More Books I’ve Read, But Haven’t Posted About

• The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje
• The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
• Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

 

Books I have Read, But Haven’t Posted About

• Race, Music, and National Identity by Paul McCann
  
• The New Negroes and their Music by Jon Michael Spencer
  
• Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
  
• Hoopla in Harlem! by Gregory Tillman
  
• Another Perfect Catastrophe by Brad Barkley
  

 

Back at Fort Literature…

Oh, my Honor’s thesis. It’s due April 11th and my defense is April 25th. However, before all of that, my reading list is due March 20th. It’s called a reading list, but really it need to be re-named because thesis writers are allowed to add other media, such as film and song.

It’s supposed to include at least twelve works. Specifically ones that have influenced or impacted us greatly. Something that’s changed our outlook. It only has to have had a profound effect on us, not necessarily a work that is profound in the worldly sense.

As an English major, one would think comprising this list would be easy. I think it made it all the more difficult. I was extremely critical of what I have read. I’ve read hundreds of books just in my college years. I’m supposed to narrow it down to a small list?

My reading list is something I’ve considered since the end the spring semester last year. It’s taken me nine months, but I think I’ve just about got it.

1. Watership Down by Richard Adams
2. Another Perfect Catastrophe by Brad Barkley
3. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
4. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
5. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
6. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
7. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
8. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
10. The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
11. Tombstone
12. Doctor Who, “3.5 Daleks in Manhattan” and “3.6 Evolution of the Daleks”
13. “My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors,” Moxy Fruvous, Bargainville

Whoo! Have the list! Now to annotate!

 

Beautiful Losers

Whew! What a contrast to the previous Leonard Cohen book I read (The Favorite Game). Not all contrasts are good. It is a good book and there’s no denying it’s content is interesting. However, the language and stylistic choices… The best word to describe them is crude.

With my readings of Leonard Cohen, I’ve found them to be quite sexualized. I’m not a prude by any means, but in Beautiful Losers, this sexual content is abrupt and abrasive. In The Favorite Game and the selected poems I’ve read, it’s general, it’s esoteric, it’s all imagery and metaphoric language. It’s flowers and bows and sunshine compared to Beautiful Losers. And The Favorite Game was “sexy for the 1960s and it’s sexy for Canada,” as my professor put it. Beautiful Losers transcends that and then some.

Today in class I was talking to two of my peers. One of them said she put down the book and decided not to continue reading it because she was offended. I told her it lessens up further in, or I just got desensitized. At the start of class, the professor apologized on behalf of the book.

What interested me was the reliability of the narrator’s friend, F. His identification is shrouded. We aren’t even granted the knowledge of a name, just the initial. I was skeptical of the truth in his stories of an affair with the narrator’s wife, Edith. He was awfully cavalier in the details, which were constantly changing. Further research on the book has revealed the theory that F. doesn’t exist, except for in the mind of the narrator.

There are many different tales occurring among the pages of the book. The narrator, Edith, F., F. and Edith’s relationship, the relationship between the narrator and F. Blanketing and tying together these different strains is a concern with the historical personage, Kateri Tekakwitha (whose name is spelled a number of ways in the book). This story is interesting on it’s own, although confusing withing Beautiful Losers.

I’m greatly interested in what the rest of the class may have to say about this text on Thursday.

 

The Favorite Game

And so begins the onslaught of school-related books! This one is by Leonard Cohen. Yes, the same Leonard Cohen who is a singer-songwriter.

The book is broken up into relatively short chapters. Individually, I like each chapter and, individually, each chapter makes sense. On occasion, the previous and following chapters with make sense in context to the one in between. I suppose, even as a whole, the book makes sense, but there is not straight line of plot. There is character development, but the progression of events is meandering. Usually in a book, you can map out each plot point, but not so with The Favorite Game.

It is a beautiful mix of prose fiction and poetry, as is a lot of Cohen’s writings.

In between reading The Favorite Game, I’ve also been reading poems from Stranger Music, also a Cohen writing. There is much discussion of love. But can’t you say most writers meditate on that? For Cohen, there’s a touch of the bittersweet in love. The wonders of what it can do and the despair it can bring.

