Snow Angels

Arthur Parkinson, a fourteen year old boy lives in a world of struggle in strife throughout his family. His parents constantly fight and argue which soon leads to their divorce. The family seems to be where a lot of Arthur's story comes from. His family is turned up by the divorce, and while his sister is gone away more struggle continues. This struggle really workss to contrast the setting nicely. It is a dreary winter in 1974 somewhere on the east coast. This setting really works to the mood of the book. No one in this book ever really seems to be happy it is just solemn and somber. He participates in the school marching band, and one day hears a gun shot. He knew that it was a 22 caliber but did not know who shot it or who was shot. He soon learns that it was his old babysitter Annie. This crushes his world a little bit more. He loved Annie like a family member. 

The book is told by Arthur Parkinson as an adult, who then looks back on his childhood. It also switches back and forth from his perspective as well as Annie's. Two stories going on at the same time, which then link together. The commonalities of their stories are very similar. They both have family struggles. The key component to this story is really the family. Once the family starts falling apart problems begin to arise. This book is a story of how one boy deals with tragedy and heartache.

Stewart O'Nan's Snow Angels was an awesome read. The way narration switched up was really cool. When Arthur's story was done being told, Annie's would come in. So you would just want to know what is going on in each of their lives. It was a relatively short book and quite easy to read. It had a mature message, but yet easily understandable. Overall, this book should be read by people who are looking for an edgy book. 

The Shack

You can only imagine the emotional turmoil that comes with the loss of a child. Especially when you have come to find that they have been brutally murdered, and never recovered their body. Mackenzie Allen Philips youngest daughter Missy is abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the outskirts of the Oregon wilderness. After a long investigation and numerous hours of grief and sorrow Mack begins to make the transition back into his old life. Years later, during a time of great suffering and sadness, Mack receives a mysterious note, inviting him back to the cabin for the weekend. [Apparently from God] Now he bears the question of whether it is nothing but a foul joke, or a spiritual send. Going against all that he had fought to avoid, including the return to a place of loss, Mack arrives at the shack, and finds himself in a battle of whit and perseverance. After a great emotional struggle Mack finds himself on the porch steps, peering back into his greatest nightmare. What he is yet to find will alter his life forever.
Not only is The Shack a book of intensity and mystery, but it wrestles with the timeless question: “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” I believe that this novel would be better enjoyed by someone who is semi-religious. Though it deals with a brutal murder and timeless mystery, it also includes many spiritual references as well. For someone who is even slightly religious I think that this book is a good read, it poses spiritual questions, yet neglects to push you into an uncomfortable state. A good deal of the dialogue is about the problem of evil, but the novel touches on everything from the Trinity, Incarnation and the nature of free will to the nature of relationships, forgiveness and even the role of our imagination.
While I found the writing to be chunky and somewhat predictable, I enjoyed the overall literature and message. While I came to enjoy the book, and found it to be enriching, others have come to discover the book as diminishing to their religious state. All in all, I think that it is mainly about the way in which you look upon the novel. If you go into the book searching for strict biblical reference then the book isn’t for you, while on the other hand, if you enter upon the read with an open mind you will find the outcome satisfying.
Overall, I thought that the book was enjoyable and easy to read, it mends the gap between tragedy and eternity. I am not a very spiritual person, yet I understand many basic principles and found the book inspiring. It opened my eyes to a different view. Throughout the book I laughed, questioned, and at some points found myself trying to drown out my emotions and swallow the lump that was forming in the back of my throat. I greatly enjoyed this book, and encourage others to read it as well, keeping the spirituality bit in mind. Anyone who does read this, I hope that you enjoy it, and that I haven’t bored you to much with this blog, because it truly is a phenomenal book for anyone with an open mind and a liking for a quick mystery filled read.

Book Report---Steppenwolf

Finally got this up here...it's kinda short, but I really didn't want to give anything away...

So for winter break I read Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. Hesse was a German writer reknowned for novels such as Siddartha, The Glass Bead Game, and Narcissus and Goldmund. His final novel The Glass Bead Game is considered his best work, but Steppenwolf is regarded as a fine novel.

The story revolves around the character Harry Haller, a man who considers himself a "steppenwolf." This name is derived from the phrase "wolf of the steppes," but refers more to the behavior or belief of a man being both a "man" and a "wolf." The plot itself is relatively easy to understand, (a disenchanted man attempts to deal with a middle-age crisis in the time before he has set that he can kill himself) but the way it is presented causes a great deal of confusion. As the story is told from the point of view of Haller, we only understand what is going on in his head, but that is quite a misleading statement. The events of the plot unfold into an evermore confusing sense of sheer experiential overload.

Harry is meets a series of characters who begin to try and bring out his positive side, the side that wants to live. The plot culminates in a barrage of scenes that led to this book being embraced during the 60s. The psychadelic scenes create a very confusing point where the reader doesn't really understand what's real and what's not.

However, one thing is certain, this book is incredibly visceral. Every experience is meticulously described (though not on the scale of Flaubert, but I think we can all agree it is better that it isn't) in such a way that you can almost feel like you are taking this journey with the character. The version I read had a racy cover for its time period, but after reading this book, the cover is somewhat fitting. The content of this book deals with suicide, humor, sex, and the self. All of which are somewhat represented on the cover. Yet, I am glad that it gives absolutely none of the plot away, as it is amazingly written and would make little to no sense had you not followed what was going on from the beginning.

I highly recommend this book for any who want an enchanting, well-written read. The characters are so interesting and Haller's journey is one that seems to appear in almost any religious text. The plot evolves throughout the pages and definitely keeps you reading the entire time. However, this book is not without its problems. It is incredibly difficult to read at first as it is written in a very similar manner as Mrs. Dalloway, with no chapters and very view breaks. The ending is incredible, but hard to understand at first. I encourage everyone who wants to to pick up this book as an introduction to Hesse and some of his opinions. I am going to begin reading as many of his other books as possible and I believe that most who read this would do the same.

Snow Crash

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson takes place in a future California where the government and all organizations for the general good have fallen, giving way to super-franchises and a somewhat “every man for himself” environment. That’s not to say it’s some kind of on-the-streets-survival story. It is a complex mix of techie futurama, ancient Sumerian myth, deep religious controversies and conspiracies, and a human side, from intense life-or-death fights to love. In the center of it is computer hacker/samurai swordfighter extraordinaire Hiro Protagonist. In the Metaverse (a computer generated very realistic world), he is a legend, but in Reality, he lives in a 20-by-30 U-Stor-It unit. It is a strange world, to say the least, made stranger still when a physical/mental/digital virus is set loose.

Many of the themes are in fact from Stephenson’s own childhood. He was born Fort Meade, Maryland, the home of the NSA and the National Cryptology Museum, to an electrical engineering professor and a biochemist. His grandfathers are a physics professor and a biochemistry professor. This background is apparent in the 10 novels he has gone on to write, all of which are along the same vein as Snow Crash, a mix of “science fiction, historical fiction, maximalism, cyberpunk, and post-cyberpunk”. Snow Crash was his breakthrough book, first published in 1992.

The story is very complex one, as most of his seem to be. It addresses not only what is listed above but also a great deal of major social issues and who knows what else. Yet his style keeps it from ever being boring, indeed, Snow Crash is a definite page-turner. It is written in semi-omniscient third person, with the focus switching from Hiro to Y.T. (though it’s mostly on Hiro). Despite its complex content, Stephenson makes the novel easy to read, which makes it even more enjoyable. The writing is done so that it does not distract the reader from the plot, by being either noticeably well done or not so well done. Though I have no doubt Stephenson could craft beautiful and elaborate sentences if he wanted to, the book has enough going on without that. Snow Crash is definitely one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I’ve never heard of anyone not liking it (though that’s not saying all that much).

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

“She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swam before… Edna had attempted all summer to learn to swim [and now] she was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with overconfidence.” (47). Edna’s discovery of her own strength in The Awakening not only mirrors the overlying theme of the novel, but also foreshadowed the public’s reception of the Kate Chopin’s novel that was published in 1899.

