the family's trailer gets detached and the kids end up at the creepiest summer camp ever. Or the novel in which a 17th century village is actually a people zoo, which The Village ripped off. This was okay, but the whole fighting the aliens thing was underwhelming. And what was the point of him being so large?! But I hate The Matrix, which "Goliath" was apparently written for pre-release. And again I wish that Gaiman had actually come up with the idea for the stories in this book himself. And also, meh.

"Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma and Louisville, Kentucky." GASP CAN'T BREATHE. In which some creeper writes a journal while chasing an imaginary person named Scarlet who may or may not be him/herself around the United States. It's odd, in an itchy kind of way. There's something there - Scarlet seems to have some substance without actually being real - and you can't get away from it. Then at the end, he writes "Remember" on a post card in lipstick and it gets taken by the wind, just like a postcard he found at the beginning, and you can see him stuck in a loop. The best part is the question of why he has abandoned his journal? And did he abandon everything else in the shoebox? I liked this one. Mysterious without just flat-out failing to tell you things.

OH WAIT A SECOND, I HAVEN'T READ THE LAST ONE YET. HANG ON.

**dum dum dum**

**insert lame hold music**

**some Muzak**

**almost there**

**thinking**

**processing**

**three days later**

Okay, here it is. "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" is the last story of this week's selections and the fifth to last of the whole collection. It starts off rather dully, narrated by a 15-year old boy who's being dragged to a party by his more socially savvy friend. At said party, they find dim lighting, hot girls, and weird music. The girls his friend encourages him to talk to say weird things which he fails to hear because he's so worried about getting with them and behaves like a junior male chauvinist. The girls are apparently tourists from another world/galaxy/something-or-other and one claims to be a poem which she starts to recite until his friend races out of an upstairs bedroom and drags him off, flipping out, and you never find out what happened up there. The friend says, cryptically, "I think there's a thing. When you've gone as far as you dare. And if you go any further, you wouldn't be you anymore? You'd be the person who'd done that? The places you just can't go... I think that happened to me tonight" (269). This is an interesting sentiment, especially when seemingly connected to teen sex by an apparently confident teen boy, but is that even what he's talking about? Did he attempt to diddle her? Did she diddle him? Is it something completely other?? I'm not a huge fan of mystery created by not telling you things (see comment on previous selection). The frame was a little dull but could have been saved and even justified by something interesting having to do with the poem-martians, but then we're just left hanging. What is up with that?! Also, I think that "The Places You Just Can't Go" would have been a much better title for this.

So, this week was 50/50, which is better than some other weeks. Only one week to go! I actually haven't even started the selections for tomorrow's post, so I have no idea how I'm going to manage that, but we can always hope, right? I hope at least to get it up by Monday, AKA the last day of the RIP challenge. I'm going to go read right at this moment. Really. I promise I won't sleeeeee.........

Some H.P. Lovecraft Stories

2011-10-19T10:44:00.002-04:00

For the RIP challenge's Peril of the Short Story, I have mainly been reading Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (as six posts should have made obvious by now), but I also decided to read some H.P. Lovecraft on the side. This is my first experience with Lovecraft, who I had barely heard of up until a short piece about him that I used when tutoring for the SAT. At that time, I developed some interest but mostly dismissed him as a genre writer (how awful!), but when this challenge came up and I saw that Lovecraft was a big inspiration for Gaiman, I decided to give him a shot. I can tell you that this was an excellent decision and one that I would recommend for all you Lovecraft virgins out there.

Okay, I should probably amend that statement. If you're not the kind of person who gets a certain amount of pleasure from tiptoeing to the bathroom in the dead of night, convinced that something's going to grab your ankles, and are likely pee the bed rather than risk it, you probably should just skip right over Lovecraft. If, however, you like a good scare on those nights when you've got the apartment to yourself, then get your scared little butt to the bookstore, because this is some good reading.

While reading Gaiman, I can't really see the Lovecraft inspiration, but while reading Lovecraft, I can see what Gaiman is drawing from. Lovecraft likes the first-person narrator, all of whom have the same sort of conversational honesty while delivering the most disturbing of truths that Gaiman shoots for in many of his stories. However, I don't doubt Lovecraft's narrators, or at least not their sincerity. There is something so engaging about them that works really well in the short form. The stories and situations he creates don't need more space: they are a glimpse of the horrifying, incomprehensible but disturbing to the core. And they're more than just ghost stories - they are literature in their scope and execution.

One complaint that I suppose you could have about Lovecraft is that he reuses a lot of themes and plot elements. In only five stories, I've noticed that he uses a lot of rats and semi-human creatures who feast on human flesh (I told you it wasn't pleasant), but he employs them so well that I really don't mind. It (oddly) reminds me of a quote from Gilmore Girls: "You don't dictate to an artist, you don't tell him what to do. I mean, no one ever walked up to Degas and said, 'Hey, pal, easy with the dancers, enough already. Draw a nice fruit bowl once in a while, will ya?'" Rats and semi-cannibals are Lovecraft's art, they're what he does - and that's cool with me. They're also probably the two things most effective at giving me the willies on the way to the bathroom.

If you're still not convinced, here's the first story in the collection I bought, "The Rats in the Wall." It is ridiculously excellent and well worth a read. It involves an American man who discovers his ancestor's British home, centuries of rumors and fears, and secrets buried deep. Also kitty cats. To get the best experience, I suggest you print it out, wait until it's dark out, turn out all the lights except for the one on your bedside table (a flickering candle will do), and curl up in bed with it. Question: Is it weird that getting scared is so much fun for me?

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week Six

2011-10-16T21:48:00.000-04:00

Okay. Week Six. You know what it's about, so I'll just give you the requisite links and get on with it: last week, the challenge, the host, and this week's posts. Does anyone else find themselves resolving weekly to write about each selection as they read it and then not actually doing it and being angry about that every Sunday? Yeah. Anyway. Onward!

"My Life" is kind of a poem, though really just prose broken up, told in the second person to somebody who keeps buying the speaker drinks whose effect on the speaker is apparent. He tells of the ridiculousness of his childhood and it's okay but honestly, the amount of time it took me to remember what the thing was about should tell you volumes. Either about the story itself or about how little attention grad school allows me to commit to my own endeavors...

"Fifteen painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot" was actually a pretty enjoyable collection of vignettes based on images from a tarot deck. I assume that it's a work in progress, because the card numbers span from zero to twenty-two, skipping a few, and Gaiman promises in the introduction to finish the other seven. I liked this because each little vignette is on its own but some characters seem to carry over and it included creepiness and oddnesss and sex and life, and it works. I also like the idea of bringing to life an object like that. Plus, tarot cards are kind of cool.

"Feeders and Eaters" is apparently the story of a dream that Gaiman had and though it seems a little too logically constructed to be the exact dream, it does carry that unreal dreamlike quality in which it kind of makes sense at the time but doesn't really. It also carries with it an excruciatingly unpleasant image which impressed me based on how well I could imagine it. This is another story within a story, and the setting of the outside story is perfect: an late-night, mostly empty diner, attended only by those you're least likely to want to talk to. I imagine a sputtering lightbulb. Really, it's quite a vivid story. If you don't like to read about kitties getting hurt, though, this story is not for you.

"Diseasemakers Croup" is kind of clever and amusing and kind of irritating because you're all like "oh that's clever, a disease that only infects hypochondriacs and makes them talk all crazy and what the hell does that mean oh wait the narrator's got it haha oh my god I wish the sentences would make sense I'm getting tired of this make it stop" and then you read the intro and you're like "OH! It's in a story collection about fictional diseases I would like to read it in that context because that way it would be more fun and have you ever thought about how maybe ALL of these stories would be better in their original contexts because that's what they were written for right? and maybe that's the problem with completist collections like this because yeah you've got everything that writer's written since the last time he put together one of these but the only connection they have is their author and is that really enough? because collections of short stories are more enjoyable when they're written to go together and I'm not just talking about connected short stories but stories that work together which these really don't and maybe that's why I'm having a hard time with this collection and thank goodness for that last story because it worked on its own and not all of these do." And then your brain gasps and wishes for more punctuation.

Give me a break, I just had two glasses of wine. Until next week, folks.

Catching Up

2011-10-14T22:22:00.000-04:00

Ten o'clock on a Friday night that I've dedicated to studying and preparing for a paper and a presentation? Perfect time for playing catch-up on the blog.

So, I've pretty much been a terrible blogger lately. I haven't done a Meatless Monday post in week, I have two books and some short stories in the queue to be reviewed, I've barely been keeping up with my substandard Fragile Things group read posts, and my time spent looking at other people's blogs is restricted to the ten minutes I allot myself on my ipod in bed in the mornings and before I go to sleep, of which there is no evidence because I hate typing on the ipod. Suffice it to say, I'm doing a poopy job of balancing blogging and school.

I am reading though, and not just stuff for school (though that's the vast majority). I drag myself through the Fragile Things readings through sheer will-power, and have even managed to get in a few H.P. Lovecraft stories, which are really freaking good. Maybe after I hand in my paper I'll write about them? Hopefully. I also just finished listening through the entire Harry Potter series on audiobook and just started a re-listen of Neverwhere, which, happily, is reminding me that Neil Gaiman is also awesome. I think he is better suited to longer narratives. Oh! So the first time I listened to Neverwhere, there was something wrong with the files and they kept skipping around and it was a pain in the butt. So much so, that the first time I attempted a relisten, I gave up because it kept happening. Since then, I converted the files to audiobooks and guess what! There's a prologue. Nope, I did not know of its existence my whole first listen, which makes me wonder what other surprises are in store for me. Thanks to the hours I spend walking to and from campus every week, it shouldn't be long before I find out.

I have been managing to feed myself for the most part, though it's included a lot a salads and PB&J sandwiches. I'm going to try to get back to the Meatless Monday posts, but since I'm not a very creative chef and most of those are for me anyway, I'm not going to make it a priority.

Does anybody have any advice on balancing graduate school, two part-time jobs, and general housework while still making time for blogging? I'd love to hear how you all do it.

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week Five

2011-10-10T16:35:00.000-04:00

It's Monday and that means I'm a little late for my weekly Fragile Things post in honor of the RIP VI group read, hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings. If you missed my last post, here it is, and here's a link to the posts by the rest of the group.

This week's readings were two poems and two stories. The first selection was "Locks," a poem about a man telling his daughter the story of Goldilocks who, apparently, was originally an old lady. This poem was sweet and I really loved this bit:

"There was a little girl, called Goldilocks,
for her hair was long and golden,
and she was walking in the Wood and she saw --"

"-- cows." You say it with certainty... (178)

It's such a cute moment, in which a small child combines her own experiences with a familiar story in an attempt to make sense of both. In the poem, Gaiman demonstrates the relationship between a father and his child and a man and his story, combining them into one. You can feel the love that Gaiman has for his own daughter behind his words. A lovely start to the week...

...which it seemed, at first, would continue into the next selection. The first story was "The Problem of Susan," which is about, apparently, the problematic way that Susan is disposed of in the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. Apparently she doesn't get to go to Paradise because she likes lipstick? I haven't read the series, though I always mean to, so I wasn't 100% clear on this but anywho. I really liked how the story began: it is told from the waking and dreaming perspectives of two women, a retired professor of children's literature and a journalist writing an article on her. The journalist is haunted by how Susan is denied Paradise when her family (or other kids? not sure) dies in a train wreck, a fictional horror that the professor lived. Susan can't stop the obsessive momentum that sends her headlong into this topic, and the professor responds with her own experiences of identified the mangled remains of her family, until finally she asks the journalist to leave. I liked the back and forth and how the professor slowly melts into Narnia as her body dies, but then suddenly the journalist goes back into a Narnia dream in which Aslan the lion and the White Witch consume the four children and then engage in cunnilungus, to which I said W. T. F. I didn't have a problem with the purposeful sex in "Keepsakes and Treasures," which many other disliked, by this sex just seemed gratuitous and to have no place in the story. Gaiman says in his introduction that he wrote this story after a long illness - maybe this was some weird dream he had while sick? I have no idea, but its purpose in this story is baffling to me and ruined something that I was really enjoying. I do now, however, want to read Narnia even more than before, but I don't thank Gaiman for that.

Up next was poem #2, "Instuctions," which, as Gaiman tells us in his introduction, is a set of instructions for navigating a fairytale. It featured some stories in this collection, like the twelve months telling stories and the door with the imp on it. It kind of suggests a navigable fairy tale world which was interesting but fell a little short for me. I think it would have been more compelling if it had intentionally included every story in the collection and had appeared either at the beginning or end. The middle of the collection seemed like an odd spot for it.

Finally, there was "How Do You Think It Feels?" a thoroughly non-fantasy story about a man who cheats on his wife and is fully willing to leave both her and their twin daughters for a younger woman who gets bored of him as soon as he decides to commit to her. Ho-hum. The one bit I notably enjoyed was when he talks about the differences between his daughters and you can tell how well he knows and loves them (flashback to "Locks") - but apparently not enough to stay with them. In the end, he gets back with the now-older younger lady for one last night, and then she vanishes afterwards and he decides that he will be fine without her. It wasn't a bad story, just not particularly interesting or compelling, particularly as part of this collection.

So it was another underwhelming week, but I'll stick with it - only three more weeks to go. I've also been reading some stories by H.P. Lovecraft which are so freaking good. I plan to write about some of them later this week but let me just say now - I can see where Gaiman gets his inspiration but at least in terms of short stories, he does not live up to his master. Lovecraft has me picturing monsters under the bed.

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week Four

2011-10-02T21:30:00.000-04:00

On to week three of the Fragile Things group read. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here. If you missed my week three post, which I only managed to put up yesterday, you can check it out here. Check out the rest of the participants' reviews here. And off we go!

This was, thankfully, a poetry-free week. Our first story was "Good Boys Deserve Favors," a story that a man tells about his childhood in which he made half-hearted attempts to play the double bass, mostly because of the incongruity between its size and his own. This was an odd story. Odd, because even the narrator didn't seem sure what the point of it was. He frames it as a story he has never told his children - "I would be hard put to tell you quite why not" (134). The story was relatable - I myself have been that child whose musical ambitions have not matched my efforts (I failed to practice the flute). Other than that, though, I was left asking "and?" It's not a bad story, just one that I did not connect with, I suppose. Its role or purpose in the collection is a mystery to me and Gaiman failed to illuminate it, as it is missing from the introduction.

"The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch" is another testament to Gaiman's love of the long title and the use of prepositions. It also fits much better in the collection, telling of the disappearance of a prim and irritating ~~biologist~~ biogeologist at a second-rate circus. The story is broken into chunks based on the rooms of the circus, and sometimes the text of the narrative interacts with the subheadings, which was pleasantly unexpected. The story is strange, asking questions it does not answer, like why the narrator and her friends get into the circus for free, and how the circus manages to raise prehistoric beasts at Miss Finch's command. I don't mind unanswered questions however - it is the way of life - and I enjoyed this little story. It made me wonder.

"Strange Little Girls" was an underwhelming experience. Apparently Gaiman wrote these ten vignettes to accompany a Tori Amos album in which Ms. Amos creates a persona for each song, each of which Gaiman turned into a character sketch. Unfortunately, these didn't go beyond the level of character sketches for me and while interesting, I needed a bit more.

Finally, "Harlequin Valentine" tells of Harlequin's Valentine's Day, beginning with him nailing his own heart to his crush's door with a hatpin, and ends with him working as a line cook named Pete in a small-town diner. Though I knew nothing of Harlequin before beginning this, I did not mind - Gaiman does a good enough job portraying the character that I did not need background knowledge. And Missy, the object of Harlequin's affections, is great too - her reaction to finding a heart nailed to her door is to put it in a ziplock bag and tidy up. She later tricks Harlequin into losing his identity, assuming it herself. This is a lady I want to know (though now that she is Harlequin, I'd probably do better to leave her alone).

We're halfway through and thus far, it seems that this collection is very hit or miss for me. I read another collection of stories by Gaiman years ago, Smoke and Mirrors, and I remember feeling similarly. However, I've read two of his novels - Stardust and Neverwhere - and loved both. Judging by the fact that most of these stories seem to be commissions, perhaps novels are really his craft, and what I should stick to in the future. However, I've had enough enjoyable experiences with this collection to finish it out - I just hope the second half is a bit more satisfying.

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week Three

2011-10-01T07:09:00.000-04:00

Okay, so it would seem that being a full-time MSW student and a blogger are not terribly compatible. By which I mean that I missed not one but two planned posts and it took me five days to even acknowledge that fact (though I did notice at the time, there just wasn't anything I could do about it). Likewise, I apologize for being a terrible blog-friend and not having a chance to read other people's posts. I will try to atone but I can't make any promises until the semester ends.

I'm going to let this week's Meatless Monday pass us on by, since that's my own thing and it has no specific agenda other than to get you to stop eating that chicken-fried steak (don't lie, you know you are). However, I do want to make up for the Fragile Things post so that I'll be all caught up come tomorrow. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about (though that's probably nobody since everybody and his mother is doing this), I'm reading Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman for the RIP IV challenge hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings. This is the third week, meaning stories 9-12. Check out week two here.

I want to start it off by saying that I liked this set of readings much better than the last. And I shall follow that by saying that I did not like the poem that we started out with. The lack of rhythm and broken, awkward phrasing in "Going Wodwo" just didn't do it for me. It's funny, because I used to really love poetry like this, with random breaks and whatnot, but I've lost my pleasure in it. Rhythm and sound games are what I want and if they're not there, I lack interest. I did like the idea it gave, of merging with the forest, but I did not like the half-line, "I must be nuts." This could have been something for me, but it just didn't work. Honestly though, I'm here for the stories, so I don't mind.

I did, however, like "Bitter Grounds," the story that comes next. Here, we follow a narrator on a bizarre trip around America in which he befriends a professor who soon disappears and assumes his identity, then has sex with some shaman-like woman in New Orleans (some other stuff happens too). We learn very little about the narrator's background and though the content of the story implies that he is unreliable (is he even alive?), he inspired my trust. I like this kind of "scary" story because it is definitely disturbing but for a reason that's not so clear. The unknowability of the situation and the way that the narrator seems both so close and so distant left me with a sense of lingering unease more profound than zombies at the door. "Bitter Grounds" definitely earns a reread, partially because it's good and partially to more fully understand it, though sadly I don't think I'll manage it for a while.

Next up was "Other People," a disturbing loop of a story in which the foreign becomes the familiar. A man is transformed from tortured to torturer, all by reliving the story of his life until he found the truth of it beneath all the layers of what he thought he knew about it. The thought that this subhuman comprehension could so destroy a man is horrifying and believable. The only thing lacking is the story of what the man in his life did to deserve this fate after death, but I would argue that that's the point - it could be anything. It could be the crimes of a tyrant or a serial killer. It could be whatever your life has been. Though Gaiman doesn't acknowledge it in the introduction, this story reminds me of No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre. Hell is not exactly other people here, but it is what you have made it. Great, and thought-provoking.

***Surprise story! I finally reached the point in the introduction with the freebie story that I've heard so much about. "The Mapmaker" is tucked in between the blurbs Gaiman wrote about the stories and poems in the texts. It begins confusingly, with a musing on tales and maps and how the best description of them are the story and lands themselves, making the tales and maps useless. This culminates in the line "The tale is the map which is the territory" (xix). I read this a couple of times and it just made my head spin, so I read on. The story takes the form of an oral myth, telling of an emperor of China who seems set on squandering his empire's fortune on perfectly scaled and detailed reproductions of it, first in miniature and then in life-size. The story was odd and not quite as compelling as I'd like until I went back to the first paragraph: a map can never capture the truth of the place, a retelling can never capture an experience. The original stands alone, always. I didn't love the story of the emperor, but I did find the idea behind it fascinating, though I don't know if I agree. The tale and the story are two different experiences, and difficult to compare.**

Finally, there is "Keepsakes and Treasures," an absolutely chilling tale of a man who avenges himself of the men who raped his mother and potentially fathered him, and then reveals his participation in the sexual subjugation of others, for his own and others' pleasure. This is no ghost tale - it's a story of how real people can go terribly wrong and it is all the more disturbing for that. Like Gaiman admits in his introduction, I want to know more about this horrifying character and am glad to hear that he will be making another appearance in the collection. Oh, and I'll leave you with this idea from the story: the richest men in the world aren't the ones you've heard of. The richest men in the world can pay a person more money than you can hope to earn in your lifetime to make sure you've never heard of them. Scared? Me too.

It seems that what I liked about this week's reading was the departure from the fantastic. Though the story in hell is unknowable and the story of the emperor is unlikely, these stories address human nature in a way that is far more disturbing than some of the stories we've seen thus far. Who needs goblins when you have human beings??

Meatless Monday ~ Chilly Morning Breakfast

2011-09-19T21:57:00.000-04:00

Uh-oh. It's Meatless Monday again? I'm awfully bad at this regular weekly post thingamajig. That's okay though, since today I'm giving you a breakfast recipe which means one of two things: something for you to dream about all night or something yummy to wake up to. Well, an idea of something yummy to wake up to at least.

Meatless Monday is a movement to get Americans to eat less meat and more veggies by the simple expedient of not eating any animal products one day a week. It's a great way to segue into vegetarianism or even veganism, or just make a small but real difference in your health and the environment. To that end, on Meatless Mondays here at Soy Chai Bookshelf I will talk about anything related to food and vegetarianism, from cookbook reviews to to recipes I've created (don't hold your breath) to bragging about the delicious vegetarian feast I just whipped up to discussing in a (hopefully) not-too-judgemental way why vegetarianism is a great choice.