 

 

A Thousand Acres

In the fall of 2010, I was enrolled in a class titled The Works of Shakespeare. It was what it sounds like. The class read through several of Shakespeare’s plays, but avoided the over-done ones (such as Romeo and Juliet). Toward the end of the semester, we began reading King Lear. Many of Shakespeare’s plays have been re-worked in film or in writing. The professor, one of the many outstanding professors in the English Department, told us about a book inspired by King Lear. He specifically recommended this book to me.

This book, of course, was A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.

This was my second time reading A Thousand Acres. The first being after I received it as a Christmas gift in 2010. That I would read it again speaks volumes.

There are several things I like about this book:

• It’s based on King Lear: One of my favorite Shakespeare plays, alongside Richard III. Okay, now I’m thinking about Shakespeare plays and my favorites are adding up to a long list. I wrote a paper in the class about the use of weather and nature imagery in Julius Caesar and MacBeth, so that topic is near to my heart. The entire third act of King Lear is essentially just Lear going nuts our on the heath during a huge storm. Stormy weather = bad political standings of his kingdom.
• It’s set on a farm: I’m a farm girl. It just adds up.
• It’s told from Goneril’s point of view: Goneril, you know, one of the sister’s who were “bad” in the play. In A Thousand Acres, she’s Ginny, short for Virginia. I like narrations that are told from the side that is generally perceived as “bad” or “evil.” It is for this reason that I thoroughly enjoyed All Quiet on the Western Front, though I’ve only seen the film and have been desperately searching for the novel.
• It has Shakespearean references: Yes, I know, it’s based on a Shakespearean play, but I still love it when I find references I can pick up on.
• It still picks fun at Gloucester after he’s blinded: Shakespeare was cruel, to an extent. In King Lear, after Gloucester is violently blinded, there are jokes about sight and seeing and eyes. In A Thousand Acres, there’s a more subtle joke about it when Harold (aka: Gloucester) is blinded.
• The characters are relatable: An important factor in any novel.

 

The Help

I just finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Originally, I had no plan to read this book, but my mother recommended it to me. For all the books I’ve suggested to my mother (and she’s listened to me), I decided I should look into it.

For the first couple chapters, it was slow. As a student of writing, I have always been instructed to “hook” the reader in the first several paragraphs. With the number of characters in the book, I feel it was beneficial. Initially, I was bored by the pace, but in retrospect, it served a very particular purpose.

I’m not going to go through it to analytically critique it. This was a book I read by choice, not for school.

One message from the book I’m glad I’m taking away was said by Aibileen to the white child she is raising: “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.” Too many times, people are made to feel like nothing by others. Not everyone grows up with positive reinforcements from their parents. If I ever, one day, have a family, I will make sure to recite a similar affirmation to my children, so that they will grow up with the confidence I never had as a child.

As a whole, I enjoyed reading this book.

Up next, a re-read: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

 

Synaptical

As a young girl, I was definitely a cat person. This led me to find and read a series of books called Catwings. As the title suggests, the premises was cats with wings. Something children would find entertaining.

The other night when I was writing a post that mentioned Catwings, I looked the series up on Wikipedia. What I didn’t remember from my childhood was who penned the books.

It was Ursula K. LeGuin, who also wrote Parable of the Sower. This book I read last spring for a Utopian Literature course. Though, admittedly, the world of Parable of the Sower was a dystopia.

Nevertheless, this little connection made me smile. Such a wide range of books and genres. That’s something I’d like to aspire to.

 

In Which, A Reader Response is Desired

Today I started to compile a list of books that I would like to read at some point. Oddly enough, so far, most of these books are serious ones. I thought for sure I would put down a bunch of easy/comedy/light-reading books.

This is where you, the reader, comes in. I want you (yes, you!) to suggest to me a book or two that you enjoyed. Then, describe the book a little; tell me what it’s about.

Or, if books aren’t your thing, tell me a movie.

Thank you!