Edna Pontellier is married to “Mr. Pontellier…the best husband in the world” (15). She is mother to two children, Etienne and Raoul. The Pontellier family lives in the City of New Orleans and spends the summers in Grand Isle, a beach community off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. Although seeming to be the epitome of the perfect family, it is “inwardly disturbed without causing any outward show or manifestation” (31). While most women of the time “idolized their children [and] worshipped their husbands”, Edna “fail[s] in her duty towards her children” and, unbeknownst to Mr. Pontellier, also fails in her duty as a wife (16). Edna Pontellier assumes “instinctively the dual life- that outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions” (26).

Throughout the novel, Edna’s search for her identity frees her away from the “indescribable oppression” placed on her by society. After the summer at Grand Isle, Edna “realize[s] that her present self- was in some way different from the other self”, and overthrows “the self-contained” life of “hopeless resignation”, of “harbor[ing] thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves” (14, 31, 45, 79). Edna “reliev[es] herself from obligations”, by rebelling against “her marriage to Léonce Pontellier, [that was not for love, but] purely an accident” (156, 32). In despondency and unhappiness with her life, Edna devotes her time solely to self-satisfaction. She ditches all responsibilities and all expectation held for her, abandoning her motherly duties and engaging in affairs.

At the time that this book is published, “this is what you would call unwomanly”, that Edna’s adultery “add[s] to her strength and expansion as an individual” (175,156). Although The Awakening was initially condemned and removed from bookshelves and banned from bookstores, the novel that was “daring and reckless” in 1899, is now acclaimed for its unprecedented bold step into the minds of women. Kate Chopin unearths the predicament of wives that are regarded by their husbands as “a valuable piece of property”, who, like Edna, refuse to exist as a mere “possessions to dispose of” (175,178). Chopin expresses satisfaction not only on a materialistic level, but also on a deeper level of emotional and sexual fulfillment as well. Rather than having two sovereign inner and outer beings, “two contradictory impulses”, Edna, like most women today, seeks an “advanced stage of intimacy [that consists of a] camaraderie” between the two.

The Awakening is a strong novel that is interesting when it is contextualized with the time period in which it was written. I was at times frustrated with Edna, and at times I sympathized with her. Her epiphany regarding life and love is somewhat juvenile and selfish, but also upholds a level of validity that is depressingly applicable to real life. Edna’s conflict is shared with the reader, and even now I wonder whether Edna was wrong to act in accordance to her feelings. On one hand Edna Pontellier is a “courageous soul that dares and defies”, but society has also placed upon her “a barrier which her unaided strength would never be able to overcome” (190, 48). The Awakening is not a feel-good novel, but it renders an interesting conflict between emotions and perception with regards to society. In many ways, the tone echoes theoverlying theme overlying theme. The novel is slow, depressing, and frustrating; at the same time it is candid and compelling.

Catch-22

Like Max previously mentioned, Catch-22, according to the MPs, states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating, and so is basically a nightmare of bureaucracy. It is also a paradox, which is repeated many times throughout the novel, such as "The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him." One of the biggest Catch-22s in the novel is that everyone needs a certain number of missions before they can go home, but after you get those missions, the command raises the required number, forcing everyone to do more missions, and lessen their chances of coming home alive, "The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live."
Most of the novel is set on the island of Pianosa off the coast of Italy, during World War II, but flashes back to the Great Siege of Bologna for a small part of the novel. power Along with Yossarian, a bombardier, we meet a wide range of interesting, and their are few minor characters. These men all belong to the Fighting 256th (or "two to the fighting eighth power") Squadron.
Like Yossarian, Heller was a bombardier in Italy during WW II, and although he was touted as a hero at home, felt more like the anti-hero. Many of Yossarian's bombing runs, like Hellers, were "milk runs", and both felt that it was fun in the beginning, but later became cynical.
This cynicism is evidenced in the style of Heller's writing, and he seems very sarcastic, and disgust at the levels of absurdity found in the bureaucracy.
While Catch-22 may look a bit intimidating at first, large book, very small words, I found that once you got into it, the chapters just started to flow by. I really enjoyed the witticism and the sarcastic language found throughout the novel, and highly recommend this novel to anyone who likes a book that has the capacity for you to lose yourself in it. These very real characters all lend an air of realism to the novel, and it isn't very hard to find yourself laughing at one of Yossarian's many plights.

Bel Canto (Holiday Reading)

The novel Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is a tragic, yet romantic story of a South American hostage situation. These are not the usual kinds of books that I would choose, but I actually enjoyed reading this. This is the kind of book that you can read and enjoy while it also contains literary merit. It is fiction and has a grasping story line but it also has the in between the lines ideas that you can discover and go into more depth of. It starts off the book describing a party where a performance just ended and then a passionate kiss in the dark. As the book continues on, we find that it is actually a terrorist attack were everyone is held hostage. In the home of vice president, Ruben Iglesias, there is a birthday party that is being hosted for Mr. Hosokawa. Mr. Hosokawa is a very powerful businessman who loves everything about opera. When his daughter, Kiyomi introduces him to Roxanne Coss by accident, he falls in love. For his birthday performance he is very excited to find that she is their entertainment for the night. According to him she just has the most beautiful soprano voice he has ever heard.
After the terrorists fail at their attempt to invade the party and take the president, they are kind of stuck in a situation they are not really sure what to do with. Since the president chose not to attend the party and was not there to take, the terrorists did not really have another plan. They did not have any intentions of killing anyone, but they felt that they couldn’t just let everyone leave so they kept them and tried to slowly let people leave. First they let all the women leave except for Roxanne and then they started to interview people and see whom they needed. In order to do this they find that they need a translator. Mr. Hosokawa’s translator, Gen then steps in and becomes probably the most valuable person at the party. At the start of all this, the people were scared but as the story moves on relationships were formed. It changes from a scenario of a perfect evening that is ruined by a life-threatening experience back to a thing of beauty. Throughout the book, as the terrorists and hostages spend more time together, they begin to form a bond that seems inseparable. They obtain friendships, new love interests, and lifelong acquaintances. The most amazing and beautiful part of this scenario is that all these people are from different parts of the world and speak different languages. Even with all of their language and cultural barriers they are still able to work with each other to learn to love and care for one another.
The author of this book, Ann Patchett started out as a young girl wanting to become a writer. As she grew up she was introduced to many opportunities. She sold her first story to The Paris Review where it was published before she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. From there she continued to write and publish in renowned pieces of literature (newspapers, books, magazines, etc.) With her novel, Bel Canto she was awarded the Pen/Faulkner Award. It was also a New York Times Bestseller. She has also won the Orange Prize and the Nashville Banner Tennessee Writer of the Year Award for some of her other works.
I really enjoyed reading this book and would definitely recommend it to others to read. Although it is a romance novel, it also is kind of a drama and keeps you interested and wanting to read on. Bel Canto is a novel that is written in third person suspense. Due to this, it helps you to want to continue to read on. It also has a good, easy to read story line that you can just read and enjoy while at the same time it helps you to obtain new literary understanding. After reading this book and talking to Mr. Lavender, I found that this book is actually based upon a real event. There was a Peruvian terrorist attack that occurred much like this one that Ann Patchett found interesting and based her writing upon that. Now that I know that, I would really like to look into that and compare the two circumstances. This is a very good book that I would recommend to someone who wants a quick read while also getting something out of it.

Fight Club Book Review

            The Novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk brings the reader into a world of characters going against the “norm” and fighting consumerism. The novel takes place in modern times and follows the life of an anonymous narrator suffering from insomnia. His doctor believes insomnia to be mild and not serious, and thus makes the narrator go to support meetings for people who actually suffer. There he meets another “faker” in the form of Marla. They agree to attend different meetings, and shortly after the narrator meets Tyler Durden. They become close friends and one night, decide to create a Fight Club. A club to exert male frustration, no women or “manners” allowed. Tyler begins to perform attacks on corporate America through “Project Mayhem”.  The struggle begins for the narrator to decide between what is right and what people tell him is right.

            The Author, Chuck Palahniuk, has said that the book is based of fight he participated in while camping. The novel was originally published as a short story and shortly after, 1996, published as a full novel. It won both the 1997 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and the 1997 Oregon Book Award for Best Novel. The novel eventually was made into a cult favorite movie in 1999 starring Brad Pitt and Edward Morton. The writing style of the novel is fairly simple, focusing primarily on story line and less on literary techniques. His language is realistic, giving the characters more personality and believability.