With the weather turning chilly, I've been returning to my favorite winter breakfast: it's vegan, it's filling, it's yummy, it's OATMEAL! Okay, I know it doesn't sound all that exciting, but my version of it really is delicious. Plus, I like to think of it as a time-release meal - it contains simple sugars, complex carbs, proteins, and fats, so you keep metabolizing it all morning and it keeps you going straight through until lunch. Plus, there's a butt-load (literally - teehee, poop) of fiber to keep your tummy feeling satisfied. Oh, and it takes less than ten minutes to prepare, and it only takes that long if you're really sleepy. For all of those people who think that vegetarians and vegans are weak and lacking in energy, I give you the power of oatmeal.

Jennifer's Super-Duper Chilly Morning Oats
(I just thought of that title on the spot - are you impressed?!)

Ingredients:
1 cup almond milk (plus 1 tbsp if using raisins)
1 tbsp raisins (if'n you want - sometimes I'm not in the mood)
1/2 cup oat (not instant)
1 banana
peanut butter
agave or maple syrup (or brown sugar for you traditionalists)
cinnamon

Put your almond milk (and raisins if using) in a pot and bring to a boil. Watch it, because almond milk likes to foam up faster than you can say "scrumdiddlyumptious." Add the oats, lower heat to medium, and cook for five minutes. Microwave your banana for one minute (in your serving bowl, because who wants to wash extra dishes?) and add it to the oats while they cook. Stir 'em up really well and dump the whole mess back into your bowl. Top it all with a (very) generous spoonful of peanut butter, a drizzle of agave, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Enjoy!

The peanut butter gets all melty, so you can smooth it over the top of your oatmeal and have a bit with every mouthful. Yum!!

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week Two

2011-09-18T19:56:00.000-04:00

Welcome to week two of the Fragile Things Group Read, hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings in honor of RIP VI. If you missed week one and/or have no idea what I'm talking about, go check out my post from last week!

Okay, I'm just going to say it up front: I did not love this week's selections. Nor did I like them very much.

This week's chunk of readings started with a poem, "The Hidden Chamber." Unlike "The Fairy Reel," which we read last week, "Chamber" lacked a specific structure. I want to call this a prose poem, but according to Janet Burroway in Imaginative Writing*, a prose poem is actually "A poem that is not written in lines but continues to the margins of the page like prose" (359). I suppose it's actually free verse, but to me it seems more like prose with odd line breaks. There's very little apparent rhythm and it doesn't lend itself to reading aloud, which is generally a feature of poetry that I enjoy. In terms of content, it's a bit gothic, replete with ghosts hidden away and dead butterflies. I like ghosts, but this did nothing for me. Overall, the poem was a somewhat meh experience.

Though I didn't love the "The Hidden Chamber," I did appreciate its relationship with the story that followed it. "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" (yes really) is a very gothic tale, including ghosts and sword fights and things that go bump in the night. Structurally, it is a story within a story: we first see a woman running out of the dark up to the door of a creepy house; it is only later that we learn that her story is being written by a writer struggling with his craft. I loved how the themes continued between the two and how the story almost seemed and extension of the poem, but I found the scariness in "Forbidden Brides" overdone. What I did appreciate about it, was that in the story goblins are a reality and the world of stockbrokers and toasters is the fantasy. However, for me this wasn't enough to save it. In fact, it seemed a little gimmicky - I both enjoyed the cleverness and questioned its integrity. Plus, the title is just way too long.

Up next is "The Flints of Memory Lane," in which a teenage boy sees a ghostly woman with a scary smile at the end of his driveway, freaks out, and runs across town to his friend's house and calls his parents to pick him up. That's it. It's about three pages long and wholly underwhelming. I suppose it's also about an insecure narrator, since he questions whether his ghost story is really a ghost story, but rightly so. In terms of interesting connections making stories somewhat more interesting, "Flints" is connected to the next story in that both feature a building sold to property developers, which also did very little for me.

"Closing Time," this week's final story, is yet another ghost story, this time told to the narrator's companions at a bar. The narrator recalls his youth, when he had formed an instantaneous yet temporary friendship with three brothers over several pages from an old, girly magazine. They stumble into a poorly described fairy world and upon a little house with a demonic red knocker, into which the three brothers disappear. I actually liked this story, as it demonstrated the interesting bond that strange children are able to form so easily, and evoked a creepiness that the blatant gothic style of the poem and "Faceless Brides" lacked and "Flints" couldn't hope for. However, the outer story in which the tale of the fairy world was nested is distracting and weird, and not in a good way. The narrator tells about the background of the bar - okay. Then he describes the specific night on which the story is told and mentions that there were four customers there, including himself. He repeats a few ghost stories that were told and follows that with, "And then one of us said," refusing to name the customer who tells the story of the fairy world. Based on the end of the frame, it can only be the narrator who tells this story, yet he refused to admit to it. Why? This conundrum is not interesting to me, as perhaps Gaiman intended, but confusing and irritating, and ended up tainting the only ghost story I enjoyed this week.

I read all of the stories on different days, so I don't think it was something I brought to them that made them so disappointing. Gaiman seems to lean pretty heavily on the story-within-a-story trope, as all three of these stories rely on it. While I loved his use of it in "October in the Chair," this time around Gaiman disappointed me. The frames were uninteresting and largely unnecessary, except perhaps in "Faceless Brides." Overall, I found that these stories didn't at all live up to the expectations that last week's built in me. I'm hoping that next week's redeem the collection in my eyes.

*This is a creative writing textbook that I really like - enough so that I actually bought the author's book devoted entirely to fiction writing as well. I definitely recommend it!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Read Because of Another Blogger

2011-09-13T09:42:00.000-04:00

I think I've been forgetting the
picture lately. Oops!

Three posts in three days?! Holy poopers! But I assure you, my lovely readers, that it is true. I'm back for the third day running, this time to participate in Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Today's topic is Top Ten Books I Read Because of Another Blogger, which I love. Since joining the blogging world, I have read a lot of things that I may not have read otherwise. Lets see if I can make it to ten! For your browsing pleasure, links to other blogs are to their reviews of the books.

1) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: I can't remember a specific blogger that led me to read this. Mostly, I just kept seeing references and reviews that made me think that I was missing out on something. And I was!
2) Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde: So far I've read The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book and it's all thanks to Ally at What Red Read. Thanks Ally!
3) Cider House Rules by John Irving: Though I'd meant to read Irving for a while, I probably wouldn't have gotten around to it if it wasn't for Christina at The Blue Bookcase. And it was definitely worth it!
4) Room by Emma Donoghue: Like Rebecca, this one was all over the blog world so I don't have anybody specific to thank for turning me onto it, just the book blogging in general. Thanks all!
5) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: Same goes for this one which, I can now say with some lack of surety, I liked. I think. Maybe. Thank you?
6) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: I'm not sure who I have to thank for this one, but thanks all the same. I probably wouldn't have read it on my own, but now I'm so glad that I did.
7) Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman: I'm still in the middle of this one, all thanks to Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings who is hosting the reading group. Great choice!

These last three are books that I have acquired because of bloggers, but that I still have yet to read:

8) The Boat by Nam Le: The rather impulsive purchase of this collection of short stories was inspired by Lucis at The Blue Bookcase. I can't wait to read it!
9) The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning: I picked up this tome thanks to Ellen at Fat Books and Thin Women. When I have some time to devote to it (i.e. winter break), I plan to read through all three installments.
10) Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese: This one wasn't actually recommended by a book blogger. Kristen from Rage Against the Minivan (a blog about adoption and stuff and life in general) mentioned liking it once (at least I think she did - I can't find the post where she mentioned it) and I nearly forgot about it until I saw it at the library sale last month and decided to pick it up. It sounds great and I can't wait to read it!

I made it! And this is why the book blogging world is so great! In the sixteen months I've been a part of it, I've been exposed to so many books that I never would have heard of or ventured to open otherwise. Sometimes those exposures warn me away, but often they inspire me to pick up something new which, most often, I have loved! What books has the book blogging world inspired you to read??

Meatless Monday ~ Vegetarian Blogs and Resources

2011-09-12T18:21:00.000-04:00

So it's only my third installment of Meatless Monday, and I already managed to forget about it. Oops! I walked in the door after getting back from my internship, and said "Oh crap, it's Monday." But never fear, my veggie-munching pals, I still have veggie stuffs for you to read and enjoy!

Meatless Monday is a movement to get Americans to eat less meat and more veggies by the simple expedient of not eating any animal products one day a week. It's a great way to segue into vegetarianism or even veganism, or just make a small but real difference in your health and the environment. To that end, on Meatless Mondays here at Soy Chai Bookshelf I will talk about anything related to food and vegetarianism, from cookbook reviews to to recipes I've created (don't hold your breath) to bragging about the delicious vegetarian feast I just whipped up to discussing in a (hopefully) not-too-judgemental way why vegetarianism is a great choice.

Today I'm going to share with you some of my favorite vegetarian blogs and resources for the web. For any veggie converts like myself, making the change can be very difficult. I come from a meat-loving family who, apart from my sister, would never even consider dropping meat from their diet. My sister was vegetarian for a bit, but converted to eating fish, then chicken, then the whole animal kingdom, though she still identifies with me and loves vegetarian food. My friends like their meat and though they are supportive of me, it can be very difficult just to find somebody to talk to or whose experiences you can relate to. Thus, reason number 28593267 (thank you random finger mash) that the internet is awesome: other vegans and vegetarians use it too! And never fear - you need not be vegan or vegetarian to participate in this community - aspiring veg-heads and people who just want to make a positive difference in the lives, the environment, and/or the lives of animals and other humans are welcome as well!

I tend to go in and out of phases of what blogs I read fanatically, but here are some that have been on my list for a long time because they're just so darned great!

101 Cookbooks - I can't say enough good things about this blog. Heidi posts so many amazing recipes and though she's heavy on dairy and eggs, there's plenty for vegans to enjoy as well. She posts recipes that she's found in cookbooks (with permission!) as well as the multitudes of delicious dishes that she creates herself. She often combines unexpected ingredients and flavors, but I have yet to make something of hers that wasn't absolutely wonderful. I recently received Heidi's new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day, and can't wait to plumb the delicious depths of what it has to offer (and then tell you about it!).

Oh She Glows - Angela is pretty much the vegan equivalent of Heidi. Okay, not exactly, but like Heidi, Angela posts lots of great recipes, nearly all of which I adore. She also discusses her transition into veganism, and other things she gets involved in, like photography and gardening. Angela seems like a really sweet person, and her blog is definitely worth a visit. She doesn't have a cookbook out yet, but I would definitely pick it up if/when she writes it!

Post Punk Kitchen - This blog and vegetarian resource was created by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, one of the authors of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World as well as some other amazing cookbooks that you will see reviewed here. It contains recipes, advice, discussion boards, and some other stuff too! It's a definite stop for anybody pursuing a vegan lifestyle, but great for the lacto-ovo-vegetarians out there as well!

Eat, Drink & Be Vegan* - Named for her absolutely amazing cookbook, Dreena Burton's blog is a great stop for anyone interested in healthy, animal-free, child-friendly cooking. Dreena blogs about her food and her kids, and offers up some great recipes to boot. I can't wait to review the cookbook of the same name, because it is just fantastic!

The Chubby Vegetarian - While all of the blogs I've listed prove that vegetarian and vegan foods can and should be delicious, The Chubby Vegetarian shows that they can be decadent as well. Though I haven't made all that many of his recipes (some have a lot of steps) I love just to look at his yummy concoctions. And don't worry - what I have made is indeed yumilicious, so you won't be wasting your time!

craigslist's Vegan Forum - This forum is great for anybody who wants to talk vegetables. It is much more populated than the vegetarian forum, and is filled with veteran veggies who are always willing to share their experiences and advice. It's a great place to go when your mom refuses to leave the bacon out of the potato salad, or when your brother-in-law just won't stop asking where you get your protein. Just avoid the trolls - they feed off of ill-will like we do off of vegan mashed potatoes.

The above is just a tiny sampling of the online vegan/vegetarian community. There's a lot more out there, including ones that I read - I just chose to post about my very favorites. What are your favorite online vegan and vegetarian blogs and resources?? I'd love to expand my reading list!

*I can't help mentioning how much the lack of an Oxford comma in this title bothers me. But don't let it stop you - punctuation in no way predicts deliciousness.

Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman, Week One

2011-09-11T13:08:00.001-04:00

So despite all that I've said about challenges, I've gone and signed myself up for another one. I've also jumped on the bandwagon, because everybody and her mother is doing Stainless Steel Droppings's Readers Imbibing Peril (RIP) VI Challenge. As much as I hate to be a follower, I just can't help it! The RIP challenge emphasizes dark, gothic, supernatural literature. It also has levels designed just for me! I'm committing myself to Peril of the Short Story and Peril on the Screen, so I'll be reading lots of dark short stories (which I was planning to do anyway) and watching lots of creepy movies (ideally while cuddling under a warm blanket with the hubby...you know, for protection). If you like, you can follow my progress over at my Challenges page (just avoid noticing how pathetically I'm doing on all my other challenges).

I've already jump-started the challenge, by joining SSD's group read of Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (check out the reading schedule here and other people's reviews here). In the introduction to this short story and poem collection, Gaiman discusses his original conception of the collection and how it changed over time into what it is today. I don't usually like to read these kinds of introductions, but it was actually pretty interesting, and even inspiring. Gaiman claims that "Writing's a lot like cooking. Sometimes the cake won't rise, no matter what you do, and every now and again the cake tastes better than you ever dreamed it would." I love this (and not only because I love cake). Just because something's not what you imagined doesn't mean it's not good, and that's really exciting for an aspiring yet perpetually blocked writer like myself. A lot of the introduction is devoted to a brief introductions for each story, so I saved most of them to read in tandem with the stories themselves. The ones I've read thus far added interesting background information to each story, though some got a bit dull (I don't need to know about every prize). Overall, the introduction is filled with beautiful writing, inspiration, and a touch of humility, and I'm happy that the group read guidelines kept me from skipping it.

So far, the stories do not disappoint. The first, "A Study in Emerald," is, according to Gaiman, a fusion of H.P. Lovercraft and Sherlock Holmes. Though I've never read either, from what I know about them, I see elements of both fused brilliantly together. A line that I especially loved from it describes the queen of England: "She was called Victoria, because she had beaten us in battle, seven hundred years before, and she was called Gloriana, because she was glorious, and she was called the Queen, because the human mouth was not shaped to say her true name" (11). The familiar world is turned upside down and goes through many renderings throughout just this one sentence.

It made her eyes glow. Apparently.

Up next is the first of the collection's poems, of which there aren't all that many. I was actually pretty surprised to find poetry in here, but pleasantly so. "The Fairy Reel" is short and sweet. It follows a pretty conventional form, finding its rhythm in syllable count and rhyme. For anybody who fears poetry and is upset to hear that verse makes an appearance in this collection, it is quite accessible: only two pages long and quite straightforward, it tells a story of loss and regret. It is also, as Gaiman tells us in the introduction, "enormously fun to read aloud." I read it to the cat.

The final selection for today is "October in the Chair," a surprising story that finds all of the months around a campfire for a highly structured monthly meeting in which each tells a story (September is a cheater and tries to repeat an old one). The story within the story is of a boy and a ghost, and was a "dry run" (xv) for Gaiman's current (as of the introduction) writing exploit. It is a sweet story encased within a slightly bizarre one. I would love to read more about the months, as Gaiman characterizes them wonderfully.

So that's it for this week! I'm excited to read more of the collection, as it starts off wonderfully and I always mean to read more Gaiman, since he never disappoints. To all participating in the RIP challenge, good luck! Please leave me some short story and movie recommendations. To those of you who are not - why not?! If you need me, I'll be reading all the other reviews that I've been avoiding all morning, for fear that they would taint my own.

And then...

2011-09-09T22:48:00.000-04:00

A note: there will be spoilers in this post, but I will save them for the end and warn you when they are coming, so don't be scared to keep reading!

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, and this week's Top Ten Tuesday topic finally gave me the motivation to actually do it. The topic was "Top Ten Sequels I've Been Dying to Read," and as I sat there trying to think of any (I was unsuccessful), all I could think about was those afterwards in books that tell you what happened to all those characters. You know, those sections that force closure and tell you what to think and are often sickeningly sweet.

I remember the first time that I ever saw one of those ten year later-type final chapters. I was probably about ten years old and it was in a Lois Duncan novel, Daughters of Eve. I thought that it was so clever, and was delighted to learn that the characters I so enjoyed continued to exist after the events of the novel. Over time though, my thoughts have changed to the point that recently, I've decided to skip such chapters if I see them coming, and end the novel early. Of course, I haven't had a chance to do this since I made this pronouncement, so my resolve may crumble, but for now it seems like a good idea.

Why though? Shouldn't I want to know what happens to the characters that I've followed for hundreds, or even thousands of pages? Sure, of course I do. But that doesn't mean that I want the author to tell me.

Remember when J.K. Rowling came out after releasing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and started talking about all of the characters and the stuff she didn't reveal about them in the books? Like how Dumbledore is gay, and Hannah Abbot becomes the landlady of The Leaky Cauldron, and other such nonsense, and people ate it up? The thing is, to me at least, if it's not in the book, then it doesn't count. If it wasn't worth being in the text, why should it matter? This is the same way that I feel about those final chapters - they have no bearing on the actual story and are generally just there for overly tidy closure.

By the final chapter, especially if I've loved a book, the characters are mine. I love them, or I hate them, or I'm not sure how to feel about them, but no matter what, they belong to me. I have my own thoughts about what happens to them, and I like to imagine their endings for myself, particularly if how they live the rest of their lives isn't crucial to the actual story.

Spoilers to Harry Potter, Cold Mountain, Middlemarch, and, unexpectedly, Battlestar Galactica ahead - proceed at your own risk.

As I've already mentioned it and its so widely known, Harry Potter is an obvious example here. After thousands of pages of the revelation of a magical world to which he belongs, Voldemort's defeat, and Harry's discovery of who he truly is, Rowling wraps everything up with a cozy little scene at the train station several years later, in which everybody married exactly who you thought the would when they were fourteen years old, everybody's personality is exactly the same, and the world is, apparently, perfect. Where, I ask, are the years of psychotherapy for PTSD? Or Hermione's discovery that in addition to being obnoxious, Ron is terrible in bed? Or the fact that the platform is not so crowded as it was in the past thanks to the decimation and incarceration of so much of Britain's magical population? Gone. A war and nineteen years have not changed Ron's weak sense of humor, Hermione's inability to choose between amusement and annoyance, or Harry's tendency to stand around and listen to his friends talk while contributing nothing. It's disappointingly vapid, and not true to Rowling's ability to find reality in the fantastic.

The ending to Cold Mountain is equally underwhelming. Four hundred pages of beautiful writing and plot culminate in a chapter taking place ten years later that is both predictable and hackneyed. He dies and she is left with the child they created on the one and only night they finally joined together (never seen that before). The other female character marries the only eligible male character around. All are filled with joy as they eat under the autumn sky. Been there, done that. Maybe I should tear the page out of the book, and bring back the possibility that Inman survives and that everybody can live balanced lives.

Middlemarch ended a bit more realistically, though the neat ending is still disappointing. Granted, in this case I didn't love the book itself, but Eliot's insistence on wrapping everything up with the details of what happened to everybody for the rest of their lives is tiresome. So many years cannot pass so neatly, especially after eight hundred pages of such complexity and depth.

Which brings me to the most laughingly awkward example I have, which actually comes from television. The husband and I recently watched all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica, which, if you don't know, is about the nuclear destruction of a planet far from here and the few survivors' search for a new home. Within the last few episodes, they finally find a place (hint, it's here, but just at the dawn of mankind) and in the final episode, we get to see what happens to ALL of them. They spread out across the planet and settle (great survival tactic, guys), and then do weird things. One decides to explore the whole, unfamiliar planet completely alone without adequate supplies. One decides to go build a cabin with his new wife who he knows is about to die, yet finds this worth a permanent goodbye to his only living child. One vanishes. In this case, there was an opportunity for a great ending, dealing only with the future of the human race (that is, us), which they made super-awkward by bringing things back to the individual level and having those individuals make terrible decisions that make you wonder how the human race survived long enough for us to judge them.

On reflection, Daughters of Eve actually did this best. Some of the girls went to college, some married, one died, one ended up in a mental hospital, some remained unnervingly the same. Though Duncan wraps up the next couple of their lives in a mere sentence each, collectively she at least hints at the variety of human existence and the possibility that all does not necessarily go well.

Overall though, I'd rather the freedom to imagine the futures of characters that I have spent a whole novel or even series getting to know to an excessively short sum-up of what happens with them. Characters can lose complexity when their futures are oversimplified, and beloved stories can lose their gleam. When their stories end, characters' lives should continue, but in the minds and hearts of the readers not on a page that can never be enough.

Meatless Monday ~ Blossom du Jour

2011-09-05T09:27:00.000-04:00

Happy Labor Day, my little vegetarians! I hope your Labor Day will contain as much meatless merriment as mine! As today is my birth-holiday, I will be trekking down to the local park for some vegetable-based barbecuing, ~~illicit sangria~~ FRUIT PUNCH, frisbee-playing, and general frivolity. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about the deliciousness that is Blossom du Jour, because today is, yet again, Meatless Monday!