            I strongly recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick and exciting read. The book is about rebelling against what is normal or what you’ve been told to do. The characters go against what the world tells them to do and form a club without the influence of anybody but themselves. They unleash their feelings, anger, and frustration after a life of following the rules of corporate America, their mothers, and the people around them. In the beginning the narrator is a slave to his superiors and job. Through fight club and meeting Tyler Durden he breaks that tradition, he comes alive in a new way, but the main question is was it worth it?

            Fight Club is a definite page-turner and has twists and turns that will keep anyone entertained. Fans of the movie should defiantly check out the book, and those who haven’t seen the movie should read the book first. 

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

An interesting tale of the Price family, dragged to the Congo, heart of Africa, by Nathaniel Price -vigorous Baptist priest intent upon bringing the souls of the Congolese to the purity of Christ- that contains many tragic, comic, and shocking adventures. Kingsolver has re-invented her own childhood experience in the Congo in an alternate reality. Her parents, medical and public-health workers, took her on this exploration for every other reason that the Price family has ventured the the equator.
Beginning in 1959 and continuing throughout the time that the Price family spends in Africa, everything is a first person narrative. However, there are five voices. Orleanna, wife and mother, speaks at the opening of each new book, (Genesis, The Revelation, The Judges, Bel and the Serpent, Exodus, Song of the Children, and The Eyes in the Trees,) and her timeline is one of memories. Throughout the days and nights spent in the village of Kilanga, her daughters, Rachael, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May narrate.
Racheal is 16, arrogant, vain, and paints her toenails without her fathers permission. Leah and Adah, 15 year old twins, are brilliant in their own ways. Energetic Leah wishes she was a boy, and carries her bow and arrow with pride - much to the dismay of the cultural rules in Kilanga about women. She listens to her father's great sermons and wishes to be the best in his sight. Adah is silent and "crooked." Hemephlegia is the disease that keeps her 'left...behind.' The right side of her body is entirely limp and according to the doctors, her brain should be in the same condition. She is also brilliant, but because she feels betrayed, she chooses to never speak. Albeit, her voice is the most eloquent and innate. Ruth May, innocent and hilarious 5 year old, votes for Jesus when the Chief of the Kilanga tribe, Tata Ndu, decides that the congregation must vote for who they will worship: Christ or the Gods of the Kilanga people.
The novel is a commentary on the line between righteousness and doing the right thing. Instances of ignorance, arrogance, and stubbornness stress the importance of keeping an open mind, and loving all people. It is set in a very pivotal time period of history, where the Civil Rights movement back in the United States is mentioned, and there is war in the Congo.
For me, this novel had a strong theme about God’s will, and how things that go wrong aren’t punishment. Instead, it was a reassurance for me that we are tried and tested so that we can be very strong people. This is just my opinion though, and I would recommend you read it to develop your own ideas of what this book is saying. I absolutely loved every moment of it, and if you decide to read it, I hope you love it too!

P.S. How's this for procrastination Lavender?

Neuromancer

Neuromancer by William Gibson is an amazing novel, and while it is more of a guy book that doesn't make it any less of a fascinating read. It is full of excitement, violence, sex, drugs, etc. but it is also a book that could be used on the AP Lit test and is thus awesome. Neuromancer follows two main characters: Case and Molly. Case is an ex-super hacker, but because of a job that went bad he can no longer access the cyberworld. He now makes his living illegally smuggling items such as RAM, which is for some reason hard to come by and worth a lot.. He also spends much of his time doing drugs. He is given a once in a lifetime chance to be healed by a revolutionary new process as long as he agrees to reenter cyberspace as a hacker under the service of a man named Armitage. Molly on the other hand is an assassin for hire. She is full of cybernetic grafts, such as retractable razorblades in her fingernails, lenses grafted into her eye sockets that allow her to pull up maps, see infrared, etc. She is a badass. The two meet after Armitage hires Molly to capture Case. Armitage ends up employing both of them and has a fairly interesting back story himself, but that would be a large spoiler. After this Molly and Case end up working together to steal a few things for Armitage. The book is told almost entirely from the point of view of Case, but it does change perspective very cleverly. Case can access special implants in Molly's brain to tap into her five senses, so while it is told almost exclusively by Case, you do get more than one perspective (that might actually make for a good essay on the Lit exam). It isn't until roughly half way through that you really begin to understand what is going on, so in that sense this is sort of like a mystery novel. Once you do understand the plot though it becomes an even better story, not that it was bad to begin with.
As for setting there really isn't a definite one. It takes place sometime far in the future, but it never specifies when. The novel also takes place in several locations ranging from Tokyo, to India, to South America, and even into a space shuttle.

In this novel the original ideas of the internet, virtual reality, cyberspace, cybercrimes, etc. were all first developed. It is often considered to be the father of the cyberpunk genre. The character Case is also now a stereotypical model character for many other cyberpunk protagonists.

All in all, a fantastic novel with interesting characters, settings, and devices. Now one of my favorite books, and good enough to be considered "of literary merit" too!

1984

            George Orwell’s 1984, is a horrible vision of the world where the totalitarian government is controlling almost everything. Written in 1948 George Orwell displays a nightmare vision of a society in London, which in 1984 is known as Oceania. The main character is Winston Smith who works for the Record Department of the Ministry of Truth. His job is to change all the written documents and change them the way the party wants him to. He also makes sure to get ride of all of the documents of the people that get vaporized. Winston’s job is to change the history, and nobody knows the real history of Oceania (London). While Winston works for the government he hates it at the same time. For having thoughts like this you can get killed by the thought police. The Thought police can vaporize you if you have any thoughts trying to conform against the government at any time.

            As all of this is going on Winton is hiding a love life from society. Winston is married, but then they moved separate ways and never got a divorce, so they are still legally married. Winston is in love with a younger lady named Julia who also works in the same office. They have meetings in secrecy so they don’t get in trouble with the thought police. They move locations every time they meet and they keep their love life secret from everyone, which is a crime. Also there is a group called the Brotherhood that looks out for the people and makes sure that the government doesn’t overtake all the civilians’ rights.

            That is just a brief description of all of the events that happen in the novel 1984. This novel is written in third person, and is an easy read. I feel that it would be a good book to use on the AP exam this is because it creates a good vision of what could happen in a totalitarian government. Overall this is one of the best books I have every read and I give it three thumbs up and recommend it to everyone.

            

In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead.

An excellent fictional novel that has gone unnoticed for too long is about to come into light for all who read this post. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke is a mysterious novel about a movie crew that moves to Louisiana to film a Civil War epic. The story follows the sheriff, Dave Robicheaux, in which they are shooting the film and he is on the edge of loosing his job, as his past in the New Iberia, Louisiana Police Department has been far from successful. But when this movie crew comes to town, his luck changes direction as he steps into some new information regarding crimes in the area.
The story begins with the discovery of a body in the woods near New Iberia. It is Cherry LaBlanc, a black nineteen year-old pole dancer and prostitute, who has been brutally tortured and disemboweled. No one even tries to believe what LaBlanc is saying, nor do they even care, as to the time and history of the area they are in. Many of the events that take place in this novel happen in the minds of the characters in the novel, especially Robicheaux, his dreams and internal dialogues are the most prevalent ways to understand what he is thinking. One dream consists of a black man that is chained and later driven into the water, where he is shot; another is of Confederates camping and sitting around a fire in the woods. Robicheaux’s dreams go on to prove themselves central to the plot. The first thought upon discovering this novel was that it was going to be an excellent read, even though one is not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but as i looked further into the pages i discovered that this had all the makings to fulfill my initial thoughts. I strongly suggest this novel to anyone who likes to read mysteries also enjoys reading the internal thoughts of the characters, rather than a read full of dialogue.

Fight Club

I completely agree with Danny, that everyone should, some time in there life, read Fight Club.I bet you haven't read anything like. It is "A powerful, dark, original novel". It's one of those books that really makes you think and will opens your mind to new ideas about society.Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk, starts out in first person of an average business man. You learn that he has minnor problems like insomnia, he is a neat freak, and he is obsessed with buying consumer goods that he has no need for, but you never learn his real name. He hates the life that he is living, but he does nothing to change it. He feels like a prisoner of his own body, stuck doing his daily routine and is forced to fit in with society. He starts to break is daily routine by attending support groups for people with cancer and different kinds of deadly diseases, even though he is healthy. He finds out these group meetings help him release his emotions and, for the first time in his life, he is able to cry. This leads to him getting more sleep. When finally he starts to feel a little better about his life, he meets Tyler Durden. Tyler is every thing he is not and as soon as he meets Tyler, he wishes he could live Tyler's life. Together they founded fight club. Fight club is a way the average working men can release their inner anger by meeting every weekend in a basement of a bar and fight until the other opponent is beaten to a fine pulp. This was a start of a new life for him and Tyler and Fight club was just the begging of "good" things to come. I strongly recommend this book.

Fight club

Up until the publication of fight club, Chuck Palahniuk struggled to find an agent or publish any of his books. His first two books were rejected, the first one never went anywhere and second was rejected for it's disturbing content. Fight Club was his third book and his most famous one. Just a little background information on the author.

Fight club is centered around an anonymous main character who has insomnia and hasn't slept in a long time. In order to explain things easier I will call him Jack. Jack works as a product recall specialist for a major car company and lives in an ordinary apartment. He focuses on material objects like furniture and kitchen appliances that he orders off of ikea catalogs. He hates the way his life is going but he doesn't try to change anything. He starts to attend support groups for people with testicular cancer, brain parasites, and so on. He finds that these support groups allow him to cry and in turn sleep. One day while on a business trip, he meets Tyler Durden. Coincidentally, Tyler and Jack both carry the same suitcase. When Jack comes home he finds that his apartment has been blown out of the building. With nowhere to sleep and nowhere to go, he calls up his friend Tyler. After having a few drinks at the bar, the two men stand outside in the parking lot and Tyler asks Jack to hit him. Tyler tells Jack "How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight before?" They start to fight it out and some other men observe. Eventually they have a whole group of guys fighting in the parking lot. The next night they move it down to the basement of the bar and fight club is born. Fight club is kind of like Jack's new support group, just like the testicular cancer one, except instead of releasing his feelings through crying he releases his feelings through fighting.

 Tyler lives in an old, dilapidated building half a mile away from civilization in every direction. Tyler hates consumerism, anti-consumerism is a big theme in the book. He makes a living as a soap salesmen and his main ingredient in the soap is fat. At night, these two men run over to the liposuction clinic and steal bags of fat. Tyler's soap making skills are also used to make bombs (this will tie in later in the story). I can't go into much more because I don't want to ruin the book for anyone, I highly recommend that everyone read this book. This is the kind of book that you can read over and over without getting bored, same goes for the movie. Each time you read it you will pick up on little details that you didn't catch before, and in my opinion, this book teaches you some valuable lessons. Underneath all the violence and destruction, there are some important lessons to be learned through this book. 

Snowcrash

Ok, so there has already been one or two blog posts about this book. I am going to add another one and go ahead and say that Snowcrash, hands down, was the best book i have ever read. There is something brilliant in the way the story takes readers into the future, but with some sort of Old West style storytelling. In the Future, life is much different. The story takes place in L.A which has long since ceded from what remains of the United States. What does remain part of the United States is controlled largely by Corporations, Entrepreneurs, and organizations. The auto industry seems to be dominant.

Our Protagonist is actually named Hiro Protagonist and he is a pizza delivery boy for the Mafia and also claims to be "The last of the Freelance Hackers and the World's greatest sword fighter". In Hiro's World the internet has given way to something called the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a vurtual reality based alternate dimension where people can create their own "avatars" or characters to live as in the Metaverse. It's basically a giant online video game.

Anyways, to avoid any more plot summary i'll wrap it up. Snow Crash is an epic novel of epic proportions filled with action, humor, and a lot of sword fights. I'd recommend it to anyone who is either interested in science fiction, government conspiracies, or just some good action.

The Beautiful and Damned

The book The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the unknown gems in Fitzgerald's repertoire. The reader finds themselves following the life of Anthony Patch as well as the entire post-war generation. A generation who lived their lives whimsically and without considering the consequences to their decisions. Just like the rest of his generation, Anthony Patch isn't career driven, rather just sitting on his assets, waiting for his grandfather to die to inherit his money; instead of searching for his own source of income. Which later comes back to haunt him.

Along this story Anthony finds true love, Gloria. For once Anthony understands why people would want to settle down and stay faithful to just one person. His life prior he would see girls for an extended period of time but never want to fully commit. The relationship between Anthony and Gloria was full of glamor and desire. However their relationship also follows a pattern of the seasons. Just how in Mrs. Dalloway scenes changed with the time, moods changed with the seasons. In the summer they move out to their country home and just as summer brings high spirits and whims, is similar to how they their life out in their summer home. They are in love and have high expectations of the illusion of their frivolous lifestyle. However once the leaves start to change and the weather gets colder and the magic in the air is gone, feelings change, as they realize that they have to go back to reality and keep waiting for Anthony's grandfather to pass so they could inherit his money and live comfortably without the stresses of reality. They all have a misconception of what happiness is.

There are unexpected twist of events that keep you turning pages and intrigued. The style in which Fitzgerald wrote this story was very easy to follow while keeping it engaging and fun. It is told in the 3rd person. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed The Great Gatsby. The plots are very similar, with a misconception of what wealth and happiness is, but the two stories are very different as well.

Thus far I really enjoy reading this book. I find it very poetic and smooth to read. The plot structure Cunningham uses with the three women makes the book very interesting. It holds your attention all the way through and makes you wonder how they all pertain to the larger picture. Although Cunningham is somewhat modernizing Woolfs Miss. Dalloway i enjoy his use of Virgina Woolf as a character. She may be a fictional character but there is a perose to it. It gives us a different perspectuse angle to anilitacly look at Miss. Dalloway. Mrs. Brown, Ms. Dalloway and Virgina Woolf are all meaningful characters that are interesting to read about. I am exited to learn more about the rest of the book and how it unfolds between these women. At the time they are nearly entirerly seperate with few relations like the novel Ms. Dalloway. I commend Cunningham in reproducing Ms. Dalloway and adding in his own twist and plot to it. They are deffinetly different novels but have many relations. I like it so far.

Huxley sure is brave with his new world...

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a representation of what Huxley perceived the world to be like many years from now.  Set in 632 AF (after ford), the reader is introduced to a dystopia in which birth by conception is not an option, but babies are produced in a factory setting.  One egg generally yields 96 identical babies--some gender neutral and others mentally disabled--while some eggs have been known to generate upwards of 17,000 babies.  In this dystopia, the residents are ruled under a totalitarian state directed by 10 leaders.  Since the entire world (save a small Indian reservation in New Mexico) is part of the same group, the world is not plagued with things such as war, disease, poverty, and pain.  As children, the residents are subjected to mind control while sleeping to prepare them for lives as an adult in this distorted world.  As adults, residents are cast into five different social groups, depending on their social status and abilities (ie. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epilson.)  Upon classification, the members of the society are completely happy with their assignment.  Everyone is this world is very bland and similar, the only differences being their social classifications.  As for the point of view: I enjoyed how this book was written; a third-person view point really allowed to reader to understand what was going on in all facets of the book, rather than just through one person's eyes.  

Aldous Huxley, born July 26, 1894 in England was a very prominent writer during his time.  A writer of many different types novels, essays, short stories, travel essays, among other literary works, Huxley has received many merits for his works.  Huxley, although a humanist and pacifist, was known for his advocacy of hallucinogens, and was named the spiritual father of the 'hippie movement'.

This story by Huxley attempted to provide a look through Huxley's eyes of what he thought the world would be like many years from now.  This distorted view of our world today is scary, but the fluctuations that we are seeing in our world present day makes this book seem not too farfetched.  This story really makes one wonder what is the fate of the future of our world.  Although my generation will not live to see a world like this, it is definitely a possibility for the far future.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I chose One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to read over winter break after hearing good reviews about it from many people. The book is extremely well written and very interesting. It is set in a mental hospital that is run by Nurse Ratched. It is narrated by a man in the mental hospital named Chief. As he narrates, he includes some things that haven't even occurred. One day, Mr. McMurphey comes to the hospital and is basically the trouble maker. He is constantly challenging the authority of Nurse Ratched. The book goes into detail about the lives and daily routines of the men in the mental hospital. Even though there is so much detail and description, the reading goes by very fast. It's interesting to hear about every hour of their lives in that institution, and it makes the reading even more intriguing. 