Meatless Monday is a movement to get Americans to eat less meat and more veggies by the simple expedient of not eating any animal products one day a week. It's a great way to segue into vegetarianism or even veganism, or just make a small but real difference in your health and the environment. To that end, on Meatless Mondays here at Soy Chai Bookshelf I will talk about anything related to food and vegetarianism, from cookbook reviews to to recipes I've created (don't hold your breath) to bragging about the delicious vegetarian feast I just whipped up to discussing in a (hopefully) not-too-judgemental way why vegetarianism is a great choice.

Last Wednesday, the husband and I took the train into New York to go see Cirque du Soleil's new show, Zarkana, and to eat copious amounts of delicious food. To get it out of the way now - Zarkana was amazing. Neither of us could follow the storyline at all, but it didn't matter because did you know that people could do those things? There were amazing jugglery, ropeless acrobatics, a twisty guy on a slippery floor, and semi-mute silliness. It was great.

But let me backtrack. Before going to the cruelty-free (see, I'm not too far off-topic) circus, we had lunch. Blossom du Jour is one of the many recent offsprings of Blossom, a popular vegan restaurant. I've never been to Blossom, but I'm sure that it's amazing because its mini-me is. Blossom du Jour is primarily a take-out place, though it has a few feet of counter-and-stool space (but no bathroom - plan ahead if you plan to eat in). It serves sandwiches, salads, wraps, and juices. It also features a continuous video of the animals at a Farm Life Sanctuary (not sure which one, sorry). I must say, there's something very satisfying about watching frolicking farm life with the assurance that it will not be making an appearance in my sandwich.

Sloppy Joe Slides - there were originally three,
but I couldn't get the camera out in time!

As for the food: the husband ordered a Sloppy Joe Sliders, which he declared to be meaty, indistinguishable from the original, and generally yummy (my word, not his). Or, in his words, "remarkable loyal to the flavor and texture I remember from when I was a kid." I had a bite and it tasted quite authentic. As an omnivore, I was never really a fan of Sloppy Joes, so I wasn't too effusive about the sandwich, but it's definitely a great choice for sloppy joe fans. I ordered the Midtown Melt, which the menu describes as "cajun-spiced seitan, v-cheese, agave guacamole, lettuce, chipotle aioli." And oh man, was this delicious. I devoured it and even though I was stuffed (yes, the servings are more than sufficient without being gluttonous) , wished I had more. The husband liked it as well, and was very jealous when he discovered that I had guacamole and he didn't (bwahaha!). The whole thing cost about $20, which is quite reasonable for lunch in the city, especially one as delicious and lovingly-prepared as this one.

Midtown Melt - I took this pictures while clutching
the other half of the sandwich in my other hand!

Blossom du Jour is a definite stop for anybody who likes good food on the go in New York, not just the vegetarians and vegans. Check it out - you won't be disappointed. And, if you have enough room left and don't need to run to the nearest Starbucks to use the restroom, Cocoa V, the organic and fair-trade chocolateering fraternal twin of BDJ, is right next door. I didn't get to try it, due to the aforementioned need to run, but I did press my forehead to the glass and it looked amazing.

Happy Labor Day, my lovely readers, and if you find yourself in Manhattan, be sure to check out the yumminess that is Blossom.

Middlesex ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

2011-09-02T21:32:00.000-04:00

"Aw that's sweet OH WAIT THAT'S YOUR BROTHER."

I suppose that Jeffrey Eugenides deserves a trophy or a cookie or something (or maybe he'll just settle for a Pulitzer) for how good a job he did eliciting the above response from me. Doing such an impressive job of balancing familiar and potently romantic moments with the no-no of incest is kind of impressive in how well he manages to detach himself from these two conflicting elements, but it mostly just made me queasy. Though perhaps this isn't the best start to a book review.

Back to the basics. Here's a rough summary of the novel which I'd heard praised a thousand times before picking it up and realizing I knew zilch about it: the novel is narrated by Cal, born Callie, a hermaphrodite with an *ahem* interesting family history (which essentially makes him his own second cousin and robs him at birth of the penis that his DNA says he should have). The novel is written in the form of an autobiography going back years before Cal's birth and is set mostly in Detroit, though also has bits in Turkey and Germany. In addition to the obvious issues of sex and gender, the novel also addresses race and its various forms.

It's taken several days for me to even attempt to write this review, largely because I don't know what I think. I had a slightly shameful fascination with the fact that this was about a hermaphrodite, which was exacerbated by my wondering if Eugenides was simply exploiting the strangeness of a rare genetic trait that he read about somewhere. Combine that with the ickiness of the incest and the novel's apparent claim that lesbians should have no problem with incest because they're sexual freaks too, and I have a hell of a problem on my hands.

Because I couldn't put this book down. Even though the writing bothered me - the casual narrative form of a memoir in the context of a novel just seems lazy to me - I had to keep reading. Even though I didn't find Detroit that compelling of a backdrop, I had to keep reading. Even though it made me question some of my own fascinations and my own interest in spectacle, I had to keep reading. Even though there was a character named Chapter Eleven and no reason was given for this (Wikipedia explains it but I wish the book did too)... you get the point.

I enjoyed Middlesex, I did. I didn't love its characters though, or the motivations ascribed to them. The mothers all turn into stereotypes: Desdemona, a sexual deviant in her youth, becomes a complaining, self-pitying old woman; Tessie, who once pleasured in a man playing the clarinet against her flesh, becomes a shell of woman, existing only for her family and the activities that the community says should interest her; and Zoe, whose character was never explored, becomes a nag who drives her husband away. Callie, fortunately, manages to avoid this fate by becoming a man and therefore not a mother, but wait - why did Callie decide to become Cal? Calliope seemed like a pretty well-adjusted and even stereotypical girl, excited for bras and menstruation, when she suddenly finds out that genetically (and according to American notions of sex) she is "supposed" to be a he, and decides to make the change. The only apparent motivation for this decision is that Calliope liked girls. What?! How is that sufficient motivation? Cal spends 500 pages exploring his family's history in the context of his own rebirth as a man, and never explains this key point. Maybe I missed something. I hope I did.

I could go on about my ambivalence towards Middlesex all night, but I won't. I won't be trading this book in, but I don't see myself rereading it either, at least not for quite a while. I am pretty confused by all of the unqualified effusiveness I've read about it and hope that somebody can explain it to me.

Top Ten TBR Titles for Fall

2011-08-30T21:33:00.000-04:00

It's announcement time, ladies and gentlemen! I, Soy Chai Book Lady, am.... going back to school! After a year of griping about crappy jobs and a useless English degree (which I so loved earning), I'm returning to Rutgers to for a Masters degree in Social Work. Classes start on Thursday, and I couldn't be more excited. There are a lot of reasons I've decided to switch tracks into social work but I won't bore you with them here. The point of today's post is to talk about some reading decisions.

In undergrad, I generally saved up books I wanted to read for breaks and lulls in my syllabi, because multiple English classes generally gave me enough to be getting along with. Now, though, I actually get to keep choosing my books year round which has been giving me some things to consider: should I tackle one long book over the semester? Maybe stick with short stories so that it won't matter as much if I'm distracted and can't read for a few days? Maybe reread some past loves? Or just read as normal and see where it takes me? I've decided to do a combo of rereads that I never seem to get around to, because they're familiar and gaps in reading won't be as difficult to overcome, and short stories because, well, they're short and will easily fit into my schedule.

This whole thought process leads me to today's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish: Top Ten Books on my Fall TBR List. The following are the books and story collections I hope to/plan to/may not actually tackle in the coming months:

1) The Awakening by Kate Chopin: I actually just started this short novel last night. My edition comes with some short stories by Chopin as well, so it should keep me busy for the first week of the semester.
2) My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer: I love retold fairy tales and have been meaning to pick up this collection of forty short tales for a while now, so when I saw it at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago, I knew that now was the perfect time to add it to my list.
3) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Making an appearance for the second week running, this is an old favorite of mine that I plan to revisit over the next semester. What with my course load and multiple part-time jobs, it may take the entire semester, but that's okay too.
4) The Boat by Nam Le: After reading about this story collection on Lucia's reading list of Australian fiction over at The Blue Bookcase, I rather impulsively added it to an order I was already putting together from AbeBooks. It sounds lovely, so why not?
5) The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde: This is neither a reread nor a short story, but it is a fun, light read that will probably make it's way into my semester.
6) Hateship, Courtship, Friendship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro: I started this collection of short stories while I was writing my own collection for my senior honors thesis, but quickly realized that it wasn't connected to my project (I was focusing on connections of connected stories) and stopped reading. I did like it though, so I think it's finally time to pick it back up and give it the attention it deserves.
7) The Help by Kathryn Stockett: I feel all bandwagon-getting-on for adding this to the list, but my book club chose it for our September book pick, so what can I do? In all fairness, it does sound interesting; I just don't feel any specific desire to read it.
8) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: Okay, so I know I just read this, but I loved it so much that it's worth rereading. Also, it's our October book pick so that gives me an excuse. :]

Okay so I only hit eight, but considering that I'm going to have four classes to attend a week, 15 hours a week of field placement, and two part-time jobs (three if I get a research assistantship), I think this is already an overly ambitious reading list. What will you be reading over the coming months?

Meatless Monday ~ Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!

2011-08-29T08:56:00.000-04:00

When I started Soy Chai Bookshelf, I meant it to be about books (as the name implies) and food (as the name less explicitly implies), as well as anything else I feel like writing about. After a few months, it because pretty obvious that the blog was becoming a plain old book blog, and while that's fun, I like to babble about food (and vegetarianism) just as much! So I've decided to install a feature at Soy Chai Bookshelf: Meatless Monday.

Meatless Monday is a movement to get Americans to eat less meat and more veggies by the simple expedient of not eating any animal products one day a week. It's a great way to segue into vegetarianism or even veganism, or just make a small but real difference in your health and the environment. To that end, on Meatless Mondays here at Soy Chai Bookshelf I will talk about anything related to food and vegetarianism, from cookbook reviews to to recipes I've created (don't hold your breath) to bragging about the delicious vegetarian feast I just whipped up to discussing in a (hopefully) not-too-judgemental way why vegetarianism is a great choice.

To kick off the feature, I'm going to share my favorite and most fun vegan cookbook - Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. It may sound frivolous, but vegan cupcakes are actually a great way to introduce people to animal-free dining. Think about it - when trying to convince people that meatless food tastes good, is it best to start with miso-marinated tofu with seaweed and multigrain rice or a cupcake? I'm pretty sure that cupcakes always beat seaweed.

But enough with the reasoning behind the cupcake - on to the cupcakes themselves! Isa and Terry's cupcakes are legitimately the best cupcakes I've ever made or even had, bar none. I haven't made a single recipe from this book that wasn't amazing and I've made of bunch, including:

Tiramisu Cupcakes

Golden Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream
Your Basic Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Peanut Butter Cupcakes and Peanut Buttercream
Tiramisu Cupcakes
Crimson Velveteen Cupcakes
Black Forest Cupcakes
Chai Latte Cupcakes
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing (an unexpected and amazing combo)

Chai Latte Cupcakes

What's interesting about these recipes is that often, on their own, the cake and frosting are just okay. But when they're merged together, they become this symphony of delicious glory. Sometimes I buy cupcakes from bakeries and cupcakeries (that's a word, right?) just to see if they compare, and they never do. These cupcakes are special, and not just because they're vegan!

And, for those who fear baking from scratch, most of these recipes are super-easy. The chocolate cupcakes especially are perfect for when you don't have much time. Stir up some wet ingredients, stir up some dry, and combine. Simple as that! You can even transform each cupcake recipe into one 8-inch round cake recipe, simply by baking for ten to fifteen minutes longer! Thanks to things like Earth Balance buttery spread and all-vegetable shortening, and Tofutti's Better Than Cream Cheese, you can have all the flavors and richness you so love without compromising the little baby cows. And no eggs to worry about cross-contamination with (which also makes it okay to eat as much batter as you want)!

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World is a must-have for any kitchen, whether vegan, vegetarian, or meat-loving. It's just that good!

Yum!

Top Thirteen Unreviewed Books

2011-08-23T00:26:00.001-04:00

And I'm back! It's been a while since I've participated in one of these, but a chance to babble on about some beloved books that I've never babbled about here before? Yes, I think so. That's right, I'm participating in this week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is "Top Ten Books I Loved But Never Reviewed." Oh, and what's nice about this list is that it proves that I don't actually hate everything I read, a fact which my blog would tend to belie. The following are all books that I love but haven't read since starting this blog. I've read nearly all of them multiple times and plan to read many of them again.

1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: The idea of something so horrifyingly other but not so far from reality (at least in how certain politicians and many others discuss women) captivated me through multiple rereadings. I recommend this to anybody. Even if you don't enjoy it, you will be thinking, and that's half the battle.
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell: I loved this story of a controlling government, the way that accepted texts control how we think, and the sheer loss of privacy and rights. Again, is it so unlike our world today (hello regal eagle on the cover of everyAmerican childhood history textbook)?
3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: Okay, you caught me. I love dystopias. The sheer difference of Brave New World to my other dystopian choices is striking, especially since it also captures a very real aspect of today's world, even decades after it was written. Ignorant, easily led people feeding on meaningless words of comfort - is that so strange? Also, on a completely random note, Huxley has permanently affected my reading of the word pneumatic - anywhere I see it (i.e. Solaris, and that's about it), I can't help but think of Brave New World. Kudos on taking full possession of a word, Mr. Huxley.
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky: I love, love, loved this book in high school. I read it several times and even went so far as to purchase used copies of every single book that Charlie's English teacher assigns him outside of class (though I only read about three of them). Charlie's loneliness and inability to fit in spoke to me in a very real way. This is a must-read for any teen, especially those who don't quite belong.
5. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss: Clever rhymes, fantastical creatures, and an environmental cautionary tale for children? I was sold the first time I read it (and I was at least fifteen years old at that point).
6. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: I'm just going to quote my comment on Dead White Guys's recent review of this book: I read this before knowing about magical realism and whatnot, and it took me a while to wonder why there were all these ancient characters and bizarre things going on, and I didn't care because it was AMAZING. I use a bit of the novel in SAT tutoring (the bit where everybody gets really angry at the movies), and my students don't like it. So sad. This is on my reread list as well. Hopefully I will be equally not-disappointed. (I won't be.)
7. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The only author to make this list twice! This is a lovely story of love in all its twisted peculiarities, against the backdrop of a port city in the Caribbean threatened by a cholera outbreak. I copied this quote from the novel into my (still mostly empty) journal sometime in 2008 and I still love it: "Delirious with joy, Florentino Ariza spent the rest of the afternoon eating roses and reading the note letter by letter, over and over again, and the more he read the more roses he ate, and by midnight he had read it so many times and had eaten so many roses that his mother had to hold his head as if he were a calf and force him to swallow of dose of castor oil" (68). Love.
8. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: In my junior year, I needed to take a math class but had yet to take a placement test, so in the meantime I registered for an elective English class that I figured I would end up dropping. However, I decided to read one of the books between semesters, since the class sounded great, and ended up loving it so much that I dropped creative writing instead. In case you couldn't guess, that book was The God of Small Things, a novel of two twins and a pickle factory in an area of India influenced by Marxism. Wonderful.
9. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri: A novel of an Indian family in America, in which a son is named for the past and fights against both it and his culture, before coming to accept both. Lovely to read and, strangely, makes me hungry.
10. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant: This is a novelization of the Bible stories of Jacob and his descendants. Wonderfully imagined and strangely informative. A great choice whether you're religious or not.
11. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: The devil goes to Moscow! Though the political agenda flew right over my uninformed nineteen-year old head, the creepy, weird otherness of it had me at privyet.
12. The Hours by Michael Cunningham: (Last one, I promise.) I loved both the novel and the film, a story in three parts: Virginia Woolf on a day in summer as she writes Mrs. Dalloway and visits with her sister; a suburban housewife as she reads Mrs. Dalloway and acknowledges how unhappy her life makes her; and Clarissa Vaughn as she lives out a modernized version of Mrs. Dalloway. Seamlessly intertwined and beautifully written, all three stories are equally captivating and never leave you wishing for another one.
13. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: I know I said I was done, but I couldn't mention an ode to Mrs. Dalloway and not put her on the list too, could I? This is probably one of the first "classics" that I loved (or finished). Unlike the rest of my senior year English class (who loved The Mayor of Casterbridge, the crazies), I lost myself in the not-quite-stream-of-consciousness writing and the bells of London (did you know a working title of The Hours was "The Bells"?). Lovely. If you don't like it or can't get through it, read it again. I command you.

Okay, so I cheated and put thirteen instead of ten, but you'll forgive me, right? Can I help it if my love for literature just won't contain itself?

Lost in a Good Book ~ Jasper Fforde

2011-08-18T09:26:00.000-04:00

As mentioned at the end of my review-type-thingy of Middlemarch, I have been reading Lost in a Good Book, the second book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, following The Eyre Affair, which I read and reviewed a few months back. Before I put in my two cents about Lost in a Good Book, I'm going to quote what somebody else said about The Eyre Affair (because apparently there are only quotes about the previous book in the series on my copy). It's described by Independent (whatever that is - a magazine? a website?) as "a silly book for smart people" and that's exactly accurate. Both books made me laugh out loud, hassle my husband with silly quotes, and pat myself on the back whenever I "get" a literary reference. Kudos, Mr. Fforde.

So, Lost in a Good Book is, as I jotted on the first page of the book, a pun-erific, literary satire. Brief summary: Thursday Next, newly married and happily pregnant, is being hassled by Goliath to get Jack Schitt out of the pages of "The Raven." She is also the victim of several coincidences (which can be spotted by shaking up a jar of dried rice and lentils and analyzing the patterns that they fall in), all of which seem to point to her untimely and violent death, and is being prosecuted in a fictional court (from The Trial) for changing the end to Jane Eyre. One day, her husband goes missing - apparently he has been eradicated by Goliath as a means of convincing Thursday to rescue Jack Schitt and/or give up her father. Her husband having drowned at the age of two begs the sensitive question of who that is in Thursday's uterus. Meanwhile, Thursday learns that she can jump into books at will (who needs a Prose Portal?!) under the instruction of Miss Havisham from Great Expectations and the rest of Jurisfiction, the organization that patrols books from within books. Along the way, Thursday meets the ~~Cheshire~~ Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat, who runs a library of all that has ever been written, discovers a lost Shakespearean play (though of course neither Shakespeare nor anybody else ever wrote most of his plays), learns that her dodo bird is actually a girl, and saves the world from Dream Pudding (strawberry flavor).

I thought the book was great for all the reasons I've already mentioned and those I gave for The Eyre Affair. It's a great chance for light reading that still feels smart, with a silly adventure that works despite its sheer impossibility. Again, my only issue relates to the Fforde's treatment of Thursday as a woman. At the end of the novel, she's semi-forced to take a break from saving the world and defeating evil because she's got a bun in the oven. She's managed both up until now - why must she suddenly turn into a Victorian woman and go into confinement?!

I'll end with some fun quotes:

"The so-called 'unfair cheese duty burden' is a very contentious subject at present. Any reference to it might be constructed as an inflammatory act... Old ladies who are not dissimilar to the actress in this picture will have to go without their hip replacements and suffer crippling pain if you selfishly demand cut-price cheese... [The Master of the Sums] could raise the custard duty... The pudding lobby is less - well, how should I put it - militant." (15-16) -Mrs. Jolly Hilly, governmental representative

"Wait a moment!" I exlaimed. "This is the conversation you had in Alice in Wonderland, just after the baby turned into a pig!"

"Ah," returned the cat, with an annoyed flick of his tail. "Fancy you can write your own dialogue, do you? I've seen people try; it's never a pretty sight. But have it your own way. And what's more, the baby turned into a fig, not a pig." (164) -conversation between Thursday and the ~~Cheshire~~ Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat

"In this 1631 printing of the Bible, the seventh commandment reads: 'Thou shalt commit adultery.' ... I don't know who did this but it's just not funny. Fooling around with internal Text Operating Systems might have a sort of mischievous appeal to it, but it's not big and it's not clever. The occasional bout of high spirits I might overlook but this isn't an isolated incident. I've also got a 1716 Bible here that urges the faithful to 'sin on more,' and a Cambridge printing from 1653 which tells us that 'The unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God.' Now listen, I don't want to be accused of having no sense of humor, but this is something that I will not tolerate. If I find out the joker who has been doing this, it'll be a month's enforced holiday inside Ant & Bee." (274) -the Bellman from Sense and Sensibility, leader of Jurisfiction meetings

Middlemarch (at last) ~ George Eliot

2011-08-13T18:13:00.000-04:00

I've landed the whale. That's right, the book I've been whining on about for something like three months (I really should note start dates when I read behemoths) has come to a close. The book that spawned a midway-through complaint review as well as a poorly thought out early morning rambling character list is complete. I'm done with Middlemarch and I couldn't be happier (or more miserable, depending on how you look at it).

So, Middlemarch. It's the kind of book that makes you vaguely wonder if it's best to just end it all now if life really does suck this much. The book is full of miserable people doing miserable things and suffering miserably for miserable things they've done in their miserable pasts. I found myself telling a friend the other day that the story gets in the way of the writing, which seems a bit counterintuitive but is exactly how I felt. The writing was lovely, as George Eliot's writing is, but the story was just so miserable that I couldn't enjoy it.

There were a couple bright spots, however: I enjoyed the early-18th century discussion of medicine, in which it's most respectable for a doctor to always prescribe something, no matter what the cause, because that's how he gets paid: a magic pink potion can cure jaundice, pregnancies, and broken legs, apparently, and brandy is a perfectly reasonable medicine for alcoholism. The Garth family was nice too; despite their poverty, they seem to be the only reasonable well-adjusted and all-around happy people in all the pages of that book.