At first when I was reading about Mr. McMurphey, I thought that he was the normal one in the mental hospital. However, after finishing the book, it made me realize that one of the purposes of the book was to show that everyone, even the people who are considered "normal" and who are not "insane" are actually "insane in their own way. What defines "insane"?

Slaughterhouse Cinco

Slaughterhouse-Five

Over the two week Christmas break I read the novel Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It is a novel about a man named Billy Pilgrim who happens to be schizophrenic looking back on his experiences and tragedies he suffered while being a POW in WWII. He was sent to the Battle of the Bulge where he almost immediately was captured behind German lines. One thing I found odd about this book but also interesting was the fact that Billy Pilgrim would “time shift” to a later part in his life where he was also abducted by aliens and sent to the planet Tralfalmador. On this planet he was observed as a sort of zoo animal, and he had no chance of escape for the atmosphere of Tralfalmador is made up of cyanide. Then he would switch back to the times when he was taken to a POW camp in a slaughterhouse during the firebombing of Dresden, Germany. He is one of the few survivors out of a whole incineration of 135,000 people.
I would have to say I enjoyed reading this novel. It was around 300 pages and it went by really fast. Although I would have to warn anyone who considers reading this or any of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels that he is a little nutty from World War II. He actually witnessed the firebombing of Dresden so its understandable that he could possibly be suffering from PTSD or “shellshock” as they would call it in WWII. Vonnegut was actually a POW who was put in Slaughterhouse number five by the Germans. Ironically animals would go to a slaughterhouse to get killed but in this novel the slaughterhouse was a shelter preserving the only lives in the entire city of Dresden. But once you get past that fact that Vonnegut is a little crazy, the novel actually becomes filled with hilarious stories and irony. All the factors of Billy’s odd life really make this book a trip. At times I found myself bursting out in laughter either at irony or just for the reason that the plot was so comical. A very funny part in the novel was when Billy Pilgrim was on Tralfalmador with another abducted woman named Montana Wildhack. They are having sex for the first time and the Tralfalmadorians find it so amusing. This book is an anti-war satire, filled with amusing stories leaving you intrigued and not able to put the book down. Everyone else I have talked to about this novel enjoyed it deeply except for one person who ultimately couldn’t stand Vonnegut’s style of writing. At times it got a little weird, for instance, whenever someone dies (which happens a lot) the sentence always ends with “so it goes”. This book also contains funny limericks, which you will find yourself repeating and laughing at days later.
All and all I found this a great book to read over break. And I had no troubles finishing it before the break ended. I would have to say I have a fixation for war novels rather than any other novels, but still it doesn’t contain much gore or blood at all. So yes I would recommend this to all who can stand a weird but hilarious anti-war satire.

The Protagonist

Snow Crash....awesome book, the only book I've ever really gotten into, there is only one word to describe how I was feeling throughout the entire book...I was feeling pretty epic. If you like video games or even some random samurai battles you will absolutely love this book. The book takes place in L.A during the 21st century. The main character, Hiroaki Protagonist, former Mafia-employed pizza delivery man. He is involved with something called the Metaverse which is a MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Game. I can't tell much about the book but I can say that you need to atleast give it a chance!

The Jungle

The Jungle is a novel, written in 1906, depicting the horrible conditions of life in the Chicago stockyards from the point of view of Jurgis Rudkus. The author, Upton Sinclair, spent six weeks among lowest and poorest of Chicago as research for this book.
Jurgis moves from Lithuania to Chicago with his fiance's family and his father with hopes of riches and prosperity. But as they first set foot upon America, they begin to get scammed and cheated. When they make it to Chicago, they are lost and helpless, but are luckily reunited with a friend from Lithuania who helps them. The family gets settled down, but the men are immediately forced to go and find work. After they do, they situation begins to go downhill. Injuries, death, and crime plague them as they struggle for money.
As a Socialist, Upton's scenes of struggle are meant to act as Socialist propaganda and as protest to wage slavery. However, the largest response that the book received was horror at the atrocities in the processes at the stockyards and factories. Though few pages are dedicated to it, the depiction of using the hogs dead of cholera, the tubercular cows, the poisoned rats and on occasion how a person might fall in the vat of lard, etc these caused an outcry of the people and government. A direct result of The Jungle was the passage of the Pure Food Laws. There was no increase in socialist vote and the revolution didn't appear to be any closer, there was only a great commotion about the production of meat. Sinclair said himself, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.". However, he did achieve, as his editor pointed out, " a permanent and constructive reform in an industry that touches and affects every human being"

The Jungle is relatively easy to read, the print is small and the pages are crammed, but the story moves well and you are never out of touch with the struggle of the characters. This is a realist novel that, if you are having a bad day, will force you to realize and appreciate how lucky you are. This novel also helps you understand what socially was going on in the late 1800's and the early 1900's. I would recommend this book to all because even if you dont appreciate it, it will give you a culture shock and expand your perception of working life in America.

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll

This novel is written in the 1st person and it is a story set in the 1960s about a teenager between the ages of 12 through 15. This teenager’s name is Jim Carroll who is also the author of this book. Growing up stealing, getting high, playing basketball just trying to make a name and find a place for himself Jim also at the same time learning how to survive in the streets of New York. He is virtually alone after unexpected obstacles occur in his life, and he just gets sucked in deeper and deeper into this life style and it is slowly taking him over. Post reading this novel I pondered on all of the things that I visualized while reading and everything seemed so real to me. But what intrigued me the most after reading The Basketball Diaries wasn’t so much what I thought about it but it was what other people thought. I decided to look up why people liked reading this book. The results weren’t what I thought they would be. Mostly all of the people who have posted anything on the internet or blogged about The Basketball Diaries have said that this book actually helped them through and get over any drug addiction that they have previously been burdened with in their lives. And this fact was very interesting to me, not so much about The Basketball Diaries itself but that a piece of literature can be so nourishing, and literature to these people seems almost like a placebo to their addiction.

Purple America

Purple America, by Rick Moody, is one of the best books on grungy, sad, pathetic American life. Life where your dream car is a Honda, where you know local heroes like the manager at the nuclear waste plant, and where old women pee in their sleep in the booths at diners usually found off the turnpike. Purple America is a day in the life of a woman who is getting ready to die. Along the way we meet her stuttering son, Dexter, who drinks continuously, his main squeeze of the day, Jane, a waitress at the diner, and the old woman’s ex-husband, who has recently abandoned her due to the strain her illness was putting on him. We jump around in perspectives, which is usually disjunctive, but Moody smoothes the transitions to aid readers along. His language, informal mainly, but full of a boisterous voice, carries the somewhat plain story along to keep everyone alive, quite literally. There are parts that are completely expository; exploring the earlier days of Dexter’s childhood. Then there are parts where you wonder, “What the…” as Dexter cleans areas of his mother in the bathtub, which generally should never be explored by a son. The characters are no different than the people you meet down at WalMart or Denny’s, who check you out as you buy pads and tampons, or as you order questionable over-easy eggs. Readers, who have flipped through any of Chuck Palahniuk with vigor, will for sure see Rick Moody as a pleasant, if not more stimulating read. Anyone else who has begun to feel quite pathetic lately will also smile as they realize they are not scrubbing someone else’s near-death-mother in a tub. A generally good read for anyone bitter and sarcastic who like other’s personal pain. Rick Moody grew up and studied in the East Coast, mainly around Connecticut, which leads to no surprise, is where a majority of his novels are set. His other works include Garden State and Ice Storm but the most positive reviews have been given to Purple America.