Eliot seems to have attempted to redeem the misery of her tome in the last lines, claiming that "the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tomes" (889). That's a nice little sentiment on its own, but taken in the context of the novel as a whole is a little hard to stomach. Nobody accomplishes anything. Dorothea never accomplishes any of her philanthropic plans (her vagina being a hindrance) and eventually decides to give up her money and respectability for love. Lydgate accomplishes nothing with his forward-thinking plans in medicine, and dies young, miserable, and beholden to a snooty, domineering wife who cares for little but her image. Nobody else seems to have any interest in improving the world, so I can only assume this conclusion applies to these two and their good intentions, and I'm sorry but happy thoughts are just not enough to convince me. If positive energy was enough, or even half-enough, as an American citizen, what's between my legs wouldn't affect my abilities or even be considered, and that's just not the case. Sorry, George Eliot. It's a wonderful message, but does not redeem the book.

Like when I read Anna Karenina, I'm feeling like I must have missed something and actually kind of thinking about rereading this, and then telling myself that that's crazy. It's okay to not like things. No reason to spend several more months of my life trying to like something because I "should." That said, I can't bring myself to trade it in. Oh well. Classics have their grip.

And now, to lighten the mood, I've moved on to Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book, the sequel to The Eyre Affair. Ah, to laugh aloud once more.

Cold Mountain ~ Charles Frazier

2011-08-06T12:52:00.002-04:00

I just finished Cold Mountain last night, which means this is one of my promptest book reviews in the history of Soy Chai Bookshelf. I want to say something while it's still fresh, while I'm still aching with the tears that threatened to spill over when I turned the last page. I'm not so sure what it is that I want to say though. How do you put impression into language, much less the language of literature?

Let's start with the basics. There is no true plot, which is part of what's so lovely about this novel. There are settings and situations and motivations, but no core story. There are two protagonists: Ada and Inman, who love one another, though neither seems to be sure why. Perhaps because there was nobody else around to love, perhaps because Inman was leaving for war and needed something to hold onto. Perhaps Ada wanted to play into that. But four years have passed since he left and they're still writing the occasional letter. Severely wounded, Inman is in a war hospital when the novel begins. Having just lost her father, Ada is penniless and alone on a large farm on Cold Mountain which is just about all she has in the world, with no idea to run it or even take care of herself. Inman leaves the hospital, a Confederate outlier, setting out for Cold Mountain, home. Ada, hungry and ragged, is approached by Ruby, a girl with nothing in the world but knowledge of its natural world. Together they turn Ada's farm into sustenance. Though physically apart, Ada and Inman change together, into lovers more suited for one another. The novel is set against the southeastern United States in Inman's rambles, a mountain farm in Ada's education, and, more broadly, the Civil War.

Inman's journey is often compared to The Odyssey. Though I was supposed to, I never read that, so I can't be sure. However, I did read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and it reminds me a lot of that. Inman meets people, friendly and not so much, encounters situations, faces challenges beyond belief. Unlike Christian's journey in Pilgrim's Progress, however, I actually enjoyed Inman's tale. Frazier's descriptions of the changing landscape are glorious and the complexity of Inman's character as revealed to us is intense. He is certainly a good person, but vengeful; imaginative, but tied to life; and filled with a despair that can't help but counter the hopefulness of his journey. Unlike Christian, Inman stands for himself and no larger concept.

While Ada is a good character, I actually found Ruby a lot more interesting. Like Ada, she never knew her mother. However, she grew up with an absent father and no resources, and was often left to fend for herself as a very young child, and was forced to learn about the land around just to find a way to survive and to find meaning in life. It's never quite explained how she knows so much about farming as well as foraging, but since other families seem to have fed her occasionally, perhaps she learned from them. Whatever it is, it works, and the way that she transforms Ada as much as the farm is just lovely. She doesn't just tell Ada to do this and that, but teaches her and befriends her. Both save each other.

Overall, Cold Mountain was a lovely read and I was entranced throughout. It definitely deserves a reread, partially because it just made me feel so happy - not because of the situations but because of the language and descriptions (I must have stopped to read bits out loud to my husband at least a dozen times) - and partially to more fully appreciate the allusions. The only negative thing I can think to say is that I wish I hadn't read the epilogue. Not only did it make me depressed but it's just the kind of thing I don't like, a ten-year later recap. How everything wrapped up wasn't exactly original and it certainly wasn't necessary. I had already come to that conclusion on my own anyway, but I prefer to have it open. However, except for those two pages, this was a wonderful book and it won't be long before I reread it. I high recommend it, particularly to those who loving reading about the American landscape and/or farm life.

His Dark Materials ~ Philip Pullman

2011-08-05T10:39:00.000-04:00

I somehow missed the His Dark Materials series as a kid. I read (and loved) other books by Philip Pullman, namely the Sally Lockhart books. I remember a friend of mine reading His Dark Materials when we were in middle school, but somehow I never picked it up until a couple of years ago, when a kid I babysat and Anthony Cardno were reading it at the same time. I read The Golden Compass and I remember thinking it was okay, but no Harry Potter (although, what is?). So I shelved it and rented the movie when it was available and didn't bother with the rest of the series and that was that.

Until I discovered audiobooks. And also discovered that audiobooks are best with action and not overly complex writing (i.e. meant for kids and teens). A couple of months ago I decided to start the series on audiobook, and this time I was actually blown away by The Golden Compass. Underlying the adventure, there's this really interesting discussion of "dust," a sort of elementary particle recently discovered that sticks itself mostly to those with conscious thought (i.e. humans) and particularly after they hit puberty. In Lyra's world of The Golden Compass, the Church is disturbed by this and seeks to eradicate it by separating child from daemon (furry little friends that accompany people always, changing shapes until puberty when they settle into a form reflective of something about the child). Of course, Eve is blamed for the existence of dust, but what's really horrifying if the cutting. Daemons are people's souls, except outside the body and visible, and cutting them away nearly always kills the child, except supposedly it's done for their own good but also in the name of science. It's a twisted concept. The rest of the series follows Lyra through other worlds as she and many others explore the question of dust and, ultimately, try to preserve it, because it's what separates us from the animals.

Each volume in the series take it's name from a different powerful object: the golden compass is an "alethiometer," a small instrument that uses symbols to tell the truth about things and which Lyra as a child understands intuitively; the subtle knife, a two-bladed knife of which one side can cut through any substance, and the other can cut through to other worlds; and the amber spyglass, the only object which is actually built by a character, which is a sort of rough telescope that can be used to actually see dust. All powerful, but not exactly magical objects. Though they seem beyond reality (because they are), they are based on discoveries of what is true in the world Pullman has created, and they are all interesting. The spyglass is perhaps the least exciting but also the least flawed. Lyra loses her skill with the alethiometer when she hits puberty, while the knife causes spectres (evil floaty things that attack adults, who are covered in dust), and causes dust to leak away. The spyglass is lovely because it can see but not interfere, and does not require anything of the seer.

Of course, there were inevitable comparison to Harry Potter while listening to His Dark Materials. Both exist in different worlds (though I believe one of Pullman's worlds is ours), and both revolve around a child orphan at the center of some larger difficulty. However, Pullman lets his children be children. Lyra is brave and righteous and adventurous, but she is also a child that knows she can't do everything and sometimes has to rely on an adult to save her. She can provoke war, but she can't fight it on her own. Likewise, Pullman's story is a bit more real that Rowling's. While Rowling never lets Harry kill anyone (even though he does kill Quirrel, she just doesn't admit it), Will (Lyra's friend) does find that he has to kill. He is filled with remorse and wishes that he didn't have to do this, that his mother could just take care of him rather than him taking care of her, but he does kill because that is the way of war. Pullman is a bit harsher than Rowling in presenting these realities of the children's limitations and the truth of what they are forced to do, but it is a satisfying harshness and very well done.

I like the story, and I would recommend it, but I don't adore it. As the story goes on, more and more characters are introduced and they become very difficult to keep ta. Maybe it would have been easier if I'd read it on the page, but the sheer numbers of them just seemed excessive. I gave up identifying people by names and started to base it on their actions (which is probably more telling anyway) but even still it was difficult. Then, in the third book, Pullman introduces this world with animals that all have this diamond body structure (i.e. one leg each in front and back and two on the sides) and I was just like WHAT IS GOING ON?! It just seemed a bit excessive to me and kind of went beyond the parameters of the story. It didn't really seem necessary. Overall though, good story. It's the kind of thing parents and children can enjoy together, and I know that I'll be sharing it with my own kids.

Trekking Across America

2011-07-28T22:12:00.001-04:00

Something that I love to read about but rarely think about is America. Not the country with all of its politics and people and troubled history, but the landscape, with its mountains and prairies and rivers. The land itself is a great setting for books, and can even be a character. I've always been drawn to novels and memoirs in which people travel America on foot, whether as outlaws or explorers or lonely people who aren't sure what else to do. There was a period of time a few years ago when I was living with my sister and her husband and reading their books, which tend to be nature-based, and again and again I found myself traveling America at the side of some lonely American.

I accompanied Christopher McCandleless on his solitary path to death in the Alaskan wilderness, laughed with Bill Bryson as he hiked the Appalachian Trail with an overweight recovering alcoholic, and attempted to cross the country on foot with Peter Jenkins*. Mostly, I was jealous of these men, even lonely Chris McCandleless, who seized the opportunities to experience their homeland. Can we really call these busy cities and planned suburban spaces a homeland, when there are vast stretches of beauty and wilderness just beyond?

I am thinking of this now because, as anybody who follows my Twitter (or who has noticed the sidebar of my blog) knows, I have recently started reading Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. It is a beautiful novel in which two stories intersect: one of an AWOL Confederate soldier trekking west towards his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the other of the woman he loves as she tries to survive following her father's death. Not only do I have his experiences of interacting with the land he's crossing, but also the experience of farm life, another setting I have always loved (especially as a child with The Rocky Ridge series, which followed Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose). In Cold Mountain, especially for the male protagonist, the land is actually an antagonist, a dreary thing that he must contend with. It is vivid though, and as alive as he is, and has me dreaming yet again of long hikes, interacting with my homeland, rustic cabins in the woods. It is a beautiful thing, this land of mine.

*For anybody interested, the three books I referenced were Into the Wild by John Karakauer, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, and A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins. They are all non-fiction and all wonderful. If anybody has any recommendation for any novels or memoirs following a similar vein, I would love to have them.

Water for Elephants

2011-07-23T23:35:00.000-04:00

When somebody from my book club suggested that we read Water for Elephants as our second book, I immediately climbed onboard. It's one of those books I've been meaning to read for a while, and coming on the back of The Night Circus made me even more excited for it. Circuses are fun! Right? Well no, not really. Most circuses involve copious amounts of horrifying animal abuse, which is even more readily apparent to customers than the meat industry's levels of abuse, and therefore makes their ignorance of it all the more horrifying... what? I'm supposed to be talking about a novel here? Oh, that's right. Oops.

So the fact that The Night Circus and Water for Elephants have similar settings is about all they have in common. Water for Elephants describes a realistic circus, set in Prohibition America (i.e. not supported by magic but the illegal booze is a-flowing). It alternates between a present-day(ish) narration of Jacob, ninety or ninety-three years old (he can't remember), as a crotchety old man, semi-neglected by his family, as he goes through his dull, sleepy days in a nursing home; and his memories of his times in the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show On Earth as a young man who had just walked out on his last exams to become a veterinarian due to his understandable sorrow at the sudden loss of his parents. The whole thing is extraordinarily well-researched (at least the bits that I checked up on were).

So here's the thing. Unsurprisingly, Water for Elephants's circus is nothing like that of The Night Circus. The grunt work of the Benzini Brothers Circus is done by poor black men, whereas the work of Le Cirque des Rêves is done by, well, magic. The Benzini Brothers is run by jerks worried about the bottom line and everlasting fame, whereas Cirque is run by artists intent on creating. Benzini fired people by redlighting them (i.e. throwing them off the train at night within sight of the red light marking that a town is nearby), whereas death and choice are the only things that separate worker and Cirque. And oh yeah - Benzini's animals sometimes are hungry or thirsty or extremely overheated, or have the shit beaten out of them, whereas the few animals in Cirque are treated with only love and care (okay, to be fair we don't know this for sure but yeah, we know it). What I mean to say is that Benzini Brothers is a real circus, whereas Le Cirque des Rêves is only the fantasy of one, and I know which one I prefer.

Preferring a circus is not the same as preferring a novel, except that in this case it is. Putting my issue with animal abuse and lack of magic aside, Water for Elephants was still disappointing. First off, both parts of the narrative were narrated in the present tense. What?! Present tense in novels is rare, though can be enjoyable, but here it was just strange. I guess that Jacob is supposed to be dreaming of those times like he's living them, rather than remembering them, but it's just awkward. And the transitions between the two were painfully obvious, to the point of losing my interest because I know what's coming. In general, the novel made me too aware that I was reading, especially for my first time through. Instead of losing myself in a world, I was noticing plot devices. And when it seems like a character exists or a scene occurs for the sole purpose of furthering a plot line or demonstrating some metaphor, I don't really feel like reading. The dissection and analysis should come on reflection and analysis, not a first read.

Oh, and the characters. Jacob, the protagonist, is an ideal. He will speak in defense of anybody, always has good intentions, and only gets angry in defense of some "lesser" creature (blacks, women, animals, et. al). Very nice features in a person, but not so interesting in a character. This is apparently balanced by his cantankerousness as an old guy, but all that does is make his character seem inconsistent. So he is Good, and so is his lady love, Marlena, and they are obviously contrasted by Uncle Al, the circus's owner, and Augustus, Marlena's husband and the animal trainer, who are Bad. These guys are out for money and fame and who the hell cares who gets trampled by their horsies? Not them, because they are Mean Dudes. I've heard that they're merged into one character in the movie, which sounds like an excellent decision to me because they lack individuality and are cast from the same mold. The only interesting character is Rosie, the elephants, who has elements of sweetness and vengefulness and performs acts whose ratio of Good:Bad is actually questionable. Plus, she's silly and drinks all the lemonade.

But it's all okay, because the novel ends and everybody gets theirs - the Good People get Good Things and the Bad People get Bad Things and isn't it just lovely? Dull is really the word I'd use but that's okay. I'll just listen to The Night Circus when it comes out on audiobook and forget that the ugliness ever happened. Sorry, Ms. Gruen.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two

2011-07-16T03:57:00.000-04:00

Going to the midnight showing of Harry Potter meant going to bed at three-thirty a.m. on Friday morning, which did not, in turn, mean that I actually slept in, which meant a 4+ hour nap Friday night, which means me writing a review of the movie at three o'clock in the morning. Awesome.

You can read my review of Part One here. If you don't know how the story ends or you don't want to read much detail, you probably don't want to read on. For the rest of you - tally-ho!

The movie did not start off well. The whole bank robbery was far too rushed and made me a little nervous for what was to come. Hermione as Bellatrix (or, in movie world, Bellatrix as Hermione) was good though. Helena Bonham Carter did a good job of capturing Hermione's slight but noticeable hunch. Speaking of Bellatrix, though, they for some reason decided to suddenly pronounce her name differently in this movie. All along (if I remember correctly) they've been giving a French pronunciation to the 'a' in Lestrange (like 'ah'), but all of a sudden they're giving it a harder, American pronunciation. For none readers/those who don't know 'le' is French for the/people who just didn't notice, Bellatrix's last name is, aptly, "The Strange." With the new pronunciation, that is no longer remotely subtle, which was both jarring and disappointing.

The movie devotes more time to the battle at Hogwarts, which they did a much better job of. There are some changes designed mostly to make you say "RAH!" that I could have done without (like an impassioned speech Harry delivers to Snape) but also some useful additions (like the image of Hogwarts students marching in formation). Matthew Lewis's acting was really great - Neville Longbottom's progression from the tiny, helpless first year we saw in the first movie, to the awkward hunched boy of the middle movies, to the strong, independent man of this final installment was really quite wonderful. Neville no longer lays down and takes it, and the way Lewis bore himself demonstrated this just as much as the lines he delivered.

There was a change to the very end of the film which I really liked but my friends disagreed on (and I suspect others would as well). Instead of the grand (and very long) conversation that Harry and Voldemort have in their final showdown, while surrounded by the entire British wizarding community, which brings everybody a fair bit of closure at the cost of realism, in the film they move together and apart and chase and escape and interlock and break apart, moving in and out of the people. The final fights is theirs, not everybody's (though Hermione, Ron, and Neville play their part in interspersed scenes of them having a long and awkward snake chase). Harry may fight for them all but they cannot all fight, and keeping those final moments between him and Voldemort is a better choice in my opinion. The party at dawn that Rowling penned is all transformed, becoming a scene of exhaustion and bodies and relief which, again, is maybe less satisfying but certainly more believable.

Like Bellatrix's name, many other subtleties were abandoned in this adaptation. One example was the scene I so loved from the book, when the dying Snape begs Harry to look at him, is made too obvious by an additional line: "You have your mother's eyes." Sure, this reveals a layer of meaning that was probably lost on many, but that's what I loved about it: the subtlety, the need to understand that moment in light of what comes next, and the years of Harry being told that very thing that came before. It's still a good moment for other reasons even if that meaning is not revealed. Losing the subtlety also sacrificed the magic.

Can David Yates do a montage, or what? One of the reasons that I actually dislike Order of the Phoenix was his overuse of the montage (they're extremely well done, in my opinion, there are just far too many) but Snape's memories were just wonderful. They weren't ordered and separated as neatly as in the book - rather, they were layered and out of order and bits were repeated and meaning was found in the overlapping, more in the nature of true memory. Harry and the audience gets the essence without the perfectly detailed video-quality of the book. It was a great way for the film to capitalize on its medium - this structure would have been far too difficult, maybe even impossible to convey on the page, but really finds its power on the screen.

One of the things that strikes me most about the book is the total destruction and how dark magic can be, and the films manages to fully capture this. There is one glorious scene, when Harry et al. break out of the castle onto the grounds in search of Voldemort and Snape. We see them running and there keeps popping up some evil aspect of the wizarding world that we have so grown to love. Gone is the good cheer and fun spells and general joy of magic. Instead we get blasted with images of what there have only been snippets of before, one evil violent thing upon another: giant spiders and werewolves and giants and grown men and women attacking a school filled with children. The darkness comes from every angle, and blasts everything apart. The castle, hundreds or even thousands of years old, crumbles. Relics of the headmasters are violated by darkness and then ripped apart. The past is destroyed in hopes of a better future. The utter destruction, both in film and book, is a testament to how dark magic can be.

I'm still not one-hundred percent sure how I feel about it, but overall I guess it's positive. I'd have to see it again to be sure though - when does the DVD come out? :] I'd love to hear what you all think - tell me!

The End is Nigh (with recipe!)

2011-07-14T09:05:00.000-04:00

With the eighth and final film installment of the Harry Potter series coming in just a few short hours (although there are still enough hours between now and then that I really should be asleep right now), I feel as though a few words are necessary. Harry has been with me for half my life, has seen me through my tumultuous and lonely middle school years, my not-quite-fitting-in (but not lacking in confidence) high school years, two undergraduate schools, marriage, and many jogs that I would have quit sooner if it wasn't for the inventions of the audiobook and the mp3. Suffice it to say that he has grown with me, and I with him.

When the book series ended, I was hysterical. Partially due to the sadness of some of the content, yes, but partially due to the sadness of ending as well. At that point, I was just finishing a gap year and transferring to a new school; it was a time of transition and, silly as it may seem, my beloved series ending made it all the harder for me. Unlike many others' and even unlike my own treatment of earlier installments, I didn't race through that book. Despite my mother's incessant phone calls - Are you done yet? Hurry up! - I made my way slowly through the marshes and the countryside and the terror and the elation, alongside my three friends, putting off the final moment that I, like them, anticipated and dreaded. The moment when I would have to move on couldn't come too slowly. Come it did, and I was weepy for days (embarrassingly enough). A (not very) little piece of my adolescence was making it's final trip to the shelf (though it still comes back for visits!).

I was going to analyze what I love so much about Harry Potter, but I think I'll skip that. There are times to be cerebral and critical and analytical, and there are times to just enjoy. Sixteen hours before the release of the final film adaptation of a series that has been with me for so long is a time to just enjoy. That, and bake pumpkin pasties.

I hope everybody who cares enjoys the movie, whether you see it tonight or next week or not until it comes out on DVD. How has Harry impacted your life?

I used chocolate mousse for the one on the left,
which was a good idea.

Pumpkin Pasties (adapted from here)

You need:
1 batch of pumpkin pie filling (whatever recipe you like)
2 unbaked pie crusts (store-bought or homemade - I used this recipe)

You do:
-Bake pie filling in a greased casserole dish at 350f for 40-50 minutes, until a fork comes out clean. Let cool.
-Roll out your pie crusts and cut into four-inch rounds. DO NOT REFRIGERATE OVERNIGHT. -This greatly increases the risk of crackage (as I just, and unfortunately, learned - that picture is of the first and best two I made).
-Deposit about 2 tsp of filling on one side of the circle and fold over into a half moon. Use a fork to crimp edge of dough. Again, too long of crimps increases rick of crackage, so just do as much as you have to to seal it.
-Now, if your pasties haven't already sprouted cracks of their own accord, use a sharp knife to make three slits in the top of each. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet (I used a Silpat) in a 400f oven for about 20 minutes or just until browned.
-Let cool.
-Slip into plastic bags.
-Sneak into theatre.
-Munch and enjoy.
-Okay, those last three instructions are optional, but highly recommended. Enjoy!

Quite Possibly the Least Kind Review I've Ever Written

2011-07-07T21:06:00.000-04:00

Because Stieg Larsson happens to be dead, I am going to kick this thing off right and tell you exactly what I think of his book: it is, quite possibly, the worst book that I have ever read. So bad that I'm having a hard time being critical, but I'll give it a shot.

This is a dangerous proclamation, considering how many people absolutely adore this book, but I stand by it. It's not a book I ever had more than a passing interest in (which was entirely based on the title*) and I only read it because my new book club I joined chose it as our first title. It had two redeeming qualities: it was quick to get through despite it's imposing length and it did make me want to know whodunnit. Sadly, the bad points greatly outweigh the good, and all in all I found it a great waste of my time.

Let's start with the awkward prose. Granted, to a point this could be blamed on the translation (it was originally written in Swedish); however, that excuse only gets us so far. There seems to be no narrative issue that this novel doesn't have. It is rife with extraneous detail (Blomkvist** went for a walk. Then he returned to the cabin. Then he had a coffee. Then, at around three a.m., he went to bed), which made me scream "I don't care, give me my life back" over and over during potentially interesting scenes. There are awkward expositions/introductions aplenty (Blomkvist saw his friend, Bob. Bob, a high financeer, had gone to school with Blomkvist and though their relationship had once been...[three pages later - see #1]...Blomkvist said, 'Hi!"), which provided both choppiness and a similar reaction to #1. Finally, and perhaps most notably, there were the strange and immediate analyses (Sally was brutally raped. Afterwards, she went home and googled men who rape women. Apparently, they liked to rape her because they saw her as a victim. That told her a lot about herself***). Thanks for saving me the trouble of figuring that out Mr. Larsson. I love not having to think when I'm reading. There were also plenty of cliches and hackneyed phrasings, though those are most likely the fault of the translator.

Then there's the mystery. Yes, I wanted to know what had really happened, but like with any good mystery, I wanted the opportunity to figure it out for myself. Nearly all of the clues were in the form of photographs, which were neither described nor displayed, thus limiting my possible involvement and royally pissing me off when each new piece of evidence was discovered. The one clue that was possible to solve on my own (a list of Bible references disguised as phone numbers, all conveniently beginning with a local Swedish area code) would have gotten me little more than a pat on my back and zero answers.

So those are the two biggies. Other issues I had with the text included how neatly every story line was wrapped up (leaving me to wonder why anybody would ever read the rest of the trilogy), how one of the apparently major story lines ended completely halfway through the novel (so I guess he's not going to rape her anymore?), and how freaking unoriginal Salander (AKA the girl with the dragon tattoo, AKA "Sally") was. Dresses like a goth and emotionally disturbed - well that's new, not stereotypical at all.

PLEASE argue with me, because I'd really love to understand what people love about this book. It is unappealing to me both on the literary and the mystery genre level - I don't understand what's left, so I want you to tell me.

*As for the vaguely intriguing title - apparently that wasn't the original Swedish title. Larsson named his novel Men Who Hate Women, which is much more apt (in my opinion) and much less misleading. However, I think Americans (who tend to hate women) would probably be much less likely to pick that book up and technically the American title gives an accurate description.
**Yes, this name did make me think of a blumpkin. If you don't know what that is, look it up. I will not be sharing anything quite so disgusting on my book blog.
***All of these examples are my rough paraphrases of what I read over a week ago, but trust me - they're spot on.

Why Not to Do Book Challenges

2011-07-01T12:56:00.000-04:00

So we're halfway through the year and that means that I'm halfway through the three challenges I set for myself all those months ago and about which I was super (dorkily) excited. This is what I have to say about that - reading challenges are not for me.

If you don't feel like clicking the link, here's a brief summary:
1) I've read four out of the twelve books I obligated myself to for the TBR challenge.
2) I've read two of ten Victorian novels I promised to (and have been working on number three for months).
3) I've read three of eight Classic novels I agreed to.

So here's the thing - I went to college. I majored in English. I read what I was told to when I was told to and I ignored what I felt like reading. I don't want to do that anymore. I'm not pursuing a higher literature degree, I'm not going into publishing, and I'm not planning to teach. Somebody at one of my jobs recently started a book club, and that occasional obligatory book is plenty for me. Other than that, I want to read what I want, when I want.

The Classics Challenge is nice because I'm roped into very little. It forces me to have variety in my reading, without restricting me to a certain time period or specific list of titles that I arbitrarily chose six months ago (seriously - there's a reason those books have been on my TBR pile for so long!). For people who like structure, those kinds of challenges are probably good. For those of us who want to read spontaneously, they are awful. I find myself wanting to read something but then feeling like I shouldn't because I have so much on my list, then feeling guilty because I'm falling behind on my challenges, and that's just ridiculous. I already read "literature" without being forced to, and I do it because I want to and I like it. I don't need some challenges to make me do that. Likewise, I want to reread Harry Potter without having to feel guilty about it.

Of course, I don't want to give up on anything either, so I think I'll just scale back on the Victorian challenge (to the Sense and Sensibility level, meaning four books) and hope for the best on the TBR challenge. And in the future? I will stick to those challenge that encourage variety without limiting choices. Because first and foremost, I read because I like to and I don't want to lose that.

How about you? Are your challenges going well or are you similarly frustrated? Or maybe you don't do them at all because of these reasons?

The Night Circus ~ Erin Morgenstern

2011-06-29T23:06:00.001-04:00

I may have hinted at this last week, but I love Erin Morgenstern's debut novel, The Night Circus. Seriously. I love it in a even-though-you've-never-heard-of-her-and-her-novel-doesn't-come-out-for-two-and-a-half-months-you-should-still-preorder-it-now kind of way.

Since it's not coming out until September, I feel that a rough summary is necessary here: magic is real but it's not really magic-magic, more like manipulation. It can be learned and it comes in different varieties. Two masters have pledged their pupils to a challenge, the venue for which is a circus, Le Cirque des Rêves. The circus arrives without warning, only opens at night, and is adorned only in white, black, and shades of grey. It is exhibition of any and every kind and is controlled almost entirely by Celia and Marco, the two young magicians who eventually fall in love, further complicating their lives.

I want this circus to exist. It's quiet and beautiful, where classic circuses are noisy and flashy. It's full of life, despite it's lack of color. It considers time and consequences and how destinies can be altered.

Morgenstern's writing is quiet and beautiful, unique without harshness. The story is built of many very short chapters (something I normally dislike, preferring longer chapters) which, like the circus itself, manage to beguile you into staying up half the night, unsure of where the time has gone. These chapters consist of snippets of life related to the circus, from the perspectives of all involved, in many locations. Nothing seems extraneous and nothing is lacking.

I could go on and on, but I'll stick with discussing three elements I particularly enjoyed:

-The Murray twins' relationships. Writers tend to view twins as tools without substance. Look at Fred and George Weasley - they're loyal, comedic, lacking in depth, and identical to the core, more often present for purposes of comic relief than anything else. You have evil twins, freakily connected twins, creepy twins, creepily cute twins, et cetera. And then there are the Murray twins, who were born on the circus's opening night and grow up among the black-and-white striped tents. Their love for one another is palpable and they are unique in themselves. They are both gifted, yes, in ways that ordinary mortals are not, but this arises more from the circumstances of their birth than their twin-ness. They are complete characters rather than plot devices, plus they charm kittens. Literally. Need I say more?

-Celia and Marco's relationship. The novel is full of relationships, but their relationship is probably the most complex while at the highest risk of cliches. Thankfully, Morgenstern manages to avoid cliches and create a beautiful, enchanting love complicated by their positions as opponents, in which each person's turn is a tribute to the other rather than an attack. Though there is dramatic, Rome and Juliet-style, fatal element to their love, Morgenstern transcends this by introducing consequences and the consciousness of such. These are mature lovers, not children, making their love all the more satisfying and believable.

-The novel continues outside of the novel. For most books, this means stuff, i.e. fake wands and action figures and overactive merchandising departments. What's so lovely about The Night Circus is how (at this point at least) it avoids all this. The cover, for example, of my ARC guarantees unlimited admission and threatens exsanguination for anyone who attempts to sell it (the same punishment as for trespassing on circus grounds). The book as an object becomes a part of the novel. Also, a side project of Morgenstern's while she was writing the novel was painting an all black-and-white tarot card set which sounds just like the custom deck that the circus's fortune teller uses (view here). These elements bring the novel to life, letting it burst from the page without cheapening it. I've never seen the like and I really love that.

This is probably the best book I've read in a while, and I fully encourage anybody to read it, particularly those who enjoy the ordinary merged with the fantastic. Because these are real people and real emotions, despite being set in a fanciful setting, and well worth the investment of time and emotion.

I kind of wish this was more of a critical book review, but it grabbed me so fully that I just absorbed the details and thought about little else, which is probably good because it means that the story didn't trip over the writing. However, I like to think about the how as well as the what. I guess I'll just have to read it again. Darn.

Friday Reads: The Night Circus

2011-06-24T07:39:00.001-04:00

The Night Circus is Erin Morgenstern's debut novel (coming in September) and I have to say, I am loving it. It's been a while since I've really loved a novel, but this is definitely picking up the slack (AKA, I keep staying up too late reading). I'll go more into it in my review when I finish it, but suffice it to say that it is filled with subtle magic and lovely characters.

The image on the right is the ARC cover, which,
excellently enough, threatens to exsanguinate
anybody who attempts to sell it.

I just read on Morgenstern's blog that Jim Dale is doing the audiobook, which anybody who has listened to him read Harry Potter knows is amazing news. I may actually buy this one instead of borrowing it from the library. Who knows, maybe I'll go crazy and preorder it!

I still have one hundred pages to go and I can already tell you, this is one to look out for. Thank you, Random House, for sending the bookstore where I work a copy and thank you, Ms. Morgenstern, for writing it.

Room ~ Emma Donoghue

2011-06-19T16:26:00.000-04:00

**The second-to-last full paragraph contains spoilers. Watch out.**

As soon as I heard about Emma Donoghue's acclaimed novel, Room (thank you, book blogging community, without whom I would not have known of it), I knew that I had to read it. I'm ashamed to say that I don't pay much attention to the news, largely because it angers me and I have a hard time disengaging myself. However, there is the occasional news story that grips me so much that I can't read enough about it, often rereading the same information from different sources in the hopes of a new detail. One that comes instantly to mind is the story of Foxy Knoxy, an American student in Italy who was found guilty of murdering her flatmate. Another more relevant story is the Fritzl case, in which a man held his daughter (and their ensuing children) trapped in a dungeon in the basement of the house where he lived with his wife. It would appear that there is something wrong with my head, because these are both prime examples of why I avoid the news, but there you have it. At least it explains my compulsion to read Room which, I was not surprised to learn after finishing the novel, was inspired by the Fritzl case.

This is one of those cases where the truth is stranger (or at least more disturbing) than fiction. Room, though completely horrifying, is actually very toned down compared to it's real-life counterpart. There's only one child, the woman's only been locked up for seven years, they are above ground and have a skylight through which they can see the sky, the ceiling is high enough that nobody has to stoop. Interestingly, Old Nick seems to acknowledge this outside influence at one point, saying, "Aboveground, natural light, central air, it's a cut above some places, I can tell you" (69). It's still not Barbie's Dream House, but Donoghue's choice to make it so much more human is interesting. Would the extent of the horrors in the Fritzl case be too much for a reader to handle? Does the experience of looking at the news from the outside in some way make it easier to deal with the horrors of the world than the experience of immersing oneself into fiction? Quite possibly.

The novel itself was well-done. Choosing the five-year old child as a narrator was inspired - it transforms the tiny cell in which he and his mother live into a complete world where Jack feels safe and is never bored, a place from which he never wants to leave (though this as much thanks to his mother's ingenuity as his own imagination). Jack knows no other world except for what happens in the TV, and all of that is pretend. Outside is only outerspace. Though Jack is happy in his captivity, there is an undercurrent of loneliness to his narrative. The room is Room, the wardrobe is Wardrobe, and so on. They are referred to by gendered pronouns and spoken of as friends. Jack never comments on the lack of other people in his world, though he seems to unconsciously acknowledge it by turning things into companions.

The mother-child relationship is so beautiful. You could easily imagine a mother hating a child born to her of rape and captivity, but as Ma says, Jack saves her. In Jack's five years of life, they've never been more than a few feet away from each other and, except when Jack goes into the wardrobe at night so that he won't have to see Old Nick (and so that Old Nick can't see him), they are never more than a glance away. Ma loves Jack for who he is and easily separates him from the cruel man whose sperm brought Jack into being (like Ma, I hesitate to use the "f" word*).

I only have two complaints about the novel. Occasionally Ma (and later, others) will say something to Jack that one wouldn't normally say to a child and which he doesn't understand. Occasionally this kind of thing will happen in "real life" and when it happened in the room it was understandable as she had nobody else to say it to, but out in the world it's a little hard to believe. Why does Jack need to hear about crashing stocks? Well, he doesn't. Those little bits were obviously there for the benefit of the reader, and I could have done without them. I want dialogue to be natural between characters and not provided for the purpose of an imaginary third person. My other issue with the novel is personal: it is far too topical. I'm not sure why, but I take issue with elements of novels that set it too fixedly in the present day. This is probably a topic that deserves its own post, but suffice it to say that the references to Lady Gaga and Dora the Explorer detracted from the novel for me.

Overall, this was a good read. Disturbing, yes, but a beautiful look at the relationship between a mother and her child, particularly from the angle of the child whose mother is, quite literally, his world.

*Okay guys, this was a weird book to review on Father's Day. I'd wait, but it's been over a week since I last posted and I just want to get something up there. Happy Father's Day to all the true fathers and father figures out there!

Middlemarch ~ Character List

2011-06-13T04:51:00.002-04:00

I'm pretty sure that Middlemarch just continues for the rest of my reading life. Not only is this the second post I've written ~~complaining~~ about it, I've read two other books while attempting to read Middlemarch and number three is coming up. Of course, that's far less than the number of books I've read since I promised myself that I would return to The Sound and the Fury, so really this is an improvement.

The thing is, there are so many damned people in Middlemarch, and some of them are Significant but only show up once or twice every couple of hundred pages, so that when they return and aren't reintroduced, I am left to ask Gosh darnit, and who are you? I've noticed that George Eliot likes to do this as even Silas Marner, which is a fraction the length of Middlemarch, manages to include so many townspeople that I couldn't tell the innkeeper from the butcher even while I was reading it. But anyway, here's the story of the first five books of Middlemarch as a means of introducing the people it seems we should know about, in no particular order:

First we meet Mr. Arthur Brooke and his nieces, Dorothea and Celia. Dorothea is idealistic and doesn't wear jewelry and decides to marry a man three times her age because he is creating a Great Work and she wants to help him. She also wants to build cottages for poor people, and is helped with this by Mr. James Chettham, who loves her even though she thinks he loves her sister. So Dorothea marries the old dude, Mr. Edward Casaubon, and Chettham settles for Celia, both of whom think that Dorothea is making a sad mistake.

Mr. Causabon has a cousin, Will Ladislaw, who he financially supports and despises, and who enrages Mr. C by befriending his new cousin-in-law and going into business/politics (which even then were the same thing) with his new cousin-in-law's uncle. This contributes to Mr. C's fainting spell and ensuing Condition, which necessitates a visit from the new doctor, Tertius Lydgate, who is a medical outcast because he thinks that one pill can't cure everything and sometimes you don't need any pill at all (there is a hilarious chapter on nineteenth-century small town conceptions of medicine). Mr. C dies happily (for us, not him), but leaves behind an attachment to his will that says that if Dorothea and Will marry, Dorothea gets to go to the poor house (or Celia's house, that's cool too - a baby suddenly appears there in a very Victorian manner, so that should be fun).

Lydgate accidentally finds himself marrying Rosamond Vincy, whose family seems to be one of the few that actually lives in Middlemarch. Her father is the mayor and has high hopes that his son, Fred Vincy, will either make himself useful or inherit a huge pile of money from Mr. Peter Featherstone, a grouchy old widow related to the Vincy family by marriage. Mr. F kicks it, but not before his servant (or something) Mary Garth refuses to burn one of his wills, which ultimately cancels out the will leaving everything to Fred (who thus returns to school), and instead leaves everything to Mr. F's secret son, Rigg Featherstone, who looks like a frog (or is it a toad?) and according to Wikipedia (a valuable source in cases like this) is crucial to the plot. Mary is sad about this but still refuses to marry Fred and instead goes home because she no longer has a job, and is sad about it to her parents. Her father, Caleb Garth, is quite poor because of his tendency to accept jobs for the fun of it and to loan out money to young rascals like Fred, who can't be trusted to pay him back.

The Garths tell Mr. Camden Farebrother, a vicar who'd rather be a naturalist, about Mary's refusal to burn the will. That's not very important, but it does come up again when he tries to find out how she feels about Fred (on Fred's behalf) and reveals that he loves her. That may turn out to be important, but I'm not sure yet. Farebrother is friends with Lydgate, but Lydgate votes against him being posted in the new hospital he's helping to build because Mr. Nicholas Bulstrode, his benefactor and the hospital's financier, likes somebody else. Mr. Bulstrode is an apparently unpleasant man, through no reason more apparent than he uses his money to throw his weight around, which is probably as good a reason as any to dislike a person.

Finally, there's Mr. Raffles, who I only very vaguely remember as being frog-faced Rigg Featherstone's stepfather. Mr. Raffles is a Bad Man. Everybody in Middlemarch is flawed, but it seems that Mr. Raffles is the only truly Ban Man because a) everything he says is greedy and self-serving, b) we never get to hear this thoughts and feelings, and c) he aggravates people who actually live in Middlemarch (and the surrounding areas because very few of these people seem to actually live in Middlemarch). He also knows a Big Secret about Mr. Bulstrode (aka Nicky) and uses this to earn a living via blackmail.

Wikipedia's character list seems to think that I should also mention the Cadwalladers, who I don't really remember but live next door to Mr. Brooke and have Opinions; Mr. Hawley, who I don't remember at all but is apparently a "Foul-mouthed businessman and enemy of Mr. Bulstrode"; Mr. Mawmsey, a grocer who knows that Lydgate is full of crap because the pink pills make his wife feel better (Or maybe he's the one who votes for whoever buys the most food. Or maybe he's both); and Mr. Tyke, who Lydgate votes for over his buddy. There are also a bunch of Mr. Featherstone's relatives (who all have different last names; the only one I can remember is Waule) who do a lot of complaining about how far they travelled to mourn him only to inherit a couple of bucks each when you know they were just there for the cash and the ham.

Moral of the story, if you've actually read this whole thing: there is a crap-load of people in Middlemarch who all tie back to one another and none of which seems to be particularly happy. On the plus-side, the spine of my book is starting to look like I've read the first five-eights of the thing a dozen times, which can only be good for my street cred. Of course, if I stop now, it will be woefully apparent. On I go.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ~ Junot Diaz

2011-06-04T18:37:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what to say about Dominican novelist Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I didn't like it exactly; appreciate is probably a better word. That's not to say that I disliked it - it just didn't blow me away or suck me in like I want a novel to do. It did, however, keep me with it, which is more than I can say for, oh I don't know, Middlemarch (which I will be returning to next).

The novel follows the lives of Oscar de Leon and his family, particularly as influenced by the fuku (or curse) upon them. Oscar is a ghetto nerd, obese and obsessed with science fiction and fantasy, growing up in New Jersey though of Dominican descent. We hear a lot about his Dominican ancestry and national history, particularly as it relates to former Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. There's probably nearly as much Dominican history and stereotype as there is Oscar in the novel which, to be particularly honest, can get tiresome (Though informative - did you learn a drop of Dominican history in school? Neither did I.).

The barrier that existed between me and the novel was its narrator, Yunior. Like I complained about the other day, his English is poor and rife with slang and rather offensive terms, which made it difficult to connect with the book as a whole (does that make me sound like a snob?). This isn't constant - Part II is narrated by Oscar's sister and, as a result, was much more accessible to me - and it tones down as the novel goes on, but that just leant an unpleasant sense of inconsistency. Often, Yunior seems unable to escape his own story, which begs the question of what the novel is "really" about, though it potentially being about an well-educated, uneducated-sounding, selfish family historian who can't keep his peep in his pants, I'm really not that interested. I can connect with fat, unloved Oscar far better (at least he doesn't lie about watching Doctor Who).

Despite this poor connection, sometimes it feels like the novel is for me specifically. Oscar lives quite close to me, and as I read about his in-state movement, I sometimes found myself wondering if five year old me was ever in the Game Room at Woodbridge mall at the same time as him, or if I could have seen him jump from the New Brunswick train bridge onto Route 18's divider from my kitchen window (not quite). Even while being put off by the narration, it had the ability to evoke waves of nostalgia in me.

I'm not sure that I really understand the Pulitzer Prize, but Oscar Wao was worth my while. Sadly, it did not live up to the hype ascribed to it, but that's how hype works: designed to disappoint.