Brave New Wold

The book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a tale about a future society trapped in conformism. In this society babies are created artificially in assembly lines, are conditioned by hundreds of repetitions of government propaganda during their sleep, and are decided by their conditioning whether they are Alphas, Betas, Deltas, or Epsilons- varying levels of intelligence. God has been replace with Henry Ford, who is worshiped as was Jesus. The people are kept happy through a routine of taking government prescribed hard drugs when unhappy, and government sponsored orgies. One of the repeated lines is "everyone belongs to everyone else", encouraging everyone to have sex with each other. Monogamous relationships are considered a terrible sin, and the word "mother" is the worst that could ever be said. This life of status quo is challenged when a disillusioned Alpha, Bernard, brings a "Savage" into the midst of this harmonious society.
This book is not are particularly challenging read. The writing is fairly straight forward, except for one interesting chapter in which Huxley tells three stories at once, switching point of view in a fairly poetic style. The book is timeless in its view of a possible future, one that with increasing scientific research into the genetics of babies is becoming less and less "sci fi." The book looks at conformism, sexuality, religion, tradition, technology, and happiness and looks them in new ways, making all of them seem more superficial and less important than we would claim they are.

Prodigal Summer

Barbra Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer creates a natural beat of unity through a wildness that celebrates the spirit of human nature. The essence of this story weaves together three stories within a changing web of life, found deep in the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is genuine feeling of connectivity through nature. Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist, watches the forest from her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin where she is caught off-guard by Eddie Bondo, a young hunter who comes to invade her most private spaces and make her realize that she can love something other than the fauna of the outside world. On a farm several miles down the mountain, another series of leaves unfold as Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly widowed in a strange place where she must choose between her old life or lose the land her late husband treasured. A few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the complexities of a world neither of them expected. Over the course of a single summer, discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one part of life on earth. The characters are knotted together by the complexities of life, love, religion, nature and relationships.
Barbara Kingsolver is a writer praised for her "extravagantly gifted narrative voice" and has written a total of twelve novels. Throughout the sixties Kingsolver grew up in the “alfalfa fields” of Kentucky and later graduated from DePauw University in Indiana. She originally majored in biology, but after taking one creative writing course she found her true love. Prodigal Summer was nominated for the 2002 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, which is only one of the many accredited awards Kingsolver has received for her writing. Kingsolver's fiction continues to be rich with the language of her native lands (Kentucky) and some of her other titles include The Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams and Pigs in Heaven.
The style of the novel allows the reader to gain perspectives from three different points of view. Initially, the characters seem to have no relation to each other, but as the book progresses their stories become more connected. Kingsolver’s “Kentucky accent” shines through, and the book reads like it’s straight off the farm. The story itself depicts the realities of life and skips the elegance in which some writers try to sugarcoat true meanings. Although the three stories interconnect well at the end, the beginning of the book seems to almost be like a “warm up” section for Kingsolver, who crams quite a bit of action into the last hundred pages.
Overall, Prodigal Summer was a solid read, however, it was not the most inspirational or life changing novel that I have ever read. I recommend it to those who love the natural aspect of life and enjoy reading about the fundamental relationship humans have with their environment. The book’s accurate descriptions of the outside world along with a central core for human nature provides for a distinct story. Prodigal Summer is like the intertwined web of life, depicting separate lives in relation to the bigger themes that connect us all.

Dog Soldier

In the Novel Dog Soldiers, by Robert Stone, John Converse bought and stored heroin on his friends Merchant Ship. John was a journalist in the Post-Vietnam era, he realized that the American soldiers would get addicted to heroin, so he planed on smuggling some into the U.S, using his wife as a dealer and Ray Hicks, the Merchant Ship Sailor, to smuggle pass U.S customs.
John pays Mr. Hicks to give it directly to John’s wife on arrival in Los Angeles.
Mr. Hicks makes it through to the land but quickly discovers he is being followed. Mr. Hicks thinks about two scenarios of why they could be following him, John had been double-crossed by his suppliers or if John betrayed him to get him caught. Marge, addicted to painkillers, is John’s wife and she sells the drugs once in L.A.
I’m not going to ruin the end for you but I hope this gives you a clue about the book.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Over break I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, written by Haruki Murakami. It starts with a very normal man named Toru Okada, and his not-so-normal wife, Kumiko. Their cat, Noboru Wataya(named after Kumikos brother), has just disappeared and to Kumiko, this is somewhat upsetting. This single event, the disappearance of the cat, sends Toru Okada off on an exploration of Japanese mysticism and a journey through his own dreams. This novel highlights a personal struggle and the things it takes to bring Toru Okada closer to the meaning of the strange events unfolding all around him.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is written in a very sporadic style. When dealing with Toru Okada, the passive protagonist, it is all told from a first person point of view. This makes parts of it very high-paced and unpredictable. It is a very effective way to tell this particular type of story because it limits what you know to almost nothing. You know what Toru Okada knows and nothing more. The style in which many of the characters socialize also has a very surreal, dreamlike articulation to it. There are many points in the novel where even Toru Okada cannot discern dream from reality.
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan and has lived all over the western world. That is one of the many things that has attributed to his world renown and extensive collection of works. To date, Murakami has written 16 novels and a handful of short stories. Not much is known about Murakami due to the fact that much of his life is yet to be translated from Japanese. His 16 novels have been translated, but most literary critics will argue that, by reading it in any language other than Japanese, you are being screwed. It is a fact that the English translation of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, done by Jay Rubin, is missing 2 chapters and an endless list of small details. That is one down side to the version I read and it is something to take into account.
As far as a clear recommendation goes, I highly recommend that you read this book. If you like erratic, metaphysical storylines this book will keep you wide awake and intrigued, although, it is not a short read by any means. It runs at about 610 pages and took me about 4 or 5 days of intense reading to complete. It is meant to be read quickly and in large chunks. There are too many small details, and it is far too interesting to be read over the course of a long time. Simply put, you will either finish it quickly, or not finish it at all. So, once again, I recommend that you go pick up a copy of Haruki Murakamis The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Three Deffinates

First, I read "Mister B. Gone" by Clive Barker. For those of you who read this and dont recognize Clive Barker, he is mostly a horror and grusome writer. He does indeed know how to draw in a reader though. The first sentence says "Burn this book." He says how it will make you mad. Thats what intregued me. As i got ferther and ferther into this book, I could not put it down. I dont want to give it away though, so im only going to say what its about. It was about a Deamon who got caught by a human and brought from the ninth circle to the world above, and it goes through his struggles and how he got trapped inside the pages of the book. Now I know, I know you think that it sounds lame and cheezy, but it's better than it sounds. I for instance, really liked it. But if you don't like things that are about death, murder, blood...... just grusome things, then you arent going to like it. But I find humor in it somehow, so I really liked it. I'm not sure how many people besides me, and perhaps Christian (hehe), would like this book.

I went through that book so fast, and was so exited to not have an assigned book, that I chose another.

Second, I read "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher. This was a really easy read. I finished it in about 3 days. It was really enjoyable for me. By reading my reviews, I'm sure that you are going to think I have a really messed up mind, and am really into sick things, (and I'm not saying im not cause I am), but I like these kinds of books WAY more than books on love or war. So Jay Ashers novel was about a girl named Hannah Baker who made thirteen tapes to explain her death. It was put in perspective of one of the people that were mentioned in the tapes, and who really liked her. She sent these thirteen tapes to all of the people mentioned in the tapes, in the order of disaster. She called it the "snowball effect." She stated how one persons actions lead to others which made her miserable and lead to her suicide. It is a really good book as well, but I really liked it. In fact, I could read it again!

So for the third book that i kind of wanted to read was going to be one that I could possibly actually use on an AP exam. It is called "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. Im not done with it yet, but so far its not bad. It's a little hard to get into, I'll admit that, but I know that it is going to get better, becuase there are only good reviews on it. It is about a man whose mom just died, and he gets drawn into his own murder. Now im still in the first 50 pages, so it's still slow, but im excited to finish it. It's just getting interesting and even though I'm not that far into it, It, i do recommend it as well.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns is a moving tale written by Khaled Hosseini that tells of two girls' stories as they experience struggles in Afghanistan.  The novel opens with on of the girls, Mariam who begins her troubles young as she lives with shame of her parents not being married.  After a lonely childhood Mariam travels despite her mother’s order with intentions of finding her father.  When Mariam arrives she is not allowed inside her father’s house.  After being ordered home Mariam is devastated when she finds heart-wrenching news, which leads her back to live with her father.  Once Mariam is sent to live with her father, an arranged marriage is set despite Mariam’s protests.  As Mariam struggles with the married life we are introduced to Laila, a lonely young neighbor who lives down the road from Mariam. 