Crying and Reading

2011-06-03T23:12:00.000-04:00

There was a period of time in my early to mid teens when I cried over everything. By everything, I mean books. Every book. Maybe I was reading particularly sad books at the time, maybe my crazy adolescent hormones were making me overly weepy, or maybe I just thought there was something cool about a book moving you to tears. Whatever it was, it left me, and now it's incredibly rare for me to cry over a book. The one exception to this is a chapter almost at the very end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

**DON'T READ ON IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW THE SERIES ENDS AND DON'T WANT ME TO SPOIL IT FOR YOU**

The chapter I'm talking about is number 34, "The Forest Again." I remember reading it before leaving for work (which was only five minutes away) and actually thinking I'd be late but not being able to stop. I bawled throughout this entire chapter. This wasn't attractive, "oh look how sweet it is that she's crying over a book" weeping. This was swollen face, snot running down, ink-smearing sobbing. I rarely cry like this even over real-life things, but Harry Potter managed to do it to me (and made waitressing awkward, what with tear-streaked cheeks [not the only time I waitressed with tear-streaked cheeks there, though usually the manager, not fictional wizards, was to blame]).

Since then, I've probably reread and listened to that chapter on audiobook about five times, and though I've never quite reached that pathetic state, those familiar words still have the ability to elicit a reaction more powerful than most books could hope for. Today, listening to that chapter while driving from work to Target, I found myself tearing up yet again at one particular line. The bit in question was just after Harry has conjured those he has loved and lost, while they accompany him on his death-march into the forest:

A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Harry's brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision.

"You'll stay with me?"

"Until the very end," said James.

"They won't be able to see you?" asked Harry.

"We are part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to anyone else."

Harry looked at his mother.

"Stay close to me," he said quietly. (700)

Musing on this while I pushed my cart up and down the aisles, I realized that it's not the heart-wrenching sadness of Harry giving himself up to stop the war and save the others, or the presence of those whose loss has hit him the hardest that makes the scene so moving. What really did it to me was the word "quietly." No matter how tragic the moment is, how much inner strength it requires of Harry, he can't escape his own humanness. He lowers his voice when he begs his mother to stay at his side so that, presumably, only she can hear, shielding this moment of weakness and desperation from the men accompanying him. It is the fact that he needs his Mummy but even at the point of no return has trouble admitting it. He is not just a hero here - he is a person as well, which makes his decision all the more real and all the more heart-breaking.

What about you? Do you cry over books? What sets you off? Did you smear the pages of this chapter too?

PS. Is it weird that I hope that they will do this scene well enough in Part Two of the movie to elicit the same reaction?

Oscar Wao ~ First Impressions

2011-05-26T23:15:00.001-04:00

So I rarely post about a book when I'm only a few pages in, but there's so much going on in my head regarding the first 33 pages of Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, that I just need to say talk about it, and isn't that why I have a book blog?

So first off, there's this beginning bit that's not really identified as anything and has Arabic numerals (you know, numbers) at the top of the page, rather than Roman numerals, so it seems to be the beginning of the novel. And it's this whole big thing about the fuku, a curse brought over by Christophers Columbus (or something) that plagues Dominicans and kind of makes them seem like a bunch of superstitious crazies. There are several extremely long footnotes that made me groan because, well, I don't like footnotes unless they're explaining something vague and Shakespearean and doing so in three words or less. But I plow through them and hope that there won't be many more.

And then I turn the page and there's a fancy decoration with a Roman numeral one, and then the page after that has the word "one" in a box, so apparently the novel is starting now. So I check back and there's definitely nothing to identify that first bit as a prologue or an introduction. But maybe this means that there won't be any more footnotes (there will be) so I plow on.

And then there's the narrator. Except for the first line (which begins "Our hero"), it's written in the third person by a narrator who is very much present despite the lack of the "I." The narrator curses, delivers up Dominican stereotypes, and analyzes Oscar all at once, all while telling Oscar's story. And I'm just overwhelmed by trying to figure out the purpose of the narrator and if he/she/it will come into being at some point, and trying to work out truth behind the stereotypes (which my Dominican coworker denied familiarity with and was rather offended by), and trying to figure out if I'm even enjoying it.

The narrator also speaks in quite horrific, slangy English peppered with Spanish (most of it vaguely understandable, particularly in context). This lack of proper grammar is quite off-putting - I like when authors give characters voices and linguistic tics but normally that's interspersed by the calm, correct narrator who acts like white space, relieving the senses. Being faced with lines like "When they were around he didn't need no Penthouses" (27) around every turn can be quite overwhelming. There's also an element of modern realism (not sure if I'm misappropriating this term - perhaps I should say present-day realism?) that strikes a rather negative chord, like when girls are described as "fine as shit" and "hot-as-balls" (27). I don't think it's so much that I take offense (because I accept the equally degrading 19th century equivalents quite readily) as much as possess a general disdain for narratives that are too localized in the present: i.e. the mention of a Playstation in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or the reference to Facebook in Vaclav & Lena. Perhaps this is because of the inaccessibility of such allusions? These things (and hopefully these words) will mean nothing to my children and as a result, the literature in which they appear may become inaccessible. While I'm reading it though, I just experience a sudden distaste, a sense that this doesn't belong in a book. But perhaps I'm getting too far off-topic and should give this discussion its own post.

Things I definitely like about Oscar Wao without qualification: mentions of places near me. Oscar grows up in New Jersey (my home state) and, I believe, eventually goes to Rutgers (my alma mater), and it makes me feel special to see these familiar places referenced, like when I saw ads for Jennifer Convertibles as a child or when I saw a Marcketta pizzeria in Italy (yes, the "k" was there).

Has anybody else read Oscar Wao and experienced the same frustrations? If so, please don't reveal anything about the narrator - I'm sure something is coming in that department and I don't want it spoiled for me!

Middlemarch ~ Halfway Mark

2011-05-25T09:36:00.001-04:00

This seems to be the year of really long books for me. First Anna Karenina, then The Cider House Rules, and now Middlemarch. Technically, Middlemarch doesn't really get to be on the list, though, as I'm only halfway through. And to be honest, I could use a break.

Like Anna Karenina, George Eliot's masterpiece Middlmarch is a sweeping narrative, covering the personal, the political, the economic, and some other stuff too. Also like Anna Karenina, it spends a lot of time talking about poor laborers, yet those are the only characters who we don't get any real insight into, other than in observations of those with money (or, at the very least, status). As for the characters that we are exposed to... I'd have to say that I don't love them. Take Mr. Brooke, for example, who is silly, repetitive, and impulsive. Or his niece Dorothea, who is pretty, zealous, and idealistic. Or Fred Vincy, who is loosely collected to these people, and is lazy, irritating, and takes advantage of people (though he does feel guilty afterwards). So many of the characters (and there are a lot of them) seem like little more than caricatures - easily identifiable as having certain traits and never doing anything to surprise their friends or the reader. They are generally dull, or so flawed that it's impossible to identify with them in any way. The one exception to this would probably be the Garth family, who have enough troubles and admirable flaws to make me interested in them, though they rarely grace the pages.

The biggest problem for me is probably the sheer number of characters and the way they are described. There are some characters who only appear for a page or so and who we hear so little about that by the next chapter, their last echos have faded away. The characters who appear repeatedly, on the other hand, we tend to hear described, in the same ways, over and over. Unlike, say, Jane Austen, Eliot trusts nothing to her readers. Four hundred pages in, we hear, again, about Dorothea's "characteristic directness," her "clear and unhesitating" voice, and then, as the scene dictates, of her "melancholy meditation" (410-411). However, on the following page, Eliot still feels the need to tell us that when Dorothea says, "I am very, very sorry," the words are spoken, "mournfully." Well, of course they are! We already have known, from page one, that Dorothea is unfailingly forthright, and from this scene that she is sad - how else could she have spoken those words?

Sometimes, Eliot's words feel wasted, a sensation I did not get from The Mill on the Floss or Silas Marner, both of which I loved. At this point, Middlemarch is disappointing my expectations, although it still has the occasional ability to draw me in (though I can't help but wish there was less to be drawn in to). I've already taken a brief break from the book to read Vaclav & Lena, and I'm about to take another to finally read The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I will definitely finish Middlemarch, but I just don't think I can do it all at once.

The Swimmer ~ John Cheever

2011-05-22T20:47:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to read something by John Cheever for a while now, ever since the college bookstore I work at carried a big book of his stories for a class, and I heard a thesis presentation on his work. However, I never actually picked anything of his up and it was by pure luck that I discovered him in a short fiction anthology that I've had for a few years now.

"The Swimmer" is one of Cheever's most famous short stories and actually originally began as a novel of over 150 pages, though it is now only about eight. It tells of a man, Ned, who, while at a party, decides to swim home (his house is eight miles away). He decides to call his route, which is really a network of swimming pools, the Lucinda River, after his wife. He swims and drinks and chats with the pool's owners, though after awhile, it appears that his life is slipping away. When he reaches home, his whole life seems to have passed him by over the course of the afternoon.

Cheever creates a wonderfully interesting a character - a man, "far from young," who nevertheless still slides down banisters and embarks on silly excursions. His thoughts and feelings are perfectly fitted to his journey and character, moving from frivolous optimism to fatigue and confusion and finally to exhaustion and loss and a refusal to give up. I love how surreal the story is - two apparently different timelines merge into one as Ned literally journeys through life over the span of an afternoon and a few short pages. I think the story's conciseness really works to its advantage - though I can see how it could be a novel, it seems as though that would make it a little overbearing and even difficult to stomach. My only complaint would probably be the first paragraph - it doesn't seem to fit the story and starts in a rather trite manner. Don't be discouraged by that though - "The Swimmer" is worth a read and I will definitely be reading more of Cheever's work.

You can read "The Swimmer" here. I'd love to hear what you think!

There Be Angst (and a winner!)

2011-05-20T16:41:00.000-04:00

First order of business: the winner of Soy Chai Bookshelf's Birthday Giveaway is, of course, Alley from What Red Read. Congrats, Red! Send me an e-mail at jlmarck at gmail and I'll order your copy of Never Let Me Go. I say 'of course,' because she is the only person that entered the contest. Which brings me to my second order of business...

Ever since posting that giveaway, I've been feeling very unhappy about my blog. Why don't people want to enter? I ask myself. Is my blog that bad? After a year, why do I only have fourteen followers? Should I give up? I mean, what's the point if nobody reads what I write?

My husband stopped just short of forbidding me from quitting the blog, which I suppose is appropriate. However, this in no way made me feel better (nor did the fact that an article on yahoo linked to a blog post of his - congrats Sweets, I'm proud even if I am jealous). So I was still feeling bad, yet persisting in tweeting giveaway reminders every day, even linking to a new author whose book you could win in the hopes that she would retweet it (she didn't). Things were bleak.

But then, Ellen at Fat Books & Thin Women posted this. And she linked to The Reading Ape's recent series (first post here) on the purpose and styles of book blogging. I had never heard of The Reading Ape before, but I sucked in each post and sat back to ask myself why I started a book blog to begin with.

Of course, I didn't start a book blog to begin with. My first post was about tea, then there were some book reviews, but also some personal posts, and even some recipes. It took me a couple of months to realize that what I wanted to do was blog about books. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that my very long, rather in-depth reviews didn't appeal to many people. Soon after that, I discovered that the way to get anybody to read my blog was by participating in memes like Top Ten Tuesday. After awhile I told myself that the only way to get any real number of followers was to hold a giveaway (FLOP). And now here I am, whining about having an unpopular blog and not even thinking about the books anymore.

So I'm reevaluating. I'm going to write reviews that are however long I want, make my Top Ten lists because they're fun, and start enjoying books again. This may even mean I fail at some of my challenges because man do they take the fun and spontaneity out of reading (more on that in a separate post). I'm also going to start seeking out more bloggers that read the kinds of things that I read (most of the bloggers I follow do not), and maybe become more active on Goodreads. I'm here to discuss books, first and foremost, not win popularity contests.

After all, like my blog I've always been relatively unpopular. That was never a reason to not make the most of myself.

Vaclav & Lena ~ Haley Tanner

2011-05-18T22:26:00.002-04:00

**If you want to win a copy of Vaclav & Lena, leave a comment on this post saying why you want to read it, and hop over to my giveaway post to tell me that you've entered**

I got Vaclav & Lena a couple of weeks ago. It's an Advanced Reading Copy that Random House was good enough to send to the college bookstore where I work. As my first ever ARC, I was super-excited to read and review it before the rest of the world got a chance to, and thus decided to put Middlemarch on hold in order to accomplish just that. According to a seal on the cover, it was supposed to be released on May 31. When I walked into work on Tuesday, on my way down to the textbook dungeon, I moseyed past the new release table (as is my habit) to see what we'd gotten in since last Thursday, when what to my wondering eyes should appear? Vaclav and Lena, in all their early release glory. The literary world has beaten me yet again. Ah well.

About the book itself: Vaclav & Lena is Haley Tanner's first novel. It recounts the early lives of two Russian immigrants, Vaclav & Lena, who are thrust together as young children, torn apart a few years later, and finally reunited, as in love with one another as ever. At times disturbing, Vaclav & Lena is mostly a sweet story about the challenges of immersing oneself into a foreign culture and the various ways that people love.

Tanner attempts, and rather impressively, to take the unfathomable, unspoken language of thought and put it into words, and often words that are unfamiliar to the novel's Russian characters. Though this can tend to awkwardness, for the most part she pulls it off fairly well:

"Lena looks at a spot on the bathroom floor between her shoes. She likes this spot. This spot is ambiguous and she feels a kinship with this spot." (156)

Lena sees this spot on the floor and thinks for pages about how it's just one of so many spots that she has seen, but this one feels special, though she will probably just forget it like all the others. She tells herself that she will remember every aspect of it - size, shape, color, location - and not let it escape her. Then she is distracted, and we never hear of the spot again. I love when authors put those things we think but never discuss down on paper, partially because it's so apt and partially because it makes such a great link between the reader and the characters and other readers and other people, and this is one of those moments. We've all (or at least I have) obsessed about such minutiae, just to forget it, though we never talk about it because we think we are alone.

My only issue with the novel is probably the narrative voice. It seems to be omniscient, as well as having aspects of direct and free indirect discourse, which can be a bit jarring, particularly because the characters' stilted English (especially in the earlier half of the novel) sometimes carries over into the narration and sometimes doesn't. There was also one bit back before Lena knew any English that I thought was flashback until people started speaking English and I realized it was just the narrator telling the story. This could be a bit distracting at times, but in no way made me want to not read the novel and it got better as the novel went on and the characters knew English better. It also could have been edited to be a bit clearer since the ARC's were released, so maybe you will never know what I'm talking about.

A couple of lines I really loved (though technically I'm not supposed to quote... I will correct if necessary):

"How is it, Vaclav thinks, that these people, prostitutes, crazy street people, homeless men on the subway, they see sometimes straight to the truth, no matter what?" (269)

"The inside of the house is full of a warm light, like Lena's mom has somehow learned to magically make lightbulbs out of clementines." (280)

Overall, I really enjoyed Vaclav & Lena and look forward to whatever else Tanner chooses to release into the world.

**Don't forget to enter to win a copy of this or any other book that I've reviewed!**

Top Ten Minor Characters

2011-05-18T08:08:00.000-04:00

**Don't forget to enter my giveaway to win any one book that I've reviewed!**

So I'm a day late on this again, but that's life. I actually started this post a couple of days ago but I've been finding it surprisingly difficult to choose my Top Ten Minor Characters (the topic of this week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish). I've also been looking at other people's lists and finding some choices that I find odd, which then led me to wonder what a minor character really is. Is it somebody whose purpose in the overall plot is minimal (in which case I wonder why he/she is there)? Somebody who's only a mentioned a certain number of times (but does that necessitate a lack of influence?)? Somebody put Boo Radley on the list, which I found astounding. Boo Radley is a minor character? But he's the object of much discussion, a motivator to action, a misunderstood man who can tell us about ourselves, a hero... Is that minor? So I have no idea what a minor character is and this is all I've been able to come up with:

1. Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter: Is she really minor? She appears in all seven books, is this sister of a major character, fights Death Eaters, is possessed by Voldemort, and is Harry's main (though delayed) love interest. No idea, but I choose her because she's fiery, independent, strong, and patient.

2. Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter: Again, is Luna minor? She first appears in Order of the Phoenix, but has a significant role there in not only fighting the Death Eaters, but helping drag a damaged Ginny and delirious Ron (major character!) to safety. The link to her father compels major action on the part of the main character, Harry, who gives an unapproved interview under the very nose of the ministry, and compelling him to pay a visit in the final book that nearly kills him. Is this minor influence? I chose Luna because she's dreamy, loyal, open-minded, and just seems like she would be great to have around (and for more than just comedic value).

3. The Troubadour from Gilmore Girls: Okay, this isn't a book but this list was hard for me and I can say for certain that the Troubadour is a minor character. I chose him because whenever the camera highlights him playing his music, I always shout, "I love him, he's my favorite!", much to my friends' annoyance.

Okay, so this was the worst Top Ten Tuesday at Soy Chai Bookshelf ever. More like Top Three Wednesday. What are your favorite minor characters? And how do you define that term?

Happy Birthday to ME!

2011-05-13T14:59:00.002-04:00

Okay, so technically it's not my birthday but it is Soy Chai Bookshelf's birthday*, and that's what really matters in the blog world. What also matters is that my blog's birthday means presents for you! That's right, blog-birthdays work differently than people-birthdays and I'm hosting my very first giveaway. Party!

So here's the deal: one person can win any one book that I've already reviewed on Soy Chai Bookshelf. Click here for a list! To enter, you need to post a comment on the review saying why you want to read that book**, and another comment on this post telling me which book you want. Yes, yes, it's extra work but at least there are no forms to fill out. Lucky you!

Rules and restrictions:
1) You must live in a country that the Book Depository ships to. If you're not sure if you do, check the list.
2) You can't win if you know me in real life. Sorry, but you guys have the gift of my real, live self. And if that's not enough, remember how often I bake. :]
3) When I announce the winner, he or she must respond within twenty-four hours, or I will pick another winner.
4) The winner will be chosen one week from today (on May 20, at no specific time), so make sure you get both comments in by then.

That's it!

*It's also my husband's birthday, meaning that even though he can't enter this contest, he can share in the love. Happy Birthday, Sweets!
**If you already commented on it when I first posted it, you need not comment again.

Top Ten - er - Wednesday

2011-05-13T12:46:00.000-04:00

I'm a day late on this but that's okay. You forgive me, right? This week's Top Ten ~~Tuesday~~ Wednesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is Top Ten Biggest Jerks in Literature, to go along with the Top Ten Mean Girls list from a few weeks ago. Just to note, I'm going with "jerks" rather than "out-and-out evil nemeses" with this one. Voldemort and Acheron Hades are just too easy.

1. Hindley Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights: Everybody thinks that Heathcliff was such a jerk, but as a kid he wasn't really so bad. It was Hindley stealing (or killing? or laming? I can't remember) his horse, and smacking him around, and pretty much enslaving him that soured Heathcliff. Pretty jerky things to do.
2. Godfrey Cass from Silas Marner: He secretly marries, ignores his wife and child, and then, years later when he starts feeling guilty, expects Silas Marner to be like oh sure, you can have her back. After seventeen years, I'm not really that fond of her. Just another jerk who thinks that money entitles him to behave however he wants.
3. George Wickham from Pride and Prejudice: He's just a bit, fat, lying, abandoning, deflowering jerk. However, he did get his as he's forced to spend the rest of his life putting up with Lydia.
4. Zacharias Smith from Harry Potter: This kid's just obnoxious. All he does is argue and complain and question Harry's authority during the DA lessons that Harry teaches. This kid is why dunce hats and three-legged stools were made.
5. Angel Clare from Tess of the D'Urbervilles: He's all like, "I love you and I don't care that you're a poor little milkmaid, I'm marrying you anyway, and by the way I have this secret, and you have the same secret except it's less offensive because it wasn't your fault? AWAY WITH YOU, WOMAN." 'Nough said.
6. Maximilian de Winter from Rebecca: He's so wishy washy. Sometimes he's all, "Oh my pet, let me stroke you," and others he's like, "You're in a dress my other wife wore but that you couldn't have known she wore! I love her so much, why would you remind me of her? Shunned!" and then all of a sudden, he's like, "She's nothing, nothing to you, nameless second wife. I <3 you and always have." And then the reader's all, "Why didn't you say that from the beginning?! What a jerk."

Okay, I'm out, and a bit exhausted from the effort. Looking back at my list, I see that all six jerks I managed to come up with were born of British pens. Odd.

A Quickie

2011-05-11T09:32:00.000-04:00

No, not that kind of quickie! Today, in honor of Short Story Month, I have a nice quick story for you. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, tells of an angel's descent to Earth and what he finds there. The phoenix-like angel's thoughts are never revealed, nor is his presence ever really questioned (though it is certainly noticed), but Marquez describes his experiences in such a way that you can't help but empathize with him. This story is a little unusual in that the time frame is far longer than the average short story and it doesn't really focus on any one character, but glances at many. However, despite the apparent lack of specific focus and it's extreme shortness, Marquez crafts a story that is complete unto itself.

A short story writer, novelist, screenwriter, and journalist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is best-known for two novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera (both of which I love and recommend), and his use of magical realism. In his writing, the strange is not shocking. For anybody who is interested in his writing but intimidated by the length and density, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," is a great, quick introduction to his style. You can read it here, and be sure to tell me what you think!

One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four... and Five

2011-05-08T23:35:00.001-04:00

You already know what this is and yes, I'm jumping on Stuck in a Book's bandwagon. Here it goes!

1. The book I'm currently reading: Middlemarch by Silas Marner. At times it is engaging and at times it puts me to sleep. It's very, very long (I'm on page 252 of 889) and there are a lot of characters to confuse me, so there will probably be no reason for me to do this meme again next week.
2. The last book I finished: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This challenged my notions of the qualities of a good book and was well worth the time and slightly irritating narrative style.
3. The next book I want to read: SO MANY CHOICES. I'm torn between Room by Emma Donoghue (finally out in paperback!), The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (which, as Rutgers graduate with a degree in English lit, I really should have read by now), and The Difference Engine (which I bought on impulse and am super-excited about). It'll probably be weeks before I can read any of them, so this decision is not exceptionally problematic for me at the moment.
4. The last book I bought: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I've been semi-interested in this in the past, so when I saw it on sale at a library for fifty cents, I figured I had nothing to lose. Other than fifty cents that is.
5. The last book I was given: Vegan Yum Yum by Lauren Ulm. This delicious vegan cookbook was given to me by my lovely friend Robin for my birthday last September. I'm not sure if that was really the last book given to me as it seems unlikely that I wouldn't get a single book for Christmas but nothing else comes to mind.

Thinking About Short Stories

2011-05-08T09:25:00.000-04:00

The following is a severely abridged and altered excerpt of the forward that accompanied my undergraduate thesis, a collection of interconnected short stories:

Writing connected stories is an interesting crossover between writing short stories and writing a novel. Like with a novel, there needs to be an element that remains consistent throughout. Yet, as they are separate stories, each piece needs to be one coherent narrative that can stand apart from the others and only needs to contribute to a larger whole in context. Much like members of a family, each story needs to be both a part and a whole – an individual that contributes to a larger unit. However, forging these connections makes it impossible to ever set down one story and move onto the next; as each new story is written, all those that came before needed to be checked and changed to allow for the facts revealed in the new story. In a connected collection, each story is constantly in progress as each has bearing on the others and threatens contradiction.

Even for short story writers who don’t intend to recreate the same character in each story, this seems to be an unacknowledged tendency. In reading Raymond Carver’s collection Cathedral, I tended to read the succession of male protagonists as being the same man, even though their names and the facts of their situations don’t necessarily match up. Much as the recognizable voice of J. D. Salinger’s famed character Holden Caulfield is echoed in the collection Nine Stories, I find that authors tend towards similar characters with similar stories. Writing this type of connected stories is an acknowledgement of that, while having its own practical purposes. People tend to prefer novels for the escape from real life that they offer: novels provide another world for the reader to return to time after time, thus escaping their own lives. This is seen even more strongly in the great success of series like Harry Potter and Uglies. Connected stories acknowledge that preference – they allow the writer to fulfill her own desire to write shorter plots while satisfying the reader with a longer, more contiguous story.

Connected story collections are also practical in that they get books on shelves. Novels dominate the fiction shelves of bookstores, into which the few collections of short stories available vanish among their lengthier counterparts. Collections of short stories like Alice Munro’s The Beggar Maid, which are often read and sold as novels, offer an option for short story writers to sell their writing without being forced to change their form. A more recent example of this is Elizabeth Strout’s story collection, Olive Kitteridge. Each story in the collection follows an inhabitant of a small Maine town. These stories are separated by years and relationships, and sometimes only mention Olive Kitteridge, the title character, in passing. However, the collection was marketed as a novel and spent weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list among many more traditional extended narratives. This connection is not exactly conclusive, but suggestive of the power of the word “novel,” and its power in transforming our perceptions of the value of short stories.

A Good Man is Hard to Find ~ Flannery O'Connor

2011-05-06T07:46:00.001-04:00

"It isn't a soul in this green world of God's that you can trust" (678).

"I found out the crime don't matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you're going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it" (687).

The above quotes come from "A Good Man in Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, which is also the title of one of O'Connor's collections of short stories. Like most short stories that I read, it's hard to say what this one is about. On the surface, it's about a family (mom, dad, three kids, and "the grandmother") going on a vacation to Florida. However, there's much less about their vacation than there is about their family dynamic, the shortage of good men in the world, and the nature of punishment. For the first 95% of the story, the narrative follows the grandmother the most closely, though without quite getting into her head. This is a lady who has things to say and by God, she's going to say them, no matter how little her family wants to listen. Her family is a source of much disgust for me, as they are a bunch of ungrateful little snots with horrific car-riding habits (they pass a baby around while driving and there's not a seatbelt to be seen). Though you can see why the family doesn't want to hear from Grandma, it's even more obvious why she feels the need to say everything she does: there is an obvious breakdown in the traditional family structure: the children wield more power than anybody and the matriarch commands the least respect. The narrative is satisfying stark and straightforward, doing away with superfluous description to get to the heart of the matter.

From here on out, there are going to be some spoilers, so I recommend you go read the thing and then come back for the discussion. Unless you're lazy and don't care about being spoiled, in which case, read on.

The story held few surprises for me. From the moment that the car flipped over, or maybe even from when the cat escaped his basket, I knew that the Misfit would show up. With such a simple, straightforward style, it's unlikely that O'Connor would include even the slightest mention of such a character without that mention either being there to further the story or having him actually appear. The Misfit does both. His decision to murder the family, including the grandmother, came as no surprise either. This seems obvious, as he was initially introduced as a murderer, but there are moments when it seems like he will spare the family, like the grandmother will talk him out of killing them or at least herself. Just the fact of his murdering every character we've gotten to know up until now seems unlikely, but the knowledge of it settled over me even before the Misfit's henchmen lead Bailey and John Wesley into the woods.

The more I reread the Misfit's words, the more I recognize the underlying religious rhetoric. This is also unsurprising, as O'Connor herself was devoutly Roman Catholic. It doesn't stare you in the face though, and could probably be overlooked (as I initially overlooked it), despite the brief mention of Jesus raising the dead and the capital H's peppering his speech. It can get a little lost in the way the Misfit speaks: never seeming to respond directly to what is said and seemingly wandering with his words. However, I find an implication that behavior should be directly correlated to punishment, and it's the Misfit lack of concrete knowledge of God's existence that allows him to behave as he does:

"If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can - by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him" (688).

The punishment (God's rather than man's) informs the behavior, and it is only a constant knowledge and fear of God that lets there be any good people in the world at all. Perhaps then (and this is taking it a little beyond the text, though still what I think O'Connor is saying, not myself) it's because there is no God or we have forgotten God that good men are so hard to find.

I might be turning this into a bit more of a religious lesson than was intended or than I generally like, but it doesn't really bother me and seems to grow out of O'Connor's own words. What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this story. I have yet to decide if I really like it, but it's been following me around since I read it.

*I read the story in and drew the page number for the quotes from The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Gioia. You can read it here.

Happy Short Story Month!

2011-05-04T22:32:00.000-04:00

I know I'm a few days late on this, but apparently it's Short Story Month! I had no idea that this even existed, though I probably should have guessed as there are months and days for pretty much everything (I once asked my mom, around Mother's Day, why there isn't a "Kid's Day"; she told me that every day is kid's day). I'm not sure if there is any sort of official way to celebrate short stories, but I assume that reading them and talking about them should probably do the trick. This comes at a most convenient time, as I have recently embarked on a 900-page novel and could use the occasional break from it (and the kick in the butt to keep blogging).

So the next months will be full of reviews, thoughts, and all manner of short story goodness. Let's kick it off by sharing our favorite short stories. Mine is "The Diamond Mine" by Nadine Gordimer, though other favorite short story authors include Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, Shirley Jackson, Raymond Carver, and John Updike. What are your favorite short stories and short story authors? Or maybe you don't like short stories. Why not?

Top Ten Tuesday: Mean Girls

2011-04-26T22:02:00.000-04:00

Mean Girls in Books is the subject of this week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Many people have revised this title to specify girls they'd like to bitch-slap and though I'm tempted to do the same, I don't actually want to slap everybody on my list and I really hate the term "bitch-slap." "Bitch" I'm okay with though, as you shall soon see.

1) Pansy Parkinson from Harry Potter: The fact that she's a Malfoy-loving Slytherin should be enough to explain this choice. Add in the fact that she mocks Hermione's appearance and tries to give Harry to Voldemort, and you have one mean girl.

2) Caroline Bingley from Pride and Prejudice: Snotty and obnoxious, this girl is plain old mean.

3) Ruth from Never Let Me Go: To be fair, I think that Ruth behaved the way that she did because she was excessively insecure, but that doesn't negate the fact that she was incredibly mean to her so-called best friend and boyfriend, never mind how she ruined both their romantic lives for all of time. Bitch.

4) Most women in Anna Karenina: Most of the non-major women in this book were cruel to Anna and left her to wallow in sadness until her tragic end. Not that I liked her much either, but at least she wasn't quite so cold-hearted.

5) The governess from The Turn of the Screw: I'm pretty sure she killed the little boy she was supposed to be caring for. Not cool, lady.

6) Aunt Reed from Jane Eyre: Instead of being a mother to Jane, she locked Jane in the red room, where Jane passed out from fear. Then she sent Jane away, telling her future teachers that Jane was horrible. Then she told Jane's long-lost uncles, who wanted to give her a veritable fortune upon her, that Jane was dead. Then she made Jane visit her death-bed to tell her that she never loved her. Um, yeah. Need I say more?

7) Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights: Cathy is mean to everybody, including herself. This results in mental and emotional breakdowns and Cathy's own unhappiness. Unlike everybody else on this list, I probably wouldn't slap her because she seems to me to be a victim of her society - unable to be with the man she loves because of her social status. Though she's really mean, mostly I just feel sorry for her.
8) The older daughter from Still Alice: All I'm going to say about her is that upon hearing that her mother had a degenerative, terminal, genetic disease was, (to paraphrase [though not heavily]), "So you're telling me I'm going to become a zombie?"

Okay, I'm out of Mean Girls to talk about. Eight's pretty good though, no?

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

2011-04-25T14:58:00.000-04:00

It's difficult to even know where to start. There's a lot I want to say, but most of it would be considered spoilers. As for plot, there's little I can say that's not on the back of the book or in the first few lines of the novel. Never Let Me Go is narrated by Kathy H., a thirty-one year old carer, and it recounts her youth at Hailsham, a school, and the Cottages, the place she goes to after the school. The novel is very much about Kathy's relationship with Tommy and Ruth over the years they spend in those places, and the short time they have together when reunited as adults. It also has a very important speculative element which slowly unveils itself over the course of the novel.

What's odd about this novel for me is how compulsively I read it despite how little I liked the narration. Kathy is a very awkward story-teller. She never once lets you forget that she is speaking, often saying things like "And that's why I told you that," "I'm going to talk about this now," "That's why I think that I did that think that I was just talking about," and other such transitions and reflections that interrupt the flow of the thing. Yet I couldn't put it down, sometimes reading for hours at a time. I was constantly thinking about it, wishing I could read it. It made me feel some excitement and tension that actually had my heart racing, though there are never any moments of intense or sudden fear or excitement. The novel is as calm as can be.

Before I started to read Never Let Me Go, I read some reviews that said that the first two-thirds were very slow (true), but that the end proved it to be a masterpiece. I'm not sure what is meant by masterpiece and I don't know if I would classify it as such, but it did resonate with me. I am disturbed by it and will not easily let it go. But a masterpiece?

It went to a place that I did not expect it to go, though in reflection, that knowledge was building within me throughout, just as it slowly built in Kathy herself. I saw possibilities that proved themselves, fears that came true, a worrisome anxiety about discussing what would be, just as Kathy did. Somehow, this awkward narrative built within me to the exploding point, when I was left breathless with the horrors that were so calmly delivered.

This could be our world. I supposed, then, that Never Let Me Go is a dystopia, though it did not read as such. It's calmness hid that awareness from me until this moment. I can still feel it building within me, as though it will not resolve itself for days or years. Maybe not ever, considering the realities it suggests.

Maybe it is a masterpiece.

Reading in my Sleep

2011-04-24T15:41:00.000-04:00

Do you ever read in your sleep? Sometimes, when I've been reading before bed and the story is firmly in the forefront of my mind, I find myself reading in my dreams. When I wake, I find myself searching through my sheets for my book, convinced that it just slipped out of my hands after having read it for hours and hours. I realize, worryingly, that I've forgotten what just happened, though the words had been playing in my head all night. I usually forget about it by the next time I pick up the book and remember my place in it.

Last night was different. I was near the end of Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro when I went to sleep. Again, I read for hours in my dreams, but this time I remembered what I had read when I awoke, or at least some of it. In my dream, I read that Madame had a necklace of a silver pendant with an elephant stamped on it. When asked about it, she demanded to know why it was important who drew the elephant and does the questioner want to know also who stamped the silver. When I awoke, I knew whose elephant it was and could not forget that moment even as I picked up the book to read on. And oddly, it fits. Ishiguro didn't write this detail into the story, but it makes sense for me. Madame may have dreamed of the elephant herself, but its significance is just as real as though the pendant actually hung around her neck.

The Eyre Affair ~ Jasper Fforde

2011-04-22T16:38:00.000-04:00

Before I get started, I have an announcement to make: Tuesday's post was my hundredth! I'm not sure why numbers like 100 get us so excited but they do and I am. So much so that I missed it. Oops! I had been thinking about having my first ever giveaway in celebration but never really decided and then I forgot so it didn't happen. Never fear though! Soy Chai Bookshelf's first birthday is in less than a month and that seems like just as good a reason to celebrate, doesn't it?

The British cover is much better than
the American version. I love this
scooter-riding Dodo bird.

On to the book. The Eyre Affair was a rather spontaneous purchase for me, but come on: a world where it's possible to kidnap Jane Eyre right out of the pages of the novel? It's like Disney World for bibliophiles. In fact, the Prose Portal would make an excellent addition to any theme park.

A brief summary would not be amiss here: The year is 1985 and the place is England... kind of. This is a version of England with all the same places - London, Swindon, the Forest of Dean - but things are a bit different. Holes in time hold up traffic, Jehovah's Witness-style promoters go door-to-door trying to convince people that the true author of Shakespeare's plays was Francis Bacon, Ohio is a strange and wonderful place, and literature and art are national pastimes. There are similarities as well, most notably the Corporation, Goliath, which controls everything from the local police department to the war. Okay, so maybe that's more commentary than anything. I'm not too concerned with the distinction.

At the center of this literature-loving, corporate-controlled world is Thursday Next, a war hero (who now renounces the cause), LiteraTec agent (who's getting a little restless), and emotionally damaged woman (who wants her man back). She gets drawn into a hunt for Acheron Hades, criminal mastermind and Thursday's former professor, who is guilty of stealing the original manuscript of Dickens' novel Martin Chuzzlewit and using the Prose Portal (which uses actual Bookworms to transport people into the pages of books) that Thursday's uncle invented to steal and kill a minor character from the novel, Mr. Quaverly, before threatening to do the same to Jane Eyre herself.

The novel is at times silly, brilliant, pun-erific, and completely cheesy. It was more of a detective novel than I imagined (I knew about the crime, but I figured it would be an interested citizen, i.e. Harry Potter, who would set things to right, not a dedicated government organization dealing with literary crimes) which was a bit disappointing, but I got over it. The only thing that really bothered me was the fact that Thursday spent all her time off whining about the one she let get away and this other one who got away but in a very different way and how she's never going to get some. The romantic angle really does not belong in this book and culminates in quite possibly the cheesiest chapter known to man, which brings me to another point: the loose threads are tied up annoying well at the end. Every single thing works out in the end, which is not the way of life, and certainly not the way of series (oh yeah, The Eyre Affair is the first in a series).

Despite these few complaints, I really did enjoy the book. It made me feel both silly and smart, and was a nice break from all the heavy reading I've been doing. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions, thanks to literary puns and characters like Jack Schitt and Paige Turner, which is always a plus. I will definitely be reading the next book in the series, Lost in a Good Book, though not immediately.

My only caveat is that this book will probably be less entertaining if you haven't read the books it mentions, particularly the ones that take center stage. For example, I've never read Martin Chuzzlewit, so I have no idea if Mr. Quaverly actually appears in its pages. I'm sure this question could easily be cleared up by a quick internet search, but that's not really the point. I would definitely recommend waiting until after you've read the entirety of Jane Eyre to read this, if you have not done so yet. I myself probably won't touch Lost in a Good Book until I've read Great Expectations, as it seems to be featured in Thursday's next adventure.

Top Ten Tuesday REWIND

2011-04-19T07:35:00.000-04:00

This week over at The Broke and the Bookish is a Top Ten Tuesday Rewind, meaning that you can mosey on over to their list of past Top Ten Tuesdays and choose any one you want to make a list about. My initial instinct was Top Ten Words, which was a topic before I got on this whole Top Ten Tuesday bandwagon, but since I couldn't come up with anything other than bombastic, malapropism, and floccinaucinihilipilification*, I decided that maybe I should choose a more lucrative topic in the effort to actually hit ten. Therefore, I bring you Top Ten Most Dislikable Characters!

1. Bella from Twilight: Obnoxious, stupid, and a terrible example for females everywhere. Need I say more?
2. Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter: Cruel and unredeemable, she works within the system to somehow get away with heinous acts of speciesism and classism. Even the adorable kitties pictured on her office walls can't make up for this woman's evilness.
3. Emma from Emma: Spoiled and obnoxious, Emma thinks she sees and knows all. Suffice it to say that she does not. This is not another beloved Austen character (at least not for me).
4. Hindley Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights: He's just such a cruel child and is arguably largely responsible for how Heathcliff turned out. He is never redeemed and just gets worse with age.
5. Reuben Land from Peace Like a River: This kid is just obnoxious. He repeatedly tries to act like he knows whats up, only making things worse for his family and the people around them and eventually causing a man to be crushed by a horse who is later put down. Not cool, kid.
6. Godfrey Cass from Silas Marner: (SPOILERS) So he's a rich guy who marries a low-born woman, impregnates her, doesn't tell anybody about the wife or the kid, and continues to woo the girl of his dreams. Fast-forward eighteen years: first wife is long dead, Godfrey is long-remarried, and he tries his hand at remorse, attempting to "adopt" his eighteen-year old daughter and getting really mad when she's like "Um, no?" Living in the fancy house doesn't get you everything, mister. (SPOILERS DONE)
7. Aya from Extras: I guess this one isn't so much Aya as everybody in the society that Westerfeld creates. Everything is just so shallow and nothing matters except in how it can make people read your Twitter-type-thing that lurks behind your eyeballs. Or something.
8. Levin from Anna Karenina: I know this is practically sacrelige but man this guy is annoying. He can't make up his mind about anything, is prone to tantrums, and repeatedly treats his readers to long rambling wonderings about things that they neither know nor care about (or maybe that's just me). Oh, and he's the jealous type.
9. Pamela from Pamela: It's been a while since I've read this one, but she's just such an unlikely character and why doesn't she get the hell out of there when the old lady dies?! I mean come on, Mr. B's intentions were already pretty obvious by then. And then why does she do that thing she does at the end?! This is more about the ridiculousness of Richardson's narrative than anything, but this list is about characters and I'm looking at you, Pamela. I much prefer Henry Fielding's revision, Shamela, in which he reveals that she was in fact a dirty, dirty slut.
10. Robinson Crusoe from Robinson Crusoe: While there are plenty of reasons for this choice, I'm going to stick with the fact that even after being enslaved (and, reasonably, not liking it), he had no problem enslaving others. WTF?!

*The English language's longest nontechnical word, beating out antidisestablishmentarianism by one letter, and meaning the description of something as valueless. This word somehow appeared at the top of a page in my high school's enormous dictionary, though somehow nobody else ever knew what it meant or recognized it at all. Apparently I'm the only one in my high school who ever cared what words meant, and I've been carrying it around with me ever since. Also, I managed to spell both of those words correctly on the first try; allow me to say, GO ME!

The Cider House Rules, the Movie

2011-04-18T22:14:00.001-04:00

**If you want to read my review of the original novel, click here!**

I'm going to say it up front - The Cider House Rules makes a great movie. I rarely say that about movie adaptations, including the Harry Potter movies, which I've seen about a trillion times each. Except for the seventh of course, but I'm working on it.

This probably has a lot to do with the fact that John Irving wrote the screenplay himself, which of course makes you wonder why they don't ask the author to do that more often. Or maybe they do. Who knows?

There's a considerable paring down for the movie, as there has to be to get a five-hundred page novel into a movie of non-excessive length but I have to say, the cuts that Irving chose to make were excellent. A lot of characters and time disappeared (like Melanie and the fifteen-year lapse) - but it didn't hurt the story. Certain details were changed - but it made the story more plausible. One thing that I feared was that the abortion discussion would be toned down and it was, in the sense that we never had to hear about the gritty sound that a successful abortion makes or see some of the things that Irving describes, but a clear argument for abortion is still made.

Overall, it was a lovely story that maintained the integrity of the original while requiring less suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer. It is probably one of the best book-to-film adaptations I've ever seen.

The Turn of the Screw ~ Henry James

2011-04-10T16:52:00.000-04:00

I finally finished The Turn of the Screw, Henry James's famed novella ghost story, late on Friday night. Yes, it took me eight days. Yes, that's an average of not quite eleven pages a day. Yes, that's pathetic. Let me offer this as an excuse: it was boring.

I feel so wrong in saying it, but I can't help it. The novella begins with introductory scene that frames the rest: a narrative written by a young governess on her experiences with her supernatural. Most of her narrative consists of vapid conversation, wild guesswork, illogical inferences, and excessively complex sentences. It's incredibly ambiguous and most of the antagonistic action is led up to and then skipped over. Then, to wrap it all up, there's a final what just happened? No really, I don't know what's going on chapter which ends with the most unexpected and unsatisfying possible conclusion, and no return to the initial frame. Why set up a setting for the story to be told in if it's ultimately of no consequence?