            Slowly Laila and Mariam begin to confide in each other and build a relationship that provides them with hope through their hard times.  As Laila discovers a love for someone that leads to a pregnancy she loses multiple members in her life, leaving her lonely and confused.  Mariam and Laila’s relationship takes a unique turn when Mariam’s husband has a request that complicates the situation between the three characters.  Laila is forced to live against her beliefs in order to survive as she keeps a grave secret that could potentially put her life in danger. 

            An unexpected visitor causes a horrific fight between Mariam, Laila, and the husband, Rasheed. The consequences of this argument costs one of them their life.  The events of the novel show that the friendships you develop in life can surpass the most challenging obstacles.  The intriguing plot leaves the reader on the edge of their seat while providing for a loving and honorable story that brings the reader’s emotions to the pages.   This complicated and emotion filled plot creates an insight to what life would be like in a third-world country.  Hosseini creates a story that involves the culture of an unfamiliar world with the familiar emotions that we are faced with everyday. 

            I would recommend this novel to those who like a suspenseful and beautiful story.  Hosseini creates a unique plot that keeps the reader intrigued while providing descriptions of a culture that most people are unaware of.  Through out this novel, the characters are taken on an emotional journey of what it takes for a friendship to survive while enduring the hear break of loses and surprises.  If you enjoy a quick read that creates a new plot while also connecting with the characters, then A Thousand Splendid Suns is a great read for you.   This book is interesting and is extremely humbling for those who have never been exposed to an alternative lifestyle.  I recommend this book to everyone because of the emotional connection you develop with the characters while enjoying an interesting plot. 

         

The Grapes of Wrath Book Review

Despair, poverty, and determination take on a whole new meaning in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The true emotions of the 1930’s American citizens are captured by Steinbeck as he follows one man’s journey through the infinite dust bowl. The effects of the Great Depression, the consequences of the Industrial Revolution, and the results of excessive cotton production have taken their toll on rural Midwestern farmers. As dust accumulates on dehydrated crops, money dissipates from people’s pockets. Thus, the giant move west occurs. Steinbeck gives the reader a genuine taste of life at this time.

The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize, and Steinbeck later won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 “...for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and a keen social perception.”. Steinbeck wrote this piece in California, where he spent much of his childhood. After working for nearby farms and truly getting a sense of the working class, Steinbeck went on to attend Stanford University. After discovering his love for literature, he moved to New York, only to discover that the publishing of his works there would be nearly impossible and returned to the West Coast. Many of his books were about the human psyche in relation to national events.

Although The Grapes of Wrath starts slow at first, it builds as one reads on, while at the same time engaging the reader. The detailed descriptions of life in the thirties are unsettling, yet also enlightening. As one reads the minute depictions of the “dirt crust [breaking] and the dust [forming]” (2), one begins to understand how treacherous life was at this time; the time when a penny meant a whole lot, and hard work stood for something. Steinbeck tells it like it was in a style that is entrancing. While marveling at Steinbeck’s imagery, one is also captured by his style of writing. Chapters begin to intertwine and sentences start to overlap, creating a puzzle-like feel throughout the novel.

This classic should be read world-wide, for it gives readers an idea of life beyond their own. An accurate depiction of 1930’s life in the Midwest, this book portrays what it was really like to be an American farmer at this time. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is willing to expand their range literarily.

The Alchemist Book Review

Every time you open a new book, you open a new world. A world where possibilities are endless, where the unimagined is imagined, a world that can be anything you want it to be. That’s the beauty of books; they’re always up for interpretation. When my dad first handed me The Alchemist my mom told me it was a "stoner" book. Instead of discouraging me from reading this “stoner” book I was enthralled. Needless to say it turned out to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. We open on a scene of a young man, sixteen or seventeen, trying to use a book for a pillow. We are quickly engulfed in this young man’s thought tangent. We quickly learn that this young man is a shepherd, wandering the open fields of Andaluasia with his flock of sheep. From just the first few pages we learn so much about this young man’s life. We learn of his love for adventure, his lust for new things. We learn of his past and a little about his future. Half way into the first part our main character goes from a shepherd to a treasure hunter. Like all treasure hunters our character runs into some problems. Thieves, war, love, and settling for less than what he's worth, however, as with all heroes our hero overcomes these many set backs. The beauty of the Alchemist isn’t that this young man overcomes set backs to get what he wants, but rather it’s the manner in which he overcomes them. Instead of looking for guidance from an outside source, this young man looks within himself to find his answers to his problems. What I found to be the best part of this book wasn’t the adventures that Santiago embarked upon, or his amazing ability to bounce back from misfortune, but rather his amazing faith in himself.
Originally the book The Alchemist was published in Portuguese and translated into English, among other languages. Author Paulo Coelho has written 18 books including the Alchemist and his most recent novel The Winner Stands Alone. Before Coelho dedicated his life to literature he was a bit like Santiago, he traveled the world looking for secrets, studying oriental culture, and looking for some kind of spiritual guidance.
Since I had no preconceived sentiment regarding The Alchemist I was able to receive the author’s words without judgment. I was able to find meaning the perhaps would have otherwise been lost. I’m not going to say that every person should read The Alchemist, and I’m not going to say that it was the best book I’ve ever read. I will say that it held an inspiration that no other book I’ve read has ever held. I could tell you to pick the book up, I could help you decide whether or not it’s worth reading, but that would defeat the entire purpose of the book. One day if you happen to stumble upon The Alchemist in a book store, and you have fifteen dollars you might as well pick it up, who knows maybe you’ll find something in it that I didn’t.

Purple America

Rick Moody's work, Purple America, has one of the most exciting and at the same time seemingly pointless plots. Though the book is drawn out for many pages and it feels as if time is passing at an incredible rate, the author manages to make a years worth of hardships fit into a single weekend for one poor young man and his family. Moody throws in some interesting descriptions and perspectives to make time seem to have passed, or to relate to the past in such a way that time seems to flow just as easily backwards as forwards. In some scenes the book takes on a weird narrative perspective, in one point there is a page long sentence written entirely as a doctor's report. This young man, Hex (Dexter, who goes by Hex because of a fairly bad stutter that prevents him from saying D's and T's with ease) is summoned home by his long-time ailing mother who is only capable of speech and almost no movement. He is summoned home because Lou Sloane, his mother's husband recently became fed-up with her inability to talk, dress herself, or move, has left her to hit the road. Hex's problems all seem to revolve around alcohol, and he can't help himself especially when he comes to face the problems that he inherits by agreeing to take care of his mom. As he gives up his old life and prepares for a new one filled with dirty diapers and bathing his own mother, he also awakens a host of problems that time after time leave the reader with a feeling similar to "oh, so much has happened already, there's no way anything else could happen." However it does, and it continues to happen throughout the book. There are many ridiculous scenes, Hex up in a tree. Hex going to a bar with a sudden girlfriend who feels sorry for him. Hex attempting to have sex with this girl, and at times the book can be rather disgusting. The book also focuses on Lou's point of view and his own problems working at a nuclear power-plant, and the struggle in his mind about running away from a woman who cannot take care of herself. Billie Raitliffe also has a say in this book as it jumps from perspective to perspective, shedding light on what each character feels and thinks, and the problems they have in their own lives. The story ends with a wonderful gathering of the members of the family, a police officer, and the young girl that Hex spent the night with.
Overall the book left a fairly good impression on me, and there were some moments where I laughed out loud(received a few strange looks), something that is rare for me. It has the feel of an interesting literary read while at the same time following an exciting and intriguing plot. The narrative perspective adds an interesting flair to time, and also allows the characters, who at times are, or seem vocally handicapped an ability to share their thoughts. It incorporates such a strange plot that from the first moment on feels like a documentary in bad fortune. I recommend the book to people who are in to things that are a bit off the beaten path plot wise and at the same time enjoy some interesting literary switches. The reader must also have an ability to deal with strong language and a very strange sex scene. But the requirements for this book are few and most readers will probably enjoy this book and likely laugh out loud as well.

The Plauge

"The unusual events described in this chronicle occurred in 194 - at Oran." From the first sentence of Albert Camus' critically acclaimed novel, The Plague, you can tell narrator participation in the story will be crucial to convey central facts, events and character descriptions. Winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature, Camus goes on to describe events happening in the coastal Algerian town of Oran during the outbreak of a plague. He decides to focus on a small group of people who interact throughout the book, and the effects of the growing epidemic on each of them.

The story surrounds Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the prominent town doctors, and his relations with his patients and other town members. Tarrou is another “witness on the period” that the book revolves around: “his notebooks comprise a sort of chronicle of those strange early days we all lived through” (24). This phrase not only reveals the book’s structure and the fact that it’s “made up” of different collections and recollections, but also the odd narrative presence. Speaking as a witness of this plague, and using words such as “we” and “our,” the narrator’s identity isn’t revealed until the end of the novel.

As the pestilence escalates, communication with the “outside world” is shut down and the general public gets increasingly worried about the rising death toll and effects of the disease on the town. The core of the story revolves around the characters reactions to death and the rapidly spreading, fatal plague. Most likely based on the bubonic plague that occurred in Oran in the mid 19th century, this book focuses mainly on how a population deals with an epidemic and ultimately, the inevitability of life and death.

Overall, this book was pretty average in my mind. For some reason, I thought it was going to be as scientific as say, The Hot Zone, but I was slightly disappointed when I found it was more of a philosophical story with science at the core. Although Camus uses very eloquent language to describe his characters emotions and behavior, the detail of the plague and individuals the make up the central story isn’t extensive enough. In short, the writing style is very graceful, but my expectations were too high regarding the left-brain side of the novel. Because the book was written in the mid 20th century and set centuries before that, it’s completely understandable that the scientific aspect of the storyline isn’t very detailed.

Personally, I find the writing much too vague and almost disconnected to have any real attraction to the story and plot. Even though the premise is reasonably likeable, I feel that Camus doesn’t connect readers to the characters or events in the book. Although I understand the point of the novel is to convey Camus’ opinion on how the world deals with the absurd (people cannot find meaning in the universe because there is none), I was expecting more detail and captivating events, characters, or even basic writing. I’d recommend this to readers who like philosophy with a hint of science mixed in, but not to those who are drawn to a more factual, to-the-point style of writing.

Angle of Repose-Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose reveals the truth about impact from past generations of a single family. Narrated by Lyman Ward, an old man confined to a wheel chair because of an amputated leg, this novel merges the two stories of past and present to offer a sense of the development of life (in the West.) Lyman, intrigued by his Grandparent’s past and left with nothing else to do but investigate the lost generations of their discoveries of the west, rummages through what has been saved to create a story of the past.
His grandparents were pioneers, per say; out to discover and settle the west. Well, his grandfather was. After schooling to be an engineer, his grandfather, Oliver easily finds work out west, but before he leaves he meets Susan, a sophisticated young women growing up wealthy in the east. Oliver is first introduced as a rather mysterious character. Unlike Susan, we don’t know anything about him when we meet him. When they meet in the library their love penetrates through the words on the pages. Both characters, suddenly thrown into these feelings of enchantment decide on moving to the west, displacing both of them and throwing them into an adventure.
The book takes place in multiple locations throughout the west. The novel itself is broken into different sections representing different areas where the couple (and their children) lived. With this fracture in time and in place the novel was focused on the different stories of different areas. Throughout each section there is a constant shift in tone from the present to the past. Lyman, narrating the whole time, also talks about himself and his own present experiences. His son Rodman is simply a distraction, without an appreciation for the past like his father and only a constant worry of Lyman’s handicap, he plays an annoyance to our narrator. Shelly, Lyman’s niece, is hired to assist him in his investigations of the past. Her opinionated comments about the letters and records she reads and re-types annoy Lyman, but also offer good conversation. Shelly, though in a different way than Lyman, seems to appreciate the past.
Susan’s correspondence with her friend Augusta back home keeps reality about the time period in check. It is easy to get lost in the fantasy world of Oliver and Susan and all of their friends in the west, but Susan constantly expresses regret and consent to her friend Augusta. This change in tone, shifting from Lyman to Susan, makes the past seems even more real. I would highly recommend this novel for its complex nature of incorporating the past into the present and making neither seem better than the other, just simply showing a natural progression in life.

A Review of Cold Mountain

The Author:Cold Mountain was the acclaimed first novel written by Charles Frazier one of the only two he has written so far, and has also been traslated in to a motion picture however I have not seen it. Charles was born in 1950 in Ashvile, North Carolina, to Charles and Betty Frazier. He graduated from high school with an aspiration to teach literature and went on to obtain a M.A. from Appalachian State University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina in 1986.



Cold Mountain: Cold Mountain follows the story of Inman a deserting confederate soldier and Ada a heiress to a farm that once her father died fell in to ruin from Ada's lack of farm hands and her lack of knowledge how to do the work her self. Inman, being based partly on Charles Frazier's great-great uncle, W.P. Inman, eludes The House Guard, an organization to capture deserters and traitors and send them back to the front lines, and embarks a journey from a Virginia hospital to Cold Mountain in Tennessee made all the more difficult because he left before a wound on his neck could heal. All the while Ada struggles to stay a live by her self on her farm in Black Cove high in the mountains.



The novel as a whole: This book is an excellent quick read. Very well written. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a book for entertainment or those seeking another book for use on the A.P Lit test with not a lot of time to read.

The Sun Also Rises: the story our history books fail to tell

Quoting the poet Gertrude Stein in his epigraph, "you are all a lost generation", Earnest Hemingway preludes his novel, The Sun Also Rise, with a somber tone. Throughout this tale of a motley crew of expatriates traveling from Paris to Pamplona, Hemingway highlights the tragic loss of masculinity, the aimless wandering of the post World War I generation, and the unrequited love between multiple characters.
The story begins with a simple description of Robert Cohn: a Princeton graduate who was ostracized for being Jewish and ultimately falling prey to the claws of social-climbing women. However, through the narration of the main character, Jake Barnes, we discover more about Barnes than we do Cohn. Jake is a war veteran (unlike Cohn) who hides behind a complacent façade and only truly reveals his opinions and desires through his observations of others. After several chapters, we are also introduced to Lady Brett Ashley; a sexually independent woman who revels in her numerous affairs with various men (including most of the men in Jake's group of friends), Brett is immediately characterized as the most masculine of the bunch based on her sexuality and freedom from the need to commit. Though other characters are also thrown into the mix, such as Mike, Bill, Harvey, and Pedro Romero, these three are the essentials to the story.
Following the group from the alcohol infested night scene of Paris in the 1920's, to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, Hemingway allows for subtle conflict to explode violently. Each character is ultimately tied to the other through sex, the war, false friendship, of simply coincidental acquaintance. What remains constant, however, between the characters is a sense of lost purpose and, naturally, that they're all alcoholics.
Earnest Hemingway has been praised for his simplistic style of prose yet in this first book, it becomes strikingly apparent that Hemingway's attitude for "less is more" is undeniably correct. As a journalist and short-story author, Hemingway had already concreted his status as a writer before The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926; however, this novel became one of the quintessential stories depicting the postwar era of the 1920's. With ease, Hemingway eloquently describes the struggle between Jake and Brett and their unrequited love while also highlighting the loss of masculinity between all the male characters as they struggle to control Brett. It is perhaps, also, that in this simplistic style of writing, Hemingway more clearly conveys to the reader how lost this group of characters (and ultimately, his generation) really is. The dialogue between each character hides their true thoughts and feelings and is so brief it's a wonder they know anything about one another to actually consider themselves friends. Only through Jake, the narrator, do we hear the contradicting thoughts of a man who drowns himself in alcohol to make up for his impotence and lost innocence the war has taken from him. We can only assume that through the dialogue that Hemingway provides us, that each man (and Brett) struggles with the aftermath of the war either through denial, humor, sarcasm, sex, or massive amounts of alcohol.
This novel is horribly filled with angst yet a must read even for the most unromantic at heart. The simplistic style of Hemingway allows for a tragic romance that most high school boys wouldn't label as a 'chick novel' and ought to read simply to recognize a great writer and to truly understand an era that our history books do not adequately describe. Though most would term this novel a pessimistic one which highlights the darkest effects a war can have on a man, it is surprisingly optimistic in the end. As Hemingway wrote, "the sun also rises"; despite a lost generation that wanders around hopelessly in search of anything to fill the void the war has left in them, the Earth continues to spin and the sun continues to rise and fall, completely indifferent to our short comings and inadequacies.