So I spent all 87 pages being annoyed at the ambiguity, doubting the reliability of the narrator, and trying to pick my way around James's excessive use of commas. At the end I concluded - as I so often do - that I must have missed something and should probably read it over (even while acknowledging that I probably would not). Then I did what I always do in this kind of situation - turned to Wikipedia. There, I was pleased to learn that everybody finds the thing ambiguous and many have not only questioned the reliability of the narrator, but her sanity as well.

Here's my conclusion (and don't read on if you don't want the ridiculous ending spoiled for you):

The governess repeatedly tackling Miles and quite possibly smothering him against her breast or knocking his head on something are probably what did him in. As to the ghosts - I have little interest in whether they were real or not, but I doubt it. Blah.

Sorry, Mr. James. But I kept setting myself up to read this in situations where'd I'd get all creeped out and jumpy (in a fun way!), and instead I kept falling asleep. Seriously, I had a two-hour nap in the middle of the last twenty pages.

The good news is that I'm counting this towards the Victorian Literature Challenge. Technically, James was American, but he moved to England in 1876 and published The Turn of the Screw in 1898, and Queen Victoria didn't die until 1901. Therefore, I say that this counts.

Bookalicious

2011-04-08T17:10:00.001-04:00

Yes, it's been another long week of me saying nada. My excuse this time is rather embarrassing: it's taken me a week to read The Turn of the Screw. Correction: it's taking me at least a week, since I still haven't finished. Why? Well, because I thought that ghost stories were supposed to be scary. And, you know, feature ghosts.

Anywho, despite my pathetic page count from the last seven days, there has been some bookish activity in these parts. In the past week I've purchase five, count'em five new (to me) books. Yeah, yeah, doesn't sound like much, except when you consider that that's at least as many books as I've purchased in the last year due to post-college poverty, my excessive to-be-read pile, and my occasional and new-found use of the library. Feast your eyes, my bookish friends.

Sorry for the glare! I tried as hard as one can without actually moving.

The top three don't look new, I know, due to the fact that they're used (duh). The "thrift" stickers probably tipped you off to that (they had better come off cleanly). The bottom two are actually new to the world and are thanks to an unwanted $25 Barnes & Noble gift card that my mother sold to me at the low, low price of $15 (I introduced her to the library too and she took to it like a donkey eating a waffle*, which I combined with a friend's 30% employee discount.

Anywho, the goods (from top to bottom):

1. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling: I know very little about this book and I bought it completely on a whim. Abebooks (where I bought this and the next two titles) sent me an e-mail about Steampunk literature and as soon as I saw the word "Victorian," I was sold. I am a little bit disappointed though: I hadn't realized that this was a mass-market paper. I prefer trade, and due to being mass-market this shows the wear a little more, but it was under $4 including shipping so who am I to complain?
2. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde: This was only slightly less whim-like than the above. Red at What Red Read mentioned it and since it sounds like a bibliophile's wet dream (it's a literary mystery [literally] in which characters are kidnapped out of books), I was sold on the spot. Again, less than $4? Why not?!
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: I probably don't have to explain this, though I do have the added reason of needing a 21st century classic for my Reading the Classics challenge. Judging by the hype and the fact that it's actually literary, I'm thinking this might fit the bill.
4. Party Vegan by Robin Robertson: I have been ogling this book for months (I even went so far as to copy a recipe out of it once...shhh! At least I finally bought it!) and have been desperately desiring a new cookbook and I finally had the excuse I needed. YAY! This book consists of 24 menus for variously themed parties, along with substitutions and suggested additions and oh man I think I just wet myself. In case you are unaware, I love feeding people and I love dinner parties. (To clarify, I am technically a vegetarian though I prefer to cook vegan 97.39% of the time. The other 2.61% of the time, I crave eggs. And then there's ice cream...)
5. Gramatically Correct by Anne Stilman: So French people really super-duper extra know their language to the point where the living statues in Parisian parks have no trouble correcting your grammar (which by the way is super stressful), while Americans know little about the English language except how to butcher it. This is not a good thing. Combine that awareness with the fact that I tutors kids in reading and writing and am constantly trying to find new ways to explain what a past participle is and why you can't say "My friend baked a cake and they really liked it" (are you really surprised to hear that most of my examples include cooking and/or eating?) and you might begin to understand why I want to read a grammar book for fun. I also like grammar and correcting people's grammar and now I'll be so much ~~more obnoxious~~ better at it!

This post may be far too long for what it is but oh well. At least you weren't once my roommate and thus subjected to repeated displays of how pretty my new textbooks were (except for you, Robin).

*That image comes to us from my husband and whoever he stole it from. I certainly would not want to steal credit.

The Cider House Rules ~ John Irving

2011-04-01T12:04:00.000-04:00

This morning, I finally finished the book that I blamed yesterday for my recent dearth of blog posts. Though I've occasionally intended to read John Irving, I never actually got around to it until a review on The Blue Bookcase finally gave me the impetus to make it happen. In response to my comment, Christina suggested that I choose A Prayer for Owen Meany or The World According to Garp as my first Irving novel, but I'm not going to lie: I fell in love with the cover of The Cider House Rules the second I saw it and I knew that I had to have it. Yes, I do judge books by their covers.

In addition to beautiful cover art, The Cider House Rules (TCHR from here on out) has a nice heft to it, somewhat reminiscent of many a Victorian tome. This is a substantial book, both in size and content, and has more than a passing resemblance to a Victorian novel. Not only does Irving make repeated references to novels by Charles Dickens (Great Expectations, David Coppefield, and Little Dorrit) and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), but he seems to model TCHR itself on Dickens' style (okay, I've only read A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, but it definitely reminded me of the latter). TCHR flows in and out of the lives of many, many characters, some of whom occupy mere pages, others that are present from the first page to the last. Irving even upholds the Victorian tendency to be vague on the exact timing of the novel, never letting you know the absolute year (i.e. 194_).

Though the form may be somewhat Victorian, the content is decidedly not. While there's no real plot to speak of, the issues of abortion and non-traditional family arrangements pervaded the novel. In terms of abortion, Irving presents a persuasive defense of not exactly the act itself, but of the choice (or lack thereof) to help people. I won't get into too much detail here, but Irving is very level-headed in his presentation of this argument. This is a really great read for anybody who is conflicted over this issue, if only because the novel's discussion of it is so calm. The other aspect that I found so intriguing was the variety of family arrangements that I found: the life of an orphanage, families with non-biological children, families with just one or as many as three parents, homosexual partners, and incestuous relations are what immediately come to mind, but I'm sure there were even more combinations represented in TCHR. What's really amazing is how many (thought not all) of these work. I don't think there was a positive description of a single nuclear family, yet family is everywhere.

As for his writing, I think that Irving might be a turn-off for quite a lot of people, though he wasn't for me. Remember that old maxim, "show, don't tell"? Irving never heard it. He is constantly telling us about his characters and while often this kind of thing bothers me, I thought that Irving made it work. Just like with his non-traditional families, sometimes breaking the rules isn't such a bad thing. Other potentially off-putting qualities are how very omniscient the narrator is (generally I prefer free indirect discourse, though the omniscience isn't as bothersome as I may often find it) and how long and rambling the novel is (rarely an issue for me). Looking back at this list, I find a lot of similarities to what I saw in Anna Karenina, yet somehow Irving made it enjoyable for me whereas Tolstoy just irked me.

One issue I did have with TCHR was how Irving dealt with time. As I mentioned before, he never gave exact dates, yet this often seemed rather silly due to the fact that he referenced fixed historical events, like Pearl Harbor. Not surprisingly, this kind of ruined the effect. He seemed to realize that and, as a result, made time even more shifty in other ways, like having a child who can barely speak and is small enough to easily be carried around by another small child in spring, be big and strong enough in the fall to carry another baby and a box up a hill, all while speaking as fluently as his lisp allows. The effect of this was only to make me confused as to who was who and what happened when. The time lines of the various story lines don't match up perfectly but I don't think they were so off kilter as to make this example actually make sense.

All in all though, this was a really wonderful novel, in terms of writing, story, and presentation of real issues. It was definitely worth the impulse order from Amazon. I can't wait to read more by Irving!

Have you read The Cider House Rules? What did you think?

The Literary Blog Hop: Predisposed Books. Or something.

2011-03-31T18:32:00.000-04:00

Alas, my lovely readers, it has been too long. And I say that too often. The problem is that lately I keep reading behemoths, so the time between reviews is longer, and my work schedule is making me steadily tireder (more tired?), meaning that I have to choose between reading and blogging and usually I choose reading. Because really, how can you blog about books without reading books?

The Literary Blog Hop to the rescue! I generally feel compelled to answer, especially when the question is really good (like this week's!) and am thus at least temporarily lifted out of my blogging slump. This week, the ladies at The Blue Bookshelf are asking us:

Do you find yourself predisposed to like (or dislike) books that are generally accepted as great books and have been incorporated into the literary canon? Discuss the affect you believe a book’s “status” has on your opinion of it.

My relationship with "the classics" is, like most relationships, not as clearly defined as one might like and fraught with roadblocks, though at the end of the day we still come back to one another. I don't exactly feel like I should like the classics because of how they're generally viewed, but their canonization does make me feel that I should read them. I pride myself on, at the very least, being honest in my opinions and unaffected by what I'm "supposed to think," but sometimes the conflict between the two does leave me with a slight feeling of embarrassment and even guilt. Why didn't I like it? I must have missed something! Maybe I should reread it (ahem)!

I think I've moved into a slightly different place so I'm just going to drag myself back. In terms of new books that get a lot of hype, that hype can heighten my sense of disappointment. I find that books are rarely as good as people say they are, and if I don't love a book that has been really hyped, I get so disappointed that my opinion is lower than it might have been if I'd just randomly picked it up. This is why I have yet to read Room, though I desperately want to. The fact that it's all hard-cover and expensive doesn't help either (I do accept literary donations).

Do literary hype and accolades affect your opinions of the books you read?

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Peeves

2011-03-22T20:59:00.000-04:00

Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature hosted by the ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. It's been a few weeks since I last participated, but I just can't pass up this week's topic: Top Ten Bookish Peeves. My list includes anything related to books, from the content to the cover. And away we go!

A new caption. I appreciate the cuteness.

1. Stickers. You know how some bookstores like to put stickers on books and those stickers refuse to come off cleanly and then you're left trying to find a way to wash the gooey residue off your book without damaging the pages and it's been weeks and you haven't even gotten to page one because you're so busy trying to make is look pretty and why god, why do they do this to me? Barnes & Noble is pretty good about not destroying their products - their stickers are like window clings and come off cleanly - but nearly every other bookstore does this and I hate it. I also include publisher stickers in this, like when Oprah decides that she likes a book after they've printed a trillion and it's too late to put her seal on the cover so they make up for it by using a sticker. If it's not part of the actual cover, I don't want it there.  Phew, I've been wanting to say that for years.
2. Movie covers. That's lovely that the book has been made into a movie, but that does not mean that I want Nicole Kidman staring at me from the cover of my copy of The Hours for the rest of my life. I saw a copy of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro that just had the DVD cover. The back of the book actually had the movie's rating and everything. Seriously?!  I will go out of my way to not buy books with movie covers, which usually means refusing to buy them in the store and then forgetting to order the appropriate copies online, meaning that this tendency has prevented me from reading many a book. Good work, book cover designer people.
3. Eyes. I abhor most of what authors have to say about eyes. No they are not the window to one's soul, that sparkle is just a reflection, and you can not look into somebody's eyes (plural). Your eyes track together; therefore, you can only look into eye.  What is meant by this trite and unimaginable imagery is, I believe, expression. The wrinkle or widening of the skin around one's eye can tell you something about their feelings but other than that, tears are the only way the eyes can express emotions and even they don't spring out of the eye itself. Biology, people. Leo Tolstoy did this constantly in Anna Karenina and it drove me up the freaking wall.
4. Blurbs. Don't get me wrong, I like reading the blurbs on the back of the book. But when they only focus on a tiny bit of the novel or provide some very specific detail that doesn't happen until the last chapter that leaves you wondering for the entire book when it will happen, that is what I like to call a failure. A brief summary of the main plot points and/or characters without giving away anything crucial is what we're looking for. The blurb on the back of my copy of Silas Marner is so ridiculous that I feel the need to share the first line: "This story of redemption through is one of the most perfectly constructed novels ever written; it fulfills almost all the requirements of the ideal narrative." It goes on to list every quality of the novel that makes it admirable yet except for the first four words we hear nothing about the novel itself. Who thought that this was a good idea? And what exactly are the "requirements of the ideal narrative"? Subjective and useless.
5. Books whose contents don't live up to their covers, AKA misleading cover art. I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for a good cover, but I've been burned. The quality of the cover and the quality of the content should be directly correlated.

Okay, I only hit five but I think that my lengthy rants should make up for that. Forgive me? What are your bookish peeves??

Silas Marner ~ George Eliot

2011-03-16T14:49:00.001-04:00

I found this picture on Google
images, but it's identical
to my mother's copy.

I had had Silas Marner on my Barnes & Noble wish list for years, never making it a priority but always having a vague sense that I wanted to read it at some point, when, while searching my shelves at my parents' house for my copy of A Christmas Carol, I came across it: an old copy, decades older than me, with my mother's maiden name inscribed in the cover, in her script that clearly hasn't changed in nearly half a century. The cover price is 50 cents, it was published by a mysterious publisher called Airmont Books, and the only date I can find is the Airmont copyright of 1963, meaning that she read it at age eleven. I thought this a bit young but she confirmed it. Who am I to question the required reading lists of the 1960s? Every time I picked the book up (which admittedly was not many, as I finished it quickly), I peeked inside the cover for a look at my mother's name, checked out the price, and reveled in the experience of possessing this long-forgotten spot of literature from my mother's youth.

In addition to admiring the decrepitude of my copy, I also read Silas Marner. The best word that I can come up with to describe it is quiet. It takes place in a quiet little village tucked away in the quiet little countryside, to quiet little people who may possibly think that there's nothing else out there, that their world consists of no more than what they can se. Sure, stuff happens, some really dramatic stuff in fact, but Eliot doesn't allow this to tear these quiet little characters' worlds apart; in fact, what could be destructive is actually healing: losing his money releases Silas from his miserly ways; an mother addicted to opium dies in the snow, allowing her daughter a better life and releasing her from the shameful existence through which she drags herself.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

This isn't the journey to finding a man and also some cash story that typifies much of Victorian literature. Sure, Silas finds his gold at the end of the story and little Eppie marries, but these plot points are not the point of the novel. What is the point of the novel, you ask? Well, as with anything that's well-written it's hard to say, as often there is no one point, but I would say that there is a bit of a message there: happiness and poverty are not mutually exclusive. When Eppie marries Aaron, she confirms that the poor life she grew up in is the life for her. Money, though nice to have, isn't necessary for her happiness. Hard work and love are what matters.

It's a beautiful story with an excellent lesson that peeks out of the page without clobbering you. Short and sweet, it's definitely worth a read and probably, due to its length, an excellent choice if you've never read before read anything by George Eliot.

**EDIT**
I completely forgot to mention that Silas Marner counts towards all three of my challenges! Win!

Giving Up

2011-03-13T07:05:00.001-04:00

I have a confession for you, my dear reader: I sometimes give up on books. This is usually due to difficulty with the style, though sometimes a really off-putting plot or a character who demands no empathy whatsoever will do it. I try to avoid it, I really do, but sometimes I just can't take another word. I try to slog through, but if I'm having a really bad time with a book, I generally will put off reading it until later, only read a page at a time, and generally just stop reading altogether because I tell myself that I can't start anything new until I've finished this, but I'm not actually reading whatever "this" is. At some point I just need to make that decision to give up. Life's too short to not enjoy what you read, especially when you read it for pleasure.

That's not to say that I give up forever. I shelved Peace Like a River back in early 2007 because I found the narrator dull and the religious rhetoric overdone and obnoxious, but recently gave it a second chance and made my way to the end (though my initial opinion didn't really change). Anna Karenina, which I just devoted six weeks to, has been on my try-again shelf since 2004ish, thanks to two failed attempts to formulate any interest in the story and a slight difficulty with the writing. With AK this time around, I did have some slow periods where I avoided reading it (hence it taking me six weeks) but I got through them and even had times where I read voraciously long past my normal bedtime.

It's been a while since I last did it, but I'm sad to say that I just gave up on another one. The Sound and the Fury, which I've failed at once before, is just too much for me right now. Surprisingly, this time around I had no problem with part one (which is narrated by a character with severe mental handicaps) and actually enjoyed it once I got used to the time jumps (and took a glance at the wikipedia page), but part two proved too much for me. Time jumps in the middle of sentences and the sheer lack of "he said / she saids" was just too painful. Add into that the early arrival of my now-current read (thank you Amazon), The Cider House Rules, and you have yet another literary failure on my part. I do plan to go back to it, maybe even as soon as I finish the Irving novel.

I think part of my problem is that I haven't been reading much if anything that was written since I was born and it's overloading my brain. Not that the American English of 90-200 years ago is so different from what I'm used to, but maybe too much of the slight extra effort it demands is overwhelming. I don't know. But The Sound and the Fury is, at least temporarily, is reassuming it's spot on my shelf, right between Lolita (another double failure) and July's People. All three are on my TBR challenge, meaning that I must succeed with at least one if I am to have any hope of winning the challenge. Of course, reading is about challenges as much as it's about suffering through books you're not enjoying just for the sake of being able to say that you've read it, but what can I say? I like winning and I like reading, and giving up on books demonstrates neither.

What about you? Do you have to read everything to the very end or do you sometimes allow yourself to give up in favor of something you might really enjoy? Do you ever get back to those books that you gave up on?

Paula at The Broke and the Bookish recently blogged on this very topic, so hop over there if you want to talk about this some more.

The Road (film adaptation)

2011-03-09T16:13:00.001-05:00

I read The Road a couple of years ago, while being a full-time nanny to my niece and therefore needing hope in something like the apocalypse to get myself through the day. Kidding! (Kind of.) At that time, I had only kind of heard of it and mostly picked it up on a whim. I proceeded to spend the next two-three days completely absorbed in it, reading it at every opportunity, until I was done. Needless to say, I loved it. It was so absorbing and incredible and I don't know what else to say because let's face it, writing a book review four (four?!) years after the fact is a pointless waste of time.

Enter the movie. I'm a little late on this, I know, but Netflix just delivered it last weekend so what can I say? I am morally opposed to paying theatre prices (yes, I know I saw Black Swan last week but we had free tickets thanks to hard-earned credit card rewards).

I thought it was bleak, in an oh-my-god-why-is-it-so-unredeemingly-dismal kind of way. It was quite true to the book, as far as I remember it, except without all those words and imagery to get in the way. Instead, it was just one gray, depressing image after another that had me wondering why humans seek the kind of entertainment that we do. Most of it doesn't make us happy after all. The conclusion I came to was that we like to feel, feel strongly, and that is what this movie does. It filled me with disgust, horror, revulsion, sadness, empathy. And I guess it was good, at least as far as book-to-film adaptations go. My big issue with it was that it seemed like it was just a spectacle of horrors. I saw little to no character development (the man thinks with his head, the child thinks with his heart, and both are true to these characteristics to the very end). It was just bad thing, bad thing, bad thing, oh wait a good thing but that's only because an even worse thing is coming, bad thing, and Viggo Mortensen's naked ass. Powerful in it's own right, but not broad enough. I think the words really make a difference in this kind of story because more than bleakness exists in even the bleakest of written thoughts, whereas the image of dead trees covered in gray ash under a gray sky are little more than that.

It was worth my time, but I'm glad I didn't waste my Discover rewards on it.

Literary Blog Hop: Laughable Literature

2011-03-03T22:19:00.000-05:00

No, that doesn't mean literature to be mocked; rather, it means literature that makes you laugh, which is the topic of this week's Literary Blog Hop, hosted by The Blue Bookshelf. More specifically, the question is:

Can literature be funny? What is your favorite humorous literary book?

Honestly, I found this to be a rather odd question to which my initial response was, Why couldn't literature be funny? But I suppose that that's not a very productive answer, so I will say a bit more.

First off, yes. Literature can be funny. "Literature" and "classics" don't need to be the stuffy spectacles that you remember from high school English. Perhaps literature tends to be a bit more serious than, say, (okayI'mhavingtroublethinkingoffunnybooksstallingstallingstalling) The Bathroom Reader (which really never was very fun and did not inspire to linger on the toilet for as long as the title would suggest). That said, literature tends embody writing that is more - sophisticated, perhaps? Clever? Multifaceted? And why can't one of those facets be humor? I for one am a big fan of subtle humor, especially when layered in with not-so-humorous circumstances.

Examples, examples... The first that comes to mind is Pride and Prejudice. This is probably a pretty common one; in fact, it was mentioned by Lucia in the title post, and with good reason: there are bits that are laugh-out-loud hilarious, and they're not particularly rare. For those who don't see the humor, I recommend that you watch the BBC version of the movie. It's very true to the book (so true, in fact, that it's six hours long) but it'll really help you catch the comedy. This was my first Austen novel and I will admit that I found it perfectly free of hilarity until I heard the humor and realized that it was there all along.

I'm currently reading Silas Marner, in which George Eliot uses humor in a similar way: it's slightly mocking in tone and doesn't around with bells and a banner that says "I am funny, hear me chuckle!" However, I've laughed out loud a few times already, and I'm only halfway through.

There are endless examples, but I won't ramble. What literary works do you find humorous?